A new film festival will make its first appearance in the village next month — accompanied not by a red carpet, but by $5 admission and films made far outside the mainstream.

The Ohio Underground Film Fest will debut Saturday, March 28, noon–9 p.m., in Glen Helen’s Vernet Center.

Festival organizer Victor Bonacore — a Yellow Springs resident, filmmaker and general admirer of movies that marry the magnificent and the messy — described the upcoming event as a gathering for movies that don’t fit neatly into the usual festival boxes.

“This is for, like, the real outsiders,” Bonacore said. “These are filmmakers or films that might not be taken seriously by other festivals.”

Bonacore, who is general manager of the Dixie Twin Drive-In, previously worked at Little Art Theatre and curates “Cult Movie Night” at the Neon in Dayton, said he’s been “a maker and a purveyor” of films for years; his own interest in filmmaking began in childhood.

“I’ve been making backyard horror films ever since I was 10, 11 years old, on video cameras, camcorders,” he said.

Bonacore said that growing up on Long Island, New York, he spent school breaks roping in siblings, cousins and parents to make horror movies with whatever was available, and with a heart for the act of play rather than perfection.

“That was the most fun I ever had with anybody, was just making movies,” he said. “Not a care in the world.”

Though Bonacore’s filmmaking career as an adult has dipped a toe into the more traditional — he said his most well-known film is the 2015 documentary “Diary of a Deadbeat,” which follows Dayton filmmaker Jim VanBebber over the course of several years — his work has tended more toward the scrappy than the sacrosanct, with experimental shorts that include the titles “Ice Cream Sunday” and “Triangle.” More recent works include the 2022 feature-length post-apocalyptic girl gang romp “Thrust!” and the forthcoming sci-fi horror “Amityville Aliens,” filmed in part in the defunct Miles Budd Goodman amphitheater at Antioch College.

The March 28 lineup, Bonacore said, will have plenty of works that fit similar descriptions, including blocks of short films, as well as features and special presentations. Bonacore didn’t take submissions for the festival this year — it came together quickly, he said. Instead, he curated the nine-hour event from filmmakers he knows locally and across the region.

“I know enough really talented people in the area that it was easy to gather a lineup,” he said.

Festivalgoers can expect work by filmmaker and Antioch alumna Lola Betz, whose work Bonacore described as “really underground gang films.” Other local filmmakers include Bryce Logan, who wrote and shot the 2023 pulpy slasher thriller “Murder in Black Satin,” and recent Antioch grad Chachee Valentine, whose metier is experimental shorts.

The festival will also include a tribute to the late Dayton filmmaker Andy Kopp, screening his 1998 film “The Mutilation Man,” with permission from Kopp’s family. Another highlight will be the 20th anniversary of “The Wolf Hunter 2,” a bloody spectacle featuring a werewolf turf war in Ohio. Beyond Ohio, the fest will feature “Busted Babies,” by Kentucky filmmaker Casper Melted Hair, whose film Bonacore called “insane and amazing in the best way.”

Bonacore said many of the films in the lineup don’t receive much play outside the realms of those dedicated to following the kinds of outsider artists whose names will fill the festival bill — which is why he aims to give them an audience.

“This is new stuff, weird stuff, or stuff that is just not mainstream at all,” he said.

Several of the films in the lineup — which, at press time, was still being finalized — were shot on VHS decades ago, simply because it was “the most readily available, cheapest way to film,” Bonacore said. Some newer creations were shot in the same way as an aesthetic nod to the format that made filmmaking accessible for generations of broke, ambitious weirdos.

That’s true, too, for Bonacore’s own most recently completed production, “Video Vixen,” which will have its Ohio premiere closing out the film festival. “Video Vixen” was shot and produced in and around what Bonacore called “every inch of Yellow Springs.”

Bonacore said “Video Vixen” was produced very much like the childhood projects on which he cut his teeth: “No script, coming up with it on the fly, getting our friends together, playing dress-up and using household items to make special effects — and it was a blast,” he said.

The film features a cast of locals who play various social media and influencer types who, without spoiling too much, find that their “10 seconds of fame are up,” as the movie’s tagline espouses. Included in the cast are aforementioned filmmaker Lola Betz, Little Art Theatre Manager Caleab Wyant and local hip-hop artist Tron “Tronee Threat” Banks, who Bonacore said plays the “rapping chief of police.”

“It’s not a satire of the town, but Yellow Springs is our backdrop,” Bonacore said. “It’s almost like a character in itself.”

Much of “Video Vixen” was shot using an old Hi8 camcorder — visually similar to VHS — whose battery life, Bonacore said, lasted only about eight minutes at a time. That limitation shaped the way the film was made, as scenes were planned around what could realistically be captured before the battery died.

“You can’t do more than a couple takes,” Bonacore said with a laugh. “You’re in the woods, snow on the ground, shooting a death scene in the snow, but like, battery’s dying, battery’s dying!”

The constraints, he said, allowed the cast and crew to lean into imperfections and work creatively, but quickly. Some scenes were filmed during the annual New Year’s Eve ball drop on Short Street as 2024 turned to 2025, and features  actual crowds as unintentional extras. Other scenes were shot in familiar local spaces, including in Kieth’s Alley, apartments above downtown businesses and the Emporium.

“Anytime we needed to ask somebody, ‘Can we shoot here?’ people were always very kind,” he said. “That’s what I like about this town. People are willing to let you try things.”

And that’s how Bonacore hopes folks will approach the Ohio Underground Film Festival: with a willingness to give it a try.

Bonacore said the Vernet Center in Glen Helen — surrounded by wilderness and with a quite literal “underground” feeling — seemed like a perfect space to hold this particular festival. And while the festival embraces fun, low-budget chaos, he was up-front about what “underground” can mean on-screen: Some selections may be subversive or uncomfortable — including horror, gore and nudity — and the festival is for those 18 and older.

“Just know what you’re getting into,” he said. “This stuff can be extreme.”

But he emphasized that he hopes to foster a kind of come-and-go format, with folks free to show up just for the flicks they want to see, or stay for the whole thing. That’s enabled, in part, by the price of admission — $5 — which he said he hopes will make attendance accessible to anyone who’s interested.

“Keeping it dirt cheap is the most important thing,” Bonacore said.

Ultimately, Bonacore said the festival is community-first — “no competition, no best in show,” he said — and he hopes it will be a chance for people who like their movies made on the cheap and for the love of it to find each other in the same room.

For more information, including the forthcoming full programming lineup, go to http://www.instagram.com/ohundergroundfilmfest