A feature-length horror movie filmed entirely in Chattanooga hits theaters the first week of March.
“Dolly,” a movie about a woman who is abducted by someone wearing a porcelain doll mask, features backdrops from Snooper’s Rock, Prentice Cooper State Forest, an old Victorian house and a decommissioned perfume factory off Amnicola Highway.
Rod Blackhurst, director, producer and cowriter of the movie, is based in Nashville with his family, and originally intended to film the movie there.
After telling friends Bryce McGuire and Isaiah Smallman, both based in Chattanooga, about his idea, the pair encouraged Blackhurst to make the movie in the Scenic City.
“There was a real appetite and a desire for a creative project to be made in Chattanooga,” Blackhurst said via phone. “In a lot of ways, it was maybe a little more manageable, because it’s a smaller city than Nashville, logistically a little easier to navigate, but everyone is kind of open to creative things being made. It really became apparent quickly.”
There is more value in somebody offering you something than having to pay for it, Blackhurst said. The old perfume warehouse, owned by Urban Story Ventures, was one of those properties, as well as woods on private land owned by Jimmy White of Urban Story Ventures.
The film drew many investors from the Chattanooga area, including people from local incubator Brickyard and tech company Ambition.
Blackhurst discovered a wealth of talented people in Chattanooga who have a real desire to create something cool, he said. He hopes that “Dolly” can be a flag that people in Chattanooga can wave proudly, he said.
Smallman and McGuire, who were producers on the project, said “Dolly” came at the perfect time when people like White with Urban Story Ventures were asking if movies could actually be made in Chattanooga.
The pair had been watching what McGuire called “our own little micro creative economy” grow in Chattanooga over the past five years, he said, and when Blackhurst said he needed a place to shoot, they put two and two together.
“It was a really cool kind of symbiotic thing where we were able to say, ‘Hey, here’s this packaged movie that’s ready to go, you guys are excited about having a really cool case study that shows that this is possible,'” Smallman said via phone, “and it was a great collaboration.”
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Since, Urban Story Ventures has submitted a proposal to turn the old vacant Hamilton County Jail into a movie and music studio called Jailhouse Studios.
McGuire said when he and Smallman came to Chattanooga from Los Angeles and made the short film, “Every House is Haunted,” they realized that filmmaking could be fun again.
“Not everyone was looking at trying to shake you down from what was your location budget, how much money could they squeeze out of you. It was like, ‘Oh, you are here making something cool? I want to be a part of that,'” McGuire said. “Everyone is just rooting for each other, and that was so refreshing for me.”
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Smallman and McGuire said they could see more films being made in Chattanooga, but the goal is not to become the next Atlanta. At Fantastic Fest, a film festival in Austin, Texas, that centers on horror, fantasy, science fiction and action films, people were approaching the “Dolly” team and asking where it was made. That creates a cumulative effect, McGuire said.
“We’re not trying to chase down all of the biggest projects. I think the idea that we want to do is have a really well-functioning, super efficient, stable, long-term creative economy,” Smallman said. “And I think ‘Dolly’ is the beginning of that.”
The film, rated R, stars Fabianne Therese and hits theaters Friday.
Contact breaking news reporter Kailee Shores at kshores@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6659.