Key of Bones: Curse of the Ghost Pirate is coming home for its premiere. The horror-comedy, shot entirely on location in Key West, holds its Key West Premiere Weekend October 2–3 at the Tennessee Williams Theatre, then heads up the coast for a one-night special screening in Tampa on Tuesday, October 6, at the University of Tampa’s Charlene A. Gordon Theater in the Ferman Center for the Arts. Tickets for both are on sale now.
Written and directed by Tony Armer, the film follows a Key West waitress, a ghost tour guide and an unlucky tourist who wake the vengeful ghost of the pirate Anne Bonny. Armer has described the film in interviews as Shaun of the Dead meets The Goonies meets Pirates of the Caribbean. A premiere with a pirate sea battle on the schedule is the right way to launch that movie.
Friday: Red Carpet, Q&A and a Half Shell After Party
Opening night is the full premiere treatment. The cast and filmmakers walk the red carpet before the first screening, then stay afterward to answer questions. The night ends at one of the island’s best-known waterfront bars.
- 6:30–8:00 PM — Red carpet at the Tennessee Williams Theatre
- 8:00 PM — Screening of Key of Bones: Curse of the Ghost Pirate
- 9:30 PM — Cast and filmmaker Q&A
- 10:00 PM — Official after party at Half Shell Raw Bar
Saturday: A Tall Ship Sea Battle and a Pirate Party
Day two leans all the way into the film’s pirate spirit. It starts on the water with a Tall Ship Pirate Sea Battle between the Jolly II Rover and the Spirit of Independence, followed by a second screening and Q&A. It closes with the Key of Bones Pirate Party at Schooner Wharf Bar on the historic seaport.
- 1:00–2:30 PM — Tall Ship Pirate Sea Battle between the Jolly II Rover and Spirit of Independence
- 4:00 PM — Screening at the Tennessee Williams Theatre
- 5:30 PM — Q&A
- 7:00 PM — Key of Bones Pirate Party at Schooner Wharf Bar
Tickets for the Key West Premiere Weekend are available at KeysTix.
Real Key West Legends, Woven Into the Story
Part of the fun of seeing Key of Bones on the island is spotting the local history. The pirate ghost story is invented, but locals will recognize a few real Key West legends woven into it. The island’s folklore grew out of storms, shipwrecks and a lot of documented death, and we went through its best-known legends in The True Horror Legends of Key West.
Anne Bonny and Mary Read were real. The two sailed with Calico Jack Rackham in the Caribbean and were captured together in 1720, and they remain two of the most documented women in the history of piracy. In the film, Melissa Chick plays Anne’s vengeful ghost, and Gina Vitori plays Mary, a waitress who learns she is descended from Mary Read. For more on why pirate treasure is one thing you should never take home, read The Real Curse of Pirate Gold.
Barbara Mabrity is real too. She kept the Key West Lighthouse for decades after her husband died of yellow fever in 1832. When the Great Havana Hurricane hit in October 1846, the tower collapsed. Mabrity escaped with one of her children, and her other children sheltering inside did not survive. The lighthouse was rebuilt, and visitors have told stories ever since of a woman climbing its stairs who vanishes before the top. In Key of Bones, Kitty Clements plays her ghost as one of the island’s oldest protectors, facing off against Anne Bonny.
The film’s locations carry their own ghost stories too. Chad Newman plays Dave, a ghost tour operator, and his tours run out of a real haunted building: the Alex Vega Key West Firehouse Museum. The museum sits in the island’s old Fire Station No. 3, which served Key West from 1907 to 1998. Today it hosts haunted tours and paranormal investigations and is billed as “America’s Most Haunted Firehouse,” with visitors reporting apparitions and strange activity inside.
Locals will also recognize the setting when Anne Bonny and her ghostly crew close in on Mary and Christie. That scene was shot at Fort East Martello Museum, a brick fort the U.S. Army began building in 1862 to defend Key West during the Civil War. It is best known now as the home of Robert the Doll, the island’s most notorious haunted object, who still gets letters of apology from visitors convinced he cursed them.
Dave’s big exposition scene has a fitting backdrop too. The moment where he takes a closer look at Mary’s cursed coin and explains the legend of Anne Bonny’s ghost was filmed at the Key West Shipwreck Treasure Museum, which ghost hunters know as a stop on the island’s Ghosts & Gravestones tour. After dark, the tour leads visitors down into the museum’s old cistern and past a silver bar said to be cursed, recovered from a 1656 shipwreck. A cursed coin explained a few steps from a cursed silver bar is a nice bit of symmetry.
The scene where Anne Bonny first finds Desiree, played by Benjamin Healy as drag performer Jessica T. Deveraux, was shot at Aqua Nightclub, where Deveraux has headlined since 2008. She told iHorror about getting possessed at her own bar.
Who Is in ‘Key of Bones’
The film stars Gina Vitori, Melissa Chick (Landman, Lioness), Jeremy King (Scare Package, Bad Monkey), Chad Newman, Benjamin Healy, Ty Spann, Kitty Clements and Vincent De Paul. Cinematography is by Brandon D. Hyde. The production shot entirely in Key West starting in January 2026 and screened at the Fantastic Pavilion Gala during the Marché du Film at Cannes in May.
After the premiere weekend, Key of Bones: Curse of the Ghost Pirate comes to digital on November 10 on Vimeo. For full event details, visit KeyOfBonesMovie.com.
