Death’s Door
Death’s Door
A Horror Feature Film
“A sophisticated and frightening horror film with clear commercial potential”
— The Black List
Logline:
On Christmas Eve, two Paramedics answer a routine call from a rich hermit and discover the invisible thing he’s been calling about for years has finally come for him and anyone who gets in its way.
About:
Death’s Door is a contained horror film: one night, one location, three people who don’t know what they’ve walked into.
At its heart, this is a film about moral debt: the lie that good deeds can cancel out the worst thing we’ve ever done.
Hell keeps better records.
IT FOLLOWS meets A CHRISTMAS CAROL
Marisol
A young Paramedic on her first night. She gives Edwin the benefit of the doubt when no one else will. She’s the film’s moral center and its only fighter, doing everything in her power to protect a man who, in the end, doesn’t deserve it.
Edwin
A frightened old man on Christmas Eve who believes Death has come for him. He has donated a fortune to orphans and burn victims and lives alone in deliberate penance. He is also the man who burned his family alive as a boy and has been dreading the day he will pay the price.
Ben
A veteran Paramedic who has seen enough human suffering to stop being surprised by it. He is sardonic and rough around the edges. When an unearthly frequency overtakes him through his own phone, he becomes Hell’s messenger and Edwin’s greatest fear.
This Christmas, something has come to collect…
And Death is the easy part.
THE ARRIVAL
Christmas Eve. A lonely desert road. An ancient Christmas lullaby, The Coventry Carol, plays on a radio.
Two Paramedics drive toward a routine call; a rich, solitary eccentric with a history of false alarms. When they arrive, Marisol finds him outside in the dark, clutching a hatchet. No matter how much Marisol reassures him, Edwin is convinced something is coming for him. Mysterious callers have foretold his death at midnight and declared a “messenger” has already been sent.
Inside, strange details accumulate for Marisol: plaster casts of disfigured WWI soldiers, a rotary phone he refuses to answer, decades of charitable donation receipts. The quiet, heavy atmosphere of a man facing long-overdue judgment.
THE DESCENT
Ring. Marisol watches Ben answer a call on his own phone. And something overtakes him. A piercing, unearthly frequency that leaves him bleeding a dark substance from his ear and no longer himself.
The front door flies open, revealing a black and limitless void. Ben vanishes through it and returns cold, puppet-like, and threatening. Barricading herself inside with Edwin, Marisol watches Ben prowl the perimeter like a predator.
Outside, Carl, the responding Police Officer, is hunted across the desert road by unseen creatures with molten gold eyes, hurling stones from the dark, toying with him before he is struck down in the dirt.
No radio. No vehicle. No backup. Midnight drawing closer by the minute.
With Ben still somewhere in the dark outside, Marisol forms a plan. Luring Ben into the house, she sedates and restrains him. For a moment, he’s himself. Scared and terrified of the visions and voices inside him.
Marisol tries her best to help him, but it doesn’t last. He turns again. Evil resurfacing. His words cut deep into Marisol’s soul.
With no more options, Marisol takes Edwin and makes a run for the ambulance.
Before she can make it there, two enormous faceless robed figures flank her with tormented human-like things straining at iron chains. Barely making it into the ambulance, she finds herself surrounded by creatures. At the last moment, Edwin appears and saves her.
Together, they escape back to the house.
THE TURN
Once there, they become separated; Marisol outside and Edwin inside. Through a window, Marisol can see Ben looming over Edwin, who is on his knees, pleading. But when Marisol breaks back into the house, Ben is nowhere to be found and Edwin seems to tearfully realize his end is at hand.
Marisol resigns herself. She was unable to save Edwin.
As the clock tolls midnight, in a final act of monstrous self-preservation, Edwin drugs Marisol. As she watches, helpless on the floor, Edwin raises the hatchet and drives it into her.
Believing he has struck a bargain with Death, trading Marisol’s life for his own survival, just as he did as a child when he set fire to his family home, he makes the same calculation. The same selfish act.
The bargain, of course, is a LIE.
Death hasn’t come for Edwin… Hell has.
It is now midnight. Christmas. And Ben returns, his eyes glowing with devilish judgment.
Three cloaked figures representing Edwin’s past, present, and future close in at last. Ben reveals what they truly are: Hell. Edwin is on their list, his name written in deep black, larger than the rest.
The fire blazes with the screams of the three entities. The family he murdered decades ago. His childhood scars reopen as he is consumed, screaming their names as Hell collects what has been owed for a lifetime.
They survived the night…
But it has left its wounds.
Marisol wakes at dawn, battered and bruised but alive. Ben is himself again but traumatized by memory. Carl, the Police Officer left dead in the dirt, has barely survived the night. As the three of them regroup in the quiet of Christmas morning, they realize their injuries are more than physical.
Each of them was told a date, the day they will die, burned into their palm, but with no year attached. Every sunrise they will carry the same quiet question: is this the one?
Marisol starts the ambulance and they pull away as the same ancient Christmas lullaby, The Coventry Carol, plays softly on the radio, carrying them back down the desert road and into the light.
“A story with startling visuals and smothering dread.”
— The Black List
THE TEAM
DIRECTOR
Ryan Godoy is an award-winning filmmaker specializing in elevated genre storytelling. His work has been featured on leading platforms such as Bloody Disgusting and Film Shortage, and has collectively garnered over a million views on YouTube.
Following the success of his acclaimed short EVERY NIGHT I SEE THEM, Ryan’s latest film, THE AGREEMENT AT CLIVEMORE, is currently making its way through the festival circuit while simultaneously being developed into a feature adaptation. In addition to expanding Clivemore, Ryan is actively developing a slate of new projects and is eager to collaborate with fellow creators in the feature film space.
WRITER
David Draper is a Black List Recommended and award-winning screenwriter who excels in crafting high-concept horror and thrillers that captivate and terrify. His “The Thing on a Slave Ship” feature screenplay, VORACIOUS, was trending on the Black List in 2022, and he holds a shopping agreement with an LA Times reporter for his true-crime pilot, BEHEADED.
He has earned accolades as a Finalist, Semi-Finalist, and Quarter-Finalist in some of the industry’s most competitive contests and is eager to collaborate with diverse and passionate creators to bring spine-tingling visions to life.