Shroud -- Plot (Not Quite a Spoiler Alert But Close)
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Shroud follows Victoria Celestine, a Dutch bride who at the opening of the film (1862) is overseeing her father's funeral. Her father is a prestigious man with many connections to state and occult luminaries in Holland and greater Europe.
There she gets two letters from her husband Johnathan who is traveling in Civil War America. The first letter is to her telling her everything is going well, he'll be home soon and he misses her deeply. The second letter is to her father, now deceased. The second letter is dire and begs her father to come to America and rescue him (Johnathan). The letter has occult formulas contained in it, as well as coordinates.
Alarmed, Victoria leaves Holland with little brother Abraham and travels to America to help her stranded husband Johnathan.
Because this is 1862, it has taken months for Johnathan's letters to travel across America, then the Atlantic, be received and read, then responded to.
Victoria travels to Ameica then across the country to the wild Arizona Territory where her husband (months before) indicated he was trapped and in peril.
There, in a desolate area of the Arizona Territory she finds an nearly-abandoned town called Shroud.
Shroud is dilapidated and tenanted by elderly vagabonds: a bartender, doctor, fence maker, etc.
The townsfolk are suspicious of the beautiful European and claim to have no knowledge of her missing husband Johnathan.
Shroud is run by a mysterious Spaniard by the name of Mayor Undercroft who seems to take an interest in her younger brother Abraham.
Befriended by the local fence maker, Victoria begins to unravel the disappearance of her missing husband.
She discovers that her husband was sent to America by her father to investigate an Apache myth of a child-eating monster in the territory around Shroud.
Both Johnathan and her father belong to a strange academy called The Ninesabers Authority, an occult guild that travels the world and debunks myths and superstitions and frees those people under their influence.
Johnathan has traveled to The Arizona Territory to debunk the myth of a creature called Cinecusa.
According to documents Johnathan accumulated in his research, Cinecusa was an illiterate foot soldier in the army of the Conquistador Francisco Coronado who journeyed through what is now the Arizona Territory back in the 1540's. It was revealed Cinecusa was snatching Apache children, killing them and eating them (cannibalism) which sparked clashes with the Apache. Coronado condemned Cinecusa to death and hanged him on a tree.
The Apache were terrified because the tree used was believed to be cursed, as it was a old killing tree (hanging, executions) that had been used for centuries. Because so many people had died on its limbs or at its base, the Apache believed the tree was evil.
The Apache further believe the tree "rejected" the hanging of Cinecusa by returning him to life. According to the lore, Cinecusa awoke to continue his preying on children.
Though a skeptic, Johnathan uses a medieval theorem called "Calculus of Blasphemy" to determine exactly what kind of undead Cinecusa was alleged to be: is it a vampire or a ghoul? According to the arcane math, and considering the manner of his death, the Calculus returns the answer: Order of 'Revenans'. Cinecusa is a revenant. However, Cinecusa is a rare type of powerful revenant. The creature is immune to sunlight, silver, sacraments, scripture, holy water, communion, relics and can even go to church. Only a man-made weapon that predates the day of its curse can injure this particular undead. In other words, because Cinecusa was executed/raised in 1540, a weapon manufactured before that year is required to injure and destroy it.
The Apache do not attack Shroud because they believe the 300-year revenant Cinecusa haunts it.
Johnathan, however, is not so sure. Cynical of the legend, he believes Mayor Undercroft is using the legend of Cinecusa as a psychological trick to keep the Apache away from his town. Johnathan discovers a rogue posse of ex-Confederate soldiers (the Greyriders) that work for Mayor Undercroft, raiding wagon trains, couriers, and lightly armed military convoys headed to California. The Greyriders plunder the wagon trains and bring all the spoil back to Shroud.
Worst of all, the Greyriders bring kidnapped children to Shroud. The children are murdered and their bones left in open valleys for the Apache to see, re-inforcing the Indian's fear of a child-eating monster in Shroud.
Then Johnathan disappears.
His wife, Victoria, following in his footsteps uncovers all this again and the towns folk's complicity in the scheme. The townsfolk are survivors kidnapped by the Greyriders and brought to Shroud to tend to the various needs of the Mayor and his posse: bartender, cook, handyman, doctor, mistresses, etc.
Victoria also discovers relics Johnathan ordered and brought to Shroud which include a broadsword, shield and suit of plate armor forged to commemorate the Fall of the Teutonic Knights at the Battle of Grunwald in 1410 -- over 100 before the curse of Cinecusa. The armor was made by a wealthy widow to one of the Teutonic Knights, so it is made for a woman. Victoria determines her missing husband was going to use the medieval arms and armor to deconstruct the myth of Cinecusa.
Confronting the Mayor over his suspicions that he is a serial killer and plunder, Victoria and her brother are brutalized by the Greyriders, who confess to murdering her husband Johnathan for sport. Unable to leave, Victoria takes the initiative and begins to methodically murder each of the Greyriders.
It is here (though it is foreshadowed many times in lesser confrontations in the film) that Victoria's father wanted a boy, and consequently rigorously trained his daughter in matters of science, philosophy, mathematics, hand-to-hand fighting, marksmanship, sword fighting, hatchet fighting, tactics, deduction, investigation, etc. Her father turns Victoria into the son he never hand, at least until Abraham was born. Consequently, she is a grimly effective killing machine, and aided by the Greyriders chauvinism, gets the drop on most of them.
At the end, the leader of the posse, Jericho Lynch, arrives in town to discover his entire posse has been murdered. In a deep melancholy over killing the Greyriders, she nonetheless marshals her strength to confront Lynch. Because Jericho Lynch is a legendary gunslinger, and far faster on the draw than she is, she adorns the plate armor and heavy steel shield and conceals it under a poncho. Meeting Jericho Lynch in the street, he guns her down--or so he thinks. When we walks over to investigate his kill he steps on several deformed bullet slugs. Lifting up the poncho he sees a silver shield with several thumb-sized dents in it. Having never seen a shield, he lifts it up only to find her cocked Navy colt.
Blam! She blows the back of his head away.
Mayor Undercroft now comes out to confront the wounded European widow.
She confronts him again directly, accusing him of using the legend of Cinecusa to protect his posse and his plunder while murdering children to do so.
She cocks her Navy Colt and aims at Cinecusa, who does not move.
She fires...
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That's everything but the climax.
The film ends with a surprise revelation. It happens literally in the last 5 seconds of the movie. You discover who Victoria Celestine is, and more importantly, to whom she is related. Shroud is a prequel to a world-famous novel from the late 19th century.
If you want to see pictures you can go to
http://jetrefilm.com/portfolio.php or my IMDB.com profile has a lot of stuff from the film too:
http://www.imdb.me/davidjetre
I hope you guys like it when it comes out.
I actually don't like westerns that much but I only had $15,000 when I started, so I figured I'd go for broke. And trust me, I was broke by the time I finished -- lol.
Sincerely,
David Jetre
