With terrifyingly graphic scenes and high-stakes protagonists, Heartland is bound to take audiences on a thrilling exploration of a rural Midwest family that uses its devout religious beliefs to justify their inhuman behavior — all while making people squirm in their seats. Mix it all with heartpounding action, and you have a brand with the potential for success similar to “The Crazies,” “The Conjuring,” and “Cabin in the Woods.” The film follows a young couple’s struggle to survive against a man who was turned into a monster by his masochistic, overzealous grandmother. It is a gruesome horror thriller that combines elements of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Carrie.
It opens to a teenage girl dying while giving birth to a BOY in her family’s rural Kansas home. As if it’s the infants fault, the girl’s mother, MARY MINT, vows to “rid the devil” from her grandson. A few years later, a very young couple visits their home, as it is also a bed and breakfast for travelers. Once they go to sleep, the now 12-year-old child climbs into their bed and lies peacefully. However, he is soon discovered by the young woman. She screams, waking the whole house. A furious MARY drags the BOY down the stairs and across the floor. Mercilessly, she rips off his ear.
At night, her husband, FRANCIS, loosens his grandson’s chains and they both try to escape. The man has a getaway car piloted by his implied mistress but for an unknown reason, he won’t allow the young child to go with him. He leaves with the young child to face the unholy wrath of MARY. Once again, she does her Lord’s work and the camera fades quickly to black right before she cuts the BOY’s tongue out of his mouth!
The camera fades back into the present on a young couple, JACK and DIANE, waking up in their tent. She’s pregnant and they are on a cross-country road trip to get married in Las Vegas just like her parents did 40 years ago. In fact, the two are completing the same journey DIANE’s parents made en route to their wedding. They enter Kansas looking for their next stop — a bed and breakfast called Heartland.
It is a gruesome horror thriller that combines elements of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Carrie.
they both try to escape.
A creepy tone is set as they arrive at the house, which is dilapidated on the outside. JACK knocks and is surprisingly greeted by a much older MARY. She invites them in and shows them upstairs. Citing her strict values, she tells them they must share separate rooms. JACK doesn’t like it and proposes to DIANE that they leave. However, DIANE takes pity on the lonely old woman and convinces him to stay.
After multiple attempts to see his fiancée at night are foiled by MARY, JACK sneaks into DIANE’s room and persuades her to leave. They drive away into the night and pull over to the side of the road. As they sleep in the back, a dingy tow truck connects to their vehicle and starts moving it. Confused but confident, JACK gets out and tries to talk to the mysterious driver.
Suddenly, the truck goes into motion, throwing him onto the road, and drives away with DIANE still in the back of their SUV. Her lover runs hard with adrenaline and utter fear pumping through his veins but he still cannot catch the speeding truck. He runs until he collapses and the vehicles escape his view.
DIANE is now at the driver’s lair and she is immediately greeted into hell by the driver’s mangy, vicious german shepherd. The beast bites her and pins her to the ground but is called off by the driver. Upon discovering her, the driver knocks her out with a devastating punch and puts the young woman back in her car.
Meanwhile, JACK spots an emergency phone on the side of the road. He lifts up the receiver and the film cuts to a telephone ringing in the truck driver’s insidious garage filled with the dismembered bodies of previous victims. The mangled hand of the BOY, now a heinous monster of a man, picks up the phone and says nothing. He’s wearing a filthy jumpsuit with the name “FRANK” patched on it. The monster, FRANK, ignores JACK’s screaming on the phone and walks up to CRISTA. He proceeds to torture her while she hangs from a homemade crucifix-like contraption—all while DIANE watches from a similar device. This also begins JACK’s harrowing battle with the dog. They clash throughout the yard but with his quick reflexes he’s able to kill it.
While this happens, DIANE is hoisted back up into the contraption and FRANK gruesomely pulls some of her teeth out with pliers, laughing while she writhes in pain. He’s about to pull another when the garage door opens and reveals the dog’s severed head.
THE END
This also begins JACK’s harrowing battle with the dog. They clash throughout the yard but with his quick reflexes he’s able to kill it. While this happens, DIANE is hoisted back up into the contraption and FRANK gruesomely pulls some of her teeth out with pliers, laughing while she writhes in pain. He’s about to pull another when the garage door opens and reveals the dog’s severed head.
Using the distraction, he sneaks into a room adjacent to the garage. Our hero then enters the garage, frees DIANE once again, and they escape in their SUV. Unfortunately, the monster siphoned their gas so they end up stranded on the side of the road. Sitting ducks, the couple narrowly avoids getting run over by FRANK who barrels his tow truck into their SUV. With their cell phone busted and options limited, JACK tragically tells DIANE to run for it. She eventually agrees and heads back towards the Heartland Bed and Breakfast to get help.
JACK watches her go and he calls out FRANK, challenging him to a climactic duel. Fueled with rage, he charges and is able to get some good shots. Yet, FRANK breaks his jaw and grossly snaps his leg. To top off then protagonist’s demise, the monster drives the tow hook into his back and hoists him into the air!
Things turn really hopeless when DIANE arrives at Heartland. In order to convince a pissed off MARY to let her back in, she reveals to her that she’s pregnant. She leaves her in her room to get a gun, which DIANE thinks is to ward off FRANK.
To the expecting woman’s horror, MARY points a shotgun directly at her. Given another shot at a baby’s salvation from the sin of being born out of wedlock, she knocks DIANE unconscious as the young woman sees the tow truck pull up in the driveway with her fiancé hanging on the hook.
The story returns from black to a horrific scene where a conscious Jack is sawed to pieces in a religious sacrifice. Her fiancé now dead, DIANE is fully shackled to the wall. She keeps her and her baby alive by eating MARY’s potpie made with JACK’s flesh, which the old woman said was necessary for her forgiveness and the cleansing of the baby’s soul.
The nightmare comes to its dramatic conclusion as our other protagonist convinces FRANK to release her by appealing to his need for someone to love him. In the midst of him cutting DIANE’s chains, a hell bent MARY thwarts the attempt with the threat of her shotgun. Like she did decades ago, she wants to remove the tongue from another liar. The scene reaches full tension when DIANE is can no longer keep her tongue in her mouth. MARY begins to cut when all of a sudden FRANK attacks and kills her. DIANE collapses. She awakens to find all of her chains broken. MARY’s body and FRANK are nowhere to be found. We last see her limping out of the house and down the side of the road.
Another fade, but this time it’s another couple letting their dog go to the bathroom on the side of the road through night vision goggles. Quick cut to them caught in Frank’s crucifixes. With a new dog, FRANK’s back to being the devil he was made to be.
The Team
DAVID WILSON
Founder
STRATEGY
Creative Head
STRATEGY
Producer
