SCREENPLAY:
POLLY
written by ROBERT BRUINEWOUD
GENRE: thriller (with fantasy & horror elements) – SHORT, 16-pages
LOGLINE:
A woman hiding from her abusive ex, moves into a secluded rural house, only to discover that it is haunted by a reclusive poltergeist.
SYNOPSIS:
Set in and around a small country town, we meet a woman as she moves into an isolated, rural house.
That evening she ensures the house is secure and goes to sleep with pepper spray in her bedside drawer and a cricket bat at her side.
In the morning she finds the recalcitrant drawer on the floor with cutlery scattered around it. The next night she is woken by a sound and finds the drawer on the floor, with all the cutlery bent and twisted. She goes to her computer and discovers the house was the site of a murder.
The next day, in the town’s op shop (thrift store) she buys new cutlery, and an old children’s bible. At home, she places the bible in the empty cutlery drawer and quickly shuts it. Nothing happens.
In the morning she opens the drawer and is blasted by a blizzard of torn paper. She looks in the drawer and sees only six squares of paper remaining, with the letters:
G O A W A Y
Her first impulse is to do as she’s told, but instead, she creates a basic ouija board. With it she manages to make contact with “Polly”, the murder victim.
Sometime later, she and Polly have come to an arrangement, and the house is now a home. The idyll is shattered when her Ex kicks in the front door and enters with a hunting knife. He has her cornered in the kitchen when Polly intervenes and knocks him unconscious with her drawer.
Wilma is about to call the emergency number, when her Ex wakes. Enraged, he tries to attack her, only to fall on his knife and kill himself. Stunned, Wilma answers the Emergency Operator on the phone.
A full synopsis is available on Script Revolution at the link below.
If you’re a director interested in a free script to play with, Polly is available to read at Script Revolution or you can contact me via the contact form.
Here’s the ‘logistical’ details:
locations
• secluded, rural house – day & night
• small town realestate office – day
• small town op shop (thrift store) – day
actors
• lead (woman, 30s)
• realestate agent (woman, 50s)
• op shop staff (woman, 60s)
• abusive ex (man 40s), and
• op shop background (man, 60s)
effects etc
• practical poltergeist effects
• bloody wound
THE VIBE:
A domestic thriller with a supernatural element.