Horror short: Burglar notices a home with piled-up newspapers and an uncut lawn, and he determines it’s a prime target. He breaks-in and starts ransacking; upon entering the bedroom, however, he finds the homeowner: deceased, rotting, and hanging from a noose slung around the ceiling fan.
Horror movie: A group of friends rent an Airbnb beside a lake. Their week begins well—calm and relaxing—but a previous renter (who copied the key, or is reusing the door code) sneaks in while they’re sleeping, holds them hostage, tortures them, hunts them down in the woods, and kills them.
Horror movie based on a dream I had: Army of brainwashed minion children, ages 8-14, all wearing neat/tidy British catholic school uniforms, with their faces painted like skulls in the style of Día De Los Muertos (stark black and white); they don't speak and they travel in groups, to confidently stare you down and follow you, and surround you. They wield clubs made of twisted Nerds Rope, and they have 6”-12” stilts made of it, too. Their brainwashing facility is a subterranean room marked as “Ingress" or "Boarding" in the parking garage of an airport, and inside this small room are a few classroom desks (desk and seat attached; maybe 24 total, all occupied) that face the forward wall, which is not a blackboard but instead is a floor-to-ceiling vortex portal of swirling, blinding white light; shimmering, radiating, and sounding like blaring Euro House dance music. The leader of these stoic brainwashed kids looks just like them except his long socks aren't pure black, they're black and yellow-striped, and he wears a cap like Bon Scott did. All of the kids have black hair and irises, and the uniforms are black vests over white shirts, and a black skirt/pants with black socks and spiffy black shoes, and a dark red tie or knotted ribbon.
Short film, “The Pilot”: An arrogant and selfish commercial airline pilot, recently divorced by his wife (due to his personality flaws), walks into work and takes his seat in the cockpit. Whilst getting airborne he debates dropping the plane out of the sky and killing himself, along with the 120+ passengers and crew; on the outside he looks fine, but on the inside he’s going through a literal bout of insanity. He has a couple different visions of what it might be like when he does it, if he does it: one is him casually announcing over the PA, along the lines of, “This is your captain speaking. We’re currently at a cruising altitude of 35,000 feet. If you’ll look out the left side of the plane, you’ll see your eminent demise. We’ll be approaching the ground in roughly ten minutes at a descending angle of 81 degrees, with speeds reaching roughly 700 miles per hour. We’ll be landing unexpectedly in a field in Nebraska soon, so please enjoy the rest of your flight.” And he reconsiders the conspiracy of how “assuming the crash position” is just a posture intended to protect your teeth so that your body is easier to identify, and hence the classic phrase “that posture is only good for kissing your ass goodbye.” A screaming baby and bratty kid, along with a few asshole passengers, have made him think even more about doing it. He primes to do it, but flips autopilot back on and decides against it: he doesn’t have the balls, and he’ll just have to get over his frustrations…
Short film, “Contracted Killer”: A guy goes around killing people on behalf of a girl that he loves (per the hitlist she drew up) and, after they're all dead, he goes to her and she thanks him before shooting him dead, covering her tracks.
“Unfortunate Bride”: A woman can't decide if she wants to marry a wealthy guy who loves her and would support her although she doesn't love him or if she wants to break off the engagement, be poor again, and look for love elsewhere. In the end, the camera pulls away from the boardwalk at their wedding as the bride leans unhappily against a railing and the band behind her plays "Blue Danube Waltz", and fade out. (In this day and age, it’s a real consideration for financial stability over love.)
a stereotypical hero (square-jawed white guy) and villain (has a scar on mouth and wears black) are both commanding forces to take over a planet. the hero's intentions seem good and the villain's seem bad. in the end, the hero wins, but it turns out that he was the bad guy and we rooted for the wrong guy to win based solely on his appearance. :(
“The Talkative Hostage”: It begins with a foursome of men dragging a bound and gagged hostage into an empty factory building. one of the men got shot in the arm by the police. one man has a duffel bag full of cash. the other two toss the hostage against the wall, and walk the injured one into another room. the hostage tries speaking to the remaining one, but it's muffled. the man walks over and removes the gag, asking "what?" impatiently. the hostage repeats himself, ... ... Eventually, through coaxing, the hostage gets 3 to turn on one, and then the wounded guy to try to kill another guy (by making him think the other guy shot him as opposed to having been shot by a cop), and he gets killed instead. then one tries to leave with the money and they have a standoff and shoot each other. the hostage looks around, searching everywhere with his eyes nonchalantly, then scoots over to a table and grabs a tool behind his back, and begins cutting away at his bindings. he then grabs the money and leaves, whistling along with whatever song played at the beginning of the film.
Short film, “The Insomniac”: There is a guy who suffers from chronic insomnia after a car accident. He slowly gets muscle fatigue, hallucinations, and mental fatigue, along with seeing things in slow motion, having moving objects seen as blending together, and double vision. Eventually this causes him to stray into the street and be hit by a car... again. And the cycle renews, placing him right back at the beginning of the film.
Short film, “The Pact”: A group of 5 friends form a suicide pact, because they have given up on life, finding it hopeless and meaningless ("a drop in an ocean," "a cog in a machine," "one speck in all of the universe," etc). one of the friends is soon struck dead by a car when crossing the street. the friends can't figure out if it was them committing suicide or not (being that there was no note), thus putting the pact in motion. one thinks it was suicide. one thinks it wasn't. one thinks that it has started regardless, since they agreed to all die together. one begins rethinking that the pact is a bad idea—that life might not have meaning to you but, after witnessing how their friend’s death impacted so many other people, you should maybe maintain your life because it is important to others, and also maybe you will someday find something worth living for. this argument wins over the one who thought it wasn't suicide and the one who was impartial but figure the pact in effect. the one who thought it was suicide says they're all traitors and commits suicide later that week. the police later rule the first one's death as an accident.
the life of a kid raised to be a sumo wrestler, his increasingly successful career, and his early death due to poor health.
“The Man”: A man comes to town and meets a woman; she’s attracted to him, for reasons she can’t discern, feeling like she knows him so well already. He takes a liking to her troubled son and becomes a sort-of surrogate father, wanting to make sure that his life gets better, all the while avoiding the woman's advances. This is because, as it turns out, the man is the adult version of the son, from the future. (The woman is rightfully weirded-out when she realizes this, but things smooth-over and he gets the son’s track righted before returning home, to his own now-distinct timeline.)
Short film, “Twisted Game Show”: Akin to Ninja Warrior and Minute to Win It, except the 3 strike system isn't just a few tallies: three members of the contestant’s family are in cages and, with each loss of a challenge, a family member dies right in front of them (spike through the head, electrified, etc). They have 10 challenges (physical, mental, etc.) to complete to walk free with $1,000,000. (The setting is a dystopia with poor proletariats who, by and large, come on the show to earn enough to survive for a few more years beyond starvation wages.)
Web series: Popular songs with their lyrics spoken in an ‘old man prospector’ voice, but reworded as if the old man were telling a story, and the phrasing is as far from the actual lyrics as possible. It could either be the whole song or just a chunk with a reveal of the actual song appearing sometime into it or after. Example: “It were some kind of extraordinary event; if I were to use a comparison, I’d say it were like TNT or some sort of explosion” aka “this was something special; this was just like dynamite.” –Usher, “OMG.”
Shot-for-shot remake of the morning routine montage from American Psycho where Patrick Bateman is replaced with Christian Bale’s Batman persona, gruff voice and all.
Comedy short: two e-sports commentators [and a cheering crowd] speedily and enthusiastically narrate the ups and downs of a covertly-filmed couple's relationship over a long period of time (edited together to quickly cover the gaps). Their meetcute, first date, an intimate encounter, accidental pregnancy, abortion ("Oh! That's gotta hurt!" "They ARE feeling a morale setback here, but they're getting through it TOGETHER"), stagnation, fighting ("It is on the rocks, and not looking well." “SUPER unsteady, there.” “Bad form on that retort. DEFINITELY just insulted her parents.”), falling out, rekindling ("What a creative solution to a major issue.” “EXPERTLY managing ZONE COVER."), dating again, romance, holiday with family, cuddling ("He's activating his Ultra! LOOK at that boner!" "He's copping a feel, and that breast is SUPPLE." "She accepts his advance… they rally… and it seems they are PUSHING into familiar territory!" "This is a wonderful moment and I'm glad we can be a part of this.") and making love, vacation together, proposal ("A BEAUTIFUL play, incorporating both players' strengths into one holy union." “That’s strategy prevailing over tactics.”), wedding planning, and the wedding ("OH MY GOD! The ring - is - ON, and now-" "LOOK AT THAT!" "OH MY GOD, he has KISSED THE BRIDE! Wow! Never before have I seen such a climactic finish!" "Folks, this has been a wild ride, and I'm glad I got to witness all of it. What a wonderful finale to a great game.") and that’s about it.
Slow dolly towards a dimly-lit stage with a beatnik front-and-center, sitting on a stool coolly, with a beret on their tilted head, hiding their face. The audience unseen waits in anticipation, waiting in anticipation, waiting, and the beatnik begins reciting the first line of “Twinkle, twinkle little star,” and tilts their head up while saying the next line “how I wonder what you are” and confidently continues “up above the world so high,” pause, “like… a diamond… in the sky.” Head tilts down. Lights dim; bongos rhythmically bang out; audience snaps their fingers. Dolly back… and dark.
A guy goes to the bar intent on scoring, and is so desperate he brings roofies; he starts hitting it off with a girl but wants to be certain they go home together, so he spikes her drink with the roofies (and, whether or not it's foretold here for the eyes of the viewer, she spikes his drink for the same reason). Then, he wakes up, and he realizes he can't remember last night—and he realizes he was roofied—and he wakes her up to politely ask, and she's like "seriously? You roofied me, too? I can't remember a damn thing," and it's like a fucked-up meetcute that they were so nervous to NOT be hitting it off that they assured the intercourse portion of the night, just to be safe—even though they totally hit it off anyways. And they could have “lived happily ever after” if they didn’t roofie each other.
An otherwise-normal guy (protagonist, inner narration) who has as an affinity for women's shoulders figured out how to feel as many as he'd like without being weird. He will wear a long overcoat to a nice restaurant, wearing grey slacks with black shoes; sit down, eat a little, and then, knowing the waitress won't return for a while, take off his coat revealing a chef's shirt, at which point he’ll walk around to different tables, placing his hands on women's shoulders and asking them how they're liking the meal and if they're having a good time, and being really cordial so the shoulder touching just seems welcoming—but really he’s getting his kicks—and he gets-out easy just by tossing that overcoat back on.
“She Was Asking For It”: She walks into a wall and gets a bruise on her face—coworkers ask if everything at home is ok, but she says she walked into a wall; they all think it's an excuse and won't believe otherwise. Later she falls down the stairs and hurts her arm—coworkers don't believe her again. Later, her boyfriend visits her at work and, in the back room, they get a bit frisky and she asks him to spank her lightly, and then bite her, and then slap her face—and that’s exactly when a coworker walks in, and quickly intervenes, saying, “What the fuck is wrong with you??" and he replies, “She was asking for it!" Suddenly all of her coworkers are screaming at him.
“The Reason”: A boyfriend is apologizing for his shortcomings to his girlfriend, but he isn't good with words and he isn't super considerate so he begins by parroting the memorized lyrics of "The Reason" by Hoobastank, and—after the first verse and the first repetition of the chorus—she realizes he's just singing fucking Hoobastank, and she gets pissed.
“Top Gun Dinner Plans”: In the heat of a fighter jet battle, squadron commanders Red Leader and Gold Leader share a radio exchange typical of military radio communication, but it transitions away from battle maneuvers to their dinner plans because they haven't been out in a while and it'll be nice to get back home and have quality time together.
“The Vacuum Salesman”: A door-to-door salesman in 1962 carries his demonstration vacuum everywhere he goes. It's his trusty vacuum, and it gets him a buyer 25% of the time—damn good numbers. Life is good. One day, however, a lower-class housewife wants to buy his well-worn demonstration vacuum for a discount rather than order a new one at full-price; he declines, so she smacks his skull with a cast iron skillet. He wakes up from a coma 22 years later, in 1984. He learns JFK was killed, the USSR is stagnating, American culture is completely radicalized, quaint prosperity is dead, punk is alive, kids cuss, kids smoke, parents don't give a fuck, the Vietnam War happened, blacks have rights, and door-to-door salesmen are now selling “plastic bowls” called Tupperware—a far-cry from the glorious metal servants that are vacuum cleaners. He tries to adapt; he even tries selling Tupperware, but it's too difficult to live in this new world. It may be the same country, but the nation is completely different; it's an abomination. After his psyche snaps, he seeks out the housewife (who he learns managed to swipe the demonstration vacuum from him before it became a crime scene) to reclaim his treasured old friend. She's there, albeit older, and she doesn't recognize him until he asks for his vacuum. She resists. He kills her over it and drags his beloved vacuum on a getaway, evading the police in a stolen car. Eventually they careen into a ravine, and he wades out of the car with the vacuum; the police shoot at him, and the bullets hit him and his vacuum both; he plunges into the water, seemingly dead... The police can't reach his body in the fast water, so they head down to where the river slows at a bend, to meet up with where it will likely make landfall; as soon as they depart he moves normally again, breathing and treading water. The vacuum took most of the bullets (he was only grazed) and, as they hit a sandbar, he mourns his loss with great sobs. He exits the river, carrying his vacuum like a wife over the threshold, and he buries her and gives a eulogy. He hitchhikes out of the area, far away, to a new city. There, he lives penniless and on the streets. Years pass; it's 1997, he's much older; he grumbles to a passing student, "Can you spare some change for an old man?" "Sorry, I don't have anything." "I used to be a salesman." "Market turn sour on you?" "I sold vacuums." "I don't know that market. Did the bubble pop?" "Did what?" "Let me rephrase. What’s got you living out on the street?" "A woman tried to kill me for my vacuum; she put me in a coma for 22 years. I killed her and took the vacuum back. I ran from the cops and she saved my life—my sweet vacuum. I made it here, but I had to leave her behind." "Uh-huh. Sure," the student groans, turning away and grumbling, “Crazy-ass fool... Fucking homeless druggies spouting gibberish in the streets; this country’s going to shit," and so on, leaving the former vacuum salesman despondent on the curb.
Original document created 08/15/2013.