TEAM
Mary McGloin
Co-Writer/Producer/Lead Actor
Mary McGloin is a Bay Area chick living in Brooklyn. Obsessed with performing since she was eight, her acting career has driven all of her life choices. Mary is an award-winning SAG-AFTRA-AEA actress, writer, director, and producer. She also toils away as a Senior QA Engineer to pay her outrageous student loan debt. Mary has her own production company, Goodly Rotten Apple Productions, LLC.
Kyle Thornton
Co-Writer/Producer/Co-Director
DJs weddings to help fund his short films, which serve as competition entries and proof of concept for feature films or series. Growing up in a small college town in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula with his adopted family, Kyle was active in church and youth groups, played sports, served on student council, and often landed major roles in high school plays. One of The Farx Bros of JK Productions.
Kirk Yang
Co-Writer/Producer/Co-Director
Kirk Yang is a location sound recordist. A proud graduate of Rasmussen College, he was inspired to pursue a career in filmmaking after discovering his passion for storytelling. He has since worked on over a dozen projects both in the indie world and commercial. One of The Farx Bros of JK Productions.
CREATORS' STATEMENT
We’re Mary McGloin (writer–producer–lead actor) and Kyle Thornton & Kirk Yang (writers–directors, JK Productions). Middle School Madness channels real-world anxieties, like toxic building materials in schools, into a darkly comic, supernatural romp centered on a middle-school science teacher and her students. We’re chasing the electric jolt of ’80s/’90s horror-comedies; films that let you laugh, gasp, and breathe, because in anxious times, cinema should also be a playground and a release.
Focusing on middle schoolers (not the usual high-school set) lets us satirize how bureaucracy and corporate indifference crash into childhood. Stylistically, we mash the polish and mood of elevated horror with the gleeful excess of a vintage slasher sequel.
Why us: our families are full of educators across America; Mary grew up in California with a principal dad and teacher mom, has taught ages 3–18 herself, and is an award-winning SAG-AFTRA actor/filmmaker with her production company Goodly Rotten Apple Productions, LLC. Kyle and Kirk, as the Farx Brothers, and JK Productions, have built multiple genre projects and run inclusive, safe sets. We met on the festival circuit, found a shared taste for horror and humor, and developed this feature together.
Our ethos is collaborative and non-hierarchical, with titles serve the work, not ego. We consult educators and community voices to keep the world honest, and we champion women and young performers on and off camera. We’re making this film to entertain first, and to leave audiences with a grin, a shiver, and a little more empathy for the people who keep our schools, and our kids, alive.
