Sapling
Bloody Cuts returns to the shadows with the first chapter of Season Two.
Produced & Directed by: BEN FRANKLIN & ANTHONY MELTON
Director of Photography: JONNY FRANKLIN
Creature Effects: CLIFF WALLACE
Starring: KATE BRAITHWAITE, TOM SAWYER, AARON THOMAS WARD
Introducing: JAKE BOTES
On the weekend of 7–8 November, Bloody Cuts gathered once again in the deep, wind-gnarled woods of West Norfolk to shoot the first chapter of Bloody Cuts: Season Two. The new film, Sapling, marks our return to the shadows, where folklore festers, grief takes root, and the trees whisper back.
Sapling stars Kate Braithwaite, Tom Sawyer, and Aaron Thomas Ward, and proudly introduces Jake Botes in his first on-screen role.
Ben Franklin, Anthony Melton and Jonny Franklin return with the Bloody Cuts family, joined by long-standing collaborators and new creative blood.
Summoned from the dark heart of creature cinema, Cliff Wallace brings his practical magic to the production — blood, bark, sap and all.
Together, we conjured something raw, haunted and deeply human: a festival of fear, aching drama and glorious Norfolk-bred mayhem.
More soon. The woods are awake and this time it's personal.
Sapling Promotional Posters
The six final artworks draw on organic textures, folklore-inflected imagery, and storybook unease — reflecting the film’s themes of memory, myth, and something growing in the dark. The original source imagery was drawn from haunting photography by Carl Ackerley and an intricate illustration by Kel Winser.
Sapling is the newest short from Bloody Cuts — a dark, atmospheric descent into the roots of childhood terror. Co-directed by Anthony Melton & Ben Franklin, the film explores how the fears we inherit and imagine take hold long before we understand them.
From sculptural woodland forms to inked, fairytale-inspired compositions, each piece hints at the same unsettling truth:
Some fears don’t fade. They take root. Sapling coming soon.