Story Tree          Films

...a quest to make the most exciting horror film in decades. Hard Lessons will redefine the genre; it provokes and thrills audiences in equal measure. 

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You can join the adventure in two ways...

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• Donate to our From the Heart Productions fiscally sponsored webpage and take advantage of our not-for-profit status and save money come tax time.

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• Invest as an Associate Producer or Executive Producer

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Logline:  

 

After a mass shooting turns America’s schools into near prisons, a group of disaffected high school students battle to destroy the system that subjugates them. Little do they know, a sociopath bent on teaching them tortuous lessons turns each student’s archetype against them one by one.

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Synopsis:  

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After the worst mass shooting in American history occurs on a high school campus, Congress reacts in the extreme and turns all school campuses across the nation into guarded prisons.  A group of disaffected students meet during in-school suspension. Even though they each come from a disparate clique, they come together with a plan to sabotage the powers that be at school. Melody, the popular girl, recruits Cody, the tech nerd, Buck, the lazy jock, Duncan, the dumb skater, and Raven, the artistic outsider to band together for a cabal to disrupt the establishment. They plan  to break in to vandalize and destroy the internal computer network with the hopes of sending a message to the world that they will not have their spirits crushed by the system.  

 

Things don’t go as planned when Quentin, an innocent outcast, gets caught in their  scheme. As they attempt to sabotage the school, each student is captured by a mysterious and sinister sociopath known only as the Schoolmaster. Through the use of Aesop’s fables, the Schoolmaster ‘“teaches” each student a lesson in a horrifying torment specific to each target’s personality flaws. Quentin as the only student not part of the plan fights to stop the nefarious intentions of the diabolical Schoolmaster.