THE STAGE 32 LOGLINES

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NOT AN EXIT

NOT AN EXIT
By Sid Kramer

GENRE: Horror
LOGLINE:

In a haunted house, a serial killer is reunited with his victims through a strange coincidence 26 years later. The spirits have been waiting a long time, and at last, they will have their revenge.

SYNOPSIS:

In a quiet desert town, a serial killer’s identity is about to be revealed and turned in to the authorities. But the killer gets the upper hand by hushing his last victim and putting an end to her bothersome cat. He has a creative way of getting rid of the bodies and avoiding discovery. But wanting a trophy from each victim, he mummifies their heads. He hides them away in a wooded crate changed and locked concealed where no one would ever find them. Or so he thought, 26 years later, the wooden box is discovered in an old movie set warehouse and mistaken for some fake but very realistic prop heads, and soon find a new home.

In the Hasting Haunted House, a new room is designed and built around twelve life-like heads discovered hidden in storage. Through strange mystical events, one of the head’s spirits, Agnes, contacts the mute janitor in a dream and plans for revenge. The mute janitor and caretaker of the haunted house agreed to help in trade. He will recover his voice, if only for a few months, as he is terminally ill. The spirits can only do so much in the physical world where they are trapped. They need the help of the janitor to make sure their killer gets the point.

When the day arrives, the opening night of the haunted house, the management is ready for the many guests to experience their world-famous attraction. One guest is not like all the rest as he hides a dark past of a serial killer and 26 years after his murders. Randy is still a free man. Unknown to him, when he enters the haunted house, his experience will be like no others. His sister and her two daughters are having a screaming good time as he gets more and more on edge, unknowing his fate to come.

At one point, the small group enters a large room. Where mummified heads are mounted and displayed on a long table. Plus, two actors who play a mad scientist and crazy doctor discuss the heads and make jokes. But to Randy, he sees something different. He is left behind and separated from his sister and her girls. His feet feel frozen to the floor. The heads re-animate, coming alive but only to him engulfed in a nightmare of his own making. The heads feel him, and all turn with their eyes shut. One woman’s head on the corner with glowing red hair calls to him as her eyes flash open. She tells him that it is good to see him again and welcomes Randy to the party.

She lifts off the table with a ghost-like body and floats around, revealing a large knife in her back, the tool used in her murder stuck there by Randy. Terror grips him, it is not a party of his liking, and he scrambles out of the room only to return to face the heads. Now aware, the heads are the head of his victims. He tries to find the way out several more times. But leaving the room only made matters worse. Images of the memories of how he killed each victim torment him. Then as issues are not bad enough, he experiences the wounds and pains of each himself. One last frantic attempt to find a way out, he locates a door outside the room in a foggy hallway.

He pulls and pushes at the door, but it will not move. He claws like a wild animal. Followed by the knife-wielding ghoul with the red hair and sees the knife flash out. He feels the warm blood on his neck, but then he grabs his chest in the grip of a painful death. Was it all in his mind, his last thought, as he slips into blackness? But only the janitor knows for sure, walking away down a smoke-filled hallway carrying a freshly severed head. The janitor disappears into the thick mist, and he laughs—a sinister laugh, totally capable of talking. Back at the crumpled body at the foot of the door, it is clear it has no head. A pool of blood grows on the floor. Above the sign on the door is revealed, NOT AN EXIT.

NOT AN EXIT

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Tasha Lewis

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