Blacktip Island entrepreneurs will film a 10-part ‘Plague Island’ reality-TV competition, based on the 10 Biblical plagues, on the small Caribbean island’s southern bluff beginning this week. (illustration by Wendy Beaufort/BTT staff)
A group of budding filmmakers announced Thursday their plans to create a Survivor-like reality television competition called ‘Plague Island,’ based on the Biblical story of the 10 plagues of ancient Egypt.
“All the obvious reality-competition concepts have been done, so we decided to film outside the box,” Gnarly Bottoms said. “We’ll start shooting now, during the Christmas season, with an eye toward airing it at the more traditional Easter time, kind of kill two holiday birds with one stone, so to speak.
“We’re doing the full 10 Commandments, in order, for maximum authenticity,” Bottoms said.
“For security and health reasons, we have a big swath of land down south, up on the bluff, cordoned off with tall electric fences—think ‘Jurassic Park—and mist machines blowing anti-viral spray around the exterior so the diseases stay contained.”
Crew members say the set will be as accurate as possible.
“For the water-turns-to-blood plague, it’ll be fish blood pumped into their drinking water,” Catalina Luxfer said. “Lice and flies are natural here, so we’ll just augment them a bit. Dead livestock’ll be iguanas and land crabs. For the raining-frogs bit, we have giant slingshots, and we’ll use those to crate the hail, too, with ice from various resorts. The deaths of the firstborn’ll have to be figurative, obviously. We’ll maybe settle on crushing some treasured childhood memories.
“The plan is to subject the contestants with one plague a day, for a 10-episode series,” Luxfer said. “The last person to stick it out without having a psychotic break’ll be the winner. There’s a good chance no one’ll finish, with what we have planned for them.”
Some on the small Caribbean island questioned the series’ subject matter.
“I understand the need to be different, but to make a horror like this come alive for the sake of entertainment is in extremely bad taste,” Father Audley Crossblesser of the Our Lady of Blacktip chapel said. “The plague episode in Exodus showed the power, and wrath, of God. To make light of that is sacrilegious, to say the least.”
The plague episodes, in order, will be:
- Water turns to blood
- Rain of frogs
- Lice
- Flies
- Livestock deaths
- Hail
- Boils
- Locusts
- Darkness
- Death of the firstborn
Contestants, however, were eager to compete.
“Reading the Bible, and seeing the ’10 Commandments’ movie, I always wondered how I’d react in that situation,” Wally Breight said. “Now I can find out, in real time. And, end of the day, it’ll be a hoot to walk, and talk, like an Egyptian. Or Israelite. Whatever.”
Organizers hired local artists to make the set look as Egyptian as possible.
“We got sphinxes and obelisks and pyramids made out of coconuts all over the place,” Bottoms said. “We’ll be filming it all remote, of course, to minimize the chance of contagion. We’ll also use a giant papier mâché Pharaoh that keeps yelling ‘NO!’
“The big challenge now’s to find someone who’ll pick it up and air it. Maybe a streaming service, or some such. If not, we’ll put it on YouTube.”
The Blacktip Times 