True Love

True Love follows four witches as they try to create the perfect man using magic. Of course, not everything goes as planned.

At sunset in the woods, three young witches named Serena, Celeste and Fiona set up a spell to create the perfect man. Fiona gags over one of the ingredients, horse semen, and Serena tells her to suck it up. Their fourth witch, Adrienne, is late. She snuck out of work and she has the final ingredient. When she shows up she reminds the others they have no power without her.

Adrienne brought the blood of a virgin male. She got it from a pizza delivery guy who asked her out. She told him that if he truly loved her, he would die for her, and he slit his wrist and bled into a jar. She says she called an ambulance and he will be fine. The others are disgusted, but they start the ritual before the sun goes down. They call on the protectors of the four corners and light candles. Celeste pours in the horse semen, Serena adds dragon's blood and lavender, and Fiona adds the virgin's blood. Then Adrienne tells them to join hands and not let go. She cuts out a piece of her own still-beating heart and adds it to the cauldron.

Together they call on the goddess Diana to raise a better man from the ash and let their love be the truest love known to man. Each witch asks for something. He should be strong, attractive, kind and loyal. Celeste asks for something much cruder. For a moment it seems like the spell failed. Then a naked man walks out of the woods. He believes he is in heaven and the witches are angels. They tell him they are witches who made him to love them. His name is Desmond, and he says he would die for any of them.

Adrienne claims him for the first night, since she cut out part of her own heart to make him. The others complain, but they agree to take turns, with Celeste stuck going last. Desmond tells them not to fight over him because he loves them all. Adrienne gives him something to cover up with and walks him home. Back at the ritual site, the others grumble about her until one of them points out that Adrienne did cut out a piece of her heart to bring him there. They clean up the candles and head home.

On the walk home Desmond asks what a virgin is, and Adrienne is happy to explain. Serena catches up with them and demands him. Adrienne refuses. Serena calls her a selfish brat who does not deserve him. She asks Adrienne whether she can quote the Wicked Witch's last words in The Wizard of Oz, and when Adrienne says "I'm melting" Serena throws acid in her face. Adrienne melts into a puddle. Serena tells a frightened Desmond that she did it to prove she would do anything for him, and he says he loves her too.

Fiona and Celeste find Adrienne's remains and turn on Serena, who says Adrienne had it coming. Fiona screams that people who kill do not deserve to live. Celeste begs her to calm down, since Fiona cannot control her powers when she is angry. Fiona's fire kills Serena.

Desmond decides Fiona must have killed for love of him. To prove his own love to Fiona, he chokes Celeste to death, telling her she will die to show she loves him. Then he asks Fiona if she will die for him. She says no. True love is not about dying for each other. It is about protecting and trusting each other. Desmond is confused and says he just wants to have sex. Fiona tells him he was a mistake and kills him. Alone in the woods, she says this was not supposed to happen and that this is not true love. In the making-of, Hannah Madison describes that last scene as Fiona working up to killing Desmond and then herself.

On the YouTube upload, the film is followed by a blooper and behind the scenes reel.

Release & Reception

• Distributor: StabMovies.com YouTube channel (free to watch)

StabMovies.com posted three short teasers before the trailer: True Love - Teaser 01 (July 21, 2014), Teaser 02 (September 25, 2014) and Teaser 03 (October 7, 2014). The first official teaser trailer went up on October 25, 2014 and promised a release date soon.

The full film went up on YouTube with its bloopers attached as True Love | Short Film | Full Movie & Bloopers. The upload is dated November 18, 2014. It had about 4,100 views when checked in September 2026.

A black and white version was posted for Valentine's Day on February 13, 2015. StabMovies.com said it believes there should be a horror movie for every holiday.

Cast

Crew

Production

True Love was the very first short film Joshua Patrick Dudley wrote for StabMovies.com. He wrote it around the time of Stab 5 or Stab 6 and thought about expanding it into a feature. It sat for years. In his commentary he guessed the script was five or six years old when they finally shot it. Once the team had better equipment and he had learned green screen and digital effects, he decided it was time. When the 12 Months of Terror came up, he picked it for Valentine's Day.

The first plan cast Stephanie Maheu and Rachel Alexandria Arnold as two of the witches. The part of Serena was written for Maheu. She was not available, so Lindsey Klossner took it. Dudley said the switch worked out because Klossner makes a strong contrast with the other girls.

Nicole Linton was the first person cast. Dudley wrote Adrienne for her because she could only take a small part in Stab 6 and he wanted to give her a lead. It was her first StabMovies.com short. The production set up to film once and two of the actresses did not show. Linton brought in her friends Hannah Madison and Kia Powell to replace them. Dudley said Powell had never been in a production before.

Desmond was originally cast with another actor who fell through, and Dudley went through a few others. Patrick Stewart said yes before reading the script and then found out he would be mostly naked the whole time. The first time the team went to pick him up, he stayed inside and pretended not to be home because he was so nervous. They talked him into coming back.

Before filming, the cast did a promotional photo and video shoot. Dudley said it was partly a test to see whether everyone would show up and get along, and it turned into a table read. They walked across the street from his house to a small park in Manchester to shoot soap opera style slow turns with wind in their hair. They also took photos indoors against a black background, and Dudley added the witches' powers and colored smoke later. He still counts it among his favorite promotional art.

Filming started in the backyard of Dudley's mother's house, where he grew up. On the first day the sun set fast. The main light would not work, so the girls were lit only by red and orange lights meant to look like candlelight. For about 30 seconds to a minute of the film they turn bright red, and then proper lighting kicks in. Extension cords had to be hidden and the actresses kept tripping over them.

During the ritual the plastic cauldron caught fire for real from the candles on the wobbly card table. Kia Powell was the one who noticed while everyone else kept joking. It is in the bloopers.

The production could not keep using the backyard, so it moved to a second location in the woods about a month after filming began. One cast member remembered it as around Epsom or Deerfield, New Hampshire. The cast remembers shooting in October and November, and it was freezing. The switch happens just before Desmond appears, and Dudley said you almost cannot tell. The actresses wore sweatshirts and jackets between takes over their light outfits.

Dudley said the shoot took two days, maybe two and a half, and he believes they went back for a third. Nicole Linton got to leave early after Adrienne melted. Lindsey Klossner stayed to watch after her death. Kia Powell had to stay because her body was on the ground. Dudley called Fiona's final scene Hannah Madison's best work in the film.

At one point the cast nailed a take and a car started up in the background, ruining it. Powell kept smiling while being choked to death, and Dudley had to keep telling her to stop.

Dudley said he wanted the four witches to be strong, powerful women. Each witch matches an element: Serena is earth, Adrienne is air, Fiona is fire and Celeste is water. An earlier draft, which Dudley no longer has, spelled out their powers sooner.

Music

The official film page and released versions do not name a composer or a standalone soundtrack.

Filming locations

• Backyard of Joshua Patrick Dudley's mother's house (the house he grew up in): The ritual scenes in the first part of the film
• A wooded area, remembered by a cast member as around Epsom or Deerfield, New Hampshire: Desmond's arrival and everything after
• A small park in Manchester, New Hampshire, across the street from Dudley's house: Promotional photo and video shoot

Effects and makeup

The colored smoke in the ritual stands for the four elements, with green for earth and blue for water.

Adrienne's heart was made from toilet paper and fake blood, and she cuts it out with the Buck 120 knife.

Dudley shot a view looking up out of the cauldron at the four witches. The cauldron was wet and full of melting wax, so balancing the camera inside was hard. Several cast members named it as the shot they remember most.

Desmond's appearance was done with a lighting change and a digital morph. Dudley noted some candle flames do not line up across the cut.

For Adrienne's melting, Dudley layered toilet paper and fake blood on Nicole Linton's face so she could peel it off like skin. He added the melting and shrinking digitally, ending on a puddle of plastic body parts. Lindsey Klossner helped with the gore behind the scenes, and her hands stayed bright red from fake blood.

Serena burning and the fire coming from Fiona's hands were digital. Dudley said they could not do any of the fire for real. Some spots on the ground in the background are digital too.

Dudley joked that the effects look like something out of Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Charmed in the late 1990s, since he had little experience. They did as much as they could practically.

The bloopers show off the blood squirter rig used on set.

Props and costumes

Buck 120 knife, used for Adrienne's heart. Nicole Linton later got a tattoo of the knife with blood on the tip.

A plastic cauldron on a card table covered in candles, glitter and liquids. It caught fire during filming.

Desmond is naked or nearly naked for most of his screen time. Patrick Stewart wore shoes and boxers for most takes and did about one full take completely naked. Once Desmond puts on the bathrobe, Stewart could wear clothes underneath.

The witches wore light, revealing outfits despite the cold. One actress wore a corset style halter top and had blood dumped on her.

One of the actresses wore a red dress for the promotional shoot that she did not wear in the film.

The killers

Deaths

STABFLIX

Watch the film

Playlists

• The bonus features playlist

Gallery

Pictures