Deadline (2009)

Deadline is a horror-thriller film directed by Sean McConville starring Brittany Murphy and Thora Birch. This was the last Brittany Murphy film released before she died.

Alice Evans (Brittany Murphy) needs to complete a screenplay, which she has not finished due to a psychological breakdown after her boyfriend tried to kill her. With the deadline for the screenplay approaching, she accepts an offer by a producer friend to let her stay in a Victorian-style home he has recently purchased, so she can focus on her work. She insists on staying there alone, and her friend Rebecca (Tammy Blanchard) reluctantly agrees and leaves her there. Alice begins to hear strange noises in the house and becomes convinced the house is haunted by the ghost of a murdered woman. She begins searching the house and finds a collection of videotapes in the attic featuring a mysterious young couple played by Thora Birch and Marc Blucas. At first the tapes just show the couple lovingly talking about their new baby and life together in the house. However the more Alice watches, the more disturbed the husband gets. He becomes convinced his wife is seeing someone else and that the baby may not be his, even though his wife assures him she's never been with any one else. One tape shows him filming his wife as she sleeps muttering about how pretty she is. Alice also watches one of her own tapes of herself and Rebecca (before her boyfriend tried to kill her) and it is strongly implied they are more than just friends. Alice keeps watching the video tapes of the couple and asks Rebecca to do research about the couple for her. Rebecca, worried about her friend, offers to come visit but Alice insists she is fine. As Alice keeps watching the tapes, we learn the reason her boyfriend tried to kill her. Alice was also pregnant and her boyfriend became convinced the baby wasn't his. He tried to drown her in the bathtub. Alice survived, but lost the baby. This is why she feels so connected to this woman on the tape. She also starts to see the ghost of the woman around the house. When Alice gets to the last tape she sees that the husband did kill his wife by drowning her in the tub and then hanged himself. Alice then gets a call from her ex who apologizes for what he did. Alice then sees a shadow in the house and becomes convinced he's inside with her. But as she starts to run away she sees the end of the tape which shows the husband actually survived his hanging when his mother cut him down just in time. She then reports the couple missing. Alice comes face to face with the husband who thinks she is his wife and tries to drown her in the bathtub, but he sees the reflection of his dead wife. This scares him so much he falls over the stair railing. The ghost now lets the water out of the bathtub and saves Alice. Later Rebecca comes over and finds Alice still sitting in the bath tub talking about the ghost. As Rebecca dries her off she finds the screen play that Alice has been working on all this time and discovers it is word for word the entire story written down, meaning everything Alice saw was all in her head. Rebecca then promises she will never leave Alice alone again and puts her to bed. She then goes downstairs where we see there is no body but there is a video camera. She picks it up and sees a tape Alice shot of her sleeping that looks exactly like the scene the husband shot earlier of his wife, right down to Alice saying everything the husband said.