Beneath
the
Pink
Fold

Synopsis

Los Angeles, CA. City of Dreams. City of Delusion. A place where ambition drowns in the smog of unfulfilled promises.

Beneath the dulling lights and the endless traffic, RIF (30s) lives in the margins of fading mirage. A writer for a pulp fiction publishing company, he crafts stories that grind against the surface of desire and violence without ever touching anything real. While his work is miles from any bestseller list, they're stacked on the shelves of almost every adult bookstore in America.

He doesn't hate his work — a steady paycheck is a steady paycheck. But between the blur of deadlines and fleeting pleasures, Rif has nothing to hold onto, nothing to savor.

During an erotic photoshoot for the latest book's cover, Rif receives a cryptic letter from an old lover and friend — V (30s). The letter is a tease. A temptation. A temptation. Something Rif knows he shouldn't pursue. Old wounds are best left buried under the years of scar tissue.

Not every itch should be scratched... but some need to be.

Rif's BFWB (best friend with benefits), ASHLEY (30s), pushes him. Calls him out. Challenges him to face the troubles he's escaped from — how can he find meaning if he won't even look?  

The guilt trip works. Rif takes a long weekend to find V.

Up the Pacific Coast Highway, Rif follows the address on the letter, reaching a remote, overgrown compound. The air uncomfortable with secrets. A group of unsettling hippies greet him — too welcoming, too warm — an eerie calmness Rif can't trust. As Rif presses for answer about V, they distract him with drugs, riddles, and ritualistic orgies. V has been there, but not in a long time. Rif is attacked in the middle of the night, escaping more confused than when he arrived. But he does have a name — MALLACO.

Rif rushes back to LA.

He's desperate to fill Ashley in on everything. To get her insight on what this all might mean. Only thing is, she's not picking up her phone. Or answering her door. And the oddities continue. More cryptic letters arrive. His dreams and memories start flowing into his reality. Rif inadvertently teams up with CASEY (20s), an escort hired by the publishing company to model for book covers. The two start digging. Tracing V's last footsteps in LA. At an abandoned warehouse, Rif and Casey are attacked by a pale humanoid creature.

The attack bears painful fruits though — Rif discovers that Mallaco was a professor during the '70s and '80s. During his tenure, Mallaco performed a series of brutal and boundary pushing experiments. His goal was to harness parapsychological abilities by slicing into the base of a subject's skull. As the lawsuits rolled in, Mallaco disappeared.

Hellbent on finding V (and now Mallaco), Rif's world is upended when he learns that Ashley has been attacked — sustaining serious injuries to the base of her skull. The police raid Rif's apartment and find an angle grinder with Ashley's blood and hair. A city-wide search for Rif kicks off. 

Rif hides out at Casey's place. They continue to work through the clues. Rif's freedom on the line unless he finds Ashley's attacker. Casey smuggles Rif around town — visiting a serial killer collector, a broken FBI agent, and a school bus of horror.

The police are closing in. They have Casey's address. But Rif has an address, too — V's location.

Rif returns to the spot where V ended their relationship, only to find not only a broken V, and a completely insane Mallaco. As Mallaco takes an angle grinder to the back of V's head, Rif partakes in the violence he once only wrote about and puts a bullet in Mallaco's head.

But it's too late. Before he can escape with V, Rif is ripped from the fabric of reality itself, thrust into a dimension where logic and spacetime cease. His mind fractures. Threads of his identity unravel into nothingness.

Rif returns to this world — different... broken. He no longer searches for substance. He is content with the present moment. He picks up Casey from her brief stay at a correctional facility and the two head off to a motel. Casey reads a manuscript for Rif's newest book and then sets the only copy on fire.

Original Version: Rif returns to this world — different... broken. He no longer searches for substance. He is content with the present moment. He picks up Casey from her brief stay at a correctional facility and the two hit the open road. Casey reads a manuscript for Rif's newest book and then sets the only copy on fire.

Rif is indifferent.