Thunder Rock

David Charleston campaigns against fascism and Britain's appeasement policy, but his reports are censored by his newspaper editor. Frustrated, he quits and launches a countrywide speaking tour under the banner 'Britain, Awake!' hoping to rouse the public. Yet the lack of response makes him question his country's will to resist the coming danger.

During a cinema visit, a newsreel details German occupation of the Sudetenland, but the audience chatters and ignores it. The scene crystallizes Charleston's despair at his fellow Britons' indifference to looming catastrophe. He decides to turn his back on Britain and seek solitude elsewhere.

Charleston crosses the Atlantic and secures a job as a lone lighthouse-keeper on Lake Michigan. The isolation provides the quiet he craves, away from political fights and public apathy. He begins to feel detached from his former life.

A commemorative tablet on the lighthouse rock lists the names of immigrants who perished 90 years earlier in a shipwreck. The tablet's memory haunts Charleston as he contemplates longing and loss. He starts to project his own unfulfilled dreams onto the past.

Ghosts materialize—the lost souls tell their stories of sorrow and escape, echoing Charleston's own sense of displacement. The ship's captain Stuart acts as mediator, guiding the conversations between the living and the dead. The boundary between time periods begins to blur.

Charleston learns of Ellen, a proto-feminist persecuted for her views, and becomes emotionally involved with the Kurtz family—Stefan, a progressive medical man, and his daughter Melanie. The spirits vividly recount their struggles, linking their fates to Charleston's situation. The haunting deepens into a personal bond.

An old colleague, Streeter, arrives, worried after learning Charleston's pay cheques have not cleared. He questions Charleston's mental state as he notices the strange spectral activity around the lighthouse. Charleston's isolation is put under pressure from the living world.

Charleston agrees to let the spirits have more freedom, but they soon begin to question where and when they are. The living and the dead confront the fragility of their perceived reality. The lighthouse becomes a crossroads between timelines.

Melanie reads the tablet describing their deaths, and Charleston reveals that civilization is ending and that his withdrawal was a cowardly retreat. The revelation upends the spirits' sense of purpose, but they linger rather than disappear. Charleston accepts that truth may demand courage.

Stefan confronts Charleston, insisting that fleeing is cowardly and that it's better to stand up for what is right, regardless of consequences. The spirits declare they will stay until Charleston faces his duty. He confronts the moral implications of action and inaction.

Charleston realizes he must return to Europe to carry on the fight for truth and justice. He resolves to rejoin the struggle rather than remain in withdrawal. The film sets the stage for a global confrontation against tyranny.

Charleston commits to returning to Europe to continue the fight for truth and justice. He accepts that he cannot escape responsibility or the encroaching danger. The story ends with Charleston embracing a renewed sense of duty as the world awaits the consequences of tyranny.