The Plot- Concrete Garden

Concrete Garden

Our protagonist is aged between 18-21 years old, she has just moved to London to study. She is not overly confident whilst her body language depicts the complete opposite of her being an alfa-female character. Her name is Emma Jennings and she is very attractive but feels rather alone in her new environment, but naturally is very likable and intelligent. She starts College where she meets a range of new people all whom she feels will have very little significance in her life. She meets with a strange young man similarly aged to her named Mark Francis, he provokes mystery but also elements of perversion. Emma learns the ropes around London and soon becomes far more comfortable, as she settles into her new environment Mark hangs around her more, she shrugs it off at first until she notices him following her home.

We learn more about the background of Emma and learn to sympathise and relate with her as her character is fully established, further involvement of Mark and him beginning stalk her become more influential in the narrative. She starts to become panicked and feels vulnerable to him, he speaks to her in a strange poetic way, and this starts to have strange psychological effects on her which we see later on in the film. He talks of sex, revenge and religious events- her innocence is made clearer as we notice how she reacts in these dark and twisted situations. Mark starts to become actively involved in her life talking to her all the way home, waiting outside her doors etc. Stalker conventions. Mark begins to send Emma images of with religious, twisted, painful and sexually contexts which further caused her psychological harm.

She receives a video message with a masked man telling her that ‘she is needed and she will be eternally rewarded’. This masked character soon becomes an alter ego of Emma and follows her around she cant tell the difference between her mind and reality, but only the audience know this and Emma does not realise. The alter ego is reflection of her paranoia and fright due to the trauma of Mark Francis and this masked character continues to tell her similar things that Mark has told her on numerous occasions to show similarities between the two characters. People start to notice that she is slowly losing her grip on reality and therefore blurring the boundaries and becoming hyperreal, she starts to see Mark as this masked character on occasions he appears to be normal.

One day she feels ill blood drips from her mouth, a bodily change has occurred and she notices marks over her body, without any knowledge of how they appeared there. She tries to leave her house when she opens the door Mark Is there his face barely visible she screams and viscously claws him, he holds her down and tells her that the cult need her and she will be rewarded. Emma becomes frantic and completely insane. He notices her alter ego, and acknowledges the existence- he grabs the mouth of the alter ego and cuts to her in a strange unknown place. Her vision is impaired and she can her weird chanting. Emma greets her masked alter ego, at this stage she is incredibly disturbed and almost lifeless. She is greeted by a panel of similarly masked people, her alter ago goes over and meets them. She is apart of this strange cult, they call her ‘Eve’ and is offered red apples and she is harnessed down to stall. They carry out numerous practices; Mark heads the bizarre sexually provocative displays. Her alter ego tells her that its ok and she needs to let Lucifer take control of her- she continues to scream. The weird acts of sexual torture continue, the audience are made aware of the reality and seediness of the cult. The acts of violence become stronger and more intense from the other cult members, we see CU of Marks face as we see his expression turn to dismay and horror at the events that are taking place. The editing pace quickens until Mark shouts and decides to hold back the members of the cult, this is followed by a short quick fighting scene in which we see the violence turning towards Mark, meanwhile Emma still remains in panic. Fade out, POV / fly on the wall shot of the scenario to convey to the audience the full extent of what has happened, Mark is lying beaten on the ground but still alive as well as other members which are shown to be dead due to the escalation of the fight. Emma is also shown on the ground in panic and a zoom in CU to her face and then fade out. 


She wakes up in an unknown bedroom, she seems confused until she sees her alter ego's mask at the end of the bed. We see her walk away out of the room and away from the mask to signify him leaving her alter ego behind and also the cult.