Research and Planning - Plot Sequence

Camera is in darkness, you hear a key in the door and a woman walks in her home. The light from the hall outside spills into the darkness. She turns the lights on and puts her keys on top of some divorce papers lying on a table next to a picture of her and her children. She runs to the kitchen and puts the kettle on, the noise of the kettle is an increasing and foreboding noise, for example the squealing, and this increases tension. She goes over to the telephone that is on a desk, sits down and realizes that there is a message on the answering machine, she presses play and a male voice says, ‘Hi Anna, um, its me, err, I’m coming over to discuss the, um… problem. I’ll be over in about an hour.’ Then the answer machine recalls, ‘message left at 4:54 pm.’ At this point the kettle stops to mark the suspiciousness. A close-up shot of the clock shows 7:14 and you can hear the ticking above the ambient noise. The woman is slightly skeptical but then rolls her eyes, remembering his terrible punctuality. She then rings her mother.

Mother; ‘hello’

‘Hello’

‘Oh hello darling’

‘How are they?’

‘Oh the kids are fine, they’re just getting ready for bed.’

The woman sighs with a smile.

‘Why are you ringing on the house phone you never—‘

‘I know, I lost my mobile, well, it could have been stolen but I can’t think who at work would do such a thing.’

‘I always say you need to look after your—‘

The phone cuts out, the woman is confused and says ‘hello?’ She follows the cord and looks at the modem. It seems fine. There is a floor mirror, next to the modem, she looks at it and suddenly turns around. The audience, at this point, doesn’t know what provoked her to react in this way, but they also don’t need to. Perhaps she did not leave the house in the way it is now. The shot that the camera cuts to as she whips her head around, is in a dark room with the door open; you can see the woman at her desk through the doorframe. She looks over and squints to see what is lurking in the darkness. She walks over skeptically, and slowly. She turns the light on, (with the switch inside the room.) Suddenly she screams so terrified and covers her mouth with her hand. She presses her back against the wall and stares with big eyes, while almost hyperventilating. The shadow of a lumpy and distorted shape is cast onto the wall and consequently her. The camera tracks towards her as she screams, getting closer and closer to a close-up, she doesn’t look away from the body. When her face takes up the whole screen and the camera stops she has a slight inkling and slowly looks in fear to her left. Blackout. Main tile.

Alternate ending: Perhaps she looks slowly to her right and then a shot from outside of the room shows the door slowly closing, with the camera tracking backwards at a similar rate to the door.

Across the rest of the film, our heroine escapes from her home. She then makes any effort to protect her kids from the murderer. She is also wrongly being trialed for the suspected murder of her husband and despite the fact that she has no experience, is going to have to take the law into her own hands to catch the murderer and reveal him as evidence to the police.