A Bermudian film-maker living in London has crafted his scariest film in a project exploring insecurity through the “Tooth Fairy”.

Nasir Simmons, 25, is putting the final touches on his indie film Grin and Bear It, which he crafted alongside co-director and co-writer Aster Munro.

Mr Simmons said: “It’s taken a lot but it’s been worth every single penny, every single minute of planning and every single meal that has been skipped to afford this.”

The film follows Jay, an outsider who becomes possessed by a grim iteration of the tooth fairy and goes on to commit “horrible acts”.

Mr Simmons said he became interested in the idea of the folkloric figure and later turned it into a narrative that explored the loss of identity.

He said: “[It explores] the thought of losing something, whether it’s physical or mental, or feeling something is lacking.

“It’s that feeling that brings the idea of the tooth fairy, being related to horror in some way, into a very real story that relates to people.

“We kind of underrate how important teeth are to our feeling of humanity. This is how we show emotion and how we eat. It’s a very big part of being a full human and I think that the feeling of lacking full humanity is what insecurity does to you.”

Grin and Bear It was created on a budget of about $5,000, which Mr Simmons said was “a credit to what you can do with just an invested group of people, despite not being blessed with generational wealth”.

It was initially pitched as an episode for an anthology horror television series before his ten-person team developed it into a short film.

The young director previously directedTentacle Head, a film about a young man dealing with poverty while managing a pair of tentacles that had grown from his skull.

Mr Simmons said that, similar to Tentacle Head, Grin and Bear It explored human emotion through fantasy and horror.

He explained it through the idea of “Brechtian distance,” a phenomenon where an audience can explore a concept in a way that removes any pre-existing ideas.

Mr Simmons said that viewing insecurity as a form of possession could help the audience better understand its effects.

At the same time, Mr Simmons said the film “amped up the fantasy” and allowed the audience to “get a really good peek at a scary monster”.

He described the horror as “a lot more visceral and direct” compared with his previous films.

“It’s not for no reason — it’s not that we’re just putting humans into the meat grinder — it’s specifically to illustrate the painfulness of these feelings,” he said.

The film is going through post-production and is expected to be ready for a Hallowe'en release date.

Mr Simmons hopes to release it across several film festivals including the Bermuda International Film Festival.

He thanked all of his crew members for their dedication

The trailer for Grin and Bear It is available on Mr Simmons’s Instagram page.