When you think of vampires, you probably think of damp, dark castles, crumbling ruins draped in faded European art and filled with plenty of dark corners for creatures of the night to hide in. It’s an image that many have come to associate not only with the monster itself, but with horror in general, the blueprint for all things spooky and Gothic. Everybody’s got their own idea of what they think of when they imagine a bloodsucker, and they all tend to be relatively similar.
But as horror grows as a genre and we’re exposed to more and more cultural variations on our favorite monsters, those ideas might start to change. Such is the idea with The Soucouyant, a brand-new short film that brings to life a Caribbean legend that completely flips not only the idea of a vampire on its head, but also the image of the Caribbean, with location filming in Antigua and Barbuda that showcases the tropical paradise in a brand new light.
To explore just what this means for the Lesser Antilles islands and their connection to horror, I flew down to Boca Raton, Florida for a whirlwind twenty-four hours, where we were treated to the premiere of The Soucouyant, featuring headbanging music from metal band Creepscience, a Q&A with the production team and the folks of Elite Island Resorts in Antigua and Barbuda, who helped make the film possible, and Caribbean-style seafood that I haven’t stopped thinking about since.
THE SOUCOUYANT (Credit: Elite Island Studios)
The Soucouyant is the first of its kind to be shot in Antigua, part black and white short film, part music video, about a band who shipwrecks on gorgeous shores, only to be terrorized by a beautiful demon. Shot on location in places like Fort Barrington Beach, Fort Berkeley, Falmouth Harbour, and Shirley Heights, the film brings to life a kind of vampire not often represented outside of the Caribbean, a legend that blends numerous cultures’ storytelling into a truly unsettling representation of death itself.
Referred to by many names across the region, the soucouyant (pronounced sue-key-aunt) is a mainstay figure of Caribbean folklore, a vampiric entity who appears as a reclusive old woman by day, only to strip off their skin in the night to become a beautiful woman. Able to transform into a fireball by way of black magic to fly through the night, the soucouyant prowls the darkness for victims, entering their homes through cracks and keyholes, leaving no one safe from their terror.
Believed by some to have been the result of French vampire myths intermingling with those of Caribbean locals and enslaved Africans, the soucouyant is the perfect vehicle to show audiences just how diverse and fascinating the Caribbean is. While most probably associate the region with sun, sand, and summer vacation, Elite Island Resorts’ Larry Basham says that the folk figure is the perfect way to shine a light on lesser-known aspects of the island, including its rich cultural history and unique landscapes.
THE SOUCOUYANT (Credit: Elite Island Studios)
“There’s an old saying: if you want to lose your audience really quickly, show them something they’ve already seen a million times,” he told me. “If we go and show off beaches and piña coladas and sun loungers, it’s a big yawn…people know that the islands have these things already. We’re already getting the reality shows, we’re already getting, you know, Tom Cruise in Cocktail, so what are we missing? And that’s the void we’re trying to fill with [The Soucouyant.]”
Basham is also a huge horror fan — when we met, he told me about going to the corner store as a kid to buy the newest FANGORIA every week — so digging into the folklore of the area for something spooky to highlight was an easy choice, as was the choice to highlight Creepscience, a local Florida band with a vibe “somewhere between Metallica and Bauhaus,” as he describes them.
With influences ranging from the aforementioned rock bands to mainstream weirdos like Adam Ant and David Bowie, they were the perfect soundtrack to the eerie legend of the Caribbean’s vampire spirits, with their goth-metal sound helping reimagine Antigua’s image as not just a tropical escape, but also an unlikely stage for dark and artistic storytelling as horror continues its meteoric rise at the box office.
“I really hope that somebody comes along and sees this soucouyant concept and says, ‘we should do a feature film,’” Basham says. “So really, this is bait that we’re putting out there, trying to lure all kinds of productions down to the area.”
THE SOUCOUYANT (Credit: Elite Island Studios)
But it’s not just the music that illuminates Antigua in a different light. The piece that completed the puzzle was director Michael Garcia, a Miami-based filmmaker whose work includes music videos for Busta Rhymes, Jason Derulo, and Machine Gun Kelly, the latter of which won him a VMA Award in 2020. Garcia took inspiration from both the original Nosferatu and Robert Eggers’ recent remake for the look of the short film, as well as Eggers’ 2017 psychological masterpiece The Lighthouse, shot in a similar black-and-white film noir style.
“I had been to Antigua already a couple of times, and I realized it was an untapped, gorgeous location,” he said, “and when they said they wanted to do something horror based, with all these ancient ruins, I was like, oh my God, this has never been done! And on top of that, black and white film noir was right up my alley, so that was a quick way to get me.”
Antigua is, he reveals, also a great location for all kinds of filmmaking, as a place not only filled with everything from ruins and villages to rugged shores and rainforests, but with significant technical advantages, including no permit or work fees, duty-free equipment imports, and skilled local labor and artisans who want their home to be showcased for everything it is:
“I like to feel connected with people, and the people there are really welcoming, and they want you to shoot there, and they want you to showcase the island. So for me, I felt very free…just going there was very supportive, and it was a wonderful relationship.”
The full experience of The Soucouyant is available to watch now. Check it out down below:
