Draft:The Mill Killers

• Comment: Please find and add multiple critical reviews with reliable sources. RangersRus (talk) 14:55, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

---

The Mill Killers (also known as Scopophobia) is a 2024 Welsh thriller film written and directed by Aled Owen. The film stars Catrin Jones, Emma Stacey, Ellen Jane-Thomas, and Bethany Williams-Potter, as four young women who return to their hometown's abandoned steel mill to retrieve money they stole as teenagers. The Mill Killers marks Aled Owen's feature film debut as a producer, writer and director, and is the first film produced by Melyn Pictures. The Mill Killers premiered as part of FrightFest, at London's Odeon Luxe Leicester Square on the 24th August 2024, under its original title, Scopophobia.

Plot

Eden Chamberlain, the treasurer of Milton's rural steel mill, discovers that the company's cash box full of money has been stolen. Police are called to investigate the theft. Eden Chamberlain commits suicide by falling from the mill's high balcony.

Years later, Rhiannon undergoes exposure therapy to treat her scopophobia; the fear of being stared at. Dr Stuart Emmanuel urges her not to self-medicate with alcohol. Rhiannon's childhood friend Sam drives Rhiannon to their hometown of Milton where their friend Erin still lives. Mia arrives by train to celebrate her new job as a dental surgeon, and reveals to the girls that she's newly engaged. At The Friends Arms pub, Rhiannon chats with her childhood sweetheart Oliver, who studied business management before returning to work as a bartender. Later, Erin discusses how Rhiannon was the thief who indirectly caused Eden Chamberlain's suicide, and that Rhiannon hid the money within the walls of the steel mill. The girls peer pressure Rhiannon into leading them to the money. Rhiannon agrees as long as they promise never to mention the theft again, regardless of whether they find the money.

After finding the eyewash station where she hid the money, Rhiannon collapses. In a flashback, it's revealed that Rhiannon discovered a hole in the wall behind the eyewash station, through which she witnessed Erin raping Mia's boyfriend Steffan. Afterwards, the four girls discuss their recent theft of apricot brandy from the local shop. Erin suggests they steal the mill's cash box next. Afraid of Erin, Rhiannon reluctantly agrees. Rhiannon wakes in the present day and admits to suffering from scopophobia as a result of the guilt, but decides to keep the money's location a secret. Disappointed, the girls agree to leave the mill, but discover that they've locked inside by a hooded man in a yellow raincoat. The stranger speaks with an electrolarynx, and Mia fears his intentions might reflect the plot of I Know What You Did Last Summer.

Sam stabs the stranger with her car key, while Erin stabs him with a quinine-filled syringe intended to treat her mother's motoneuron disease. Mia punches the stranger, pulling out his eye with her engagement ring. Rhiannon finds the stranger's phone and reads his text messages to discover that he was just the mill's old caretaker, John Herring, who meant no harm. Mia begs Rhiannon to share her knowledge as an intelligence analyst to help them get away with John Herring's murder. Rhiannon instructs them to dispose of each other's murder weapons while she cleans the mill. The four girls carry John Herring's body and drop him over the balcony to stage a suicide.

After calling Mia's fiancé Steffan, Erin decides not to dispose of Mia's engagement ring. Instead, she returns to the mill to frame Mia. Sam is in the process of throwing Erin's syringe into a woodland ditch when she remembers an incident in the past. In another flashback, it's revealed that Rhiannon had been caught stealing the apricot brandy. Sam urges Erin to take the blame as the one who encouraged the theft, but Erin refuses. Sam takes the blame instead. In the present, Sam decides to return to the mill and frame Erin by planting her syringe. At a train station, Mia also remembers this incident, and worries that Sam will once again fail to keep the group's secret. Mia returns to the mill with Sam's car key.

After cleaning the mill, Rhiannon experiences a panic attack as she runs through the streets of Milton in search of alcohol to soothe her scopophobia. She arrives at Oliver's house where he reveals his plans for reviving the town's industry, but lacks the investment funds. Rhiannon returns to the mill to retrieve the money, believing Oliver's idea could redeem her and lessen her guilt. There, she's confronted by Erin, Sam, and Mia, who have all returned. The girls realize that Rhiannon remembered where the money was all along, and argue. Sam reveals to Mia that Erin has been sexually abusing Steffan, and Mia attacks Erin. Sam confesses her love for Rhiannon, expressing that Rhiannon's guilt is what makes her better than the others.

Mia locks the girls inside the mill again and begs Sam and Rhiannon to help her kill Erin, so that she can trust them to blame everything on Erin alone. Sam attempts to escape through a window, but is impaled on the glass shards and pulled back inside by Mia. Rhiannon runs away only to be intercepted by a bloodily mutilated Erin. Erin drags Rhiannon to retrieve the money, and Rhiannon pulls the cashbox from behind the eyewash station. Mia knocks Erin into a protruding pipe on the wall, killing her. On the balcony, Rhiannon tells Mia that her scopophobia is not a weakness, it's what makes her decent. Sam grabs Mia and they both fall over the balcony to their deaths. The sole survivor, Rhiannon returns to Oliver's house and offers him the money in exchange for an alibi.

Cast

• Catrin Jones as Rhiannon
• Emma Stacey as Erin
• Ellen Jane-Thomas as Mia
• Bethany Williams-Potter as Sam
• Ioan Hefin as Dr Stuart Emmanuel
• Lisa Marged as Eden Chamberlain
• Kevin McCurdy as John Herring
• Aled Owen as Oliver
• Steffan Cennydd as Steffan
• Rhodri Miles as P.C. Adams
• Christine Kempell as Sian Adams
• Nathan Sussex as Huw Reynolds
• Erwan Sion as Miller
• Thom Robin as Train Station Worker
• Colin Lewis as The Stranger (Voice)

Production

Development

After graduating from England's Northern Film School (Leeds Beckett University), where he met fellow film producer Tom Rawding, Aled Owen returned to Wales to work in Welsh-language television. When this work ended prematurely due to the Covid-19 pandemic, Owen contacted Rawding about self-financing and crowdfunding a feature film. Initially, Owen intended to produce an original screenplay titled "Cilgeti", but deemed the script too challenging for their small budget. During the 2020 lockdown period, Owen would utilize daily outdoor allowance to walk from Llangunnor to the village of Johnstown in Carmarthen, where he lived until he was seven years old. Seeing his hometown void of people inspired Owen to create the film's setup. This story eventually merged with a separate idea for a midpoint twist to become The Mill Killers.

Aled Owen founded his production company, Melyn Pictures, in 2021. The company is named after the Welsh word for "Yellow", a reference to the Giallo film genre. The Mill Killers utilizes a Giallo style with its unnatural colorful lighting as well as the film's synth score by Lloyd Morgan. Owen was also inspired by the screenplays of Kevin Williamson, citing Scream as well as I Know What You Did Last Summer as scripts that "embraced the genre while also doing something new."

Casting

As well as writer, director, and producer, Aled Owen is also credited as the film's casting director, and plays the role of Oliver. The cast is entirely Welsh, with both Bethany Williams-Potter and Steffan Cennydd having been fellow-students alongside Owen at Bro Myrddin Welsh Comprehensive School. Williams-Potter and Owen were friends from eleven years old having performing onstage together as part of the Carmarthen Youth Opera. The role of Sam was written with Williams-Potter in mind, and the role of Erin was written for Emma Stacey who acted alongside Owen in 2020. Ioan Hefin, Christine Kempell, and Lisa Marged are also based in Owen's hometown of Carmarthen.

Owen had worked with Ellen Jane-Thomas on a music video prior to casting The Mill Killers. Having cast everyone except for the lead role of Rhiannon, Aled Owen met with actor Erwan Sion at a cafe where Sion's fellow drama school graduate, Catrin Jones, was working. Sion introduced Owen to Jones and, after a zoom call, Jones was cast as Rhiannon.

Filming

Production began on The Mill Killers in March 2022, with a five-day shoot in Aled Owen's hometown of Carmarthen. The first production block consisted of the film's cheapest dialogue scenes, free of any action or effects, "essentially the Milton exterior scenes", according to Owen. This footage was then used in the film's Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign, which led to another six-day shoot in October 2022. This second production block took place in Swansea's Bay Studios and the National Botanic Garden of Wales. Seasoned stunt and Fight Coordinator Kevin McCurdy joined the production at this stage, as did Special Effects Prosthetics Artist Ellie Baldwin who was discovered through Instagram. Another crowdfunding campaign, this time through Greenlit, helped the production raise enough funds for a final four-day shoot in March 2023. These factory scenes took place in Middlesbrough. Production was completed within fifteen days across one year.