Skeleton Lighthouse
Not all lighthouses beckon you to a safe harbor.
Screenplay: Psychological Horror Thriller
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by Nanette Fenton
Synopsis
The Muskogee Bayou in northwest Apalachicola County, Florida had long been called “The Forgotten Coast” after the end of the booming lumber industry that built the railroads, and home to the thriving port that facilitated the import and export of natural resources in the area. Since ‘Elena’, the devastating hurricane of 1985, the small backwater swamp town of Muskogee Bayou was mostly abandoned except for the few die-hard residents who lived in the ramshackle, weathered remains of a town not worth repairing. The old, defunct skeleton lighthouse that once was a beacon for the merchant ships, and a curse for the rum-runners, sat on the shoreline of the bayou in gross disrepair, a once glorious landmark now scarred with a secret of unspeakable horror. The Crab Trap restaurant and bar sat inland on the Muskogee Bayou, accessible by water and by land via the hidden road near town. The three-story Cracker-style wooden house was converted to a restaurant and bar, and offered a limited buffet of blue crabs, shrimp, oysters, fries and hushpuppies several nights a week, catering to the students who attended the State University’s Marine and Coastal Lab in Apalachicola. But the music and cheap food was only a ruse for the most desirable menu item; drugs!
Synopsis CONTINUATION
The restaurant was owned by a young, handsome man, Wayne McKenna, who had been raised in the building, and knew how to feed a variety of appetites, including his own, that his cliental desired. He hired a limited staff, both inside and outside the restaurant, who harbored secrets of their own, gladly and perversely doing his bidding without question. A young, beautiful woman writer and photographer, Laurel Lawrence, sent by her publishing company to do research on Florida’s skeleton lighthouses, traveled to the town of Muskogee Bayou to investigate and document the history of the skeleton lighthouse. Through inquiry of the strange and disturbing townspeople, she hired the services of the crabber, Moss, Skipper of the Mooncusser, an old deadrise workboat, who supplied the crabs for the restaurant, as her escort to the lighthouse by water. Since The Crab Trap was the only so-called decent place to eat in town, her observations of the establishment, its owner, workers, and its patrons, led her to uncover horrific secrets, not only of a town hostile to strangers, but the unspeakable secrets locked in the mind of the owner, and the dark top floor rooms of the living quarters. Ensnared in a trap of her own making, she also had secrets, hiding her true identity as an undercover detective, struggling in her quest to uncover the truth of a serial killer’s insidiously shocking schizophrenic life and network of unspeakable murder, sex, drugs, Cannibalism, Voodoo, and perverse power…all leading to the forever unrequited souls haunting the swamps of the Muskogee Bayou, and the macabre dungeon that was the skeleton lighthouse! (Filming will be primarily at the Anclote Key Skeleton Lighthouse, FL)
