Mother

In a small rural community in central Oregon, a gifted young boy, Thad Gustafson, and his family, go about their lives in the late summertime during the mid-1970’s. The calm is disturbed by the report that a coming storm, with supposed devastating effect, will hit the high desert. Along with the reports of the storm, comes a warning from a neighbor, a cantankerous elderly Native American man, Elmer, who cautions the boy’s father, Glenn, about another threat from an otherworldly entity that he calls Mother… an ancient legend of a malevolent supernatural force that possesses and destroys all it touches. Glenn ignores the warning, laughs it off, and instead goes about preparing for the coming storm. The threat, however, is real. Mother is not a supernatural force as portrayed in the legend. It is, instead, an ancient sentient virus, possibly the oldest living creature on earth… the “Mother of all Viruses”. A living, thinking disease. A parasite that infects the living and dissolves their flesh as it nourishes itself, while also directing the afflicted to infect others until it is satiated. Mother lives within the earth, dormant till the day it needs to replenish itself. Then, it goes back to its slumber after it possesses and destroys those that become its sustenance. The only weapons against the threat are the full moon, which seems to have a hypnotic effect on those infected, and sunlight, which will kill them. It soon becomes obvious that the warning is all too real when, as the storm hits, one of the farm’s cows gives birth to something singularly and disturbingly horrifying. The ensuing night brings indescribable threats to the family as their house is attacked by a force of mutant creatures. The horrifying beasts, whose flesh seems to be melting off their own bodies, scream in agony and are forced to attack and infect all they find before they too ultimately surrender and waste away as nourishment for the unstoppable force of nature that is Mother. When help finally comes in the form of a local Sheriff’s Deputy, it is short lived, and the circumstances become much more dire as that help is quickly extinguished. Now, cut off because of the storm, it becomes clear that help is not coming, and it will be up to the Gustafson family to save themselves, with a huge assist from the ultimate hero, Elmer. Because of his keen interest in insects and “all things creepy crawly”, as his uncle Chuck puts it, Thad’s ingenuity and knowledge helps conceive a plan to save the family. After Glenn makes a rash decision that endangers not only himself, but also his family, it will be up to that ingenuity to save everyone Thad loves. Along with his uncle Chuck, they brave the storm and face the mutant threat head on. They will experience heartache, sacrifice, and great loss before the cleansing rays of the sun brings this nightmare to its conclusion. It is only then that the true devastation of their experience is felt. “Think Night of the Living Dead meets The Thing!” (Could be done as a comedy in the vein of “Slither” or full-on Horror Drama as in “The Thing”.) This is an old-fashioned creature feature, set in the almost non-technological time of the 1970's, where cell phones and the internet do not exist and being cut off from civilization could come from a broken power or phone line. It is a true family in peril siege movie in the vein of Night of the Living Dead meets The Thing, with the humor of Slither thrown in. Along with the popularity of Movies like "IT", and TV shows like "Stranger Things" that have a retro vibe to them, this movie is sure to have mass appeal.