The Michael Carter Paradox
by Aqiyl
WGA Registration #1474974

Logline:
Three friends set off on a wild adventure to chase down a stolen car during the filming of their reality show. However, recovering the car leads to a discovery of their past that they don’t want to face.

Synopsis:
“The Michael Carter paradox” is an adventure psychological thriller meant to be filmed with a reality camera, surveillance cameras, and camera phones making this a budget friendly venture.

In a world where reality shows dominate television, actor Michael Carter decides to revive his deteriorating career by shooting his own reality show with life long friend and love interest Lacy Turner as director, and her brother Rick Turner as cameraman. The entire story is told in recap with dynamic testimonials set in a white room with an anonymous interviewer. As the journey unravels, these childhood friends embark on a mystifying discovery.

During the filming of Mike’s reality show, his father (a famous movie director) dies from terminal cancer and leaves him with an inheritance. Mike must find a way to retrieve a chest by using a key that was given to him moments before his father’s death. Lost in grief, Mike is torn by the emptiness of never living up to his father’s standards. As a means to cope, Mike and his friends decide to travel to the destination of the chest located 250 miles away.

Prior to leaving, Mike’s car is stolen while the car key was left in the ignition. Bewildered, Mike and his friends attempt to chase down the perpetrators but find themselves in unimaginable circumstances. Along the way, they end up stranded on a desert in the middle of nowhere and begin to encounter the most outrageous characters. They first meet a vicious psycho hell hound with the unrelenting will for violence, followed by a Hippie Jesus with twisted morals, a possessed middle aged woman, a demented feet tickler, a stuttering maniacal grandma, a wannabe super hero, and a midget stick-up kid.

Without knowing, Mike and his friend’s unique encounters served as distractions that took them away from their real mission. They soon realize that their world may not be what it seems. Parallel to living out the story, Mike and friends carefully recount all the details to the anonymous interviewer. As a flashback to the adventure of their reality, the interview room reveals itself as a corridor to another dimension of their life, one that is tri-lateral to a recurring reminiscence of their childhood. They soon discover how these three worlds relate, which leads them to a sequence that forever entraps them in a mental prison: a psych ward with special purposes. Most notable, the interviewer, who is seemingly the sane one, reveals a reality of his own.

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