YOU SHOULDN'T BE HERE

Logline: With the aid of a supernatural motel, a father and his two boys make desperate attempts to remain in the past following the death of the family matriarch.

Synopsis: YOU SHOULDN’T BE HERE is a ten-page short film script about familial loss and the inability to move on. We follow three characters—Cal and his two sons, Rams & Bale—as they consider how to dispose of their deceased matriarch’s ashes. Within the first few scenes, however, we discover these characters—unbeknownst to each other—all have access to a supernatural motel that can, perhaps, make their deceased loved one a continuing presence in their lives.

Despite this science fiction premise, the story remains fairly grounded, understated, and emotional. Each room in the motel holds a different surreal trick: one room takes Cal back in time for a day, where he interacts with his deceased wife; another room duplicates the objects that Cal’s kids place inside it. When the children fail to duplicate their mother’s ashes (hoping the duplicate will be alive), Cal learns of his family’s shared attempts at living in the past and rejecting the future.

This short script is set in the same universe as my feature script, YOU CANNOT DECIDE HOW LONG I LIVE, though both projects are capable of standing independently of one another. As a writer since childhood and a publisher/editor for over a decade, I’ve consistently written stories about the inability to move on after grief—a universal feeling—be it loss of a parent, an animal, a friend, or a child. In this short script, the temptation to live in the past is externalized in a way real life could never match. These themes are very meaningful to me and, I feel, universal across all cultures and creeds.