Blog backlog #2: yet another horror film idea

By Todd Stadler · Saturday, January 14, 2006 4:38pm

(Yet another old blog entry that I've been sitting on for a while. Like most such entries, it was predicated on a conversation with Gerry Toll.)

My friends and I were talking at dinner about Japanese horror films. I've never seen any, but like most topics on which I'm wholly ignorant, this didn't keep me from participating in the discussion.

But we came up with a good idea for a new horror film, in the genre of "man gets organ transplant from criminal; bad things ensue". The idea was that the main character is a man who drinks too much. Drinking is always a good topic for a film because it allows for rocking "bar music" and it really just lends itself to montages. You know: "bartender!", pour, drink, "bartender!", pour, etc. Also, drunk people are inherently entertaining and the humor they generate tends to cover up any gaping plot holes that movies containing them inevitably have (presumably because the director was also drunk).

Anyhow, since all good horror movies contain ham-fisted moralizing, at some point early in the film, the main character has to get a liver transplant because of all his hard-partyin', two-fisted-drinkin' ways. Yeah, who's laughing now, pal, huh?

As I've already alluded to, the liver which is transplanted into the main character comes from an evil man. His wickedness is shown in flashbacks in which we see him carousing in bars, much as we just saw the main character carousing, but the flashbacks, in addition to being humorously soused, also carry an evil overtone, probably done with cellos (celli?). The flashbacks climax with the evil man dying of alcohol poisoning, once again making absolutely clear that drinking is bad, even if there have been several scenes depicting it as humorous, albeit with evil overtones. I think the multiple celloid instruments will make everything clear.

I know that some people may be overanalyzing things too much at this point and wondering why doctors would transplant the liver of a man who died of alcohol poisoning into another man who is drinking too much. Suffice to say that this minor plot point will be explained with thirty seconds of hand-waving, probably with some minor character using big science-y words and maybe some color charts. And then he'll get killed so we don't have to justify things any more. And then everyone will be on the same page, as they say.

So, at this point, we have a hard-drinking guy who had to get a liver transplant, and he receives the liver of a former hard-drinking guy who, and this part is key, was evil.

Then the horror stuff starts happening. Let's say that our hard-drinking protagonist (not the evil one) has decided to stop drinking (I can't remember if that's "on the wagon" or off it, but suffice to say that the position of this man relative to the wagon is such that he's not drinking anymore).

But one day, after brushing his teeth, he decides to use some mouthwash. The camera can zoom in on the bottle of mouthwash, where a label reads "25% alcohol; 50 proof". And suddenly, the man feels strange — he lurches (or perhaps the camera does ... or both!) and grabs for the sink. He stares wildly into the mirror as if to say, "While that mouthwash would be strong if consumed in large quantities, I barely swallowed any of it; I can't be drunk!"

But then we hear a maniacal laugh, and it becomes clear somehow that this man's evil liver, since it is evil, is refusing to process the alcohol that did make it into his system. And not only that, it's actually outputting more alcohol into his bloodstream, even though the man no longer drinks! This can be shown with stock footage of internal organs, perhaps with evil eyes superimposed on the liver. And the aforementioned evil laugh, probably with reverb. And synthesizers that make a sound like that of a cello, only moreso.

And here's the real mind-blowing bit: the man, now drunk because of his evil liver, staggers out into the street, trying to get help. He tries to make his way to the hospital, but due to his blurred vision, accidentally stumbles into the bar that is next door to the hospital. As the camera records him humorously (for all drunken staggering, intentional or not, is humorous) but ominously stumbling into the bar, we see a sign outside that says "Tonight: Men's night! Free drinks for men!" and the ominous music increases in volume.

Inside the bar, the man attempts to alert someone to his (evil) medical condition, but, being (evilly) drunk, he slurs his words, and "I am in need of immediate medical attention" sounds like "I ... need ... me ... a whisky and bitters and a twist of lime". Thinking that the drink that is served to him is a medical antidote (remember that he is confused because he is (evilly) drunk), he knocks it back, but realizing that his condition is getting worse, he again asks for help, with the same (ironic/humorous/evil) results.

To highlight the irony, the same rocking "bar music" that was previously used in the binge-drinking montage can be played, but with ominous, large string instruments (somewhere in size between a double bass and a viola) creating tension that wasn't there before. If it helps to save money, we can actually use the same montage as before, but maybe darken it or have it go out of focus now and then.

Eventually, the man dies of alcohol poisoning (words alone cannot express how ironic this will seem), and at the funeral, one of his friends will give a touching eulogy in which all the major morals of the movie will be touched on: don't drink and drive, organ transplantation is wrong, etc. And everyone else at the funeral will realize he's right, and it'll stop raining (it was raining up until this point), and it's a new day and everyone is turning over a new leaf ...

Until! Just before the credits roll, we flash to a scene in the hospital in which a man is lying on the operating table. We learn that he was once a hard-drinking man himself, and he needs a liver transplant (maybe he is holding onto a bottle as he is being wheeled into the operating room). The doctor tells him, "We have good news: a man just died. He left behind a liver, and we're going to put it in you now, since your liver is not good anymore, but this one should be." And then the doctor will whisper to the associate doctor next to him, "The liver comes from a former hard-drinking man, but I do not think it will be a problem, as I heard of a previous doctor that did the same procedure. The only way it can go wrong is if the liver is evil, and I do not think this one is." But as he says that, we see the liver — in his hand — with its superimposed evil grin.

And then it swallows the camera and we roll the credits.