On A Road Less Traveled

In 1942, 17-year old Madeline Evans, a protégé of her classical pianist father dreams of following in his footsteps by playing for the San Francisco Philharmonic. Those dreams are abruptly put on hold when Madeline becomes pregnant by her impoverished beau. To avoid scandal, her distant parents send her away to her Aunt and Uncle secluded inn, The O’Brien in the Sierra Nevada Mountains to do away with the problem. Upon Madeline’s arrival, troubles come immediately. She sees a woman watching her from the upper window, and that night, a presence leads her to a clearing in the woods. There, disembodied voices taunt her into stabbing her pregnant stomach with a discarded knife. Bleeding profusely, she crawls back to the inn. In the snow, invisible footsteps follow… While the vision proves to be a lucid dream, Madeline, at first unmoved by the decision to abort her own child, begins to reconcile with her morality. As the supernatural events plague her, she becomes obsessively drawn to a mysteriously-locked door, witness’s apparitions, and experiences visions of the Inn’s early years and its torrid history. Blending gothic supernatural horror with psychological dread, this feature explores loss, our own mortality, and the extraordinary measures a parent will go to protect their child.