When little parlors pop up at every corner with the promise of offering their clientele the ability to experience the recorded nightmares of others, a reserved young woman can no longer contain her curiosity and decides to try it out for herself. 

SYNOPSIS:

"Video Nightmares" is the name of an inexplicable business chain of small, sterile-looking shops that allow visitors to be hooked up to a machine that puts them into REM sleep to experience a pre-recorded night terror...for a nominal fee, of course. The places are popular and anyone who's anyone has already tried it. Celebrities are clamoring to these "dream parlors" to be able to chronicle their experiences on Twitter and Facebook. There are contests to see who is the leader of this bunch with the most "adventures in electronic visions." Some entrepreneurial geniuses have even begun pairing their kitschy pot shops with Video Nightmares parlors and are raking in the big bucks.

But what of the sporadic reports and whispered rumors here and there about people who visited these parlors and were never seen again. Gabriella is a reporter for an online news-zine interested in making a big splash in the world of journalism. She intends on finding out if there is any credence to this rash of rumors or are they just urban legends.

This short film (screenplay not yet completed) is based on a short story I conceived in 1976 and actually wrote while stationed in Europe in 1983. The story originally had a male lead, but I've recently decided to update it and changed the lead to female and brought in more recent electronic-age elements that make sense. Originally, this was about VHS tapes (LOL) and did not incorporate the use of the plot device where "kitschy pot shops" are included.

Will be completed soon. Oh, and, much thanks to Chantel Lee for her logline suggestion! You're my new BFF on Stage 32!