The Bend

Seventeen-year-old Jason Campbell thinks he’s losing his mind… and he could be right. You see it’s one year to the day since Mike, his brilliant but unbalanced brother, died mysteriously on prom night, and Jason’s grief, along with the knowledge that mental illness can be hereditary, is freaking him out. He can’t go to his parents for answers: his mother Joanne is still depressed, and his father Alan is preoccupied with preparations for today’s memorial ceremony, so when he hears that Mike’s girlfriend Kelly, and best friend Scott, are back in town for the event, Jason decides recreate his brother’s final night to find out exactly what happened, and if it could happen to him. Because of last year’s tragedy, Jason’s graduating class isn’t having a traditional prom – and Jason uses this fact to guilt Scott and Kelly into taking him out. They drive him to the liquor store, help him break into the high school, and decorate the gym, unaware that they are unwitting participants in an eerie reenactment. At first an air of nostalgia pervades, but as the alcohol begins to flow, the mood turns darker. Tensions between Scott and Kelly rise to the surface and Jason’s creepy ulterior motive is revealed. Undeterred, Jason insists on knowing everything and demands to be taken to the beach where Mike drowned. The group pile in Scott’s car and head up to “the Bend”, where, in a final confrontation, Jason’s illusions about his brother and the group he once idolized come crashing down. He learns that Kelly and Scott had a secret affair. Even more devastating, he realizes, that in order to go through with his final act, Mike had deceived them all. Now Jason must decide whether to live with these new painful truths, or continue following in his brother’s footsteps, and though he runs out into the water, there is only so deep he is willing to go. As the three survivors watch the sunrise, Jason realizes that he’ll never really know why Mike did what he did, but he thinks that the first big turn life takes can really throw you, in large part because you don’t have the experience to know you can come out the other side. Maybe Mike just couldn’t see around the bend. Starring: Adam Butcher, Peter Keleghan, Leah Pinsent, Sophie Traub, Tommy Lioutas and Ryan Kennedy