A low-budget horror movie filmed by Michigan-native brothers in Leelanau County has been the number one release at the domestic box office for the entire month of May.

As of June 1, 2020, Brett and Drew Pierce’s The Wretched has grossed $864,494 at the box office according to Box Office Mojo, an Amazon/IMDb-owned website that tracks film revenue. Credit to the film’s success is due in part to the pandemic; The Wretched is available on streaming platforms and has been playing at drive-in theaters.

Reporter Patrick Sullivan of our sister publication, Northern Express, talked to Brett Pierce just before the film aired at the Traverse City Film Festival last summer. Pierce shared details about making their film in Leelanau County and the paradox of filming a horror movie in the idyllic villages of Omena and Northport. Here’s Pierce:

 “Honestly, for Drew and I, we’re comfortable with Michigan. It’s where we grew up. It’s where our stories are, in our brain, all the time. I feel like every time we’ve written a script, we’re seeing Michigan in our heads. Drew and I both live in Los Angeles now. We tried to get The Wretched made out here…we tried production companies, studios — almost got it moving a couple times with that — but after being disappointed, we just said, ‘We’re just going to raise the money ourselves, and we’re going to put the production together ourselves. We’re going to find all of the people, and we’re going to shoot it back home.’

“My brother’s in-laws were living up in Northport, and we were just visiting — we were there for the Traverse City Film Festival with [their 2011 zombie film] Deadheads. In Northport, and there is this beautiful marina there, and my brother’s in-laws run the sailing school for the kids there. And that became a big part of the movie. It was, ‘I love this marina, and I think we could probably use it in a movie, and it’s such a great backdrop, like Jaws.’ So, we’re like, ‘Let’s start there.’ Then we started writing the story. 

 “I think to really scare somebody, the best way to do it is to show them the comfortable home, the beautiful northern Michigan woods, the beautiful marina that we shot at, and then slowly let the creep creep into it. During the day, make it look wonderful, make it look beautiful, and then at night, with the long shadows in the hallways and the tall trees, let that make the place feel creepy when you do your horror beats.

Note: A previous version of this story reported that The Wretched was the highest grossing movie the third week in May in the U.S., topping the national box office with a take of $91,975. That gross revenue is accurate for the third weekend, May 15-17. Total gross for the week of May 15-21 was $150,652.