Adventures in Filmmaking 

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The Script

 

 

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Midnight’s Garden 

 

By Hamden Parleigh

 

 

 

 

 

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EXT. – HOUSE IN WOODS - NIGHT

 

A New Year’s Eve party is being held at JOHN’S rented house, which is more or less considered in the woods. Located in the sort of small rural town where the center of town consists of a general store, a bank, two restaurants, two bars, and a combination police/fire station. Basically picture any town in which a Stephen King novel is set. JOHN rented the house because the rent is relatively cheap, he can work from home, and he enjoys the quiet his residency offers him. The additional benefit is that when JOHN and his old friends from the city want to party, nothing beats a secluded house in the woods. JOHN and his friends are roughly 25 years old and this New Year’s Eve was shaping up to be a great party. There were girls, drugs and alcohol and no angry neighbors to worry about. New Year’s Eve 1985. 

 

INT. – KITCHEN - NIGHT

 

(Insert something from Van Halen’s 1984 here) is playing loud throughout the house. Among a handful of other people in the kitchen, JOHN and CATHY are mixing Margaritas on the countertop. 

 

JOHN

So I heard you had quite a night 

at Thirsty Joe’s last weekend…

 

CATHY

You’ve got people spying on me now?

 

JOHN

I don’t think a spy was needed to 

tell me you fell on your ass when 

dancing to(insert another rock song here).

 

CATHY gives JOHN a slight smirk.

 

CATHY

Someone knocked into me. You trying 

to say I can’t drink like I used to? 

Watch it, Johnny boy. I’ve heard some

stories about you turning into a 

lightweight.

 

JOHN

Not true. Not true at all. 

 

CATHY

How about this, barkeep? We’ll match

each other, drink for drink. See who’s 

truly lost their way. 

 

JOHN

Better be careful, Cath, you’re asking 

for trouble.

 

CATHY

We’ll see. 

 

JOHN

You might end up naked and passed 

out somewhere. 

 

CATHY

You might end up naked and passed out 

right next to me… Maybe that’s the plan.

 

CATHY flashes JOHN a crooked smile as she grabs her drink. 

 

INT. – BATHROOM - NIGHT

 

DAVID and SARAH are occupying the second floor bathroom. SARAH is pacing around the small room while DAVID is breaking COCAINE into lines on the edge of the bathroom sink. 

 

SARAH

Did you see the way Joanna was looking 

at me tonight? What the hell is her 

problem? You think she’s still pissed 

off that I told Jeremy that she cheated 

on Rob with that guy from Old Clarksville?

Rob was a sweetheart and yeah, he crashed 

her car, but it was barely an accident 

and she couldn’t drive anyway and yeah, 

he pawned her class ring, but I know he 

really needed to pay back Charlie cause 

Charlie was saying he would cut him off, 

but Rob really is such a sweetheart, 

you know?

 

DAVID

(staring at cocaine)

Do these lines look even to you?

 

SARAH continues pacing around the room.

 

SARAH

She could have just told him it was 

over but no, she had to sleep with 

that really ugly guy from Old Clarksville 

of all places. Rob was completely torn 

up about it and if she thought that 

Jeremy wouldn’t have found out, that’s 

crazy. So I just told him the truth, 

that she likes to fuck dirty Old 

Clarksville guys and probably guys 

from Tolham too.

 

DAVID

This is really fucking with me. Every 

time one line looks bigger than the 

others, I take a tiny bit off, but then 

another one looks bigger. Damn it.

 

SARAH

I don’t know why Jeremy would even be 

interested in her anyway. Her boobs 

are tiny and her ass is huge. She’s not 

pretty at all, don’t you think? And she 

can be such a bitch to her boyfriends. 

I don’t even know why I’m friends with her. 

 

DAVID

All right, this is the best I can do. 

One of them looks bigger to me, but I 

won’t tell you which one, you pick 

which ones you’re doing. 

 

SARAH

They all look the same. 

 

DAVID

OK, do them. Then we have to find John. 

His house, he has to try this stuff. 

 

SARAH

He was talking with Cath. Do you think 

they’re getting back together tonight?

 

DAVID

I think someone’s getting laid tonight. 

 

INT. – KITCHEN – NIGHT

 

JOHN and CATHY are sitting at the kitchen table with a few drinks and shot glasses between them. CATHY grabs the shot glasses and fills them up with TEQUILA. 

 

CATHY 

Fifth shot coming up!

 

DAVID and SARAH enter the kitchen, sit at the table and grab a couple empty shot glasses. 

 

DAVID

Deal us in. Then I gotta show you 

something, in the barn.

 

DAVID gestures to his nose.

 

CATHY

We kinda got something going on here. 

 

DAVID

I can see that, but you’re gonna 

want in on this.

 

CATHY pours the extra shots. 

 

SARAH

Trust me Cath, this shit is good. 

Remember when we all when out to 

the Magic Hat last summer and Daisy 

brought that weirdo dealer from 

Longfield? It’s like that shit good. 

 

JOHN

OK, you’re twisting my arm. Cheers.

 

The group all take their shots as KEVIN walks by to grab a beer from the fridge.

 

DAVID

Kevin, conference in the barn, 

right now.

 

INT. – BARN - NIGHT

 

The group of five are hanging out in the barn drinking beers and snorting cocaine. It’s New Year’s Eve and they are getting wrecked. SARAH is noticing that CATHY is becoming more touchy feely with JOHN and begins smiling to herself. 

 

EXT. – STREET AT END OF DRIVEWAY – NIGHT

 

The sound level of the party is diminished at this distance from the house. A new sound emerges from above as a SPACESHIP touches down from the sky and lands in the street at the edge of the driveway. No one is around to notice THREE ALIEN ROBOTS exit the craft and look toward the house party. 

 

INT. – BARN – NIGHT

    

The side party continues in the Barn. KEVIN is playing an air guitar solo while listening to the music from the house. CATHY is standing behind JOHN giving him a back and shoulders massage. SARAH and DAVID are sharing a cigarette. 

 

SARAH

Cath, tell me I’m right. Joanna 

doesn’t deserve to be with someone 

like Jeremy. You heard she just quit 

her job at the restaurant, right? Amy 

told me she walked out during her shift, 

said she could get a better job, can 

you believe that? Hell, I worked there 

like five years ago but at least I 

gave a two week notice like anybody 

else. I just feel that she thinks she’s 

more important than everybody else.

 

JOHN

You really don’t like her, huh?

 

SARAH

It’s not that I don’t like her, I 

don’t like how she treats other 

people. She was horrible to Rob and 

there was her old boyfriend Samuel 

that it felt like she was using him 

for something but hell if I know what 

it was cause he really was a loser. 

 

CATHY

I don’t know her too well. She went 

to school with you guys, right?

 

SARAH

Yeah, good old…

 

KEVIN suddenly jumps into the conversation and points at JOHN. 

 

KEVIN

Didn’t Joanna blow you at homecoming?

 

SARAH’S mouth drops open as she stares at KEVIN and then JOHN.

 

JOHN 

(Slowly)

Yes she did. 

 

SARAH

I don’t believe it. 

 

JOHN

 Yup. That’s all that ever happened 

between us. It was pretty good, 

I remember. Four out of five stars. 

 

SARAH 

(to DAVID)

Did you know about this?

 

CATHY leans in to whisper in JOHN’s ear. 

 

CATHY

I’ll show you five out of five 

stars tonight. 

 

INT. – HOUSE – NIGHT

 

As the party continues the front door BREAKS open and the first ALIEN ROBOT enters the house. It moves quickly towards a small group in the living room. The ALIEN ROBOT picks one guy up and THROWS him into the wall. It takes another guy’s head and SMASHES it into a wall. Another ALIEN ROBOT appears through the back door into the kitchen and takes down an unsuspecting girl whose back is to the door. The third ALIEN ROBOT enters the house and heads up the stairs to the second floor. By now the first floor is complete mayhem as the ALIEN ROBOTS continue their extermination. Screaming, glass SHATTERING and bones BREAKING drowns out the party music. 

 

INT. – BARN – NIGHT

 

The party in the barn hears the SCREAMS from the main house. CATHY breaks away from JOHN and rushes outside toward the house. She stops as she sees the ALIEN ROBOTS killing each party member. She opens her mouth to let out her own scream but JOHN catches up to her and puts his hand around her mouth to silence her. They both watch as one of the ALIEN ROBOTS throws a girl into the stereo system, stopping the music. JOHN turns around to see DAVID and SARAH behind him looking into the house, just as awestruck. KEVIN comes out of the barn last and when he sees the destruction happening in the house, he can’t stop himself. 

 

KEVIN

What the fuck is that?

 

As KEVIN says this, one ALIEN ROBOT that was in the process of CRUSHING a man’s head, turns and sees the five of them outside. The ALIEN ROBOT backs away from the window and goes out of view.  

 

JOHN

It saw us! Run!

 

JOHN grabs CATHY’s hand and starts to run towards the woods while DAVID and SARAH turn to follow them. KEVIN stands still, looking toward his car parked near the house. He starts to run toward the car, fumbling in his pocket for his keys, when the ALIEN ROBOT BURSTS through the window of the house and lands between KEVIN and his car. As the ALIEN ROBOT approaches, KEVIN is shell shocked, shitting himself. The ALIEN ROBOT KICKS KEVIN in the left kneecap, breaking the joint. KEVIN cries out in pain and falls to the ground. The ALIEN ROBOT towers over KEVIN, raising it’s foot directly over KEVIN’S head. KEVIN looks up with TERROR in his eyes, as the ALIEN ROBOT STOMPS on KEVIN’S head. The ALIEN ROBOT looks to the woods in the direction the other four ran. 

 

EXT. – WOODS – NIGHT

 

JOHN, CATHY, DAVID and SARAH are running through the woods. The winter has cleared most of the underbrush and snow is visible in some spots. They are all clearly confused and terrified. 

 

DAVID

Did you see Tom, man, fuck!

 

JOHN

Don’t stop running!

 

CATHY

What were those things, John?

 

JOHN

Hell if I know.

 

DAVID

Where the fuck are we going?

 

JOHN

I think if we keep going this way

we should hit a road and find a 

way to call the police. 

 

DAVID

We should hit a road? You’re not 

sure? 

 

JOHN

I’ve only lived here a couple of

months but I’m pretty sure. 

 

SARAH stumbles and falls. CATHY stops the others to help SARAH get back up. All at once SARAH begins CRYING.

 

SARAH

What are the cops gonna do? Those

things weren’t even human.     

 

CATHY

We have to try and get help. 

 

JOHN

We have to keep moving. 

 

 

EXT. – YARD – NIGHT

 

Two of the ALIEN ROBOTS are standing together in the yard, conversing by BIONIC LANGUAGE. One last SCREAM is heard from the house and a second later a body comes CRASHING through the second floor window and FALLS to the ground. The body is motionless. The ALIEN ROBOTS continue communicating, making plans to track the four in the woods. 

 

EXT. – WOODS – NIGHT

 

The four are back to running again. SARAH starts to slow down, exhausted. 

 

SARAH

David, wait, I can’t keep running. 

 

DAVID

Yes you can, Sarah, come on. 

 

CATHY

I’m getting tired too, I can’t 

keep this place much longer. 

 

DAVID

Where is this fucking road, man?

 

JOHN

I don’t know, I think we should 

have crossed it by now.

 

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The Project

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    For as long as Hamden Parleigh could remember, he had always wanted to make movies. He would tell people that his love of film began when he was ten years old and his parents let him watch Pulp Fiction (though he would leave out the fact that his parents did not let him watch the entire film, but rather only the dancing contest scene featuring John Travolta and Uma Thurman). But this was not true. In fact, the whole scene confused little ten year old Ham, but later on he thought that it sounded really cool to have watched and understood a movie like Pulp Fiction so young. The film that really piqued Ham’s interest in filmmaking was the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie (the 1990 version, obviously) which he had probably first seen when he was seven. The makeup that caused cartoon heroes to become “real”, the multiple fight sequences against the foot soldiers, and the total boss Shredder was as a villain quickly infected Ham. And honestly, how could it not? That movie is fucking awesome. 

 

    As a result of this infatuation, Ham tried several times to put a little film project together but things always seemed to get in the way. The start of a relationship, the end of a relationship, gaining and maintaining income producing employment, alcohol (among other drugs), and an American  general laziness were the main forces working against him. There was also the small problem that Hamden had no real idea how to put a film project together. Of course he had read some books, watched a ton of behind the scenes DVD features, and played around with a camera and cheap video editing software but he never took on the leadership role enough to get a group of people together to work for free to create a film from start to finish. That is about to change. Well… he will get a few people together to work for him for free. And a film will be made, but, let us not get ahead of ourselves. 

 

    One thing you can say about Ham is that he is optimistic. Or maybe the correct term is delusional. He has grand ideas and plans in his head and maybe they aren’t all as incredible as he might think (like the screenplay that only takes place in the bathroom of a hotel that spans nearly two hundred years) but there is something to value in his stark determination that one day he will make something he’s proud of. If only he could simply take the images in his head and transfer them onto a screen. It’s unfortunate that technology does not exist yet. It’s bullshit is what it is. It’s 2007 for fuck’s sake, we should be able to do cool stuff like that (also, pretty sweet how the date of the story was just snuck in like that, without having to add a specific disclaimer that states “This story takes place in the recent past, in the year 2007 in fact”). 

 

    On to the current project; it is probably best to just go ahead and let Ham explain it to his best friend Mike “Taint” Tainter, who shares the similar motive of wanting to be a filmmaker but at least has a greater sense of what is actually obtainable. 

 

Ham:    I found out about a local film festival that is accepting all submissions. All submissions that come with the one hundred dollar entrance fee. It’s for short films, between five and twenty five minutes in length. The submission deadline is in about a month and a half. That’s plenty of time to put something small together. I’ve already got most of the script written and I know you’ll have a few “problems” with the logistics of filming the script as is, but it probably only needs a few tweaks and I’m thinking we could have it hammered out with a final script after a few drinks tonight. It’s called “Midnight’s Garden” and it’s pretty fucking sweet. 

 

Taint:    You think we can get something done in six weeks?

 

Ham:     I know we can. You and I will really have to get our asses in gear to get all the pre-production stuff down in the next week or so, and then we should only need about three weekends to shoot a twenty minute short. Throw in some editing and I think we may even have an extra week before it’s due. 

 

    Some quick backstory on Mike Tainter. Mike, or “Taint” as he is known to his friends… because his last name is Tainter and that shit just writes itself, is the kind of “friend to the end” kind of guy. He’ll always give you a ride somewhere, or help you move and then help you move again in three months when you realize your new girlfriend is a total bitch. He’ll even go back to total bitch’s place to grab your Xbox and fishing pole that you left there, which is just a horrible thing to ask of him, but the Xbox is important, and Taint knows that, which is why he’ll do it and he won’t even be too much of a dick about it. Suffice to say, Taint’s a great guy. He also likes whiskey, baseball, and his favorite movie is Die Hard. 

 

    Taint met Ham when they were both juniors in high school. They grew up in different towns and went to different schools and met after Ham’s best friend (at the time) started dating Julie Briston, who had broken up with Taint’s best friend (at the time). When Taint’s buddy found out, he went searching for Ham’s friend and of course Taint was with him to lend moral (and possibly physical) support. It just so happens that Taint and his friend found Ham’s friend when Ham’s friend and Ham were hanging out at a pool hall. Just when Ham’s friend and Taint’s friend started to fight, Ham noticed that Taint was wearing the exact same Pearl Jam tour shirt that he himself was wearing — which may seem like a crazy coincidence but truth be told both Ham and Taint wore those shirts for many, many days in a row. The shirts were from that summer’s tour and the show was fucking incredible. McCready absolutely crushed the Even Flow guitar solo. That is how Ham and Taint became friends; no one remembers who won the fight between Ham’s former best friend and Taint’s former best friend. 

 

    Soon after, the two went to see Fight Club; they fell in love with the film. They talked about how awesome The Matrix was, and how The Phantom Menace was a total letdown (though they would both never admit that they actually loved the movie when they first saw it). They talked about coming up with a story like The Usual Suspects, something tense and well structured, and they wondered when Martin Scorsese would ever get his Best Director Oscar. They rented Lawrence of Arabia and North by Northwest and The Godfather, and realized that it was unlikely there would ever be a better director than Kubrick. And of course they watched Cameron Crowe’s Singles every few months, because fucking Pearl Jam and Alice in Chains and Chris Cornell were in the movie (and it’s a pretty good movie otherwise). 

 

    Taint ended up going away to a state college while Ham went to the local community college. Ham dropped out after a few months and started a job at a local bank. He hated that job but stayed there for three years. Taint received a degree in criminal justice but quickly found out that he didn’t like any work relating at all to criminal justice. Don’t feel bad for Taint. He walked into a temp agency one day and filled out some paperwork. A few days later he started a job at an insurance agency working for the support staff; maintaining files and organizing the office supplies. About a week into that job he was asked to hand deliver some documents to a client across town. The client was the owner of a building materials supplier. That company had five warehouse locations throughout the region. The owner was a relatively young guy, only a few years older than Taint, and didn’t necessarily enjoy the task of reviewing operational reports and needed someone to travel to each warehouse every week to be the “human presence” of the guy in charge. It might seem odd this owner would trust this responsibility to someone he just met, but that is just what happened. He talked with Taint for a few minutes at the company headquarters, went to lunch with Taint twice, and offered him this position; regional manager of Mill Stone Building Supplies. His job duties are to travel to each location, meet with the branch manager to review the weekly report and spend a few hours hanging out in the office as the boss’s “representative”. A typical week runs as follows: Taint drives two hours from his home on Monday morning to warehouse A. He stays in a hotel that night. On Tuesday morning he drives another three hours to warehouse B. He stays at the owner’s city apartment that night. He drives another few hours on Wednesday to warehouse C. Hotel that night. He starts to circle back to his home base on Thursday to get to warehouse D. He makes it back to his apartment on Thursday night and works at the main office (warehouse E) on Friday. Of course he has a corporate car for travel and a corporate credit card for food and drink. Overall, a pretty easy job, which pays him a ridiculous amount for the work he does. And he also got Ham a job in warehouse E as a supervisor. Not bad for a guy that graduated college with a degree in a field he didn’t care for and happened to walk into a temp agency one day.

 

    But lets get back to Ham and Taint in 2007. Sitting at the Kids Korner bar on a Friday night, Taint had just finished reading the “draft” script for Midnight’s Garden. Understandably, he had some concerns about certain aspects of the filming.

 

Taint:    Alien Robots? How the hell can we make a film with Alien Robots?

 

Ham:    I’m not married to the idea, I’m not even engaged, more like I banged her a couple of times and liked it and I’d definitely bang her again but I’m not gonna stop watching the Colts’ pregame to go to lunch with her parents.

 

Taint:    Where do you come up with this shit?

 

Ham:    You know I’m not completely serious about the alien robots, but once I get going on something I’ve got to get it all out. If I stop and question the writing, I’ll be second guessing every line of dialogue. I  promise you though, I’ll be flexible on the script. 

 

    Taint was a bit apprehensive regarding Ham’s promise to be easygoing with changes to his script and for good reason; about a year ago Ham had asked Taint to review a script for a TV pilot he had been working on. The exchange went like this:

 

Taint:    Not quite sure I understand what you’re going for. 

 

Ham:    Stuart Hill is a time traveling ghost!

 

Taint:    I got that. I’m confused by the fact that he has sex with a woman from the 1820’s.

 

Ham:    He possessed the farmhand who works on her husband’s land. You see, the ghost can take over people’s bodies and control them. It’s not really confusing. Stuart Hill gets shot just as he enters his father’s time machine so he dies in the machine and comes out as a ghost. He’s only 18 years old when he dies so of course he wants to bang some girls. And, since his father built the time machine he really doesn’t know how to run it so that complicates things. Also, the machine runs on solar power but it takes a few days to recharge so he is stuck in that time period until it charges. 

 

Taint:    So he kills time by having sex with that woman and then robbing a bank.

 

Ham:    Hell yeah. Stuart’s gonna get into lots of crazy situations! Each episode will end with him going back into the time machine and the next episode starts in a new time period. Where’s he going next? You’ll have to watch next week! 

 

Taint:    But what happens with the woman he had sex with? Won’t that mess up her life? And he goes back into the time machine with the guy from the past, what happens to his life?

 

Ham:    Who cares? 

 

Taint:    I feel like that is going to be a time paradox. Because he is changing the past, won’t that change the future?

 

Ham:    Nah, that’s not important. 

 

Taint:     What about when he comes out of the time machine again? Is he going to stay in that body?

 

Ham:    Nah, he’ll discard the body at some point in each episode. 

 

Taint:     So when this guy gets his body back…

 

Ham:    The term is un-possessed.

 

Taint:    Right. When he is unpossessed, what happens to him?

 

Ham:    Well obviously he will appears crazy because he will then be in a different time period. So the local authorities will take care of that in accordance with that time period’s laws. 

 

Taint:    Wow, that just seems messed up. 

 

Ham:     Taint, you’re getting caught up in these minor details, you’re not looking at the big picture. 

 

Taint:    Which is?

 

Ham:    It’s a time traveling ghost! Come on now, that’s fucking sick. He gets to bang chicks, fuck around with people doing ghost shit, and travel to different time periods. 

 

Taint:     I feel like he could decide to help people… like he sees something missing or wrong with their lives and maybe he could help and end up learning a few life lessons. Which is weird, cause he is technically dead. 

 

Ham:    Ehh, maybe. If we decide to go in that direction. But Taint, think of all of cool pranks a ghost from modern times could do to people in the past. Like if he had a couple walkie talkies from the fifties or something and then he jumped to the 1600’s. He could totally mess around with these people. 

 

Taint:    So it’s really just focusing on this ghost, fucking with people?

 

Ham:    For most of the episodes, yeah. But then, at some point, he comes out of the time machine and realizes it’s close to his “present year”. Like he died in 2030 and he jumps to 2028. So he then realizes that he is actually alive in 2028, and still in high school, so he possesses his own body and relives the last two years of high school. And he knows the things that are gonna happen in the future so he can have fun with that and then we get to the point when he gets killed and goes into the time machine but if he stops himself from getting killed… well what happens when a ghost possesses it’s own body and then stops himself from dying?

 

Taint:    Damn. That is pretty fucking cool. 

 

    Yes, that is pretty fucking cool. But the issues kept coming up; Taint felt there should be some resolution at the end of an episode and the ghost could use his situation to help people whereas Ham was stuck on thinking up various ways a time traveling ghost could create hilarious chaos. There was also Taint’s questioning that if you messed with these people in the past, it would definitely fuck up the future timeline and that shit is just too complicated to really go into but one example is that the ghost possesses a girl’s body (yes, Ham thought of plenty of unique scenarios where the ghost of an 18 year old guy from the year 2030 possesses a woman from the past) and then she (is it she, he or they) goes into the time machine and that girl is now gone from her original time period. What if she was originally going to be married and have kids from that time period and now those kids are never born… you get the idea. Ham did have a pretty good counterpoint that throughout history there have been claims of experiences with ghosts, so bam, that was his Stuart Hill the ghost. A mysterious disappearance? Stuart. Crazy people asserting they are from the past or future? You got it, Stuart was involved. Even when people swear up and down that they didn’t have sex with someone, you better believe Stuart was behind it, or on top of it, or, you know, whatever position was fitting. Ultimately this thought process only led to more debate and confusion and the pilot was eventually shelved. So it goes.   

 

Ham:    I promise you though, I’ll be flexible on the script. 

 

Taint:    The alien robots got to go.

 

Ham:    I agree, completely. 

 

Taint:    I don’t think there should be a huge house party. That’s tough to arrange and film. The less characters, the better. 

 

Ham:    I agree with you, not completely, but somewhat. 

 

Taint:    I would like to stay with something in the horror genre. 

 

Ham:    As bad as it sounds, you can get away with a lot of shit in a horror film. Shit actors, shit locations. Extremely low budget and horror go well together. 

 

Taint:    We need to change the idea of a horror film somehow. Shift it in some way. Maybe it could start out mostly as a comedy but then flip directly into blood and terror. 

 

Ham:    Yes! Like if you were watching this serious period piece with good performances and a heavy storyline and then bam, full blown hardcore porn. You would be completely floored. We could do something as unnerving as that, something that would really take people off guard. 

 

    Taint was interested. Interested enough to have a few drinks (gin and tonics) and try to come up with that idea to make something really cool that he could be proud of, or at least something that he wouldn’t feel was a complete waste of time. The drinks were drank and brainstorming was done but neither had good results. On the brainstorming front, Ham went from a house party to a sports locker room to a mechanic’s garage to a college frat house for a setting. Taint liked the mechanic’s garage for a setting because there would be “a thousand different ways to kill someone with all the tools present” but couldn’t think of an interesting plot. Taint offered up the idea of a murderous hotel clerk but it seemed too cliché. Actually most things they came up with seemed cliché but that is just a fact of making a film in 2007; everything has already been done before. On the drinking front, Taint switched to light beer while Ham moved on to Rum. Ham got stuck for way too long on a horror/soft porn/buddy cop story (where the police officers were male and female partners, “like every time they find a new clue, they bang each other”) and even though Taint indulged him for a few minutes they both knew it was never going to work. Taint tried taking the idea of a horror hybrid by combining a “horror film with a documentary, especially if the documentary is about something as mundane as a packaging plant” but he felt that would naturally turn into a found footage film, which they were both against as it was quickly becoming the new horror film sub-genre and they did not expect it to last. The ideas increasingly become more outrageous: “It takes place in a submarine” “Everyone that dies has a body part cut off and when you put them together it forms a message” “It’s just a guy tied up to a chair in a room with a bomb strapped to him and there’s a timer on the bomb that is counting down 20 minutes, and all we show is the guy staring at the bomb and yelling out as the timer drops to zero. No cuts, no flashbacks, no backstory, just 20 minutes of watching a guy watching the timer count down”. Long after the drinking began to take its toll on the coherence of the discussions, Ham and Taint walked out of the Kids Korner, took a left and a right and walked into Ham’s apartment. While Taint stretched out on the couch and Ham stumbled towards his bedroom, Taint came up with the only salvageable thought of the night. 

 

Taint:    I know what we can do. 

 

Ham:     Fuck off. 

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Taint:    Seriously, I know someone that can help us write this. 

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Ham:    Well… Who?

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Taint:    I’ll show you in the morning.

 

Ham:    Fuck off.