Genre: Drama

A financially successful couple, seeking a combination of passive income and early retirement, take a trip from California to Florida at the invite of Miami businessman who is seeking investors in the financial recovery of the local real estate markets. Their business trip soon turns into a fight for survival as there is more to this trip than meets the eye.

CAST LIST: 
Narrator: Carina Cojeen
John: Christopher Huron
Kathy: Carly Tisdall
Miguel: Peter Nelson
Jessica: Alicia Ryan
Driver: David Occhipinti

Get to know the writer: 

 1. What is your screenplay about?

An early 30’s couple is flown from California to Florida by a Real Estate Investor with an opportunity that appears too good to be true. Once they arrive the couple soon realizes they have fallen into the hands of a con man and his “Henchmen”. They are robbed, taken hostage and beaten as their journey to financial security soon becomes a fight for survival and terrifying encounters in an abandoned home development out in the middle of nowhere.

2. What genres does your screenplay fall under?

Suspense/Thriller

2. Why should this screenplay be made into a movie?

Preys on everyone’s fears of helplessness, out of contact and running out of options. A true roller coaster ride.

3. How would you describe this script in two words?

Page turner.

4. What movie have you seen the most times in your life?

John Carpenter’s Halloween.

5. How long have you been working on this screenplay?

Four months with multiple rewrites until I felt the story came to a believable ending.

6. How many stories have you written?

Multiple spec screenplays – Two Horror, Five Suspense/Thrillers, Three character studies, One Sci-fi, and three short screenplays all falling under the Suspense/Thriller genre.

7. What motivated you to write this screenplay?

Years ago I was watching many news broadcasts on the home foreclosure years and the effects it has on people. I was watching one in particular about some of the areas in Florida that were hit hardest. Watching the news footage of abandoned, looted homes and the overgrown yards made me think how scary it would be to drive through those areas wondering if squatters or some kind of criminal element is hiding in that house or that house?. At that time my wife and I were working with a Real Estate investor and one of his hobbies is camping and hunting. One day I sat down with a note pad and wrote an outline for the story based on all these scenarios, took it to the extreme and wrote the screenplay.

8. What obstacles did you face to finish this screenplay?

Coming up with a credible backstory on the protagonists and giving the “Bad guy” more motivation to become the type of criminal has has. Then after I realized the original ending was too “Sugar coated” I rewrote the ending several times until I came up with one that provided the reader with an opportunity to feel vindicated.

9. Apart from writing, what else are you passionate about?

Real Estate Investing, Photography, Travel and Music.

10. What influenced you to enter the festival? What were your feelings on the initial feedback you received?

The genre of scripts I was working on. The feedback has been both positive and encouraging. By the synopsis at the beginning of the feedback stage, I can tell the reader truly does a thorough job of reading the script and comes up with good ideas to add and delete certain scenes as well as giving some characters a bit more background. Has truly benefited me as a writer.

11. You entered your screenplay via FilmFreeway. What has been your experiences working with the submission platform site?

Great. In October 2017 a Spec I’d written (Nowhere-Ville) won the Action/Adventure feature script and got a table reading on YouTube which was really a kick. My first experience in the rewrite and “Production” phase of screenwriting. Truly exciting to see actors performing your written material.

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Producer: Matthew Toffolo http://www.matthewtoffolo.com

Director: Kierston Drier
Casting Director: Sean Ballantyne
Editor: John Johnson

Camera Operator: Mary Cox