SETH DILTS, in most external ways, used to be a rather ordinary human being. A gifted account man at a national ad agency, he owned his own house, and while he hadn’t married yet, it wasn’t lonesomeness that drove him to hide in the attic when he heard the doorbell ring that day. In fact, it was quite the opposite.
LAKE OF FIRE was inspired by the Wonderlust director's seven year experience camping on the Slabs on and off. It's a chance to invite a fictionalized expression of a rustic ensemble of eccentric personalities into our lives we otherwise wouldn’t dare hold eye contact with. Residents range from a teenage sex slave experiencing her first taste of life as a free person, to her disgraced-senator ex-owner who believes they’re in love; to a family headed by a temptress-prostitute and her pimp; to SETH, a staunch libertarian societal-dropout living entirely independent from the mainstream world…except for a pesky need for city water (he also secretly inherited millions but refuses to touch it).
This is a story about individuality verses conformity. How much does the “addiction” to money shape our personalities? And, where’s the line between government and freedom?
Should the hooker and her pimp husband be allowed to keep their children? What if they love them as passionately as any other parent on Earth, and provide a safe, nurturing environment?
We’ll get to know each of our new friends’ “leaving society” story through flashback sequences similar to ORANGE IS THE NEW BLACK, and LOST. The community as a whole will have their identity, freedom, and home, threatened when the local government declares war on anarchy, building to an ultimate show-down between the authorities and this booby-trap fortified, unofficial, township.
This is all set to the back drop of the harsh, Mad-Max-esque oddity of the washed-out marine base in the scorchingly beautiful desert, and the constant life-or-death challenges our heroes face living off the grid with severely limited cash supplies (they’ll even run an active bombing range to scrap recyclables).
The ebb and flow of drifters and new residents nurtures an environment ripe with possibilities for this serial drama. By the end of season one, a messianic-complex driven mad-man will attempt to install his cult as Aribay’s government; Seth will fall in love, but his new lover’s uppity children unexpectedly move in from main stream society; the sex slave’s romantic bond to a violently unpredictable bad-boy will change both their lives; and, an FBI investigation leads to a national news story with devastating consequences for Aribay.
With such a diverse, and fiercely individual, collection of human beings, so little rules, and their very existence on the line, LAKE OF FIRE promises to not just keep audiences demanding more, but offer a daring glimpse into a side of humanity most of us would only allow our curiosities to explore, only to realize, they’re startlingly more likable, even admirable, than we’d ever imagined.
For more information and a copy of the script, please send an email via the contact page.
