The Last Order (working title) Horror Short   approx 10 mins Treatment © Tim Higham 2009

Screenplay and co-produced by David McGillivray.  Directed and co-produced by Tim Higham.
Associate Producer Philippe H.Bergeron.  Starring Andrew Byron as Brother Eldus and Tanya Carlin as Astrid. Character Zoe TBA. Shooting on XDCAM.

Background: Fictional location of a Croatian monastery –  only one monk remains, as he has killed all of his brothers.

To be shot in English with the monk’s (Brother Eldus’) minimal dialogue in Latin (subtitled),
on location near Toulouse, France, with additional studio work in London.

Brother Eldus is tending his vegetable plot outside the monastery. He is pulling scraggy potatoes from the ground, when he is distracted by the laughter of two rather loud and obnoxious backpacking girls a short distance away. Pulling out more vegetables, the fingers of a dead hand appear lying in the ground, before he covers them back over with earth. He stares at the girls for a moment before gathering up his vegetable basket and starting back towards the monastery. The girls, laughing and joking, decide to camp in the field not too far away. Brother Eldus stares at them and smiles before slipping into the monastery kitchen door.

The girls sort out their things, unpack, and having pitched their tent, start cooking dinner.
Astrid decides that it would be nice to have some potatoes with the tinned meat that is sizzling away on the little gas stove. She heads off for the vegetable patch just outside the monastery.

Brother Eldus is peeling his spuds in the kitchen with a large knife and is wondering about what meat to have with the rather sad potatoes he has dug up.

Zoe, back at the tent, turns on her little radio and tunes in to some horrendous rock music whilst fiddling with her skin piercings and half-heartedly attending to the cooking.

Astrid arrives at the vegetable patch and cautiously starts scraping away at the ground, whilst looking around in case she is seen. The music from the tent is heard in the background. Suddenly a man-trap closes on her hand, and she screams (unheard by her friend back at the tent). Brother Eldus hears the screams and smiles. He goes to the door and starts tugging at a rope attached to the trap, which starts to pull the writhing screaming girl across the ground towards him. Her screams still go unheard by her friend.

After a while, Zoe decides that her friend has been gone rather a long time and starts to wonder what has happened to her. She walks off towards the potato patch and discovers a mess of dug up earth, potatoes strewn everywhere, the fingers of the dead hand uncovered once again, and a piece of her friend’s dress. Terrified, she starts to follow the trail towards the monastery kitchen, not noticing several graves on the way for all of Eldus’ ex-brethren. She hesitates before going inside, all the while calling out her friend’s name. She enters, petrified, as Astrid’s name echoes across the dark stone interior of the monastery. She walks slowly through several rooms before discovering the kitchen, where before her is a large pile of vegetables laid out on the table. Brother Eldus is sitting calmly at another table peeling potatoes. He looks up and smiles. Zoe dislodges some of the garden produce from the pile in front of her. It falls to the floor. She looks down to see a bare breast amongst the potatoes. More vegetables fall from the table. Her friend’s naked body is revealed, lying motionless, as if ready for a feast, blood pouring from a wound on her neck.

Brother Eldus starts speaking Latin in a solemn voice. She screams and runs. But it is too late...