THE TOLLTAKER

To eight year-old Bobby Burke, the specter of death lives down the maw of a drainage tunnel near his working-class, Northeast Philly row home.

That’s where, out exploring one day, Bobby comes upon The Tolltaker, a hideous walking cadaver that roams the subterranean gloom, demanding a toll from all whom it encounters.

But what The Tolltaker demands from Bobby is simply too much to pay.

It is the summer of 1973, and Bobby’s father has been MIA in Vietnam for exactly three years. He’d disappeared one day down a booby-trapped tunnel after some VC guerillas, and has not been seen since. The Army has given him up for dead.

It takes every ounce of strength Bobby has to keep believing that his father will come home one day. But this belief faces its greatest test when a new man enters the life of Bobby’s mother and, Bobby fears, threatens to push his father out.

An unexpected visit from a stranger who’s traveled halfway around the world to deliver his message sends Bobby into a confrontation with his guilt-ridden mother and her new boyfriend Nick, a confrontation from which Bobby flees – only to land in the clutches of The Tolltaker, in a life-or-death struggle from which there can be no escape.

Blending live-action with comic-book animation, The Tolltaker is a coming-of-age story set among the sights and sounds of the early 1970’s.

FILM ADAPTED FROM

“The Tolltaker” by James Sneddon

http://www.jamessneddon.com