- A private eye has to face his demons while on a stakeout in a haunted house.
- Harry Seigal is a private investigator who, several years earlier, was dismissed from the police force after accidentally killing a suspect during interrogation. Now he's taken on a case for a woman whose husband she suspects is cheating on her. After setting up in a house across from his target, he begins observation. However, Seigal is about to discover is that his past is coming back to haunt him.—bioguyver43
- Harry Siegel is a tough police officer who resolves his cases using torture and violence. When the son of a senator is abducted, he finds the boy after accidentally killing the criminal Rory Bemell and is fired from the police force. Years later, Harry is a private detective working basically in divorce cases with his assistant James. One day, Harry is hired by Meredith Kane who believes that she is cheated on by her husband. She asks Harry to stakeout her house from a derelict house in front of hers instead of using his van. Soon Harry is haunted by his guilt and unravels the mystery with tragic consequence.—Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
- A man handcuffed to the metal frame of a bed pleads for mercy. No dice. A fist crunches into the side of his face.
"Where's the boy?" asks the grizzled, middle-aged man doing the slugging.
Another right hook to the grille. The man moans. The interrogator reaches down to his belt, revealing a police badge. He then pulls out a blade and holds it to the crying man's eye.
"You have 30 seconds or I'm gonna put your eye out," the cop growls. "Where's the boy?"
The man whimpers. He whispers, "What boy?"
The cop goes crazy, slashing at the man and cutting his throat in the process. The man begins to bleed to death. The cop grabs his head and asks his question one more time.
"Upstairs ..." the dying man mutters.
The cop races upstairs, kicking open a padlocked door.
"Matthew? Matthew?!" he yells. "My name's Harry. I'm a cop!"
Harry throw open a closet to reveal the boy, tied up and shaking in fear.
Later, the boy recovers in the back of an ambulance. The body of the kidnapper is wheeled out on a stretcher.
"Better hope he lives," a fellow cop tells Harry.
Harry explains that it "had to be done." The stretcher passes close by and the dying man whispers to Harry.
"You'll never forget this," the man wheezes. "I won't let you."
The man coughs violently. We watch Harry's cold face as the man flat lines.
Opening credits! Welcome to Fear Itself!
It's some time later and Harry is being grilled by an Internal Affairs official. The list of suspects that Harry has roughed up is long and varied, including burnings, knifings and other indiscretions. The official asks if Harry feels any remorse. Negative, hombre.
"Sometimes you gotta do a wrong to make things right," he growls.
Noting that Harry did save the son of a U.S. senator, the official hands down his punishment: 100 hours of community service and Harry's badge. Also: no more pension. Sorry, Harry.
FIFTEEN YEARS LATER
Harry, considerably grayer, listens to a recording device in a cheap hotel room. He banters with an associate waiting in a van outside.
"Love birds coming your way, Harry," the man says.
A car pulls up and a young couple gets out. Harry hears them enter the hotel room next door. He records the sounds of illicit love.
The next day, Harry replays the tape the the cheater's weeping wife, who agrees to a $2,000 fee. The private investigator's job is finished ... or so we think. Harrys associate holds up another tape recorder and presses "play." This one featuring sounds of the wife cheating. Harry explains that he'll destroy the second tape for an extra $4,000.
Harry smiles. All in a day's work.
Closing time. Harry's associate James shows off his new gun. Harry is less than pleased.
"I never want to see that gun again, you understand?"
James rolls his eyes. Alone now, Harry pulls a bottle of booze from his top drawer and takes a slug. He studies framed photos of his long-gone days as a cop. Suddenly, the phone rings.
"Bender Investigations," Harry answers. Another job.
Harry sits at a booth inside a diner. A middle-aged woman named Meredith sits down across from him. She explains that her husband is having an affair.
"I want you to give me the evidence I need to make him pay," Meredith says.
She suggests that Harry watch her home in an abandoned house across the street. Harry agrees.
Harry pulls up to a huge home in suburbs. Across the street is a run-down clunker.
"Great," Harry mutters.
Meanwhile, someone watches from the second floor of the abandoned house, breathing heavily. The reflection of a ghostly white form appears in the window.
Back from commercial break, Harry and James set up shop inside the graffiti and garbage strewn house. Upstairs, Harry notices creepy drawings on the wall -- four figures dressed in black and holding hands. Harry tells James to take the van and go find a discreet spot down the road.
It's night now. James watches the monitors inside the van, while Harry sits near a window inside the abandoned house. Their radio chit chat is interrupted. Harry can hear something over the long-range microphone. A mans' voice ... but James insists he's hears and sees nothing.
"Harry, I swear to you, nobody went into that house," James says.
Harry takes a swig from his bottle of booze when a BURST of noise erupts in his headset. Harry fumbles and stands. Understanding dawns. The sounds are not coming from the house they're watching. The noises are coming from inside the abandoned house.
Harry, flashlight and microphone in hand, goes searching. He passes the drawings from earlier and doesn't notice that the figures expressions have changed to screams of horror.
Downstairs now, Harry hears a BANG. More voices over the headset. He heads down the basement stairs and finds a pentagram drawn on the floor. The voices are closer now. He rips off the headphones to listen ... and spots a face!
A group of kids leap out of the darkness and head for the stairs. Harry grabs a fleeing boy by his jacket.
"What the hell are you doing here?" he demands.
"It was a dare! Just a dare to stay the night!" the kid explains. "Because of what happened. Those kids. It killed them. The house. This house."
Harry lets the kids go as James makes fun of him over the headset. Harry lets out a deep breath, chuckles and heads upstairs. Once Harry is gone, an old-fashioned radio slowly glows to life.
Back upstairs, Harry is snoozing. He is awoken by a woman's voice. She sounds upset. Harry sees shapes in the window across the street. He tries to tell his associate, but James is listening to music on his iPod.
"Just say his name," Harry whispers to the woman across the street. If she mentions the husband, then Harry and James are home free
Instead, the woman describes being burned with a cigar by a cop. She then identifies the cop: Harry.
Harry rips off his headphones, shocked. Is he hearing things? He rushes out of the room and sees the paintings of the four figures. They've changed again. This time, they're cutting their own throats with long, silver knives.
Harry then notices a fifth drawing ... it looks suspiciously like him.
Back from commercial break, Harry is back at the diner the following day. Meredith sits across from him.
"I'm not going to be able to finish the investigation," Harry says.
Meredith protests and asks Harry if anything is wrong. Harry admits that he has done many "bad things." Meredith explains that she is a social worker and has heard a hundred awful stories. She leans over to take Harry's hand and her scarf slips. She quickly replaces it.
"My brother ... my brother, he made some big mistakes, but every night my father would go into his room and say, 'Tomorrow brings another day,'" Meredith cries.
She begs Harry to go back, promising to try to help him when the investigation is over. Harry agrees.
Back at the van, Harry hands James the surveillance tape from the night before, asking his associate to watch it and check for lights. James insists the house remained empty the entire time.
"Just check it out," Harry growls.
Harry heads back inside the abandoned house. The drawings of the four figures are the same as they were when he first entered a day ago. He shakes his head and sighs.
Later, Harry watches from his spot upstairs. Over the headset, James explains that he has watched the tape and found nothing out of the ordinary. Suddenly, a light goes on in the house across the street. Harry looks through a small telescope to see two young boys watching "Howdy Doody" in the downstairs living room.
"James, I got kids in the house," he says.
Inside the van, James looks at his monitor. No kids. Not even a light on inside.
A frustrated James says he is quitting, urging Harry to "sober up." Harry barely notices. Another light has gone on in the house across the street. Through the telescope, Harry sees a sinister-looking man holding a long knife. The man comes down the stairs, heading for the boys.
Harry bursts outside and sprints across the street. He kicks down the door of Meredith's house and finds nothing -- not even furniture. The house is up for sale.
Back from a commercial break, Harry bursts back into the abandoned house.
"Who's messing with me?" he demands. "You wanna play games? Okay, I'll play games!"
Harry produces the same knife from earlier and waves it wildly. The man is starting to come unglued.
Now we see the inside of the house from the perspective of Harry, who wears heat-vision goggles. He sees a glowing red figure disappear around a corner and gives chase. He corners the unidentified man.
"Why are you so bad?" the man whispers.
A sudden flare of light. Harry rips off the goggles and shields his eyes. Recovering, he spies an open door with light streaming out of it. Walking through it, he enters a 1950s suburban home. A carton of milk lies spilled on the table, bearing the photo of a "missing" child. Harry cries and shakes his head. This can't be happening.
He turns around and is suddenly back in the abandoned house. An older man is kneeling on the floor, bleeding. The man turns to reveal a bloody mouth full of bullets.
"Haaarrrry," the man groans -- and spits up blood.
Harry runs for the front door when he hears a voice. He turns ... it's Rory, the kidnapper from 15 years ago.
"Why are you so bad?" the dead man asks. "I didn't deserve this. That girl you burned? She was innocent. Now all she knows is pain. That kid you kicked senseless? He was just a witness. Why are you so bad?"
Harry pleads for mercy. Another blinding flash of light and Harry is back in the suburban house. The two boys watch "Howdy Doody" on the television.
"Hey, you want to see something neat?" asks one boy.
The boy opens his dad's closet and pulls out a massive firearm.
"Wow! Pop's gun!" says the second boy.
"Someday, I'm gonna be a cop," says the older boy, fondling the weapon. "Just like him."
The older boy shames his kid brother into holding the gun. The two agree to play "Lone Ranger." The gun goes off. Litte Harry, the younger brother, has shot and killed Max, the older brother (and the boy marked "missing" on the milk carton).
Big Harry, still watching, screams.
We cut to the younger Harry weaping at the kitchen table. Harry's father, the man with a mouthful of bullets from earlier, tells young Harry that they must keep the incident "a secret."
"It's better for you and for me," Harry's dad says.
Vision? Flashback? It doesn't matter. Harry is back inside the abandoned house, crying. He approaches the paintings on the wall. The figures and now hanging upside down ... dead. Oddly, there are only three now. One is missing.
"They were like you, Harry," says the ghostly Rory. "They didn't accept the darkness inside them. Didn't understand what it was capable of. Now they understand. Now they're at peace. Don't you want to be at peace, Harry?"
The kidnapper hands Harry a knife. Harry holds the knife to his neck. He is about to cut when he notices the fourth figure is missing.
"There were four ..." he says. "The girl ..."
FLASHBACK to the diner! Meredith's scarf slips revealing a wound on her throat.
"It was her," Harry says. "She survived!"
The dead kidnapper protests: "No! You have to pay the price!"
Harry drops the knife and runs.
Back from commercial break, Harry leaps into the van. James, who has decided to wait after all, is startled awake. Harry gets on his cell phone, asking for a billing address on Meredith's phone number.
"Where are we going?" James demands.
"To Meredith's," Harry explains.
"Didn't we just leave there?" James asks.
"It was a set up," growls the private detective.
The van speeds down the road and squeals to a stop outside an apartment complex.
"If I'm not back in 10 minutes, call the police," Harry says.
The door to Meredith's apartment bursts inward. Harry enters, demanding an explanation as to why Meredith sent him to that house. She spits in his face ... which doesn't go over well. He shoves her into a chair.
"Why!?" he screams.
"Rory!" The man that you murdered and walked away from he was my brother!" Meredith confesses. It has taken 15 years for Meredith to track down Harry. We see a flash of the painted figures.
"They promised me that I could see him again," she says. "That I could talk to him. We went into that house and we tried. That house just shows you what it wants to show you ... one thing about yourself you cant live with. It took the three of them, but Rory protected me. You know why? He saved me so I could find you and make you suffer like he suffered."
Meredith then asks Harry what the house showed him. What was the one thing he couldn't live with?
FLASHBACK to Harry and his father digging a grave.
"It wasn't your fault, son," Harry's dad says. "But sometimes you gotta do a wrong to make things right."
Back to present day. Harry cries. Meredith pulls a gun from her dresser drawer and points it at Harry's head. Harry spins and takes the gun away from her hand. He points at her. Meredith begs for death ... but he can't pull the trigger.
"I'm truly sorry for what I've done," Harry says. "I know what I am and I know why. Things are going to be different now. I'm going to do the right thing."
James enters, carrying his new gun. He sees Harry holding a gun over Meredith's prone body.
"Help me!" Meredith screams.
James pulls the trigger, shooting Harry dead. Meredith smiles.
James, realizing what he has done, hunches over his friend's body.
"It was an accident!" James screams. "An accident!"
Harry, now dead, has come full circle.
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