ACT 1

Our footage begins in Main Lobby, but our POV pushes through all the noise and crowds to the outskirts of Limbo’s interface where they meet a gang of three avatars. One of them, Filo, recognises us/our POV and introduces us as Torchlight to the other two. They are Beats and Bug. We never see Torchlight (as they are our POV) so we cannot register their emotions, but we will see their hands and feet and hear their voice. Torchlight remains an elusive character throughout; refusing to share too much about their personal ‘real’ life.

The other three guys game together a lot and are real scare junkies, but Limbo just isn’t cutting it anymore. Filo encourages us/Torchlight, to tell the others what they know... “there is another game, hidden in the interface. It’s so scary that a kid died playing it. It was cancelled and abandoned, but it’s still out there, somewhere...”

Bug is instantly excited to go. Beats clearly wants to, but as gang leader, and the most formidable, he resents Torchlight for upstaging him and instigating a new idea.

Filo is more reserved but the smartest one of them all – she'll solve a game with wits whilst the others will use balls.

It is important to remind ourselves that this is found footage and the banter between these characters will be authentic. We will have moments where one of the players is AFK (away from keyboard) – we will see their avatar pause, hanging in front of us soullessly.

The team of four venture further into the interface until they eventually find an abandoned funfair, branded with a demonic face – painted white with black bulbous eyes and razor teeth. They will come to know that this is Gerald; a creepy illusionist - a demonic David Copperfield. At the centre of the fairground, they find Gerald’s House of Pain.

INCITING INCIDENT

At the entrance, there’s a mechanical puppet show that presents the aim of the game to the foursome. They must enter the House of Pain and find their way to the centre where a trapdoor awaits, and they can set themselves free – thus completing the game – but Gerald’s voice proudly warns them, ‘no-one has ever lasted the whole game!”

Beats and Bug are dubious – it sounds too simple and not at all scary. But Filo is less fooled and already wary. The adrenaline starts. The anticipation and dread begin.

Let’s play...

Inside the house they discover corridors that weave around and bend back on themselves. There are jump scares and creepy noises. Animatronics and faces appear in the shadows – painted white with black eyes - all reconfigurations of Gerald, who taunts and teases them.

The team find themselves in a chamber filled with TV screens and each player spots themselves in the real world – headset on, in their bedrooms, playing the game. Gerald is watching them! Beats thinks it’s cool and Filo dismisses it as a fun algorithm, but Bug is freaked out. He doesn’t want someone watching him – he’s a gamer so he can be someone else, not the person he is in the real world. He’s had enough. He tries to quit. But he can’t. We hear his voice escalate to panic as he tries to take off his headset but as we can all clearly see on the TV monitor, he isn’t moving! It’s like sleep paralysis. They’re all trapped in the game.

ACT 2

Fuck this! They decide to retrace their steps and head back to the entrance. But the entire funhouse has changed. It doesn’t take long for them to discover that they're lost. Torchlight reminds them of the rules. If we get to the centre, Gerald said we’ll be set free. They have no choice but to keep playing. Now we have a Squid Game tension bar set.

MAGIC 8 BALL – The players enter a room designed as a giant pinball machine – a huge Magic 8Ball rotates in the centre with Gerald’s face looming over it. Beats, Bug and Filo all stare at the 8Ball, there’s an unspoken tension – they’re hiding something, a dark secret of some kind. Torchlight quizzes them but there’s no time for answers – a pinball is released and the players must run to avoid it crushing them.

Bug is losing patience, he’s had enough of this fucking game, “I’m gonna get myself killed so I can leave.” The others think it’s a bad idea but Bug can’t be persuaded. He throws himself in front of the pinball and is crushed to the ground.

Gerald announces that Bug has been killed and at the top of the pinball machine a screen flips to the live bedroom feed – where we see the real Bug convulsing in their gaming chair, blood trickling from their ears and mouth. When you die in the game, you die in real life!

Everyone is terrified now. They must find the trapdoor and complete the game. 

GHOST TRAIN - The next experience is a crumbling old Ghost Train. And of course, in the driver’s seat – Gerald! There’s no other route – the only way forward is to board the train.

The train enters a tunnel. In the darkness, the players see decaying animatronics. Some moving, some not. Filo observes that some of the animatronics look familiar – they look like themselves!

The train leaves the tunnel and outside the window they watch a narrative performed by the animatronics – the story tells the tale of Beats, Bug and Filo bullying another player – spreading rumours online that he is a dangerous, predatory adult catfishing as a teenager and that he should be avoided. The player is banished from all the games and outcast, alone. As the ride nears its end it pulls into a teenager’s bedroom where an animatronic kid sits on the end of a bed, on the screen is his game avatar 8 Ball. The kid stares into the screen, picks up a pair of scissors from his desk and STABS HIMSELF in the neck.

With a morbid fascination, Torchlight urges the others to explain what happened. Filo is at breaking point having realised the fate of their actions, “he killed himself, we drove him to fucking kill himself!” Beats tries to calm her, assuring her that it’s the game playing with them. That it’s not true.

Filo is hysterical. She leaps from the train and free falls into the palm of a giant Gerald. She begs him to let her go but Gerald just smiles and closes his hand over her. Suffocating her screams inside. With a slight of hand, he reopens his palm and she is gone – like an illusionist’s trick.

Beats and Torchlight run!

They descend deeper into Gerald’s House of Pain, the walls are closing in on them, the darkness is consuming, noises claw at their ears. Gerald follows them, taunting them – like a puppet master conducting his show – appearing in front of them, then immediately behind them, conjuring himself into all manner of beings.

ACT 3

Beats finds the trapdoor and is elated to be the first to defeat the despicable Gerald. He triumphantly opens the door and falls into darkness. Silence.

Torchlight reluctantly follows.... and lands in the middle of a spinning zoetrope of mirrors. All perspectives are distorted – they are trapped in a nightmare.

Beats wildly slams himself against the mirrors, but to no avail.

The zoetrope slows to a stop.

Torchlight looks at themselves in the mirrors. It is the first time we see what her avatar looks like with Day of the Dead style make-up. She doesn’t look afraid. She looks calm - ready to face whatever is coming next.  

There’s a deathly rattle beyond the mirrors. Torchlight and Beats stare at the glass…

SMASH! The glass shatters, shards of lethal blades fly through the air and reveal the return of the giant Magic 8 Ball. It bowls through the glass and rolls towards the avatars who stare into the black. They see 8 Ball in his bedroom, the scissors on the floor and his blood-soaked shirt. A teenage girl walks into the room and finds him.

Torchlight speaks. She describes how it felt to find her brother “like that”. She tells Beats that although they drove her kid brother to suicide, not all of 8Ball left Limbo when he died... parts of his tortured, pained soul remained inside Limbo and became Gerald.

Torchlight and Gerald have built the House of Pain together to avenge his death. 

Gerald appears before Beats who breaks down in front of him, tearfully begging for forgiveness. He apologises profusely and pleads for his life. Gerald wraps his long arms around Beats and whispers in his ear; he can feel his pain but he has the power to take it away. Beats succumbs to Gerald’s spell – Gerald grows in size, opening his jaw to reveal an endless black void. Beats falls into the darkness, consumed in the House of Pain forever.

Torchlight is alone. The walls around her begin to fall apart, allowing her to leave. As she nears a doorway to outside, she glances back at Gerald who has re-emerged from the shadows. Beside him, there’s a mirror, and in the reflection, a teenage boy; her brother. A silent, heartfelt exchange is shared between the siblings before Gerald sinks back into his House of Pain.

Torchlight walks back to Main Lobby. She stops amidst the throngs of gamers and sees a petite player cowering beneath a huge avatar showing no mercy... Torchlight takes a step towards them...

“Let’s Play”