At 17, I was a horny, fledgling artist with Kurt Cobain-bleached hair, filling my journal with frantic drawings and rambling thoughts: When the hell will I finally hook up for the first time? At the same time, one of my closest friends introduced me to the Ouija board and a spirit named Chris, who had the power to give people trippy, sexy dreams... or terrible nightmares. I quickly began talking to Chris alone and learned he was gay and had taken his own life. We were two sad teenagers. Chris became my confidant, the only one who knew that I was still a virgin.
Then I finally met a boy, and we hooked up, lust leading the way. I expected to wake up on the most supreme high. Instead, I was shaking with fear and wondering: What did I do? What did I expose myself to? Who was this person I had just swapped bodily fluids with? Am I going to die from AIDS? I was uneducated. The lies and misinformation of my Catholic upbringing took hold. The boy I was with wanted to see me again, but I was spiraling, so I turned to Chris to break us up.
What makes this film unique is that it captures a specific moment in queer history that is largely unknown to the newest generation of queer people: a time when every act of intimacy, even a kiss, felt dangerous. Politicians and leaders turned their backs and let millions around the world die. This fear shaped how my generation experienced desire, turning it into a threat.
THE GHOST AT SKELETON ROCK isn’t a historical drama. It’s a fleeting, strange, supernatural love triangle set against the backdrop of an unaccepting world. Queer history is always under threat of erasure and revision, and we’re seeing the same rhetoric and repression on the rise again. As a filmmaker, I want to make sure our stories are preserved.
FEATURE VERSION | PSEUDO-REALISTIC MONSTERS
This short film is a proof of concept for a feature, Pseudo-Realistic Monsters, that delves into Chris’s backstory and follows Vinny, a former altar boy and supreme teenage misfit in his suburban hellhole. The screenplay is complete! If you’d like to read it, drop me a line!