S C Cunningham - Author (Women's/Thriller/Film)

THE PENANCE LIST

SCREENPLAY by Rick Friend
Based on the Novel 'The Penance List' by S C Cunningham

SYNOPSIS In adapting Cunningham's novel to film, award-winning writer Rick Friend has created a stylish, sensual, thought provoking, and at times wickedly humorous psychological thriller. Through powerful flashbacks we are guided through DAVID's journey from angelic altar boy to disturbed and psychotic killer grabbing our hearts on the way, shocking us and daring us to feel empathy for a boy who embraces evil and demanding that we understand the boy but fear the man.

For DAVID is a victim himself - his beauty and vulnerability a curse. DAVID loses his virginity to an abusive Headmaster of a Home Counties public school, his spurned heart to his bullying sister's best friend and his alcoholic mother to a car crash, DAVID finally cracks. Finding solace in the school science lab, he takes control of his life through the 'god-like' dissecting of rats, mice and finally, those who harm him.

Moving to London, DAVID grows into an Adonis-like lothario, inhabiting the capital's colourful underbelly - a world of ex SAS officers, footballers and high-class hookers. He emerges as a sexual 'tour de force' indulging his carnal appetites, first with his sister HELEN's boyfriend SEB, a roguishly attractive paparazzi photographer and then with her best friend, Chelsea career girl TARA, whom he prises away from her lover, an aristocratic Italian football star FRANCO ROSSELLINI.

As TARA and her glamorous girlfriends HELEN and JOSIE meet for girlie lunches they have no idea that they are being stalked by a sexual predator who hunts, films, and drugs his victims with the tenacity of a bird of prey. Their crazy world of irreverent fun is shattered as DAVID wreaks his havoc. He moves into the apartment above TARA's, setting up cameras and microphones to spy on her every move. Using the wealth of his inheritance, the memory of his pained childhood, and the power of his regal beauty to stalk, trap and torture those that harm him, DAVID courts the British media, befriends TARA's workmates and patiently waits to swoop in for the kill, seeking penance from those he feels have exploited him.

As TARA's world slowly crumbles and her secret life is exposed, DAVID's reign of terror begins. He manipulates her, takes her prisoner and sharpens his schoolboy scalpels - ready to move in for the kill. Preparing for TARA’s last rites, it remains to be seen whether her friends and true grit will save her. The race is on!

Set in glitterati London, the leafy Home Counties and the spectacular Amalfi Coast, THE PENANCE LIST is a stylish and contemporary sexy thriller. But this is no ordinary thriller THE PENANCE LIST will make you laugh, make you cry and make you search your soul.