THE STAGE 32 LOGLINES

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PHASE 0

PHASE 0
By Mike Kalvoda

GENRE: Sci-fi, Horror
LOGLINE:

A mother desperate to pay for her son's healthcare participates in a clinical research trial that has horrifying consequences that turn her reality on its head.

(PITCH DECK AVAILABLE)  

SYNOPSIS:

MONIQUE CRUZ is a struggling widow popping sample meds for her cluster headaches. Her 7-year old son, TATE, suffers from severe asthma. Her hospital graveyard shifts involve dumping patients unable to pay. No more, she tells her supervisor. Monique pauses by the lobby TV. Martin Shkreli knockoff SHAPIRO "Dudemaster Drug" MUGGINS smirks through a congressional hearing, denying all human beings deserve dignity.

What reality is this?

Monique's hours are cut -- her health insurance will lapse. She pleads, but too late. Bill collectors hover. Coverage freezes. Monique is approached by a stranger offering a continuance. The down payment must be made by Monday. She scrambles for fast cash, finding clinical research trials. But it's Friday: the studies closed.

Then: an eleventh-hour call from Perdix, a facility Monique never applied to. Leery, she accepts, leaving Tate alone. At the odd site, she encounters icy NURSE KETTNER; WAYLIN, a flirty intern; and admission forms with bizarre, invasive questions. Her fellow Participants: XR-13, career guinea pig; student LQ-68; BK-77, Euro transplant with medical debt; and homeless VC-50. Monique senses Kettner wants her gone, but Waylin reassures to lay low.

AL-JANDHI, the wheelchair-bound doctor in charge, introduces the study. Each Participant is strapped into bed. But the IVs are contaminated. Chaos. Al-Jandhi has dementia. XR-13 suffers freaky, fatal side effects. Oddly calm, Kettner places a phone call. Waylin rushes the Participants to a prototype detox chamber where LQ-68 dies. Those left witness Kettner pushing Al-Jandhi to their deaths.

Figures in Bio-Suits arrive. But it's not the police or the paramedics, and the Bio-Suits are their skin. BK-77 is killed. Monique, Waylin and VC-50 hide in a weird AI-engineered lab. Confronted, Waylin confesses Shapiro Muggins is behind Perdix, and "Dudemaster Drug" has unethically taken the cuffs off AI to let it run wild. Monique suffers another cluster headache. Waylin hides her and VC-50 in body bags and goes to sacrifice himself.

Monique and VC-50 revive at a medical incinerator. The Bio-Suits burn body bags, one of which contains a still-alive XR-13. Monique escapes onto the street where she dumped patients. There, VC-50 dies with dignity. Now evicted, Monique breaks into her own apartment. The Bio-Suits follow her home. She kills them, but Tate is missing.

Monique searches Perdix for her son. She discovers her admission forms list her as mentally ill. Incredibly, she finds Waylin alive. But his story doesn't hold up. She shoots him. He morphs into Shapiro Muggins. Muggins reveals the study was an AI-created matrix. The real study: mind control that creates a different reality. To get back Tate -- and finally overcome her cluster headaches -- Monique becomes test subject one last time on an experimental pill. Tate -- and her dead husband -- appear, then morph/disappear. Like the sample medication she took in the opening moments, both back wrappers bear the Perdix logo. Her entire life has been a different reality created by a pill matrix! Later, a hospital worker on a graveyard shift abandons a mentally ill patient: it's Monique.

This is reality.

Kevin Johnson

Rated this logline

Angela Cristantello

Super super good start, Mike! I would just love to know some more specifics in terms of both what this trial is and these "horrifying consequences" are. Were this a tagline, having a touch of mystery like this would totally be appropriate, but for a logline, we want to KNOW and see that much more.

I'm into it already, though :)

Nate Rymer

Rated this logline

Nate Rymer

Great idea Mike, intriguing premise already and I want to know more where the story is going. Just make the trial and horror more succinct in the logline and this is an easy 5 stars!

Tasha Lewis

Rated this logline

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