NASHVILLE — There is a particular kind of dark on a Tennessee backroad, the kind that begins where the last farmhouse light gives out and seems to hold everything the land remembers. It is 1971 in that dark, in the premise of Ravenmocker, and a carload of teenagers has just broken down in the wrong stretch of it.
Ravenmocker, announced by the Nashville-based independent streamer Screamify, is the newest entry in the platform's Micro Horror™ format — 20 vertically-shot episodes of roughly two minutes, each closing on a cliffhanger. But the shape of the thing is the least of the story. What distinguishes this series is its material: the Ravenmocker, the heart-stealing witch of Cherokee legend, a figure drawn from Cherokee folklore and approached, by the filmmakers' own account, as living lore rather than a costume borrowed for a scare.
In the series' telling, the witch is bound to the land by a Civil War love story that ended in blood, and the narrative moves between the 1860s and 1971 — a structure that makes the haunting inseparable from the history beneath it. This is Southern Gothic in its truest register: the past not as backdrop but as unfinished business, waiting at the tree line.
"I'm excited about being able to tell a story that has historical relevancy and deals with actual myth — it has firm footing in actual lore, within Native American culture and within ours," director Gabe McCauley said on the red carpet at the Micro Horrors™ premiere here. "We're going back to the '70s, and then back to the 1860s — we're getting across centuries."
McCauley comes to the project trailing an unusual résumé for horror. Soul Feather Studios, the Nashville production company he founded some nineteen years ago, is a two-time National Daytime Emmy winner best known for PBS's Reconnecting Roots — four seasons, presented by South Carolina ETV and distributed by American Public Television — which won two 2024 Daytime Emmys, including Outstanding Writing Team. McCauley hosts and directs that series; Joel McAfee, who produces Ravenmocker, is its series producer, and both men were among the honored writers.
"I'm excited about seeing a concept that's based in Tennessee and based in the Civil War era come to the micro-horror format," McAfee said. "It's a really unique story on its own, and I think it's going to really excel in the format."
The series is written by John White and executive produced by Laryssa Goodlad for Screamify and Oh Gosh Yeah Entertainment, LLC; it was developed by Screamify Originals under the supervision of Goodlad and consulting development producer John Vann. It joins Autonomous, Game Night: Survive the Slasher, and Scary Mary on the Micro Horrors™ slate.
There is something fitting in a Nashville streamer and a Nashville studio reaching into Tennessee's own ground for their material. Ravenmocker is coming soon to Screamify on iOS, Android, Apple TV, Roku, Fire TV, Android TV, and Samsung smart TVs, with LG to follow. No premiere date has been announced; the backroad, presumably, can wait.
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