Logline - A dejected reporter investigating the staff at a notorious mental hospital realizes he may have once been a patient.
Character DrivenCrimeHigh ConceptPsychologicalTime Period: PresentStory Location: USASpecial Effects: No SFXTarget Audience: Young Adult
MARK WILCOX (30’s) sits in his car watching his six year old daughter through binoculars at her school. TAP ??" A cop catches him and Mark pulls out his Channel 7 news badge. He’s an investigative reporter going through a separation. Mark pulls a liquor bottle out of the glove department. His wife wants him to sober up before she’ll talk to him. Things at work aren’t going very well either. He’s called into the boss’s office. ART HILL tells him he needs to shape up. He’ll give Mark one last chance. There’s a story in Dayton where an old mental hospital is closing down. Mark jumps at the chance; his hometown is Dayton. Art tells him he’s taking ELLEN KRAMER (20’s). Mark isn’t thrilled about taking her along.
Mark and Ellen head to the psychiatric hospital. Mark shares that his parents were killed when he was 6 years old. At the hospital, Mark feels strange. There is a familiar feeling as he has a flashback to when he was a younger boy. He’s walking down the hospital hall and he can hear a scream! Suddenly Mark is sprawled out on the floor. Ellen and DR. NATALIE DREXEL rush to his side.
Mark interviews Dr. Drexel. While she’s uncomfortable with the questions about their past medical treatment at the facility, she offers them a tour. Ellen and Mark look around. Mark heads to a locked building. Suddenly he finds that he is shaking and sobbing. Ellen searches a different building and runs into physical therapist SCOTT RYAN. They immediately take a liking to each other. When Ellen realizes that Mark left the facility without her, Scott offers her ride.
Mark has another flashback. He remembers hearing sobbing and sees a man strapped down. The man screams. The nurse turns and sees young Mark. She chases after him. Mark suddenly sits up in bed ??" just a bad dream.
Mark questions Dr. Drexel about her father HANS DREXEL who was a former doctor at the hospital. Some of his methods were approved, some not.
Mark overhears some men talking at the bar about the screams they used to hear coming from the hospital. Some of those patients were taken to the nursing home nearby. Mark follows up at the nursing home. MIKE WILLIAMS, an older gentleman in a wheelchair watches Mark’s every move. Later Mr. Williams is abducted and transported to the hospital.
Mark continues to drink and thinks about suicide. Thoughts of his young daughter convince him not to… yet. Ellen shows him the video she shot at the nursing home. She points out that the facial recognition software picked out Mr. Williams’ face even though she typed in Mark’s name. She finds that odd and wonders if they could be related. They return to the nursing home to talk to Mr. Williams, but he’s gone….
Scott wants Mark and Ellen to meet him at the hospital; he believes there is a patient in the locked building. Mark, Scott, and Ellen enter the building. They see both Dr. Drexels wheel Mr. Williams into a room. He is strapped down with electrodes attached to his head. Mark steps out as the doctor turns a lever and Mr. Williams convulses. Mark screams no! Mr. Williams wakes up, he is calm. He is able to speak. He tells Mark he once had a son and he didn’t want his son to know about his condition. The treatments only last for a short time and he will slip back into his fog. Mark tells the doctor Mr. Williams’ family should be notified. They say his son already knows. Slowly Mr. Williams slips back. Mark now has the real story.
Mark picks up Rachel who runs to him. She’s at a new school in Dayton where Mark has accepted his new job at the news station. Rachel is thrilled that her daddy is back home living with her and her mother.
