Hellish Beasts — Brian Carmody

On a colonial village field trip, Mike was attacked by a deranged candle-maker and his "buddy" Trent fled, to his undying shame. As adults, screenwriter Trent runs into professor turned soldier Mike when they stumble upon a preternaturally dead cat in the library. Mike believes there's one sinister force behind this and other strange, inexplicable incidents- and he's taking reluctant Trent along for the investigation. Meanwhile, Trent begins to wonder if Lilith, his alluring and inscrutable new girlfriend, may be demonic herself- or if that's just his paranoid Catholic guilt. Dan Wakefield's Going All The Way meets True Detective, Hellish Beasts is an idiosyncratic, darkly humorous, and introspective Horror Noir. With an insider's appreciation for the Los Angeles landscape, this is a serious examination of the duty of friendship, the burden of guilt, the uncertainty of a devout Catholic in modern dating, and the struggle of leaving your 20s behind.