Dark Rapture

Institute History

  • 1993 June Screenwriters Lab

Description

Originally written for the theater, DARK RAPTURE begins with a great fire that rips through the Bay Area. A man is missing. So is a large amount of money. Is he dead? Is the money destroyed, or did he steal it? We follow parallel paths of Ray, who may or may not be the missing man, and his estranged wife and her criminal business partners, who are trying to find the money. Ray, whoever he is, stays one step ahead of the people who are looking for him and the missing loot.

The central question of DARK RAPTURE turns on a fantasy most people have entertained at one time or another in their lives: if you had the opportunity and the means, would you change your identity, leave your old life and everything you know behind, disappear and start anew? Is it even possible to do so? Ray attempts to crawl through the window of opportunity when it opens and disappears to burn off his old life and start over. DARK RAPTURE is the story of that attempt and his journey.

Eventually his past catches up with him and the hoods find him, but he escapes with the money, a new identity intact and a new life stretching out before him. A happy ending? Not quite. One of the bad guys, who is himself presumed dead, reappears in a new guise, reinvented, just as Ray has reinvented himself, and picks up Ray's trail. Classic film noir, the final outcome is left in doubt.

Credits

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