How about a philosophical horror story? Norman’s Descent is the title, and here’s the pitch…

When Norman Oswald takes the job at Castaway Cove, he knows it’s going to be his last. As caretaker of the abandoned amusement park, he’ll have time enough to finish his book and solitude enough to end his life. But as winter approaches, the park seems less and less lonely, and amidst the haunted whisperings of restless spirits he hears the voice of his daughter inviting him to join her and her mother in the netherworld where an evil demon named the Ringmaster has transformed Limbo into an infernal playland for lost children, and where the greatest horror is not the fear of death, but the dread of living forever.

Synopsis… An island amusement park is destroyed by a hurricane. Moments before the storm, a girl named Sophie witnesses a mysterious circus conductor named the Ringmaster ushering the park’s patrons into a darkened pavilion where they die. Two years later, the girl’s father, a philosopher from Cambridge University named Norman, is under suspicion for having an affair with a student ten years earlier (Sophie’s mother, Angela), and is sent overseas to the abandoned amusement park to escape scandal and finish his book. Guilt-ridden after learning that Angela died in childbirth, Norman plans to commit suicide upon completing his book, but his plans are interrupted by a series of paranormal events, culminating in his being led in an out-of-body experience by Dante Alighieri through a portal at the center of the island to the netherworld. Meanwhile, his body dies in his hotel bedroom and his spirit is taken across the river Acheron to Limbo where he finds that the Ringmaster (the circus conductor seen earlier by Sophie) has created a carnival to entrap the souls of dead children. Upon meeting Sophie, Norman decides to take her back to the Land of the Living but is summoned to a trial where his past sins are evaluated. Fearful of the verdict, he escapes with Sophie and makes for the river Acheron, pursued by the Ringmaster. After making it across, he is devastated to find that Sophie has died a second death in the crossing, and, not wanting to live forever himself, contemplates how he too might die a second death so as to avoid both Heaven and Hell. In a dream, Angela persuades Norman to exchange his earthly body for Sophie’s spirit, after which he is reunited with them in Purgatory. Norman’s body, still lying in the hotel bedroom at the park, never revives and is discovered the next morning.

Norman’s Descent was published by Athos Press in June of 2023. I do NOT have a screenplay written and want to submit my story in book format (so, looking for a producer interested in hiring a screenwriter).