STALAG

FRANK MURPHY'S life is in a shambles. His wife, BRENDA, has thrown him out of the house, his war souvenir business is failing, and his writing ambitions are going nowhere. But all this changes when he returns to his dusty shop after the 10th Annual World War Convention and finds a mysterious DVD someone has pushed through his mail slot, a DVD that will change his life forever.

"Spend two months taping a new reality TV series with three hundred other men in an authentic replica of a World War Two German POW Camp!" the DVD says. "Come, and experience the thrill of a lifetime and be the lucky winner to walk away with $1,000,000!"

For Frank it is the chance to put his life back on track, to research the book he has always wanted to write firsthand, and a chance to feel closer to the heroic and beloved father he barely knew. Eager for adventure, Frank and his best friend, DEAN SEGER, leave their wives and families behind and plunge headlong into a time gone by.

Everything about Camp Stalag is authentic: The buildings, the uniforms, the food, the guards, the weapons—the savage treatment.
Soon Frank, Dean, and the others find their fantasy turning into a nightmare. The Germans are playing for keeps, and no one may leave . . . ever.

Camp Stalag, the monstrous creation of billionaire defense contractor HEINRICH KOENIG and his adopted son, JOHANN SCHMIDT, is Koenig’s last hurrah--his final and ultimate revenge for the humiliations of Germany’s defeat and the death of his mother at the hands of marauding American soldiers. Dying of brain cancer, he has secreted a weapon of terrifying power within the camp to insure that no one will interfere.

Only Koenig knows of its existence and only Koenig can disarm it. When the illness has ravaged his mind, when he can no longer reset the weapon’s timer, as he must each day, he and everyone in camp will perish in a fiery Götterdämmerung.

Unaware of this danger, and desperate for freedom, Frank and his men try to escape the camp’s brutality, personified by the greedy and sadistic Sergeant-of-the-Guard, HANS MANNHEIM.

All their courageous efforts meet with demoralizing failure. Even when Frank makes it outside the wire, a local conspirator returns him to the camp. Koenig’s corruption has bought too many friends on the outside.

And everything’s about to get worse . . .

Koenig’s mental deterioration has left him believing the camp is real and the war still rages. He orders the compound expanded, tortures the prisoners for outdated military secrets, and begins having nightmares from his past, nightmares that leave him dangerously disoriented.

And then the prisoners are forced to write their families--forced to tell their wives that Koenig has "offered to let them stay longer...."

It is tantamount to a death sentence.

With the guards watching every word he writes, Frank beats Koenig at his own game, cleverly wording his letter to warn Brenda of the danger he and the others face. Thoroughly frightened, and mistrustful of conventional authority, Brenda turns to her uncle: ex-cop and private eye, JOHN RILEY--the one man she knows is capable of freeing her husband.

Posing as a "captured" flyer to infiltrate the camp, Riley warns Frank that he and the other prisoners are all in imminent danger from a madman far more dangerous than anyone has imagined. But before Riley can help them escape, Koenig has him executed as a spy and orders the bullet-riddled body hung from one of the guard towers as a gruesome reminder to all who would defy him.

This is the final straw for Frank who, after a dark night of the soul where he confronts and conquers a lifetime's accumulation of fear and doubt, emerging to organize the other prisoners in a daring escape armed with weapons stolen from Koenig's own armory. Every man knows his life is at stake, for Koenig has nothing left to lose.

With lightning precision, and with only seconds to spare, the prisoners kill the guards in a vicious firefight, blow the gates, and escape--just as the camp is destroyed in a massive explosion.

Joyously reunited with Brenda a few miles from the ruined camp, Frank realizes that he has lived a far better story than any he could ever have invented. He has not only made peace with his father's spirit, he has found his manhood.