Interview with Matt Schmidt of Acres Films

By: Myriam Akbar

    Meet 50 year old Matt Schmidt, a New York native who now resides in South Jersey. He’s a husband and father of two teenage daughters, script writer, and film director. I had the opportunity to watch his first cinematic styled project, Mr. Sandman which is available on Tubi. This horror film explores the ominous experiences of the nighttime, commonly perceived as sleep paralysis or night terrors. These episodes typically include a racing heartbeat, confusion, fear, panic, and crying spells. The plot follows a young girl attempting to survive until sunrise amidst nightmarish terrors brought on by Mr. Sandman. As someone who has grappled with the forbidding symptoms of night terrors since a child, I had a blast watching the film and felt compelled to reach out to Schmidt for an interview.

    Schmidt is one half of Acres Films, an Indie film company based in South Jersey. It’s named after the apartment complex where he grew up in and includes his producing partner, Brandon Burkley. When asked about his passion for film, he says, “I’ve been in love with it for as long as I can remember. The escapism of the movie theater experience as a child will never leave me.” Some of his favorite films are Jaws, The Dark Night, Dumb and Dumber, and The Empire Strikes Back. Schmidt’s love for horror began as a child, when he watched one of his favorites — Halloween. “I was about 5 or six and my parents were out. My cousin thought it would be funny to let me watch it,” he shares. “I had an immediate fascination with fear because despite being afraid, I couldn’t look away,” he says. Schmidt lists The Exorcist, The Shining, and Fright Night as other horror favorites. 

    Although film-making is something he has always wanted to do, he shares that the past decade of technological advancements has truly made it possible. His two previous films were found footage style, which he believes is a great way to start. “My heart is in cinematography, as I feel that’s where the emotions of a film are evoked,” Schmidt says. As for making horror films, he says, “As I got older I enjoyed the creativity it took to scare people, it’s a similar challenge to making people laugh.”

    The inspiration for Mr. Sandman came from several places, one of them being tied to early screen writing lessons. “One of the first things I learned when I started writing scripts was to make the story you’re trying to tell primal. What is more primal than the fear of the dark, especially for children? No matter what your race, gender or culture you were raised in – everyone was a child at some point and more than likely experienced that fear,” Schmidt says. 

    He explains that in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic, he was missing film-making and felt compelled to work on a project. “I knew that whatever I did would have to be in a contained location, so I went with my house as the filming location,” he says. Although primal fear was a main goal, he didn’t want it to be the only aspect of the film. “I wanted to create an actual threat, but didn’t want it to be some random monster and one day it just hit me – Mr. Sandman, it was,” Schmidt says. “I knew most people could understand or relate to this concept on some level.The only thing I had to do was execute the film properly and hoped that people would enjoy it,” he adds. 

    The most fun and rewarding aspect of making Mr. Sandman was seeing a shot come out exactly the way Schmidt pictured it in his mind. “That’s such a creative high for me,” he says. The challenges were time and scheduling changes, as well as using one’s own home and daughter as the lead actress. “My daughter’s a full-time student, so week nights were limited and it was difficult asking the rest of the family to be quiet during filming,” he says. 

    “I’m very happy with the response to the film. I’m not sure that there’s a greater creative high than effectively accomplishing what you set out to do. I am seeing similar reactions in reviews, essentially people who feel that the film made them remember childhood fears,” Schmidt shares. His daughter, Hailey Kate Schmidt actually won an award for best child actor at the Atlantic City Cinefest 2024 – so you can most definitely say there has been many successes from the film. While Acres Films has no current future films in production, they are currently working on a cinema-based podcast with another friend.