Zing!
06-15-2004, 02:25 PM
After reading the rather... interesting... Halloween script in this new forum, I thought I'd add my two cents with a little teaser from a Halloween screenplay I wrote some time ago. This is about the first 6 or 7 pages or so, and I tinker away at it from time to time just for fun. I was going to save it for October - but what the hell... if there's any interest I'll post more of it later. I should add that it is inspired by the novelization of the movie written by Curtis Richards...enjoy!
FADE IN
EXT. COUNTRY – NIGHT
A rolling countryside - cloaked in darkness and covered in a chill, smothering fog. Tribal drums and horns pound a steady beat somewhere off in the distance. Clouds pass revealing a fat, full moon. A legend reads: SOUTHERN ENGLAND,1600 B.C. SAMHAIN.
LOOMIS (v.o.)
Journal entry for October 30, 1995.
I have worked the Michael Audrey Myers
case, both professionally and personally,
for the better part of thirty years.
Sometimes I feel I’m no closer now to
understanding his rage than when I first
met him in 1963. What no one knows – what
is only within the pages of this manuscript –
is that I have traced this “curse” for lack
of a better word, that has been placed upon
Michael back over a century. His great grand-
father, Wallace Nordstrom, was convicted of
murdering his wife and three of four children
with an axe on Halloween night, 1881. Before
that, James Nordstrom, 1859; and on down the
line…
EXT. COUNTRY – NIGHT
A large crowd has gathered around a huge, roaring bonfire. The flickering light of the flames reveal huge stone monoliths set in a massive circle. The crowd has gathered inside the ring – there is laughing and shouting in a strange, ancient tongue.
LOOMIS (v.o. cont.)
My suspicion is that this menace
goes back indefinitely – perhaps
before recorded history. Michael’s
bloodline has been afflicted; skipping
a century here, a decade there, since
time out of mind. But it lashes out
at the same time whenever it reappears.
Halloween – Samhain – the Druid
festival of the dead…
EXT. COUNTRY – NIGHT
Young adults, teenageers, race hand in hand around the fire as the elders of the village clap and cheer them on. One girl in particular, a beautiful girl with long black hair, attracts the attention of every boy within range of the fire’s glow. She seems to have won the hand of a strapping young lad with curly blond hair.
But not every boy. In the darkness, beyond the crowd, lurking by the ancient stones, a young teen boy watches with eyes as black as night. Watches - and waits. He passes silently through the clapping adults to get a better look at the young maiden with black hair, and remembers…
EXT. RIVERSIDE - DAY
The young boy peeks out from behind a tree and watches the maiden fill buckets from the stream. His intensely black eyes gleam merrily as he smiles and kisses a charm that hangs about his neck.
LOOMIS (v.o. cont.)
Does it go back that far? I can
only guess. It MUST have a starting
point. Some act – some deed that
brought misfortune and sorrow to this
poor family. It could have been any
other time of the year, but I have
no doubt that whenever it began, the
harvest moon was full and the Samhain
fires were lit.
EXT. RIVERSIDE – DAY
When the boy’s courage has been stirred, he moves tentatively from behind the tree and approaches the young girl. He tries to walk straight and true – but his gait is hindered by a lame left leg. He limps to his beautiful prize, his twisted leg DRAGGING stubbornly behind.
The maiden looks up, startled, as the boy approaches. The boy, enchanted by her dazzling looks, smiles sweetly and offers his outstretched hands in a gesture of friendship and goodwill.
The girl, misinterpreting his intent, scrambles backward, a look of utter HORROR on her face. She cries out, which alarms the boy. He shakes his head in calls out her name – trying to explain that he meant no harm.
But it is too late. She abandons her buckets and moves further back. The boy is frightened now too, and confused. He GRABS her by the arm in an attempt to calm her so that he might explain his behaviour. She screams once more and LASHES out with her hand – leaving a trail of deep scratches on his cheek.
He cries out in pain and then, overcome with RAGE, shoves her to the ground. In doing so, he loses his balance and stumbles. The maiden seizes the opportunity and flees. Before she gets far she is suddenly encircled within the strong arms of the young lad with curly blond hair.
The disfigured boy can only watch miserably as off in the distance the girl explains to her love what has happened. He expects to be beaten severely by the blond-haired boy, but what happens next startles him – and then ENRAGES him. The blond boy is laughing at him – LAUGHING! And now the maiden is pointing and laughing too!
Trembling, the boy with the black eyes can only turn and head downstream, alone, his humiliation complete.
EXT. CONTRY - NIGHT
The dancing teens have increased their tempo to a frenzied pace. They race around the fire, hand in hand with their lovers as they shout and sing to the thundering drums
LOOMIS (v.o. cont.)
Once it begain, it walked the earth
forevermore, generation to generation,
bringing its swift judgement with
terrible, sudden savagery. When its
lust was sated, it faded back into
the mist. But it would return. It
always returned. And on the eve of
Samhain, it would stir. If its lust
were powerful enough, it would rise
to carry out its curse. Then the people
would bolt their doors…
EXT. COUNTRY - NIGHT
The fair maiden and her blond haired lover pass before the black-eyed boy once, twice, three times. He is breathing heavily and clutching something beneath his cloak.
LOOMIS (v.o. cont.)
But bolting the doors did little
good. For this thing laughed at
locks and bolts, and besides, there
were always the unwary…
EXT. CONTRY – NIGHT
And when the dancing lovers pass before him again, the black-eyed boy STRIKES, pouncing with the liquid speed of a jungle cat. Something bright FLASHES in the harsh glare of the fire’s light. The crippled boy has drawn a long BLADE from his cloak – a blade used to cut the throats of pigs and goats.
Before the cheering crowd can grasp what is happening, the boy has brought the blade SAVAGELY across the beautiful maiden’s delicate throat. Blood ERUPTS in a geyser as the blade finds its next target – the blond boy’s torso. With inhuman strength, the black-eyed boy – once a weakling – now finds the strength of ten men and brings the deadly weapon home again, and again, and again, and again.
The crowd is silent. They gaze, eyes wide, jaws agape, at the ocean of blood that is spreading before the fire. And then they act. The black-eyed boy is SEIZED, and before he can raise his knife, he is TORN limb from limb.
Clouds cover the harvest moon, and thunder rumbles throughout the valley. The mighty trees, once still in the cool air, now stir as…
EXT. APARTMENT - NIGHT
Wind rustles autumn leaves that have not yet fallen to the ground. A young WOMAN walks to an apartment complex and buzzes the intercom outside of a security door.
A legend reads: SANTA MIRA, CA. - OCTOBER 13
She waits for several seconds, looks at her wristwatch and impatiently buzzes the intercom again. The name on the button reads: TATE, J. The woman shivers and pulls her jacket tight.
WOMAN
Come on, John!
In frustration she holds the buzzer down with her thumb, and then, scowling, rummages in her purse for a large ring of keys.
WOMAN
You better not be sleeping!
The woman picks through the keys until she finds the one she’s looking for. She admits herself into the front atrium of the complex. The harsh glow of fluorescent lights reveals HALLOWEEN decorations that adorn each tenant’s door – except one.
Door #6. This is the door she stops at.
The woman glances down the vacant hall with a frown and then starts searching for the room key on her massive key ring. She finally finds the right one and is about to insert it into the lock when her hand freezes in mid-air.
The door is slightly AJAR.
With one finger she pushes the door open completely. It silently swings wide, revealing an apartment in disarray – as if there has been a STRUGGLE. The woman’s eyes go wide with fear as she steps across the threshold.
WOMAN
John?
With a trembling hand she sets her keys and purse down on a table by the door. A 5x7 picture in a frame lies on its back. It’s a picture of herself and JOHN TATE, the son of LAURIE STRODE. A large kitchen knife has been smashed through the glass and into the face of John. The woman GASPS and puts a hand up to her mouth to stifle a scream.
Biting her lip, she unzips her purse and dumps the contents out onto the small table. Scanning the items, she grabs her cellular phone and dials 911.
As the call goes through, the woman hears the distinct sound of water dripping somewhere in the apartment.
OPERATOR (v.o.)
911. What is your emergency?
Holding her breath, the woman moves forward, intent on finding out what is making the dripping sound.
OPERATOR (v.o.)
Hello? Are you there?
WOMAN
(Whispering)
There’s someone in my apartment…
OPERATOR (v.o)
I’m sorry ma’am, you’ll have
to talk louder. Did you say there’s
someone in your house?
The woman steps further into the gloom of the apartment. Behind her, a closet door silently slides open. THE SHAPE steps out – his head tilts as if he is appraising the young woman. He studies her for a moment, and then glides noiselessly out the front door.
OPERATOR (v.o.)
Ma’am? Ma’am are you there?
The woman turns the corner and sees there is a door at the end of the hallway with a light on behind it. The dripping water seems to be coming from the BATHROOM.
Forgetting about the phone in her hand, she approaches the door and, choking back tears, pushes it open.
The phone DROPS to the floor and clatters away.
A man’s BODY is face down in the tub – the water is pink but becoming increasingly red. The man’s knees are on the tile floor – he is submerged up to his waist – a lifeless hand hangs limply over the side of the tub.
Candles are lit throughout the small room and rose petals have been scattered about the floor. On a small table by the bathtub, a flickering JACK ‘O LANTERN grins as if the keeper of some wicked secret. Beside the pumpkin sits a framed picture of LAURIE STRODE. It has been stabbed repeatedly.
Eyes wide, the woman backs away from the gruesome site. A single droplet of water DRIPS.
The woman opens her mouth and screams.
And screams…
OPEN CREDITS
FADE IN
EXT. COUNTRY – NIGHT
A rolling countryside - cloaked in darkness and covered in a chill, smothering fog. Tribal drums and horns pound a steady beat somewhere off in the distance. Clouds pass revealing a fat, full moon. A legend reads: SOUTHERN ENGLAND,1600 B.C. SAMHAIN.
LOOMIS (v.o.)
Journal entry for October 30, 1995.
I have worked the Michael Audrey Myers
case, both professionally and personally,
for the better part of thirty years.
Sometimes I feel I’m no closer now to
understanding his rage than when I first
met him in 1963. What no one knows – what
is only within the pages of this manuscript –
is that I have traced this “curse” for lack
of a better word, that has been placed upon
Michael back over a century. His great grand-
father, Wallace Nordstrom, was convicted of
murdering his wife and three of four children
with an axe on Halloween night, 1881. Before
that, James Nordstrom, 1859; and on down the
line…
EXT. COUNTRY – NIGHT
A large crowd has gathered around a huge, roaring bonfire. The flickering light of the flames reveal huge stone monoliths set in a massive circle. The crowd has gathered inside the ring – there is laughing and shouting in a strange, ancient tongue.
LOOMIS (v.o. cont.)
My suspicion is that this menace
goes back indefinitely – perhaps
before recorded history. Michael’s
bloodline has been afflicted; skipping
a century here, a decade there, since
time out of mind. But it lashes out
at the same time whenever it reappears.
Halloween – Samhain – the Druid
festival of the dead…
EXT. COUNTRY – NIGHT
Young adults, teenageers, race hand in hand around the fire as the elders of the village clap and cheer them on. One girl in particular, a beautiful girl with long black hair, attracts the attention of every boy within range of the fire’s glow. She seems to have won the hand of a strapping young lad with curly blond hair.
But not every boy. In the darkness, beyond the crowd, lurking by the ancient stones, a young teen boy watches with eyes as black as night. Watches - and waits. He passes silently through the clapping adults to get a better look at the young maiden with black hair, and remembers…
EXT. RIVERSIDE - DAY
The young boy peeks out from behind a tree and watches the maiden fill buckets from the stream. His intensely black eyes gleam merrily as he smiles and kisses a charm that hangs about his neck.
LOOMIS (v.o. cont.)
Does it go back that far? I can
only guess. It MUST have a starting
point. Some act – some deed that
brought misfortune and sorrow to this
poor family. It could have been any
other time of the year, but I have
no doubt that whenever it began, the
harvest moon was full and the Samhain
fires were lit.
EXT. RIVERSIDE – DAY
When the boy’s courage has been stirred, he moves tentatively from behind the tree and approaches the young girl. He tries to walk straight and true – but his gait is hindered by a lame left leg. He limps to his beautiful prize, his twisted leg DRAGGING stubbornly behind.
The maiden looks up, startled, as the boy approaches. The boy, enchanted by her dazzling looks, smiles sweetly and offers his outstretched hands in a gesture of friendship and goodwill.
The girl, misinterpreting his intent, scrambles backward, a look of utter HORROR on her face. She cries out, which alarms the boy. He shakes his head in calls out her name – trying to explain that he meant no harm.
But it is too late. She abandons her buckets and moves further back. The boy is frightened now too, and confused. He GRABS her by the arm in an attempt to calm her so that he might explain his behaviour. She screams once more and LASHES out with her hand – leaving a trail of deep scratches on his cheek.
He cries out in pain and then, overcome with RAGE, shoves her to the ground. In doing so, he loses his balance and stumbles. The maiden seizes the opportunity and flees. Before she gets far she is suddenly encircled within the strong arms of the young lad with curly blond hair.
The disfigured boy can only watch miserably as off in the distance the girl explains to her love what has happened. He expects to be beaten severely by the blond-haired boy, but what happens next startles him – and then ENRAGES him. The blond boy is laughing at him – LAUGHING! And now the maiden is pointing and laughing too!
Trembling, the boy with the black eyes can only turn and head downstream, alone, his humiliation complete.
EXT. CONTRY - NIGHT
The dancing teens have increased their tempo to a frenzied pace. They race around the fire, hand in hand with their lovers as they shout and sing to the thundering drums
LOOMIS (v.o. cont.)
Once it begain, it walked the earth
forevermore, generation to generation,
bringing its swift judgement with
terrible, sudden savagery. When its
lust was sated, it faded back into
the mist. But it would return. It
always returned. And on the eve of
Samhain, it would stir. If its lust
were powerful enough, it would rise
to carry out its curse. Then the people
would bolt their doors…
EXT. COUNTRY - NIGHT
The fair maiden and her blond haired lover pass before the black-eyed boy once, twice, three times. He is breathing heavily and clutching something beneath his cloak.
LOOMIS (v.o. cont.)
But bolting the doors did little
good. For this thing laughed at
locks and bolts, and besides, there
were always the unwary…
EXT. CONTRY – NIGHT
And when the dancing lovers pass before him again, the black-eyed boy STRIKES, pouncing with the liquid speed of a jungle cat. Something bright FLASHES in the harsh glare of the fire’s light. The crippled boy has drawn a long BLADE from his cloak – a blade used to cut the throats of pigs and goats.
Before the cheering crowd can grasp what is happening, the boy has brought the blade SAVAGELY across the beautiful maiden’s delicate throat. Blood ERUPTS in a geyser as the blade finds its next target – the blond boy’s torso. With inhuman strength, the black-eyed boy – once a weakling – now finds the strength of ten men and brings the deadly weapon home again, and again, and again, and again.
The crowd is silent. They gaze, eyes wide, jaws agape, at the ocean of blood that is spreading before the fire. And then they act. The black-eyed boy is SEIZED, and before he can raise his knife, he is TORN limb from limb.
Clouds cover the harvest moon, and thunder rumbles throughout the valley. The mighty trees, once still in the cool air, now stir as…
EXT. APARTMENT - NIGHT
Wind rustles autumn leaves that have not yet fallen to the ground. A young WOMAN walks to an apartment complex and buzzes the intercom outside of a security door.
A legend reads: SANTA MIRA, CA. - OCTOBER 13
She waits for several seconds, looks at her wristwatch and impatiently buzzes the intercom again. The name on the button reads: TATE, J. The woman shivers and pulls her jacket tight.
WOMAN
Come on, John!
In frustration she holds the buzzer down with her thumb, and then, scowling, rummages in her purse for a large ring of keys.
WOMAN
You better not be sleeping!
The woman picks through the keys until she finds the one she’s looking for. She admits herself into the front atrium of the complex. The harsh glow of fluorescent lights reveals HALLOWEEN decorations that adorn each tenant’s door – except one.
Door #6. This is the door she stops at.
The woman glances down the vacant hall with a frown and then starts searching for the room key on her massive key ring. She finally finds the right one and is about to insert it into the lock when her hand freezes in mid-air.
The door is slightly AJAR.
With one finger she pushes the door open completely. It silently swings wide, revealing an apartment in disarray – as if there has been a STRUGGLE. The woman’s eyes go wide with fear as she steps across the threshold.
WOMAN
John?
With a trembling hand she sets her keys and purse down on a table by the door. A 5x7 picture in a frame lies on its back. It’s a picture of herself and JOHN TATE, the son of LAURIE STRODE. A large kitchen knife has been smashed through the glass and into the face of John. The woman GASPS and puts a hand up to her mouth to stifle a scream.
Biting her lip, she unzips her purse and dumps the contents out onto the small table. Scanning the items, she grabs her cellular phone and dials 911.
As the call goes through, the woman hears the distinct sound of water dripping somewhere in the apartment.
OPERATOR (v.o.)
911. What is your emergency?
Holding her breath, the woman moves forward, intent on finding out what is making the dripping sound.
OPERATOR (v.o.)
Hello? Are you there?
WOMAN
(Whispering)
There’s someone in my apartment…
OPERATOR (v.o)
I’m sorry ma’am, you’ll have
to talk louder. Did you say there’s
someone in your house?
The woman steps further into the gloom of the apartment. Behind her, a closet door silently slides open. THE SHAPE steps out – his head tilts as if he is appraising the young woman. He studies her for a moment, and then glides noiselessly out the front door.
OPERATOR (v.o.)
Ma’am? Ma’am are you there?
The woman turns the corner and sees there is a door at the end of the hallway with a light on behind it. The dripping water seems to be coming from the BATHROOM.
Forgetting about the phone in her hand, she approaches the door and, choking back tears, pushes it open.
The phone DROPS to the floor and clatters away.
A man’s BODY is face down in the tub – the water is pink but becoming increasingly red. The man’s knees are on the tile floor – he is submerged up to his waist – a lifeless hand hangs limply over the side of the tub.
Candles are lit throughout the small room and rose petals have been scattered about the floor. On a small table by the bathtub, a flickering JACK ‘O LANTERN grins as if the keeper of some wicked secret. Beside the pumpkin sits a framed picture of LAURIE STRODE. It has been stabbed repeatedly.
Eyes wide, the woman backs away from the gruesome site. A single droplet of water DRIPS.
The woman opens her mouth and screams.
And screams…
OPEN CREDITS