Good news for fans of horror schlock: two projects, one combining zombies and YouTube stars and another about one of the most haunted houses in America, will be produced under a partnership between multimedia production company Ketchum Labs and YouTube horror junkies BlackBox TV. The partnership was announced Monday.
“The goal of Ketchum Labs is to find new and exciting ways to bring content to the conversation,” said Kevin Abrams of Ketchum Labs in a release. “We think we’ve done just that by partnering with Tony Valenzuela and BlackBoxTV. Nobody gets genre material like Tony Valenzuela.”
“Fight of the Living Dead,” a cross-platform show, will star numerous YouTube personalities attempting to survive 24 hours of a “highly simulated zombie apocalypse,” according to the press release. They include: Jesse and Jeana of “Prank vs. Prank,” Joey Graceffa, Megan Camarena (AKA “Strawburry17”) and Iman Crosson, also known as Alphacat. This won’t be the first time Graceffa and Camarena have appeared in reality television; both appeared on the 22nd season of “The Amazing Race.”
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The second project borne from the partnership will be “Villisca,” a movie that explores the grisly murders of eight people, including six children, in the tiny town of Villisca, Iowa, in 1912. The unsolved crime embedded itself into the public conscience, and the house where the bodies were found is considered one of the most haunted houses in the country.
BlackBox TV’s Tony Valenzuela, who wrote and directed the movie, claimed to spend a terrifying night in the infamous Villisca Axe Murder house. “I spent a night in the house where the murders took place,” said Valenzuela. “The experience was one of the scariest in my life and this movie gives me the chance to finally share this story with the public.”
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“Villisca” will get a cross-platform release sometime in 2014, with special features being showcased on BlackBox’s YouTube channel.
Ketchum Labs and BlackBox TV previously partnered up to produce the 5th season of BlackBox’s YouTube series earlier this year.