A Sales Agent Has Bought Three Horror Films From One Writer-Director in a Single Deal

Black Mandala has taken worldwide rights to J. M. Stelly's Within Madness, Vessel and The Thirteenth Gate, which is an unusual level of commitment to one filmmaker's slate.

Black Mandala, the New Zealand sales company, has acquired worldwide rights to three horror films from Anatomica Films: Within Madness, Vessel and The Thirteenth Gate.

J. M. Stelly wrote and directed all three, producing alongside Johnny Stassi under the Anatomica label. Stelly negotiated the agreement with Black Mandala co-founder Michael Kraetzer.

Taking three films from one filmmaker at once is not the usual shape of a genre sales deal. It is closer to backing a body of work than acquiring a title.

Within Madness

The first draws on true events, and is structured as an investigation rather than a narrative.

It traces what happens after the filmmaker Mark Chapel and his collaborator Donovan Summers are arrested. Investigators working the case turn up human remains, execution tapes, Polaroids and film canisters cataloguing years of violence. At the centre of the evidence sits a film called The Sacrament of Bondage, which captures Summers' descent into brutality and his earliest killings.

Prison interviews and recovered footage gradually establish how deeply entangled the two men had become. Jared Bankens, Matt Story, Keegan Macy and Jamie Nipe star.

These intensely personal projects each explore horror from a very different perspective

Vessel

The second is the most conventional in shape and the most interested in grief.

Joseph is a pastor whose faith collapses after his wife Mary disappears and their unborn child is lost. Retracing the days before she vanished, he finds past and present bleeding into one another, while disturbances in the house escalate towards something that is not mourning.

What begins as a portrait of grief resolves into an entity attempting to cross into the world through human suffering. Keegan Macy, Jamie Nipe and Dane Rhodes feature.

The Thirteenth Gate

The third is the most formally ambitious.

Investigator Nathan Hale regains consciousness inside a derelict industrial complex with no idea how he arrived. Searching for his missing wife Marissa, he is pulled through environments that loop, warp and rebuild themselves out of his own memories and trauma.

Behind it is a figure known only as M, conducting an occult ritual intended to open thirteen gates into the ethereal plane. The further Hale goes into the labyrinth, the harder it becomes to separate physical reality from memory and constructed experience.

It is built as an immersive, point-of-view psychological horror piece combining body horror, occult mythology and touches of science fiction. Jeff Pearson, Jamie Nipe and Keegan Macy complete the cast.

What the deal signals

The overlapping casts are worth noticing. Keegan Macy and Jamie Nipe appear in all three, which points to a repertory way of working rather than three separately assembled productions.

Kraetzer's framing is about range rather than volume. He described the films as carrying their own distinctive atmosphere, vision and identity, and the collaboration as a chance to work with bold, original filmmaking capable of connecting with genre audiences, festivals, platforms and buyers internationally.

"We're incredibly happy to be working with such an outstanding and unique filmmaking talent and look forward to building the international success of these very special titles together," he said.

Stelly described the three as intensely personal projects, each approaching horror from a very different perspective, and pointed to Black Mandala's record in building international presence around bold genre work.

That is the actual logic of the arrangement. A single horror title is a gamble on one idea finding an audience. Three from the same filmmaker is a bet that the filmmaker will, and that is a more patient proposition than the genre market usually offers.