CAN’T GO HOME is a haunted-house feature screenplay, tackling themes of past trauma and parenthood.
It follows KELLY, a new mother haunted by the childhood death of her younger brother. Now an adult with a newborn son, Kelly still blames herself for her brother’s death. Terrified of being responsible for another person, her fears are causing a strain on her marriage to wife Emma. Kelly barely speaks with her parents.
Sixteen years to the day, Kelly passes the house where her brother died. To her shock, she sees her brother, seemingly alive and well, through a window of the house. She rushes inside, hoping to undo the past and save her fractured family’s future by somehow pulling her brother back into her life.
Once inside, Kelly finds herself in a nightmare version of her childhood home, hunted by a dark force in the shape of her parents. Kelly must survive the house, save her brother, reunite with Emma and their son, all while outrunning monsters and dark memories. But if Kelly has any chance of saving her brother, she will have to first overcome her fear and confront the night her brother died.
In her final confrontation with the monster at the heart of the House, Kelly finds the strength to literally let Emma into the past. With Emma at her side, Kelly breaks free from the house, takes their son in her arms and ultimately, reconciles with her parents.
CAN’T GO HOME explores parental fear and self-doubt. It is both an intimately personal exploration of parenthood and a terrifying tale of one woman’s attempts to survive a house of living nightmares.
