An imaginative black teenage girl encounters a beautiful, supernatural, white young man who lives in a lake, but as she pursues him, she unwinds a history of occult activity tied to the lake and to the multiplying copies of the young man wreaking havoc all around her.

SYNOPSIS:

Shortly after Sylvia Norris (16, black) and her father Nick (42, black) arrive at their house on Lake Masterson for a vacation, Sylvia meets neighboring vacationer Jake Weston (17, white, gay) who has eerie tales to tell about the lake area’s history. That night, Sylvia follows a buck through the woods to a clearing by the lake where Mab, an old white woman, cuts open a doe. A form creeps from the doe’s body to the lake. Cleansed, the form is a beautiful young man with alabaster skin. Sylvia runs home. The next day, she tells Jake, and later, they wait to catch sight of the Boy. Jake leaves, and then Sylvia sees him. He lures her to a place on the shore where they have sex. She falls asleep. The next morning, after a strange moment when she thinks she sees the Boy in two places at once, she hurries home.

Sylvia lies to Nick about her night out, and she rivets Jake with the truth. With a hunch about where the Boy took her, Jake brings Sylvia to a rocky shore—indeed the right spot—near an underwater cave. Inside the cave, Jake shows Sylvia the bones of nine people, presumably the lost bodies of Chet Masterson and a cult he ran at the lake in the 1960s, a forerunner to the lake’s other eerie events. That night, Jake returns to the cave alone, hoping to find the Boy. He does—and at the same time, Sylvia finds him by the shore at home. Jake and the Boy have sex. To Sylvia, the Boy seems menacing, so she runs into her house. Jake also feels menaced when he finds himself with two identical Boys. He tries to leave, and the Boys drown him.

Walking naked from the lake, the Boys begin a spree, increasing their numbers when they kill. A police officer stops for a Boy on the roadside. He gets in her car and kills her; then two Boys get out of the car. These Boys proceed to a bar, where their superior strength leads to slaughter, panic, and a total of five Boys by the end. Meanwhile, two Boys attack the Westons’ house, killing the rest of Jake’s family. A total of four Boys emerge. The next day, the carnage at the bar is in the news, and Sylvia discovers bloody remains at the Westons’. Sylvia and Nick resolve to leave town. The Boys strike, knocking Nick unconscious and trapping Sylvia. Sylvia ends up bound in the center of a ritual circle that Mab has prepared. The nine Boys stand for the nine members of the Masterson cult, who will be “forever” after a final sacrifice. Sylvia slips her bindings and attacks Mab. After a struggle, Sylvia drowns Mab in the lake, interrupting the ritual as the Boys are turning into monstrous beings. The Boys disappear, and the ritual ends. Nick shows up with police. He and Sylvia are safe, and their lake days are over.

Boy in the Lake was a semi-finalist in the Hollywood Dreams IFF and a quarter-finalist in the Page Turner Screenplay Competition, both in 2021.