feature - in development

Set in the 1990’s when Alaska was home to the highest rate of violent crime, substance and sexual abuse in America. This coming-of-age drama follows the misadventures of a boy who must learn that monsters are very real.

JACK RYDER, 13, is haunted by night terrors. He lives in the city with his mother, MJ, who survives by keeping secret from Jack about the traumatic events that tore their family apart when he was a baby. His father, BILLY RAY, is now a smooth-talking, born-again Baptist pastor, remarried to a much younger wife, and living in remote Alaska. Jack adores his eccentric father, but he is torn between fear, disgust and admiration when Billy Ray insists of making a “life lesson” out of skinning a dead dog.

Jack begins a journey trying to reconcile the wild parts of his family and himself with his “normal” life back home. Billy warns Jack that the monster in his dreams is really a demon which has long haunted their family. Back home, Jack faces a real life monster in charismatic sexual predator, CHASE BURD. Unsure of what’s right or what’s real, Jack searches for his sanity between the bloody violence of his father’s world and the quiet violence of coming of age.

Produced in collaboration Crooked Pictures.

AWARDS

Quarter-Finalist