WORCESTER, Mass. – Adam Morey pictured the scene in his head while driving home one day.

“It was just an idea that popped in my head about a small girl attacking two guys in the woods,” said the executive producer at Realmass Studios in Worcester. “It was like, boom!”

That is all he had. There was no dialogue. There was no backstory. There were no characters.

“It was just an idea about a girl in the woods,” he said.

Morey brought the idea back to his film production studio to start fleshing out the story.

“We started to think about it,” he said. “We have this girl attacking these boys. What then? What if this happened, and then what if that happened next? What if … what if … what if … and when we finished, everything just added up and, in the end, we had KINDEr.”

KINDEr (pronounced /kĭn-dur/) is German for “child.” Morey and director Daniel McNulty are basing the film on the Salem witch trials and, in particular, descendants of Rebecca Nurse and Sarah Goode, two real-life women accused and executed by hanging for being witches.

Filming for the series began on June 12 in Worcester County. The current production has about 40 cast and crew members from Massachusetts, with another 150 local residents used as extras on the various sets. Some of the locations used during filming include downtown Sterling and Grafton. He also uses iconic local landmarks as backdrops to many scenes like the Old Stone Church in West Boylston, the Rock Bar restaurant and Green Hill Park in Worcester, the Worcester Polytechnic Institute, the Worcester County Jail and House of Correction, Redemption Rock in Princeton, the Grafton Inn, the Wachusett Dam and a few local residences in Sterling and Princeton.

Morey said involving local people has helped develop a cult following for the project.

“My inbox has exploded,” he said. “The community involvement has been so great. We are helping others achieve their goals. How do you say no to that? When I get overwhelmed, how we get by is with their support.”

A KINDEr promo photo. Courtesy of Realmass Studios.

The KINDEr story goes like this: The 17th century witches wanted to end this persecution threat and decided to turn to an evil spirit called Alastor for help. In Greek mythology, Alastor was the personified spirit of the family blood feud who inflicted vengeance upon younger generations for the crimes of their forefathers. The demon helped the witches by giving them the ability, through a special necklace, to create a new species, the KINDEr, to seek out revenge on the humans who killed witches.

In order for the ritual to be completed, the witches needed to place the necklace around the neck of a small, innocent child during the appearance of the Harvest Moon. However, the last step was incomplete when humans interrupted the ritual. A few of the witches escaped with the child to a hidden, secluded place in northern Maine.

“They hid in the woods and built out their small colony,” Morey said. “This town is very, very private.”

They called the town Alastor. At the same time, the necklace was lost. The KINDEr threat was dormant for 350 years until the year 2020, a time Morey calls “the age of awakening for the spiritual realm.” This is the year the evil spirit of Alastor finds Harper and the twin girls in the woods. 

“There’s a demonic entity speaking to them and pulling them in,” Morey said. “It lures them to the location of the necklace and Harper digs it up.” 

Throughout the next year, the demon possesses Harper and the twins. They are trained to kill humans and to harvest their souls. However, they could not kill just any human. They could only harm anyone with the lineage of the people responsible for the Salem witch trials and the murder of the witches. Harper and the twins are chosen by the evil spirit because their bloodlines have roots with the Salem witches. In particular, Harper Nurse is related to Rebecca Nurse, while the twins are related to Sarah Goode. Both Rebecca Nurse and Sarah Goode were hanged as Salem witches in 1692. 

Morey says Netflix has expressed interest in the series as a possible replacement for the UPN show Supernatural, which will be leaving the streaming site in a few years.

“KINDEr is a similar type of suspense thriller, with a touch of horror elements similar to the Walking Dead, but without the blood and gore. We tried filming the killings with blood and guts, but it didn’t work,” Morey said. “The KINDEr have the ability to control heartbeats and the brain. That’s how they kill and then they harvest the souls of the dead. This is a cross between the Walking Dead and Supernatural.”

For future updates on the production, visit Realmass Studios on Twitter at: @Real_Mass2018 or on Facebook at @realmassproductions.