No matter the setting or the time, Fairytales play on our most primal fears.
From our moral anxieties and deepest desires, to the monsters lurking in our subconscious, Fairytales resonate through the ages to serve as warnings to the frailty of human nature itself.
MILLY (V.O.)
Once upon a time there was a little
Princess who was betrayed by her
Prince Charming.
Milly was once a young, free-spirited innocent – that was until she met Malcolm:
YOUNGER MALCOLM
Your parents said they would be late.
They asked me if I could give you a
lift home.
Princess Milly unwittingly accepts, and so finds her young life destroyed; locked in a cycle of tragedy and abuse as she’s passed from one monster to the next.
The years pass and the abusers move on – leaving Milly to struggle with the horrors of a childhood destroyed.
One day she stumbles upon a dark forest (known as the internet, or the ‘web’) where a magic app called The Enchanted Quill sings her a siren-song promise of revenge.
Of course, a deal like this comes at a price, but what’s 5% of your soul per wish when sweet vengeance is at hand?
And this is where we join the tale. Not in an enchanted kingdom far away, but an abandoned warehouse where Malcolm and cohorts find themselves trapped… with Milly wielding her Enchanted Quill to control everything they do.
And this Princess is in no mood for forgiveness:
MILLY
Fuck yeah! Let’s get the endgame
rolling. Enchanted Quill obey my
whim, give Malcolm a compound arm
fracture, through the skin! Woo, I
did a poem!
Milly proceeds to recount her tale, jumping from the past to the present as she puts her tormentors through their own personal (and much deserved) Hell. From the visceral to the surreal: fingernails are removed, arm bones gnawed. Even the repetition of mundane tasks takes a torturous form.
Imagine taking off your shoes only to put them back on again – over and over and over… until they bleed.
Drawing out the darker aspects of a little known fairytale called The Enchanted Quill, writer Mark Renshaw delivers a uniquely modern tale of retribution replete with monsters, tortured souls and unflinching violence.
If you like to wring every last drop of blood from your horror, then Quill is a pure classic for you.