Afro-Latinx Horror Collective Reclaims Spooky Season

Afro-Latinx filmmakers revive ancestral legends and turn October into a celebration of heritage and horror.

Forget chainsaws and cheap jump scares — this October’s most haunting stories are coming from the Caribbean and Latin diasporas, reclaiming their own monsters. From the Taíno-rooted horror of Jupía (2022) to upcoming projects that dig deep into ancestral pacts and spirits, creators are reframing fear through culture, faith, and history.

A Panorama of Fear Reclaimed

Latinx audiences have long loved horror — yet much of mainstream genre coverage left their stories on the margins. This gap is now narrowing and fast. In 2025, Afro-Latinx creators aren’t waiting for permission — they’re staking their claim. What emerges is a distinctive voice that draws on diaspora material and cultural memory. Take Jupía, a Dominican dark-fantasy horror film that draws directly on Indigenous Taíno myth and places community, ritual, and legacy at its center.

Similarly, across the region a growing number of filmmakers are mining folklore—Santería, Afro-Caribbean spiritual practice, and colonial memory—to craft horror that’s grounded, local and resonant.

As one recent festival programmer put it: this is “the new Gothic of the Americas.”

The Lab Pipeline & Funding Surge

Behind this shift lie new pathways of support. Development labs and grants focused on cross-region production are opening doors. The Afro-Latin-American film ecosystem is no longer token—it’s professionalizing.

For example: Rosario benefited from festival placements and is already finding international distribution and research shows Dominican horror Jupía benefited from co-production and festival placements in Latin America and the U.S. Streaming platforms are responding. Titles once relegated to regional release are now being snapped up globally, and October 2025 is shaping up to be a distinctive “spooky season” driven by Afro-Latinx horror.

Folklore Meets the Fright

What sets these films apart is how they lean into roots. A ghost is not just a ghost — she’s a grandmother’s warning. She’s the legacy of colonial violence, masked as ritual. In this wave, fear is layered with grief, identity, and cultural negotiation.

In Rosario, the horror isn’t just supernatural — it’s about cultural estrangement: a grandmother practising Palo Mayombe, hidden rituals, and the cost of ambition. Jupía explored Indigenous myth in a direct, un-Hollywood way. And Altar? Though plot details are under wraps, it's production signals a horror move steeped in atmospheric dread and Indigenous/ritual undertones.

The haunted house isn’t generic—it’s ancestral home. The demonic possession isn’t just spectacle—it’s inherited trauma made visceral. This makes horror that is specific, not generic; intimate, not scattershot. It resonates because the culture carries its own monsters — and its own survival.

Why It Matters

This isn’t about diversity for the scoreboard. Horror demands authenticity. Latinos (and particularly Afro-Latinos) are both the audience and the authors. Their engagement outpaces representation — when they feel represented, the genre responds.

Films like Jupía show what happens when identity, myth and production converge. The creative world watches because when audiences feel seen, things change.

What to Watch

• Funding & Labs: new Afro-Latin production supports, regional co-productions.

• Streaming Acquisitions: local horror titles landing on international platforms.

• Mythic Diversity: horror rooted in Afro-Caribbean folklore, Indigenous knowledge, diaspora faiths.

• Community Screenings: Beyond festivals — into barrios, churches, diaspora hubs, and grassroots networks.

This October, turn off the generic jump scare and lean into the ancestral tremor. When you hear the drum, feel the water’s swell, see a mask on the porch, and the focus isn’t just on fear. It’s on whose fear. And whose story.

Horror has always been a communal thrill. Now, Afro-Latinx storytellers are reminding us that dread can carry heritage too.