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Key of Bones: Curse of the Ghost Pirate needed a drag queen to get possessed by a pirate ghost in a Key West nightclub. They found one suprisingly easily. She had been working at that nightclub since 2008. That is either a very lucky casting choice or the universe doing its job.

Jessica T Deveraux is not a newcomer to any room she walks into. She has been competing in drag pageants across multiple states since she was 14. She held the title of Queen Mother XXXV, one of the most respected titles in the Florida Keys. She has been a resident headliner at Aqua Nightclub since 2008.

“When the opportunity came up, I was super excited, but also super nervous,” Deveraux said. “I was excited because it was something I’d always wanted to do. And nervous because I had never done it before. I had no idea what to expect.”

She said yes anyway. The film now exists.

What the Film Actually Is

Key of Bones: Curse of the Ghost Pirate is a horror-comedy written and directed by Tony Armer, shot entirely in Key West. The plot follows a local waitress, a ghost tour guide, and a tourist who accidentally awaken a curse connected to the legendary pirate Anne Bonny. What follows involves drag queens, lesbian pirate ghosts, and cursed treasure, which is either an accurate description of any given Saturday in Key West or the most efficient logline of the year.

Armer pitched it as Shaun of the Dead meets Goonies meets Pirates of the Caribbean. Deveraux confirmed that is the pitch she received. She also confirmed it did not fully prepare her. “As much as you think you’re prepared for that,” she said, “until you actually walk on set and see what’s happening, or watch the movie and see what’s happening, anything you might have prepared goes out the window and you just have to feed off the energy of the moment.”

Desiree

The character is Desiree, a drag queen who gets possessed midway through the film by one of the pirate ghosts and spends a substantial chunk of screen time fighting herself. “Desiree is kind of a take-charge drag queen who gets possessed and loses her own faculties and is now controlled by a ghost pirate,” Deveraux said. “So there’s this inner struggle with her having to follow orders while still trying to be the fierce queen that she is.”

The scene where Desiree first encounters Anne, the pirate ghost, was filmed at Aqua Nightclub. The bar where Deveraux has performed every week for going on eighteen years. “One of the most exciting scenes was when Desiree first meets Anne. That scene was filmed at the bar that I work at, Aqua Nightclub. So that was really cool to see my home bar become the set.”

The Chaos Was Organized

Deveraux describes the set with real fondness. “You’d have people over here rehearsing stunts, people over here getting their makeup done, people over there shooting an actual scene, while other people were at craft services. But everybody was so professional that it all ran very smoothly.”

There were exceptions. Night shoots in Key West require quiet. Key West is structurally opposed to quiet. “One of the most chaotic moments was when we were trying to film at night and we needed quiet on the set, and you had two different bars in the area playing different songs very loudly.” Two bars. Two songs. Simultaneously. The city did not pause production to cooperate with production.

She also arrived without knowing about hurry-up-and-wait, which is the specific misery of film sets where you spend long stretches fully ready while nothing happens. Deveraux was in full drag during these stretches. “When you’re in full drag in five pairs of tights and wearing a body form, that can become very uncomfortable. But that’s the nature of the beast, and I’ll know what to expect in the future.”

There is also something film does that a stage never does, it withholds the response. “When you perform for a live crowd, you know if they’re enjoying what you’ve done or not enjoying what you’ve done almost instantaneously, and you can feed off of that energy to heighten the experience. In film, you don’t really know. You have to wait months to find out if the audience actually enjoys the performance.”

The Eighteen-Year Overnight

Jessica T Deveraux started performing at 14. A performing arts high school, an LGBT youth center down the road, and a drag pageant that needed entrants. She entered with help from some of the more seasoned queens around her. She won. She kept going.

Fifteen-plus years of pageant competition across multiple states. What do people on the outside not understand about that world? “To be successful in pageants, you need to have discipline, you need to have drive, you need to have desire, and you need to know who you are. It also helps if you have some money.” She laughed. “Pageants can be expensive. But they can be so rewarding, and they truly help you grow not just as an entertainer but as a person.”

The Aqua residency has now run for going on eighteen years. That is an unusual thing in an industry that usually offers neither consistency nor loyalty. “I am so blessed to have been given this opportunity to work at Aqua Nightclub. It is very nice to have a consistent weekly gig for going on eighteen years, and I know that I’m very lucky and grateful for all of the love, work, and family that I have because of it.”

As Queen Mother XXXV, she produced a runway competition benefiting the Visiting Nurse Association and Hospice of the Florida Keys. “Not only was it one of the most respected titles in Key West, but it also allowed me the chance to give back.”

The Kinship

Drag and horror share a history. Camp, transformation, the performance of something larger and stranger than ordinary life. Both traditions have been running these ideas in parallel for decades. Deveraux came to Key of Bones from the drag side, and while talking about that overlap she surfaced something she had not put together before: one of her all-time favorite movies, a film she has always loved to quote, is The Craft. The horror-drag kinship had been living in her personal canon the whole time.

“There is definitely a kinship between the two worlds,” she said. “However, as someone who is new to the horror scene and not knowing what to expect, I did feel an ease being able to go into it having had the drag experience.”

“Drag queens are some of the strongest people, and we’ve been here since day one and we’re not going anywhere. Drag queens are community leaders. We will be there to help support our community and any community that asks us.”

Both horror audiences and drag audiences built themselves around things the mainstream spent decades looking at sideways. They know each other.

What Comes Next

Deveraux was asked if Key of Bones was a one-time thing or the beginning of something. “I would definitely love to do more film or television. This is definitely not a one and done thing for me. And my inbox is open, casting directors. Please message me.”

She was also asked whether she would take a straight horror role. No camp. No comedy. Just terror. “I would definitely take it. However, I would have to do some research on how to play it straight.” Then: “After the amount of fun I had on set for Key of Bones, I can only imagine what running in terror versus sashaying in terror would be like.”

“I want people to see my range as a performer. That I can act as well as dance. To see someone who loves and has passion in all that they do.”

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There are certain parts of the world that have an inherent evil or cursed nature to them. The Bermuda Triangle, where so many ships have vanished in its waters. Death Valley, where many have met their end in the unforgiving desert. And then there’s The Pine Barrens of New Jersey. A woodland infamous for the cryptid named The Jersey Devil.

While The Jersey Devil may be the mascot or face of sorts for the area, there are other dangers within those woods. Specifically, an area known as Pine Hollow. Infamous for numerous disappearances of local and hikers. While some attribute it to natural hazards, others say the source of these incidents may be tied to folklore. An ancient mimic of indigenous legend that targets those wandering its woods. After a trio of hikers disappear and leaves only one shell shocked survivor and witness wandering the wilderness, a documentary crew attempts to clarify between fact and fiction… only to find themselves subject to their own torments.

Creature Of The Pines is a decent found footage/mockumentary endeavor, and I’m always a sucker for that kind of framing. I will also give points for taking an original approach on the region rather than using a more well known cryptid or monster. Instead, crafting their own beast with the shapeshifting demon of indigenous lore. It did make it more interesting than relying on a more infamous antagonist, allowing the movie to make up its own rules and history behind the titular creature.

Unfortunately, the story does fall into a lot of the cliches of the sub-genre as well. Lots of scenes building up strange sounds coming form the woods leading to some shaky cam segments as a character is dragged off by an unseen force and such. The talking heads portions of the mockumentary featured some decent actors and subjects that kept things fairly fresh. Especially the former forest ranger who discussed the dark and terrible history of Pine Hollow.

Even still, the third act was kind of a mixed bag with the final confrontation and reveal of the horror. Ambiguity tends to work better in found footage for a reason, sometimes its better to leave the evil up to the imagination. There’s also a twist to the ending that felt a bit obvious considering the build up.

But, if you’re a big fan of found footage and mockumentary horror like I am, (especially for New England based horror) then Creature Of The Pines is worth at least a watch.

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The Trailer: Come for Dinner, Stay Possessed

Let me tell you something right away.

If someone invites you to a secluded house after a traumatic loss and says, “the whole family will be there,” you politely decline. You fake a work emergency. You suddenly develop a mysterious illness. You do not go.

Because Evil Dead Burn takes that exact setup and drags it straight into hell.

The newly released trailer wastes no time setting the tone. A grieving woman reconnects with her in-laws after her husband’s death, which already feels like an emotional powder keg. Then the Deadites show up, because of course they do, and suddenly this becomes the kind of reunion where no one is leaving in one piece.

The footage leans hard into chaos. Possessions hit fast. Bodies start moving in ways they absolutely should not. At one point, it looks like the house itself has decided it is done being neutral and would like to join the violence.

Honestly, fair.

A Franchise That Refuses to Stay Dead

Before we get too comfortable in this new nightmare, it is worth remembering how we got here.

The Evil Dead franchise started in 1981 with Sam Raimi’s The Evil Dead, a film that basically rewired low-budget horror forever. A cabin in the woods, a mysterious book, and a group of people making increasingly bad decisions. Simple. Effective. Traumatizing.

Then things escalated.

Evil Dead II took that formula and injected it with manic energy and dark humor. Army of Darkness went completely off the rails in the best way possible, giving us medieval skeleton armies and one-liners that still live rent free in horror fans’ brains.

The 2013 remake stripped things back down and went brutally serious, pushing the violence to a level that made audiences physically uncomfortable. Then Evil Dead Rise moved the horror into a cramped apartment building and somehow made a cheese grater one of the most upsetting objects in cinema.

Now we have Burn, and somehow this franchise is still finding new ways to make us regret ever trusting a book.

This Time, the Horror Is Personal

The series has always thrived on isolation. Remote cabins. Locked apartments. Nowhere to run. But this time, the isolation is emotional as much as it is physical.

You are not trapped with strangers.

You are trapped with people you know. People you love. People you have history with.

And then they start trying to kill you.

There is something especially cruel about that setup. The horror is not just survival. It is recognition. It is seeing someone you care about twisted into something else entirely and realizing you might have to be the one who stops them.

The trailer hints at nonstop escalation. Characters are already bloodied early on, which is never a great sign. The violence looks relentless. The Deadites look meaner, faster, and somehow more personal.

So if you thought Evil Dead Rise pushed things far enough, this one looks ready to go further.

Why This Franchise Still Works

At this point, we all know the formula.

Someone finds the book. Someone reads the book. Everything goes horribly wrong.

And yet it still works.

The reason is simple. Every entry finds something human to anchor the horror. In Burn, that anchor is grief.

A woman dealing with loss walks into a house full of people connected to that loss. The past is already sitting heavy in the room before anything supernatural even happens. Then the Deadites take that grief and turn it into something physical. Something violent. Something that refuses to stay buried.

That is where Evil Dead always thrives. Not just in the blood or the chaos, but in the way it twists real emotions into something monstrous.

Final Thought: Maybe Skip Family Reunions

Director Sébastien Vaniček has made it clear he wants this film to feel intense and physically draining. And based on what we have seen so far, that tracks.

This is not comfort horror. This is the kind that grabs you, shakes you, and leaves you sitting in your car afterward wondering if you are okay.

You probably are.

You just might not feel like it for a while.

If there is one takeaway from Evil Dead Burn, it is this.

If your family starts acting strange, it is already too late.