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THE STAY

Horror - Development 2024

After the arrival of a strange, new farmhand, an already grieving woman watches her crops, her livestock, and her husband begin to slowly die. The situation takes a nightmarish turn when the farmhand decides to stay, indefinitely.

- Year of production
- 2024
- Genres
- Horror, Thriller
- Countries
- CANADA, IRELAND
- Languages
- ENGLISH
- Budget
- 3 - 5 M$
- Duration
- 100 mn
- Writer(s)
- Andreas VATILIOTOU
- Producer(s)
- Christina SALIBA (MISFIT FILMS)
- Synopsis
- Harper and Finn McGarrigle are eager to resume a simple, devout life on their Northern-Ireland farm after their “fallen” daughter, Mary, takes her own life. Still reeling from their loss, and struggling to run their farm alone, they are persuaded to hire Esther, a strange young woman who shows up on their doorstep looking for work. It’s not long before Harper’s dogmatic beliefs and unresolved mother-daughter feelings put her into immediate conflict with their new, blatantly-irreligious farmhand. As a devout and superstitious woman, however, she soon begins to suspect that Esther is a much more sinister (possibly demonic) force, when their livestock, their crops and, eventually, her husband, Finn, begin to deteriorate and die.
  
  Unbeknownst to Harper, Finn’s health has been deteriorating for months after a cancer diagnosis he has chosen to keep secret from his already bereft wife. She’s also unaware that Finn has recently saved/recruited Esther from the local Magdalene laundry — a Catholic-run institution where fallen women are condemned to a life of abuse and manual labour. As Esther develops a strong bond with Finn — the father she never had — her distrust of Harper begins to grow, as does her suspicion that Finn’s failing health might be the result of his unhappy wife slowly poisoning him, intent on offloading his beloved farm to their handsome neighbour, Cian Colley.
  
  Esther is the first to discover, however, that Cian Colley — a relatively new friend to Harper — has been acting secretly on behalf of the local HydroFont Energy Company to persuade the McGarrigle’s to sell their land. Having inadvertently contaminated the water supply, including the well that supplies water to the McGarrigle’s farm, Cian ingratiates himself to Harper for the sole purpose of purchasing the property before the contamination is uncovered. When Finn ultimately succumbs to the illness brought about by the contamination, our two ideologically-opposed women unite in a common purpose to grieve the death of the man they both loved, and enact revenge on Cian Colley, the man who allowed him to deteriorate in silence.
  
  In the end, we find Harper and Esther living together harmoniously like mother and daughter. At the same time, Cian dies a slow, agonising death in their barn, as he's forced, every day, to drink the well-water that will ultimately kill him.