The Hollywood Vampires are getting their own origin story. Unleashed Spirits: The Rise of the Hollywood Vampires, the new music documentary from director Daniel E. Catullo III, will have its World Premiere as the opening night film of the 42nd Annual Boston Film Festival, screening at the historic Boch Center Wang Theatre on Friday, September 18, at 7:00 PM EDT. Tickets are on sale now.
The film traces the unlikely history of the Hollywood Vampires, the hard rock supergroup born out of a secret 1970s drinking and social club led by Alice Cooper. That club eventually grew into a band pairing Cooper with Johnny Depp, Aerosmith’s Joe Perry, and guitarist/producer Tommy Henriksen, and Unleashed Spirits follows their evolution from a hidden Hollywood haunt to arena rock stardom, built around the group’s earliest rehearsals and recording sessions through increasingly ambitious performances around the globe. At its core, the doc frames the band as a story about friendship — four musicians from very different corners of fame finding a place where none of that fame matters, and where, onstage, they’re simply bandmates.
Cooper, Perry, and Henriksen are set to appear in person at the Boston premiere alongside Catullo and executive producers Ernie Boch Jr. and Paul Geary, with more names still being confirmed.
Title art for Daniel E. Catullo III’s documentary Unleashed Spirits: The Rise of the Hollywood Vampires.
Catullo arrives in Boston fresh off a big year: four of his feature documentaries — 4000 Days, Frampton, Katy Perry: The Lifetimes Tour – Live from Paris, and Alicia Keys: The Girl From Hell’s Kitchen — all debuted at the 2026 Tribeca Festival. The Emmy-winning director and producer has spent more than three decades building concert films and television specials with major artists, including Rush in Rio, Foo Fighters: Live at the Acropolis, Alicia Keys: Live from NYC, and projects with Andrea Bocelli. His upcoming slate includes work with Hilary Duff, Godsmack, and the Hollywood Vampires.
The film explores each Vampire’s mythology. Cooper, the architect of shock-rock, built his theatrical brand of horror-tinged hard rock on electric chairs, guillotines, fake blood, and boa constrictors, and still tours roughly six months out of every year. Depp’s musical résumé predates his acting career — he played in the Florida band Rock City Angels in 1981 and the alt-rock act P alongside B******e Surfers frontman Gibby Haynes before his 1984 film debut in A Nightmare on Elm Street, and he later co-wrote and released the 2023 album 18 with longtime collaborator Jeff Beck. Perry, Aerosmith’s co-founding guitarist and principal songwriter, has helped drive the band to more than 150 million albums sold, four Grammy Awards, and a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction. Henriksen, the band’s guitarist, singer, and musical director, has also worked as a songwriter, arranger, and producer for artists including Lady Gaga, Meat Loaf, Lou Reed, Halestorm, Kesha, and Daughtry.
Unleashed Spirits is a First Blood and 10 Lives Studios production, in association with Shelter Music Group and Loft Entertainment, presented as a 10 Lives Content Production. The film runs 104 minutes and was produced by Henriksen and Catullo, with music by Marco Beltrami, Tristan Beltrami, Ben Babylon, Henriksen, and Jamie Muhoberac, and edited by Leslie Atkins. Executive producers include Boch Jr., Geary, Shep Gordon, Randy Lennox, Clay Pecorin, David Kernan, Steve Wood, and Russell Geyser.
The Boch Center Wang Theatre is located at 270 Tremont Street in Boston. Hollywood Vampires are currently touring Europe; details are at hollywoodvampires.com. More on the film is available at unleashedspirits.com and on Instagram and Facebook.
