Precipice
Precipice is a psychological thriller about a young woman faced with an unimaginable predicament. After her yacht is consumed by an unexpected storm, she finds herself entombed in an air pocket, 90-feet deep, on the ocean floor, alone in the freezing cold darkness and she has no way of knowing if anyone is coming to rescue her.
Precipice is a feature film to be produced by Luminosity Studio, an Australian-based film and television Production Company with a history of successful film and writing credits.
Precipice is a tense, terrifying thrill-ride exploring the effects of severe depression, the strength of the human spirit in unthinkable conflict and the challenge of confronting nature's ultimate power.
Precipice is currently in development in Melbourne, Victoria.
Synopsis
When Adie Nederland is invited to spend a night on a rented yacht with her friends, she does not hesitate to pack her bag and jump onboard. Her life is already a devastating mess. Deeply depressed from the recent death of her father and forever aimless in identifying her existential purpose, the thought of leaving behind her tormented universe to venture into the unknown – even for a single night – is exactly what Adie needs.
But even isolated on the ocean in the icy darkness, anchored two miles offshore, Adie’s inner demons provide no respite from her chilling self-loathing. While her friends laugh, drink and dance on the deck of the impressive 50-foot yacht, Adie quickly abandons the celebration and locks herself in the bow cabin, below. Pain and despair will be her only party companions tonight!
In her ersatz harbor, barely the size of a typical bedroom, Adie attempts to find comfort in a phone conversation with her mother and sister. But Adie uncovers no love or compassion or understanding in the accusatory tones and devastating disconnect with her family. “You are the reason your father killed himself,” her mother barks through the phone. Where Adie had distraughtly hoped to unearth a soft place to fall, she discovers only an avalanche of further agony and heartache. Her darkening thoughts turn to following her father down the ultimate path of self-destruction, as she helplessly crumples onto her bed into a restless, haunted sleep.
Somehow surviving her night of ‘spiritual inferno’, Adie wakes the following morning, psychologically bruised, but still with some fight left in her battered bones. She’s determined to prove that her mother’s opinion of her does not mirror her true self.
But something else is now very wrong…
The yacht has ‘broken anchor’ and is drifting out to sea. Worse, towering waves pound the vessel to the four winds as the yacht is swallowed completely by a raging squall. Buoyed by her friend Zoey checking on her well-being, Adie gathers her sparse belongings – including her father’s most-precious possession – ready to ‘abandon ship’. But it’s too late. The yacht is no match for the ocean’s fury. With a final, triumphant roar, the ocean’s talons besiege the defenseless boat and drive it beneath the surface.
Caught in her cabin, Adie watches in horror as the light from the port and starboard windows is swallowed by the darkness of the ocean. Instantly, ice-cold seawater floods into the small space, trapping Adie inside… as the yacht helplessly sinks into the depths of an unimaginable, watery hell.
With her agonizing drowning-death imminent, Adie fights frantically to escape her aqueous prison. But there is no time. The dark ocean water consumes her cabin in mere seconds, submerging Adie – and with no way out. As the broken yacht crashes into the sea floor, Adie’s fight is seemingly all over. But in her despairing death throes, Adie discovers a stir of hope:
An air pocket.
As the vessel fell from the surface to its oceanic grave, a small cavity of oxygen caught in the boat’s hull. Now, 90-feet below the surface, under enormous pressure from the depths of the sea beast, the air pocket has thwarted the water’s surging advance through Adie’s cabin and has carved out a breathable space, barely three-feet wide.
Adie bursts into the air pocket, gasping wildly for air… she’s still alive! But the terrifying reality of her predicament quickly dawns on her. She’s entombed, deep on the ocean floor, alone in the freezing cold darkness – and she has no way of knowing if anyone is coming to rescue her.
Despite her feelings of defeat and the macabre attraction to her own self-destruction the previous night, Adie must now, somehow, confront those inner demons – while trapped in isolation and razed with terror – if she is to rally any chance of survival.
But even if she can wage war against the blue devils dancing in her head, how on earth is she ever going to escape from the bottom of the ocean floor, so far from the surface? And what about her friends? Are they still alive, hiding in some dark and unforgiving corner of the vessel, like she is?
Moreover, if Adie is going to die in this watery grave, she steals herself to first uncover the truth about her father’s suicide. Why did he really do it? Salvaging her father’s prized possession from the flooded cabin floor, Adie must unlock its clues and piece together the moments leading up to that heartbreaking absolution. She cannot find her own peace until she unmasks the unimaginable reality about her family.
Thwarted by the monsters of her melancholy and persecuted by the hammering guilt of her father’s demise, all the while fighting the unrelenting determination by the ocean to usurp that last remaining air pocket – and devour the yacht entirely, once and for all – Adie must somehow defeat the claws ripping at her from within and engineer the courage, strength and a plan to break free from her flooded tomb and find a way back to the surface.
But her time is rapidly running out…
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