An out-of-left-field contender from Ottawa has closed in Park City, where Jack Brooks: Monster Slayer was picked up by Anchor Bay Entertainment at the close of Slamdance.

Anchor Bay paid in the ‘mid-six figures’ for the domestic rights to the feature, plus a theatrical commitment, according to a statement issued Friday.

The deal was worked out by Mark Ward of Anchor Bay and Shaun Redick and Nate Bolotin of The Collective, the Beverly Hill-based management and production company.

‘Anchor Bay is the perfect home for Jack Brooks,’ said producer and star Trevor Matthews of Ottawa-based Brookstreet Pictures, an upstart production house with only a few shorts to its name. Matthews added that Anchor Bay ‘has been very supportive of our vision and will allow Brookstreet Pictures to be involved with the theatrical marketing and distribution. We see Jack Brooks as the beginning of a new franchise.’ The distributor handles mainly home video releases and has offices in the U.K., Canada and Australia.

Brooks has Matthews as a plumber and night school student at war with evil, supernatural forces. It is billed as a throwback to the horror-comedies of the 1980s and, fittingly, also stars Robert Englund (A Nightmare on Elm Street).

Jack Brooks was cowritten and directed by first-timer Jon Knautz, with John Ainslie. Patrick White of Brookstreet and Neil Bregman of Sound Venture Productions are also producers. Its foreign rights are being handled by Patrick Ewald of Epic Pictures.

The deal ended what looks to have been a slow week in Park City, which saw lower-than-usual spending at both Sundance and Slamdance, its more indie-minded imitator. The National Film Board and EyeSteelFilm scored at Sundance, however, passing their doc Up the Yangtze to Zeitgeist Films at the start of the festival.