(music) - I was just this annoying kid who, who just, you know, needed to make a film.

I was living in Bellingham, I was 19, 18, 19, and I saw "Drugstore Cowboy," the film by Gus Van Sant.

I moved here because of that movie.

There was something about the look of the film and the city that it was filmed in.

I wasn't planning to go to college, I just wanted to make films.

And I found out on my first trip here about the Northwest Film Center, and it was great.

I learned how to use the equipment and started making my feature film debut called "Subculture."

That film got me out there and I played it at the Clinton Street Theater, and my parents came and they loved it.

And then from there I just kept making films.

(music) Eventually, you know, it became digital and way easier to make on an even lower budget, and I made my movie "Film Geek."

- I'm looking for a movie, but I can't think of the name.

I think it's got the word heaven in the title.

- "Far From Heaven," "Days of Heaven," "Gates of Heaven," "Heaven's Gate"?

- Um... - "Heaven Can Wait", 1943, directed by Ernst Lubitsch?

- Ironically, it was made for about $3,000.

And that movie got into Tribeca and played at major festivals.

And I've continued to be a very low-budget filmmaker ever since.

And this new picture is no exception.

(music) - I've always been a sleepwalker.

It took my parents a few years to catch on.

My mom and dad think I don't know they're gonna get divorced.

- It is fortuitous in that my friend Chelsea Cain, the novelist.

- I have published 12 or 13 books, seven of them are thrillers.

- She and I went to high school together, actually, for a short bit up in Bellingham, Washington.

- He sat behind me in Western Civ, junior year of high school.

- She wrote a script, a horror script, and she wrote it for my daughter.

- These are my woods.

(music) This is my dog.

This is where we're staying.

Do you ever get the feeling your parents are trying to kill you?

- What?

- She's always got this very deadpan expression and is clearly just, the camera loves her.

- She's got a lot of screen presence, that one.

And Chelsea saw that.

- I came up with this scheme, that I would write this movie for his daughter to star in, and then he would have to direct it.

And he fell for it, hook, line, and sinker.

- We agreed to do it and put it together with myself and Cleo's mom and Cleo playing this family.

- "The Bend" is about this family who goes to their vacation house in central Oregon and their daughter sleepwalks into the woods, and then comes back and things get weird.

- Cleo likes to say ghost-y things start to happen, which is true.

(gentle suspenseful music) It became, well, a family affair.

And I guess because we're not actors, one thing that helped really cement us as a believable family is that I am going through several thousands of home movies and mostly, you know, still photographs, and, you know, it adds production value to a otherwise very low budget film.

- It takes place, you know, basically in one location.

So, like, it was doable.

We were able to get extras who came from Bend and Sisters, you know, for a search party scene.

It was really fun to involve the community.

It'll be, I think, a really fun movie for Oregonians.

(music) - When I was younger, I was so obsessed with making films and getting them into big festivals and having them play in theaters.

- Okay, let's do it.

- Okay.

Everybody quiet please.

- Okay, speed.

- And action, Tom.

And having played at Tribeca and a couple other big festivals, it was a blast, but it's exhausting, and I'm, (chuckles) I'm older now.

Cute, all right, good.

All right, cool.

I just wanna make good stuff and get it out there, but not stress about it, you know.

(music fades) (no audio)