Pitch: “A teenage girl with nonverbal autism, failing to fit in with her peers at high school, ends up walking closer and closer to Hell in this darkly atmospheric teen drama set in 1970s West Virginia.”
Basically I looked at Music, Riverdale, and The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina and thought “Hey, I could do that!”
I have an outline for a pilot down but I still have a lot of unknowns. Ask me a question, any question at all.
Santiago has some questions:
Lucinda has a developmental disability that is not well-understood at this time.
The 70s has good music, weird fashion, and a lot of people who hate Satanists.
Lucinda thinks that motorcycles are cool, but she thinks that tricycles are easier to use.
Lucinda tries her best to be kind but it’s not easy
Santiago understands.
He wants to know if they’d hate Domingo then?
He wants to know if she is old enough to ride bikes yet.
Santiago agrees. He tried to be kind too.
Absolutely, he would get called anti-American.
Lucinda is old enough to get a driver’s lisence so probably.
Santiago would like to send Domingo there.
He also wants to bring her on a bike ride.
Man, Santi must really want to get rid of Domingo! A lot of people there own guns.
Eh maybe. But that is his business.
Satanism in this story is meant to be a more-fleshed out religion with actual practices and values and myths.
How weathered is the hometown? There was a boom in housing right after WWII, and this is the height of Vietnam. Boys are worried about the draft (need a high enough GPA to go to college, and colleges were strict). My father was a couple years off being sent to that war when all his brothers went and one died from Agent Orange complications before I was born.
So, are guys more worried about being dragged off into a war, if they’re the right lot?
Hometown has a bit if an interesting history. It was originally a mining town but was abandoned after a massive collapse. It was repopulated a few decades after and has the largest community of Satanists in the country.
This takes place after Vietnam has ended.
What made you decide to have West Virginia be the plac where she starts walking closer to hell?
Because I wanted to give West Virginia the Stephen King trearment. Beautiful countryside, very supernatural history, and very rural.
But I might have a character or two who was exposed to Agent Orange and is now sick.
Some of them died you g like my uncle, within 10 years of their time. I’ve known a few who died around 2020 from complications derived from it.
Very sad…I’m not even sure if there’s a VA close to where Dark Lake is.
VAs are sometimes corruptly run. It’s been known for a while.