Why a horror director's day job became Bigfoot documentaries

Jason Horton, who is credited as J. Horton, is a working independent horror director who has kept making films by treating them as a trade. By his own account he once directed about 12 films a year for other companies, on budgets between $10,000 and $60,000, then built a second career in documentaries to stay in business.

That matters because it shows how a lot of independent film actually gets made. Micro-budget means a film made for a small fraction of what a studio spends. Horton's path runs through fast shoots, hard choices about audience, and a steady stream of films that never reach a multiplex.

Who is J. Horton?

Horton says he grew up in Fort Wayne, Indiana, and started making films in college. After Hurricane Katrina he moved to Los Angeles, worked as an assistant editor, and began directing for low-budget production companies.

His first California directing job was Edges of Darkness, a 2008 zombie anthology he co-directed with Blaine Cade and edited himself. Post-production dragged: in February 2008 Horton emailed the horror site Dread Central to say it was finally done, after five tries to find a composer had delayed the film by over six months. Anchor Bay released it on DVD in the US in September 2009.

He has said he directed over 20 features before his 2023 horror film Craving. In the work-for-hire years, he says, shoots lasted five or six days, sometimes fewer.

He names John Carpenter, the director of Halloween, as his favorite filmmaker, and says Craving is the first film in a planned crime and monster trilogy. Backwoods Blood Feud follows that mix of criminals and monsters.

Why did he turn to documentaries?

When narrative films struggled, a producer suggested documentaries. Horton says he made six in about two months, on a dog rescue, medical cannabis, Brexit, filmmaking and Bigfoot. He picked subjects by checking whether an audience already existed online and whether the topic could be sold.

He calls documentaries his day job and says he makes a narrative film about once a year. He also puts business and marketing at about 60% of a film's success. A podcast host introduced him as someone who actually makes a living making his films.

Relay credits J. Horton as producer on 63 titles, 62 of them documentaries, including the dog rescue, cannabis, Brexit and filmmaking subjects he describes. It lists him in the director credits of 7 titles.

Which J. Horton films are on Relay?

The Campus

A man dies after breaking his deal with the Devil and passes the debt to his estranged daughter, who is caught in a cycle of murder and resurrection. Horror Society reviewed it in January 2018 and compared its mix of subgenres to The Exorcist, Happy Death Day and The Devil's Advocate. Horton says a distributor later retitled it Death Day.

Horror

Backwoods Blood Feud

After a failed heist, fugitives hide in a remote winter forest and find two monstrous factions locked in a blood feud. It is a 2026 film, and Rachel Amanda Bryant, who also stars in The Campus, is in the cast.

Horror

Bad Vibes Brown Eyes

This 2020 documentary follows Sean Reid and Brian White as they make their film Redemption, and the obstacles Black filmmakers face in an industry that rarely supports such work. Reid also produced The Campus and Backwoods Blood Feud.

Documentary

What to watch first

The Campus is his horror, Bad Vibes Brown Eyes is the filmmaking behind it, and Backwoods Blood Feud is the most recent. Each is on Relay.