Terrordise, a dark political comedy

screenplay by V. N. Alexander

Spanish translation by Xiomara Nonya

In the year 2028, close circuit cameras are everywhere and smiling citizens submit to intrusive body searches and bag checks by TSA agents, who now handle security at malls, stadiums, bus and train stations, as well as airports. President Clinton-Bush is winning the war on terror, according to billboards, and the surveillance state makes citizens feel safe.

The Schwartz-Johnsons, a New York family of four, travel to the airport in an armored taxi. Heavy-set black Mohamed Johnson can’t wait to get to the family’s new home in an exclusive high-security gated community in Dallas called Paradise. His petite wife, Esther Schwartz believes it will be a kind of utopia, providing the ultimate in safety against all kinds of terror threats, foreign and domestic. The children, tech-savvy edgy twins Elba and Able, are not so naive as their parents.

In Dallas they pass through a suburban area without noticing the widespread drought or the tree stumps that line the streets. Arriving at Paradise, they find, not just a gate and wall around the development, but a drawbridge and a moat, a Disney-style medieval castle wall and abundant trees, flowers, and fountains. The guards and lawn workers are dressed in medieval costume. They meet their neighbor, Dallas waterlord Glorilee Cheney and her husband Arthur. The children find a surreal playground in the development that includes a medieval torture rack and pillory.

The family befriends their Mexican housekeeper Esmeralda and the hard-working landscaping crew. After a while they begin to suspect that they are stealing greywater from Paradise to water their own gardens. Mohamed decides to help all of Dallas recycle their greywater.

Meanwhile agents with I.U.C., a private intelligence firm with lucrative contracts with the NSA, have been spying on the Schwartz-Johnsons, despite the efforts of the twins to keep the home clean. The I.C.U. CEO is using his company’s access to information to bribe politicians and pass legislation that his corporate clients, like Glorilee, want. Small time I.C.U. agents likewise blackmail people and get special favors.

Glorilee finds out about Mohamed’s plans and, in order to stop him, accuses his of planning to poison the Dallas water supply. To avoid terror charges, the Schwartz-Johnsons have to escape over the gated community wall with the help of Esmeralda. Then they discover that Esmeralda and friends are doing more than greywater recycling. They run an “underground railroad” using stormwater tunnels to help those wrongfully accused of terrorism by I.C.U. escape into Mexico. The family makes it to Mexico and joins an ex-pat organic farming community with celebrity activists, such as Ed Snowden, Richard Gage, Amy Goodman, Dennis Kucinich and Chris Hedges.

The film targets a demographic of those unhappy with NSA spying, wall-building, and privatization (Occupy groups, civil Libertarians, Greens, ACLU groups, and Progressives).