Bad Heir Days - synopsis of a movie

This is the synopsis I wrote for a horror movie. Please use it if you want, with my compliments.

Title: Bad Heir Days

Logline: A happy suburban family is traumatized first by nightmares, then by small accidents, finally by a death. They discover that the source of the horror is the unborn baby, but they are helpless; it’s too late for an abortion.

Synopsis

Happy family in peaceful suburb on a Sunday. Large photograph of this smiling family in the hall. Mark, 35, mows the lawn while Cathy, 33, prepares breakfast, watching him lovingly from kitchen. Cathy talks to their next release in her belly, when their firstborn, Ashley, 12, enters the room. Ashley exhibits signs of jealousy towards the unborn baby, but that’s understandable.

Cathy’s mother, 75, who has come to stay with them after a bypass surgery, is in the guest bedroom, making a fuss over everything, especially the food given her. But that’s normal for someone who has undergone bypass.

As Mark goes past his mother-in-law’s bedroom, he swears at her whining and wheezing. That’s normal son-in-law behaviour.

Baby starts kicking inside womb one day. Mark listens with ear on Cathy’s belly. Ashley refuses, and slams door. Grandma shouts from next room. That night, Ashley wakes up from nightmare and goes to Cathy’s room to sleep next to her. Mark wakes up sweating from his nightmare. Mom-in-law screams from her room. Baby kicks from within.

Next day, for some reason, nobody wants to go near the belly. They don’t know it, but they instinctively, vaguely, fear the unborn child. “Positively evil!” Ashley tells friends about her dream in which a monster baby attacked her.

Mark with psychiatrist telling him about his nightmare. That night too, screams echo through the house, drunken truck driver drives in and out of their lawn, leaving a mess behind him. Mark takes day off to repair things. Ashley comes home with broken arm, from hockey or whatever. Mother-in-law makes shitty mess. Cathy pukes more than normal.

Mark and Cathy go for her regular checkup, thankful to get out of the house. Baby kicks. Car swerves. Hits lamp-post, windshield cracks. Cathy is safe.

At hospital, doctor scans belly, and sees a skull in monitor. Usually cool doctor screams.

They return home to find Cathy’s mother dead.

Few days after funeral. The neatest house in the neighbourhood a big mess. Ashley in bed with broken leg and broken arm. Mark has lost his job and temper. Cathy cries more often. The cupboard on the landing crashes down the stairs. Large photograph falls down, and glass shards distort the smiles in the picture. But Mark reacts only by swearing; he’s getting used to this. Neighbour, Asian, drops in, and prattles on and on about Feng Shui, and how the house is evil. He’s stopped by a vase that knocks him out.

Now they realize that the baby is bad luck. Too late for abortion. Cathy slips and falls on bathtub, but nothing happens to baby. Mark, while hammering nails into wall, hits belly with hammer by mistake but nothing happens to baby. Ashley pushes her wheelchair into belly, but nothing happens to baby. Ashley swerves and falls, wheelchair and all. She’s lying down helplessly, when fishtank falls on her. Mark rushes to her and is injured by major piece of glass.

All three in hospital, separate wards, of course. Cathy in labour. Mark tense in his bed. Ashley in an ‘I don’t care anymore’ mood, and heavily bandaged.

Cathy screams. Mark dreams and screams, disturbing patients around. Ashley screams, from sudden pain. They wheel Mark out to see baby. Baby alive and kicking, Cathy’s dead.

Many days later, Mark and Ashley drive home with baby in backseat. Mark checks map and drives far out, evil grin in face. “Let’s drop him somewhere.” Ashley mirrors the grin. Baby also seems to grin. Positively evil.

Mark heads for cliff. Mark carries baby and goes to edge of cliff, Ashley in car. Obviously going to drop baby off cliff.

Car revs up, Ashley yells, Mark turns around to see car coming down on him…car tumbles down the cliff. Explodes. Is everybody dead?

No, Ashley has jumped out and emerges from the grass. Mark rises from ledge on cliff. Emptyhanded. He puts an arm around his daughter, and they start walking.

Naked baby climbs cliff.

The End