As D-Day approaches, a charming British spy infiltrates the remote Maritime Alps only to find two feuding fortress towns, a fierce female protector and colorful time-warped locals who must bury their differences and band together when the Nazis come looking for a mysterious Templar treasure. (2024 Period Piece Semifinalist)

SYNOPSIS:

THE GATES OF HELL

Tone & Style: Slow-burning thriller with mystery, intrigue and a powerful love between two people from vastly different worlds drawn together by a life-threatening crisis. The tone is light and playful as the towns and their conflict are introduced, but things turn dark and menacing when the Nazis arrive, then explode with fury as the towns fight back with remarkable courage and guile to keep their secrets safe.

The majestic sweep of “GAME OF THRONES,” the thrilling twists of “INDIANA JONES AND THE LAST CRUSADE,” the wicked banter of “MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING” and the comic antics of “THE SECRET OF SANTA VITTORIA” combine in a highly cinematic and gripping tale of ancient mysteries, shocking revelations, timeless devotion and lust for for sacred Christian relics made all the more powerful by its unique story world and unforgettable cast of time-warped characters.

Story Overview: WW2 has reached a crescendo. Germany still controls Europe but is getting pushed back in Russia. The Allies are planning to invade Sicily and Southern Europe but D-Day is still a year away. As the walls start closing in, Hitler desperately needs a miracle and orders his archeologists in the Ahnenerbe to find something – anything – that will shake the world and make Germany invincible. Suddenly an ancient map is found in a Templar tomb pointing to a remote mountain valley on the French-Italian border. This could be the break they’ve been looking for.

Main Characters:

Benedict Randall: Charming, loquacious Shakespearean actor and spy who accepts one last mission before calling it quits, age 35. Bravery’s not his strong suit and learns the hard way that words mean little in a time-warped world where only guts and action will win the day – and maybe even melt a girl’s cold heart.

Beatrice Dubois: Beautiful, fierce, no-nonsense woman of few words with a soldierly demeanor and mysterious past, age 25. Deadly bow and arrow hunter with her twin direwolves and feisty, arrow-chasing falcon. Sworn to protect the towns and their secrets and afraid of only one thing. The Beatrice to Ben’s Benedick.

Dr. Wolfgang Kurtz: Fervent Nazi archeologist, age 35. Member of Himmler’s Ahnenerbe tasked with finding ancient relics and artifacts proving Ayran superiority. Finds an ancient map in a Templar tomb pointing to a spot the Maritime Alps and knows his prayers have been answered. Cultured and careful, he knows that tact and diplomacy – not force and destruction – are the keys to finding whatever’s hidden in the towns.

Pierre Dubois: Elegant Mayor of Mont Con and Beatrice’s father, age 50. Looks and dresses like Charles II and knows history like he’s lived it. Kind, gracious and tolerant - up to a point. Likes to do things the old-fashioned way but open to new ideas. Encourages Ben’s interest in Beatrice but warns him she’s a tough nut to crack.

Pietro Boschi: Obsequious Bombolini-like Mayor of Monte Culo and head of its viperous, squabbling Council of Ministers, age 50. Acts like a clown, but beneath his explosive outbursts and bumbling antics lies a steel-trap mind and the heart of a ruthless Borgia. Hates Tupa,Pesce and Bocconi, distrusts the French in general and absolutely terrified of Beatrice.

Tupa: Short, argumentative, volcanic head of the Communist Party and member of the viperous Council of Ministers, age 40. Diehard Bolshevik who looks like Trotsky and won’t shut up. Hates Boschi, Pesce and Bocconi, is afraid of Dubois and terrified of Beatrice. Recounts the endless wars between the two towns with amusing gusto.

Pesce: Tall, slender, erudite head of the Socialist Party and member of the viperous Council of Ministers, age 50. Wears scarlet Venetian robes and cap from the 1300s. Possesses a rapier wit and wields a sword like Zorro. Hates Tupa, Bocconi, Boschi with a passion, grudgingly admires Dubois and is absolutely terrified of Beatrice. Loves to recall telling Napoleon to go fuck himself.

Bocconi: Fat, pompous head of the Fascist Party and member of the viperous Council of Ministers, age 50. Wears gaudy Imperial uniforms laden with medals. Master bloviator with no facts to back anything up. Looks like Mussolini 200 years before Il Duce. Thinks raw power is the answer to every problem. Hates Boschi, Tupa, Pesce and the French and is terrified of Beatrice.

Colonel Brandt: Battle-scarred SS Panzer tank commander on the Russian front now based in Northern Italy, age 35. Ruthless and cruel, prefers to shoot people and flatten towns rather than negotiate. He and Kurtz are oil and water/fire and ice, but both know their futures depend on finding what the Templars hid and bringing it to Berlin so they can be feted as heroes of the Reich.

SYNOPSIS:

Prologue: Syria, 1192 A.D. Two Knights Templar stand on the ramparts of a medieval fortress as a huge Muslim army approaches in the distance. The younger Templar hands the older one a silver cylinder containing a secret map. “They will be hidden here, Sire. Far from our enemies.” The Templars clasp hands and the younger one races off.

London, 1943. As the Allies plan their invasion strategy, star West End actor and occasional spy Ben Randall is tapped for one last mission: explore a fog-shrouded valley in the remote Maritime Alps that aerial recon can’t see. It’s a light assignment, more of a holiday than anything else, and current maps show nothing’s there. But old medieval maps with drawings of monsters call the valley “Le Val Sans Retour” (The Valley of No Return) and the fortress towns guarding it “I Cancelli dell’Inferno” (The Gates of Hell). As Ben sips a whisky and studies the maps, he wonders what the hell he’s getting into.

Ben parachutes in looking like an innocent hiker and enters a land that time forgot. Standing on a high rock ledge overlooking the towns and the fogged-in valley that stretches for miles, he’s stunned to see a dragon flying overhead and is suddenly taken prisoner by Beatrice Dubois, dressed like a medieval archer and flanked by her twin direwolves Castor and Pollux and a feisty hunting falcon named Icarus. Ben and Beatrice get off to a very rocky start. Ben’s suave demeanor and talkative charms, which have always worked wonders with the ladies, make absolutely no headway with the stern, tight-lipped Beatrice, who takes him to the medieval French fortress town of Mont Con, facing the identical Italian fortress town of Monte Culo across a vineyard-filled border with everyone wearing clothes dating back centuries and no modern conveniences in sight.

Ben thinks it’s an artfully staged cosplay, but soon comes to realize that it’s all very, very real. He meets Beatrice’s elegant father Mayor Dubois, who looks and dresses like Charles II, and also Mayor Boschi, the Bombolini-like Mayor of Monte Culo and his squabbling Council of Ministers, who regale Ben with uproarious tales of their incredibly violent and bloody thousand year history, their abject defiance of outsiders through the centuries and their their mutual desire to be left alone – which is the only thing they seem to agree on.

But when Ben asks them about the foggy valley, he’s met with terrified silence. Ben knows they must be hiding something, but has far more immediate concerns. The war against the Nazis, which the townspeople know nothing about, is coming to the region and if they don’t find a way to make peace and pull together, the strange time-warped life they lead will soon be crushed.

Ever the actor, Ben suggests putting on a theater night where both towns perform their favorite Shakespeare scenes. And to his surprise, everyone agrees – including Beatrice, who oddly enough seems to be the top dog. The night is a rousing and raunchy success, highlighted by a blistering scene from “Much Ado About Nothing” where Ben and Beatrice play the quarreling lovers Benedick and Beatrice with such passion and intensity that you’d swear the parts were written just for them.

As Ben and Beatrice become intimate, Beatrice reveals that the towns and the people were cursed 800 years ago and have been locked in a time-warped purgatory ever since. They can’t grow old, they can’t have children and after 800 years, everyone’s fucking sick and tired of each other. And she adds to the mystery by ordering Ben to never, ever enter the valley, because those who’ve tried have never returned.

Meanwhile in Syria, Nazi archeologist Kurtz finds an ancient map in a Templar tomb pointing to a spot on the French-Italian border marked with a red Templar cross. Under orders from Berlin to find something that will make Germany invincible, Kurtz flies to Rome to meet with General Kesselring, who gives him a Panzer detachment near Turin led by the fierce Col. Brandt. Kurtz and Brandt, one a scholar and the other a soldier but both equally ambitious, argue over who will command the mission until Kurtz drops the Himmler card and a very uneasy truce is reached.

A column of 8 Panzers and 200 soldiers arrives at Mont Con and Monte Culo and in a tense standoff, the town leaders insist there’s no hidden Templar treasure and whatever they’ve heard is a myth. But Kurtz doesn’t believe them. Soldiers and tanks are ordered to occupy the towns and as Kurtz searches the two ancient churches, he finds nothing. No clues, no Templar markings. Nothing.

Brandt fires a warning shell destroying Mont Con’s tallest tower and threatens to start shooting people when Ben desperately jumps in and brokers a deal. Kurtz can search the churches again and if he still finds nothing, they’ll leave the towns in peace. Beatrice is furious and almost kills Ben on the spot, but the deal is done. Kurtz explores the crypts and suddenly finds two ancient Latin inscriptions chiseled in stone reading “Look to the Lord and His strength” and “Seek His face always.”

The words haunt Kurtz, knowing the Bible passages they’re from and certain the inscriptions are cleverly concealed clues. And when he goes back and studies the two crucifixion scenes hidden deep behind the altars, he’s shocked to find the real, 2000 year-old bloodstained cross with Roman nails, the headboard reading “Jesus of Nazareth. King of the Jews” written in Latin, Greek and Hebrew, the tattered blood-stained cloth covering Christ’s waist and the real crown of thorns, caked with dried blood. Kurtz pricks his finger on a razor sharp thorn and suddenly sees mystical visions of the swastika bleeding across the globe as Germany conquers the world behind the True Cross of Christ.

As a triumphant Kurtz loads the world-changing relics in a transport truck, Ben sees the handsome and stalwart Romeo of Monte Culo behind the wheel wearing a German uniform. Kurtz chides Dubois and Boschi for lying to him and as the truck leaves Mont Con packed with the relics, Ben notices that Dubois, Boschi and the perpetually squabbling Ministers seem surprisingly blasé about it all.

Suddenly a fearsome Knight Templar in full battle dress wielding a massive broadsword and shield appears in the square flanked by Castor and Pollux. As Ben stares in shock, Beatrice removes her helmet, raises her sword to the heavens and shouts, “What is God’s must remain unto God!” Suddenly hundreds of French and Italians rise from the ramparts with bows and fire down on the Germans as hundreds more storm in with pikes, swords, maces and clubs. A savage battle explodes inside Mont Con and as a barrel of flaming oil sets a tank ablaze, Ben sees a chance to save everyone. Knowing it’s suicide, he tells Kurtz and Brandt there’s more Templar treasure hidden in the valley and as they escape Mont Con and join the tanks, trucks and soldiers waiting in the vineyards, the truck carrying the holy relics quietly slips away to the safety of Monte Culo.

As Kurtz and Ben speed into the fog-shrouded valley with the rest of Brandt’s tanks and troop trucks, they plunge into a prehistoric world filled with terrifying beasts and Jurassic landscapes. Ben throws himself out of Kurtz’s car and is knocked unconscious and as Kurtz, Brandt and the column keep going further and further back in time, swarms of raptors, T. Rexs and fire-breathing dragons annihilate the Germans as Beatrice, conquering the one thing she fears the most, gallops into the Valley of No Return with Castor and Pollux and Icarus and brings Ben back out, barely alive.

London, 1945. As the war ends and Ben recuperates in a hospital, he fakes amnesia about his mission to protect the towns’ secrets. But some of his amnesia is real. He has no idea how he got back to London, nor the fate of the towns and the relics and the Germans. Everything’s a blank after plunging into the valley and throwing himself out of Kurtz’s car. He needs to know what happened, and there’s only one way to find out.

Ben performs one last play (HENRY V) to a packed house, then retires from the stage and quietly returns to the place he loves in hopes of getting answers and winning back Beatrice’s heart. As he stands on the high rock ledge overlooking the towns and the foggy valley, Beatrice suddenly appears looking exactly like she did when they first met. But her heart is as cold as stone. Ben thought she’d be glad to see him, but Beatrice is still furious that Ben went into the valley after ordering him to stay away. Ben explains why he did it, but Beatrice says they had the Germans contained. Ben says if he hadn’t drawn the tanks and soldiers away Brandt would’ve flattened the towns and killed everyone.

They argue like Benedick and Beatrice at their cruelest until Beatrice finally breaks down in tears and in a riveting flashback, reveals that after finding Ben near death in the valley, she and her father and Romeo managed to get a message to the British, who sent a plane to a mountain meadow 20 miles away to take Ben back to London. Since then, she didn’t know if Ben was alive or dead. As Ben holds Beatrice close and the tensions melt away, the two star-crossed lovers realize they did everything they could to keep each other alive as their world was falling apart.

But more surprises await. While The Valley of No Return remains trapped in prehistoric time, the 800-year curse has miraculously been broken. The women are pregnant, the people are aging and the still-stern and eternally vigilant Beatrice presents Ben with a rambunctious toddler son. Ben is tapped to lead the towns into the brave new world of the future and as wedding bells ring in celebration, Boschi and his squabbling pack of ministers squabble away, proving that some things never change.

Commercial Appeal:

Compelling Themes: Templar mysteries, Christian iconography and lost worlds, all key themes in several beloved classics. The Nazi’s quest for relics and symbols to make them invincible. Duty, loyalty and honor that transcend place and time. A powerful star-crossed love story where no sacrifice is too great to keep that love alive.

Incredible Cast: Dynamic and riveting cast of historical and delightfully crazy time-warped characters joined together to create a unique and compelling story world where anything is possible. The best female lead role in years, featuring a spellbinding woman whose complex character and mysterious past drive the story to incredible heights as she shocks and surprises us at every turn.

Cinematic Visuals: Breathtaking battles, stunning locations, sweeping vistas, magnificent costumes and wondrous revelations that will transport viewers deeper and deeper into the pages of history like few movies ever have.

Marketing Potential:

THE GATES OF HELL is the type of movie audiences crave. With its unique and compelling story world filled with ancient mysteries, religious iconography, fascinating time-warped characters and star-crossed lovers who viewers will root for and cheer, it has an excellent chance to connect with fans of INDIANA JONES, THE DA VINCI CODE and JURASSIC PARK – which means just about everyone on the planet.

“A masterfully crafted story. A terrific blend of history, myth, fact, fiction, fantasy and human nature combine to make this a very special script.” – The Black List.