Jeremy Rudd Harvests Extreme Horror with ‘Die’ced: Reloaded’ [Dread Central Digital Feature]
Here at Dread Central, our Digital Features give us the chance to spotlight the creators, projects, and talent pushing horror in bold new directions. These profiles let us delve deeper into the genre stories we can’t stop thinking about. Today, we’re reflecting inward to highlight a film produced by our parent company, Epic Pictures, and Jeremy Rudd, the emerging filmmaker behind Die’ced: Reloaded, an especially blood-soaked debut.
When Jeremy Rudd first sat down to write the script for what would become Die’ced, he had never written a screenplay before. He’d never edited a film, color graded a frame, or mixed sound. But in the isolation of 2020, he figured—why not try? Five years later, his debut feature has been remixed and reimagined as Die’ced: Reloaded, a bigger, bolder, bloodier, and more polished take on his original vision, out on VOD now from Epic Pictures and Dread Presents.
“The whole journey—so basically, it was pandemic 2020, everything was closed,” Rudd recalls. “I just thought to myself, yeah, I’ll give it a shot at writing a script. So I started writing, and then this script was just there for a little while. And I was like, I guess I gotta film this thing.”
Once the decision was made, there was no turning back. “I never want to do anything halfway,” he says. “We started filming, and I did all the editing, color grade, sound effects, everything on my own for the first time. Never wrote a script before, never did any of this ever before.”
With limited funds for marketing, Rudd and his brother turned to grassroots promotion, trying out whatever might get the word out. “We started doing little things here and there to get the buzz going. Eventually, Epic saw the film and reached out. Patrick [Ewald] from Epic spoke to me and wanted to bring this film to more audiences and give it more legs.”
That led to a major upgrade: 30 minutes of new footage, a professional remaster, and a theatrical release. “Now it feels like a much better watch from start to finish,” he says. “A more full-length feature film.”
Much of that early momentum came from Rudd’s relentless self-promotion online. “I joined maybe 20 or 30 different Facebook forums and just started posting,” he says. “One post got more traction than others, so I threw my character into the mix. Those ones got a lot of traction too.”
Then came a happy accident. “There’s one that I kind of messed up—I put a final girl in there that wasn’t a final girl. People started talking about it, debating it. That one mistake led to a lot more conversation. I kept doing it, and I told my brother to do it, too. I’m assuming that’s how Epic saw the film being talked about.”
Rudd’s connection to horror goes back to childhood. “My first contact was with my aunts and my mom—they were watching Child’s Play or Freddy Krueger movies. Then I started watching Halloween. I really gravitated more towards those growing up.”
It’s no surprise that Die’ced: Reloaded wears its influences openly. “Ultimately, I just wanted to make it a homage to other films and mix in my own uniqueness,” Rudd says.
Die’ced has long drawn comparisons to Damien Leone’s Terrifier franchise, with Bloody-Disgusting going as far as dubbing the film “Not Terrifier.” It’s, ultimately, something Rudd takes as a compliment—but it’s also a challenge. “It’s definitely a good thing to be compared to Terrifier,” he says. “But for the next one, I want to give [my killer] Benny his own lane, his own unique traits—the way he walks, moves his head, kills—so he’s in a lane of his own.”
While Rudd is keeping specifics under wraps, he confirms he’s brewing ideas for a potential follow-up. “I’ve got a lot of good ideas I want to take to the team—unique kills, a strong storyline, excitement from start to finish. I want to set it in the 1980s or 1990s, probably around Halloween. I like the feeling of Halloween.”
As for the idea of a Benny vs. Art the Clown crossover? “I’ve seen memes and cartoons about it,” Rudd says with a laugh. “Before we get to that, I want to really dial in on Benny’s uniqueness and personality.”
If he could tackle an existing horror IP, Rudd doesn’t hesitate. “I really like the It movies—Pennywise—and the Insidious films,” he says. But as a kid, there was one horror villain he couldn’t handle: Pinhead. “I could not watch Hellraiser all the way through. That was extremely scary. Heavy.”
With Die’ced: Reloaded out now on VOD, Rudd is ready to see how audiences respond to his retooled, blood-soaked vision. If his track record of turning first-time filmmaking into a distribution deal is any indication, Benny’s bloodbath is only just getting started.
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