Synopsis
Expectant couple Gemma and Leo arrive at his mother’s home with their daughter, Layla, for Christmas with a deliberate agenda: deliver the news that they can no longer afford to support her. Mother’s house is dense with depictions of the Madonna and Child; no cross, no Christmas tree. She smothers Leo, dismisses Gemma, and hurls comments like daggers. By night one, Gemma regrets the trip. There is something in the shadows watching her, and the nativity figures out front are definitely moving.
When Leo finally breaks the news, Mother detonates. Strange things accelerate: puppet shows with no hands operating them, an ex-girlfriend’s warning cut short by an invisible and fatal force, and that thing in the shadows is beginning to step into the light.
What Gemma uncovers isn’t a haunting. It’s a pattern: a house that has been keeping score long before she arrived, and a mother who has never, and will never, let her son grow up.
Key Personnel
Hyten Davidson Co-writer / Producer
Hyten Davidson is an award-winning screenwriter, producer, and SAG actor based in NYC. Her short, The West Virginian Starfish, which she wrote and co-directed, won the Long Island Film Expo Award for Best Short Film, in addition to a host of other screenwriting wins and nominations over the years. Featured Female Filmmaker nominee at the Shortcut 100 International Film Festival. Stowe Story Producers Lab Participant. Member of Film Fatales Parity Pipeline. Recipient of the Mary W. Shelley scholarship from the Horror Writers Association, supporting female horror writers. She co-wrote and produced the thriller feature, Something of a Monster, now on AppleTV and Prime Video. Her next short which she wrote, directs, and stars in, Side Saddle is now in post production. www.hyten-davidson.com
Ashley Bacon Actor / Producer
Ashley Bacon is an actor and producer based in NYC. Ashley is known for leading the 80s thriller Something of a Monster on AppleTV and a recurring arc on Orange is the New Black. In 2024 she was nominated for Best Actor at the Cindependent Film Festival for her work in the short, The Flip Side. Other notable credits: FBI, Hu$tlaz. In addition to starring in Something of a Monster, she was also the production designer, art director, costume designer, props department, and ad hoc caterer. She daylights as manager of brand activations for Broadway theatrical companies like Disney, “Wicked,” and “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child,” to name a few.
Brandon Duncan Director / Co-writer / Producer
Brandon is a writer-director from Brooklyn and spends time in the corporate PR world as a social media strategist and video content creator for notable health/pharma companies and their celebrity spokespeople. His feature directorial debut, Something of a Monster, is available on AppleTV. His short, The Flip Side was nominated for Best Short at Cindependent. His work lives at the intersection of the deeply human and the gloriously strange. www.brandonkduncan.com
For more on Maternity Leave Films, visit www.maternityleavefilms.com.
