Film Plot Initial Draft

"Thief" - Initial Draft

A couple, Charlie and Susan, aged 19 and 20, go away for a long weekend in a small rural village via a bus/car, away from their lives for a break. They are followed however, by an ex-classmate of Susan's, who unknown to her had made his way to the village a day earlier and has always had an obsession with her in school and university but she never acknowledged him. Whilst travelling, Susan discovers that neither her phone, nor Charlie's has any signal, but he reassures her, telling her that the whole point of this weekend was to get away from the rest of the world, especially after the recent violent murder cases at home where people's faces had been "stolen".

After meeting the few locals, some of which behave very awkwardly, they stay in the only bed and breakfast in town which is a short walk away through a field. It is made clear through use of camera shots that there are three other people in the B&B, the manager, the maid and one other guest who checked in the day before. While settling in to their room in the evening, Charlie crosses into one of the other rooms of the house to see how their room compares, he finds a loose floorboard in one of them which he investigates out of curiosity. In doing so he discovers an object wrapped in bandages and calls for Susan. The pair remove the bandages to reveal a head with the face clearly and skilfully removed. She panics and runs to get the manager to explain this but locates the maid, who in turn searches for him instead. In a scene of suspense, the maid walks into his office to find a mess, which suggests that a struggle has taken place. The door creeps shut as the manager is stood behind it with a nervous expression but attempts to smile. The maid begins to question him and also asks about the third guest who she hasn't seen since he arrived yesterday, wondering if there's a connection. He denies any knowledge of the incident or the guest and asks her to grab the phone to call the police, which she does with suspicion. The final shot of the scene is a behind shot of the manager who is slowly walking towards the maid with a blade item, whilst she fails to attempt to call for help, stating that the landlines must be down again.

Meanwhile, Susan is pacing the floor in their room in a very nervous state, eager for the maid or manager to return, Charlie suggests they go to find them themselves. Downstairs, in complete silence, Susan sees the office door slightly open and calls for either staff member, with no reply, whilst Charlie notices the front door also slightly open and peers outside. Susan slowly enters the office to discover the maid lying murdered in her blood and screams. She rushes with Charlie out the front door, across the field and into the village to find help, now being night.

In the local pub, the scarred barman states that the landlines are down but offers them the room upstairs to stay the night and attempt to call for help in the next town, which is 10 miles away. He refuses to alert the locals as he believes that because this is a very quiet and peaceful community, the news will unsettle and disturb them. Despite Susan being sceptical, they accept the offer and go to bed, trying to calm themselves from the events of the night.

During the early hours of the morning, Charlie awakes hearing faint calls for help and crying and decides to go and investigate. Susan soon awakes and attempts to find him, and begins to panic when she finds dark patches on the floor, frightened it might be blood. She is startled by Charlie, who insists they go back to bed and try to get some rest. The camera briefly focuses on the left side of Charlie's face which despite the darkness, shows him itching a large scratch or something similar.

Her gets her a glass of water and she goes to sleep, but Charlie goes back to the bathroom mirror and an expression of terror and upset takes over his eyes and lips but the camera does not show his face entirely.

Sometime later, Susan awakes on the floor in a small stone room with bloodied bandages tied around her mouth and her hands tied together lazily with rope. She looks around the room to see a clothes rack at one end lined with different outfits of various men and women, which she identifies as some of the locals, one of which is the outfit of the barman. The other side has a large wooden table, covered in stains of blood and sharp tools with what appears to be skin, more precisely, face segments. At this point she easily spits out the bandages from her mouth.

She then notices someone crying in the corner who appears to be Charlie, she calls his name to which he slowly, mumbles a reply. She asks what is happening but notices the stitches on his face which are visible in the light. Here, the audience discover that this is in fact not Charlie, and is instead the ex-classmate Steven,  who has been surgically removing peoples face tissue and hair and impersonating them, in order to get closer to Susan as he couldn't normally. She also makes the connection to why he trained to be a surgeon at university, why the barman appeared to have scars on his face, why there was a third guest in the B&B and who was behind the recent unexplained murders back home.

 

He explains that while he was getting skilled in this, he failed to replicate Charlie's face successfully due to time and lack of equipment. When he refuses to reveal what he has done with Charlie, she squirms trying to remove her hands from the rope whilst he is turned away which she does, and runs into the priory outside in disbelief and terror, calling for Charlie. This leads to a chase between Susan and Steven, with him claiming that she is rightfully his now. The film comes to a climax when she trips and discovers the body of Charlie, to which Steven grabs her in her disgust and states that she would rather die than live the rest of her life with him. He replies by stating that he wishes to make her happy but she must accept that if he cannot be with her, then he will become her.