The document proposes a horror film set in a haunted orphanage where children mysteriously disappear. The film would follow a girl, Elsie, searching for her missing sister. Elsie discovers a secret room in the orphanage and uncovers files about missing children dating back to the 1970s. The evil housekeeper, Mildred, attacks the children and reveals the house demands sacrifices to remain standing. Elsie and her friends attempt to burn down the orphanage but it is later shown still intact on the news, with Mildred implying the house can never be destroyed. The film aims for a October release date and budget of $10 million.

1. Orphanage
A pitch by Kerry, Ceren, Rebecca and Nicole F.

2. Genre (horror) & Target
audience.
Conventions of horror:
• Antagonist
• Weapons
• Secluded area
• Final girl character
Target audience:
Young males and females between 12-25, ideally interested/a fan of
horror films. The film is similar to The Woman in Black because of the
on-going paranormal element and the absence of gore etc.

3. Logline
Unexplained
disappearances of
children in a haunted
orphanage.

4. What is the film about?
A horror film following a girl’s frantic
search for her sister, with a theme of
supernatural. There is also a big
element of fear of the unknown.
Our main girl will not only find the
secrets of her sister’s disappearance
but also the shocking and unnerving
secrets of the creepy orphanage that
she used to call home.

5. Narrative
The film starts with a child that has gone
missing from the orphanage, there are no
plan to look for him as he is presumed to
return. Two weeks later the child still has not
been found and our main character Elsie is
introduced – she is suspicious and alerts her
friends Sarah, Ben and Chris, who brush it
off.
However a few nights later, Elsie’s sister
goes missing and Elsie becomes determined
on finding out what’s happened.

6. During her search and questioning of the orphanage
regarding her sister’s whereabouts (who is also
assumed to have run away), Elsie begins to have
reoccurring mysterious dreams about her sister and
the other missing child. In these dreams the children
are trapped somewhere in the orphanage behind an
unknown door, but before Elsie can get to them, she
wakes up.
One particular night after this dream, Elsie and her
friends here noises coming from upstairs, they
investigate and find a room that they didn’t know
existed. Elsie realises that it is the door from her
dreams. Just before they enter and
investigate, housekeeper, Mildred, aggressively
stops them and warns them to never go there again.

7. A few weeks later, they continue to hear these
noises and plan to investigate the room when the
orphanage is fairly empty. They successfully enter
the room and Elsie finds one of her sister’s
belongings along with other children’s belongings.
Sarah and Chris find the files of several cases,
including Elsie’s sister, of missing children from this
orphanage which date back to the late 70s.
They plan to take these and show the head of the
orphanage but are locked in before they can. They
can hear whispers and the lights go out and they
realise someone is in the room. When the lights
come back on, the housekeeper is there. Mildred
confirms that this has been going on since the 70s
and that unknown evil forces dominate the house.

8. She reveals that the children have to be taken to
satisfy the house and now that they know, they have
to be taken too as the house can never be
destroyed. Mildred then attacks Sarah, killing her
and then goes to kill the rest of the group. Chris hits
her over the head and they leave her lifeless on the
floor.
Accepting that her sister is gone, Elsie decides that
they need to destroy the house to ensure that
nobody else gets taken. They plan to burn the house
but as they leave the room, Chris acts strangely and
attack Elsie and Ben. Ben kills Chris in the struggle
and they successfully manage to set the house on
fire and get out safely.

9. The last scene of the film is set two
weeks later, Ben and Elsie are living in
a hotel until they are relocated to a new
orphanage. They turn the TV on to
discover, to their horror, a news
headline about how their orphanage
was miraculously saved without
explanation. The film ends with Mildred,
the evil housekeeper they had killed
who was in the house when it was set
alight, telling a news reporter that the
house will never be destroyed.

10. Chris:
Casting Alexander
Ludwig
(The
Hunger
Games)
Sarah:
Isabelle
Fuhrman
(Orphan)

11. Release
We would release our film in
October, close to the Halloween
date because of it’s horror genre.
The budget will be roughly
10,000,000 but we expect it to
make at least double that because
the certificate will be a 12A,
therefore we’re not restricting our
target audience.

12. ALL HAIL
JAMES
WATKINS!