Two years after creating some Hollywood-style excitement by shooting the zombie film “Night of the Living Deb” in and around Portland, filmmaker Kyle Rankin will be back in his home state this spring making a supernatural high school comedy called “The Witch Files.”

The film, starring Holly Taylor of the FX television series “The Americans” and Paget Brewster of the CBS drama “Criminal Minds,” will be shot Sunday through May 23 in Brunswick, Bath and Portland. The movie is about five girls from different cliques at the same high school who get detention and discover they have magical powers. They need to use those powers when they come up against a much older witch, one who lived in Maine before the infamous Salem witch trials of the 1690s.

Kyle Rankin works on the set of "Night of the Living Deb," which he shot in Portland in 2014 . Press Herald file photo/Derek Davis

Rankin said he decided to make “The Witch Files” because of the success “Night of the Living Deb” had in garnering cooperation from Maine businesses and support from local investors. His producing partner, Scott Taylor of Brunswick, rounded up about 20 Maine investors to fully fund “The Witch Files.” The budget is $200,000, considered tiny by Hollywood standards.

“I read that the seeds of the Salem witch trials might have been planted in Maine, that some of the first girls to accuse people were in Maine,” said Rankin, 43, a York native who has been writing and directing films in Los Angeles since 2002. “So we were able to get all our funding in Maine, and set it here, which is great.”

Rankin said recently relaxed actors’ union rules make it easier to hire experienced actors for very low-budget films. Rankin co-wrote and will direct “The Witch Files.”

“Night of the Living Deb” was filmed in June 2014, and shooting drew movie buffs to the Old Port and India Street, where car crashes and zombie attacks were filmed. As with that film, Rankin and the crew of “The Witch Files” will provide lots of opportunities for local people to watch and be involved.

People can observe a couple of days of shooting on Maine Street in Brunswick, including a “magical street fight,” though the dates have not been set. There will also be a field hockey game scene, at a field to be determined, and filmmakers will need about 100 people to show up and act as the crowd, Taylor said.

The first day of filming will be Sunday, outside of Morse High School on High Street in Bath. The school will serve as the high school in the film, and scenes will be shot outside and inside over a period of four days, Taylor said. There also will be a scene shot at the Miss Portland Diner on Marginal Way in Portland on May 3.

Information about filming will be posted on the film’s Facebook page: Facebook.com/witchfiles. For more information about acting opportunities, send an email to casting@thewitchfiles.com.

While the six main roles will be filled with Hollywood actors, about 20 smaller roles are being filled by local actors. The crew will feature Los Angeles-based technicians, as well as local people who may be less experienced. Taylor, who used to work in Hollywood and teaches part time at Waynflete School in Portland, hopes the experience will give more Mainers film production skills and help contribute to more film projects here.

Among the investors in “The Witch Files” are Bob and Elizabeth Baldacci of the Baldacci Group development firm in Portland. Bob Baldacci said Elizabeth had met Rankin and Taylor when they filmed “Night of the Living Deb,” and she became an investor in that film. He said both he and his wife were impressed with the high quality of that film, a romantic comedy with zombies, made for less than $200,000. It has been sold to a distribution company and will be out on DVD this fall and likely available for streaming as well.

“Night of the Living Deb” stars Michael Cassidy of the TBS sitcom “Men at Work,” Maria Thayer of the comedy film “Forgetting Sarah Marshall” and Ray Wise, a veteran character actor best known for playing Laura Palmer’s father on the cult TV series “Twin Peaks.”

“We thought that was just a tremendous volunteer effort that helped produce a quality movie. With the resources they had, the results were incredible,” said Bob Baldacci, referring to “Night of the Living Deb.” “We liked the story line (of ‘The Witch Files’) and felt like this team has the ability to produce a high-quality film.”

He declined to say how much he and his wife had invested.

Rankin began making films in Maine in the 1990s with Efrem Potelle. Together, Rankin and Potelle won Matt Damon and Ben Affleck’s Project Greenlight, a contest for aspiring filmmakers. The prize was a $2 million budget to make a film called “The Battle of Shaker Heights” with former child star Shia LaBeouf that came out in 2003. As a condition of the prize, they had to star in an HBO documentary that chronicled their sometimes embarrassing experiences making the film.

Rankin’s solo credits include the horror-comedy “Infestation” (2009) and the SyFy network series “Nuclear Family” (2012). Most recently he wrote the screenplay for an upcoming action film called “The Worker,” starring Michael Pena and produced by actor Jeremy Renner.

Rankin said the “The Witch Files” may be ready to be shown in Maine later this year, but the final film probably will be shown at festivals and to potential distributors a year from now.

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