Private Project

BRIDES TO BE

Robin & Jenna are getting married. Robin is excited beyond words; Jenna is plagued by panic attacks and struggles to write her vows. But when they arrive at their secluded fairy-tale venue sinister forces besiege them, threatening to tear them apart.

Brides to Be is both a love story and a psychological thriller, a timeless romance and a haunted house. Skillfully mixing genres, it explores how doubt and fear can be imposed upon us and infect us from within, but only if we let it.

  • Kris Boustedt
    Director
  • Lindy Boustedt
    Director
  • Kris Boustedt
    Writer
  • Lindy Boustedt
    Writer
  • Kris Boustedt
    Producer
  • Lindy Boustedt
    Producer
  • Carollani Sandberg
    Key Cast
  • Angela DiMarco
    Key Cast
  • Jesse Lee Keeter
    Key Cast
  • Linas Phillips
    Key Cast
  • Project Type:
    Feature
  • Genres:
    Lesbian, LGBT, Thriller, Supernatural, Drama, Romance
  • Runtime:
    1 hour 22 minutes 22 seconds
  • Completion Date:
    September 30, 2015
  • Country of Origin:
    United States
  • Country of Filming:
    United States
  • Language:
    English
  • Shooting Format:
    Digital
  • Aspect Ratio:
    2:35
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
  • Twist of Pride Film Festival
    Seattle
    United States
    June 17, 2016
    World Premiere
  • Destiny City Film Festival
    Tacoma
    United States
    August 26, 2016
    Tacoma Premiere
  • homochrome Film Festival
    Dortmund
    Germany
    October 25, 2016
    International Premiere
  • Paris International Lesbian & Feminist Film Festival
    Paris
    France
    October 31, 2016
    French Premiere
Director Biography - Kris Boustedt, Lindy Boustedt

We've been making films together since we met 13 years ago and this is our third feature film as a team under our company First Sight Productions. Our goals are simple. Create quality, exportable, audience-centric experiences with great characters that inspire. We strive to create films that expose constructive truths, truths hidden just beneath the surface of entertainment – engrossing, emotional and engaging experiences.

We live and dream cinema. If we could, we'd eat, drink and breathe it. We have devoted our lives to this art form, its study and creation, and we're not stopping anytime soon.

Add Director Biography
Director Statement

We (Kris & Lindy Boustedt) strive to tell fascinating, entertaining stories about compelling women. Brides To Be is no exception. With the successes of our short films Practical Things and Together Forever (dozens of festival screenings, awards and over 1M views on YouTube as of this writing), we knew we wanted to return to positive-representation Queer 2.0 storytelling – stories about great characters who are also gay.

First and foremost, Brides to Be is a character study of Jenna as she embarks on a journey of self-discovery. On the eve of her nuptials, something is tearing at her and she’s unable to write her vows. She loves Robin, she wants to marry her, but she’s also unsure of her own identity and place in the world – she’s worried about losing her sense of self when the ampersand becomes permanent in Robin & Jenna.

It’s also a supernatural drama, a classic haunted house film – shot in an actual haunted mansion. In the style of films like Ti West’s The Innkeepers or Roman Polanski’s Repulsion, Brides to Be is about the creeping dread of our own insecurities, doubts and anxieties writ large through paranormal – and terrifying – activity. But we want to buck a trend of the genre by having the main characters be women with their own stories, strengths and vulnerabilities (instead of being props or screams) and feature non-exploited, non-marginalized, non-fetishized lesbian characters.

And it’s an allegory for the way hatred and fear infect our lives, zeroing in on homophobia and the continued resistance to marriage equality. Our favorite horror films are those that offer social commentary, that make us question the status quo of existence. After all, good horror provides a “satisfying catharsis for the constraints, expectations and falsified desires that society imposes on its members (or that its members happily take upon themselves). Horror done right has an underlying social metaphor” (Ryan Levin, The Man in the Movie Hat).

The engine of it all is simple: the relationships between Jenna and Robin and Jenna and Nate, the friend she’s had since childhood. Relationships that allow the audience to explore fundamental questions of the human condition: who are we, what do we want, are we alone?