No journalist likes to admit this, but I recently blew a scoop. Last month I had to interview Tara Reid about Sharknado 5. I’d planned to ask her about some of her upcoming roles – in films with titles such as Party Bus to Hell, United Colors of Bennett Song and Andy the Talking Hedgehog – but before I could get there, Reid cut me off with what sounded like a well-practised wrap-up speech.

That was fine; she’d spent most of the interview revealing that she’s been the victim of bullying, so it would have felt cruel to directly follow that up with a sneery “Hey Tara, tell me about your dumb hedgehog movie”. But now Andy the Talking Hedgehog is one of the hottest films on the planet, and I’m kicking myself a little.

Also another movie I have coming out. #andythetalkinghedgehog pic.twitter.com/0AQpYz7w8L — Tara Reid (@TaraReid) September 8, 2017

When Reid tweeted the Andy the Talking Hedgehog poster on Friday, the internet went nuts. That was partly because the poster featured a hedgehog, two cats, Dean Cain, Tara Reid’s Twitter profile pic manipulated to look slightly more wholesome and an unattributed quote calling it “a magical good time”. But it was also because the IMDb plot summary for the film read “Tara Reid brings her Oscar award-winning prowess to this documentary about a hedgehog that Dean Cain farted on giving it the ability to talk. It’s a fun-loving family movie that will for sure make you say “WOWZA. That’s a stinky fart!”’ That summary, incidentally, was attributed to Scott Baio.

Obviously, like the rest of the world, I desperately wanted to know the story behind Andy the Talking Hedgehog. Although we can rule out the summary as nothing more than internet high jinks, it would appear that the film is real. Back in November actress Maria Wasikowski tweeted a photo from the Andy the Talking Hedgehog set, alongside Dean Cain and, one month later, Tara Reid Instagrammed a shot of her character, Fairy BFF.

The production company listed on the film’s IMDb page is Be Your Own Hollywood. Alongside Andy the Talking Hedgehog, it has 10 movies in its filmography. These include Baby Bulldog (a film about a girl who wants a puppy, starring Dean Cain and Tara Reid), A Dog for Christmas (a film about a girl who wants a puppy, starring Dean Cain and Dustin Diamond), Amanda and the Fox (a film about a girl who wants a puppy, not starring Dean Cain), two different films about horses (only one of which stars Dean Cain) and A Parent’s Worst Nightmare (a drama about child sex trafficking, starring Dean Cain).

A Parent’s Worst Nightmare formed my way into the machinations of Be Your Own Hollywood. Some light Googling revealed both a trailer, introduced by footage of Dean Cain talking into his phone, and an Indiegogo page that successfully funded its $10,000 target, possibly because it offered the role of “Dean Cain’s wife” as a reward for donations.

The Indiegogo page was created by Joel Paul Reisig, the film’s director. And it would appear that Reisig is the mastermind behind Be Your Own Hollywood. He’s a 33-year-old self-taught Michigan native who writes, directs and produces an astonishing number of movies each year. He balances his film-making career with a series of $395 two-day seminars on how to write, produce, fund and distribute movies. These workshops might also double as a story-finding scheme, since in 2012 he produced a film called Mary’s Buttons, which was written by a seminar attendee.

According to IMDb, Reisig is also a boxer, a member of the Libertarian Party and he once scored 150 on an IQ test. He has not responded to requests for an interview.

Aside from puppies and Dean Cain, the Be Your Own Hollywood films all have one thing in common; they’re cheap genre movies churned out specifically to sell to cable channels and streaming services. They won’t win any awards, but they presumably make money and form reliable work for a number of actors who might otherwise struggle. They’re also produced in a very modern way – financed through crowdfunding, promoted through social media – that would have been unthinkable even a decade ago. Reisig saw an opening and went for it, and you can’t deny him that.

As for Andy the Talking Hedgehog, no release date has been announced. However, its spiritual cousin might be a real film that Reisig produced last year, entitled Arlo the Burping Pig. If the trailer is any indication, Arlo the Burping Pig is about a pig that can burp so hard that peoples’ hats fall off. If Andy the Talking Hedgehog is anything like Arlo the Burping Pig, you can pretty much count me in.