Script

UNKNOWN TITLE




Screenplay by Matthew Pick

Original Story by Matthew Pick, Alistair Dickson, Kristian Boll & Lewis Costello


1st Draft, 9 February 2010




FADE IN:

1. EXT. WAREHOUSE - DAY

A dismal sea of darkened clouds envelops an unnerving warehouse.

The CAMERA focuses on one of the top floor windows. Jittery, it ZOOMS-IN until...


CUT TO:

2. INT. WAREHOUSE - DAY

The interior of the warehouse is just as bare and fiercely foreboding as its exterior. There are no signs of life and very little light.

The CAMERA slowly TRACKS to the middle of the room; where it stops abruptly and then turns, so it is now facing an unsightly television atop a stack of milk crates.

HIGH ANGLE SHOT of THE MAN -- an obese and genuinely rough-looking young man -- entering the room from an unknown entrance. He walks from underneath the CAMERA, towards the TV a few feet away from him.

He walks, unearthly quickly, over to the TV and turns it on. Despite the lack of power source or any sign of cables, the TV produces a grimy visage of a young comedian doing stand-up.

CLOSE-UP of the television screen.


LEWIS
Did you ever consider that stacking sheep, is in fact God's way of playing Jenga?


THE MAN looms over the TV, its black and white light illuminating his haunted face. He is not amused by the comedian's guffawing. He stares vacantly at it, his face stern and passively aggressive of the lack of life around him.

EXTREME CLOSE-UP of a grotesquely enlarged eye. It is red with exhaustion - a hollow ring of blackened weariness circles his eye lids.

The eye squints as he begins to talk.


THE MAN
(quietly)
Are you there?


CLOSE-UP of the TV screen. An awkward silence follows, as the comedian continues chatting quietly, in the background.


THE MAN
(louder)
Are you there?


The TV suddenly cuts off.

THE MAN seems amazingly unsurprised - almost as if he expected it to happen. He stands; face completely lacking in emotion, still starring at the TV.

Out of nowhere, the TV turns back on; on a detuned channel, the air thick with sound of static and white noise, until...


THE GHOST IN THE MACHINE
(V/O)
I'm here.


THE MAN cracks an eerie smile and strides closer towards the screen. He leans over and faces the screen directly. He then proceeds to put his hand on the greasy screen.


THE MAN
What do you want? Just name it.


THE GHOST IN THE MACHINE
(V/O)
All I want...


THE MAN
Yes?


THE GHOST IN THE MACHINE
(V/O)
All I want...


THE MAN
(eagerly)
Yes?!


THE GHOST IN THE MACHINE
(V/O)
All I want... Is for you, to smile.


Swift CLOSE-UP on the screen. All of a sudden the screen comes to life displaying a series of distorted and disgusting images - rotting animal carcasses, victims of the Japanese war atrocities, a deathly visage of the Grim Reaper, ect.

THE MAN relishes in the morbid fascination of these images, and screams with bursts of manic laughter. As he does, he is illuminated with an intense electric blue light; followed by a deep blood red one.

A loud roar of an un-nameable animal elevates to a deafening high pitched shriek, when...

Everything suddenly dies -- the noise, the lights, the images; everything but the wicked smile on THE MAN'S decadent face.

CLOSE UP of TV screen. Static. The eerie high pitched moan of white noise.


THE GHOST IN THE MACHINE
(V/O)
Just smile...


FADE OUT TO CREDITS:




- THE END -