Projects
Amatu
Director: Marc & Paul SWADEL
Producers: Glenn Elliott / Leanne Saunders / Ant Timpson
Writer: Matthew Saville
Production Company: ButoBase / Headstrong
Format: Narrative | HD | Color | 90mins
Language: English
Logline: Do you love your boyfriend enough to kill him? A Japanese couple backpacking through New Zealand unearth ancient monsters and are forced to fight love, zombies and drunken vets in a fright-filled holiday from hell.
Synopsis: Kazu is pregnant and confused. Her boyfriend has dragged her into the New Zealand bush. Too stubborn to tell him of her situation, she's scared he'll run off or only marry her for the sake of the baby. She wants his heart without complication. Little does she know, the trip is all part of his plan to propose to her in a place of pristine beauty; a mountain lake in the middle of the Amatu ranges. Lead their by their guide Hilary – a slightly confused new age greenie, the three of them trek deep into the heart of the untouched bush. Tension rises and before Shinya and Kazu settle their differences, Hilary leads them into the path of the 'Amatu'.
On the second day of they're trek bump into Raymond, an ex-cop who has taken his "infected" son deep into the Amatu Ranges in an attempt to keep his "problem" under wraps. This "problem" causes his son Leo to become a creature that has to feed on human flesh to survive. This nocturnalabomination infects those who are bitten with the same cursed blood. Raymond is too weak to kill his son and end the curse, so he must hunt and destroy the people Leo has infected.
Hilary is brutally attacked and skinned alive.Kazu realises to break the cycle and survive, she must also kill all those infected. Amongst those infected is the love of her life, Shinya... Separated from Shinya, Kazu is forced to rely on Raymond. She soon learns that Shinya may have suffered a fate worse then death. Raymond reveals to her that if Shinya is still alive, he will become a monster like his son. Raymond forces Kazu on a desperate hunt to find the infected and deal with them before it spreads, during which she realizes how depraved and twisted his burden has made him. Her heart breaks with the realisation that her only chance to save herself and her baby is to outsmart Raymond, and come to terms with the fact that she must kill Shinya to survive.
