trapdoor

Trapdoor

WRITER RUDOLF MESTDAGH
DIRECTOR RUDOLF MESTDAGH

SYNOPSIS :

His code name is Phate, a sadistic computer hacker who infiltrates people's computers, invades their lives, and with chilling precision lures them to their deaths. Desperate to stop him, the California State Police Computer Crimes Unit frees former hacker Wyatt Gillette to aid the investigation. As the obsessive Gillette fervently attempts to trace the hacker's insidious computer virus back to its source, Phate delivers a huge blow, murdering one of the division's own. Now,teamed with old-school homicide detective Frank Bishop, Gillette must combine their disparate talents to catch a brilliant and merciless killer.

TREATMENT :

1 Silicon Valley. Lara Gibson runs a website to give advice to women in danger. She comes from work, is worried when she is followed by a van with a man with dreadlocks in it. In the restaurant she is approached by a man who pretends to be Will Randolph, a friend of her cousin. He walks her to her car, shows her a wig of dreadlocks and her pepper spray can he stole from her purse and kills her.

2 Wyatt Gillette is taking a radio apart in his cell when a guard comes to get him and brings him to Andy Anderson, Frank Bishop, Bob Shelton. They ask Gillette to help them find the killer of Lara Gibson. In exchange he will get a laptop.

3 Jon Patrick Holloway (hacker's name Phate) drives home in his Jaguar. His house is a set up, has fake photos of a fake wife and kids. Phate looks for another target. The warden gives the cops information about Gillette. He comes from a good family.

4 -Gillette gets an electronic anklet. When exiting jail he is caught with a circuit board he made in jail. It enables him to make phone calls without paying.
-Jamie Turner wants to sneak out of school to go see a Santana concert with his brother. He hacks the computer of the principal to find out the password of the door.

5 -On his computer Phate can see what Jamie is doing.
-Gillette is introduced to the Computer Crimes Unit. Linda Sanchez and Tony Mott (who gives Gillette food), and Stephen Miller, the computer specialist of the team.

6 Gillette checks the computer of Lara Gibson. Gillette finds out the killer has a theme, uses important dates in the computer world to do his killings. Gillette is introduced to Patricia Nolan of Horizon On Line where Lara was a client.

7 Gillette explains Phate has been in Lara's computer but he doesn't know how. The cops have found some info on Phate's car, and they found a receipt of the drink that might have fingerprints. They want to send Gillette back to jail. He wants to keep going to help track the killer down.

8 -Jamie is in despair. He will never make it in time to crack the code of the door to escape in time for the concert. But a ghost seems to be in his computer and gives him the password. Jamie changes into a technician to repair the security doors.
-Phate is alarmed when he gets mail from a friend, Shawn, telling the cops know about the murder of Lara Gibson.
-The cops get a tip where Peter Fowler sells knives like the one that killed Lara. Andy goes to the spot and sees who he thinks is Phate.

9 Andy arrests the suspect, being Peter Fowler, and is then attacked and killed by Phate, with a knife.

10 Capt. Bernstein informs the CCU-team about the death of Andy. He brings Gillette to the van to bring him back to jail. Nolan & Bishop disagree. They ned him to catch the killer.

11 Bishop allows Gillette to go on line. He finds out about Phate.

12 Gillette explains about Trapdoor, it's a virus Phate created to take root of someone's computer by sending hem an email. Gillette says they have to disconnect from the server to avoid that Phate would enter it when he finds out they are after him. From now on Gillette is the only one who is allowed to go on line.

13 The cops find Phate's real name. Gillette tells about MUD games that some hackers like Phate play. He has to kill as many people. The more difficult the target is, the more points he earns.

14 Gillette finds a hacker called Triple X who seems to know Phate. The cops investigate the spot where Lara was killed.

15 Phate is on his way to Jamie.
-Gillette asks Triple X about Phate so they can trace him.

16 Triple X gets offline when he notices Gillette is in California instead of Austin like he pretended. Miller made a fuck up in the program to hide the location of Gillette. The cops find out the car of Phate is a Jaguar as a guy had sex with a colleague in his car on the parking lot and saw the Jaguar.
-Jamie is blinded by Phate.

17 Cops arrive at the school of Jamie. He is blind. Phate knew that was hig biggest fear, so he sprayed a product in his eyes, forcing him to bring him to the principal so he could kill him. Gillette investigates Jamie's computer. Jamie throws a chair at the computer, trying to destroy, as it caused the death of the prinicipal.
-Gillette has escaped. Shelton thinks Gillette is an accomplice of Phate. He finds out the had a hackergang together. He goes on the main server to reporty they have a fugitive. The system is down. The main server has been hacked.

18 Gillette is on the run. He buys clothes to disguise himself. The cops try to find documents of the previous arrests. Gillette had everything shredded, except one document.

19 Phate picks a new target, Donald, a rich businessman. Bishop gets a call from Washington. They heard that Gillette was released. Bishop lies, says that Gillette is still there. Nolan finds out he is heading for the airport, which is not the case.

20 Gillette thinks he has mislead the cops, but the cops find out, track him down and arrest him. The cops think Gillette is Shawn and that the house where he is heading is the house of Phate. They find out it is the house of Gillette's ex-wife.

21 Gillette explains the cops how he helped to arrest Phate when he turned into a criminal. He asks to get ten minutes to go inside the house to talk to his ex-wife. Gillette says he loves her, asks the give him a second chance. He gives her the board she can have patented and sell so she has money. Gillette made the board in jail, it allows you to get online by means of a mobile. Gillette asks when she will be moving to New York with Ed. Gillette assumes that is her new lover. When his ex-wife finds out he cracked her email account, she freaks out.

22 Phate has disguised himself as Donald's brother. He arrives at the school of Donald's daughter. He tells the principal that Donald and his wife have had a terrible accident and that they asked him to come pick up his daughter Samantha. His ID matches, saying he is Donald's brother. He also knows the two passwords that the principal has in her computer so Phate can prove he is Donald's brother.
-Mott is approached by a country cop who asks the name of the hacker helping the cops finding Phate.
-Phate plans to kill Samantha and to personally deliver the corpse to her dad, taking his signature, to earn the maximum of points. But then Phate finds out, through Shawn, that Gillette is helping the cops. He leaves Samantha on the road.

23 Gillette is online, chatting with Triple X. When Triple X hears Gillette is the hacker Valleyman, he shows utmost respect. Gillette begs Triple X to help him catch Phate.
-Phate hides in a hangar. Phate sends a snuff photo of Laura. Gillette uses it to try to find information on Phate's address.

24 Phate is following Gillette's actions. It allows him to enter the CCU computer. Gillette did this on purpose so they can try to track down Phate. Bishop and Gillette go pick up Shelton to arrest Phate as they tracked him down. Shelton has an argument with his wife. Gillette notices that Shelton has a very good computer, one used by many hackers.

25 The cops raid the hotel room where Phate is located. Phate is gone. There is only a laptop, and a time-bomb.

26 -While the cops find out the time-bomb turns out to be fake, Phate is inside the computer of Law Enforcement. It gives him access to all kind of public services.

-Gillette asks to shut down the server. He thinks Phate was only online for 20 minutes, while he actually was for 52 minutes, enough time to download everything.

27 Gillette studies the photo of the deceased Laura to have leads on where Phate would live, the type of construction etc.

28 Bishop takes Gillette home so he can spend the night as his house. Gillette meets Bishop's son who is a computer expert. In the morning, Bishop gets a call from Triple X who gives him Phate's email address.

29 -Gillette plans on sending a photo of a corpse to Phate through the email address of a Bulgarian friend-hacker, so that Gillette can go into Phate's computer.
-Bishop sees Shawn in the parking lot and he is taken over by him.
-Phate checks out medical files of Dr. Williston.

30 Gillette is in Phate's computer. Washington sends Backle, to arrest Gillette. They lock him up in the office next door. Backle gets a phone call from Washington. It's Gillette who cracked the phone company. Backle thinks he receives an order from Washington so tthat Gillette is allowed to stay. Gillette continues his search. Phate is warned that someone is downloading his files.

31 -Phate sends a virus that turns all the CCU-computers blue.
-Bishop's wife, Jennie, is pregnant. She goes to the hospital for tests. A nurse gives her an injection. Why? An order of
Dr. Williston.

32 -The cops watch documents that Gillette copied from Phate's computer, mediacal files. Bishop recognizes his wife’s security number.
-A guard comes into Jennie''s room. All the phones in the hospital are down. Dr. Williston comes in, wonders why they took blood. When he hears she got an injection, he freaks out.

33 -The cops rush to the hospital to find out Jennie got a shot of vitamins. Phate has sidetracked them.
-Gillette is annoyed that Backle is breathing down his neck. He asks him to go get coffee. Backle is attacked from behind.
-While Gillette tries to decipher the email from Triple X, which is in fact a message from Phate, Phate heads for Gillette, inside the CCU-offices.

34 Phate hears typing. He attacks who he thinks is Gillette. It is a puppet. The typing is recorded sound coming out of the computer. Phate is taken over by Gillette. Phate says he killed Triple X. He asks if Gillette wants to know the code of Trapdoor. He tells a tale of the eclipse. Phate programmed the electricity to shut down at this moment. Shut down. Lights out. Gillette is attacked, loses his gun, as he was the one who attacked Backle and not Phate. Phate escapes.

35 -Nolan cures the wounds of Gillette, who finds out Phate went unto the server of the University and downlaoded names of 2800 students. They find a cd of the play Othello in Phate's player, and the information on the music store that ordered it. Together with the costume shop where Phate bought glue for a fake mustache, and the type of housing (through the material used for the house, depicted in the photo of the deceased Laura) they know approximately where Phate lives.
-Jamie pays the cops a visit with a hint.

36 Jamie says his computer has been freezing four times, and he knows exactly when it did so. It means Trapdoor has a bug. With a technician from the mobile company they find Phate's phone number, assigned to
no one. But they locate the area and house. There is no one there.

37 The cops find a pipe to the house next door where Phate escapes, disguised as a woman. On Phate's computer a message from Shawn tipped Phate that the cops were on their way. When Gillette enters Phate's computer, the whole drive is encrypted. Sanchez finds out that Shawn is Miller as he went unto the server of the Department of Defence to make two fake passports, one for Phate, one for himself. Backle agrees that Gillette goes unto the server of the Department of Defence, but as soon as he does, he arrests Gillette.

38 -The cops are being shot at. It's Nolan, pretending she is Phate. Nolan, Bishop and Gillette run off to Nolan's hotel room. From Nolan's computer Gillette goes into Phate's computer. They find out Phate has sold computer parts to a particular computer store.
-Phate gets inside the computer of Public Works and messes with the traffic lights to create a massive traffic jam. He plans to put a bomb at the University, in the opposite house than the one he originally planned.

39 Bishop & Gillette arrive at the computer store and talk to the owner, McGonagle. He looks for the number of Phate. Gillette notices McGonagle has hacker's calluses on his fingertips. Gillette understands McGonagle is no one else but
Phate. Phate pulls a gun. Gillette dives. Bishop is shot.

40 Phate & Gillette fight. Phate takes a crowbar. Gillette opens a box, takes a glass bulb, the precursor to the vacuum tube and silicon chip. Machines are more impoirtant than humans to a hacker. Phate freezes. Gillette throws him the tube. Phate lets the bar fall, but misses the tube and it shatters. Gillette has taken Bishop's gun, ready to shoot Phate. But Nolan shows up with a stungun. Gillette comes to the conclusion that Nolan must be Shawn. Gillette is numbed by Nolan by means of the stungun.

41 Phate is also numbed by Nolan by means of the stungun. Nolan wants the file where Phate hides the code to Trapdoor. She smashes each of his fingers one by one until he gives the name of the file. Nolan appears to work for an internet provider who wants to protect their clients against hackers. Nolan, on the phone, asks someone to destroy Trapdoor. She injects Phate with a deadly poison and kills him. She is about to kill Gillette as well, but Mott shows up (on his bike he got through the traffic jam), and fires at her. Nolan escapes.

42 Bishop & Gillette back at the station. Gillette's ex-wife calls. Gillette can pay her a last visit before she leaves to New York. Bishop and Sanchez lend him a police car. Gillette asks his ex-wife to wait another month. Bishop calls Gillette at the house of his ex. Miller wasn't Shawn. The suicide note of Miller and the emails to Phate were set ups by Phate. Mott takes root of the FBI server. The computer says suspects of a terrorist group are at the address of Gillette ex-wife, where Gillette is right now.

43 -The storm troops raid Gillette's ex-wife's house. They have received specific orders to ignore all oral commands, so Shawn has free rein. Gillette assumes that Shelton is Shawn. They find out Shawn is in Phate's warehouse. Bishop goes to the warehouse. On one is there. Shawn is an internet router ! No it's not, Gillette says. Phate used to work for Sun, Harvard, Apple, Western Electric, NEC. Together, the initials form Shawn. Shawn's a computer. The phone Gillette is using to communicate with Bishop, goes down.
-The storm troops have gotten a message that the perps will impersonate fellow officers. The two officers that will start the raid wonder if they should listen to the guy who pretends to be Bishop.

44 Shawn, the computer, is transmitting to the FBI tactical commander. Bishops wants to shut down the computer. Mott says better take root. Bishop fires at Shawn, no change. He tries to create a fire. Storm troops get order Rules Of Engagement,Level 44, kill everyone.

45 Bishop is on the phone with the storm troops. He asks to reconfirm the order. The answer of the computer is to verify the code. Gillette comes out, hands in the air. One of the officers, Little, goes to search him.

46 Gillette tells the storm troops the FBI computer has been hacked. They are not the terrorist suspects. Bishop remembered in time to pull the scram switch of the computer, shutting down Shawn.

47 Gillette is back in jail. He gets a visit from his ex-wife. She asks if he would give up on machines. He won't. But they will never get the chance to get in between them again. She is not moving to New York with Ed, who appears not be her new lover, but Gillette's son.

THE END