{"id":601248,"date":"2026-05-24T10:20:39","date_gmt":"2026-05-24T10:20:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/601248\/"},"modified":"2026-05-24T10:20:39","modified_gmt":"2026-05-24T10:20:39","slug":"horsforth-old-school-friends-revive-short-horror-spoof-into-full-movie-40-years-on","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/601248\/","title":{"rendered":"Horsforth: Old school friends revive short horror spoof into full movie – 40 years on"},"content":{"rendered":"

It will be a case of deja vu for four Horsforth friends when the locally made movie \u2018Trail of Splatter\u2019 comes to streaming platforms later this year.<\/p>\n

The 60 year olds: Ian Ray-White, Mark Standeaven, Nigel Batty and Ian Torkington met as teenagers at Horsforth School in the early 1980\u2019s. <\/p>\n

\"\"Lights, camera, action: Ian Ray-White, Kelly Dawn Taylor and Mark Standeaven<\/p>\n

Together they produced and acted in a 20-minute Super 8 comedy horror film called \u2018Splatter\u2019 \u2013 a spoof of the then-popular slasher films such as \u2018Friday the 13th\u2019 and \u2018Halloween\u2019. <\/p>\n

Now, over 40 years later the four have reunited to appear in a low budget full length feature film version of their mini masterpiece, written and directed by Ian Ray-White, now a professional actor.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019d always dreamed of expanding the old film into a \u2018proper\u2019 movie,\u201d says Ian. \u201cAnd only wished I\u2019d done it earlier.\u201d <\/p>\n

\"\"Mark Standeaven as Norman Eclair<\/p>\n

The four friends had kept in touch but not actually met up for many years so it really was a reunion when they started filming in the summer of 2024. <\/p>\n

\u201cI was amazed how easily we all stepped back into the characters we played all those years ago, it was as if we\u2019d never been apart,\u201d said Ian, who worked for many years in the sign industry before redundancy lead to a sudden change of career <\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019d always wanted to be an actor as a kid, but didn\u2019t have the confidence, then when I lost my job I thought \u2018what have I got to lose?\u2019 so I signed up to an extras agency and ended up on film sets such as \u2018The Darkest Hour\u2019 and even the \u2018Dad\u2019s Army\u2019 remake before graduating to speaking parts.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"Mark Standeaven and Ian Ray-White<\/p>\n

It was sitting around on film sets for hours between takes which gave Ian the idea to have a crack at directing a film himself and set about raising the money to start filming. <\/p>\n

Although \u201cnot exactly a big budget Hollywood film\u201d says Ian, it has been accepted by the Filmhub distribution network which aims to get \u2018Trail of Splatter\u2019 onto streaming platforms such as Amazon Prime and relay. <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

For more information on the film, which was shot entirely in Horsforth, visit its website<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Sponsored content<\/p>\n

\"\"www.bramleybaths.co.uk<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It will be a case of deja vu for four Horsforth friends when the locally made movie \u2018Trail…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":601249,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[96,205275,205276,205277,2839,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-601248","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-entertainment","tag-horsforth","tag-horsforth-school","tag-ian-ray-white","tag-movies","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/601248","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=601248"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/601248\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/601249"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=601248"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=601248"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=601248"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}