Aaron Moorhead

Aaron Moorhead

Date of Birth: December 17, 1987

American director, producer, actor and cinematographer Aaron Moorhead was born in Tarpon Springs, where he attended Palm Harbor University. At age 14, he decided he wanted to become a director after making a series of stop-action movies. He studied at Florida State University and after graduation, he moved to California to pursue an internship at RSA, Ridley Scott’s commercial production company.

It was there that Moorhead first met his future filmmaking partner, Justin Benson, who was beginning his internship right when Moorhead was finishing his. The two bonded over their love of filmmaking and paired up as creative collaborators. As part of their filmmaking, they divide the work equally between themselves by both co-directing and sharing the duties of producing and editing. Individually, Moorhead is the cinematographer and Benson is the screenwriter.

The team first gained recognition with their massively low-budget festival-hit horror film Resolution (2012). The film’s budget was so micro that the film didn’t have any score. In spite of this, it gained critical acclaim and the two were awarded Best Director at the 2013 Macabro Awards. They also won Best Director at the 2013 Fantastic Planet film festival and at the Toronto After Dark Film Festival, the film won four awards, including for Best Screenplay.

After the success of Resolution, Benson and Moorhead followed up with another independent horror film titled Spring (2015), this time with a much larger budget. The two were awarded "Directors to Watch" at the Palm Springs International Film Festival in 2015 and earned high praise for their film from such prominent filmmakers as Guillermo del Toro. They also had their short film “Bonestorm” featured in the anthology horror film V/H/S: Viral (2014).

Variety listed Benson and Moorhead as part of their “10 Directors to Watch” feature in 2015. Their latest project was the supernatural thriller The Endless (2018), in which the two starred as brothers Aaron and Justin, who have escaped from a “UFO death cult,” but return to visit it years later.

Moorhead describes his filmmaking tastes as being “hilariously big-budget” and claims he enjoys many eclectic movies without preferring one kind over another. ~Caitlyn Clancey

Filmography:
The Endless (2018)
Spring (2015)
V/H/S: Viral (segment “Bonestorm”) (2014)
Resolution (2012)