Treatment

Treatment - personal proposal (uncanny)

Log Line: A man walks down the stairs of a tall building with very claustrophobic surroundings and as he gets further down the doors on each floor begin to open and creatures pour out of them attempting to harm him.  

The protagonist (Chris) is walking slowly down a repetitive staircase with plain but haggard walls on each side, he is aware of how closed in he is and every door looks exactly the same. Chris becomes agitated as his eyes dart around looking for a clue as to what floor he is on and the surroundings are clearly causing discomfort. The lights begin to flicker erratically and Chris picks up the pace. At this point the doors begin to bang violently as he scurries past them until they are now bursting open just as he passes them. Breathless Chris begins to sprint down the stairs as the banging gets louder and the doors swing open wider and wider. The pace of the banging and flickering catches up with Chris and a grotesque clawed arm grips at Chris tearing a huge chunk out of his shoulder, he screams in pain but manages to contort his body and evade the assault. Gripping his arm he sprints as fast as he can stumble down the stairs being clawed at on every floor but too scared to look at what is attacking him. The light is getting darker as Chris' eyes begin to get heavy but he pushes through and adrenaline takes over. He now has no choice but to look at the creature that is attacking him, a hideous amalgamation of dark oily liquid with huge teeth, claws and glowing fiery eyes. Chris curses as he sees each creature in fear running as close to the inner wall as he can, ducking around and under the claws until finally the floor levels out and a doorway can be seen. Chris manages to conjure a final burst of speed and throws himself head on through the oily creature and the front doors of the building crash open with Chris finally safe he turns back to look at the completely normal and unassuming building and touches his shoulder that no longer has a scratch on in.

 

The idea I have creates comes from walking through the stairways of large blocks of flats, specifically large communist buildings in Eastern Europe and finding it hard to distinguish one room or floor from another. It is a seemingly normal everyday thing but has a slightly mysterious nature to it. The fear of the unknown not knowing what is behind each door and the fact that the protagonist has no idea where he is in the film should convey this fear. The effects that would be on the day would be the injury and the doors banging/lights flickering and making the stairwell for Chris to run down. In the edit the creatures could be added and the illusion of a huge repetitive stairwell would be achieved by tricking the audience within the edit.