A pregnant woman's eerie dreams draw her to a reclusive indigenous man at the boundary of her suburban sprawl and his ancestral lands. Their encounter unleashes a blood curse that transforms her and her unborn child into instruments of vengeance against the subdivision itself.
Origin Story
As we took the winding curve off the Turnpike, the car emerged into a wasteland of the Kissimmee development. The treeless lots, squished closely-enough together to induce claustrophobia, encroached upon the edge of the Florida Everglades. Mounded clay, stacked in front of construction sites, tinted the wind with an orange haze, while the late summer heat warped the air above the asphalt. No humans in sight. Just endless stucco and meandering sidewalks. We looked at each other: this is a horror movie.
Synopsis, Genre + Themes
Sarah and Mark recently moved into a pristine Florida subdivision and are expecting their first child. When Sarah begins experiencing recurring dreams of a mysterious indigenous man, Mark dismisses them as "pregnancy brain." But the man is real: Elijah, living on the last patch of unconsumed land at the suburb's edge.
Compelled by an unnamed need, Sarah crosses into his territory. Their encounter causes her to spill blood on his land. Elijah uses it to enact a perverted blood ritual, summoning a corrupted alligator warrior spirit, into Sarah and her unborn child, to wreak havoc upon the suburb: Halpate.
Supernatural Suburban Horror
The complexity of the post-colonial world: reconciling the horrors of the past with the steady drumbeat of time and progress
environmental degredation
societal dread
Director’s Note
Halpate was born from a deeply personal place. I grew up between Puerto Rico and Florida, running barefoot through the woods, jungles, creeks, and swamplands— spaces that felt alive, mysterious, and sacred in their own way. Those wild places shaped my imagination and gave me a reverence for the natural world that’s never left me.
After 12 years away, I came back to a Florida that was vastly changed. The wild spaces are disappearing and actively being swallowed by the endless suburban development. I can only look on in horror as the construction of cookie-cutter homes and commercial real estate replaced the beauty and wildness that once defined this place.
Being Puerto Rican of Taíno descent, I’ve always felt connected to the Indigenous histories of Florida and the Caribbean in ways I'm still figuring out. This story started because I couldn't stop thinking about what was happening to the Florida I grew up in. But it also became about something I'd been circling for a while: about Indigenous people and their history, what memories the land actually holds onto, and what we're really losing when we pave it all over.
Key Creatives
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![Man with long hair, glasses, and beard smiling, sitting outdoors with film equipment in background.]()
Harry Perales Jr
WRITER/DIRECTOR
A Puerto Rican visual storyteller with a BFA from NYU Tisch who melds performance, atmosphere, and sharp visual instinct into his filmmaking. Past photography/videography collaborations include NY/NJ Riverkeepers, Nasdaq, and Faherty. His artistic vision explores myth, memory, and the quiet, uncanny spaces where transformation begins.
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Kate Szekely
PRODUCER/SARAH
A seasoned actor + producer in film, theater, and new media. She currently has three short films on the festival circuit and produced a Gracie Award-winning radio program for NPR. Kate is the founder of Halpate's production company, Epiphany Junkie. Kate filmed Halpate while seven months pregnant with her first child.
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Derin Thorpe
CO-DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY
Known as "the stylized documentarian," Derin specializes in finding overlooked stories through powerful visual storytelling. His clients include Netflix, Vogue, and Facebook. A "hunter-gatherer of honesty and beauty," he brings collaborative passion to Halpate's storytelling, with distinct visual languages for suburban sterility and swamp vitality.
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Lucas Buck
Luke is a New York City-based Director of Photography, Camera Operator, and Gaffer with over two decades of experience in broadcast, documentary, commercial, and branded content. Whether he's capturing the intensity of live sporting events or creating polished visuals for commercial clients, his focus is on crafting emotionally resonant frames that serve powerful storytelling.
The Vision
Timeline
Comps
THE VVITCH (2015)
Budget: $4 million
Worldwide Gross: $40.4 million
Why It Matters: Folk horror masterpiece about isolation corrupting faith and tradition. Like Halpate, it explores how desperation transforms sacred practices into something tainted, centering a woman who becomes an unwilling vessel for supernatural forces.
GET OUT (2017)
Budget: $4.5 million
Worldwide Gross: $255.4 million
Why It Matters: Horror rooted in systemic racism that uses genre to expose uncomfortable truths about liberal complicity. Like Halpate, it centers a protagonist who discovers they've walked into a trap designed to use their body for someone else's agenda.
THE RITUAL (2017)
Budget: $15 million (Netflix release)
Why It Matters: Folk horror about crossing into sacred ancient space where guilt becomes weaponized by supernatural forces. Like Halpate, it explores how venturing beyond safe boundaries awakens something that transforms the landscape itself into an instrument of reckoning.
Immersive Marketing
We’re building audience before the film screens. Platform-specific vertical content expands the Halpate world without revealing plot: atmospheric stills, process updates, and side-character narratives like Abby Ryland Realtor, whose cheerful suburban sales pitches reveal the scenes between the scenes in the Halpate narrative.
By the time Halpate hits festivals, audiences are already lore builders invested in its world.
Join Us
We’ve raised $18,500 of our $25K budget. Now we need your help to get us across the finish line.
Throughout 2026, we're hosting private screenings and events to complete post-production and launch our festival campaign. Every contribution helps us finish the film and develop the feature package.
