Jeffrey Lucas(Dead Above Ground)

## Poster

**Jeffrey 'Jeff' Lucas**, also known as **Rick Mallory**, is the main slasher villain from the 2002 horror film, Dead Above Ground.

He is portrayed by **Josh Hammond**.

## Personality

Jeffrey Lucas is a crazy young man who believes deeply in his gothic beliefs and often preaches out loud. He is also very vengeful and doesn’t take kindly to have his own work being insulted.

## Background

Rick Mallory was the son of a famous director, Mark Mallory, who raised ravens but was also known for being a schizophrenic psychopath. He was institutionalized into a facility for the criminally insane until he broke out and headed back to his home. When they arrive back home from an award ceremony, Mark finds his door vandalized with gothic markings. While he lets Kari stay in the car, Mark looks around the house with a sword and gets chased after by his son, who is wearing a black robe and wielding an axe. Mark locks himself in a room where Rick struck his axe into before strapping Kari to the door and places a bear trap on the ground. Mark stabs his sword through the hole Rick made, before finding out that he killed Kari by mistake. Mark tries to get away but gets caught in the bear trap and Rick kills him for locking him up. Upon killing his father, Rick stole forty grand from his father’s safe, let his birds out, and left town.

Five and a half months later, Rick, now under the name Jeffrey Lucas, attends a high school where he used his summer school documentary project to film his own horror movie with his classmate, Kelly, in the role. While attending Mr. Carl Hadden’s class, with his girlfriend, Zara Light, Mr. Hadden plays Jeffrey’s movie, despite him revealing that he didn’t make a documentary. Upon watching Jeffrey’s horror movie, all the classmates laugh at the scene where Kelly’s character dies, enraging Jeffrey and making him start preaching about how they’re all going to die.

Being taken to Dr. Brenda Boone’s office where the counselor tries to talk to Jeffrey and says that the phone number he gave for his parents has been disconnected. She then tells him that if she can’t locate his parents, she’ll have report to child’s services to which Jeffrey dismisses.
Later, at a pool party at Mr. Hadden’s house for his class, Brenda talks with Carl about Jeffrey’s frantic behavior and how she’s unable to contact his parents. Carl suggest to contact his uncle, George Lucas, but Brenda is unsure about contacting a famous director. Just then, Jeffrey, wearing a black robe, smacks one of the girls at the party, prompting one of his classmates, Dylan, to start fighting him until his football coach, Tom Bradley, stops him. Jeffrey leaves the pool party in his car, but Dylan, having enough of him, gets in his own car and chases after Jeffrey.

Dylan drives up to his car and demands him to pull over. Jeffrey, instead, smash his car against Dylan’s. However, when they arrive at a curb, Dylan stops but the brakes on Jeffrey’s car wouldn’t work and he ends up crashing down a hill and perishes as his car bursts into flames.
When the cops try to find his body, all they founded were ashes. Then when they try to look up information on Jeffrey, they find out that “Jeffrey Lucas” wasn’t his real name and that he’s been living with homeless people at hobo canyon. While Dylan is framed to have intentionally killed Jeffrey, Zara has been going around on how Jeffrey will return on the anniversary of his death to seek his revenge.

## Biography

One year later after Jeffrey’s death, a boy named Chip Palmer attends the same high school Jeffrey attended after he and his family moved into the house Jeffrey filmed his movie at. At the school, Zara meets with Chip where he says that he’s seen Jeffrey in his dreams ever since he moved into the house. Chip then meets with Dylan where he warns him about how bad things are going to happen.

Late at night, Tom, now fired from the school and living in his van, is listening to music while smoking until Jeffrey, all burned up, brings Tom outside after leaving a picture of Mr. Hadden on his van. Once Tom is outside, a raven suddenly attacks him. Tom grabs the picture and heads back in his van, but the raven continues attacking him until he heads outside again with a scratched up face. Just then, Jeffrey appears and kills Tom with his axe, leaving it behind with the picture of Carl Hadden.

With Carl’s picture at the murder scene, Carl is taken to be interrogated by Sgt. Dan DeSousa and Det. Burrows. When the two point out that Carl had a gun with him, he tells him that bought it because he’s been receiving threatening voice messages of a whispering voice saying, “Dead above ground”.

Later, Zira and her classmates perform a seance at the house to contact Jeffrey’s spirit where he speaks through Dylan, saying Carl’s name. So the classmates head to Carl’s house to warn him but they arrive too late and find his dead body on the floor, as well as a freeze frame on the tv of Kelly’s death from Jeffrey’s movie.

When interrogating Dylan, who is now a suspect, DeSousa tells him that each murder leaves a clue on who will die next. Later, Dylan explains to everyone that the cops think Jeffrey’s movie is being used as a blueprint for the murders, leading to believe that Kelly is going to die next. Zira explains that because they laughed at his movie, Jeffrey is going to kill all of them unless they stop him. Zira manages to convince them to help her perform another seance where they can bargain with Jeffrey’s spirit by getting his movie in the Sundance film festival to stop the killings.

Kelly is advised by Dr. Boone to stay away from the seance and to stay at home until her parents arrive back. Dr. Boone then talks with DeSousa where she reveals that Jeffrey was wielding one of her trophies when he was sent to her office. DeSousa realizes that Jeffrey’s fingerprint should still be on the trophy and he can use it to find out who Jeffrey really is.
Late at night, at the seance, the classmates are unable to contact Jeffrey’s spirit since he wants Kelly, so Chip heads out to find her. However, when Kelly calls her parent for being late, Jeffrey appears in her house so she tries to escape in her car. Just then, Jefferey appears from behind and shoves a picture down her throat before cracking her neck, killing her.
The others arrive at Kelly’s house where they find Chip bounded up and taped while hanging upside-down in the garage. When they free Chip, he reveals that Jeffrey knocked him out and killed Kelly while he was tied up.

After an autopsy, it was revealed to DeSousa that that a picture of Darcy, another one of Jeffrey’s classmates, was shoved down into Kelly’s throat and was discovered in her stomach. Upon hearing that Darcy is next, Dylan talks with Zira and convinces her to confess. Taken to DeSousa’s office, Zira reveals that she was present to each murder where she arranged the places and lured the victims out to be killed. She even revealed the location of Kelly’s whereabouts to the killer. However, she lies that Dylan was the one who did the murders and he ends up getting locked up.
Later, Darcy talks with Chip on the phone about Zira’s confession. Chip believes that Dylan is innocent and that Zira placed him in jail to get out of Jeffrey’s way. He then ask about Darcy getting Jeffrey’s film in Sundance through her father, but she reveals that she is unable to. Chip then tells Darcy that he’ll meet up with her at the end of her street at midnight, saying that he has to do something before then.

At a convenient store, Dr. Boone was grabbing milk before the store closes until the lights are suddenly shut off and Jeffrey appears to her after killing the store’s owner. He then knocks her out and drags her out to take her someplace. Meanwhile, Darcy heads out to meet up with Chip, unaware that the police officer who was keeping an eye on her has been killed.

Upon analyzing Jeffrey’s fingerprints off of Dr. Boone’s trophy, DeSousa and Burrows realize that Jeffrey was Rick Mallory all along and they head to the house where Jeffrey filmed his movie at. Meanwhile, Dylan calls one of his friends to break him out of jail.

Later, Chip and Darcy arrive at the house where Chip starts to become aggressive and reveals that he has Dr. Boone in the house with him. Dr. Boone believes that Chip has gone insane from the nightmares of Jeffrey, but Chip removes his face and reveals he was Jeffery Lucas all along. Jeffrey reveals his real name is Rick Mallory and that the ashes found in the crash were his step-mother’s, Kari’s, ashes that he stole from the family crypt.

Jeffrey is about to kill them with his axe, but DeSousa arrives and fights with Rick. The two end up on top of the house where Rick knocks DeSousa down onto an antenna. Rick charges forward but DeSousa uses the antenna to flip Rick off the roof and land on one of the spikes near the ocean, seemingly killing him.

As the police are putting the house as a crime scene, Zara is taken to look at Rick’s body from the balcony. As she says the she’ll wait for his return, DeSousa and Dr. Boone meet up with her where DeSousa reveals that Rick will be going to the morgue this time. However, when DeSousa and Dr. Boone take another look at Rick’s body, he has mysteriously vanished.

## Kills

* **Kari**: Bolted to a door and impaled with a sword by Mark.(Indirect)
* **Mark Mallory**: Caught in a bear trap and gets hacked to death with an axe.
* **Tom Donaldson**: Axe buried in the chest.
* **Carl Hadden**: Attacked by a raven and killed.(off-screen)
* **Kelly 'Kel' Britton**: Photo shoved in mouth and neck cracked.
* **Convenient Store Owner**: Struck in the chest with an axe.(off-screen)
* **Officer Daniels**: Throat slit.(off-screen)