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ABOLITION OF THE SENSES

ABOLITION OF THE SENSES
By Carlos Burgaleta

GENRE: Horror, Mystery
LOGLINE:

A lighthouse keeper searching for answers about her childhood abduction discovers that the past is haunted by more than just memories.

SYNOPSIS:

YOUNG CELIA, 10, huddles against a wall, a chain and a metal collar around her neck holding her in place. While having memory flashes about her abduction, she manages to remove the collar and reaches a high window. A noise of chains is heard. She slowly turns around to look with anxiety at something unseen...

Twenty years later. CELIA, 30, stands on the balcony of a lighthouse on an island off the coast of Massachusetts, chatting with BRIAN, 60, the lighthouse keeper she is replacing. After visiting the keeper's house, Brian points out a locked storehouse, telling her that it contains years of accumulated junk and not to bother about it. He departs, leaving Celia alone. The next day, Celia is puzzled when the ancient TV switches on, showing a clip from "Captains Courageous". It turns itself off and the VCR ejects an old video tape. Later, she decides to examine the storehouse, but the lock is secure and all she can see through the window is old furniture. Then she sees a dark figure standing in a boat off-shore and staring at her. The figure rows away from the island.

That night she begins to hear noises but it turns out only to be Brian, playing a joke on her. He gives her a cat and they spend some time drinking and talking. While in the lighthouse watch room the next night, Celia hears loud moans coming from the storehouse. When Brian returns, she tells him about it and he shows her an old weathervane behind the storehouse, demonstrating the loud noise it makes when the wind hits it just right.

Brian bars the weathervane in place, but that night Celia hears screaming and discovers that the restraints have been removed. When she returns to the house, the TV again comes on, playing the same movie clip. Then the lighthouse lantern begins to turn itself on and off in rapid succession as if transmitting a message...

ABOLITION OF THE SENSES

View screenplay
Carlos Burgaleta

Abolition of the Senses" has been a finalist in several screenplay competitions (Cannes Screenplay Contest, Chicago Screenplay Contest, Zed Fest Film Festival & Screenplay Competition, Las Vegas Screenplay Contest, etc.)

According to The Writers Store Development Notes, "It's a wonderfully creepy horror story that draws upon the paranormal. It creates a tense and terrifying situation that plays on universal fears".

According to the Screamfest Horror Film Festival 2015: "In the hands of a capable director this could be a very haunting movie".

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