'Slaughter Night,' a new horror film shot in the Central Valley, can be streamed online now

A new horror film, shot entirely in the Central Valley, is so violent and disturbing that the police were called to check on the production to make sure there wasn’t a real chainsaw massacre taking place.

“People would drive by our crime scene in shock and we’d say ‘no, no, we’re OK, please don’t call the cops’,” said actress Laura Dimmer. “One time they did get called and we had to show them what we were doing and tell them that it was all OK.”

Dimmer plays the role of Cassie in the 2026 film “Slaughter Night,” the matriarch of a family that encounters a sadistic slasher while on a trip.

Filming took place from August to December of 2025, and was primarily shot in the rural foothills near Exeter and Woodlake, outside of Visalia.

The torturous shooting conditions lent to the verisimilitude of the danger on screen. In the early, sweaty nights of filming, the cast and crew were besieged by mosquitoes and by the end of the shoot, they would be huddled around space heaters in the middle of fields, trying not to freeze in between scenes.

“The cast was covered in blood in the middle of the night, just freezing,” said writer/director Thomas Sahagun.

Often the shoots would last until 4 a.m., when the actors, covered in fake blood, would make awkward trips through fast food drive-throughs for a very late dinner.

The tired, uncomfortable nights were the perfect motivation for the actors, whose characters were being tortured and stalked by a psycho masked killer.

“Oh, the night of the coyotes! It was so terrifying,” said actress Mercy Alcantar, who plays Carly.

During a late night filming session, a pack of coyotes could be seen and heard stalking the perimeter of the set.

“On that night, the fear we had shot for the movie was real actual fear from the cast,” said crew member and mother of Mercy, Rachele Serna Alcantar. “These coyotes were not far from us.”

“We thought about getting in the truck and going home that night,” said Sahagun, a Tulare native.

“Slaughter Night,” which is now available to watch for free on YouTube and will soon be available on other platforms like Tubi, has screened to positive, sold-out crowds at multiple Central Valley theaters.

The film screened for hundreds at the Lemoore Cinemas in March and the Porterville Galaxy Theater in February.

“The response has been good. We’ve had a few offended people who said, ‘how could you put children in a movie like this?’ But most of the responses have been good,” Sahagun said. “People come out of the theater and they want to meet the killer, they want to meet [actor] Mike [Hanson].”

The film currently has an average rating of 7.7/10 stars from 57 reviews on the Interment Movie Database. One user, who gave the movie 8 stars out of 10, called the film "good but nasty." It’s that polarized feedback that Sahagun wants to see from audiences, as he relishes getting a big reaction.

“We had someone leave the Porterville Galaxy halfway through the movie because they got sick — they just couldn’t take anymore,” he said. “That’s what we were going for. That’s the whole point. I watched ‘Terrifier’ and said, ‘how can I top that?’ in terms of the gore and violence.”

The “Terrifier” franchise is a very low-budget, extremely gory trilogy of films that have burst out of the underground in recent years to become a mainstream success, led by the iconic character Art the Clown.  Sahagun is hoping for similar success with “Slaughter Night” and is already planning a sequel.

In between the “Slaughter Night” movies, however, the writer/director will shift gears and focus on a more grounded, true-life story for his next project.

“Beyond the Spotlight: The Jerome Blackwell Story” will be a biopic about the iconic Strathmore Spartans football coach, who led the team to the 2023 D-VI championship. That movie is being filmed now and is being planned for release later this summer. Many of the cast and crew from "Slaughter Night" will participate in the making of the film. 

“Slaughter Night” and more films by Sahagun can be seen at www.youtube.com/@Elitefilmsproduction.

Parker Bowman is a lifestyles reporter and editor for the Hanford Sentinel.

June 13, 2026