The House (36 page)

BLACK SCREEN

MALE VOICE (V.O.)

An image on a piece of film...is like a ghost.

FALL IN:

INT. BEDROOM - NIGHT

Rapid FLUTTERING sound falls over all.

Protagonist MELVIN lying on a bed in a tacky but tidy bedroom. The only light comes from the moon through the window and a bleary yellow lamp out in the hall.

MALE VOICE (CONT. V.O.)

I'm a ghost.

CLOSE - Melvin's face. Eyes wide in dread, mouth open. Rapid TICKING O.S.

MELVIN

(to himself)

I'm paralyzed.

HOLD ON: Melvin's face. We hear soft, rapid FOOTSTEPS O.S.

MELVIN'S POV - BEDROOM DOOR

FEMALE #1 standing at slight angle in doorway. She is NAKED, deathly pale, emaciated. Ratty, shoulder-length brown hair. Eyes wide but sockets EMPTY. She is holding a black frying pan.

Her lips aren't moving but we HEAR:

FEMALE #1 (V.O.)

Leonard died when his brood was born unto the earth...

We hear a GUSHING sound O.S.

CUT TO:

CORNER OF ROOM

FEMALE NUMBER #2 sitting in corner. She is NAKED, emaciated. Ratty, shoulder-length blond hair. She is VOMITING a thin, black liquid.

She looks up with empty eye sockets. Her lips aren't moving but we HEAR:

FEMALE #2 (V.O.)

It's the pig bones...

URRPING sound (O.S.)

BACK TO:

DOORWAY - Female #2's head tilted forward. She is VOMITING slow gushes of SEMEN into the frying pan.

FEMALE #2 (V.O.)

Not just our sins. The sins of the whole world.

CLOSE - MELVIN'S FACE - He is aghast.

MALE VOICE (V.O.)

(corroded)

Sometimes there is a moment—a moment not of this world—that enables us to see things without actually
being
there. A
summoned
 moment.

POV PULLS BACK from Melvin's face.

MALE VOICE (CONT. V.O.)

(corroded)

The most...irreducible...moment...

CUT TO:

FEMALE #1 in doorway, her face CLOSE but only HALF IN FRAME

CAMERA'S POV - MOVES OFF and

TRACKING SHOT - choppy, stop-start. POV begins to move past Female #1 into hallway. We hear muted SCREAMS O.S. and CHOPPING sounds. POV jerks around a corner into the

LIVING ROOM

Smoldering orange light. A stained, dilapidated couch. Crooked picture in frame of pastoral scene. Implements of drug-use on floor, a lit candle. Bloodstains and ax-marks in rotten carpet.

We see a WOMAN crawling on her hands out the front door. She has been cut in half at the waist. Entrails drag behind. POV TURNS to choppily leave the room, tracking over the woman's spread legs and pubis leaking influx of sperm, then moves into...

INDETERMINATE ROOMS

Strobic lighting shows a massacre in jumpcut-like flashes: a severed penis and scrotum nailed to the wall. A severed female head with a tongue jutting from an eyesocket. A severed male head with a penis jutting from the mouth. A decapitated male body in a suit lay on a table, bones sticking out. A different dressed male body cut in half at the waist.

CAMERA'S POV swerves to a

WINDOW - We see a DOG PEN. Inside, three dogs are ravenously devouring a naked, decapitated FEMALE BODY. We hear SNARLING.

CAMERA PULLS BACK

POV drags backwards, retracing the tracking shot in reverse. We see glimpses of

1) A short slim man in a suit wearing a rubber Richard Nixon mask.

2) A naked woman with a curvaceous but mutilated body standing by the front door. She is scalped, earless, and noseless. Her breasts have been sawn off. Her pubis and shins waft black smoke, both having been thoroughly scorched. POV ZOOMS to her face and she SCREAMS, then POV RETREATS again to show

3) A tall, svelte black man in a tan leisure suit and a chocolate-brown silk shirt, the collar sticking up. A flaccid penis the size of a summer sausage hangs from his opened fly. He winks.

BLACK MAN

Hey there, Melvin! Wanna  fuck my dick?

4) A young woman in a black ankle-dress, clunky black shoes, billowed sleeves with white cuffs. She stands beside the black man. She wears a white bonnet tied under the chin, honey-blond hair spilling out the sides. She's pregnant. Her palms are out-turned at her sides and they pour BLOOD.

5) A stocky man in his '50s dressed like a pilgrim. Stern, chiseled face and a black, brimmed hat. He looks like...Ernst Borgnine.

PILGRIM MAN

Find God, young man, or burn in hell...

6) A big, brawny man in a suit, large-jawed, short dark hair, talking on into big clunky car phone.

BRAWNY MAN

Well nothin' that I can see, boss, 'cos he ain't here and neither is the Deville, so I figure it's the kid who done the whole job and split.

7) A tall, naked dark-haired woman with the body of a runway model, but her arms are gone at the elbows. A tattoo of a perforation mark rings her neck which reads CUT HERE.

ARMLESS WOMAN

Hey, buddy, would you please tell my motherfuckin' sister Squirrelly to quit dope and go to church?

POV ACCELERATES BACKWARDS through hallway and back into bedroom, then HOLDS ON

MELVIN lying paralyzed on the bed. Wide-eyed, tears running down cheeks. His lower lip quivers. He appears to be looking up at someone we can't see.

MELVIN

I-I-I...know who you are!

MALE VOICE (V.O.)

Get it yet? It's the pig.

MELVIN

Whuh-what?

We hear the CHORTLING of a pig O.S.

MALE VOICE (V.O.)

It's metamorphosis, man.

(beat) It's transfiguration.

INTERCUT:

For a split second, Melvin has been replaced on the bed by a tall lanky young man with rowdy dark hair, fingers laced behind his head on the pillow. He's wearing jeans and a black T-shirt that reads VAN DER GRAAF GENERATOR. He smiles into camera.

BACK TO:

Melvin lying paralyzed on the bed. He is SCREAMING.

CUT TO:

BLACK SCREEN

We still hear the FLUTTERING sound O.S. It persists for several beats, then STOPS, leaving SILENCE.

FALL OUT TO: