Kat Harlton
Photos: Provided via artist
Poster: BAPHouse
Rising actor Chad Andrews is releasing his new highly acclaimed short film The Butchers, a darkly comic, high-stakes thriller marking his writing and directing debut.
Following its festival premiere at the 2025 Sherman Oaks Film Festival, where it won the Outstanding Cast Award, the film is set to make its red carpet premiere screening in Toronto on April 9th followed by its world premiere on YouTube on April 10th.
A dark comedy thriller with razor-sharp pacing, The Butchers follows Steve played by Chad, and Morgan played by Andrew Merrigan, two best friends who also happen to be psychopathic butchers selling human body parts on the black market. When they arrive in the city hoping to impress a powerful crime boss, they realize, far too late, that they’ve forgotten the only thing they needed… a body. What follows is a spiraling chain of bad decisions, escalating violence, and absurd desperation as the duo fights to survive before becoming victims of their own incompetence.
Best known for his work opposite Academy Award nominee Colman Domingo in Netflix’s The Madness, Chad has built a career defined by range and intensity, with credits spanning AMC’s Hell on Wheels, CBS’s Ghosts, Showtime’s Fellow Travelers, Netflix’s Ripple, and the Prime Video feature The Princess and the Bodyguard, where he portrayed British Royal Charles.
I had the opportunity to chat with Chad about his film debut as a writer/director, finding balance and what’s next.
Kat: The Butchers marks your debut as a writer and director, what inspired you to step behind the camera for this project?
Chad: I actually spent a lot of time in my early development writing and directing. It started with writing, it was something that came naturally to me and gave me an outlet to channel my creative thoughts, and there were a lot of them. I’ve always looked at the world cinematically and thought everyday life could be a scene in a movie, and as a kid I built so many stories in my head, that I needed a way to get them out. Through theatre school, I took many opportunities to direct, and I just remember loving being in the trenches with the actors, treating directing like a contact sport where you equally feel the stakes in. I’d always wanted to make a movie but always stopped myself, not feeling like I belonged behind the camera. Finally though, I just summoned the courage and told myself that I would learn to make a movie, and that this time there was no stopping.
Kat: The film blends dark comedy with high-stakes thriller elements, how did you find the right balance between humor and violence?
Chad: I found this by creating absurd scenarios for my characters to live in authentically with their feelings. Normally we don’t care about how a psycho feels, but in this film we certainly do care about their inadequacies, fears, and all the ways they self-sabotage. They’re just like you and me, but they also happen to kill people. I think that’s the perfect way to have both humor and violence. My hope has always been that audiences fall in love with the charm of these characters, before realizing that they’re rooting for the bad guys.
Kat: Your character Steve is both dangerous and absurd, what was your approach to making him entertaining without losing that edge?
Chad: I think what makes Steve entertaining is that he drives the story. Where Steve goes, we go. His immediacy gives us action, that otherwise might go nowhere. It’s in his reactions to Morgan and to his situation, that tells the audience how to feel about something. I think Steve keeps us on the edge of our seats, he’s wound tight and ready to explode at any moment, and that’s so entertaining in and of itself.
Kat: The premise is chaotic and fast-moving, did you always envision the story unfolding with that kind of “spiraling” energy?
Chad: Yes, absolutely. I always wanted Steve and Morgan’s life to come apart at the seams. It was important for me that these two characters felt trapped in a cage similar to animals in a zoo, and Steve draws attention to this in the film. They’re desperate to get out of their situation, but each new choice and discovery makes their situation much worse. I think a lot of the humor comes out of that, but beneath it is a more dramatic through line. Although these characters are clown- like, they are brutally awful human beings, and the end of the film shows in a very real way that choosing to live a life like them, eventually ends up in the gutter.
Kat: The film won Outstanding Cast at the Sherman Oaks Film Festival, what do you think made the ensemble click so well?
Chad: I’m really proud of the environment I was able to create on set, where every member of the team, in front of and behind the camera, felt like they could freely share their opinions and just be themselves. I had some of the best laughs of my life on set with the cast, and I think we all felt super comfortable with each other. There was total trust and a genuine joy in exploring each shot. I think when you have something like that, it comes across as one cohesive mind, and that just feels good to watch.
Kat: You’ve worked with major talent like Colman Domingo, how have those experiences influenced your work as a filmmaker?
Chad: The complete openness to workshop a scene as a team in the moment. I used to think more or less, it’s the director’s job to tell me what to do and my job to do that. That’s lazy thinking though. An actor needs to come prepared to engage with the process and help find the best way to do something, and a director needs to be open to pivoting away from his or her initial direction. I loved watching Colman sense something was missing, and bring us all together to figure it out. It breaks down walls, we all get on the same page, and move through the scene with confidence. All that’s left to do is be present in the moment. It’s a beautiful thing to be a part of, and I wanted the same thing for my set.
Kat: As a first-time director, what surprised you most about being in charge of the entire creative vision?
Chad: That I knew more than I originally thought. Yes, I’m still very novice with the technical understanding of cinematography, but I was so surprised by how complete my vision was for this film. As soon as I gave myself permission to feel confident in that, I just had to communicate the movie that was in my head. I’m so grateful for that, because now I feel like my opinion of telling a story is valid and unique to me, and not just something to dismiss because of a lack of experience. I actually do have something to say.
Kat: The story revolves around two deeply flawed characters making increasingly bad decisions, what drew you to exploring that kind of dynamic?
Chad: The chaos of early Guy Ritchie films and the flawed relationship building of Martin McDonough. I love that style of story telling, because I actually feel like that’s the way life really is sometimes. Our thoughts don’t make sense, we jump from one emotion to the next impulsively, sometimes our decisions lead us to unexpected results. It isn’t clean. I just choose to fixate on that, and it makes the real feels surreal. That way of thinking brings me a lot of joy and I love seeing a heightened reality.
Kat: With the film premiering in Toronto before its online release, how important is it for you to connect with both festival audiences and digital viewers?
Chad: My goal is to get as many people as possible to see this film. As a production team, we’re always trying to find ways to grab people’s attention, to appeal to specific interests, or highlight aspects of the film we think will get people to watch.
Check out @heybaphouse or @thisischadandrews on insta, and see all the exciting bits and pieces that make up the world of ‘The Butchers’. We want this to turn into a wave, so that more and more people discover the film, and festivals get excited and want to program us. We’ll be dropping more content for people to engage with our film, and hopefully make Steve and Morgan a big moment! And for more Steve and Morgan universe, help us find ‘Maya’ @nickyorkuni.
Kat: After The Butchers, do you see yourself continuing to write and direct, or was this a one-time creative experiment?
Chad: I definitely plan to continue writing and directing. This was the push I needed to take the stories in my head and put them on the screen. I feel that inner child in me who just wants to explore and have fun, and I hope to let that guide me as I do more filmmaking. My next project is a feature film entitled ‘By Design’, a sci-fi thriller that takes place in a near future decimated by a toxic event, where natural birth has been outlawed, women face total sterilization, and the only way to have a child is through an ectogenetic machine, controlled by the government through a rigorous interview process. Stay tuned!
Connect With Chad On Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thisischadandrews/