WGA 1855040 ©2019

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​Logline:

 

Sent to live with his uncle in a rural home, a boy forms a friendship with the frozen corpse of a

soldier in the woods -- and quickly finds him to be his only ally against a demon-infested home.



Synopsis:

 

Ruko is ten years old when he arrives at the remote and isolated home of Uncle George and Aunt Lyudmila. Abandoned by his father and a mother he never really knew, Ruko is a street toughened boy who is more than happy to be sent out in the snowy forests by his uncle, a writer that doesn’t want to be bothered. And there he discovers an injured crow and the frozen corpse of a soldier. His vivid imagination soon has Sergeant Pindos alive and listening to his heart-breaking tales of living in a squat with an alcoholic father.

    But his newly adopted home is also showing troubling signs of dissolution. George, the world’s foremost expert on ancient Russian shamanism, lands a huge writing contract, but a backlog of financial woes have taken a toll on him. He unwinds with best friend Lenny, a pulp fiction author, drinking heavily and watching Pro Wrestling.

    Themes of violence as an inherited ethos and cultural pastime are brought to light dramatically. George gets into a drunken fight with the housekeeper. It is a macabre, over the top brawl, and he murders her. 

    Ruko flees to the forest, and the tales of both the soldier and the boy resonate with similar

themes of rejection, loss, and loneliness. Every time Ruko crosses over the snowy fields, something changes. The dead housekeeper chases him. George and his agent and Lenny get into a nightmarish brawl. George lugs both their corpses down to the basement. Soon there is nobody in the house but the boy and his uncle. And Ruko begins to notice the odd similarities of his own past, the soldier’s tales of abandonment to a military cadet school, and Uncle George’s own shattered past, tied together with subtle hints of the shamanic items George keeps.

    Dead bodies  go on the prowl at night. After another terrifying chase through the house, Ruko returns to the forest and brings the crow back with him. That unleashes the full nightmare. The demons kill George and tear him limb from limb. When Ruko calls on the bird (whose cawing first animated the soldier) for help, it turns into the very dead but potent spirit of Lyudmila. She sews the scattered parts of his uncle back together, and that brings Ruko face to face with everything he has buried, his anger and desire to run away from everything – such as a house full of dead people. 

    He makes a last stand in the basement. Demon George consigns the crow to the furnace, and that brings Sergeant Pindos to the house. Finally, with a real ally, they battle George and the demons, and finally Pindos casts George into the furnace, but not without consequences – he too catches fire, along with the whole house.

    Ruko, alone once again, puts on snow shoes and heads back across the field of white light. 

 



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