Bad Ben

Lore & Background

The Bad Ben series began with the 2016 film Bad Ben, written and directed by Tom Fanslau under the pen name Nigel Bach. Fanslau stars as Tom Riley, a homeowner experiencing strange phenomena in his new house, including an inability to enter the basement and evidence of an entity called 'Bad Ben.' The film was made on a $300 budget using Fanslau's cell phone and security cameras in his own home on Steelmanville Road in New Jersey. After failing to interest producers, Fanslau created the film himself. As of 2021, the film had earned approximately $110,000 from Amazon streaming and been seen over a million times.

The series expanded with prequels, sequels, and spin-offs, including Steelmanville Road (2017), Badder Ben (2017), and Bad Ben: The Mandela Effect (2018). Later entries introduced new characters and scenarios, such as a haunted clown doll in The Crescent Moon Clown (2018), a rideshare horror in Bad Ben: The Haunted Highway (2019), and a zombie apocalypse in Bad Ben: Undead (2022). A short film, Bad Ben's Night Before Christmas, was released in 2019, and a three-episode television series, Tom Riley: Paranormal Investigator, aired between 2018 and 2019. A video game adaptation was released in October 2021.

Reader's Guide

The Bad Ben series is significant as a prominent example of ultra-low-budget independent filmmaking that achieved commercial success through direct-to-streaming distribution. Its creator, Nigel Bach, leveraged a minimal budget and personal resources to build a franchise that has sustained over a decade. The series has been praised by outlets such as Bloody Disgusting for its humor and clever scripts, and compared favorably to The Blair Witch Project by Vox for its DIY attitude and atmosphere. The films were initially available on Amazon Prime but were removed in 2020 due to lowered earnings; they were later re-released through Breaking Glass Pictures and are now streamable on the Bad Ben TV Roku channel. The series' legacy lies in demonstrating how a single creator can build a dedicated audience and a multi-film franchise outside traditional studio systems.

Did You Know?

• The first Bad Ben film was made on a budget of $300 using a cell phone and security cameras.
• A video game adaptation of Bad Ben was released on Itch.io in October 2021, with Nigel Bach providing the voice for the protagonist.
• The series includes a short film titled 'Bad Ben's Night Before Christmas' (2019) and a three-episode TV series 'Tom Riley: Paranormal Investigator' (2018–2019).