The Movie I Wrote and Produced is (Finally) Now Available to Stream in the United States

This is a very special month for me and many of my friends, reader. Don’t Die, the feature film that I wrote and helped produce, is finally available to rent and buy in the comfort of your own home. It hit AppleTV last Friday, it dropped on Amazon Prime this morning, and it’ll be expanding to more streaming services in the near future.

Many of you have already seen the film, and you have my eternal gratitude.¹ I hope some of you will consider dropping a few bucks to rent it, and if you do, I hope more than anything that you’re entertained.

I’ll say more about our journey with the film in a few paragraphs. But first, I want to point out something that can’t go unsaid: It’s a pretty weird time to be releasing a film like this in the United States.

Jenks, the protagonist of Don’t Die, is a young man who’s so desperate to get his hands on life-saving medication that he robs a drug store. It’s the very first scene of the movie, which means it’s the very first thing you learn about him. His garbage bag full of stolen pills is evident before he even says a word.

We didn’t set out to make a “message movie.” We came to our story by necessity in an attempt to stretch our available resources as far as they could go, and a black market pharmacy in rural Tennessee seemed like a more interesting group of “villains” than the standard horror/thriller tropes like cults and cannibals and zombies. But as soon as we committed to this idea, we knew we were making a certain kind of film.

The kind of film that speaks to a problem that actually got worse since we wrote it.

You don’t need me to tell you that American families are hurting right now. Whether it’s medicine, employment, food, shelter, or something more internal, all too many of us aren’t getting what we need to get by right now.² And with the government shutdown, things have gone from bad to worse. Our plan was never to capitalize on something like this, but if our film can serve as a reminder that we’re all in the trenches together and start a conversation about how we can solve these problems, then that’s something we’ll do our best to embrace. Every creator hopes their work will resonate with an audience, though that can be a double-edged sword.

Still, as I’ve said all along, our primary goal is to entertain you. After all, this is a crime thriller, not a PBS documentary.³

We’ve had quite the heart-warming reception ever since our world premiere at the Sidewalk Film Festival in 2023, where we drew a crowd of 600+ and won an audience award. We followed that up with a virtual premiere through Panic Fest, which included a nice write-up in the digital pages of Fangoria. Ultimately, we played at eight film festivals in four states, including the largest film festivals in Alabama and Mississippi.⁴ And after spending some time securing a distribution deal behind the scenes, we even had a limited theatrical run between the Plaza Theatre in Atlanta, the Sidewalk Cinema in Birmingham, and the Capri Theatre in Montgomery.⁵

Seeing the film on a big screen with an engaged audience was an amazing experience. But a streaming release was always our top goal. And now we’ve finally arrived at that point. We’re all very excited and inspired and relieved—and eager to get started on our next project.

It’s very easy for low-budget independent films to get lost in the sea of streaming options. But we’re confident that you’ll enjoy the ride and you’ll appreciate the craft that went into it. So thank you for keeping independent film alive. And more importantly, if your neighbors are struggling, let’s all do what we can to help each other out. We’ll get through these tough times the only way we ever could: together.

1. If you’ve already seen the film and you’re looking for other ways to show your support, leaving a review on Amazon, IMDb, or Letterboxd will go a long way! And tell all your friends to watch it too, of course.

2. Our director Benjamin Stark made a really lovely video last week to speak to these things and how our film fits into the equation.

3. I say this with love as someone who appreciates documentaries on tough subjects and donates to PBS monthly.

4. Shouts out to the Oxford Film Festival, the Orlando Film Festival, the Magnolia Independent Film Festival, the Montgomery Film Festival, the Southern Fried Film Festival, and the George Lindsey UNA Film Festival.

5. If you’re in Huntsville, we’ve got one more screening coming up at the Independent Cinema this Friday night! It’s a double feature with another made-in-Alabama thriller, in fact.