Save the Cat Goes to the Movies (5 page)

Midpoint:
The “bad date” scenario ends, and the A and B stories cross, when Glenn announces she’s pregnant. This news “raises the stakes” and is a great example of an alarming “midpoint bump.” Michael is officially in over his head DNA-wise; the consequences of spreading his seed hits home. And while he handles this news with “compassion,” offering to pay for the abortion — what a guy! — this is not how Glenn wants to handle the situation.

Bad Guys Close In:
Now the “Fun and Games” of a date gone wrong get serious. Both at home with his internal “team” of wife and daughter, and externally, as Michael learns of the “Half Man” in his office (who had an affair and paid the price), the amping up of the trespassing by Glenn gets scarier — and the vice that has Michael in its grip begins to tighten. Posing as a buyer for the home Michael’s now trying to sell, Glenn shows up while he’s out, and
later throws acid on his car. Even at work, Michael’s promotion is jeopardized by his stalker.

All Is Lost:
The tension finally explodes when Glenn follows Michael to his new home, kills his daughter’s bunny, and plops it in a pot of boiling water for Anne to find. (Talk about “whiff of death”!) Symbolically, Glenn is leaving Anne a message: Guess what, the rabbit died — the old school way of proving a pregnancy.

Dark Night of the Soul:
With his wife and daughter traumatized by this event, Michael must now admit his sin. He’s been putting it off, but this is how he will cleanse himself.

Break into Three:
Michael confesses. Anne’s reaction to Michael’s pitiful tale is reasonable until he tells her Glenn’s pregnant — possibly with his baby. The invasion of their home now includes child support. With Anne’s back-up, Michael gets on the phone and warns Glenn that his wife knows and she is to stay away.

Finale:
But she can’t. After kidnapping his daughter and causing his wife to get in an auto accident, Glenn is attacked by Michael in her cave as A and B stories cross for the last time. It’s a violent reprise of their earlier sex scene. Then, in one of the great film finishes, a knife-welding Glenn invades Anne and Michael’s country home and, in a moment of Synthesis, the couple works together to fight back. But it’s Anne who kills the intruder. Glenn was “messing” where she didn’t belong.

Final Image:
As Michael and Anne bid goodbye to the police, we linger on a photo of Michael, Anne, and daughter — and we know things have changed. The monster is dead! Let the therapy begin!

Ah, the “dead teenager” movie. Where would our chat about monster flicks be without it? The squirmy, uncertain, acne-plagued years are the perfect time of life to thrust a knife-wielding killer. But by the early ’90
S
, the “dead teenager” movie was day-old toast. “Jason” and “Michael Meyers” were on hiatus and Wes Craven, who would go on to direct
Scream
, was too. Then in a single weekend — or so the apocryphal story goes — Kevin Williamson sat down and wrote the spec screenplay he titled
Scary Movie
, and the teen slasher flick was re-born — tongue firmly planted in cheek.

Movies like
Scream
, and others starring teenagers, are bald in their intent — and aimed about as pointedly as one can at the target market. They are part of a larger category called “Serial Monster,” stories starring a human fiend made hyper-powerful by insanity and preying on the citizens of an entire town or group with a common bond or secret (I
Know What You Did Last Summer).
Whatever prompts these monsters to kill — like the twisted form of revenge it is here — is fueled by evil. Though the “Half Man,” Jamie Kennedy, won’t be knocked off until
Scream 2
, he
sorta
dies in this film — and just where he’s supposed to! And his function remains the same: Tell the rules of what it takes for teenagers to survive when a monster is in the house.

MITH Type: Serial Monster

MITH Cousins:
Psycho, Prom Night, Halloween, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Friday the 13th, I Know What You Did Last Summer, Urban Legend, Red Dragon, Hannibal, Hostel

SCREAM

Written by
Kevin Williamson

Opening Image:
A ringing phone. An isolated house. A buxom Drew Barrymore making popcorn. Like the starting point of many a teen horror movie, this initial image is ripe with clichés.

Theme Stated:
The caller asks Drew a key question: “Do you like scary movies?” Scary movies, like those they discuss, are the thematic basis of this film.

Set-Up:
The “sin” Drew commits is denying she has a boyfriend so she can flirt with her mystery caller. The punishment is death. Both her jock boyfriend and Drew are sliced up like honey-baked hams by someone in a ghost mask and a black hood, and left for Drew’s parents to find. This 12-minute sequence “sets the table” for what follows. We next meet our heroine, the virginal Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell) who, with her single Dad, is getting over the murder of Sidney’s Mom one year ago. Neve is joined in her room by the killer (I warned ya!), Billy Loomis (Skeet Ulrich). But for now he’s just her James Dean-lite boyfriend who wants to take their relationship from PG to R.

Catalyst:
Next day at school, Neve and gal pal Tatum Riley (Rose McGowan) learn of the murder the night before. TV News babe Gale Weathers (Courteney Cox) is on hand with Deputy “Dewey” Riley (David Arquette). The school is shocked by Drew’s death and Neve is even questioned by Principal Himbry (Henry Winkler).

Debate:
Neve and Rose have a coterie of ADD boyfriends, including Randy Meeks (Jamie Kennedy) — the video store clerk who’s seen every scary movie ever made, Stuart Macher (Matthew Lillard), and Skeet. Their debate is who the likely murderer is. Principal Himbry has warned the students to walk in twos and threes for safety, but when Neve is dropped off at her house — where she’ll be alone
since Dad left (!) — she decides to take a nap. The TV reports are now telling about the anniversary of her Mother’s murder and the man Neve fingered as the killer (Liev Schreiber). Maybe last night’s murder and her Mom’s are related?

Break into Two:
At Minute 25, the mysterious caller wakes Neve, drawing her into the “upside-down world” of Act Two. Neve is cool at first. Not knowing the method of the previous night’s murder, she assumes it’s Jamie playing a joke — but soon discovers this is no laughing matter. When the ghost-masked killer appears, knife in hand, Neve does what she says only dumb girls in these movies do: Run up the stairs instead of sprinting out the front door. Neve is “saved” by Skeet, who pops in her window claiming he heard the ruckus. Neve fears Skeet (smart girl!) as Deputy David arrives to arrest him. This is a world in which Neve can trust no one.

B Story:
The “love” story concerns Neve and her dead Mom, and is spurred on by the terrier-like Courteney. As the current murder and her Mom’s entwine, Neve will learn about Mom — and herself.

Fun and Games:
With the whole town aware that Neve is the prime target of the killer, she is both star and pariah. Did Neve send the wrong guy to jail? Neve crosses paths with Courteney who, ever the info-ette, wants an exclusive. Neve refuses, and even slugs her. But the question remains: Is her Mom’s murderer still out there? The ghost-mask slasher shows up again along with icons of scary movies past, including Linda Blair (star of
The Exorcist)
and a janitor (Craven) who looks like Freddy from
A Nightmare on Elm Street.
We get some real danger as Neve eludes the killer in the bathroom at school — and a few red herrings, including teens dressed like the slasher, and even Henry Winkler — who goes a little over the top in the Emoting Department.

Midpoint:
The Fun and Games culminate with the death of the overacting Mr. Winkler — and just in time! Cornered in his office,
the principal is stabbed by the real ghost-masked killer, which definitely “raises the stakes” of this mystery — not to mention knock one more person off the suspect list. Meanwhile at the video store, Jamie tells us the score, saying to both Skeet and Matthew (ironically enough) that at this point in these movies everyone’s a suspect. The kids decide to do what teens in all horror films do: Even with a killer loose who targets their demographic, they will lock themselves in a house and party!

Bad Guys Close In:
The “house” is sealed tight, a curfew imposed, and the kids gather for a beer bash while suspects circle in our minds. Chief on the list is Neve’s Dad, who’s missing. Courteney and her cameraman close in on the story — and on Deputy David, for whom she has the hots. First offed at the party is Rose when she goes for beer. Tension mounts as the killer closes in.

All Is Lost:
Neve agrees to have sex with Skeet, a “whiff of death” that includes the death of her innocence. When news comes that Principal Himbry is dead, the kids leave to check it out.

Dark Night of the Soul:
The house is abandoned and Neve is alone.

Break into Three:
By choosing to break the “have sex and die” rule of these movies, Neve now brings Synthesis to both her story and her Mother’s, and enters the monster’s secret world.

Finale:
Matthew and Skeet reveal themselves as the killers, seeking revenge against both Neve and her Mom, whose “hidden sin” of sleeping with Skeet’s father ruined Skeet’s life. The twin killers’ supercharged powers come not just from insanity, but from being able to be in two places at once. A and B stories cross as Neve and Courteney work together to kill the killers.

Final Image:
Courteney wraps up the tale of Neve’s Mom and the recent murders, saying: “It’s like something out of a scary movie,” which brings this postmodern thriller full circle.

Here is a tale seemingly about modern technology and the evils of watching too much TV, but the success of
The Ring
is due to its being grounded in a more primal concern. Much like in
The Exorcist
, from which this film inherits many similarities, career woman Naomi Watts will go from self-involved single mother to one who wants to save her child above all else. The responsibility of parenthood is what this particular MITH tale is about. And its lesson is one Naomi will learn from a video ghost — also a mother — who is the dark mirror image of herself.

Based on the novel,
Ringu
, by Koji Suzuki, and the Japanese film directed by Hiroshi Takahashi, director Gore Verbinski’s version is superbly structured. It’s an example of MITH I call the “Supra-natural Monster” which, to me, is the most frightening — no matter in what form it comes. Be it devil
(The Exorcist)
, ghost
(What Lies Beneath)
, or what occurs when we mess with the comforts of sanity
(Gothika)
, these monsters can strike anywhere, haunt our dreams, and alter our world until we can’t tell what’s real — and what isn’t.

This classification of MITH movie is the most disturbing because it deals directly with a “sin” of a past life or another dimension, and made more serious by the fear of losing our souls.

MITH Type: Supra-natural Monster

MITH Cousins:
The Exorcist, The Legend of Hell House, The Shining, Poltergeist, Amityville Horror, A Nightmare on Elm Street, Child’s Play, What Lies Beneath, House on Haunted Hill, The Exorcism of Emily Rose

THE RING

Screenplay by
Ehren Kruger
Based on the novel RINGU by
Koji Suzuki
and the film RINGU by
Hiroshi Takahashi

Opening Image:
A house in the ’burbs. Inside, a familiar Friday night scene: Two teenage girls are watching videos.

Theme Stated:
“I hate television,” says one girl. (Don’t we all?) TV and its use by parents as a babysitter give a hint as to what the movie is about: the responsibilities of parenthood.

Set-Up:
We hear the legend of the videotape that kills you. You watch it, the phone rings, then seven days later you die. One of the girls announces that she viewed the killer VHS a week ago. Tonight her time is up, and lo! She dies just as foretold. We next meet our heroine in a perfect intro scene. Enter bitching while on her cell phone, busy reporter Rachel Keller (Naomi Watts) arrives late to pick up son Aidan (David Dorfman) from daycare. Yes, Naomi wins the coveted Bad Mother Award. But she will do a 180 thanks to this tale. Deep down she’s aware of her “sin,” and only by re-embracing her love for her child will she save him and herself.

Catalyst:
Turns out this dead teenager is Naomi’s niece and little David’s favorite relative. Naomi, being a reporter and all, is asked to look into this mysterious death. She soon discovers it has something to do with a spooky VHS.

Debate:
Is it true? Is it possible that the supra-natural deaths of several teens are linked to a videotape? Naomi hears about a motel the teens visited the week before they died. She checks in, steals the tape from the “Seven Day Rental” section in the front office, and goes to cabin #12 (for those of you who like numerology). Should Naomi look at the tape? Hint: If she doesn’t, there is no plot!

Break into Two:
Naomi, and we, now see the weird videotape everyone is talking about. On it are various scary images, some the most disturbing since the brainwash scene in
The Parallax View.
Then the phone rings. Naomi has officially entered the Dark World. She has exactly seven days to live.

B Story:
A partial answer to why Naomi is a single parent is offered when we meet her child’s father, Noah Clay (Martin Henderson). In need of a shave — and a nicer apartment — Martin mostly needs to “grow up.” Being a videographer, he can help explain the tape. Martin watches it, blithely ignoring the warning. Now Naomi and Martin are linked as more than parents.