"Hell's Half-Acre" Assembles Killer Team

This true story of America's first family of serial killers is loaded with talent

TUCSON, Ariz., June 25, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Western true crime novel Hell's Half-Acre has already garnered awards as a short feature film. Now completing production of the full-length movie version, author/producer Nicholas Nicastro has compiled an impressive roster of talent both in front of and behind the camera.

In front of the camera:

• Cult horror legend Bill Moseley (Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2, Carnivale)
• Western icon Grainger Hines (Ballad of Buster Scruggs, Lincoln, Hell on Wheels)
• Award-winning stage and film actress Hannah Beck (Through Open Doors)
• Off-Broadway and film notable Craig Cartwright (Eccentricity, Marilyn Exposed).
• Newcomer JoHannah James plays antiheroine Kate Bender, the mysterious beauty who lured at least fifteen men to their deaths on the lonely prairie of 1870's Kansas. She has already won Best Actress at the Brooklyn Int'l Short Film Festival for the short feature version of Hell's Half Acre.

Behind the camera:

• Producer: Primetime Emmy nominee Marc Henry Johnson (HBO's The Deuce, The Awful Truth)
• Cinematographer: Travis LaBella (LA Emmy for the documentary Artbound, set the look for the first season of The Kardashians)
• Director: Nicholas Nicastro, though better known as a novelist, he directed the award-winning documentary Science or Sacrilege.

Nicastro's proof-of-concept short film, Hell's Half-Acre: Sojourn, won Best Indie Short at the LA Indie Shorts Festival, Best Narrative at the Toronto Indie Shorts, an Award of Merit at the IndieFEST Film Awards, and the UK's Freewheeling Film Award. It was also an official selection at PanicFest 2026.  

Hell's Half-Acre tells the true but largely untold story of the Bloody Benders, America's first documented serial killing family.

"When their crimes were discovered in 1873, they shocked the nation," says Nicholas Nicastro. "Nobody knows if the Benders were actually related, but they would take visitors along the Osage Trail into their remote cabin/store ... and kill them."

"The Bender case is compelling not only in its depravity," adds Nicastro, "but in its female focus. The Benders were a 'family' led by an intelligent, outspoken woman, Kate. To this day, it is one of only a few cases of serial murder with a woman at its center." 

In addition to Kate, the "family" consisted of taciturn "mother" Almira, simple-minded "brother" John Jr., and the brutish "Pa" Bender. As the net of suspicion closed around them, the Benders disappeared into the frontier, leaving a dozen bodies buried on their land ... and a mystery that persists to this day.

Hell's Half-Acre is shooting this summer in locations near Tucson, in central Kansas, and in Virginia, with domestic and international release of the full-length film scheduled for 2027.

Contact:  Nina Trasoff at 520-349-0676 or [email protected] to arrange an interview with Nicastro.  A teaser trailer for can be found at https://vimeo.com/1130755501/794d4da7e5?share=copy

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SOURCE Nicholas Nicastro