A troubled teenage girl discovers she is next in line as the high priestess of a centuries old witches coven, who gain their magic from drawing blood from male children. 

SYNOPSIS:

COMPS The folk horror of ‘The Witch’ meets the analogue horror of ‘Sinister.’

SYNOPSIS Mikayla is a 13 year old girl born with a deformed face, a clitoris where her nose should be. Her mother, Francesca, died while giving birth to her. She is at odds with her stepfather Jonathan, but perversely is the only one who can look after her infant step brother, Charlie.

She returns to her ancestral home where she finds 16mm films which reveal she is a descendent of a centuries old witches coven. The deformity she has is past from mother to daughter, but not from birth, by entering and re-emerging from caves under the house. And she learns the women can temporarily remove that deformity, by sipping the blood from a male child.

She discovers her mother is still alive. Francesca reveals Jonathan is really her father. He raped Francesca, then stole baby Mikayla away. At any cost she demands Mikayla must descend with Charlie into the tunnels. There she will embrace ‘The Goddess,’ the source of the coven’s power.

Mikayla tests the blood by casting a spell, and can temporarily remove the deformity. She realizes being born with the deformity also meant she was born with magic. Typically the next high priestess descends into the caves, where she meets ‘The Goddess.’ Whatever this creature is, it burns the coven birthmark into her face, but also giving her the power to bless male blood, turning it into ‘syrup,’ and giving a witch the power to cast spells.

When Jonathan finds out she has bled Charlie, he imprisons her in the attic. He admits he really is her father, but denies he raped her mother. He maintains that bleeding causes males to prematurely age. His own father was bled into a husk. When Mikayla was born with the deformity, the coven feared she was born with magic, the power they had known for centuries maybe coming to an end. Before they could kill her, Jonathan saved her by stealing her away.

Mikayla escapes, steals Charlie and descends into the tunnels. Though she now wonders if it is Jonathan or Francesca who is lying.

Entering the witches’ lair, Mikayla finds the surviving coven members, Francesca with two other witches. Mish is faced with the choice to accept what she was born into. The only way to ever live a normal life, to ever be loved, is to use the magic to remove her deformity, she must bleed her baby brother. She forces the coven to admit that bleeding Charlie will age him prematurely. Furthermore she must eter a lower cavern and as High Priestess allow ‘The Goddess’ to feed on her life force. But she realizes Jonathan has followed her down. She elects to try and rescue Charlie from the coven, but Jonathan is repeatedly stabbed by them. She helps him to escape, but Charlie is taken by the witches.

The wounded Jonathan will still go back for his son. He gives Mikayla pages of an illustrated journal he kept from his time in the house. In one of the drawing’s is his own father.

She casts a truth spell over the pages, able to physically enter them and experience the world as the creator did. Jonathan watched as Francesca was indoctrinated from birth to be the next High Priestess. She herself was subjected to other truth spells, the terrible history of the coven, that from olden times they were originally a haven for abused girls and women, but now are a cult clinging to both their generational truama and power over men. Mikayla sees Jonathan’s father bled into a husk, when he died it would have been his turn. It was Francesca who raped Jonathan. And when Mikayla was born is was him who saved her from the coven executing her. For a High Priestess born with magic upsets the coven centuries old system .She discovers the Goddess must constantly feed on the life force of the High Priestess to stay alive, just as the witches must bleed men to retain their power. But she could change all that.

On the last page of the journal she finds a clue to a hidden entrance into the lair.

Mikayla must enter by swimming through an underwater cave, and when she emerges, finds herself face to face with the ‘Goddess.’ SHE is a giant vagina and womb.

Mikayla is cornered by the coven, they tell her Jonathan is dead and will kill Charlie if she doesn’t ‘embrace’ the goddess. Mikayla drinks some blood, then is lifted via fallopian tubes up into the womb. Though she is tempted with the power she could have, she chooses to make a stand and end the coven’s cycle of vicitim hood once and for all. She casts a fire spell, incinerating the Goddess and the coven. The only escape for Mikayla and Charlie is back through the underwater cave.

Resting in an air pocket, Mikayla is attacked by the surviving Francesca, but is saved by Jonathan who drowns her, but he is fatally stabbed in the process. With his last dying act Jonathan touches his daughter’s face and begs her ‘don’t bleed your brother.’

But she does once more, casting a spell to burn down the house, the films and all the terrible memories.

BLOOD TIES