Writer-director Victor William Schotten goes from zombies to salvation with “The Abiding Nail.”

The Hubbard-based filmmaker made several microbudget horror films between 2005 and 2014, and movies like “Dead Life” and “Below Ground” ended up securing home video-distribution deals despite having budgets comparable to the cost of dinner for four at a good restaurant.

Schotten still loves horror movies, but the transition to faith-based filmmaking reflects changes in his own life.

“I came out of drug addiction eight years ago,” Schotten said. “Understanding the power of God in recovery, I decided to do something about that.”

“The Abiding Nail” will have its premiere Saturday at the Columbiana Cultural Collective before going on the film festival circuit in search of a distribution deal.

Schotten knew he didn’t want to fall into the same trap that hurts most faith-based films.

“Historically, faith-based films fail on the entertainment side,” Schotten said. “It’s a pretty tough watch for most of them. I’m not trying to be disparaging, but you should approach every genre you work in from an entertainment standpoint first. In the faith-based world, they reverse engineer it — start with a message and engineer it into a story.”

“The Abiding Nail” draws on some of Schotten’s recovery experiences, but the character facing those challenges is a woman.

“The concept is a small-town girl who’s gone away to Hollywood 15 or so years ago and made it big,” he said. “She’s essentially abandoned her small town until she has a very public meltdown, a drug-induced psychosis. She absolutely destroys her career in one day and has to come home, with her father helping her along.”

He started writing in May 2021, thinking it might be a short film, but the story quickly expanded to where he had a full-length screenplay completed by Aug. 5, 2021.

Schotten wanted a bigger budget than he had for his previous films, but bigger for him would have been about $20,000, still a pittance, even by independent filmmaking standards.

Schotten is the media and technical ministries director at Old North Church in Canfield, and one day at church he was talking to Andy Reigstad, who owns Tax 29 in Boardman. After he told him what he was working on, Reigstad said he might be interested in investing.

Schotten had heard this before from others, but he decided to put together a real budget, what it would take to make the movie he wanted. He didn’t want to reveal that number for publication, but he sent it to Reigstad.

Around the same time, Schotten was deathly ill with the delta variant of COVID-19

“I’m in the throes of feeling worse than I’ve ever felt in my life when I got an email from him — ‘I’m interested in this and between me and my sister (Katherine Reigstad), we could cover the entirety of the budget.’

“I was so sick I almost wrote to him and said ‘No.’ I can’t be responsible for this money. I can’t be responsible for that budget. My morale was so low. Then I had one day where I sort of rallied a bit, I felt better and, ‘Oooh, we’re going to make a movie.'”

With that budget, Schotten was able to pay his cast and crew and get the equipment he needed to create a polished, professional film.

As he wrote the screenplay, Schotten envisioned actors he’d worked with before for various roles, including Ashley Rozzi, who plays the fallen Hollywood star, Jennifer Milligan and Jim Fogarty.

“I wrote the script with these people in mind and hoped they’d do it,” Schotten said.

Filming started on June 4, 2022, and Schotten had a 15-day shooting schedule on weekends only so the cast and crew could work their regular jobs during the week.

Shooting completed in August of that year on time and under budget.

“We shot every page of the script,” Schotten said. “I’ve never shot a more complete script. I’ve thrown out entire scenes just for time but we managed to shoot everything.”

The trailer for the film can be seen on YouTube and reflects the early ’90s vibe that Schotten wanted to have for the film. He even found a voice actor to do the trailer that sounds like the ones on film spots from 30 years ago.

He’s screened the film for some small groups, where it’s been greeted with “lots of laughs and some tears,” Schotten said, but Saturday will be his first opportunity to see how it plays with a large audience and the only opportunity for people to see it locally … at least for now.

“This is pretty much the standard business model for how you would do a low-budget indie film,” he said. “Doing a premiere, showing it locally so anyone who wants to see it can, then for the next six months we’re going on a film festival tour, showing at a myriad both nonsecular and secular film festivals to see if we can garner some awards with it.

“The big one is the International Christian Film Festival in Florida (in May 2024), which attracts buyers from all over. That’s where the buying and selling get done. And I’m going down with a new script in case we get into that conversation. I’m already working on a follow up.”

If you go …

WHAT: Premiere of the film “The Abiding Nail”

WHEN: 7 p.m. Saturday

WHERE: Columbiana Cultural Collective, 5 N. Main St., Columbiana

HOW MUCH: Tickets are $10 and are available online at www.columbianaculturalcollective.com.