The Key - Feature Screenplay

Logline: When a private detective, who holds a grudge against God for his young wife’s death, takes a job to recover a computer algorithm created by witchcraft, dark powers surface to crush his will to live and imprison him for life. Set in Pasadena, 1952. Based on true events.

Private detective, JACK POOLE, 40 something, on a stakeout to 'kidnap' a girl for cash, sleeps dreaming of Georges Melies’, “Trip to the Moon”, Suddenly the cries of a wailing banshee jar him awake. Terrified, he gathers his wits and just in time to snatch his victim and narrowly make an escape.

Post haste, he rendezvous with MR. RIGGS, a well-dressed, dignified black man who pays Jack for the girl. All hush-hush.

Jack arrives at a fund raiser held for US Senator JOHN WILTING where finds ANNE, his on-again girlfriend who’s the legal assistant to Pasadena’s unbending Deputy DA, EVERETT GOODE. Goode introduces him to Jet Propulsion Laboratory co-founder, JACK PARSONS, who brags about a key (an encrypted algorithm) he discovered practicing black magic. He boasts that one day it will enable quantum computers to operate as electronic Ouija boards.

On the heels of this revelation, Jack consults the venerable DR. MIAH, an old mentor. He interprets Jack’s moon dream as fate and a prophetic calling from God to get the dangerous algorithm. Jack’s aggrieved - he holds a grudge against God because years earlier his young wife died during childbirth. He agrees, nevertheless, after being tempted with a payout.

He goes to Parsons' home, but the moment he arrives, it EXPLODES, killing the rocket scientist and nearly Jack himself.

At his DA office, Goode grills Jack about Parsons’ death in front of Anne, no less, but Jack holds his own.

Secretly being tailed, Jack hunts down Parsons' former occult friend, ED FROMAN, whose nerves are frayed. He hints there's a mysterious personage, SORDO TEMPORO behind Parsons' death. He also swears banshees are keening after his mortal soul. Jack, after learning banshees warn of an impending death, rushes back to help Ed, but Froman, inconsolable, blows his brains out in the next room. Jack, at the scene, is immediately arrested.

Incarcerated, he finds out that Goode isn't charging him with connection to Parsons' nor Froman's death -- but for the girl’s kidnapping. Now facing life in prison, Jack insists he's innocent, but refuses to provide proof or an alibi to his young lawyer, EVAN DEWALT, 32.

Jack makes bail and is immediately ostracized. The papers assassinate his character and all but claim his guilt because of his 'association' with the recently deceased sorcerer, Jack Parsons.

Smelling blood, political animal Goode, turns Jack’s conviction into a cause celebre. He orders all of Jack's money confiscated and promises a slam dunk conviction.

Destitute, Jack hunts down his last lead, Parsons' one time math professor, AREF PURDA. Purda reluctantly reveals there could be a valuable patent to the key’s magic math. On the heels of this revelation, Jack is viciously beaten by two thugs and warned to desist… orders from Sordo Temporo.

Parsons’ death now looks more like a murder than an accident and Jack's too close to the truth.

When Goode learns from Anne that Jack may try to skip town, Goode (a Parsons’ convert to the occult) conjures a spell - and the brutal consequences land Jack back in jail.

With his trial pending, Jack discovers that DA Goode is Sordo Temporo. Goode, in his hubris, flaunts the missing algorithm in Jack's face. Parsons' death was necessary to obtain the patent and Jack's conviction will shut the detective up forever.

At trial, Jack believes he's failed God and is about to pay the price - life in prison without parole. As he's about to plead, Mr. Riggs and Senator Wilting suddenly arrive with Wilting's daughter - the ‘kidnapped’ girl. She reveals that she was a rebellious runaway and only 16 years old. In treatment, she learned that Jack was her biological father and that her birth mother died during delivery. Senator Wilting confesses he hired Jack because Jack was the ‘only’ person he could trust to find her, and at all cost, keep his mouth shut "to protect her" and the senator's "political career".

Exonerated, Jack reconnects with his daughter. His confiscated money is returned and his faith in God is restored.

Two nights later, banshees pay a visit to black magician, DA Goode, who pays the price for losing the case; He’s consumed to ashes in a raging house fire.

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© 2024 Bret Bordeaux. All Rights Reserved.

© 2024 Bret Bordeaux.
All Rights Reserved.