Killer Without Cause

In the vein of Fritz Lang's M and Christopher Nolan's Insomnia ----------------------------------------------------------- Max Slonim is a 35-year-old, scholarly writer. He lives alone in a secluded cabin in Barrow, Alaska. Max was formerly a teacher but prefers solitude. In the opening scene, he’s suffering from writer’s block and is sharpening a personally engraved folding knife. An unexpected phone call from his mother in NYC forces him to return to his childhood home. His older brother Sergei is dying. Soon after arriving, Max goes out for a walk to escape the uncomfortable scene of his comatose brother dying in a sterile hospital room. He stumbles upon Anthony Vitelli, a man with a hacking cough, in an alleyway behind his family owned Italian restaurant. A strange, unseen force comes over Max and he stabs Anthony, a complete stranger to him, to death. Max flees the scene, unable to believe or make sense of what he has done. He thinks he can get away with this senseless crime, but what he doesn’t know is Anthony’s cousin Luigi saw the entire incident from behind the dumpster. Luigi is dead set on avenging Anthony’s death, at any cost. Max thoughtlessly left his engraved knife at the crime scene, pointing Luigi in the right direction. In the following days, Luigi plays minds games with Max, who slowly becomes psychologically unhinged. Simonetta, Luigi’s nagging fiancé, knows something is up with him but she’s not sure what exactly. She just knows he’s been acting completely out of character since Anthony was killed. Immediately after Sergei’s funeral, Max flies back home to Barrow not wanting to spend another second being tortured by this unknown stalker. He thinks he’s free but Luigi follows him home… on the same plane! Simonetta alerts the lazy detective on the case that Luigi has ran off to Alaska, causing suspicion to fall on him. Luigi stalks Max all the way to his secluded cabin. The cabbie who drove Luigi from the airport to Max’s cabin later recognizes Luigi’s photo plastered all over the news as a “person of interest” in the Anthony Vitelli murder in NYC. A life and death struggle ensues between Max and Luigi. Unfortunately for Luigi, he meets the same fate as his cousin. Max ends up losing touch with reality after killing Luigi and goes into a near-catatonic state. He’s found nude, in a fetal position next to Luigi’s corpse. Max is placed under arrest but in a sense he is free. He no longer has to run. ------------------ WGA # 1799913