Basic synopsis
the film is the telling of the story of Arthur Cartwright, a wealthy young noble who upon his return from fighting in the Boer Wars in South Africa reunites with his wife who eventually dies of consumption. Consumed by grief, he struggles to keep the estate afloat and deal with the post-traumatic stress he got from the wars in Africa. He eventually gives in and visits a well-known medium who gives him the means to try and communicate with his passed wife. When he tries to contact her alone in the manor, he finds that the house has a very dark past of hideous torture and murder, and that he has awoken the spirit of a young woman who anger at her untimely death is inconsolable. Arthur starts to experience terrifying supernatural events that led him to part of his manor he didn't even know existed, and that expose the dark secret of his families past.
The film will start with an unknown man reading aloud of the story, breaking the fourth wall as he directly talks to the audience. He starts reading the tale then it goes into the actual film.
Arthur's backstory
Arthur is the heir to the Cartwright fortune and was born in 1888 in Cartwright mansion, from a young age his parents kept him away from certain areas of the house, the basement was off limit until he was of the age of 18. However, he was sent away to boarding school in faraway Cumbria, were he excelled at sports and sciences, whilst he was at boarding school his parents stayed in the manor, rarely travelling far from the manor and the village that resides near. The villagers do not trust the Cartwright's, due to the families long history of abusing the populace of the village long ago, and some people going into the mansion and never coming out. Throughout his schooling career he would come home on school holidays and usually go to London, where he attended grand parties with his school friends and tried his best to stay away from the manor and his overly traditional parents. After school he attended Oxford university to study classics, and quickly becoming bored of that started to spend his vast loans on drink and woman, much to the disapproval of his parents. When he left university he quickly turned his attention to join the army, and quickly joined Sandhurst and trained to become an officer, it was at the graduation party that he met his wife, Elizabeth and they were married soon before he went to his station in South Africa. With the death of his parents when he was half way through his training, he inherited the Cartwright fortune and moved his wife to the manor, where she was looked after by the army of servants under the employment of the Cartwright's, the basement of the manor was sealed off by the parents before they died and the room was quickly forgotten.
In his first tour of South Africa in 1901 Arthur was put in charge of the Welsh guards, a hero unit of the Zulu wars and he quickly gained the respect of his troops with being a strong leader in a brutal guerrilla conflict. Although he shows outstanding bravery in the field the war has affected him greatly, and he starts to show signs of post-traumatic stress disorder. This apparent when he returns home after his first tour and is troubled by dreams and normal noises such as doors closing. However, despite this he still seems to be his old self and is enjoying being home, but that soon changes when he is called back into service due to the way the war is going for the British. Around the same time, his wife starts to show signs of consumption, but he has faith that she will be properly looked after by the family’s personal doctor. Arthur's second tour of duty is the one that pushes him over the edge, as he struggles to deal with the fact his wife may be dying and the increasingly brutal nature of the conflict. After the wars end in 1902, he returns home just in time to see his wife just before she dies, which is where the story starts and the tale begins.
The plot
the film begins with Arthur just after his wife's funeral, sitting in his drawing room still in his black suit. As he sips on his brandy his friend and fellow soldier Joseph Sampson enters and sits with him. It is revealed that Arthur deliberately didn't wear his military uniform to the funeral as he wants to leave the army behind him, his friend showcases his concern for Arthur as it is obvious his drinking has increased, he suggests using part of the vast Cartwright fortune to travel to help him cope with the loss. However, the demands of running the estate, which Arthur knows nothing about, seem to take over as Arthur starts to become more serious and business like, much to the disgust of his friends and servants that have known him his whole life. Whilst asleep, Arthur is tormented by the scenes of war he saw in Africa and awakens to find himself in an empty bedroom. However, upon trying to get back to sleep he looks up to find an apparition of his wife's decomposing corpse is standing at the foot of the bed, he panics and turns on the lights to find that there is nothing there. It is obvious that he has been hallucinating and decides maybe that he needs to get away from the manor. He gives the servants in the house a paid leave and uses the rest of the money to prepare to travel. However, whilst in London he finds a shop for the supernatural, and convinced that his wife's apparition was not a hallucination he buys a Ouiji board and whilst in the manor alone, tries to contact her through it.
After a brief moment of happiness when he thinks he has made contact with her, the message suddenly becomes very sinister, spelling out "WHY, THE PAIN WE ENDURED" as he backs away from the board various objects begin flying around the room, and the power goes out. In the silence Arthur finds a torch and upon turning it on, looks over his shoulder to find a ghostly young woman who then screams at him as he drops the torch. He eventually regains his composure and finds the torch again only to find that the ghost is gone. During the next few days Arthur begins to have terrifying dreams of people screaming and ghastly scenes of torture from people being flayed to people having their arms and legs amputated. The dreams seem to take place in a large room that is underground. The dreams alleyways end with the ghost of the young woman pointing at him and screaming. Arthur also sees the woman around the manor and objects frequently throw themselves around rooms and the piano on the ground floor of the manor starts to play sinister music in the dead of night. Arthur writes to Joseph urging him to come to the house to see the activity for himself, and Joseph reluctantly agrees, thinking Arthur has gone off the rails. One day Arthur awakes in excruciating pain and rips off his clothes to find that the word " Down to Hell" have been written over and over into his skin, burning the words onto his back. After showing the scars to Joseph he starts to believe what Arthur has been saying. Both men awake the nigh of Josephs arrival to find the apparition of the young woman, now accompanied with another apparition of a little girl, they follow them towards the walled up basement, and they disappear through the brick wall. Arthur and Joseph see that the spirits want them to follow, and proceed to get to work breaking down the brick wall. When the wall falls, the staircase to the basement is revealed, and the two men go down to find a bug timber door has been sealed, connoting that Arthur's parents didn't want anyone to go in there, after they break the door down they find that there is nothing unusual about the basement, with only crates of old wine of interest. However, upon investigating the basement they come across a hidden handle, that when pulled unlocks a latch on a seemingly normal wall. When the two man open the wall, they find another staircase which looks at least 800 years old. They go down the spiral staircase and find that there is a barred door. They pull down the metal bars and the door opens, revealing a gruesome discovery. The room from Arthur's dream falls out before him, dozens of cages with decomposing corpses and skeletons in fill the room, along with various medical and torture equipment, the room goes on to reveal various medical tables with straps on to obviously hold down the victim, and hollow walls that when the two men knock down, reveal that there are some people who have been walled up alive due t the scratch marks on the inside of the walls, and the various rope bindings on the roof. the skeletons behind the wall are various men, woman, and even children. Sickened by the discovery Arthur proceeds to be sick, whilst Joseph looks around, he finds various graffiti with years etched in, dating back all the way to the 1500s.
Another room in the chamber reveals a desk with a big book on top, upon reading them it became clear to see that the Cart wrights have been kidnapping and torturing members of the village for centuries, first off because they didn't pay their rent, then for the sake of it. The book also revealed that in the that 1700s the Cartwright used to hold parties where the guests could drunkenly torture the victims that the Cartwright's kidnapped, this practice has been going on all the way to Arthur's parents. The book shows that they stopped due to the increasingly competent nature of the police and also the lack of police officers who they could bribe if they found out, therefore they left the most recent victims for dead and walled up the basement and the chamber hopefully for good. Arthur then realizes he contacted the spirits of the dead victims and his presence in the chamber has angered them, poltergeist activity increases in the house and becomes aggressive to both Arthur and Joseph. Having no idea how to stop the activity, and due to the village peoples distrust of the Cartwright's, the local vicar refuses to help them exorcise the house. So they take matters into their own hands and decide to do it themselves. During the ceremony, a ghost knocks over a candle and sets the house a light, as the house burns the ghosts do numerous things to try and keep the two men inside the burning building, they escape the building with very bad burns and sit there in disbelieve as the manor burns down, and stay until the house collapses.
It is later revealed that Arthur ended up moving to the sea side, where he traveled the world looking for paranormal incidences, and trying desperately to reform his families honor and bury their sadistic past. He sets up numerous charities for the poor and uses his vast fortune to help the village people pay off their land lords, in turn making sure the Cartwright's family name is remembered more fondly than before. It is then revealed that shortly after the incident at Cartwright manor Joseph suffered from severe panic attacks and nightmare, he later killed himself by hanging himself outside the ruins of the house. All previous servants of the house were released with pay, and told not to go back to the ruins of the manor.
The film then cuts to the man originally telling the story, saying that the land that Cartwright manor used to sit on is now haunted by the ghost of Joseph, who comes up to passers-by and yells them to run from the ground. It is also stated that his spirit is still seen hanging from the tree outside the house. The camera then pans out to show the ghost of Joseph standing behind the narrator, as the narrator smirks the lights go out and the screen is plunged into darkness.
Theories
I wanted the character of Arthur to be his own binary opposite in compliance to Strauss's theory. I felt as though it would be good to have a character who has very good yet very bad traits about him. He is families binary opposite as well as himself, this is because the Cartwright family are sadistic serial killers whereas Arthur is a lot more generous and good nurtured. This is one of the biggest sources of conflict between him and his family. He also has conflict within himself for the horrifying atrocities that he has committed in Africa, whilst being as great of an actual person as he is. The theme of post-traumatic stress disorder is something I wanted to explore as well, which links to Strauss's theory of Binary opposites within one character, as the guilt caused during war puts ex soldiers at war with themselves almost.
I also wanted to add a lot of Equilibrium to Arthur's backstory, and quickly change the narrative to a more De-equilibrium stance later on in his story. I also wanted Equilibrium to never be achieved after the events of the story by some characters, as I felt as though it is an unsettling part of a story that things never truly get better for characters.
the film is the telling of the story of Arthur Cartwright, a wealthy young noble who upon his return from fighting in the Boer Wars in South Africa reunites with his wife who eventually dies of consumption. Consumed by grief, he struggles to keep the estate afloat and deal with the post-traumatic stress he got from the wars in Africa. He eventually gives in and visits a well-known medium who gives him the means to try and communicate with his passed wife. When he tries to contact her alone in the manor, he finds that the house has a very dark past of hideous torture and murder, and that he has awoken the spirit of a young woman who anger at her untimely death is inconsolable. Arthur starts to experience terrifying supernatural events that led him to part of his manor he didn't even know existed, and that expose the dark secret of his families past.
The film will start with an unknown man reading aloud of the story, breaking the fourth wall as he directly talks to the audience. He starts reading the tale then it goes into the actual film.
Arthur's backstory
Arthur is the heir to the Cartwright fortune and was born in 1888 in Cartwright mansion, from a young age his parents kept him away from certain areas of the house, the basement was off limit until he was of the age of 18. However, he was sent away to boarding school in faraway Cumbria, were he excelled at sports and sciences, whilst he was at boarding school his parents stayed in the manor, rarely travelling far from the manor and the village that resides near. The villagers do not trust the Cartwright's, due to the families long history of abusing the populace of the village long ago, and some people going into the mansion and never coming out. Throughout his schooling career he would come home on school holidays and usually go to London, where he attended grand parties with his school friends and tried his best to stay away from the manor and his overly traditional parents. After school he attended Oxford university to study classics, and quickly becoming bored of that started to spend his vast loans on drink and woman, much to the disapproval of his parents. When he left university he quickly turned his attention to join the army, and quickly joined Sandhurst and trained to become an officer, it was at the graduation party that he met his wife, Elizabeth and they were married soon before he went to his station in South Africa. With the death of his parents when he was half way through his training, he inherited the Cartwright fortune and moved his wife to the manor, where she was looked after by the army of servants under the employment of the Cartwright's, the basement of the manor was sealed off by the parents before they died and the room was quickly forgotten.
In his first tour of South Africa in 1901 Arthur was put in charge of the Welsh guards, a hero unit of the Zulu wars and he quickly gained the respect of his troops with being a strong leader in a brutal guerrilla conflict. Although he shows outstanding bravery in the field the war has affected him greatly, and he starts to show signs of post-traumatic stress disorder. This apparent when he returns home after his first tour and is troubled by dreams and normal noises such as doors closing. However, despite this he still seems to be his old self and is enjoying being home, but that soon changes when he is called back into service due to the way the war is going for the British. Around the same time, his wife starts to show signs of consumption, but he has faith that she will be properly looked after by the family’s personal doctor. Arthur's second tour of duty is the one that pushes him over the edge, as he struggles to deal with the fact his wife may be dying and the increasingly brutal nature of the conflict. After the wars end in 1902, he returns home just in time to see his wife just before she dies, which is where the story starts and the tale begins.
The plot
the film begins with Arthur just after his wife's funeral, sitting in his drawing room still in his black suit. As he sips on his brandy his friend and fellow soldier Joseph Sampson enters and sits with him. It is revealed that Arthur deliberately didn't wear his military uniform to the funeral as he wants to leave the army behind him, his friend showcases his concern for Arthur as it is obvious his drinking has increased, he suggests using part of the vast Cartwright fortune to travel to help him cope with the loss. However, the demands of running the estate, which Arthur knows nothing about, seem to take over as Arthur starts to become more serious and business like, much to the disgust of his friends and servants that have known him his whole life. Whilst asleep, Arthur is tormented by the scenes of war he saw in Africa and awakens to find himself in an empty bedroom. However, upon trying to get back to sleep he looks up to find an apparition of his wife's decomposing corpse is standing at the foot of the bed, he panics and turns on the lights to find that there is nothing there. It is obvious that he has been hallucinating and decides maybe that he needs to get away from the manor. He gives the servants in the house a paid leave and uses the rest of the money to prepare to travel. However, whilst in London he finds a shop for the supernatural, and convinced that his wife's apparition was not a hallucination he buys a Ouiji board and whilst in the manor alone, tries to contact her through it.
After a brief moment of happiness when he thinks he has made contact with her, the message suddenly becomes very sinister, spelling out "WHY, THE PAIN WE ENDURED" as he backs away from the board various objects begin flying around the room, and the power goes out. In the silence Arthur finds a torch and upon turning it on, looks over his shoulder to find a ghostly young woman who then screams at him as he drops the torch. He eventually regains his composure and finds the torch again only to find that the ghost is gone. During the next few days Arthur begins to have terrifying dreams of people screaming and ghastly scenes of torture from people being flayed to people having their arms and legs amputated. The dreams seem to take place in a large room that is underground. The dreams alleyways end with the ghost of the young woman pointing at him and screaming. Arthur also sees the woman around the manor and objects frequently throw themselves around rooms and the piano on the ground floor of the manor starts to play sinister music in the dead of night. Arthur writes to Joseph urging him to come to the house to see the activity for himself, and Joseph reluctantly agrees, thinking Arthur has gone off the rails. One day Arthur awakes in excruciating pain and rips off his clothes to find that the word " Down to Hell" have been written over and over into his skin, burning the words onto his back. After showing the scars to Joseph he starts to believe what Arthur has been saying. Both men awake the nigh of Josephs arrival to find the apparition of the young woman, now accompanied with another apparition of a little girl, they follow them towards the walled up basement, and they disappear through the brick wall. Arthur and Joseph see that the spirits want them to follow, and proceed to get to work breaking down the brick wall. When the wall falls, the staircase to the basement is revealed, and the two men go down to find a bug timber door has been sealed, connoting that Arthur's parents didn't want anyone to go in there, after they break the door down they find that there is nothing unusual about the basement, with only crates of old wine of interest. However, upon investigating the basement they come across a hidden handle, that when pulled unlocks a latch on a seemingly normal wall. When the two man open the wall, they find another staircase which looks at least 800 years old. They go down the spiral staircase and find that there is a barred door. They pull down the metal bars and the door opens, revealing a gruesome discovery. The room from Arthur's dream falls out before him, dozens of cages with decomposing corpses and skeletons in fill the room, along with various medical and torture equipment, the room goes on to reveal various medical tables with straps on to obviously hold down the victim, and hollow walls that when the two men knock down, reveal that there are some people who have been walled up alive due t the scratch marks on the inside of the walls, and the various rope bindings on the roof. the skeletons behind the wall are various men, woman, and even children. Sickened by the discovery Arthur proceeds to be sick, whilst Joseph looks around, he finds various graffiti with years etched in, dating back all the way to the 1500s.
Another room in the chamber reveals a desk with a big book on top, upon reading them it became clear to see that the Cart wrights have been kidnapping and torturing members of the village for centuries, first off because they didn't pay their rent, then for the sake of it. The book also revealed that in the that 1700s the Cartwright used to hold parties where the guests could drunkenly torture the victims that the Cartwright's kidnapped, this practice has been going on all the way to Arthur's parents. The book shows that they stopped due to the increasingly competent nature of the police and also the lack of police officers who they could bribe if they found out, therefore they left the most recent victims for dead and walled up the basement and the chamber hopefully for good. Arthur then realizes he contacted the spirits of the dead victims and his presence in the chamber has angered them, poltergeist activity increases in the house and becomes aggressive to both Arthur and Joseph. Having no idea how to stop the activity, and due to the village peoples distrust of the Cartwright's, the local vicar refuses to help them exorcise the house. So they take matters into their own hands and decide to do it themselves. During the ceremony, a ghost knocks over a candle and sets the house a light, as the house burns the ghosts do numerous things to try and keep the two men inside the burning building, they escape the building with very bad burns and sit there in disbelieve as the manor burns down, and stay until the house collapses.
It is later revealed that Arthur ended up moving to the sea side, where he traveled the world looking for paranormal incidences, and trying desperately to reform his families honor and bury their sadistic past. He sets up numerous charities for the poor and uses his vast fortune to help the village people pay off their land lords, in turn making sure the Cartwright's family name is remembered more fondly than before. It is then revealed that shortly after the incident at Cartwright manor Joseph suffered from severe panic attacks and nightmare, he later killed himself by hanging himself outside the ruins of the house. All previous servants of the house were released with pay, and told not to go back to the ruins of the manor.
The film then cuts to the man originally telling the story, saying that the land that Cartwright manor used to sit on is now haunted by the ghost of Joseph, who comes up to passers-by and yells them to run from the ground. It is also stated that his spirit is still seen hanging from the tree outside the house. The camera then pans out to show the ghost of Joseph standing behind the narrator, as the narrator smirks the lights go out and the screen is plunged into darkness.
Theories
I wanted the character of Arthur to be his own binary opposite in compliance to Strauss's theory. I felt as though it would be good to have a character who has very good yet very bad traits about him. He is families binary opposite as well as himself, this is because the Cartwright family are sadistic serial killers whereas Arthur is a lot more generous and good nurtured. This is one of the biggest sources of conflict between him and his family. He also has conflict within himself for the horrifying atrocities that he has committed in Africa, whilst being as great of an actual person as he is. The theme of post-traumatic stress disorder is something I wanted to explore as well, which links to Strauss's theory of Binary opposites within one character, as the guilt caused during war puts ex soldiers at war with themselves almost.
I also wanted to add a lot of Equilibrium to Arthur's backstory, and quickly change the narrative to a more De-equilibrium stance later on in his story. I also wanted Equilibrium to never be achieved after the events of the story by some characters, as I felt as though it is an unsettling part of a story that things never truly get better for characters.
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