Sabbatical (TV series)

Sabbatical is a 2007 CTV television movie, which was filmed in August 2007, as a pilot, and aired on 23 November 2007.

Plot
The film follows Patrick Marlowe (who is on sabbatical), his paleontologist wife Dr. Julie Marlowe, and their children, as they leave the big city for Julie's dinosaur dig in Saskatchewan's Avonlea Badlands (located south of Regina).

To be close to the dig the family moves to the fictional small town of Beacon Vista. On their way to Beacon Vista, their mildly autistic son Danny is almost kidnapped by a trucker, who had previously helped them change a tire while flirting with the daughter Gwyneth.

The family quickly finds some oddities about their new home. Cell phones don't work, and the local minister preaches the end is near.

The family wakes up after their first night in the new home to discover that a triple murder, a mother and two children whose husband/father is working on an oil rig, occurred next door while they slept.

Later, while both playing a video game and sleeping, Danny has some sort of psychic vision related to the murders.

Patrick also has a back-story involving a scam he pulled with Jack Driscoll (a now dead former coworker) and some related missing money.

The last revelations of the film are that the murders, and possibly some local teens, are connected to devil worship. While Sabbatical and Sabbath are related in their connection to time off and generally have positive connotations, the root sabbat is also used for Wiccan holidays, and has a history of negative connotations in fictional works (music, and games).

Cast

 * Matthew Bennett as Patrick Marlowe
 * Anne Marie DeLuise (née Anne Marie Loder) as Julie Marlowe
 * Tatiana Maslany as Gwyneth Marlowe
 * Quinn Lord as Danny Marlowe
 * Greyston Holt as Jordan (the local teen leader)
 * Antonio Cupo as Paolo (Julie's associate at the dig)
 * Crystal Allen as Wendy (the bartender)
 * Tygh Runyan as Caleb Brown (the trucker)
 * Stephen McHattie as Police Chief Gil Brewer
 * Patrick McKenna as Reverend Brown
 * Daniella Beltrami as Betty (next door neighbour, and ghost)

Crew

 * casting – Corinne Clark & Jennifer Page
 * costume designer – Jill Aslin
 * production designer – Sara McCudden
 * editor – Teresa Hannigan
 * composer – James Jandrisch
 * director of photography – Michael Storey, CSC
 * line producer – Rhonda Baker
 * co-producer – Stephen Onda
 * supervising producer – Shannon Farr
 * executive producer – Barbara Bowlby
 * executive producer – John Brunton
 * creator & writer – Peter Mitchell
 * director – Ken Girotti

Production

 * Insight Production Company Ltd. (Insight Production Company)
 * Saskatchewan Film and Video Development Corporation (SaskFilm)
 * CTV Television Network (CTV)