In Transit is a suspenseful story that takes us on an intense, emotionally charged roller coaster as we share a young man's experience of a frighteningly real and seemingly never ending bus crash. James, a young college grad, awakens in a disoriented state following a night of drinking with friends. The victim of a friendly prank, he finds himself on a bus he never intended to take traveling though a storm to an unknown destination. The bus stops at a diner, where James is given a brief introduction to the other bus passengers, namely Angela, a young, free-spirited girl with which he feels an immediate connection. Among the otherwise relatively normal bus passengers is Fred, a prisoner who is being escorted by a private corrections officer - an unlikely passenger... As James orients himself to his situation with the help of Angela, another bus arrives on the scene, introducing a new set of characters. The vehicle's brakes are failing, so the passengers join together and set out to face the journey through the storm on the first bus. Without warning, the bus spirals out of control, catapults into a lake, and plunges into the dark abyss of the icy cold water. As the sole survivor, James watches the other passengers sink to their deaths. He climbs to shore... and suddenly finds himself back on the same bus pulling in to the same diner - exactly where he awoke in the previous hours. In the wake of the crash and its' horrifying aftermath, James is confronted with the events leading up to the accident and, tragically, its' recurrence. He begins to understand with horror and confusion that he is reliving the same nightmarish situation over and over again.
The story unfolds with a complex and compelling five cycle structure as James comes to the realization that he is caught in a cyclic purgatory that he can't get out of. As he is once again confronted with watching the other passengers held captive in the bus's enclosure and sinking to their deaths, James sees that he is the only one who remembers surviving the crash and the events leading up to it. Through his interactions with the other passengers, James withstands a series of internal and external obstacles that play out in different ways through the course of each cycle: he becomes closer to Angela and embarks on a desperate need to save her. He encounters Phil Jones, a half frozen man who is revealed as a dangerous criminal and partner to the prisoner Fred. This immediately raises the intensity and suspense of whether anyone will be harmed, and to what extent events surrounding the convicts will stop James' desperate mission. Connections between the other passengers add more twists to the story and the tension rises with each tragic cycle.
As James endeavors to question and challenge his inevitable fate, he is forced to come to grips with the reality of his circumstance and the necessity of self sacrifice in order to save the passengers' lives. This is a compelling and intense thriller that will confront audiences, enticing them to question the choices life presents us with and their impending consequences - a journey that promises to evoke a sense of caution in the dangerous nature of impulsive behavior, make us contemplate the price we pay for our actions, and has the powerful potential to elicit a newfound respect for the fragility of life. In discovering and acknowledging his fate, a message of hope is conveyed through James: by accepting death and moving on, there is hope for those that are left behind.
DIRECTED BY: Rachel Talalay
WRITTEN BY: Don Woodman
