Script Peek: Mother Nature

The “Victim” Ballet Daily Dialogue: Rage, By Any Other Na...

Script Peek: Mother Nature

Last week, I was reminded of a horror screenplay contest that had 12 days left. I thought it’d be an interesting challenge to write a script with no preparation in 12 days. Chan-wook Park’s Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance was written in two weeks and that turned out fine. The rules I gave myself were that I couldn’t know the ending until I got there, I couldn’t think too far ahead, I have to make a turn anytime I feel that I know what’ll happen next while making the turns fit the story, and to not restrict myself in darkness, sex, or violence. If I don’t make the deadline, that’s fine because it’s still a nice experiment. But I’ll definitely try to meet it. I have more pages written, but here are the first five. Everyone gets to see the effect of all those Daily Dialogues.

FADE IN:

INT. FANCY RESTAURANT – NIGHT

The building, scattered with couples, is like a large, white

canopy, with glass walls and string lights along the

ceiling. The restaurant is lit only by the tiny lights,

which makes the conversations all the more intimate. One

such dialogue of intimacy happens twixt two women.

The woman with the bleach-white hair, beads threaded all

over, wears a polka-dotted dress. Her name is GLORIA

WHITTAKER. She rests her chin on her folded hands, like a

cradle, and looks lovingly into the other woman’s eyes.

GLORIA

You have a very interesting last

name, Ms. Barker-Bathory.

BIANCA BARKER-BATHORY slowly spins a spoon lengthwise twixt

her thumbs and forefingers. Her crimson hair is parted to

the left, and she wears a black, sleeveless dress that zips

up front.

BIANCA

My parents married, but didn’t take

each other’s last names. When I

entered their lives, they chose to

give me both.

GLORIA

Makes you sound…

BIANCA

Married?

GLORIA

Regal.

BIANCA

That’s a little better than

married.

BIANCA’S bare foot trails up and down GLORIA’S fishnetted right calf.

BIANCA

(cont’d)

Especially now.

GLORIA smiles.

GLORIA

You tend not to hear wedding bells

on the first date.

She then opens her legs.

BIANCA

I’m more interested in choirs.

She puts down the spoon and picks up her glass of red wine.

GLORIA glances around and scoots her chair closer to the

table, until her chest presses against it.

GLORIA

The entire choir?

BIANCA gently shakes her head as she sips her wine.

BIANCA

Just an alto singer.

Her foot raises high and between GLORIA’S thighs.

GLORIA slowly drops her hands to the sides of the table and

grips them as she closes her eyes.

GLORIA

Oh yeah?

BIANCA smirks.

BIANCA

Yeah.

She continues sipping her wine as GLORIA’S breathing begins

to slow and grow heavy, as her thighs tighten around the

tantalizing foot, as her hips begin to slowly rock.

GLORIA

My voice can get pretty high.

BIANCA

I bet.

And, suddenly, BIANCA stops. She then sits back and crosses

her legs. GLORIA’S eyes shoot open and look around for

someone who could’ve spotted them.

BIANCA

No one saw us.

GLORIA sighs.

GLORIA

Then why’d you stop?

BIANCA

I’d rather be your only audience.

She holds up her glass.

BIANCA

(cont’d)

And I still have more wine.

GLORIA snatches the glass with a grin, drinking as much as

she can before coughing.

BIANCA leans in with her napkin and dabs the wine around

GLORIA’S ebony lipstick.

GLORIA

I guess we better go to your

theatre, Ms. Barker-Bathory.

BIANCA licks the wine-stained napkin.

BIANCA

I guess so.

INT. BIANCA’S LOFT APARTMENT – LATER

The freight elevator gets to the floor as the two make out

as if they taste like candy, the sweetest white chocolate.

GLORIA can’t keep her hands off of BIANCA. BIANCA is more

still, but is still enjoying herself.

BIANCA pushes herself away, her red lipstick smeared with

her kissing partner’s black lipstick.

BIANCA

I have to open the door.

GLORIA pulls her back, lips smeared in a similar way.

GLORIA

Mmm, no, you don’t.

BIANCA

I will when I tell you where I

found a junkie once.

GLORIA pushes her away.

GLORIA

Yeah, open the door.

BIANCA lifts the door and lets GLORIA walk into her

APARTMENT. She follows, after pressing a button, and lowers

the door slowly.

The elevator whines its way up.

Being a loft, it’s essentially one giant room. One wall as a

series of windows with a second-story view of the

neighborhood. BIANCA keeps the loft sparse. Different rugs

are scattered on the wooden floor like patches. All the

lighting on the inside comes from white cubes on the floor.

A canopied bed occupies one corner, and a kitchen area

occupies another. A wine rack as high and wide as the grave

stands next to the refrigerator. The BATHROOM is tucked away

by the kitchen.

BIANCA

Gloria, I know it’s not much…

GLORIA

Hmm?

BIANCA

But take a look around. I’m gonna

get more comfortable.

GLORIA smiles.

GLORIA

Then your lips can finish what your

toes started.

She makes a disappointed noise.

GLORIA

(cont’d)

That sounded better in my–

BIANCA shuts her up with a kiss, then goes to the bathroom.

GLORIA looks around the APARTMENT, then goes to the antique,

mirrorless dresser near the bed. Above it, on the brick

wall, are two framed painting reproductions: Caravaggio’s

Judith Beheading Holofernes and Jacques Resch’s Retour. She

squints at the Neo-Surreal Retour, and leans in close to the

Baroque Judith.

GLORIA

(cont’d)

Wow, a Caravaggio.

She walks to the window wall, then stands at it while

looking down. The bar across the street is loud and has the

only people around for at least two blocks in either

direction.

Her fingers trail her neck as she remembers the magic at the

table.

GLORIA

(cont’d)

You kn–

A butcher’s knife is STABBED through the base of her skull.

The blade goes through her mouth, chipping a tooth.

GLORIA’S head SLAMS into the window as the blade PIERCES

through the glass by inches.

The elevator groans downward, bringing tendrils of fog with

it.

She SQUIRMS as she CHOKES on her blood, the same blood

that’s staining her bleach-white hair and polka-dotted

dress. The same blood that SPLATTERS onto the window,

spiderwebbing cracks from the blade.

Her screams are gurgled groans… then coughs… then

nothing.

BIANCA waits until the victim is utterly dead before YANKING

the knife out and watching the corpse DROP onto a rug.

The elevator door is raised and the fog belches outward.

BIANCA

Make sure her right leg is ok,

Wendy. I don’t want the same

mistake that happened to Camille.

From the elevator, a woman steps out. A woman in only the

loosest term. Her grotesque figure is hunched over and

wrapped in bandages, and her back is covered with long nixie

tubes. Four on either side. The glass tubes flicker various

numbers with a red-orange, pulsing glow. The bandages are

tattered, dangling, and molding. Each step is helped by her

spike-like crutches that are stitched to her wrists. Her

blood-red eyes twitch as they examine parts of the room

before seeing the late GLORIA. The steps grow quicker as she

makes her way to the corpse. The hem of the dress is flung

up, and the grotesque woman gazes at the right leg as a fly

would its meal. WENDY looks at BIANCA.