Vanishing on 7th Street
We are at a luxurious cinema in Detroit. One of the employees, Paul (John Leguizamo) is carrying a small torch in his helmet, as if he were a miner. He flirts with the girl (Jordan Trovillion) at the concession and returns to the projector room to change reels. All of a sudden, the power goes out. When the emergency lights come on after a few seconds, everyone in the theater but Paul has disappeared. In the attached mall, he runs into another survivor (P.J. Edwards), but he disappears as well when his flashlight goes out. Everyone's clothes, glasses, shoes, etc., are left behind, but there is no clue as to what happened to the bodies.Rosemary (Thandie Newton) is using a light to look around a recently deserted hospital. No one answers her cries for help. She hears soft moans and goes to see who it might be. Illuminated by the lights above the operating table that are connected to emergency power, she sees a man (Hugh Maguire) who was being operated on when the lights went out. His chest is open and it's obvious the anesthesia has worn off. At that moment, the lights go off again and before the emergency power kicks in, he disappears.Luke (Hayden Christensen) wakes up surrounded by candles he lit in anticipation of a night of passion with his girlfriend Paige. The apartment is bright from the morning sun. He realizes she never came home and leaves for work without noticing anything strange. He picks up a newspaper at the foyer hall of his building realizes it's yesterday's issue. He doesn't look up until he steps on somebody's glasses and abandoned clothes. A plane falls to the ground in the distance causing a commotion to which nobody reacts. He runs to his office but no one is there. He hears a noise and goes into the editing room of Action News, it's deserted but he is able to playback the broadcast from the night before when the blackout happened. He sees his girlfriend literally fade away on tape. The power goes out and as the darkness descends, he sees shadowy outlines of people. They appear to be coming after him so he runs to his office and rips the blinds down flooding the room with sunlight. The shadows fade away. He opens a desk drawer and pulls out a photo of his daughter and his wife Anna as the scene fades to black.72 HOURS LATER (3 DAYS)
Luke is running through the darkened streets of the city with a flashlight in his hand and smaller lights strung around his neck. He's hopping in and out of abandoned cars trying to find one that will start. Frustrated, he rests for a moment in the last car. He hears someone yelling and locks the door. A man arrives and begs to be let in the car. His lighter is quickly running out of fluid. As the flame dies, he is claimed by whatever it is that lurks in the darkness. Luke gets out of the car, frisks the man's clothes for supplies and continues his hunt. Unnoticed by Luke, a small girl with a pink flashlight silently watches him as he makes his way through the streets.Luke finally finds a truck that, although it won't start, it still has some juice. With a jump, he could get it running. Just then, he hears music. He moves towards the sound and see's Sonny's, a bar that still has lights and power. Luke enters the bar to see that, like the rest of the city, it's deserted. He looks around and finds a generator in the basement. As he comes back upstairs, a young boy greets him with a loaded shotgun. James (Jacob Latimore) is scared but keeps the gun pointed at Luke. When Luke calls his bluff, James fires a shot in the wall behind him. Luke and James start talking about the situation. James's mother is a bartender at Sonny's and he's waiting for her to return from the church down the street. Someone came by and told her there was power there and other people. It's been a while and she hasn't returned. He's waiting for the sun to come up to go look for her. Luke says that may never happen. He's noticed that the days are getting shorter and shorter. We then find out that, even though it's pitch black outside, it's actually 11:00 AM. Just then, Rosemary arrives. She is freaking out because she can't find her baby. After she left the hospital, she went home to find her nanny and baby had disappeared like everyone else but she's convinced his father took him.They hear someone yelling outside. After arguing about whether or not they should go, Luke takes a flashlight to investigate. He sees Paul lying on the bench at a bus shelter. It was the first of many solar powered shelters the city was planning on implementing. As Luke gets ready to drag Paul back to Sonny's, his flashlight dies. He decides to go for it, grabs Paul and runs like hell. The shadows get close and almost grab them when Luke falls down and hurts his ankle but Rosemary opens the door to the bar and enough light shines into the street to keep the darkness at bay.Paul (John Leguizamo) says that his light went off, and that he was hit by something. He felt himself being taken someplace when his light came back on and he woke up in the street. He dragged himself to the bus shelter and started calling for help.Over the course of the film, it's revealed that the reason they're still around is because they were still lit when the power first went out. Paul by his headlamp, Rosemary was lighting her cigarette and Luke fell asleep with a dozen or so candles lit around him.They begin to argue about what might have caused this phenomenon and various ideas are tossed around when Paul begins to tell the true story of the lost colony on the island of Roanoke. According to Wikipedia - "The Roanoke Colony on Roanoke Island in Dare County, present-day North Carolina, United States, was a late 16th-century attempt by Queen Elizabeth I to establish a permanent English settlement. Colonists thrived for years until one day, a supply ship landed there to find the group of colonists had disappeared without a trace." Paul says the word "Croatoan" had been carved into a tree. This was the name of a native American tribe the colonists had butted heads with during their time on the island. He's insinuating that there may not be a reason as to why this happened or maybe it's because we pissed someone or something off and we're being "reset". Paul also states the reason they are still there is simply because they are aware they "exist". As the argument heats up, the lights start to flicker so everyone goes to check on the generator. It's failing and they only have a short time left before it goes out. They notice a locked door next to the generator and James says he was told that's where you go when things get bad. They assume it's an old bomb shelter. Suddenly, Paul collapses and they drag him to the pool table and put ice and cold clothes on his head.Since they know the generator is failing, Luke is determined to leave the bar. He reveals that while he was at the news studio, a live transmission came through from a Chicago reporter, (Neal Huff), who says he heard his brother who died eight years ago calling him from the darkness. He says that the people in the shadows can trick you, and advises everybody to trust only the light they are holding. He also tells anyone who can see this to come to Chicago and find him. Luke thinks they should all go to Chicago and he wants to push the truck he found to the bar and use the generator to give it the extra juice it needs to start. Rosemary says that Paul needs to go to the hospital and she doesn't want to leave until she finds her baby. Although James doesn't want to leave without his mom, Luke tells him they'll stop by the church on the way. James agrees and eventually, they convince Rosemary.Luke and Rosemary put some lights around their necks and bodies and go after the truck. Before she leaves Rosemary puts a glow stick necklace around James's neck.Paul is in a lot of pain and asks James turns the juke box back on so he can hear one last song. He does it and then goes to the bathroom to get a cold compress for Paul. The lights go out for a couple of seconds.When they come back on, Paul is still on the pool table but James doesn't respond when he calls for him. He gets up to go look for him and finds the bathroom empty. The door to the basement is open so he goes down there and sees the bomb shelter door is unlocked and open.Outside, Rosemary keeps on reminiscing about her lost daughter. Her flashlight flickers and goes out. She mentions that she just put new batteries in it. Luke says he's noticed that, with the exception of solar powered energy, the electricity that still exists seems to be getting weaker and weaker and requires much more power. She and Luke almost make it to the truck when all of their lights go out. The darkness moves in to take them when the little girl reappears. She shines her flashlight on them and gives them enough time to make it to the truck. Luke tries to go after the girl, but his injured ankle causes him to fall down. Rosemary turns on the lights of a car, which saves them both from the dark. They start to push the truck back to Sonny's but they need more light.Back at the bar, Paul enters the shelter door. He hears James calling to him from the other end and moves towards his voice. He runs down a huge corridor lit by round lights. He reaches the door at the end only to find it opens to a brick wall. He collapses on the floor and watches the lights go off one by one and as the darkness takes him, it's revealed that he's actually still on the pool table upstairs. As soon as Paul disappears, the lights flicker again and it's revealed that James, with his glowing necklace is still in the bathroom. He brings water back for Paul but finds only his clothes.Luke tries to make a torch using a metal rod, cloth and some gas from a nearby vehicle. Rosemary says it will burn too quickly and, while they still have a little light, they should try to find something else to use. They are right by a methadone clinic where Rosemary used to be a patient and she knows they have alcohol there. She finds the alcohol and they fix the torch. Rosemary hears the sound of a crying baby. She drops her last glow stick and takes off. Luke chases after her but it's too late. She's running towards a baby stroller in a circle of bright light. As soon as Rosemary reaches it and realizes the stroller is empty, the lights go off. Her empty clothes fall to the ground while Luke watches helplessly.Luke makes it back to Sonny's with the truck. He and James are able to hook it up to the generator and get it running. They drive a short distance and Luke gets out to move a car out of the way. He tells James to move to the driver's seat and keep his foot on the gas or the truck will stall. While Luke it moving the car, James sees light coming from the church where his mom is supposed to be. Disregarding Luke's instructions, he jumps out of the truck and takes off for the church. Luke barely makes it back to the truck to prevent it from stalling. Inside the church, James sees a circle of candles on the floor, with a lump of clothing in the middle. He calls out for his mother but when he reaches it, no one is there. He hears his mother calling him from the surrounding darkness. James doesn't want to go to her but the candles are blowing out and the shadows are moving in. Luke crashes the car into the church and the headlights push the darkness back once again. He gets out to go to James. With no one holding the gas, the truck dies and the headlights go out. Luke is caught in the middle, trying to run after James and he is taken. James stays with the remaining candles, until they all vanish. repeating over and over "I am James. I exist".The sun comes up. James wakes up in the church surrounded by unlit candles. The little girl walks up and tells him her name is Briana and that he is in her bed. She says that the things he saw at the church - which he took for his mother's - are hers. Briana and James leave the church, and they see a horse eating some apples. Both James and Briana leave Detroit on the horse.When night arrives, they have reached the outskirts, and they are on the road out.
paranormal, flashback