Jug Face director Chad Crawford Kinkle returns with Dementer

Last Updated on August 2, 2021

Six years after making his feature writing/directing debut with the critically acclaimed JUG FACE, Chad Crawford Kinkle is back for a second feature… and it sort of sounds like this could be a spin-off from JUG FACE. That film dealt with an insular community that lived out in the wilderness and made human sacrifices to a pit-dwelling monster. Kinkle's second film is titled DEMENTER and it centers on a woman who has escaped from a backwoods cult. Could that cult be the same community from JUG FACE? I guess we'll have to wait to find out.

Connected to JUG FACE or not, DEMENTER does sound interesting. Kinkle built the story around his sister Stephanie Kinkle, who has Down Syndrome, and the story he wrote with her in mind goes like this: 

Katie (Katie Groshong), a young woman determined to do something positive with her life after fleeing from a backwoods cult, takes a job at a center for special needs adults. Desperately attempting to live a normal life, she is overwhelmed by signs that “the devils” are after Stephanie (Stephanie Kinkle), a woman with Down Syndrome that she now cares for.

Using writings from a strange notebook, Katie creates rituals to ward away the evil while taking care of Stephanie at the center and in her home. But nothing seems to work, and Stephanie is becoming sicker with each passing day…

Brandy Edmiston, Eller Hall, and Larry Fessenden are also in the cast.

Chad Crawford Kinkle produced DEMENTER with Ashleigh Snead. Word is that Kinkle has 

gone to great lengths to create a bold genre film that embraces and properly represents the developmentally disabled, while still being both thrilling and disturbing. The result is a singular, deeply personal independent feature unlike any before it.

DEMENTER will be having its world premiere at the Nashville Film Festival on Thursday, October 10 at 10pm CST.