In a neo-utopian world where crime is contracted out in an attempt to restore “natural order”, one criminal-type in particular is in high demand: serial killers. And the instances of serial murders are now increasing not by the dozens, but by the hundreds. Enter 23-year-old Anaïs Crowe: brilliant, sweet, insecure. Infamous. Exiled and blacklisted after her father himself was convicted of murdering nearly thirty of their community’s own inhabitants, Anaïs knows serial killers— and survival— better than anyone. When she’s finally offered a new identity and a chance to start over, she leaps at it only to discover it’s her worst nightmare: she must live with and help profile serial murderers, the very people she’s most desperate to avoid. She agrees, and despite the strangeness of the psych ward itself, her assignment goes well. But when the ward is overthrown by its own inmates and most of her support team is killed, Anaïs finds herself trapped in the midst of bloodthirsty madmen who now roam free. Moreover, someone is pulling the strings. Someone who’d been planning for her arrival all along, and who has prepared a house of riddle-ridden horrors, with only a few spaces for respite: spaces called “asylums”. The clock is ticking. If Anaïs doesn’t solve the right riddles and make it to an asylum before the killers are released from their cells each night, she’s as good as dead. Still, survival is just the beginning; with each asylum she finds, with each mystery she solves, Anaïs begins to unravel a conspiracy that could threaten every life in the nation… and in the world.

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Thank you for your submission.  Unfortunately, at this time, it’s not something we’d like to consider further.

I will say that this was a difficult decision and we went back and forth a bit.  While I think the asylum setting and in particular, the riddles that must be solved could be quite interesting, the futuristic setting and the larger conspiracy that threatens the whole world are major detractors.  The former because it likely presents a budgetary issue and the latter because it turns what could be a cool, potentially terrifying scenario into something far less plausible and potentially campy.  Frankly, I would have been very intrigued by a contained house (asylum) of horrors type situation distinguished by a series of riddles and mysteries that need to be solved in order to advance and ultimately survive.

I know hearing stuff like this is never easy so I appreciate your willingness to put yourself out there and hope you will continue to pursue your screenwriting goals.

Best of luck and thanks again!