A family, hunted by killers, hiding in a small town, re-opens an old movie palace, and as their fear awakens something worse lurking within the theater itself, the hunters and the hunted find their survival depends on them alone. (THE SHINING meets CAPE FEAR... in a theater)

SYNOPSIS:

WHY THIS FILM NOW: Horror films have rarely been stronger. Beyond the 20th Century’s “hack ‘em ‘n stack ‘ems” like THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE, thanks to people like Jordan Peele, Ari Aster, and Guillermo del Toro, horror has evolved. And, too, movie palaces from an exotic age, vanishing venues, conjure nostalgia, mystery, and memories. THE JUPE deepens that mystery, darkens those memories.

THE STORY:

Corporate Accountant JASON BRADLEY-ROSS, discovers his east coast boss’s ties to the mob and turns State’s Evidence. He, wife, LAUREN, and their children: son, CHRISTOPHER, and daughter C.C., are relocated, hidden in Amenity, Kansas. But… aided by certain “official” sources and some clever “social engineering,” as the family arrives in the town, the killers have already begun to hunt them.

After checking out the town and before meeting the movers at their new house, an old Victorian on a tree-lined street a few blocks from downtown, they meet GAVIN MACAULEY, a retiree, and they begin a friendship.

Jason had been placed by the Feds in a large theater chain’s corporate administration, but only after he re-opens THE JUPITER, a shuttered old movie palace which had served Amenity for more than 80 years, and learns the business. Unknown to the family, as we learn at the outset, the “Jupe,” built when Amenity’s textile mills still operated and the valley population was much larger, rests on a site with a “past”.

Now, with the prospect of a large E.V. plant coming, the Kansas City-based theater chain intends to re-open the Jupiter, prior to eventually converting it into a state-of-the-art multiplex while preserving its classic design. Until then, it will still run the old fashioned way, with extra-large film reels alternating between two projectors.

Rudy Goulee, the Jupiter’s crotchety former projectionist, takes the family on a tour, revealing all of the spooky old venue’s secrets: a couple sub-basements for heating and storage, dressing and rehearsal rooms, the projection booth, and the attic crawlspace above the false ceiling over the main floor. He trains Jason on film projection, and as the family’s refurbishing begins, the old theater starts to come back to life.

But fear of discovery stalks them…

…and, in particular, as they settle into Amenity, Lauren is haunted. Their fear has awakened something within the Jupiter itself, something worse than their human pursuers, something ancient, terrible. It’s something which begins to feed off their slowly mounting fears, first in their dreams, and later, in... other ways.

Opening day approaches, which Jason intends to serve as the start of a shakedown run before the “Grand Re-Opening” on Halloween weekend. After a disturbing and unexplainable incident during an Open-House he throws for the small town, Jason ends up alienating the locals and is forced to draw staff from the greater area surrounding Amenity. For the Halloween Grand Re-Opening, he plans for a huge horror marathon, advertising across the entire valley, and pulls out all the stops to make it great.

Serving as projectionist until he can train a replacement, Jason closes the theater at the end of one night not long after they’ve opened. From the projection booth, he sees a bizarre figure staring at him from the main floor near the stage. But when he runs down to throw “the person” out, he finds no one. He looks up and sees the person gazing at him, now, from the same projection booth window. Racing back up, he finds the figure gone. And a thorough hunt produces no result. So, he locks up and walks home through the darkened town.

The rest of the family also experiences bizarre things. One night, Lauren is awakened from a deep sleep to find that Jason is not yet home, and finds her neck wrapped in film, almost choking her. Hysterical, she tears it off and leaps out of bed. The film trails off the bed, and leads out the door. She then discovers that daughter C.C. is missing. Frantic, she traces the film down the stairs. She finds it leads further, under the basement door, and down, into the darkness of the cellar. Her calls to C.C. to no avail, she overcomes her fear, grabs a flashlight, and follows it down the steps, where the film winds around the huge old furnace, and leads beneath the door to an old canning pantry converted from an even older coal bin. Standing there barefoot, she feels something at her feet, looks down, and sees dark liquid gushing out from under the door. She screams.

Arriving home from the Jupe, Jason, comes running. He pulls open the pantry door only to find the empty film reel lying among the broken jars of several “canned” vegetables and the reel of the film she had followed.

Other weird and disturbing events pile up, one after another. One night, C.C. is drawn alone to the theater eventually to be found by Jason in the seats staring at the empty screen. Then, Chris attempts suicide.

And, a thousand miles east, having finally located them, their pursuers head for Amenity.

With the staff fully in place and trained up, the Jupiter opens its doors for its Grand Re-Opening. Hundreds of teens from all over the valley have arrived to see the all-horror triple-bill on the Jupiter’s huge screen.

But that night, as the horror films reign, and a violent storm rages, Jason and Lauren are forced to preside over a tremendous tragedy: in a strange trance-like unison, 43 kids step up onto the balcony’s front railing wall and jump to the audience-filled seats below. Pandemonium! Hours later, after the last ambulance has left, Jason goes to enlist Gavin’s help. Meanwhile, heading home, Lauren and the kids discover their house vandalized, apparently by the townspeople, now angry at them over the tragedy. With nowhere else to turn, in the middle of the night, Lauren heads back to the Jupiter, and begins to set up in one of the sub-basement rehearsal rooms, intending to call Jason once she has the kids bedded down.

Needing to understand it all, Jason and Gavin had gone to the only place open at the time, the truck stop outside town, just off the Interstate. But, unknown to them, two late-model SUVs with east coast plates had arrived ahead of them, and six newcomers to Amenity are seated at two tables within earshot. Surprised at their amazing luck after spotting Jason, and, unnoticed in return, they get up and leave to make their plans.

The presence within the Jupe, sated, now, with the family’s fear, able to manifest physically, begins to stalk Lauren, Chris, and C.C. through the bowels of the ancient theater. At the truck stop, after coming to a decision, Jason and Gavin head back toward Amenity, only to stop when they see lights coming from the church basement—the townies are meeting, presumably about what happened at the Jupe… and what to do about it.

And the killers? They divide up, some to the theater, some to the house, beginning to set their plan in motion.

Then, after finally heading to the theater, in a harrowing night of horror, Jason, his family, and Gavin finally confront both their human pursuers and their fear-sated demon, loose and hunting them within the Jupiter Theater. #