Identical twins, Steph and Naomi (28), get turned around during a mountain hike. A brute storm forces them to seek shelter in the remote cabin of Leroy, a man whose dead wife’s casket rests on cinder blocks in the middle of his living room.

SYNOPSIS:

• Platinum Award, Best Short Script, Independent Shorts Awards (June 2024)
• Grand Prize Winner, TNS Horror Screenplay, Logline Competition (2024)
• Quarter-Finalist, Filmmatic Short Screenplay Awards (2024)
• Runner Up, Best Villain, Short Script, Frights! Camera! Action! (2024)
• Official Selection, Chicago Script Awards (Winter 2024)
• Winner, Best Short Script, Los Angeles International Short Film Festival (Sept 2023)
• Quarter-Finalist, Vail Film Festival Screenplay Competition (2023)

Synopsis:

Mid-morning. Colorado. A wide blue sky. Views of golden Aspens in every direction.

Identical twins, Steph and Naomi (28), park Steph’s SUV at one trailhead parking lot and Naomi’s Jeep at a second lot, and they head out on a one-way, point-to-point hike. Their moods, confident and upbeat. But as the hours pass, they become frustrated and confused when they can’t find the initial trailhead where they parked Steph’s SUV. Adding tension, the weather has shifted, and dark, threatening clouds blanket the sky. A Colorado storm – known to come fast and furious – is imminent.

The sisters see a cabin – off the trail, up a hill – and they walk to it.

Outside the 1940s-built cabin, depressing in upkeep, the twins meet the homeowner Leroy (60s), a scraggly, white-haired fella with poor hearing. As the women explain their predicament to Leroy, the skies open up. Heavy rain. Punishing hail.

Leroy leads the twins inside his home. The interior, dark and outdated. He says that when the storm passes, he doesn’t mind driving them to the Sheriff’s station. In the meantime, he’s starving. He’s been “diggin’” (there’s a large grave, freshly dug, outside the house) and “trekkin’” all day. He’s happy to make extra food if the women would like. He’s “fixin’ the wife Jean’s favorite.” In part, sentimental, but in part because he’s “got a damn year’s supply.” He guesses he’d been hopeful, but cancer “done come up and got her.”

As Leroy prepares lunch, the sisters make a shocking discovery – Jean’s dead body and casket resting atop cinder blocks in the middle of the living room. They wonder, ‘Is this funny or sad? Is Leroy simply an eccentric, lonely, grieving widower or is he downright creepy?’ And then Steph finds her Hydro Flask, which she’d lost during the hike, in Leroy’s possession. And this, they agree, is definitely creepy. Had he been following them in the woods?

The sisters decide that they will leave as soon as the storm lets up even a little bit. But at the point that they make this decision, is it already too late?

DARK SKY (SHORT)