Creativity without Boundary

Genre: Limited Location/Occult Horror (script available for review)

Alternate Titles: Carpe Noctem and Eminent Domain

Graphic Novel currently in production for 2022 release/publication.

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Logline: When he inherits a Christian bookstore from his mother, her reclusive and agnostic son converts it to a store for the occult, and unknowingly becomes host to a demonic spirit who possesses his body each night while he sleeps, and carries out ritualistic murders in an effort to exorcise Mark’s own soul from his body.

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Synopsis: When his mother dies, Mark Mathews inherits a Christian bookstore called The Carpenter, which he converts in to an occult bookstore renamed Carpe Noctem...Latin for “Seize the Night”. Mark’s life is difficult enough, as he battles his own obsessive compulsions that govern his daily life, including agoraphobia which makes him a virtual prisoner in his own shop.

Mark’s nightly dreams turn to sadistic nightmares when he comes into possession of a unique and cryptic book. A book that is covered with ancient writings, is sealed ... with no visible means to open it.

 

Through research Mark discovers that the book might have been authored by an Apostle of the Devil, or may even contain the soul of a demon. Mark does not buy into these beliefs, and learns a key isn’t needed to release its prisoner. If the folklore is to be believed, all that’s needed to open the book, is for the owner of the book to speak the demon’s name ...and so the game begins. A game of virtual chess, played out in Mark’s nightmares, with a robed figure who shares the same face with Mark.

 

The nightmares worsen until finally the demon himself visits Mark in his dreams and tricks him into opening it. Mark feels he’s been duped when the book appears to be empty, and so he sells it as a journal and thinks nothing more of it.

 

His life turns into a downward spiral of psychosis when he thinks he is seeing signs from Revelations coming to life. His psychiatrist says Mark’s mental issues are getting worse, and wants him to undergo hypnotherapy, but Mark suspects something more real and sinister. And so he begins to try and solve the biggest mystery of his life, with the help of his wacky slacker neighbor Freddy, Buzz the father figure delivery driver and his would-be girlfriend Harmony, who is the town’s newest police detective. Thus the battle for Mark’s body and soul begins, and the demon who walks in Mark’s sleep will do anything including destroying his new vessel, to stay outside the book that was once his supernatural cage.

 

Meanwhile, a string of ritualistic bloody murders have plagued the area and it seems that each night Mark sleeps, he awakes the next morning tired and sometimes bloody. As the police investigate these murders, all signs point to Mark’s involvement, and Harmony is on the verge of having to take him into custody. Will she trust her heart, or follow the evidence to Mark’s doorstep?  Unbeknownst to Mark, when the demon inside has been taking over his physical form, he has been building a portal to Hell from the body parts of his victims, and is nearing the completion of his terrifying construct.

 

Mark finally believes it’s not mere sleepwalking, and slowly accepts his involvement...could he be a sadistic killer? His life becomes a whirlwind of exhaustion, mystery and pain, as he dare not fall asleep, for fear of unleashing the horrors inside him. He eventually has no choice but to try and face his inner demon. Is Mark involved in stopping the arrival of Lucifer and the End Times here on Earth, or is he seeing signs where there are none, and these are just the final threads of his sanity breaking away?  How do you defeat the devil...when the devil is inside you?

 

THE BOOK OF MARK  (offers for option, and top 5% finalist/Philantos Films Screenplay contest)

Complete Script available for review.

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Currently in production as a Graphic Novel and slated for 2022 production, pages can be seen to the right, prior to lettering.