We open on a family unpacking the car after a trip. A married couple and grandpa. It's clear they've been to pick up grandpa for him to visit for the holidays (Christmas). During the unpacking granpda takes on a bit too much and starts to feel unwell.
We cut to a hospital hallway where a doctor is breaking some obviously bad news. The wife breaks down in tears.
Cut forward in time to the family returning home from the funeral. [Maybe bring in some extra characters here to break things up a bit]
Married life continues. As it's coming up to christmas the wife buys an Alexa style device and all the home automation parts to go with it. Husband loves it and begins to tinker.
[google docs beat sheets here]
Husband listens to the voice commands on Alexa. There are strange voices. Creepy voices saying strange things, sometimes muffled conversations can be heard. The husband doesn't tell his wife about this as she seems on edge since her father passed. [Explain this in exposition to the engineer guy]
They call in an engineer who doesn't find any problems with their setup. He thinks they may have been hacked and gives them the number of a computer security expert who might be able to help.
The security guy's a bit weird. He says their security is weak but he can patch it. He doesn't find any signs of intrusion though, this seems to excite him. The couple are confused. He goes on to explain that Alexa's AI has been doing weird things all over the world, picking up conversations that don't exist and there's a theory online that Alexa is figuring out how to talk to the dead. He goes on to explain that having a global network of always on microphones is a paranormal researcher's wet dream. The couple dismiss him as a conspiracy nut and thank him for fixing their security, but goodbye.
Weird things keep happening. On the playback of the messages the voices are getting clearer. It sounds like grandad. He starts to freak out. More of the conversations are becoming clear. His wife has been speaking to her dead father.
Husband chooses to confront wife.
Act 2
Haven't got all the beats here yet.
This is where it all comes out. Grandad was into the occult, he can come back from the dead but only by sacrificing the husband. He's done it once before with his own wife, his daughter was complicit but too young to realise. The wife ends up getting manipulated into sacrificing her husband but immediately regrets it and spends the rest of act 2 trying to get him back.
Grandad has some kind of bond with the his daughter or maybe the house that lets him weaken the separation between the worlds.
The wife seeks out the hacker guy as he's the only other person who believes in this stuff. He helps here figure out how to get the husband back somehow. They have a few false starts. [Maybe if we want to be super dark, after a few failed attempts to save the husband she kills the hacker guy to get her husband back?]
This successful attempt will take us into act 3.
Act 3
The wife confronts her dark past and although at this point both her father and husband are back in the land of the living she decides to kill her father to end the cycle of evil once and for all, hoping to conceal it from her husband and life happily ever after.
The husband ends up rescued, grandad is back in the grave. Only instead of feeling angry or betrayed by any of the revelations, the husband shocks his wife by wanting to become an occult priest like grandpa. We close on him realisin he can have this great new power and committing to it. [Not sure how yet, maybe there's a ritual in there somehwere and we close on the husband doing it?]
Our ending is the husband starting the cycle of evil all over.
[Notes]
Have a bunch of evil occult shit somewhere in the house. Maybe even a secret room or something? This would fit nicely in act 2. Have the husband figure out the secret room by finding out which alexa was recording or something.
Maybe the wife is pregnant? This adds some emotional complexity to the story. Maybe this is how Grandpa manages to manipulate her?