Local filmmaker Jayden Creighton is showing his first full-length movie this Saturday at the Starcourt Theatre.

There is free entry for The Matriarch so everyone is welcome to attend the showing, however, if you don't like horror movie thrillers think again.

The Matriarch runs 82 minutes and was made for the Monster Pictures Pitch Initiative which is a distribution company based in Melbourne.

The Matriarch was written back in late 2023. Jayden explained that Monsters Pictures had an initiative at the time that was to try and give a leg up to young, independent filmmakers.

"They launched a competition where basically you pitched a film revolving around the theme 'mother', and that was their whole thing. We didn't have a lot of time so we ended up making a trailer just because we kind of wanted to separate ourselves from the pack a little bit. So, we kind of wrote a trailer went out and filmed it and it was kind of like a highlight reel of what it could look like if we had the money."

Kate Logan, is the villain of The Matriarch, she's been a friend and collaborator with Jayden for a while.

"She did a film with us called Kinks as well where she was the villain in that. Kate's a very out and loud sort of performer and that's what we needed for this."

(Jayden on-site in Bonalbo filming The Matriarch. Photo: supplied)

The other starring role is Juliette Greenfield, who has had no acting experience and was quite young turning 14 the day before the shoot started.

"I was a little bit concerned. We had like 100 girls apply for the role and we narrowed that down to about ten and they gave us actual self-tests so that we could sort of see what they were capable of. From those ten, we got it down to four and those four auditioned with Kate."

"Juliet was a bit of an underdog because she had never done anything. We had girls that have done commercials, you know short films, things like that. Juliette was a total newcomer, totally green. And we were like, Okay, well, you know, she's obviously got the chops because she's toeing the line with these established young actresses. I just don't think we could have done this film without Julia. She just carries the whole movie."

As you can tell Jayden's favourite genre of film is horror. Ever since his high school days at Lismore High when he and his friends would watch Chainsaw Massacre at slumber parties, horror movies have influenced his filmmaking.

"It spoke to me I guess," Jayden explained, "I love that movie when I was growing up. They based that on true events."

When speaking about The Matriarch, Jayden said it is drawn influence from other horror fils he and his collaborators love.

"That's essentially what we do, just try and create things that I know and like myself. So it's got elements from slasher films in there. I've been told it's a psychological thriller by some people that have seen it."

No spoiler alert is needed here but you can watch the trailer below to whet your appetite for Saturday night.

The Matriarch will be showing at the Starcourt Theatre this Saturday night at 7pm with doors opening at 6pm. Entry is FREE.

While the public is viewing Jayden's first feature length film, he is already thinking of the future.

"We kind of want to go beyond this now though. We'll be looking more into the festival side of things which generally takes 12 months, I suppose. It's kind of a long and laborious sort of process. But from there, that's where you meet your sales agents and your distribution teams and things like that."

"So, the idea is to meet the right people who can potentially bring this to a wider audience. At the moment, I can't speculate as to what we'll get. It's really hard. It's an independent horror film, which certainly has a market, it's just how big that market is. We might pick up DVD distribution or if we're very lucky, we might pick up theatrical but it's all kind of up in the air depending on who gets involved."

The Matriarch was funded by Jayden and filmed on a shoestring budget so he is hoping for some festival success to help fund future projects.

Until then, Jayden needs to stick to his day job, which is a car sales person at Lismore Mazda. A job he loves by the way but like all of us, he does want to follow his passion.