THE COMMUNION

The Communion – pitch 3/8/2025 INTRO [Toxic masculinity and genera>onal trauma] LOGLINE / TONE THE COMMUNION is primal, bloody folk horror clawing its way out from the beaEng heart of a nuanced, of-the-moment family drama: a young dad – along with his wife and son – are invited “back home” to Puerto Rico, to the life, family, and father he tried to leave behind; and in so doing becomes embroiled in a violent struggle for the future of his family and the fate of his own soul. In the vein of Julia Ducournau’s RAW or Ari Aster’s HEREDITARY, THE COMMUNION seeks to first ground its audience within the tense interplay of a grounded, specific ensemble of characters, before the boVom drops out and we fall into monster-movie madness. What monster? We’ll get there – and to that point, rather than blow our load early with gore and CGI monstrosiEes, our approach aims to evoke monstrousness through a gradual buildup of specific, off-seYng performance and Eny, viscerally uncomfortable BLACK-SWAN-style details. Likewise, instead of recycling the usual dra]y Gothic mansions or evil-hillbilly-filled backwoods of tradiEonal horror, we’re seYng our story against the colorful landscape, vibrant culture, and rife poliEcs of present-day Puerto Rico. Characters will wander history-soaked haciendas, don demon-horned vejigante masks at Carnaval, and debate colonizaEon and cultural idenEty in a mix of English and Spanish, in the manner of THE FAREWELL, as they struggle to navigate between worlds and ways of life. THEMES [Angel discusses; addi>onal talking points below]

Our relaEonship with the past: how the things we fear become the things that control us. The consequences of cuYng ourselves off from the places and people we come from, and the challenge of integraEng the insEncts of our upbringing with what we’ve learned since then. All the ways fathers shape and scar their sons trying to make them ready for the world. Toxic masculinity - we talk about “stopping the cycle,” but how? ParEcularly when you are a product of toxicity yourself: when violence and dominaEon are bred into you, when emoEon and vulnerability are punished in your family and culture, what are your opEons, parEcularly when the fate of the next generaEon, the next step in the cycle, depends on you? CHARACTERS This is the situaEon our lead, Francisco Ochoa, finds himself in. Francis is a man trapped by his own past: having buried it in order to embrace his new family, yet haunted by the idea that it might one day rise up and overtake him. And the stakes are high – not just his own soul, but the fate of his community and of the family he’s built – fiery take-no-shit wife Esther and impressionable eight-year-old Patrick (the kind of kid born to exploit his parents’ weaknesses). And then there’s the family Francis was born into: his charismaEc cousin Hector; his mother Ana, a woman of sharp eyes and few words; and, looming larger-than-life over them all, his

father Benito – the epitome of his culture’s masculine ideals and a product of its violent history, in turn generous and tyrannical, benevolent and cruel, in his efforts to protect his family and bring his wayward son back into the fold. STORY We open on a sprawling, mazelike hacienda, where a wake is being held for the deceased Ochoa patriarch – no dull, gloomy affair, but a vibrant, even raucous celebraEon of life and death: prayers said, pigs slaughtered, music blasted, and toasts made, and all of it seen through the wide, observant eyes of 12-year-old FRANCISCO “PACO” OCHOA. His mother ANA hovers nearby, oddly quiet in the midst of such a party, her watchful, apprehensive eyes on her husband, Paco’s charismaEc father BENITO, who moves about the room, shaking hands and solving disputes. As we watch the party, we noEce the odd tension in the room: the dick- measuring among the men, hidden by forced laughter, while the wives and aunts watch warily. It's like something out of NaEonal Geographic, a leaderless pack snapping at one another to determine who’ll be the new boss. And Benito – working the room like the Puerto Rican Godfather, radiaEng control and don’t-fuck-with-me with every smile and slap on the back – is clearly on top. But then, as the moon rises above the clouds, everything changes: the adults go silent and serious. The party is put aside, the children ushered off to bed, but Paco is stopped by his

father’s hand on his shoulder, guiding him towards the back of the hacienda to join the adults. He stares, open-mouthed, as they enter an ancient “chapel,” where, family by family, the male Ochoas go up to the altar, take something small and pale from a ceremonial bowl, dip it into a cup of wine, and eat it. Paco turns to his mother to ask where the priest is, but she only Eghtens her grip on his hand, her face pale. But then it’s their turn, and his father is beckoning. Paco tears his hand from his mother’s grasp to join his dad, watching as Benito reaches into the bowl and hands his son something that doesn’t seem like bread. It seems shiny, and wet. Paco recoils, but Benito grips his shoulder and tells him to be strong, unafraid. And so he obeys - his eyes never leaving his father’s, Francisco dips the thing into the wine and swallows… and doubles over in pain, his whole body screaming. He looks to Dad for help, but Benito just stands there, watching coldly as his son convulses on the floor, wailing, eyes rolling as if possessed… JUMP FORWARD twenty years: we find Francisco, now just “Francis,” in suburban Virginia, seated in a faded dress shirt and too-Eght Ee, while a third-grade teacher lectures him on his son’s “problemaEc” behavior. Francis’s capable wife ESTHER can't leave work, since Francis geYng laid off made her the sole breadwinner.

Which means he has no choice but to take his sullen child with him to all of his job interviews. They don’t go well – the architecture firms he applies to are condescending and someEmes racist (is he looking for a job in construcEon?) – and Patrick, sEll figuring out who to be and doing it loudly, is no help. But Francis makes liVle effort to rein his son in – he keeps him at arms’ length, as though geYng close might somehow cause him harm. And so the discomfort and emasculaEon conEnues unEl Francis is a coil of tension… …which only gets yanked Eghter when he comes home to find a handsome stranger with a Puerto Rican accent lounging on his couch, chaYng up his wife. This is Cousin HECTOR – think Jeff Goldblum in JURASSIC PARK, all sex appeal and self-interest. He’s hunted Francis down and broken his self-imposed exile to bring him a proposiEon: the Ochoa land back in Puerto Rico is owned jointly by the whole family, but Hector wants to split it up and sell his share. And Francis can, too – get free of his past for good, prove his independence, provide for his new family… all they need to do is convince Francis’s father. At the menEon of Benito, Francis shuts down completely. He orders Hector out… then finds himself on the floor of his closet, mid-panic aVack, clutching a tarnished silver medal of the Madonna and Child. For a second, he sees

something different reflected in the medal’s surface - yellow animal eyes staring back at him – but when he blinks, they’re gone. Benito’s looming presence won’t be dismissed so easily, though: at dinner that night, Patrick keeps dipping his dinner roll in his grape juice and asking about Uncle Hector, unEl Francis snaps – in anger, in helplessness… and in something more primal, more animal, rearing its monstrous head. It slips back below the surface just as quickly, as Francis sees his son crying and Esther glaring at him. As he tries to come to grips with what just happened – this specter of his father now visiEng itself upon his son – Francis’s phone rings, and his blood runs cold as he hears a familiar voice tells him it’s Eme to “come home.” Benito is calm, controlled: he knows about Hector’s plan, but says it is a maVer for the family to discuss together. In person. And slowly, the fear on Francis’s face shi]s to grim determinaEon: to help Hector, to earn a badly needed financial windfall for his wife and son, and to break free of his father once and for all. The next thing they know, Francis and family are deplaning in San Luis and geYng picked up by Cousin Hector in the rental car. As they drive, Francis gets his first look at Puerto Rico in over a decade: its poverty and signs of gentrificaEon pushed up against its wild, defiant beauty and vibrant culture.

Speaking of which, as the car passes into a more rural village, they get trapped behind a PROCESSION filling up the road: Día de la Candelaria, or Candlemas, complete with roaring bonfires and statues of the Virgin paraded through the streets. And as they’re swept up in the fesEve chaos, Francis spots an all-too-familiar figure in the crowd: his father. It’s not unEl procession turns into feast and Benito Ochoa gets up to speak, that we meet Francisco’s father properly. He’s sEll the Don Corleone of the community, adamant in defending them and theirs from outside interests… but when at last he and Francis are face to face, all he does is grip his son by the shoulder and say “It’s good to see you, Paco.” He seems caring. Grandfatherly, even. And he insists they all ditch the hotel: family stays at the house. Soon they’re passing the Ochoas’ guava fields and arriving at the house – stubbornly unchanged, as sharp-edged and secret-filled as in Francis’s memory. But his mother Ana is there to welcome her long-lost son: she doesn’t say much – just scolds him with tear-filled eyes for being skinny and not wearing the Virgin Mary medal she gave him. And when Francis enters the house and is hit with strange déjà vu – wasn’t there a room here…? Hadn’t something happened…? – Ana only tells her son that he needs rest – it’ll all come back with Eme.

A]er a night filled with dreams of terror, rage, a monstrous creature brimming with teeth, Francis awakes to find a worried Esther and an even more worried Cousin Hector: the land sale discussion is tomorrow, but one of Francis’s UNCLES has already arrived with his family, and from his swagger and sneers at Hector and Francis, it’s clear which way he thinks the family will vote. Hector tells Francis he’s found a local buyer for their land and is meeEng with them tonight at a local bar, and if Francis can get his dad to come, maybe they can convince him and buVon this thing up before the rest of the family descends to sway things the other way. As Patrick is pulled away by his (older, tougher) COUSINS to go play, the uncle starts in on Hector and Francis. And on both sides of the generaEonal divide, what starts as joshing quickly turns nasty: not just verbally – the uncle and cousins both going on about how “white” their cousins have goVen, how “so]” – but also… [The visuals and sound effects of this dinner conversa>on, with emphasis on the primal nature of it – animals ripping into their food, into one another] Francis tries not to engage, but then the uncle declares him a coward, always running away from his problems, his family. And he waltzes in, expecEng to be welcomed back with open arms? Francis’s hackles rise… And then Benito steps in: Francisco’s made something of himself

and is now in a posiEon to help the family, and what has this uncle managed to make of his life, hm? A fucking mess is what. That shuts up any remaining dissent, and because Benito’s on Francis’s side here, we all like him for it. All of us… except for Esther. She tries to find Eme to talk to her husband later, but, preoccupied, Francis brushes her off – this is their culture. His family. The way things are. What does she expect him to do about it? That evening Francis invites his father out for a walk, and as he tries to segue into the land sale conversaEon, Benito gestures to the crimson guava fields surrounding them, every inch wrested from the Spanish by Benito’s own father. Bought by blood, watered by blood. Their birthright and their burden. Francis responds that they aren’t fighEng the Spanish anymore – that what Benito and his father fought for wasn’t just land, but freedom for their children, to make their own choices. But as he speaks, the sickly sweet scent of the guavas wa]s across the fields and Francis sees, once again, two animal eyes looking at him from between the tree trunks. As they walk through the village, past the toothy-grinned vejigante masks being prepared for Carnaval… Benito remarks that Día de la Candelaria and Carnaval rarely get to stand this close together in the calendar. The end of one season, the beginning of another. It’s… nice. And then

the bonding moment turns sour as they arrive at the bar to see Hector with two well-dressed yuppie white guys – the so-called “local buyer.” Francis’s stomach sinks and fills with bile as he realizes how both he and his father have been tricked. But Benito doesn’t storm out: he sits down, and – in a calm, measured voice – tells the developers the story behind the vejigantes – considered “demons” by outsiders, but really just the Spanish name for a far older force within Puerto Rico – its protector spirits, its guardians against encroaching forces. Forces the colonizers tried to scare off, or lock up in kennels, or – eyeing Hector – bribe with treats unEl they became tamed, neutered, dogs grateful for scraps and licking their own asses. The developers smile through griVed teeth at the metaphor… [A drunken gringo bachelor party crashes their way into the bar, leering at the women, pissing off the men. Ini>ally, Francis tries to keep out of it – everyone in the room eyeing one another like predators and prey at the watering hole as the situa>on grows tenser and tenser… but then one of the developers makes the mistake of defending a ganged-up-on groomsman, Hector’s dragged into it, and things descend into chaos. The baTle spills out into the street, the light of the moon becomes too bright, the sounds of the fight too loud, overwhelming any ra>onal thought…]

Somewhere in this scene, someone swings at him and he reacts – not with a dodge or a step back, but with a violence that is purely animal. The monster we’ve seen in his face at the dinner table back home, that we’ve been waiEng for and fearing this whole Ee, now erupEng into… Francis blacks out before we get to see, but from here on out, we’re aware of what he may be capable of, and anEcipaEng its inevitable return. Francis comes to. He’s lying in bed in the Ochoa house, disoriented and dry in the mouth, his wife glaring at him. She explains that Francis was carried in last night, black-out drunk – he doesn’t drink! Since they set foot in this house, neither he nor their son has been acEng like himself – she’s seeing something new, something frightening surfacing within her family and it’s freaking her out. Francis himself isn’t sure, but when he finds Benito – looking oddly fresh, revitalized despite last night’s events – he assures Francis that it's all been worked out. Hector’s already gone home. And charming devil that Benito is, we’re this close to believing him… UnEl two police officers appear at their door, inquiring about last night’s fight. As Francis hears Hector and the developers’ names among the missing persons, his already troubled stomach begins twisEng into knots. Because beneath Benito’s calm exterior we see excitement – a

fighter, fresh off his last win, sizing up a bigger opponent in the corrupt local government that would love any excuse to drive his family off their land… …but not before the Ochoa clan gathers their full force. An army of relaEves descends upon the house – uncles, aunts, cousins, all the folks we met in the prologue. And just like then, the Ochoa men are once again jostling for posiEon, tesEng Francis’s defenses with comments about his “so] white-people bullshit.” But unlike his father, Francis isn’t ready: the tension he’s been holding this whole movie, mercilessly poked and prodded, starts busEng at the seams. His movements become more forceful, his face fiercer. The hair on his arms itches, and when he scratches, his nails cut through skin. And when a grinning Benito tells everyone Hector “gave up” his claim to his share of the property, Francis explodes: who does he think he is, a gangster? “Disappearing” people – his own family – whenever they displease him? Benito points out it’s Francis who disappeared on him, but it’s barely heard. [Francis is seeing red now, the violence and toxicity within him erup>ng – the moment we’ve been an>cipa>ng, dreading – all his buried resentment and pain resurfacing, striking furniture, spit flying, so angry he starts losing words, devolving into gestures, howls—and then he freezes, looking down at his hand. It’s… changed. His palm has grown longer, club- like, his fingers thicker, his nails sharper.

And worst of all – no one else seems at all alarmed at this. In fact, they’re laughing. Egging him on.] Horrified, Francis stumbles out of the house, through the guava fields, and into a farming shed to hide. HypervenElaEng, grabbing at the medal around his neck, trying to convince himself that whatever that was, it’s over now… and then he slips on something wet: a pool of blood, leaking from the boVom of a compost bin. Inside, a mangled body – Hector’s, to be precise. Horrified, Francis opens up more compost bins, then goes outside and digs through the fresh dirt piled around the guava trees. Bodies in all of them – of the bachelor party, the developers, and other, older corpses Francis doesn’t recognize. Each one seemingly aVacked by vicious animals. And Francis is slowly realizing who those animals are. Benito materializes behind Francis to explain: Francis may have tried to forget, to close off that part of his mind and memories, but he could never have outrun the family gi]. And it is a gi]: it offers power, respect in a world that gives them none. It waters their fields, feeds their bodies. It strengthens their family, protects them when Emes are hard. Just like Benito protected Francisco as a youth, when his monster first slipped his grasp. Just like they protected their community last night. Francis is in denial, but liVle by liVle it all comes back to him: his rage at

Hector’s duplicity, his need to prove himself to his father, his helplessness in the face of injusEce festering and coalescing into… Terrified, Francis runs back into the house and – with his mother’s help – bundles his confused family into the car. They’re leaving. Ana is heartbroken to see her son leave a second Eme, but she holds herself together, only holding Francis back long enough to echo her husband’s words in warning: this is not the kind of monster he can run away from. He’ll only be bringing it with him. But for the moment, it’s a risk Francis is willing to take. As he drives, Francis tries to explain things to Esther while avoiding the impossible truth: something has come back up, something he thought he had buried. Esther – locked out of so much of her husband’s life – ventures that maybe this is a good thing to get it out in the open, to which Francis yells, “It is NOT a fucking good thing!” Esther goes pale – afraid of her husband for the first Eme – and before he has a chance to apologize, she converts that fear into acEon: she makes him stop the car – in the middle of the village, at the start of Carnaval – and starts pulling her and Patrick’s things out of the trunk. Francis protests – it’s not safe, he’s trying to

protect them – but she fires back with a heavy dose of truth: what’s unsafe is not his culture, or his family, or even his past – it’s his fear of all those things, of himself. “So you do what you have to do, face what you have to face. But don’t drag us into it and then act like we’re the reason for you behaving like a monster.” Francis stares as his family disappear into the crowd… …and then a cop recognizes him and starts heading his way. Francis runs – through the parades and crowds of costumed revelers – but is ulEmately cornered, outnumbered… and then the nearest cop to get knocked over by SOMETHING horned and toothy and vicious. Francis looks up to see his uncle – in fact, several men from his family, wearing vejigante masks as cover, taking out cops, picking him up, and hustling him back towards the house. As they run – swi], coordinated, like a pack of wolves on the hunt – Francis sees that they’ve scooped up Esther and Patrick, too, and his heart sinks as they approach the house, sirens close on their heels, to make their final stand. Benito is already whipping up the family for a fight: the Ochoa women are gathering the children and finding places to hide, but the men… With them, we hint at, but never fully see, the same transformaEon that Francis began – a coiled violence in the face, a snarl from off-

screen, a flash of claws – before the police ram down the door and the showdown begins: the Ochoas unleashing generaEons of rage against these new invaders, while Francis fights off both sides in his aVempts to retrieve his family. Esther is out there as well, fending off Ochoa and policeman alike as she searches franEcally for her husband and her son. But the person who finally finds Patrick, hiding in a corner, isn’t one of his parents. It’s his grandfather, gazing down at the frightened boy with understanding, idenEfying with Patrick’s fear, his helplessness… then asks him: wouldn’t he like to be strong, to protect his family like his cousins are doing? By the Eme Francis finds his son – across a body-strewn yard, against the backdrop of a burning house and shadowy, monstrous figures dashing back and forth. … he’s holding his grandfather’s hand, headed for the chapel. Francis tells Patrick to come to him – they goVa go – but Benito says no. Patrick will be staying, becoming a member of the family, to protect it and be protected by it whenever their enemies next return. Francis says Benito can’t force him… but Benito isn’t. Like Francis said, children should get to make their own choices – so what does Patrick want? Patrick looks at Benito – strong, upright, with a bracing grip on his shoulder – and then he looks at Francis, cowering in the shadows, pleading, afraid. It’s an easy decision. Francis lunges

forward to snatch his son away… but then feels himself beginning to transform, limbs elongaEng, coarse hairs ripping through his skin. He stumbles out of the moonlight… and into the waiEng arms of uncles and cousins. One takes a knife and cuts a chunk of flesh out of Francis’s arm. The ceremony will be happening, with or without him. When we next find Francis, he’s chained up in a basement where, from the scratches and claw marks in the concrete, it seems many other members of the family have been kept. A narrow beam of moonlight comes through a window, and beyond that beam sits Ana Ochoa. Helpless and angry, Francis lashes out at his mother, finally revealing to us the past he’s kept hidden even from himself. How as a child he witnessed his dad become a “monster”; how he realized one bloody night that he was capable of that same transformaEon; how he ran away, trying to bury his past and the monster with it. And through it all, his mother just stood by, didn’t she? Saying nothing, doing nothing. How could she? How could she permit this, permit herself to bring another monster into the world? At this, Ana pulls herself up to her full height and SLAPS Francis across the face: how dare he call her son a monster. Look at him – at the life he’s made for himself, his beauEful family, his soul that sEll knows what’s right… What is inside him is a

part of him – a part that is fearsome, powerful, hard to control. But he can hide from it, let it condemn him… or he can face it. She made her choice long ago: to love this family, to hold their pain and rage and build rather than destroy. Now it’s his turn. Francis looks at the patch of moonlight on the ground. His family needs him. And if being there for them, for his son, means accessing that side of him he’s spent so long avoiding… Francis reaches for the light, and begins his transformaEon – not the grotesque, wild breaking-out we’ve hinted at, but something focused. Determined. Even beauEful. As the chains holding him break, and something swi] and powerful rushes out of the basement to save his family. In the chapel, the ceremony is underway, Benito leading his grandson to the altar… when Francis, his clothes in taVers, comes storming in to confront him. Benito looks at his son and laughs: they are wolves, and yet somehow Francis has turned himself into a domesEcated, self- castraEng dog, unwilling to stand with his own family. So why should he have a say? But this is a very different Francisco – one who has accepted what’s inside him, not to dominate, but to protect those he loves. And this Eme, he is more than a match for his father. [Several of Francis’s uncles and cousins transform and join in on the side of the patriarch, but

ul>mately the fierceness of Francis – the determina>on of a father to save his son – keeps them at bay. Finally, Francis has his father on the ground. He hesitates… and then Benito lashes out with a claw, slashing his son’s face in one last act of defiance. In rage, Francis is about to rip into him…] And then Esther calls out his name. Francis turns to face his wife – her le] hand gripped firmly by Ana, bolstering her daughter-in-law, while entwined around her outstretched right hand is Francis’s medal of the Virgin Mary holding the Child Jesus: the mechanism, we realize, that Ana has used to bring the men of her family back to themselves. Francis’s wild eyes stare at the image, towering over Esther – we’re unsure if he’s about to take her hand or just rip it clean off – but then he hears his son’s voice behind him and turns. Patrick is standing rooted to the spot. Blood from the gash Benito dealt thrown across his face, his open mouth. Slowly, the boy touches a hand to his lips… and then grimaces in pain. Francis runs to his son – all his animalisEc features receding unEl he’s just a terrified father – as Patrick falls to the ground, convulsing the same way Francis did when he was iniEated. Except this Eme, he is not alone. While the other Ochoas look on, Francis does what his father never did – he

fights off the other Ochoa men trying to hold him back, takes his son in his arms and embraces him, holding him Eght through every shudder, every wracking pain, stroking his hair and telling him he’s going to be alright. A moment of healing – perhaps too late – for this broken family, this broken home, this broken community… Cut to a few years later: Francis is looking over blueprints for the restoraEon of the Ochoa property. He’s scarred sEll from where his father struck him, but he seems more self-assured, more comfortable with himself and with the world. Patrick comes charging into the office, hugging his dad and gabbing nonstop about his new school and friends and learning math in Spanish. Esther follows, Patrick’s baby sister on her hip, and asks Francis if he’s ready. He nods. They arrive at the Ochoa house just in Eme for the party: the original house has been repaired and restored, while space has been cleared for new buildings to come. The whole community has been invited – village kids, the new mayor, and even Hector’s ex-wife and sons, all the family “exiles” welcomed home – Francis greeEng everyone by name, making it clear the repair work wasn’t just on the house. He finds Ana and embraces her warmly, serving her first and giving her the honor and love she has long been owed from this family. And when he asks her where his

father is, she points him to the back porch, where an aged man sits in a cheap folding chair, looking quite different than he did a year ago – older, more delicate… but lighter. Free. Francis asks him what he thinks of the new house. Benito grumbles a bit, then concedes: “it’ll do.” There’s peace between them now – not necessarily forgiveness, but recogniEon and mutual respect: Benito having taken his family this far, and Francis preparing to take the family further, in a new direcEon. And then both men look up as, in the distance, they hear a scream. Benito starts to get up out of his chair, but this Eme it’s Francis who puts a hand on his shoulder – he’s got this. He heads toward the sound, only to find Patrick and his cousins shrieking with laughter as they chase one another and roughhouse. Boys doing what boys do, but if we keep watching, we’ll see how Patrick has found the same authority as his father, calling the other boys in rather than out, keeping them in line. How they dance with their female cousins, and circle protecEvely around the new baby’s rocker. And how, beneath all the cute, round faces, there are animals at play.