I live right next to a farm, so nighttime animal noises are par for the course. In the course of an evening I'll hear cats, dogs, cows, pigs, horses, chickens and roosters. There are actually several roosters, none which actually sound like roosters, or at least what you would imagine a real rooster to sound like. The roosters that live next door to me sound more like a combination of the following: the beginning of that Janet Jackson song "If", the grinding of a clutch in a standard and the noises which would come from one of those wiffle-balls-to-the-junk videos if the stupid soundtrack wasn't covering up the actual sound effects.
Last night I heard a noise which did not come from a farm animal. I don't know that it came from any Earthly creature of which I am aware. The sound I heard could maybe be compared to the fucked-up roosters, but add a child screaming and multiply it x 1,000. It was terrifying. And it ended very abruptly, so I wasn't exactly sure I'd heard it at all. Once I was fully awake I laid there and imagined what could be out there in the night making those noises. And thus my screenplay was born.
At one point in my life I was kind of a horror movie aficionado. I fucking loved them and was always searching for my next big scare. This all started with The Blair Witch Project. That movie scared the bejeesus out of me, and I've been hooked ever since. It was that kind of scary that at the time you totally wish it was over and that you could leave, but you're too scared to move and when it's over you want it back. (It's right here that I wish I could build a metaphor for some great love story I've been through, alas I've only gotten to Chapter 2 of my relationship book: "He's Just Not That Drunk Anymore.", hence I really have no frame of reference upon which to build such a metaphor.)
In my experience I find that 9 out of 10 scary movies begin to falter about 40 minutes into the film. I think the biggest mistake made by filmmakers is showing the bad guy / monster too early or at all. They are rarely well done, and in many cases it's kind of funny when they are finally revealed. Take for example, M. Night Shamylan movie "Signs". He didn't show the alien until the last 15 minutes so it didn't completely ruin it for me. But when he did finally show the alien the movie went from pretty effing scary to "UM, Is that some tall, gawky dude dressed in a camo body sock? Is that the outline of his package? I feel uncomfortable". I think the problem is that the filmmakers haven't spent enough time lying in their bed, alone, listening to bloodcurdling noises coming out of a pitch black night. One notable exception to this rule is The Descent, in which a bunch of chicks decide to go spelunking in some cave in Appalachia and encounter seriously fucked up shit. However, the scariest part of that movie is actually one of the female leads and her ability to both hook up with her best friend's husband and also kill shit. I highly recommend this film, and I didn't totally ruin the plot twists there. Just sort of. If you need to borrow a copy I totally own it.
Another mistake which filmmakers perpetrate is trying to give horror movies any sort of logical plot. Like when they try and give the monster some sort of sad, sordid past which seeks to explain why he's eating everyone's brains. Or that it's the Republican party who caused the release of the toxins that turned everyone into zombies. Horror movies need to be inexplicable. That's what makes them so scary, for me at least. You can't rationalize it. Rob Zombie does a really good job of making movies that are scary simply because you can't explain why they're happening. The victims aren't rich thoughtless assholes, or even sexually promiscuous hippies. They're nice normal people. The bad guys don't have some horrendous past that is causing them to be this way. They're just evil and like torturing and killing people. And they're not going to stop when the police come. They're probably going to kill the police. And maybe eat them. With cutlery. Terrifying cutlery.
My horror movie is going to start with an environmentalist goes out into the forest to live as he tries to find out why a particular species of moth is dying. Good guy + deep forest = awesome scary movie beginning. He's out there for a week and eventually befriends a squirrel (0r some other forest creature) who hangs out and keeps him company. (Note: There will be very little to no dialogue in this film. One great way to fuck up a scary movie is by letting some hack actor run all over the place throwing out pearls of retardation. Also, I suspect I'll be paying a hobo to be the hero of this film and my type of hobo needs to keep his trap shut lest he get all excited and vomit up the contents of last night's glue and malt liquor bender aka Cast and Crew Party.) Needless to say, aforemetioned cute forest creature ends up dead. Like, really dead. Hero is super bummed, but it's the deep forest, this stuff happens. Then weird stuff starts happening while hero is asleep, and he starts to hear strange noises (Like clicks. Clicks are wicked scary.) and find evidence of something fucking around in his vicinity. There will be several scenes of Hero lying in bed in complete darkness and silence. (Script notes: Hobo has fallen asleep or died.) Then Hero tries to contact the proper authorities. I'm not going to do any of that formulaic shit where the cops don't believe him and leave him to die, thus proving some bullshit point about the American justice system. In this movie the cops come out, and search the place and act like cops and do a really good job. But they don't find anything. Hero starts to believe that maybe he just imagined it all, but even so he's going to get ready to leave. Fuck the moths. He just needs one last night to pack up his stuff and get out of there. As he's laying in bed that night he starts to hear the weird noises again. (Scene of him lying in bed breathing loudly / chocking on a little bit of puke.) Then we hear the distinct noise of what sounds like tearing nylon. Like tent nylon. And then the brush of something passing through or against nylon. Hero is lying on his side in his bed, with his back to the tent. There is about 6 feet between he and the far wall of the tent. It would take about 4 seconds for something to move across this space. 1 second....2 seconds....3 seconds.....4 seconds. Hero is still lying there. Most likely paralyzed with fear / delrium tremens. Finally after about six seconds he starts to slowly sit up in bed. His breathing is ragged now, and that's the only sound. He knows there's something else in the tent. As he slowly turns around the darkness of the tent is only slightly broken by the moonlight coming in through a slit in the nylon wall. He squints to try and adjust his eyes to the lack of light. As his pupils dialate he thinks he can just make out the outline of something else in the room, but mostly he just senses its there. Until it begins to move. It's movement is slight, and it sort of bobs in place. It's back is turned to Hero but we can tell it has a vaguely human form. Hero catches his breath. The form stops moving and seems to tense. It begins to very slowly turn. We make out that it's about 4 feet tall and has a now obviously human form. We can discern a head, shoulders, torso, legs, feet. As the form turns the hole in the tent wall is stirred by a breeze and more light is let into the room. Some of this light falls across the front of the figure and we can see what it looks like. It has a bald head and a massive brow that hides where it's eyes should be. Where we would imagine a nose there are two holes and below that a perfectly round maw, circled with wrinkles and teeth. It's head rests on a short neck, below which extend two arms that end in hand-ish things which are tiny wrinkled and hairy. The torso is humanoid and below that two legs. The legs terminate in feet, which end not in toes, but instead in a sharp, pointy claw that reaches at least a foot from the thing's ankle. As we get this full picture of the creature it turns to fully face Hero and zeroes in on him. Then faster than we can see and much faster than Hero can act, the creature turns and begins to close the space between itself and the cot on which Hero sits. Then the movie's over.
So folks, this is what I was thinking about lying in my bed this morning at 3:39am as I listened to a raccoon skull fuck a squirrel. I have almost exactly copied the plot of Blair Witch except left out all the running through the forest and getting lost and shit. Mine may actually be more of a horror short than a feature length film. And in my movie I've incorporated my personal nightmare creature who has elements of all that which I fear in life: a small child, an elderly person, a midget, an uggo and excess body hair.
It's going to make billions.
I guess I'm going to have to get a job this fall after all.
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