Alice Ward

Crow’s Field Movie Plot

Lunar Productions’ new horror genre film is based around a true story; a story of a 19th Century alleged witch in Massachusetts that was hanged for her, so called, crimes of witchcraft in a Puritan village. She was hung from evening all through the night, until the morning. She was then cut down, with everyone thinking she was dead – but she wasn’t. ‘Half-hanged Mary’ went on to live another 14 years after holding on for dear life all night, but unfortunately turned psychotic and insane. She dawdled around eating faeces, mumbling ritualistic sayings (she became the witch she never was).

However, our main story is based around a young aspiring university student studying journalism as her preferred course. The narrative will start with Mia Summers, the student, starting her mediocre morning with breakfast and textbooks, rushing to get to her first morning class! There will be bright filtering or lighting to show the happiness or joy within her starting day and the sense of a normal life (that will bring a sudden ‘drop’ when she unveils ‘Half-Hanged Mary’s’ story. We follow her day as she leaves her house, then transporting to her first class, whilst listening to her favourite music as she waits for the bus. The music that is more fitting for the bright morning would be a fast paced or calming playlist that enlightens Mia to a welcoming and motivated day. Mia will arrive at class, fresh-faced and eager to learn as she always is, placing her bag on the floor, whilst placing her textbooks and exercise books on her desk flipping to a fresh page in her notepad (overwhelmed with notes and brainstorms). Summers is a clear nerd-like young lady who always engages in lessons, but is sadly and typically isolated in her own world of academia.

During her lessons, she is given an assignment where she, solely, has to build a project factually built around a topic of her choice. This is where her journey begins. Mia then chooses to do a bit of extra research on the night in her room; checking news updates, finding the perfect story to write her assignment. Suddenly she comes across an article written about a 7 year old girl named Brooke Evans. This seven year-old girl, Brooke, quotes in this article (to which Mia highlights with her cursor in curiosity), “Brooke Evans, age 7, frantically attacked her teacher shouting WITCH! WITCH! Before then hitting herself repeatedly in the head yelling go away.” After seeing such a peculiar happening written about Brooke, Mia investigates the web about Brooke Evans and finds out a few weeks later she was admitted to a special unit for mentally ill children. The high levels of being intrigued leads to Mia printing articles and articles on Brooke: this was her story.

Miss Summers visits the special child unit to see if she could see Brooke Evans for a quiet and informational only consultation. However, and unfortunately, she is turned down as the receptionist is disturbed by a specialist telling Mia; “Brooke is not seeing anybody for a few weeks, no visitors are permitted, this is strict policy. I’m sorry you’ll have to leave” Things begin to get serious as Mia Summer’s gets more and more curious as to why everything is kept a secret about Brooke, and why she isn’t allowed any visitors. What harm could a 7 year old possibly do?

Summers finds the specialist mental illness child centre on the internet, hoping to find a contact us page in order to create a scheduled date to interview Brooke. She shows utter dedication to her story and project; her head buried in books 24/7, since she was assigned

Alice Ward

the essay. She then, luckily, speaks over the phone about an interview and gets a short ten minutes with Brooke to speak about factual based statistics, nothing personal between them. These were the rules and regulations anyway: and this may be the first time Mia goes against rules and regulations for her article/ essay. She gets a taxi there the following week, dressed relatively casual, carrying articles and pictures based around Brooke’s life. When she meets Brooke, the 7 year old is the shyest person she has met, and is astonished so after reading her article. However, she welcomes Brooke Evans openly and speaks with upmost respect. After 2 minutes of small talk, an observer quickly leaves the room and this is where Mia see’s her opportunity to get all the information she needs. They grow accustomed to each other, Mia showing sympathy and concern, writing frantically about every detail. Brooke tells her story on how she was victimized and followed for months by ‘Half-Hanged Mary’, that Mary wanted revenge, justice for what was done to her life and her physical being. Brooke simply and sternly states, “Why does she come to me for help? The witch will not leave me alone; they do not believe me… No one does.” After Mia hears this, she slips her phone number to Brooke and whisper “If you see anything or fancy a chat, if you can get to a phone, phone me, okay?”

Mia sits in her dorm thinking and thinking, trying to start her essay, first by hand, then on her computer. Her mind is blocked as she thinks of Brooke. She flicks through all the information she has accumulated over the past two weeks and how she can start her assignment properly. But she is too distracted by the story itself, so grabs her bag and coat, and goes to a local library to find any books based around witches. All of a sudden, she finds a book with the witch Brooke mentioned to her and takes photos of this book and the information it holds. Before she could leave she noted down the witches whereabouts and address.

She visits these addresses, but is turned down several times, but then finds the Witches hanging place from flicking through all her studies, books and notes. As she turns up, she becomes chilled and creeped out. The large field she stood in surrounded her with chills and goose bumps. The vast space and high grass interrupted by crow’s squawking around her. Mia then suddenly becomes shocked to what she see’s in the distance. A figure. A rather petite but dark figure near the edge of the field leading to the surrounding, high tree’s woods. Mia overwhelmed with curiosity tries to snap a picture but before she could do so, an un-natural, large gust of wind throws her phone to the ground, her also losing her balance. After the sudden fright, she jumps up and rushes to grab her phone. She leaves in a hurry, running.

Mia arrives ‘home’ to then chill on her sofa after a long day and scrolls through her social media, revising her work once or twice between. She then gets a quick phone call off Brooke, which she whispered, over the phone “I never was a witch. Now I am one!” Then she gets cuts off. This seems unusual to Mia and Mia is severely concerned at this point. Then next day she tries to make another consultation with Brooke but is turned down immediately, and she is left worried, curious and terrified. Linking to this, she then gets more involved with the happening of ‘Half-Hanged Mary’.

After all the deep investigation and curiosity, Mia Summers finally returns to the field to where she fled before out of fright. However, this time she brings a video camera with her

Alice Ward

ready and waiting to capture a picture of the figure she saw. She goes onto be tormented by this figure after the second visitation.

Towards the end of the film Mia Summers mysteriously goes missing after her deep investigation, with an unfinished essay about her threatening, dangerous and weary experience.