Coming This Halloween: A Gothic Surf Thriller Starring Jaleesa Vincent, Frankie Harrer, Kobe Hughes, And Caity Simmers

Vampires feed on blood, fear, and desire. Throughout history, the fantasy has revealed the many faces of human anxiety.

In ancient Greece and Rome, an owl-like demon called a “Strix, rumored to drink the blood of infants, became legend during a child mortality epidemic.

When people believed disease spread through the dead, medieval folklore invented the “Revenant,” a bloated corpse that rose from its grave to snack on whoever gave it an improper burial.

In the Victorian era, the upper class feared female desire and forbade it in writing. So, in 1872, the idea became a monster. “Carmilla,” a lesbian seductress with fangs, predates “Dracula” by 25 years.

More recently, “Nosferatu,” a retelling of “Dracula” starring Lily-Rose Depp, hit theatres to glowing reviews of its 19th-century atmosphere. However, the psychosexual scenes carry the contemporary themes from “The Idol” or “Euphoria.”

Now, the vampire has entered our world, from surf fantasy’s leading  (and only) director, writer, producer, star, and editor:  Jaleesa Vincent.

So, what exactly does a vampire film say about surf culture?

The theatrical release, from surfing’s most beloved fringe duo (Jaleesa Vincent and  Luka Raubenheimer), is soaked in the DNA of the 28-year-old from the Sunshine Coast. And, according to Caity Simmers, it’s something surf culture needs much more of:  Individuals.

Here’s Jaleesa’s synopsis of the 45-minute film:

Three immortal vampire girls (played by Caity Simmers, Frankie Harrer and Jaleesa) spend centuries surfing beneath the moon. One day, their fate changes when they discover sun protection, leave the shadows and become legends among the mortals. But the return of the Blood Moon calls them to Coffin Bay, guarded by Count Kobo (Kobe Hughes), where an ancient prophecy and a powerful evil decide their future.

About a year ago, Caity showed me the pages of Jaleesa’s brief, written in Old English, which she was studying before she headed to Malibu to start production.

Jaleesa had given her two lines, but the shot list was one of the most ambitious I’d ever seen in surfing, with drawn-out scenes, set locations, a booked recording studio, and potential dates for a surf trip.

The first dispatch I received came from a trailer in Malibu, during a jam session where drums pounded and Cabs poured.

“Did you do any acting or just drink blood all day?” I joked.

As it turns out, in just eight hours, the crew filmed a country-western showdown, memorized a rap song with lines like “kooks’ blood tastes better, so it’s you we’re gonna slay,” and was contemplated herping for rattlesnakes into the night.

Six months later, I picked up a FaceTime call from Puerto Rico to see Luca holding an iguana as blood dripped down his arm.

Last week, I asked Jaleesa to connect the dots on the other locations. Off the top of her head, she listed Malibu, Encinitas, Puerto Rico, the mountains of Spain, the Uluwatu surf villas and G-Land.

To fully understand the feat, I rang her. Here’s my conversation with Jaleesa before the big release.

CORAL: Where did the vampire idea come from? What sparked it?

JALEESA: Sunbum approached Luca and me to make a fantasy surf film with similar vibes to Juju the Musical. We’d only just finished Juju and another film, Snakes and Surf Breaks, and we were exhausted, thinking, “We can’t do any more.” But then our brains started ticking and we started thinking about different fantasy characters: witches, zombies. Then we thought of a vampire and went, “Holy shit, that idea is too good. We have to make it.” The idea that vampires couldn’t surf in daylight until sunscreen was invented seemed like the perfect opportunity to make a fantasy film for Sun Bum. We got hooked and it grew from there.

So often you see product integration in a film, but you actually used the product to drive the plot. I’ve almost never seen that. Who thought of that?

It came straight away when we thought of vampires. In Twilight they sparkle, but in most other vampire films they burst into flames in the sun. So it was just there: boom, they can wear sunscreen and go in the sun. Obviously there are a lot of plot holes, but it’s still just a fantasy surf movie. It doesn’t have to be too serious. Luca and I were probably on the back balcony having a coffee, and it was just a spiral of ideas. Then we had to come up with a storyline with adventure that took the characters to different places, and that part took a while. We probably wrote the script five different times and finalized it just before going to America to film with the girls. We were working on scripts for nearly a year before we started filming.

I’ve been reading about vampire folklore, and it dates back so far. Your film is set in 1563 — but the feel is more Victorian Gothic romance. Was there a specific era or film you drew from?

Not really eras. We watched pretty much every vampire movie, though we’d already written the script. Honestly it was a great excuse to watch vampire movies, because Luca always chooses what we watch and I got to say, “Let’s watch every single vampire movie that exists.” I’ve always loved vampires. I was obsessed with Twilight and Vampire Diaries when I was younger, and I love Nosferatu and all the different eras. But the biggest inspiration is probably What We Do in the Shadows, the modern funny one from Taika Waititi and Jemaine Clement. Ours isn’t as funny, but I love how they intertwine mortal people with immortal people. The word “vampire” and “surf” just should not be put together, so it’s already such a crazy, silly idea. But why not?

It took about a year to write. Did Sun Bum read the script, or did they just trust you?

We sent them the script and every updated version, because it kept changing, and I don’t know if anyone actually read it. They’d say, “Yep, sounds great.” I think they trusted us more than anything. Maybe they thought the script was outrageous and were just intrigued to see if we could pull it off. Looking back, the script was so crazy I can’t believe we made it. We threw ourselves in the deep end for sure.

Did you study old language for the dialogue and narration?

I’d write lines for Count Kobo to say, then work out how they’d be said in Old English. Some of it might be wrong, but you still get the gist. I definitely wouldn’t know if it were wrong.

Having surfers act out scenes can be catastrophically cringe. They’re so difficult to pull off. I remember reading Caity’s script and seeing a few intentional lines with a ton of context and narration to fill the gaps. How did you pick the stars and pull off the delivery?

We wanted to use surfers sponsored by Sun Bum, but aside from that, this would have been my dream cast anyway. Caity is definitely my favorite surfer. Frankie has been my favorite surfer and friend for a long time. And I’d been hanging out with Kobo a lot and I love the way he surfs and the vibes he brings to the surfing community. It’s a coincidence they’re all Sun Bum riders; it just fell into place. They weren’t the easiest crew to work with: Caity’s on tour most of the year and Frankie has two children. Everyone put in so much effort. A big shout-out to the girls and Kobo for fully committing. They read the script and were probably like, “What the fuck?” and felt very vulnerable, trusting us to make them not look super silly. I know that feeling: doing something that feels embarrassing and just going, “Fuck it.”

How did you pitch it to them? It must have been a funny phone call.

I can’t really remember. Caity had mentioned she loved Juju the Musical, and I thought, ‘Hopefully Caity can be in the next fantasy film.’ Same with Frankie: my two favorites, such a good girl gang. I think I just hit them up, I can’t remember how, and they both said yes. It was quite vague at first. Then we sent the complete itinerary and the script, and I think they thought, “Oh wow, this is bonkers.” But I got there in the end.

Kobo is a pretty unlikely villain. He’s the nicest person. How did you get him into a villain mindset?

It was actually so hard! The takes in the film are the only ones where he wasn’t smiling and goofing around. I don’t want to give the story away too much, but we’re aiming to kill him off. He’s the happiest, funniest person alive, so it was very difficult to make him look evil. We made him do the take so many times: “Try again, try again.” Eventually he realized, “Okay, I’m actually going to have to take this seriously or we’ll be here forever,” and he got into character. I felt bad, but later in the film we give him a chance to show his true nature.

How did Caity and Frankie take to acting? Any advice you gave them?

Caity channeled Wednesday Addams, which was a great character to channel. In the movie, she’s a cheeky, fun version of that. Frankie is very blasé and nonchalant, and nailed it. None of us are proper actors, but seeing how well Frankie could act, I wish I’d given her more lines. There’s a really good actor in there. She nailed it. in the rap scene in the middle of the film, when the secret’s out, one of her lines is, “Don’t get Frankie cranky, because she’s nasty and you’re tasty.” She’s this deadpan badass vampire: don’t fuck with Frankie.

Can you walk me through the production timeline? I know you shot in Malibu and Encinitas, and Puerto Rico.

When Luca and I finished the script, I had to go to Europe for a shaping residency for Pussy Surfboards. Luka and I were driving around the Pyrenees when we spotted this incredible old castle ruin up on a hill. We thought it looked so cool and decided to try and check it out. After about an hour and a half of walking uphill, we finally made it and were like, OMG, we HAVE to film some vampire scenes here!

So we walked all the way back down, grabbed our camera gear, vampire outfits, pillows, some cheese and wine, and hiked all the way back up again.

We spent the night filming vampire scenes and then made a fire. We wanted to sleep outside, but it started raining, so we had to go into the church. It felt pretty spooky, but somehow we managed to fall asleep. I kept hearing what sounded like women’s voices murmuring outside. Eventually, I woke up, thinking I must have been dreaming, but when I looked out the window, there were literally about 1000 goats surrounding the castle, making the strangest noises that sounded nothing like goats at all.

I used my phone torch to see what was going on, and all their eyes reflected back at me. For a few seconds, I genuinely thought it was a crowd of people surrounding the old church, holding lit candles and praying. It was soooo spooky! I woke the others up to show them, and somehow we all managed to go back to sleep. When we woke up in the morning, every single goat had disappeared.

It also happened to be Luka’s 30th birthday that morning, and waking up in this beautiful old ruin was magical.

Then we went to America and filmed a lot in LA, on some movie sets and in Encinitas. We also shot green screen, and I’m so lucky we did, because there were so many scenes where we thought, “Damn, we need this and we don’t have the girls,” and then we could add them into the castle shots from Europe or into other scenes. There are scenes where it was just me in the real-life moment and we added Frankie and Caity later. Then we went to Puerto Rico to film surfing and got some amazing barrels of Caity and Kobo. It was scary waves. After that, Frankie, Kobo, Milla and I went to the Mentawais to a surf camp and got heaps of amazing waves for the film. It was lucky that we filmed all the acting first and then had to get the surfing. I was feeling the pressure: I was so stoked on all the acting scenes, and I thought, “Now we have to get surfing that equals how good the acting was.” I was shitting myself, but everything fell into place and everyone got good waves.

How did you pull off the sets? There’s the private jet scene, Caity levitating, and the cowboy scene with the tap dance at the end. Where were they filmed, and how big was your crew?

It was all pretty wild. Luca and I hadn’t been to America much, so we didn’t know our way around or where to shoot. We knew what we wanted to achieve but not how. We got there about a month before production to location scout and buy props and outfits. I was thrift shopping every day buying awesome dresses. It was just before Halloween, so there were heaps of cool spooky props, skulls and tombstones, everywhere. But we were getting closer to production and still had nowhere to shoot. Then Frankie knew an app where you can hire film set studios that are already dressed. We filmed a lot of the Gothic scenes in those, added a few props, and it was ready to go. I wish we’d known earlier. There was also the saloon scene, where we eat the cowboys, at our friend’s house in Malibu. He owns an old saloon that they use for movie sets and music videos. We pretty much improvised that scene, because it wasn’t in the script.

The private jet was another rentable Hollywood set, hired by the hour and really cheap. It was like $40 an hour, so we thought, we may as well add a private jet scene. That was spontaneous too, but it tied the story together pretty well. If you can get the vampire girls in a private jet for 40 bucks an hour, do it. We didn’t even know what we were doing at first.

How did you get those Coffin Bay shots?

Towards the very end, Luca and I still didn’t know where Coffin Bay was or what it looked like. We couldn’t believe we were nearly finished the movie and still didn’t have it. We tried filming landscapes around home, but they all looked average compared to how much effort we’d put into everything else. So we made a miniature set in an oven baking tray. Coffin Bay is just in the oven tray. We couldn’t believe how well it worked, considering we’d never done that kind of thing before. A few other mini sets too: the coffin clock is only the size of my hand. We also built a coffin for the opening scene, where my coffin surfboard fits inside, so we were doing some woodwork. We learned a lot. It was so much fun.

What was the toughest scene to shoot?

JALEESA: Probably the Coffin Bay showdown. It was windy, so the audio was pretty bad, and by this point everyone was over it and wanted to go home. But it’s also one of the most important scenes, so it was hard pushing everyone to stay with us to the end. We were having really long days acting and everything took longer than we’d imagined, so we asked a lot of Caity, Kobo and Frankie. Everyone smashed it, though. Ideally we’d have loved a bit more time, but in the edit you can make magic happen.

You’re the writer, director, producer, talent and editor. I’ve learned a lot of producing is just keeping the talent’s energy levels high. I can’t imagine doing that while also acting in front of the camera.

JALEESA: It was overwhelming. I’m acting my scenes, trying to push down my anxiety about getting the space and not going overtime so we don’t have to pay more, and then straight after it’s, “Okay, who wants coffee? Who wants food?” We were so lucky to have Evan Adams helping. He was so passionate and had a great eye, and he and Luca worked so well together. He really helped the LA scenes look as beautiful as they do.

I really loved the rap, especially the line about kook’s blood tasting better. Did you and Luca write the whole song?

I wrote the whole rap song and directed and edited all the rap scenes. It was a last-minute idea. All these lines kept popping into my head and I thought, “I’ve got to make a rap song, they’re too good.” We already had so much on our plate, so Luca focused on the special effects and in-camera tricks. He’s amazing at those: he practiced in the backyard making me look like a fly, where all I do is jump in the air and land somewhere else, and somehow he made it look real. I focused on the rap video. I actually still have to re-edit it today because somehow it’s all out of sync again.

Did you bring Caity and Frankie to a studio to record?

They learned the rap, recorded it and filmed the cowboys scene all on the same day. Huge days, and they just smashed it.

Caity was so excited to do it. One of her goals is to record more of her own music for her films.

Hopefully I showed her how that’s done.

Any funny interactions with the public while filming?

The funniest was in Puerto Rico, when we were all surfing with fangs in our mouths. People would say, “Oh, are you getting a couple?” and you’d go, “Yeah!” and then they’d see your fangs and not know what to say. Some people asked why we were wearing fangs and I’d say we were making a vampire surf movie, and they’d go, “Interesting.” I also didn’t realize how much attention Caity draws. In Puerto Rico people constantly came up wanting photos, and sometimes she’d be in a vampire outfit and fangs, and they’d be totally confused. I’d think, “Perfect. Maybe one day you’ll understand.”

Was the Kobo-Caity surf-off always in the script, or did it depend on conditions? And why Caity?

It was always written in, but it also depended on the conditions. We chose Caity because she’s such an amazing surfer, and I didn’t want the pressure of having to get an amazing barrel myself. The whole point of Coffin Bay is that it’s any wave you desire, so we wrote it that way to make it easier. For me, I can surf a two-foot wave and do laybacks, and I’m happy, so that’s my Coffin Bay. For Caity, maybe barrels and some airs. We didn’t know what we’d get, and by coincidence it went pretty much exactly to the script, which was crazy and a bit scary, because Caity put herself in some crazy scenarios. The waves were terrifying and she was so brave. We listened to Black Sabbath every morning to get hyped up to go surf them.

This feels like a new genre of surf entertainment. Do you have a name for it? I was thinking “Surfantasia.”

I don’t know what to call it. We’ve been saying fantasy surf films. Juju the Musical feels more theatrical and this one feels more fantasy, but I like “fantasy surf films.”

Other than long boards, what do you, Caity, and Frankie connect on most?

JALEESA: We’re all just very ourselves. We do what we want to do. That’s why those two girls resonate with me so much, and why I’m so stoked to have them in the film. I think about younger girls in the surf industry. For me as a younger girl, watching a movie with Caity, Frankie, and myself in it would have been so inspiring: “I’m just going to surf, have fun, be myself, be weird.” We’re also a little bit competitive, and we’re connected with nature and the real world, just wholesome, badass female energy.

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