Think Hereford and the images that come to mind probably include cider, walks through gentle rolling countryside, quaint historic England.

It's unlikely you picture a scytheswinging rumble between the Grim Reaper and his protege. Not unless you happen to be filmmaker Neil Oseman, recently dubbed a 'British Tarantino in the making.'

This, after all is the man whose debut film, The Beacon, involved terrorists trying to launch a biochemical attack on Malvern. As you would. Writer-director-producer-cinematographer-editor, 25 year old Oseman's second full length feature, Soul Searcher gets its West Midlands premiere at the Midlands Arts Centre on Friday as part of the Departure Lounge series for upcoming filmmakers.

A reworked remake of his prize winning 15 minute short, it's about a young Hereford road sweeper who, offered the job of becoming the new Grim Reaper, finds himself battling to stop chaos being unleashed on Earth. Or at least Hereford High Street.

Buoyantly optimistic, Oseman reckoned he could raise £60,000, knock it off in 11 weeks and be wrapped for Christmas. That was June 2002.

"Looking back The Beacon was clearly not a good film and the CGI effects didn't turn out how I'd hoped, but it was a massive learning experience," he reflects.

"And it proved I could see a project through and put a script on screen with some evidence of directing ability. So it was disappointing that no one involved with public funding was interested and Soul Searcher got put on hold for best part of a year.

"It finally got to the point where it was clear that the most I could get was £10,000 and if I couldn't make it on that it wouldn't get made."

Having got nowhere with Screen West Midlands, the National Film Council and various local funds, Oseman went the guerilla route of private investment, tapping friends, relatives and people he'd worked with as well ploughing in his own cash. Or at least his bank's.

In addition to smoothing the way with locations and filming permits, Hereford Council also came through with around £3000 from their Creative Industries Fund to help pay for publicity.

After a lengthy delay that resulted in having to recast all but two characters, an intensive six weeks of principle photography finally began on Oct 20, 2003. Oseman admits he may have been a bit over ambitious.

"I'd actually seen it as less ambitious than The Beacon, which turned out to be totally wrong. The fact it was all set at night because I wanted to be able to control the light made it three times as difficult and twice as expensive. I guess I like a challenge."

This was certainly a challenge. Throw in the fact that various crew - including the producer - dropped out for a variety of personal and practical reasons during the making, that props fell apart and the Royal Mail found it impossible to do a simple thing like deliver an order for a vital miniature, and Oseman agrees that, never mind the finance, without a great deal of good will and a major sense of humour Soul Searcher might have sunk without trace.

"Once the six weeks began it became an unstoppable machine," he says. "But I can't stress how lucky I've been. Not only with the talent that's been involved but the willingness to put themselves through quite incredible hardships because they had faith in me and the screenplay. To be honest, not everyone could see the funny side of things, but because we were generally able to joke about what went wrong it brought us together more."

Even so, Oseman admits there were times when he not only thought it would never happen, but didn't want it to.

"When it was put on hold in 2002 I spent some time working on another feature as Director of Photography and at that point I was thinking that maybe that was the direction I wanted to go so maybe it wasn't a bad thing. But then I saw Back to the Future on DVD and, having grown up on films like Ghostbusters, Star Wars and Indiana Jones, watching it rekindled something in me about why I'd wanted to make films in the first place.

"There was also a point during the first few days of the shoot, when everything was going wrong; if it hadn't been for the sheer number of people it would have inconvenienced, I would have simply walked away!"

But, finally coming in on a budget of £20,000, the completed film - complete with 250 special effects shots and a score performed by a 56 piece orchestra - received a warm reception at its Hereford premiere, drew a positive review in the Guardian and has earned Oseman a place on Channel 4's IdeasFactory Creative Class, designed to uncover the best creative talents in the Midlands. Having initially thought it would probably just wind up on DVD, there are now hopes of a small scale cinema release.

Understandably, the Malvern multi-hyphenate is in positive mood.

"It's been an emotional rollercoaster and had a huge impact on my life for the past two years. People have asked me if it's just a calling card or something more.

In an ideal world it would be both Yes, it's low budget. But it's character driven, it's got action, effects, and a love story. And it's great to have a British film like this from Hereford."

n Soul Searcher will be screened on June 24th at Midlands Art Centre with a Q&A session from the director.