At the height of the AIDS crisis in 1992, 18-year-old VINNY is reeling after hooking up with another boy, a goth from the city named GABE, for the first time. In the tiny enclave of Callicoon, New York, his only confidant is CHRIS, a ghost he's been secretly communicating with through a handmade Ouija board. Consumed by fear over his first sexual encounter, Vinny brings Gabe beneath the ruins of a crumbling bridge to summon Chris. Gabe quickly discovers Chris isn't just a figment of Vinny's imagination, he's a jealous ghost with the power to twist reality into nightmares.
BOBBY ABATE (Brooklyn, NY) is a queer artist, filmmaker, and editor whose work has been showcased at the MoMA, The New York Film Festival, the Guggenheim in Bilbao, and the San Francisco Cinematheque. Critics celebrated their first feature, Certain Women, co-directed with Peggy Ahwesh; and the MoMA called the film “as sustained and as successful as Todd Haynes’ acclaimed Far From Heaven” with an “almost opposite approach.” Film Comment Magazine named Bobby one of the top 25 emerging filmmakers for the 21st century. They were also the recipient of the Princess Grace Award, the DVAA fellowship, and Leighton International Artist Exchange Grant. A member of the Television Academy, Bobby served as editor for seasons 3 and 4 of the Queer docuseries “We’re Here” on HBO, which recently won a Peabody Award. Additionally, they create animations for renowned drag performer Sasha Velour. They have a master’s in filmmaking from Bard College and a certificate in screenwriting from the Binger Institute in Amsterdam.
This is a fictional story, but it’s haunted by real memories: frantic drawings, rambling journal entries, obsession, and horniness. It’s a coming-of-age thriller about shame, desire, and what happens when a ghost story turns out to be true.
What makes this film unique is that it captures a specific moment in Queer history that’s largely unknown to younger generations, the moment when every act of intimacy, even a kiss, could feel dangerous. The specter of AIDS was everywhere, and so was the misinformation. You could catch it from a toothbrush. From sweat. From looking too long. That kind of fear shaped how an entire generation experienced desire, not as freedom, but as threat. That moment defined how many of us learned to cope and survive. That’s the energy I wanted to bring to this film.
This history is vanishing, even as we see the same rhetoric and repression rising again. THE GHOST AT SKELETON ROCK is about keeping that memory alive and sharing stories so we don’t repeat the same silences.
Made with support from the Princess Grace Foundation and a community of backers who understand what’s at stake, this project turns that haunted past into something beautiful, unnerving, and real. This is the film I needed when I was 15. I made it for anyone who’s ever felt invisible, or worse, cursed.