Be Not Afraid…
CHOSEN
When an atheist meets Jesus on a remote Scottish Island, he is plunged into a series of surreal and terrifying trials that challenge his sanity and his existence.
LOCATION SCOUTING: ISLE OF LEWIS & HARRIS, SEPTEMBER 2023
"The sign reads: PASSING PLACE. The single lane road is empty." (p12)
"Miles is blissfully tiny among the crags--a lone traveller walking across a landscape as inhabitable as the moon." (p12)
"The town’s emptiness is offset by eerie, “SACRED HARP” CHORAL SINGING that echoes from inside the daunting Kirk. " (p12)
"The town sign reads: “ÀITE CRÌCHE / THE MARCH”. Stone. Slate. Cold. Damp. A set of fishermen’s cottages lead to a Free Kirk and a battered Inn." (p12)
"Miles looks out across the calm, slate-blue sea. Interrupting its vastness, the Island. Mist on its shore. Taps of snow on its peaks. Its hills dotted with sinuous, perplexing woods." (p15)
ALICE MACLEOD: "Someone has to say it: no-one’ll take you. It’s not just the old superstitions. The island has a type-- lost boys. It eats them up." (p18)
"Sea birds scatter across the low sun. The Sea of Galilee glides into the sandbars." (p20)
"The sand leads toward rugged cliffs, and tree-covered hills beyond." (p20)
"Birds fly screeching up into the air across the dark island." (p33)
"The sea churns at the mouth of a ragged cove. Miles wanders onto the beach and drops into the sand. " (p47)
"Shaking with the cold, on all fours, Miles clambers up a rock stack as the waves batter him. He looks as the last remnants of his raft float away." (p48)
"Hunter crawls forward on his hands and knees. Shaking, broken, pleading with an invisible presence." (p60)
"Miles looks at the gloomy and forbidding crags. At their summit, he catches the silhouettes of a tiny anemometer and a glistening solar panel." (p61)
Miles starts his ascent, then sees to one side-- A WEIRD CAVE IN THE ROCK. Marking its entrance: a cross drawn in chalk. (p61)
"Hunter crawls over the cliffs toward the weather station. The place is alone and empty." (p62)
"Miles looks longingly down the road that stretches South, toward civilisation and his second start." (p82)
MILES ELDRITCH comes home one day to changed locks, a note on the door and the end of his everyday life.
With nothing but broken relationships, a failed career and heavy debts, Miles travels to the Hebrides with his dead Father's camping gear. He's spurred by an old postcard that mentions a sacred Loch where bathers are granted a second life.
Getting to the uninhabited island proves difficult, and when he finally gets away from the Mainland (by stealing a rowboat), the Island has ideas of its own.
Miles experiences a disturbing series of out-of-body events that feature a burnt SPECTRE with a flaming hand. Then his boat and his campsite completely disappear, leaving him trapped on the island without supplies.
This sudden and desperate quest for survival is compounded by the appearance of the enigmatic HUNTER, a homeless wilderness enthusiast who also claims to be trapped on the island.
Hunter tells Miles that there’s more to the island's legend: "Lord Jesus" supposedly sleeps in the Loch of Life, waiting to be raised by a Sinner who will undergo four terrible baptisms before "carrying Jesus back into the world" through his martyrdom.
But just as soon Miles becomes convinced that Hunter is responsible for his stolen boat and missing supplies, Miles witnesses Jesus Christ ascending from the Loch in the night.
The Spectre of the Son of Man chases Miles down in the night, telling him that martyrdom awaits.
Does it? Has Miles been chosen by Christ, or is he hallucinating? Is Hunter a friend or a foe? And if any of what he sees is real, doesn’t this mean that God is the most terrifying Monster of them all?
Independent Horror Feature.
IP Potential.