Aaron B. Koontz is an American producer, writer and director. He is the founder and CEO of Paper Street Pictures, a boutique genre production outlet in Austin, Texas.[1] He is also the creative force behind The Pale Door, the Scare Package franchise and is the lead producer for Shelby Oaks from YouTuber Chris Stuckmann.
Koontz was born in Indianapolis, Indiana, and has been a cinephile his entire life, shooting home movies as a child and writing numerous short stories at a very young age.[2] After moving to Florida with his family he went on to attend Full Sail University, where he was a classmate of filmmakers Adam Wingard and E.L. Katz.[3] Koontz graduated in 2001 and worked freelance crew on various film sets including Monster and studio films The Punisher and Out of Time.
In 2003 Koontz took a nearly ten-year detour where he worked in video game production as a producer and QA tester-manager for companies like EA Sports, THQ and Zynga.[4]
In 2012 Koontz left games to start the boutique genre production company Paper Street Pictures.[5] Through Paper Street, Koontz wrote and directed multiple short films including the award-winning Honor Student.[6] In 2014 Koontz was executive producer of the SXSW hit Starry Eyes, and then in 2016 he co-wrote, produced and directed his first feature film, Camera Obscura, for NBC Universal. In 2019 Koontz lead the production team for the Shudder cult hit Scare Package, of which he also was the core story co-writer and director as well as the final segment director with Horror Hypothesis. In 2020 Aaron co-wrote, directed and produced The Pale Door, a horror-western he released with the help of executive producer Joe R. Lansdale.
In 2022 Koontz produced The Requin, starring Alicia Silverstone. He is also a producer on multiple upcoming horror and thriller films including The Bunker, Old Man, Trim Season,[7] Snow Valley[8] and Revealer,[9] of which he also is writing on the comic book tie in [10] with Vault Comics.
In late 2020 it was announced that Koontz had formed a new genre consulting firm, Blood Oath, with various other industry veterans. Their motto is: "Making Scary Movies Less Scary to make".[11]
Koontz recently announced a sequel to Scare Package, coming to Shudder later in 2022.[12][13]
In March 2022 Koontz and Chris Stuckmann launched a Kickstarter for their upcoming film Shelby Oaks,[14] which went on to break the record as the most funded horror kickstarter of all-time[15] and then began filming in May and June in and around Ohio.[16]
| Year | Title | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| 2014 | Starry Eyes | Executive Producer |
| 2017 | Camera Obscura | Writer, Producer, Director |
| 2019 | Scare Package | Writer, Producer, Director, Concept By |
| 2020 | The Pale Door | Writer, Producer, Director, Editor |
| 2020 | 15 Things You Didn't Know About Bigfoot | Executive Producer |
| 2020 | The Pizzagate Masacre | Executive Producer |
| 2020 | The Stylist | Production Consultant |
| 2022 | The Requin | Producer |
| 2022 | Revealer | Producer |
| 2022 | Old Man | Producer Post-production |
| 2022 | Blood Relatives | Producer Post-production |
| 2022 | Scare Package II: Rad Chad's Revenge | Writer, Producer, Director, Created By Post-production |
| 2022 | Snow Valley | Producer Post-production |
| 2023 | Trim Season | Executive Producer Post-production |
| 2023 | The Bunker | Producer Post-production |
| 2023 | Sorry About The Demon | Producer Post-production |
| 2023 | Shelby Oaks | Producer Post-production |
| 2023 | A Creature Was Stirring | Producer Post-production |