Project Analog
A script treatment.
“It’s addictive. Like it keeps trying to get me to reach further, to feel more. To…”
“Go back?”
“Like waking up from a really good dream. You just wish you could stay.”
“And after that… at the end of the good memories… what’s left?”
“I don’t know.”
Here’s another outline of a screenplay I completed in two weeks. That may seem like a short amount of time, but I’ve been working on it since 2020. Some details (such as the real title) have been concealed for your safety and mine.
This story has a different structure than something like Project Coercion. It might read differently, or perhaps it’s just not as good. But I like it, and I will continue to keep it in the rotation as the years go on.
This Month’s Recommendations
Movie: Rango by Gore Verbinski
Album: Eurus by The Oh Hellos
Game: Donkey Kong Bananza by Nintendo
We begin with the playback of a VHS tape.
A man named PHIL hosts an episode of a nature show about camping in the mountains of a place called Plywood. Talking about supplies, the tape’s playback is unstable, constantly glitching and stuttering. He discusses the danger of auditory hallucinations, only for the recording to be interrupted by something else: footage of a broken analog television in the forest, camouflaged by foliage.
Further interruptions show a camera looking around frantically in front of a campfire at night, but the audio is missing. When we find Phil again, he’s talking about the risk of unfriendly encounters in the woods. Phil soon disappears, and the camera investigates a disemboweled bear carcass. However, its insides appear to be composed of plants instead of organs. A scream echoes somewhere in the distance, and text flashes repeatedly on the screen before the tape gives out.
IT’S NOT REAL
The year is 2019. NICK, 24, is a photographer attending Montana State University with his roommate and best friend, EASTON. In addition to photography, he also has another line of work: he fixes and digitizes old VHS tapes, a skill he inherited from his father, a repairman. He believes old technology is more “authentic.” While recording a client’s home movies, he watches an old VHS tape he keeps in his drawer, labeled “2001”. The video features Nick’s 5-year-old self alongside his young parents, and he has memorized every part of it.
Nick receives a red letter in the mail from the place named Plywood, Utah. Written by his parents, it asks him to return home for a visit for a special occasion known as the “festival”. Nick is confused by the letter; he has not visited home in over ten years. While he has a few nostalgic childhood memories, he does not remember large chunks of his life, and sometime when he was 12 or 13, he left with his uncle in the dead of night for an unknown reason. Plywood, as a town, also does not seem to exist; it cannot be found on any maps. Speaking with a psychiatrist, he is told that his memory repression is a trait common to those who have experienced a deeply traumatic event.
Unsure about Plywood’s existence in the first place, Easton tells Nick about a man named Mr. Holden, who once worked at the university and apparently grew up in a place called Plywood. Nick visits him at a nursing home, finding him mostly catatonic. However, before Nick leaves, Mr. Holden points him towards a shelf where he finds a VHS tape.
The tape is an old commercial (dated somewhere around the 80s or 90s) promoting the annual Plywood festival. A small town decorated in tents and canopies, with a campground hosting several attractions akin to a county fair. Local stores pride themselves on selling old electronics.
Now confident in Plywood’s existence, and growing more obsessed, Nick travels to a storage facility once owned by his deceased uncle, where he finds an old map showing Plywood’s location in the northeastern area of Utah. Despite Easton’s pleas to think things through, Nick believes he not only has a chance to reclaim his lost childhood, but also to reconcile with his parents, as he feels immense guilt for having abandoned them.
Nick drives to Utah, winding between unmarked roads, until he finally reaches the entrance to Plywood. Hidden amidst mountainous forests, it’s like nothing has advanced past the early 2000s. Passing through town, Nick finds it apparently deserted. He reaches his childhood home, where he reunites with his father, NASH, and his mother, OLIVIA. Struggling to fully recognize them, Nick is brought inside where he is introduced to GILDA, his 7-year-old sister.
While looking through his old things, Olivia reveals to Nick that Gilda was born some time after he left, and that most of the townspeople are away on trips (as it is tradition to do so before the festival). Neither of them notices a figure walking out of the woods in the distance.
Taking pictures around town, Nick is met by DOMINIC, Plywood’s sheriff (of only a few months). He tells Nick that Plywood is a dying town, nowhere near as lively as it was in the past; entire suburban neighborhoods are empty. Townsfolk finally come back from their trips, and Dominic promises to keep in touch. Nick wonders: why is Plywood hidden if the people living in it want to keep it afloat?
That evening, Nick attempts to ask his family why the town is so much emptier, but they deflect or ignore his questions. Gilda, who is obsessed with watching TV, watches a cartoon with Nick, one made by residents in Plywood a long time ago.
Later in the night, while getting a drink, Nick finds a hidden pamphlet for Montana State University. When the clock strikes midnight, the TV turns on and plays an unseen episode of the cartoon Gilda was watching.
A “lost episode” of the show, the broadcast depicts a group of cartoon animals bemoaning the disappearance of their friend, Ms. Deer, who has gotten lost in the woods. One of the animals, Mr. Sheep, proposes getting help from someone called their “FRIEND IN THE SKY”. Mr. Sheep volunteers to “feed him”, and one of the stars glows red. The sound of a phone ringing plays, and Mr. Sheep rises into the sky. Both he and the red star are suddenly censored by a black box, and a strange tree appears, one of its branches resembling an antler. One of the other animals maintains a blank, uncanny expression.
“It’s so beautiful.”
The next day, Nick visits the elementary school where Gilda attends and Olivia teaches. He brings Gilda along to the library, where he investigates the media center where the cartoon episodes were made. While there, he asks her if she’s ever seen anything weird on TV, but she says that nothing scares her. Inside a locked box, Nick finds an extensively damaged tape, labeled “IN CASE OF FIRE”, and takes it with him after finding an assortment of storyboards with disturbing drawings.
While trying to fix the damaged tape, Nash assists Nick, as he previously worked as an electronics salesman and repairman. However, after Nick left town, there was a large fire that burned down nearly half the town, and the economy never recovered. Nick is invited to go with Olivia and Gilda to a friend’s party that night.
Nick heads to the party, meeting with the party’s host, LAURA, who recognizes him. He makes small talk and asks how her son, his childhood friend, is doing. Laura becomes upset, quietly murmuring “it’s your fault”, but Olivia arrives and calms her down. To get away, Nick goes to the house’s second floor, where Gilda and the other children are playing. He also looks around the house’s attic, finding several drawings of a red face on a TV, as well as a Bible with several passages blacked out.
At the same time, the landline telephone on the wall downstairs rings, and everyone in the house goes completely silent. When Nick hears it and heads for the stairs, the children stop him, terrified of something. Once it stops ringing, he goes down to find the party continuing like normal. Dominic arrives, claiming it was a moment of silence for Laura’s son, who died in the Plywood fire. Dominic agrees to look into the children’s behavior, but tells him to relax and rest.
The next day, with everyone else gone, Nick snoops in his parents’ room, finding a beneficiary notification letter with his address. In another drawer, he finds a VHS tape labeled “NASH FARNSWORTH”, and puts it into the TV.
The instructional tape is meant to explain responsibilities to a new employee of the “Communications Department”. The job involves repairing analog electronics at a station somewhere in the mountains, to maintain “communication” monthly. Clips show examples of successful communication on various devices: a red cursor appears on a computer, a garbled voice speaks on a radio, a telephone rings, and a red pixelated face smiles on a television screen. The tape’s instructor warns about continuous exposure causing infection via “cognitohazard”, referring to something called “RED” before it cuts out.
Nick takes Gilda to a park, where he meets with Dominic. Nick reveals the festival ends with a lottery: everyone in town puts their name in, and only one wins a huge prize unique to every year. Dominic claims that children in Plywood have an urban legend about a ghost that tries to possess you over the phone. Nick expresses his frustration that all his memories seem to be inconsistent, and that he still doesn’t understand why he and his uncle left. Dominic says that he came to Plywood after his wife’s death, feeling that people around him were becoming “hollow.”
At dinner, Nick tries to grill Nash about his job, but Olivia shuts it down. Nick then proposes that Nash take him for a quick hunting lesson the next day, and Nash agrees.
Rifles in hand, Nash takes Nick into the forest, trying to show him how to hunt. Nick again questions him, this time about how long he knew of his location (because of the pamphlet and the beneficiary letter). Though frustrated, Nash says that he believed Nick preferred his life in Montana, and that he made the best choice he could “given the circumstances.” Just before Nick can ask him about “RED”, he hears a high-pitched scream in the distance. Nash instructs Nick to ignore it, as it’s an auditory hallucination, caused by elevation distorting animal calls. The voice’s screams grow louder, causing Nick to run off into the forest towards it.
Finding himself lost and stalked by something, Nick stumbles into a clearing, where he sees the silhouette of an elk in the fog. Its neck is longer, one of its antlers is missing, and its cry stutters like a broken record. Before Nick can take a picture with his camera, Nash finds him, and when he turns back, the animal is gone.
At the house, Gilda tells Nick about a “ghost” inside the TV trying to talk to her. While investigating the local church with Dominic, Nick finds religious paintings that have been altered to include the presence of a large red circle resembling the Sun, bearing a faded smiling face. He checks the provided Bibles, finding they also have blacked-out passages, just like the one he found in Laura’s attic.
Dominic takes Nick to a broken analog television he found in the forest. Through the broken screen, they see plants growing where wires should be. Nick concludes that Plywood is harboring a cult. Dominic acknowledges the lack of trust between them and guesses that, if there was a cult in Plywood, it’s no longer active. Noting that no one has tried to make him stay, Nick gives the VHS tape he found in his parents’ room (the job instruction tape) to Dominic.
Nick returns in the evening and finds that Nash has fixed the “IN CASE OF FIRE” tape for him. Once everyone falls asleep, he puts the tape in the TV downstairs.
It’s an emergency broadcast to be aired in the event of a “breach” in Plywood. Via ominous text while an alarm sounds, the tape announces that “the feast has failed”, and that “Plywood must not burn again”. It instructs the viewer to lock all doors and windows, turn off or destroy all electronics, not to allow strangers into their home, and to quarantine any family members exhibiting signs of “vegetative growth”. Showing a set of photos detailing malformed hands, it then encourages bodily mutilation and even suicide.
YOU MUST NOT LET HIM HAVE YOUR BODY.
HE WILL TAKE IT EVEN AFTER YOU ARE DEAD.
IF SOMEONE IS UNABLE TO MUSTER THE WILL.
HELP THEM.
As the tape ejects, Nick hears a voice whispering from inside the TV.
“Can you hear me?”
On his way back to bed, he overhears Olivia praying in her room, whispering to something called “red light” and asking for someone’s protection.
The next day is the start of the Plywood Festival. Nick spends the day with Gilda at various fairground attractions, bonding with her. He gets her a stuffed deer at an auction, and the two head home for the evening. However, Gilda misplaces her backpack by a mirror house, and Nick volunteers to go get it.
As he collects the backpack by the fairgrounds, he looks to an abandoned neighborhood just a short distance away, noticing one of the houses has its lights on. He makes his way towards it, on the way seeing an empty house that looks broken into. Inside, he finds patches of blood as well as an old camcorder. He returns to the lit-up house, peeking through the windows. He sees a dog and an entire family sitting completely motionless at the dinner table. When Nick attempts to take a picture, one of them turns and sprints towards him, causing him to flee.
At the house, Nick plugs in the old camcorder and views the footage on it.
Dated 10/8/2008. A cameraman cowers in his home as the neighborhood is in chaos; people are screaming, houses are on fire. The cameraman hears a woman scream from the house’s basement. When he checks the basement door, heavy footsteps race up the stairs. He hides in a bedroom corner, while a child’s voice on the other side of the door tells him to come outside. When the cameraman attempts to respond, recognizing it as his son’s voice, it then mimics his voice. Before he can do anything, a child, mutilated into a grotesque monster, bursts into the room and attacks the cameraman.
Sickened by what he’s seen, Nick packs up and prepares to leave in the night. Olivia finds him and tries to stop him. Nick angrily confronts her over their prior knowledge of his whereabouts and asks why he was really invited back. Olivia tries to comfort him, saying they believed he didn’t want anything to do with them; they invited him back so he could meet Gilda, and try to make things the way they used to be. She begs Nick to stay only until the festival is over, for Gilda’s sake. Nick forms the beginning stages of a plan to get Gilda out of Plywood, as his uncle did.
As another day of the festival begins, Nick goes to the police station looking for Dominic, but is told that he is out sick. Spending the day with Gilda, Nick gives her his phone number, instructing her to contact him if she ever feels unsafe, and not to tell their parents.
At dinner, Nash and Olivia seem nervous, while Gilda is excited for the lottery, the final event of the festival, broadcast live on TV. The broadcast begins, where an old man on a stage selects a random marble from a bowl. Nick, who doesn’t remember this part, notices his parents becoming incredibly anxious. The man in the program selects a marble with Gilda’s name inscribed upon it. She has won.
A simple program begins on the TV, specifically for giving instructions to the lottery winner.
BUNDLE UP, NICE AND WARM.
WALK NORTH INTO THE WOODS.
FOLLOW THE RED LIGHTS.
FEED THE TREES.
Nick, completely paralyzed by the program, realizes he’s seen it before; the very night in 2008 that his uncle took him out of town, he had won the lottery, too.
Nick sees Gilda preparing to leave and tries to intervene, but Olivia and Nash are adamant that she has to go alone. Nick finally snaps, accusing them of being complicit in a cult ritual, believing that the lottery is a human sacrifice that Nick himself would’ve been a victim of if his uncle hadn’t intervened. When Olivia stresses that the “covenant” is necessary to keep the community together, Nick volunteers to go in Gilda’s place, but finds that this is exactly what his parents want.
Nash admits that he knew Gilda was going to get picked, having been “contacted” a few months prior. This makes Nick realize the true reason he was invited back home: his parents want to trade Nick’s life for Gilda’s, completing the sacrifice prevented in 2008. Nick berates his parents for denying him a fulfilling childhood and staying in Plywood while this was happening. His parents, in turn, blame him for the deaths of their friends; it was because of Nick that the “fire” happened at all. Infuriated, Nick bemoans that all he ever wanted was a family, and as the instructions on the TV repeat endlessly, he attempts to destroy it with a chair. Nash tries to stop him, causing Nick to swing back and hit him in the head, knocking him out cold.
As Olivia tends to Nash, Nick takes a rifle along with his camera, telling her that once he has collected evidence of the cult, he is taking Gilda away, regardless of whether they come with or not. He apologizes to a shaken Gilda and has her promise she will stay safe and protect her family. Then, he heads out into the forest alone.
Heading north in the dark, Nick encounters a large lamppost with a red sphere at the top. Recognizing it from his childhood, he follows more lamps towards a boundary before he is ambushed and restrained by a police officer. Taken to the boundary, guarded by stone pillars and torches, Dominic appears, now grossly disfigured, in the midst of some kind of transformation. He tells Nick that he “dug too deep”, and that the lottery is a bargain meant to preserve Plywood from destruction at the hands of an entity called RED, who “commands the trees”.
“There is no one coming, because there is no one. We are already here. Your friends, your neighbors, your governor. He’s already taken root in you and you haven’t realized. It’s all gone, and the garden has taken its place. We are everywhere.”
Gilda arrives, having gone into the woods on her own anyway. Despite Nick’s panicked pleas, she heads past the boundary and into the darkness of the forest. In a very quick motion, a living branch detaches from a nearby tree like a limb, ensnares her, and pulls her down into the ground. Nick gets free of his restraints, and uses the rifle to shoot both the officer and Dominic.
Nick heads past the boundary, searching for Gilda, but is unable to find any trace of her. As he blindly traverses, he is suddenly grabbed and pulled up into the air by more living branches. Various appendages swarm him, and one of them stabs him in the hand. He manages to get free and run away, finding himself in one of the abandoned neighborhoods. Still pursued, Nick breaks into one of the empty houses.
Overcome by everything that has happened, Nick vomits and breaks down in the kitchen. The phone on the wall rings. When he answers…
“CAN YOU HEAR ME?”
Taking a knife, he severs the phone cord, just as something outside tries to break in. Nick begins feeling ill; the prick on his hand from when he was stabbed itches violently, and he develops a fever. Nick hides in the house’s bedroom, which is barren except for an old TV on a rolling stand. As Nick coughs up blood and develops green rashes on his skin, the TV turns itself on, and the entity, RED, speaks directly to him.
RED, a demon that communicates through analog technology, describes itself as a “humble gardener” seeking to make the world beautiful. As it reveals it has been manipulating Nick’s memories ever since he left Plywood, Nick’s symptoms worsen: bugs crawl beneath his skin, plants sprout from more rashes, and he coughs up dirt. RED taunts Nick and assures him that, though the assimilation is painful, he will emerge a “blooming flower”. Nick’s fingers extend, thorns grow out of his neck, his eyes change color, and his voice mutates while he writhes around in agony.
Finally, Nick takes the knife.
“I won’t let you take me!”
He swings the knife down and cuts off his infected hand, blacking out.
In the morning, RED’s voice wakes Nick up, telling him to “say goodbye.” Nick’s transformation has been interrupted, but not reversed, leaving him half-mutated. He stumbles outside, finding almost the entire town has surrounded him to lead him into an opening in the forest. Nick finds Nash and Olivia among the crowd; he begs them for forgiveness, apologizing for leaving and promising to stay with them, but they coldly rebuke him.
“It’s all your fault.”
Bitter, Nick’s reality seems to crumble around him, and he heads for the forest.
Nick walks down a beautiful trail covered in autumn leaves. He finally gets a short-lived moment of calm, before he sees Gilda approaching from afar, walking like a zombie. As he gets closer to her, he sees a tree branch nestling into her head, and realizes she is no longer her. Nick promises to stay with her, and raises his camera to take a picture, the only thing he can do to prove that this moment is real. As he does so, he notices the Sun rising behind her. Glowing a deep red, moving so quickly…
It’s not the Sun.
It’s a massive red face, rising into the sky and staring down over Nick and all of Plywood. Nick sees the demon smile, awestruck by its beauty. The surrounding trees close in on him.
Life in Plywood goes on as always. Winter brings snow.
Through the window of their home, Nash and Olivia are seen sitting at the dinner table, motionless. Their children are gone.
Deep in the snowy mountains, a broken camera lies on the ground. Plants are seen growing through the cracked lens. A blurred figure, resembling Nick, appears in the distance. It sees the camera and reaches down to pick it up.
We see low-fidelity VHS playback. It’s the Earth, seen from outer space.
An old song plays as red text flashes on the screen.
