2018 Feature Screenplay Finalists

The following screenplays are the Top 30 Feature Screenplay Finalists for the 2018 FilmQuest Best Unproduced Screenplay Competition. Featured here are some fo the best unproduced screenplays on the circuit today:

BACKBONE ROAD

Written By: Joseph Day

Synopsis: In a small Smoky Mountain town, Kevin, a meek teenager, and his abusive father, Henry, must put an end to a werewolf curse that terrorizes their family.

Screenwriter’s Bio: Joe Day is an award-winning filmmaker and writer. He is a graduate of the University of North Carolina-Wilmington and served five years in the Army as a combat cameraman.

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BLACK GOOSE

Written By: Janet Hetherington

Synopsis: The appearance of a strange black goose heralds terrifying incidents for a woman and her family escaping abuse by moving to an isolated farm that harbors an old curse. (Inspired by Canada’s famous Baldoon Mystery.)

Screenwriter’s Bio: Janet Hetherington is an Ottawa, Canada-based screenwriter and comic book writer/artist. Janet scripted the Elvira: Mistress of the Dark comic book for six years. Her work appears in the best-selling comics anthology, The Secret Loves of Geek Girls, and most recently in Gothic Tales of Haunted Love. Janet’s script for the film noir feature Murder in High Heels is currently in production with Ottawa’s Gray Chance Films. Janet’s comics work was recently profiled in the Secret Lives of Public Servants, a Canadian web series being showcased internationally at web festivals.

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BLACK HARBOR

Written By: Samuel Peirce

Synopsis: After a teenager’s death, an overzealous private investigator and her mentor are hired by the girl’s father, but when they travel to the secluded fishing village where she lived with her mother, they must navigate unhelpful police and complacent locals to expose a sinister cult with apocalyptic plans.

Screenwriter’s Bio: An aspiring screenwriter with a special love for Lovecraftian horror.

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BOXER

Written By: Michael Riedel & Toy Lei

Synopsis: When a retired assassin’s location is exposed on National TV, not only must she evade the FBI but also protect her teenage son from her former employees – who want them both dead.

Screenwriter’s Bio: Toy Lei began writing because of the lack of roles in Hollywood for Asian female leads over 30. She has had a fascination with action films ever since her parents took her to Chinatown as a kid to watch straight-from-the-motherland kung fu movies every Saturday afternoon. And now, she spends her days dreaming up guns, blood and all kinds of ass-kicking for mature, smart, sexy women in worlds where people must make choices no matter how hard.

Her writing debut, THE WEDDING, won her the Top 5 Women Filmmakers award from the Asian-American Film Lab and New York Women in Film and Television. Her latest, BOXER, won not only Best Actress, Best Action and the Grand Prize at the 2015 Asian-American Film Lab Shootout, but also won Awards of Merit from the highly competitive Accolade Global Competition for Short Film, Women Filmmakers and Leading Actress and just recently, it added a Maverick Movie Award nomination for Special Achievement in Stunts and a nomination from the Connect Film Fest for Best Drama. She has now finished co-writing the feature version of BOXER and has already attached Oscar talent to its producing team and made inroads with several prestigious competitions. When she’s not making movies, you can find her slinging her swords, snowboarding or playing punk rock versions of Motown tunes.

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CHRISTIAN DEMONS

Written By: Michael Klug

Synopsis: Three gay friends leave the safety of West Hollywood to attend a Contemporary Christian concert on a religious campus in the Los Angeles suburbs. Although immediately welcomed, they’ll soon realize that their presence will set in motion an evening of horrific events which will bring forth hordes of religious, blood-thirsty monsters. Will these queens survive the night?

Screenwriter’s Bio: Michael Klug is a screenwriter, actor and film critic. He’s been acting and writing in some form or fashion since he was 10 years old. Christian Demons is his 9th feature spec script. He currently writes reviews for Horror Freak News and Tom Holland’s Terror Time.

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DWELLING

Written By: Jason Boaden

Synopsis: A couple moves into a new house to continue working on their marriage and reconcile with their estranged daughter, but once in the house the couple encounters an entity that dwells within, and a far greater threat — an unhinged neighbour who has developed a sick relationship with the entity.

Screenwriter’s Bio: Jason Boaden is a practicing screenwriter, whose credits include mostly supernatural horror; centered around familial situations and the impact of external forces on those relationships. While branching out into comedy, Jason found two of his more popular screenplays; which, along with a selection of his horror screenplays, continue to place well in festivals.

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EVERWAKE

Written By: Manuel Leale

Synopsis: Five prisoners, an experiment: 30 days without sleep. The hell on earth.

Screenwriter’s Bio: Italian, son of the eighties, I studied cinema at the University of Bergamo and screenplay at the Mohole school in Milan. I’m a compulsive movie lover, film critic and screenwriter, I write for Nocturno, the famous Italian cinema magazine and for years I’ve been a lecturer, talking to people about cinema and fantastic literature. My work has brought me into contact with reality like 20th Century Fox Italia and Sky. If I’m not in a dark room in front of a big screen, you can find me traveling in time and space in a blue box.

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FATED

Written By: Jeremy Foley & Sara O’Reilly

Synopsis: Unbeknownst to us, each person’s destiny is controlled by an employee of the Fate Management Agency. To save his job, low-level agent Joe must take drastic action and confront his hopeless client face-to-face – on Earth.

Screenwriter’s Bio: Jeremy Foley and Sara O’Reilly are a husband and wife filmmaking team. In 2015, they created a proof-of-concept short film for Fated that was Academy Qualified and distributed on iTunes. Their latest short film, The Faceless Man, just wrapped up its festival run and had its online premiere on Film Shortage as a Featured Short.

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FINAL CUT

Written By: Kurt Hale & David Jenkins

Synopsis: A group of guerrilla filmmakers breaks into a spook alley to shoot a low-budget slasher. Turns out one of the crew—hired from Craigslist—is an actual serial killer.

Screenwriter’s Bio: Kurt Hale has enjoyed a successful career in entertainment. In the span of seven years, the award-winning filmmaker has produced eight feature-length motion pictures, while also penning nine screenplays and directing five theatrically-released films. Mr. Hale has established himself as a versatile filmmaker with a unique penchant for telling satirical stories. In the process, he has enjoyed the praise of fans and critics alike. He also co-founded Stone Five Studios, a premiere turn-key production and recording studio in Provo, Utah.

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FORGET-ME-NOTS

Written By: John Dummer

Synopsis: As they await a supernova explosion that will end all life on earth, an astrobiologist and two uninvited guests at his island cabin must fend off an invasive plant from another world – but is the plant a predator, or an interstellar lifeline?

Screenwriter’s Bio: I studied screenwriting at USC and Columbia College, Chicago. Three of my scripts have made the semifinals of the Nicholl Fellowships, the last reaching the top 30. I’m thrilled and honored to be a finalist at FilmQuest!

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KIDICIDE

Written By: Kelly Karam

Synopsis: In her quest to build a perfect nuclear family, an award-winning chemist begins to realize that the horrific events invading her life are the work of the younger man she impulsively married and his sociopathic son.

Screenwriter’s Bio: Kelly Karam is an emerging talent whose award-winning screenplay “KIDICIDE” has won high acclaim from multiple industry sources including, Winner Best Script at Script and Storyboard Showcase, 2017; Finalist Paris American Movie Awards, 2017; Second Place Women In Cinema International Film Festival, 2017; Winner Best Script Depth Of Field International Film Festival, 2017; Best Horror Script Miami International Science Fiction Film Festival, 2017; Award of Merit Winner Los Angeles Cinema Festival of Hollywood, Winter 2017; Finalist Beverly Hills Screenplay Contest, 2017; Semifinalist Table Read My Screenplay, 2017; Winner Best Thriller Los Angeles Film and Script Festival, 2016; Winner Best Screenplay at Chicago Horror Film Festival, 2016; Best Thriller Feature Screenplay Haunted Horror Film Festival, 2016; Winner Best Screenplay at Hollywood International Moving Pictures Film Festival, March, 2016; Winner Best Screenplay at Los Angeles CineFest, 2016.

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KISS THE SUN

Written By: Jeremy Kirk

Synopsis: A group of criminal vampires, a small band of illegals, and a sheriff, all race to make it to the border before morning.

Screenwriter’s Bio: A writer from the hot baked hellish sands of Arizona.

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LUANA

Written By: Danielle Erlich

Synopsis: After her parents are murdered, the last dragon whisper — a 16 yr old grieving teenager named Luana — goes on an epic quest to avenge their deaths and rescue her village from blood-thirsty banshees.

Screenwriter’s Bio: Danielle R. Erlich spent her life growing up with an autoimmune disease. This disease kept her from playing with her friends and partaking in fun activities. She ended up either reading or watching films most of the time to escape. She wrote all the time growing up and even had a poem published in the sixth grade. Soon after, signs of her illness began to surface. One of them was surprisingly writer’s block. After two years of college, and one screenwriting course, she switched to an acting conservatory in Santa Monica. She spent two years studying character breakdown and script analysis from an actor’s POV and graduated with a vocational degree in theatre.

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NGORATH

Written By: Tristan Biber

Synopsis: A man commits a horrific crime, but claims that something evil made him do it. Only one doctor at Mt. Calvary Asylum can help him, but the clock is ticking and dark forces are at work.

Screenwriter’s Bio: I was born in Geneva, Switzerland in 1994. I went to a boarding school in Concord MA for high school, and then studied Film and Anthropology at Kenyon College in Ohio, where I graduated Cum Laude in May of 2017. My favorite genres to write are fantasy and horror, as well as a dash of comedy here and there.

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NIGHT PEOPLE

Written By: Soren Budge

Synopsis: August, a young man with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, tries to improve his social life and calm his mind by attending a fancy dinner party at a rich stranger’s mansion in the desert. Things turn sour when the guests learn that the hosts have a few compulsive tendencies themselves– and may be something other than strictly human.

Screenwriter’s Bio: Soren is a playwright, director, and screenwriter from Alexandria, VA. His works for the stage include The Little Differences (Capital Fringe, 2011) and NOSFERATU (2016, Brigham Young University), as well as various short works presented by the Utah New Works Theatre Project.

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ODYSSEY VIDEO

Written By: William Angelico

Synopsis: Chicago, 1992. The VHS era. The turbulent life of a teenage rewinder at a local video rental house is upended when she is captured by a pair of misfit characters trying to save the Cineverse (dimension in which all movie and TV characters interact with one another).

Screenwriter’s Bio: William Angelico is a production associate and substitute teacher based in Chicago, IL. He served as production secretary on Chicago Justice (2017) and bounces around the Chicago commercial circuit as a production assistant. During the school year he also works as a substitute teacher at Chicago High School of the Arts. All of his free time is devoted to his creative endeavors. Most recently Angelico co-produced the Chicago based web series Velvet (Dir. Leo Gilbert, 2018). Odyssey Video is his first feature screenplay.

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PLUM ISLAND

Written By: Matthew Lee Blackburn

Synopsis: When a dedicated scientist learns that his job at Plum Island disease research is a false front, and beneath him are a series of secret labs in which dangerous experiments and the cures for every disease known to man are kept, he must expose it to the public by making it out alive while every resource of a shadowy conspiracy works to ensure it stays secret.

Screenwriter’s Bio: Matthew Lee Blackburn is a contest winning screenwriter with numerous optioned screenplays. He specializes in writing action, sci-fi, and thrillers featuring realistic characters populating vivid, believable worlds..

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PROMISE

Written By: John T. Frederick

Synopsis: Keeping a promise made as a child to his dying dad, a magically gifted teenager enlists a disillusioned Vietnam vet to help find a mythical warrior culture in the vast and always dangerous Amazon.

Screenwriter’s Bio: 2 contest wins… multiple Top Ten Finalists/6 different scripts

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PROVING GROUND

Written By: Matt Jackson

Synopsis: A sheltered woman’s life is thrown into disarray when raiders attack her town on her wedding day and kidnap her new husband. Now, with the help of a badass bounty hunter, she must leave her old life behind and venture into the wasteland to find him.

Blcklst reviewers called it an “action-packed, fight-filled futuristic film about two women fighting an impossible battle is a wonderful message about of the resilience of the human spirit” with “plenty of angles for marketing”

Screenwriter’s Bio: N/A

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RED LIGHT

Written By: Dempsey Tillman & Ted Dewberry

Synopsis: A slacker husband (with a child on the way) gets a rude awakening when aliens invade his home and target his family.

Screenwriter’s Bio: N/A

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RUNAWAY SHIP

Written By: Theodore Carl Soderberg

Synopsis: A recovering alcoholic is given a second chance to work a simple job on the ACL Singapore, one of the world’s biggest commercial shipping vessels–but finds himself in charge of a runaway ship when a mysterious white cloud kills most of the crew, and sends the ship hurtling out of control towards San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge.

Screenwriter’s Bio: Author of three published books and seven unpublished screenplays. Two “Hitches” in the US Navy, worked as a commercial fisherman in Alaska and retired from the SUP, Sailors Union of the Pacific as a ships Bosun. Runaway Ship, First Place Action/Adventure Genre, Hollywood Hills Screenplay, 2017. Runaway Ship First Place Dramatic Scene, Action on Film Festival, 2017

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SOUNDS OF SILENCE

Written By: Lee J. Sobier

Synopsis: A young girl struggles to escape from an imprisoned city where most of the inhabitants have lost their voice to a viral epidemic.

Screenwriter’s Bio: N/A

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THE BEWAILING

Written By: Jennifer Trudrung

Synopsis: Beth struggles to handle her daughter’s extreme separation anxiety, causing her to reflect on the secrets of her own traumatic childhood.

Screenwriter’s Bio: Jennifer Trudrung is an actress, writer, and most importantly a Mom. Her writing style is all about taking quiet everyday moments and twisting those moments into the macabre and horrific. She has written and produced eight short horror films and The Bewailing is her first feature length screenplay.

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THE GUILTY

Written By: L.M. Harter

Synopsis: In the wake of her mentor’s mysterious death, a rebellious young nun begins work at a halfway house where her faith is tested by a demonic force that tortures the residents, driving them to suicide.

Screenwriter’s Bio: My childhood began in a trailer in a coal mining town with no coal, Mennonites as neighbors, and cleaning the chicken coop as punishment. I went to college, lived like a gypsy for awhile with my dogs and my books and finally settled into Austin, Texas where I attended graduate school. Now I live in a nice cul de sac, with an alcoholic, chain smoking Korean as a neighbor, without a chicken coop.

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TWO

Written By: Joey Lanai

Synopsis: When a self absorbed genetic engineer clones himself to double his efforts to complete a forbidden military experiment, their competitive negligence unleashes an insatiable eating machine that never sleeps.

Screenwriter’s Bio: I am an actor, writer, director and film maker. Originally pursuing acting, I became enamored with the entire story telling process and feel that writing is where the magic is born. I believe my actor-insight lends itself to making real and edgy choices with dialogue. I’ve been working diligently at my writing craft and have directed several short films of late, although my first ever directing endeavor was a full length feature called CALLOUS that won 4 Best Pictures in 7 Festival appearances back in 2009. Now with several feature length screenplays completed and at the ready, I’m anxious to see how they are received. I’ve just completed a 26 minute short film-POC for my feature length script of the same name… INIQUITY.

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VERMIN

Written By: Chris Warner

Synopsis: A group of workers in the failing wing of the local mall must band together to escape a pack of giant rats.

Screenwriter’s Bio: Chris Warner is a freelance journalist and editor who has been writing screenplays for ten years.