The Horror at Red Hook
Project Overview
Set in the shadowy alleys of 1920s Brooklyn, The Horror at Red Hook follows Detective Thomas F. Malone, an Irish-born New York police officer whose investigation into a series of mysterious kidnappings leads him into a world of occult horrors.
The case centers around Robert Suydam, a reclusive scholar of ancient lore who, after a peculiar transformation, becomes entangled with a clandestine cult operating in the Red Hook neighborhood. As Malone delves deeper, he uncovers a labyrinth of hidden chambers beneath the city, where dark rituals and human sacrifices are performed to summon otherworldly entities.
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Robert Suydam is a corpulent scholar in his late 60s, steeped in occult lore and infected by a hunger for more. Once a respected scholar, Suydam withdrew from society, letting his mansion, and body, decay as he plunged deeper into forbidden studies. In his youth he spent years abroad in Europe, the Middle East, and Asia exposing him to arcane traditions and dark promises. Now, Suydam has ventured into Red Hook not to hide, but to act.
Suydam’s ultimate goal is immortality, and his method is union with a cosmic entity: Dayika Hezar, the Thousandfold Mother, an avatar of Shub-Niggurath. Diagnosed with Bright’s disease and facing death, he turns to the cult for rebirth. But too late he learns that in this marriage, he is not the groom, but the offering. To break the pact, he ensorcels Cornelia into a Christian wedding, hoping to outwit the gods. The results are catastrophic. Driven by pride and desperation, Suydam becomes both the herald and the victim of the very horror he sought to command.
- male adult
- american
- Urbane
- Theatrical
- Sydney Greenstreet
SUYDAM (firm): My health is my concern. Suffice it to say, I must work while I still can. I am... on the cusp of something important. (pause) I think that will conclude our interview Mr. Malone, I have work to get back to. Good day to you sir. (Raising his voice to call to Lazlo standing just outside the study door) Lazlo, you may show the gentleman out.
SUYDAM: Because Red Hook is a crossroads. A convergence. I spent most of my twenties traveling through Europe and Asia. I studied folk traditions, shamanic rites, burial customs, invocations. Some villages took weeks to reach, and the road was not always kind. Bandits, disease, mistrust. But I found knowledge. Deep, buried things.
SUYDAM (turning to Malone): And you, sir. Your testimony was appreciated. Honest men are in short supply. You did what was right, even if it displeased my dear niece. For the record, Cornelia, those funds from the trust weren’t squandered. They were redirected. Investments in property. Some even in Red Hook. Curious place... with curious possibilities.
Cornelia Gerritsen is 25, beautiful, and sharper than she lets on. She presents herself as a vulnerable socialite concerned for her invalid mother, but there’s an edge beneath her charm, a greed and desperation she tries to hide under perfume and practiced tears. She hires Malone to investigate her second cousin, Robert Suydam, claiming worry over his mental state and control of the family trust. Whether or not she truly cares about her mother’s wellbeing is left ambiguous.
Cornelia is a classic noir femme fatale, seductive, manipulative, and ultimately doomed. She may feel some real connection to Malone, but her self-preservation instincts always win out. When she gets pulled deeper into Suydam’s web, her flirtations and schemes prove powerless against cosmic forces far beyond her understanding. Her death is swift, brutal, and final, a tragic end for someone who thought she could play every angle. Classic femme fatale
- american
- female young adult
- Lana Turner
- Femme Fatale
- Mary Astor
CORNELIA (warm, subtly seductive): Detective Malone? Cornelia Gerritsen, I called earlier. Thank you for seeing me. Your office is... honest. Not like I imagined, somehow I was expecting polished chrome and gleaming filing cabinets.
CORNELIA: He has let himself go, detective; his grooming, his clothing—he looks like a tramp. He lives alone, well, practically alone, in that decaying mansion of his. It’s him and that dreadful butler. Worst of all, he has taken up with unsavory types in Red Hook. People who... who shouldn’t be trusted, immigrants, criminals involved in...who knows what.
CORNELIA (soft, eyes glistening): Then you don’t know what it’s like. Watching your mother wither away while the money meant to save her goes into the pockets of fanatics and foreign thugs. He’s our only family, Mr. Malone. I thought you might understand what that means.
Detective Duke O’Shaughnessy is Malone’s former partner and professional foil. A second-generation Irish cop, Duke embodies the entrenched xenophobia and institutional rot of the era. He’s gruff, racist, and quick with his fists—but not without a sense of duty. Duke genuinely believes he’s one of the “good ones,” though his moral code is warped by fear, pride, and a deep-seated belief in ethnic hierarchy.
Despite their differences, Duke maintains a grumbling protectiveness over Malone, part big brother, part begrudging rival. He disdains Malone’s education and poetic airs, yet respects his instincts. Their bond is battered but intact, and Duke’s eventual breakdown and violent death in the depths of Red Hook serves as both tragedy and symbol: a man undone by the very darkness he couldn’t comprehend.
- brooklyn
- male adult
- Leo Gorcey
DUKE (off): You always did have a nose for trouble, Tommy. You slumming it in Red Hook, or did you lose your sense of direction along with your badge?
DUKE: No, but it helps when the answers bite. You walked out, Malone. We were neck-deep in the mud, and you just… walked.
DUKE: The foreigners, there's more of ‘em pouring in everyday and they're not coming in through Ellis. I'm tellin’ you—there’s tunnels under this whole neighborhood. I’d stake my badge on it.
Mr. Laszlo is the unsettling, effete butler of Robert Suydam. He moves like smoke and speaks like a draft down a stairwell, strange, deferential, and vaguely inhuman. To the untrained eye, he is simply an unnerving manservant. But there’s something wrong with Laszlo. Something off. Whether he is a supernatural creature bound to Suydam or simply touched by eldritch corruption is never fully explained, and perhaps shouldn’t be.
Laszlo’s loyalty to Suydam is absolute, though it stems more from obligation or enchantment than affection. In the final act, he becomes a vital source of exposition, revealing the nature of the cult and Suydam’s twisted plans. Whether his pleas for help are genuine or part of a deeper game remains uncertain until the end.
- american
- Peter Lorre
- Whispery
- nervous
- male adult
LAZLO (thin, unpleasant accent): We don’t want whatever it is that you are peddling. We are not receiving guests.
LAZLO (curt): Then mind where you walk. (pause, then cold, threatening) You should not be poking your nose where it doesn't belong, Detective. You might live to regret it.
LAZLO: If you will come with me, mister Malone.
The unknown man who frames Malone’s story is none other than J. Edgar Hoover, head of the Bureau of Investigation. He speaks with the clipped confidence of a bureaucrat used to control, but there's an undercurrent of unease in his voice as Malone recounts events beyond science, law, or human comprehension.
Hoover’s appearance reframes the entire story as the seed of something larger: the Bureau’s first brush with cosmic horror. By the end of Episode 2, it becomes clear he is recruiting Malone for a new kind of war, one fought not with gangsters or communists, but with cults, creatures, and things that dwell beyond the dark.
- male adult
- american
- J Edgar Hoover
UNKNOWN MAN (calm, authoritative): Detective Malone, how’s your recovery progressing? Those wounds treating you well?
UNKNOWN MAN: And yet, there was that nervous incident in Rhode Island last month.
UNKNOWN MAN: Good. Let’s discuss Red Hook, Detective. Specifically, Robert Suydam. When did you first become aware of him?
We’re currently looking for a singer to join our project and bring a few short transitions to life. The style we’re going for is deeply inspired by classic jazz and blues, think Nina Simone, rich and soulful vocals with emotional depth and character.
- female adult
- Nina Simone
- Sarah Vaughan
- american
*Say something you think would fit*
*Say something you think would fit*
![[paid] celebrity psychotherapist (episode 10)](https://images.castingcall.club/project_images/image-1217974-CCC_projectImage_V001.png)
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