Promiseland

"I'm kind of homesick for a country... To which I've never been before... No sad goodbyes will there be spoken... For time won't matter anymore..." - Squire Parsons Greetings from PROMISELAND, a picturesque postcard of a film that imagines the USA as a modern-day Wild West. Promiseland is a pulpy pastiche of films like Bonnie & Clyde, The Crucible, and Footloose (sans the singing and dancing.) BEULAH and J.R. BEAGLE are a killer couple of foster siblings who blaze a path across the American Southwest after murdering their abusive father. Following a shootout at a drive-thru chapel, a senior FBI Agent named Dicky Salinger is tasked with finding the lovers. A curt man-by-the-book, Salinger is hot on every step of their trail until it runs dead cold. Somewhere in the mountainous forests of Colorado, the Beagles flip their car off a winding road. With death at their heels, they wake in PALISADES -- a secluded town forgotten by time. Under the sole leadership of MAYOR SHERIFF, the people of Palisades live entirely as if it's the 1950s. Against her better judgment, Beulah is convinced into staying in Palisades by J.R. Soon they find themselves entrenched in the Palisades' way of life. J.R. gets a job thanks to Mayor Sheriff while Beulah is forced into the Domestic Guild, a group of housewives who regard gender norms as sacred. Her resistance, along with Agent Salinger's arrival, raises the townsfolk's suspicions. After Salinger is murdered, Beulah and J.R. have their backs against the wall once again as the town begins to point fingers. With her past closing in on the present, Beulah must choose between escaping for herself or living out J.R.'s American dream. PROMISELAND is a socially relevant, gut-punch thriller that explores the dynamic and oftentimes violent clash of 1950's Americana and modern American nihilism. *Attached below are the first twenty pages of the feature-length script.