Bill Anderson
Forum Replies Created
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Bill Anderson’s Scary-As-Hell Scene
What I learned doing this assignment is that keeping a scene intact instead of intercutting it can make the internal tension more unbearable – make it more scary-as-hell
MOTHERLAND
A. From anxiety to dread
B. Anxiety – [Shock, fear, horror, shock, panic] – Dread
C:
Anxiety: As she walks through the wood Jack’s story of the killer roots becomes more believable.
Shock: A root comes for her exactly as Jack described!
Fear: Leah sees Michael’s body on the forest floor exactly as Jack described
Horror: Gross, decaying Michael
Shock: A tsunami of roots comes for her!
Panic: Leah is overpowered and knocked to the ground by the killer roots
Dread: She realises the killer roots are headed for her family back at the farmhouse
3.
Anxiety: As she walks through the wood Jack’s story of the killer roots becomes more believable.
Scare: something unseen is rustling the leaves and it’s getting closer
Shock: A root comes for her exactly as Jack described!
Release: It’s only cute squirrels fighting over a nut
Fear: she sees Michael’s body on the forest floor exactly as Jack described
Release: She sees that Michael is moving, breathing, still alive!
Horror: Decaying Michael
Shock: a tsunami of roots comes for her!
Panic: Leah is overpowered and knocked to the ground by the killer roots.
Release: But she’s not killed
Dread: She realises the killer roots are headed for her family back at the farmhouse
Context:
EXT – GNARLY TREE – EVENING
As Leah and the dog pass by, a fruiting body of the fungus emerges on the surface of the gnarly tree – at time-lapse speed – menacingly quick… we see the tree is becoming covered in fungus – voraciously consuming it from within… mycelial fibres are increasingly clothing the outside of the skeleton as if it were being wrapped by an embalmer…
Scripted scene:
EXT – WILD FOREST – EVENING
As the forest shimmers, hisses, creaks and groans with supernatural threat, even though Leah sees more and more of the fungus growing in the wood she becomes less convinced with every step that Jack was merely hallucinating.
She hears rustling in the leaves behind her: the dog starts to whimper – she turns – she can’t see where the rustling is coming from, but it’s getting louder, more vigorous….suddenly from behind a tree something shoots towards her under the leaves – exactly as Jack described! – Leah is frozen to the spot with fear, the dog whimpering uncontrollably, the commotion in the leaves powering towards them… just before it hits Leah and kills her two squirrels fighting over a juicy big nut spring out of their leafy cover – the dog barks, Leah sighs with relief – the squirrels are cute! – the victor scampers off with the nut, the loser looks at Leah as if to say “Do you have a nut for me? I thought not…” before sidling off to search elsewhere.
Leah and the dog carry on… but she sees something that stops her in her tracks: the body of Michael lying on the forest floor where we last saw him…
…Leah approaches Michael with great caution, but gets close enough to see that his chest is moving slightly – he’s breathing! Still alive! She rushes to Michael and turns his body over – we hear a release of pressure, Leah recoils from the smell of decomposition gasses – Michael’s body is horrifically consumed by fungus and penetrated by roots – hugely unnatural advanced decay – in a rhythmic movement, pockets of rotting gas build up, swelling the dead tissue and then burst out: like death is breathing – his body is already hollowed out by fungus and maggots which crawl out of his mouth – eel-like amphibian scavengers wriggle out of his eye sockets… Leah backs away, struggling to comprehend how this could have happened so quickly.
Leah senses the forest floor coming to life around her – beside Michael’s body the forest floor explodes in a tsunami of roots and leaves heading straight for Leah… as they hit her she’s thrown up into the air by the force of it, but when she lands she is not devoured – the roots are rushing past her – she can hardly believe it – but realises with dread that this dark energy is heading towards her family back at the farmhouse – Leah starts running back the way she came, following in the wake of the roots that are gathering in numbers and power…
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Bill Anderson’s Scares, Releases and Creepy Moments!
What I learned doing this assignment is the fun that can be had with releases and how they amplify the horror that follows
Outline:
Scare – something exactly like the roots Jack described starts to come for Leah
Release – it’s just two squirrels fighting over a nut
Creepy moment – Michael looks like he’s breathing and alive, but it’s just an illusion caused by decomposition gasses – he’s dead and rotting unnaturally fast.
Context:
EXT – GNARLY TREE – EVENING
As Leah and the dog pass by, a fruiting body of the fungus emerges on the surface of the gnarly tree – at time-lapse speed – menacingly quick… we see the tree is becoming covered in fungus – voraciously consuming it from within… mycelial fibres are increasingly clothing the outside of the skeleton as if it were being wrapped by an embalmer…
Scripted scene:
EXT – WILD FOREST – EVENING
As the forest shimmers, hisses, creaks and groans with supernatural threat, even though Leah sees more and more of the fungus growing in the wood she becomes less convinced with every step that Jack was merely hallucinating.
She hears rustling in the leaves behind her: the dog starts to whimper – she turns – she can’t see where the rustling is coming from, but it’s getting louder, more vigorous….suddenly from behind a tree something shoots towards her under the leaves – exactly like the killer roots Jack described! – Leah is frozen to the spot with fear, the dog whimpering uncontrollably, the commotion in the leaves powering towards them… just before it hits Leah and kills her two squirrels fighting over a juicy big nut spring out of their leafy cover – the dog barks, Leah sighs with relief – the squirrels are cute! – the victor scampers off with the nut, the loser looks at Leah as if to say “Do you have a nut for me? I thought not…” before sidling off to search elsewhere.
Leah and the dog carry on… but she sees something that stops her in her tracks: the body of Michael lying on the forest floor where we last saw him…
…Leah approaches Michael with great caution, but gets close enough to see that his chest is moving slightly – he’s breathing! Still alive! She rushes to Michael and turns his body over – we hear a release of pressure, Leah recoils from the smell of decomposition gasses – Micheal’s body is horrifically consumed by fungus and penetrated by roots – hugely unnatural advanced decay – in a rhythmic movement, pockets of rotting gas build up, swelling the dead tissue and then burst out: like death is breathing – his body is already hollowed out by fungus and maggots which crawl out of his mouth – eel-like amphibian scavengers wriggle out of his eye sockets… Leah backs away, struggling to comprehend how this could have happened so quickly…
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Bill Anderson’s Level 3 Horror Emotion Scene
What I learned doing this assignment is the importance/value of clearly, separately defining each of the four emotions – making sure each one lands and they don’t lose power by dissipation in an undifferentiated mix.
Context from Outline:
INT – FARMHOUSE – EVENING
…Jack is lighting oil lamps when he hears a rumbling from outside…
EXT – FARMHOUSE – EVENING
… axe in hand, Jack steps out onto the concrete slab outside the front door and sees the tsunami of roots coming across the fields towards the farmhouse – he sees the frontrunners make contact with his ring of herbicide in the soil at the edge of the slab – the roots recoil: hissing and squirming in agony – his defences work! – he reassures Beth and Jan who’ve come to the door – but then he senses something in his feet – he gets down and puts his ear to the concrete – he hears what sounds like big roots scraping deep under the slab: the creeper growing up the outside of the house starts to come to life – Beth and Jan retreat inside – Jack takes his axe to the creeper, but its branches are too quick – too many…
EXT – WILD FOREST – EVENING
… Leah sprints back to her family…
Scripted scene:
INT. FARMHOUSE – NIGHT
Beth has moved to protect Jeb as creeper roots are breaking the glass in the windows and forcing their way inside.
Jan sees that in spite of Jack’s efforts outside, creeper roots are coming in through the door. The roots are becoming thicker and stronger, fungi sprouting in their wake.
Jeb’s eyes swivel in terror – he call’s out his wife’s name:
JEB
… Sarah?… Sarah?
JAN
She didn’t die giving birth to Leah! You poisoned her and now she’s come back for you!
Jack is backed into the farmhouse by a root that he’s failing to keep at bay with his axe. Jan shouts to him:
JAN
We’ve got to get him out of here – let her have him!
Jack agrees but needs to buy some time with the root. Jan goes to pull Jeb off the couch so she can drag him out, but Beth stops her:
BETH
No!
The sisters fight. Jack drops his axe and comes over to intervene, but in the heat of the fight none of them have noticed the creeper roots moving towards the sisters’ feet.
Jan viciously punches Beth extremely hard – the creeper roots at the sister’s feet suddenly all grab Jan. Jan freezes for a second as she feels their grip tighten.
Jack and Beth watch in horror as the roots suddenly lift Jan into the air and pull her out of the window – Jan’s body smashes into the walls either side of the window – she’s dragged through the small window opening, folded in two like a rag doll, her dying screams being forcibly pumped out of her as her chest is crushed into her knees.
Beth and Jack are frozen for few seconds before they hear the fire that has been started in the room by the burning oil lamps that Jan’s body knocked over as it flew to the window.
Jack sees some of the roots recoiling from the rapidly rising flames – seizes the moment:
JACK
Out! Now!…Beth!!
Jack throws Jeb on his back in a fireman’s lift and heads for the door – some of the creeper roots wrap around the handle of his axe and slide it over the floor – neatly severing Jack’s foot as he struggles out with Jeb. Jack screams with pain, screams even more as he has to put his and Jeb’s weight onto his bleeding stump, but somehow carries on…
… Beth is stopped in her tracks by a huge contraction – she falls to her knees, gripping Jeb’s couch, bellowing. Roots are surrounding her. Flames are surrounding her. Another contraction – Beth holds on for dear life as roots enveloping her calves are trying to pull her away from the couch when a heavy burning timber crashes on top of them – and her legs – Beth screams – more roots try to travel towards her, over the burning timber but are driven back by the flames, sap boiling and hissing.
EXT – FARMHOUSE – NIGHT
Leah arrives back at farmhouse as Jeb is carrying her father outside…
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Bill Anderson’s Level 2 Horror Emotion Scene
What I learned doing this assignment is the particular value of separating out and building on suspense to dread.
MOTHERLAND
Context from Outline:
INT – JACK AND BETH’S ROOM – DAY
Leah discovers that Jack has kept some dissected pieces of the mushroom there. Jan discovers Leah in Jack’s room and challenges her – what’s she doing in there? – Leah tells Jan she suspects Jack is hallucinating – that the mushroom he was handling is psychedelic – none of his story is real and that Michael is probably fine – getting help.
INT – JEB”S OFFICE – DAY
Jan conspiratorially shows Beth the photo of Mum’s ring then reveals the real thing – explains it’s from mum’s skeleton unearthed under the gnarly tree, how she found it and why she thinks that Leah’s hiding something – knows something she’s not telling. Jan tells Beth Leah thinks Jack’s just hallucinating from mushroom contact. But Beth believes what Jack says happened – Jan needs to know for sure if Michael’s dead – what if he’s badly injured but still alive? Beth tells her not to go – it’s not safe – look what happened to Jack! Who else could go? Jan suggests they make Leah go – Leah was the one who killed their mother in childbirth: if there’s no truth to the vengeful mother returning, and it was all just a hallucination then Leah’s perfectly safe – but if their mother has somehow come back for vengeance then best she takes Leah and leaves Beth and Jan alone – Beth reluctantly agrees.
Scripted scene:
INT. FARMHOUSE – EVENING
Jeb comes in breathless from pouring gallons of toxic herbicide onto the dirt around the house. Leah, tending to Jeb, watches Jack pick up all their mobiles to check if any of them have signal restored – in vain.
Jan and Beth come from Jeb’s office.
JAN
Where did it happen?
JACK
In the wood, where I told you, and all the way back…
(Jan points to a large scale map of the farm on the wall and interrupts him:)
JAN
… Show me where Michael is.
(Jack points to a spot in the wood – right on the edge of their land.)
JAN
What if he’s not dead?
(Jack sees what’s coming:)
JACK
Jan, Michael’s gone…
JAN
… he might still be alive…
JACK
… No…
JAN
… The way you told it you didn’t check…
JACK
… He’s gone!… I ain’t going back there to…
JAN
… I need to know! We might still be able to save him!…
(… Jan looks to Leah for support…)
JACK
… We need to protect ourselves HERE…
LEAH
… I’ll go.
(Beth sees what Jan’s done – can’t look Leah in the eye.)
LEAH
(to the dog)
C’mon.
(Leah touches Jan reassuringly on her way out. Beth seeks solace, hiding in a hug with Jack.)
EXT. WILD FOREST – EVENING
As the forest shimmers, hisses, creaks and groans with supernatural threat, even though Leah sees more and more of the fungus growing in the wood she becomes less convinced with every step that Jack was merely hallucinating.
She sees something that stops her in her tracks: the body of Michael lying on the forest floor where we last saw him…
… Leah approaches Michael with great caution, looking closely for signs of life – she turns Michael’s body over – it’s horrifically consumed by fungus and penetrated by roots – hugely unnatural advanced decay – his body is already hollowed out by fungus and maggots which crawl out of his mouth – eel-like amphibian scavengers wriggle out of his eye sockets… Leah backs away, struggling to comprehend how this could have happened so quickly…
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Bill Anderson’s Level 1 Horror Emotion scene
What I learned doing this assignment is the value of the difference between surprise and shock in engaging the audience at a deeper level.
MOTHERLAND
From Outline:
EXT – GNARLY TREE – NIGHT
… the gnarled tree is blown over, to reveal a skeleton rising up out of the ground entwined in the bolus of its roots, and permeated by a mycelial web – torrential rain blasts its bones clean…
INT – FARM SHED – NIGHT
… Leah pulls the calf from the cow…the calf is horrifically deformed – and it has no eyes – Jeb drags its body out of the pen as Leah tries to save its dying mother – but Jeb sees the mother’s beyond help, returns with the captive bolt to put her out of her misery. Leah surprises herself how emotionally reluctant she is to give up on the mother, and Jeb acknowledge some history between Leah and himself over this before, with her tacit consent, he kills the cow.
Scripted scene:
INT. FARM SHED – NIGHT
The screaming wind drowns the pregnant cow’s excruciating bellowing as Leah and Jeb increase their efforts to help her.
Deafening thunder explodes directly above the shed. As a roof panel is ripped off by a violent gust, lightning strikes and causes a surge of electric current through the suspended lights – the chain holding the one above Leah and Jeb breaks and it swings down, hanging precariously by its electrical cable – only just missing their heads as Leah finally pulls the calf out of its mother.
In the swinging, fizzing light rain begins to fall on the calf they now see is horribly deformed. Leah checks it closely – it has no eyes. Sparks are falling from the swinging light onto the straw bedding as Jeb drags the calf away. Leah sees the mother cow is swiftly bleeding to death. Leah can only give comfort to her.
The lights go out and stop sparking. Leah keeps kindly whispering to the mother cow, ignoring a captive bolt firmly pressed against the cow’s head and fired. Leah knows it’s a kindness that Jeb’s put her out of her misery.
As the cow spasms Jeb extinguishes any lingering sparks in the straw bedding with his foot, but it’s Leah he’s watching closely.
He crouches beside Leah and touches her gently to reassure her that she did the best she could. But Leah is beyond consolation.
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Bill Anderson’s Horror Outline Version 1
What I learned from this assignment was that all the previous assignments were very cleverly designed to generate the required ingredients to make this process really fruitful.
MOTHERLAND
EXT – GNARLY TREE/ISOLATED FARMHOUSE – NIGHT
The leaves of an ancient, gnarled tree atop a rocky outcrop on an isolated farm shiver as the last sunlight of the day is crushed below the horizon by menacing clouds of night: we follow the sugars of photosynthesis inside the tree down to its roots which will exude them into the darkness of the dirt. A twisted root swells and splits off a piece of the rock it’s penetrated – this snaps, falls to the bottom of the outcrop, and smashes into the skull of a fox that was eating the entrails of its prey. As the fox spasms in death, something we can’t quite make out in the darkness drags the fox to its underground lair, where it disappears just as car headlights beam sweeps past, headed along the track to the isolated farmhouse…
…Inside the expensive car, Jan and Michael notice something strange about the way the fox disappears – too quickly. Michael quips he can relate to a crazy urge to hide: from Jan’s crazy family on their crazy farm… she smiles.
INT – FARMOUSE – NIGHT
Jan and Michael join the family to celebrate patriarch father Jeb’s 70th birthday along with his two other daughters Leah, Beth and her partner Jack. Leah, the youngest, is a veterinarian who has never really left the farm. Rebel permaculture hippy Beth is heavily pregnant – only recently moving back along with itinerant musician partner Jack to birth the baby somewhere safe. Elder sister Jan believes her academic farming credentials qualify her to run the farm better than her father, and lab-based seed geneticist Michael agrees. Beth reminds everyone Jan believed she was better qualified long before she went to college – Beth protests she’s not a cow as Leah listens to Beth’s bump with a stethoscope – family fun, teasing, frivolity – daughters have each prepared a dish for the birthday feast: Beth vegetarian, Leah meat, Jan a sugary meringue birthday cake with sparklers and fireworks.
Jeb announces that he’s selling the farm – it can’t make money – the ever increasing inputs of fertilizer and agrochemicals required cost too much – the debt unserviceable – time to get out. His daughters are stunned – it’s their living birth right as much as their birthplace. The family dog senses the atmosphere and sides with the daughters – starts barking as if possessed, making talk impossible…
EXT – GNARLY TREE – NIGHT
… The Gnarly Tree hears the dog barking from a distance – there is no wind, but its leaves suddenly rustle vigorously. They stop. Still no wind. The leaves rustle again, more insistently and the wind begins to blow and build up into a storm…
INT – FARMOUSE – NIGHT
… Leah senses something beyond the barking: she calms the dog and her and Jeb hear a distant cow in trouble…
INT – FARM SHED – NIGHT
Leah and Jeb help a cow struggling with a difficult labour…
INT – JAN’S BEDROOM – NIGHT
… Jan is insisting Michael has sex with her – The App has determined she’s optimally fertile tonight – Michael is tired but reluctantly tries to comply…
INT – BETH’S BEDROOM – NIGHT
… Jack listens to Jan and Michael through the wall as Beth sleeps…
EXT – GNARLY TREE – NIGHT
… the storm is now screaming through the branches of the gnarly tree, explosive thunder…
INT – FARM SHED – NIGHT
… Finally, Leah pulls the calf from the cow…
INT – BETH’S BEDROOM – NIGHT
… Lightning flashes as Beth jolts up, roaring as she’s woken by a huge contraction…
EXT – GNARLY TREE – NIGHT
… the gnarled tree is blown over, to reveal a skeleton rising up out of the ground entwined in the bolus of its roots, and permeated by a mycelial web – torrential rain blasts its bones clean…
INT – BETH’S BEDROOM – NIGHT
… Beth’s OK – another contraction but it’s just Brackston Hicks…
INT – FARM SHED – NIGHT
… the calf is horrifically deformed – and it has no eyes – Jeb drags its body out of the pen as Leah tries to save its dying mother – but Jeb sees the mother’s beyond help, returns with the captive bolt to put her out of her misery. Leah surprises herself how emotionally reluctant she is to give up on the mother, and Jeb acknowledge some history between Leah and himself over this before, with her tacit consent, he kills the cow.
EXT – FARMHOUSE – DAY
A postman hurries through torrential rain biblical Noah would recognise – he posts a letter through the door.
INT – FARMHOUSE – DAY
The family are arguing over the future of the farm – Jan says it’s failing but it could succeed with more hi-tech, chemically intensive farming done right, Beth the organic opposite – when Leah opens the letter addressed to their mother who’s been dead for thirty years: it’s a nest egg fund their mother had invested a small sum in and it’s about to mature on what would be her imminent 65th birthday – it’s a farm-saving amount they can claim! All Jeb has to do is provide Mother’s death certificate and Will.. but Jeb refuses to consider this – this is not financial for him: he didn’t know about this nest egg – it’s emotional – it’s as if Mother has suddenly come back from the dead – he snatches the nest egg letter and storms out into the rain…
EXT – FARM – DAY
…so heavy now that streams are coursing over the track to the farm, but Jeb wades through them until he can go no further – he stands knee deep in a torrent and roars with fear and frustration –
EXT – GNARLY TREE – DAY
…the leaves, then the skeleton hears Jeb’s roar…
EXT – FARM – DAY
– a landslide crevasse opens up underneath roaring Jeb – he falls into it, but as he slides down a root catches his jaw, breaking his fall and his neck – the root seems to tighten, pressing Jeb’s throat against the side of the crevasses – starting to asphyxiate him! The water level is rising as the family catch up with Jeb and work to extract him from the crevasse before he suffocates. Leah and Jack wade in, taking Jeb’s weight off the root as Jack cuts through it with his knife. As they drag limp and unconscious Jeb out of the crevasse and take him into the house, Jan and Michael’s car is swallowed into crevasse clearly making the track impassable for vehicles. They don’t see the two ends of the root Jack cut suddenly withdraw themselves back into the dirt!
INT – FARMHOUSE – DAY
The family lay Jeb on a couch near the fire to dry out. Leah attends – Jeb’s unconscious and maybe paralysed, but he’s breathing, stable, alive… how will they get help? Power is down. Nobody has mobile signal, Michael confirms the landline is down, and Jack points out that the off road farm vehicles all too heavy to risk driving over the flooded unstable ground. They’re cut off from the world. What to do? Leah knows the detail of the land best – leaving Beth to tend to Jeb, Leah goes to scout (on foot with the dog) a possible safe root for a farm tractor to get help. Michael volunteers to try and find where the landline’s gone down and fix it. Jan and Jack go into Jeb’s office to look for Mother documents that might release the nest egg and explain Jeb’s mysterious over-reaction to it.
While they’re searching, Jack asks Jan if The App is working for her? Confides he heard her and Michael in bed last night – walls are so thin it was like he was lying next to her… She confides that they were “interrupted” by everything… but she’s still fertile, still “on heat”, and it would be a shame to waste the opportunity – Jack agrees she’s still hot and kisses her passionately, Jan pulls away: Beth’s too close – she’d hear…
EXT – FARM TRACK – DAY
Michael discovers the land line is beyond repair.
EXT – FARM – DAY
Leah sees extent of flood damage – no safe route here – moves on to look elsewhere.
EXT – FARM BUILDINGS – DAY
Walking past a barn, Michael sees Jan and Jack having clandestine sex – he’s devastated and furious, but hides it – walks on to farmhouse, biding his time…
EXT – GNARLY TREE – DAY
Leah discovers the skeleton and calmly silences the barking dog that lead her to it. She examines the skeleton closely with a professional eye: it looks complete – no signs of obvious cause of death. She sees the distinctive ring still hanging loosely around one of its fingers. The dawning possibility that this is her mother and the questions that raises…
INT – FARMHOUSE – DAY
In the paperwork Jan and Jack have unearthed in Jeb’s office, Leah finds an old photo of her mother wearing the distinctive ring as Jack comes back in from the barn. Leah reports she hasn’t found a safe vehicle route. She’s scrutinising the ring in the photo when Jan comes in and asks about the extent of the havoc wreaked on the farm. Leah says it’s mostly flooding, some broken branches but only one tree down – Jan can see her sister’s hiding something and probes further – Leah confirms the fallen tree’s Old Gnarly as she puts the photo down and goes to Jeb. Jan scrutinizes this photo that interested evasive Leah so much…
Leah sees that Jeb’s breathing has become more laboured and hears the dog growling at something under his couch. Leah discovers mould has mysteriously appeared in Jeb’s bedding – spores may be damaging Jeb’s lungs – Leah notices the same mould has appeared on the nest-egg letter Jeb stuffed inside his pocket – Dog barks at something under Jeb’s couch – Jack discovers and closely examines distinctive, unfamiliar mushrooms are growing through the floorboards – publicly everyone works hard to put it down to a leak in the roof caused by the storm.
EXT – FARM CHEMICAL STORE – DAY
Inside the hi-tech hub/store Michael searches the chemical drums and finds a highly toxic fungicide – he takes a drum back to the house.
INT – FARMHOUSE – DAY
Jack is examining the fungus closely, fascinated, he hides some away for a closer look before Michael douses the fungus and surrounding floorboards with neat fungicide. Beth replaces Jeb’s covers with fresh.
EXT – GNARLY TREE – DAY
Jan finds the skeleton, goes to take her mother’s ring – as she touches it the leaves flutter and rustle – Jan hesitates, senses malice, but then continues to remove the ring and heads back to the farmhouse (Jan is too focussed on the ring to notice what we see: the same fungus as in the house has appeared growing on/in the tree near the skeleton since Leah was there)
INT – FARMHOUSE – DAY
Jeb’s breathing has deteriorated so much Leah decides they have to get help immediately. Jack volunteers to walk miles to the nearest doctor, and Michael says he’ll accompany him. Jan re-examines the nest egg letter for any clues about Mother and sees that it is now riddled with mould – she hears Jeb’s laboured breathing – Jan completely re-evaluates the nest egg money – it is not a kind gift, it is malicious – Mother has come back to make mischief – for revenge! Jan puts the letter down and obsessively rinses her hands in the toxic fungicide.
EXT – GNARLY TREE – DAY
Jack and Michael pass by the Gnarly tree but don’t see the skeleton as they leave the farm to take a shortcut through a wood. The skeleton sees Michael petulantly kick some of the distinctive fungus growing nearby – some of the same fungus now growing inside the skeleton slowly opens its gills to release spores…
EXT – WILD FOREST – DAY
Michael confronts Jack for having sex with Jan and threatens to reveal it and jeopardise Jack’s relationship to Beth and his share of the farm. Jack dismisses impotent Michael with contempt, and Michael attacks him. But bleeding Jack is only hurt enough to get mad and chases terrified Michael through a forest. Jack is overtaken by what looks like a root unearthing itself like a snake wriggling under fallen leaves to catch up with sprinting Michael: Jack sees the root surface to trip up Michael who flies though the air, smashes his head on a rock, and falls face down in a pool of storm water….
Jack knows what he saw but can’t understand it – he lifts the root beside him from under the leaves and confirms it’s freshly uprooted itself. As he puts it down it seems to retighten itself to the ground – Jack sees the dense fungal mycelium matt of embracing fibres the root is bedding itself back into. He hears Michael choking in the water, but as he goes to help him leaves of the forest floor start rippling as they move towards him from various directions. Jack abandons Michael (who drowns) as he runs for his life – he leaps over the tracks of the subterranean roots as they catch up with him, but they can swiftly change direction and there are more and more of them coming – a three-way root pincer movement almost gets him as he propels himself out of the wood into a grassy field near the farmhouse – the grass moves towards him in waves as he sprints back to the house…
INT – FARMHOUSE – DAY
… Jack bursts into the farmhouse in terror and tells what’s happened – Beth is terrified, believes bleeding Jack’s story; Jan is distraught and suspicious of Jack’s crazy explanation of Michael’s disappearance/demise. Leah sees Jack wide-eyed with fear of everything outside and suspects a different explanation… Jack goes to the chemical shed and pours a defensive ring of neat, toxic herbicide around the edge of the concrete slab surrounding the farmhouse. (He fails to consider the decorative creeper growing up the outside of the house)
INT – JACK AND BETH’S ROOM – DAY
Leah discovers that Jack has kept some dissected pieces of the mushroom there. Jan discovers Leah in Jack’s room and challenges her – what’s she doing in there? – Leah tells Jan she suspects Jack is hallucinating – that the mushroom he was handling is psychedelic – none of his story is real and that Michael is probably fine – getting help.
INT – JEB”S OFFICE – DAY
Jan conspiratorially shows Beth the photo of Mum’s ring then reveals the real thing – explains it’s from mum’s skeleton unearthed under the gnarly tree, how she found it and why she thinks that Leah’s hiding something – knows something she’s not telling. Jan tells Beth Leah thinks Jack’s just hallucinating from mushroom contact. But Beth believes what Jack says happened – Jan needs to know for sure if Michael’s dead – what if he’s badly injured but still alive? Beth tells her not to go – it’s not safe – look what happened to Jack! Who else could go? Jan suggests they make Leah go – Leah was the one who killed their mother in childbirth: if there’s no truth to the vengeful mother returning, and it was all just a hallucination then Leah’s perfectly safe – but if their mother has somehow come back for vengeance then best she takes Leah and leaves Beth and Jan alone – Beth reluctantly agrees.
INT – FARMHOUSE – EVENING
Jack finishes with the herbicide and Jan gets him to show Leah on a map of the farm where he last saw Michael – right on the edge of their land – he tells Leah there’s nothing she can do for Michael – he’s dead – the roots seemed to be working with the fungus – like the mycorrhizal relationship in nature, only much, much faster – and more deadly – Jan interrupts him telling Leah not to go: she passively sends Leah out into the scary wood as an offering to monster (but officially to find Michael and also get help for worsening Jeb… )
EXT – GNARLY TREE – EVENING
As Leah and the dog pass by, a fruiting body of the fungus emerges on the surface of the gnarly tree – at time-lapse speed – menacingly quick… we see the tree is becoming covered in fungus – voraciously consuming it from within… mycelial fibres are increasingly clothing the outside of the skeleton as if it were being wrapped by an embalmer…
EXT – WILD FOREST – EVENING
… As the forest shimmers, hisses, creaks and groans with supernatural threat, Leah and the dog come upon the body of Michael lying on the forest floor where we last saw him…
INT – JEB’S OFFICE – EVENING
… Searching with Jan, Beth exclaims as she finally discovers their mother’s death certificate – she’s shocked by what she reads…
EXT – WILD FOREST – EVENING
…Leah approaches Michael with great caution, looking closely for signs of life – she turns Michael’s body over – it’s horrifically consumed by fungus and penetrated by roots – hugely unnatural advanced decay – his body is already hollowed out by fungus and maggots which crawl out of his mouth – eel-like amphibian scavengers wriggle out of his eye sockets… Leah backs away, struggling to comprehend how this could have happened so quickly…
INT – JEB’S OFFICE – EVENING
… Beth and Jan discover that it wasn’t Leah that killed their mother – she didn’t die in childbirth – she was poisoned…!
INT – FARMHOUSE – EVENING
… Jeb regains consciousness and starts calling out the name of his wife – as a warning? A plea for mercy?…
EXT – GNARLY TREE – EVENING
… more mycelial strands are penetrating the roots inside the skeleton – they start to pulse with bioluminescence – sending a signal…
EXT – WILD FOREST – EVENING
… Leah senses the forest floor coming to life around her – beside Michael’s body the forest floor explodes in a tsunami of roots and leaves heading straight for Leah… as they hit her she’s thrown up into the air by the force of it, but when she lands she is not devoured – the roots are rushing past her – she can hardly believe it – but realises with dread that this dark energy is heading towards her family back at the farmhouse – Leah starts running back the way she came, following in the wake of the roots that are gathering in numbers and power…
INT – FARMHOUSE – EVENING
…Jack is lighting oil lamps when he hears a rumbling from outside…
EXT – FARMHOUSE – EVENING
… axe in hand, Jack steps out onto the concrete slab outside the front door and sees the tsunami of roots coming across the fields towards the farmhouse – he sees the frontrunners make contact with his ring of herbicide in the soil at the edge of the slab – the roots recoil: hissing and squirming in agony – his defences work! – he reassures Beth and Jan who’ve come to the door – but then he senses something in his feet – he gets down and puts his ear to the concrete – he hears what sounds like big roots scraping deep under the slab: the creeper growing up the outside of the house starts to come to life – Beth and Jan retreat inside – Jack takes his axe to the creeper, but its branches are too quick – too many…
EXT – WILD FOREST – EVENING
… Leah sprints back to her family…
INT – FARMHOUSE – NIGHT
… the creeper is breaking the glass in the windows to get inside, in spite of Jack’s efforts, roots are coming in through the door, Jan sees terrified Jeb and accuses him of poisoning their mother, killing her – Jeb denies, but Jan doesn’t believe him – as Jack comes in Jan decides they have to get Jeb out of the house and give him to the monster – it’s their mother avenging her murder by Jeb. Jack’s desperate – agrees, but Beth hears Jeb’s protests of his innocence and refuses to deliver her father to the monster – as Jack axes roots that are beginning to encircle them Jan attacks Beth who’s clinging to Jeb to protect him. As Jan becomes more violent trying to detach pregnant Beth from their father, a root grabs Jan by the ankle, abruptly pulls her off Beth with great force and lifts her though the air as it suddenly pulls her outside – lethally smashing Jan against the walls as her limp body scrapes through the window like a rag doll
On the way, Jan’s flailing limbs knock over oil lamps which starts a fire inside. Beth and Jack immediately start to try and put out the fire – Jack sees that the roots are recoiling from the fire – and just as Beth almost has the fire under control, Jack seizes the opportunity of Beth’s distraction, picks up Jeb and carries him outside. Firefighting Beth roars in protest – but it turns into a contraction and she falls to her knees – now the fire instantly regains its strength …
EXT – FARMHOUSE – NIGHT
… Leah arrives back at farmhouse as Jeb is carrying her father outside – anticipating resistance to his mission, Jack shouts that Jeb poisoned her mother and Jeb’s the one she wants (Jeb says “No!”)… and then Jack becomes aware that Leah is standing where Jack wants to throw Jeb – amongst the moiling roots swirling beyond the slab – LEAH IS UNHARMED – How can this be? Jack knows what these roots can and will do! Has she been possessed by the mother? Leah works out that Jack intends her father’s fate to be the same as Michael’s and decides to stop him – she tells him to stand still, walks towards him onto the slab, and demands Jack give her Jeb – terrified Jack is frozen to the spot – as Leah approaches from his front, he doesn’t see the creeper roots are snaking over the concrete behind him – Jack lets Leah (the monster?) take Jeb just as a creeper root tugs him forcibly away – more roots grab, bend him backwards and snap his spine before dragging him into the creeper growing up the house where he’s dismembered into pieces which are dragged in different directions up the walls, through the leaves.
Leah hears Beth scream as something crashes inside the burning farmhouse: she lays Jeb down on the concrete slab and rushes into the building to save her sister.
INT – FARMHOUSE – NIGHT
It’s ablaze and Beth is screaming with contractions, but she’s not being attacked by the roots, Leah sees that the roots seem to be trying to put the fire out, sap hissing as they’re burned in the attempt – she tries to help labouring Beth out of the fire, but structural timbers collapse onto Beth’s legs – she is trapped – in spite of the efforts of the roots the fire is out of control – Leah cannot move Beth and both of them are struggling to breathe… Beth knows how this is going to end – she helps Leah make the decision: “Save my baby!” Leah grabs a knife, c-sections the baby out of her dying sister and manages to get out of the blazing house alive with the dripping new-born…
EXT – FARMHOUSE – NIGHT
… Leah goes to Jeb who’s barely alive, lying on the concrete slab that is still some kind of a safety raft in the maelstrom. Dying Jeb whispers to Leah: he didn’t poison their mother – but after Leah was born he had to start using chemicals on the farm, to make ends meet, but her mother thought he was poisoning their farm with the chemicals – the farm that they’d made together to nourish their children (Jeb looks at the new born) all children – Jeb wouldn’t listen to her and in despair she killed herself with the same poison he was using on the land. Jeb asks Leah to forgive him. Leah forgives, just as a root finally cracks the concrete, reaches around Jeb’s neck and decapitates him.
The baby’s hungry, but devastated Leah picks up a piece of burning wood from the collapsing house…
EXT – FARM CHEMICAL STORE – NIGHT
Leah kicks over a drum and throws her burning wood into the store – as she walks away with the baby the store explodes into flames…
EXT – GNARLY TREE – NIGHT
Even from a distance the flickering flames cast their light on the mother’s skeleton hanging in the roots of the decaying tree as Leah strides away from the burning farmhouse with the baby and the dog. The dog barks as if possessed as it tries to block Leah’s path to her mother, but she will not be stopped – furious, Leah defiantly holds the baby up to her mother’s skull and dares to shout “Enough!” – the dog stops barking but her mother’s unblinking eye sockets meet Leah’s penetrating gaze as the baby cries and cries…
How will this child be fed?
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Bill Anderson’s Character Journey Track for MOTHERLAND
What I learned doing this assignment is the importance of giving every character their own valid journey according to common criteria – minor characters get more interesting.
Character profiles:
LEAH
1. Moral One: Leah was born deaf but at least she survived – her Mother died giving birth to her, and Leah has always been a healer – becoming a veterinarian was a way of making that useful with the animals on the farm and beyond. In addition she has always seen the hurt in Jeb for the loss of her mother and felt a responsibility to look after him in her mother’s absence. Jeb’s favourite, she has always lived on the farm.
2. Kind, curious, quietly brave.
3. Violence.
4. Harmony with all living things
5. Empathy
6. Focuses, acts rationally
7. Leah tries to compensate with her sisters for being Jeb’s favourite daughter. Pregnant Beth appreciates her expert kindness, Jan is more jealous of her apparently more intimate relationship with their parent(s). Jack and Michael just see her as the little sister.
JAN
1. Complainer: Jan (eldest daughter) can’t understand why Jeb persists in not letting her take over running the farm – she graduated from agricultural college with honours, she’s been working in sales for a fertilizer company and she knows exactly how she’d turn the farm around using the latest cutting edge technology – if she was Jeb’s son it would all be so different. She blames Michael for their not having conceived a child yet.
2. Conventional. Ambitious. Wants to be in charge. Likes to boss Michael, but is quietly dependent upon him.
3. Not being able to have children.
4. To run the farm the way she knows best and increase its productivity. Babies.
5. She’s decisive and persuasive.
6. Angry, blames others.
7. Jealous of Beth’s pregnancy; admires Michael’s superior intellect, but hates his poor fertility – treats him like the younger brother she never had; disguises her fear of her father with academic/theoretical agricultural discourse; resents Jeb’s favourite daughter Leah, resents Leah’s practical healing, but is proud of her becoming a vet; indulges her middle sister Beth who has always been “stupid” but fun. Wouldn’t be so sexually attracted to Jack if she had conceived a child and he hadn’t .
MICHAEL
1. Introvert: Michael (Jan’s husband) is a scientist specialising in genetically modified coatings to make crop seeds resistant to attack – from pests, fungi, bacteria etc. Happy in the sterile environment of the lab, he is quietly furious that the fecundity of his own seed is in question.
2. Curious. Detached. Loves neat abstract, hates mess: emotional and physical. Asthmatic – inhaler – autoimmune aggravated by stress.
3. Wild animals. Being out of control.
4. A partner to value and protect him. Quiet space.
5. A dry sense of humour.
6. Avoid, deflect
7. Thinks the world of Jan – but her whole family is chaos on legs – dreads visiting, but the farm is an interesting, challenging project.
BETH
1. Rebel: Before she even knew what they were, Beth embraced the principles of permaculture and rewilding to define herself as an individual against her domineering father and high-achieving, conforming sister Jan. Beth’s semi-itinerant hippy lifestyle brought her into contact with Jack and for the latter months of the pregnancy they have been living on the farm.
2. Naughty, funny, wayward.
3. Her baby dies, or born deformed.
4. Wants to turn the farm back into the Garden of Eden. Needs somewhere safe.
5. Fun. A good cook/nourisher.
6. Dramatize – Looks to others for help and guidance.
7. Expects to have to negotiate everything with everyone, but is always swayed by her big sister Jan.
JACK
1. Out of Control: Jack is a talented musician who fancies himself as a shaman. He also has an eye on Beth’s share of the farm. And sees that Jan has an eye on his proven fertility.
2. Dynamic connector; sexy seducer
3. Disease, hospitals, surgery, technology
4. Wants sensory pleasure/Needs it now
5. Good-looking, knows how to charm
6. Angry, calculating.
7. Easy relationship with Beth getting more complicated with the approach of the birth. Dislikes Michael, but happy to charm the rest of Beth’s family for what it might bring.
JEB
1. Leader: without consultation, patriarch Jeb (70, Father) announces at the family gathering for his birthday that he’s going to sell the failing family farm. None of his daughters want this, they want to keep the farm where they were raised in the family, but how could they make the farm work?
2. Tough, blinkered, proud, denying becoming physically weaker with age.
3. Being hated by his children.
4. To provide for his family
5. Provides for his family
6. Angry denial
7. Patriarch
Character Journeys:
MICHAEL
1. Genetic seed biologist struggling to conceive a child with wife Beth. Supporting her plans to update and upgrade the family farm that’s been in decline too long.
2. Reaction to (crazy storm/landslide/Jeb asphyxiation) fungus growing beside Jeb is to deny it’s monster – it’s a perfectly plausible flowering fungus given the sudden, extreme wet conditions – and…
3. …just apply huge dose of chemically-proven fungicide.
4. Dead.
5. Can’t fight back
6. Running from Jack after attacking him for having sex with Beth – grabbed by monster.
7. Fungicide isn’t going to stop the monster.
JAN
1. Eldest daughter, highly qualified to farm, but frustrated – denied the chance on the family farm by her patrician father Jeb, because she’s a girl. Jealous of wayward younger sister Beth’s pregnancy and doing everything she can, but failing to conceive a child with husband Michael. Coming to Jeb’s 70<sup>th</sup> birthday family reunion with the agenda of announcing taking over and running the farm “properly”.
2. Denial
3. Sacrifice her sister Leah when she discovers mother’s skeleton and ring
4. Recruits Beth to turn on Leah.
5. Fights with Beth to let monster take their father instead of them
6. Smashed against the wall by roots dragging her through a window
7. This monster is protecting Beth.
JACK
1. Musician, wannabe shaman and wheeler-dealer opportunist, has hooked up with Beth, got her pregnant and is staying with her on the farm – rent-free and the prospect of a share.
2. Jack rolls with the storm/landslide/Jeb asphyxiation as just “weather” – he figures Jeb’s a goner from the crevasse/root but eager to help to earn kudos and a better share of the farm when Jeb dies.
3. Jack runs in terror from the monster roots that killed Michael.
4. Jack is believed by Beth, but Jan is suspicious of his account of Michael’s death (She’s concerned Jack wants him dead). Leah thinks Jack may have hallucinated the whole thing after accidentally (or deliberately) ingesting some of Jeb fungus.
5. Jack pours a ring of toxic herbicide around the farmhouse to protect them. He axes creeper branches trying to get into the house. He carries Jeb out of the house in the belief that Jeb is the intended the branches and roots.
6. Snapped in two by roots/branches – to make Jack drop Jeb
7. Jeb is indeed the primary target of the monster.
BETH
1. Middle, wayward daughter returned to family farm pregnant with her boyfriend Jack to have her baby in safety.
2. Denial until Jack tells what happened to Michael.
3. Waters break.
4. Persuaded by Jan to potentially let the monster take Leah instead of them
5. Redoubles here efforts to protect her family right or wrong – very much including Jeb – fights Jan to stop her giving Jeb to the monsyter
6. Trapped by fire she lives long enough for Leah to c-section her baby before she’s asphyxiated.
7. The monster was trying to protect trapped Beth and her baby from the fire.
JEB
1. Struggling to keep the farm he’s worked all his life financially viable – can’t afford the interest on the debt accumulated to keep farming increasingly intensively – decides to sell up to give something to his three daughters.
2. Runs away in a panic from his wife coming back from the grave with the nest egg letter.
3. Screams and flails as the landslide opens up and the root asphyxiates
4. Unconcious.
5. Confesses his guilt in mother’s suicide.
6. Decapitated by root as Leah forgives him.
7. Don’t farm intensively/over reach/disrespect Mother Earth
LEAH
1. Working as a vet and looking after ageing Jeb, living with him on the farm.
2. (Hides her reaction to the mother cow dying giving birth to the deformed calf – the horror story of her own birth) Denies Jack’s story of Michael’s death – suspects he’s hallucinating from fungus.
3. Hides her fear and stays calm.
4. Hides her suspicions about mother’s skeleton for as long as possible to try to understand them, and protect herself and others. Sacrificed by Jan and Beth.
5. Goes where everyone else fears – the scene of Michael’s death: to prove to the others that there is no monster. C-sections Beth’s baby (protected by the monster)
6. Leah directly challenges the monster
7. Leah’s defence of Beth’s baby and respect for the land may placate the monster?
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Bill Anderson’s Horror Situation Track for MOTHERLAND
Apologies: here’s the missing monster –
A. Who is your monster and what is their terror?
• What are its powers?
It uses roots and fungal mycelium alive in the dirt to sense (hear, touch, smell, taste) and attack its prey. The roots can grab, asphyxiate and tear its victims limb from limb, the fungal spores can infect and poison. It can summon the wind.• What are its limitations?
It cannot see. It is less powerful in the open air and underwater.• What are its weaknesses?
Toxic chemical herbicide and fungicide; fire• What is its Plan/Purpose/Appetite?
To avenge its lethal poisoning and restore the land to fertility -
Bill Anderson’s Horror Situation Track for MOTHERLAND
What I learned doing this assignment is how useful such clearly defined elements of this track are for testing the validity of the horror situations.
ACT 1 — SET UP FOR HORROR
Atmosphere of Evil established
The sparse leaves of an ancient, gnarled tree atop a rocky outcrop on an isolated farm shiver as the last sunlight of the day is crushed below the horizon by the menacing clouds of night: we follow the sugars of photosynthesis inside the tree down to its roots which will exude them into the darkness of the dirt. A twisted root swells and splits off a piece of the rock it’s penetrated – this snaps, falls to the bottom of the outcrop, and smashes into the skull of a fox that was eating the entrails of its prey. As the fox spasms in death, something we can’t quite make out in the darkness drags the fox to its underground lair, where it disappears just before a car headlights beam sweeps past, headed along the track to the isolated farmhouse…
HORROR SITUATION: some unseen force/thing kills a fox and drags its body underground.
REACTION – DENIAL Jan and Michael glimpse the fox disappearing strangely, but dismiss anything untoward.
REVEAL Unseen monster splits rock, kills fox, drags its body underground
DEMAND – what monster is this?
Connect with the characters
… the car brings eldest daughter Jan and her husband Michael to her father Jeb’s birthday celebration joining Jan’s two sisters: (pregnant) Beth + partner Jack, and Leah. Lively family reunion, fun and old scores about how the farm should be run – the one member they can all easily relate to is Jeb’s wise old farm dog who is beyond happy to see them all together…
The characters are warned not to do it.
… Jeb announces he’s going to sell the failing family farm and divide the proceeds. The family start to discuss why/if/how they’ll do this but, out of character, the dog begins to bark incessantly making talk impossible. The Gnarly tree hears the dog barking form a distance – there is no wind, but its leaves suddenly rustle vigorously. They stop. Still no wind. The leaves rustle again, more insistently. They stop. Still no wind. The leaves rustle again, even more insistently and the wind begins to blow and build up into a storm.
REVEAL – The tree’s leaves move unnaturally and seem to summon the wind/storm
DEMAND – Is the tree the monster?Deaf veterinarian Leah senses something beyond the dog… Jeb hears prized pregnant cow in distress outside – through a night storm Jeb and Leah attend to complications with the birth of the calf, as the others lie awake. In the same moment, at the height of the storm: the gnarled tree is blown over, to reveal a skeleton rising up out of the ground entwined in the bolus of its roots, and permeated by a mycelial web; the two-headed hideously deformed calf is born as its mother dies horribly; Beth wakes everyone in the farm house screaming with Brackston Hicks contractions (Jan is jealous she’s not pregnant too)
HORROR SITUATION: crazy/possessed barking dog, birth of hideously deformed calf
REACTION – DENIAL: Jeb and the family ignores these unnatural harbingers HIDE: Leah hides her feelings of dread about how the dead calf and mother reflect her own deformed birth – killing her own mother.
REVEAL Jeb’s SELLING THE FARM announcement triggers crazy dog barking (we hear this from the POV of the gnarled tree whose leaves unnaturally suddenly rustle, stop, insistently rustle more, stop – suddenly the wind which wasn’t there before starts to build as if summoned by the leaves…) Cow in trouble with calf – rising storm – calf born deformed: dies along with mother – peak storm – tree blows over to reveal skeleton in roots and fungus – pregnant Beth has contractions… Start of unnatural, torrential rain…
DEMAND – why is monster triggered by proposed farm sale? Is the gnarled tree the monster? Is the skeleton the monster?
Denial of Horror
Daylight comes and the wind has subsided into heavy rain – a silent postman delivers a single letter: addressed to the Mother of the family – who died 30 years ago giving birth to Leah: it’s from a financial firm who have managed a nest-egg fund the Mother had secretly invested to mature now – on her 65<sup>th</sup> birthday – and over the years it’s grown into enough that means they won’t have to sell the farm. Everything will be OK – All they need to do is produce mum’s death certificate and will and the money’s theirs…
Safety taken away
…but Jeb violently, irrationally refuses, to produce any documents – grabs the nest-egg letter and storms out of the house into rain that has become biblical in its intensity – he’s terrified, running to escape this gauntlet from his past…
HORROR SITUATION: Jeb refuses to act – Mother has come back from the grave
REACTION – HIDE: Jeb doesn’t want the family to discover his secret about Mother’s death.
Monster: The nature of the beast.
… when a landslide suddenly opens up the ground in front of him and he slides into the crevasse but doesn’t fall to the bottom: his neck is abruptly caught by a noose-like root that starts to asphyxiate him – family rescue him before he dies, but Jeb’s unconscious body is limp as they drag him out of the crevasse – Jeb’s neck is broken, but he’s breathing.
HORROR SITUATION: Jeb is nearly killed by Mother
REACTION – TRY TO SOLVE the family rescue injured Jeb and save his life. DENIAL – they all force themselves to believe it was an accident.
REVEAL As Jeb tries to escape mother appearing on the farm from the past (nest egg) landslide crevasse opens up to swallow him – monster root breaks his neck and tries to asphyxiate him – family rescue, but now isolated – cut off by the storm.
DEMAND – is the extreme weather-summoning tree also responsible for the extreme rain? The root that attacks Jeb? Connected somehow to the roots entwined with skeleton? Why would tree/root want to kill Jeb for threatening to sell the farm?
ACT 2 — THE POINT OF NO RETURN
Isolated / Trapped / Abducted
Landslides have blocked/riven the track out of the farm – no escape by vehicle – and there’s no landline or mobile signal to call for help for injured Jeb.
HORROR SITUATION: isolation, cut off from help
REACTION – TRY TO SOLVE
Rain stops. Beth gives nursing Leah a break as Jan and Jack search in Jeb’s office for Mother documents – barren Jan makes sexual advances to fertile Jack, but Beth is too close… Michael tries in vain to repair the landline, and Leah goes to see the extent of storm damage on farm
Coming back from broken landline Michael discovers Jan and Jack secretly having sex in a barn – Michael backs away… Leah discovers the uprooted skeleton and a distinctive ring on one of its fingers.
HORROR SITUATION: face to face with the monster
REACTION – TRY TO SOLVE / HIDE Leah secretly tries to understand
REVEAL Leah discovers the skeleton and links ring to her dead Mother
DEMAND – If the skeleton is the monster why isn’t Leah attacked? Why is Leah’s Mother a part of the tree? Why did Jeb bury her there?Leah confirms the distinctive ring on a photo of her mother casually unearthed in Jeb’s bedroom by Jan and Jack, post coital Jan comes in and asks for damage report – Leah tells her just one tree blown down: Old Gnarly – she asks Jan if she remembers Mum wearing the ring in the photo, Jan asks why? Leah evasive, doesn’t reveal – Jan sees that Leah’s hiding something…
One of us killed
Jeb’s breathing becomes more laboured –
REVEAL _ Dog barks at something under Jeb’s couch – fungus growing up out of floorboards, mould appears in bedding around Jeb – invisibly affecting his lungs
DEMAND – is this fungus sent by the tree? Or a monster using the tree/fungus?The family discover mould has mysteriously appeared in Jeb’s bedding – spores may be damaging Jeb’s lungs – Leah notices the same mould has appeared on the nest-egg letter– Dog barks at something under Jeb’s couch – Jack discovers and closely examines distinctive, unfamiliar mushrooms are growing through the floorboards – family put it down to a leak in the roof caused by the storm. Michael goes to the agrochemical shed and mixes up a strong solution of chemical fungicide which he applies to the floor as Beth sterilises the bedding. Jan goes to check out the fallen gnarly tree – sees the skeleton, takes the ring (Jan is too focussed on the ring to notice what we see: the same fungus as in the house has appeared beside the skeleton since Leah was there)
HORROR SITUATION: face to face with the monster
REACTION – TRY TO SOLVE / HIDE Jan secretly covers her tracks from Leah
REVEAL – Jan discovers skeleton and knows it’s her Mother
DEMAND – Why doesn’t the skeleton attack Jan? Why doesn’t Jan see the fungus inside the skeleton?
Fungus growth is astonishingly rapid and Jeb is deteriorating so fast that they decide to send for help.
HORROR SITUATION: consuming fungus, unseen poison, rot, decay
REACTION – TRY TO SOLVE they will get medical help for Jeb
Jack volunteers to walk miles to the nearest doctor, and Michael says he’ll accompany him. On their journey they pass the uprooted skeleton tree but don’t see the skeleton as they leave the farm to take a shortcut through a wood. The skeleton sees Michael kick some of the distinctive fungus growing nearby – some of the same fungus inside the skeleton slowly opens its gills to release spores…
Jan re-examines the nest egg letter for any clues about Mother and sees that it is now riddled with mould – she hears Jeb’s laboured breathing – Jan completely re-evaluates the nest egg money – it is not a kind gift, it is malicious – Mother has come back to make mischief – for revenge!
Michael confronts Jack for having sex with Jan and threatens to reveal it and jeopardise Jack’s relationship to Beth and his share of the farm. Jack dismisses impotent Michael with contempt, and Michael attacks him. But bleeding Jack is only hurt enough to get mad and chases terrified Michael through a forest. Jack is overtaken by what looks like a root unearthing itself like a snake wriggling under fallen leaves to catch up with sprinting Michael: Jack sees the root surface to trip up Michael who flies though the air, smashes his head on a rock, and falls face down in a pool of storm water….
HORROR SITUATION: environment changing around you/monster approaching/see another killed
REACTION – DENIAL
REVEAL – Fungus inside Mother skeleton connects with fungus Michael harms/poisoned – roots unearth themselves to chase Michael and kill him
DEMAND – roots connected to Mother skeleton acting to avenge fungus/Mother? Roots somehow symbiotically collaborating with fungus? (Like roots and fungus in fact do all the time!!)MIDPOINT: The monster is worse than we thought!
Full pursuit by the killer
Jack knows what he saw but can’t understand it – he lifts the root beside him from under the leaves and confirms it’s freshly uprooted itself. As he puts it down it seems to retighten itself to the ground. He hears Michael choking in the water, but as he goes to help him leaves of the forest floor start rippling as they move towards him from various directions. Jack abandons Michael (who drowns) as he runs for his life – he leaps over the tracks of the subterranean roots as they catch up with him, but they can swiftly change direction and there are more and more of them coming – a three way root pincer movement almost gets him as he propels himself out of the wood into a grassy field near the farmhouse – the grass moves towards him in waves as he sprints back to the house…
HORROR SITUATION: Monster trying to get you/ environment changing around you
REACTION – ESCAPE Jack flees back to the safety of the farmhouse
REVEAL – unearthing roots co-ordinate in increasing numbers to chase Jack
DEMAND – what has Jack done to be chased? Thwarting the monster by helping Jeb? Why is Jack chased back to the farmhouse? Is there someone/something in the farmhouse the monster wants Jack to protect? Everyone in the farmhouse tries to fathom this escalation of the monster.Terrorized
… Jack bursts into the farmhouse in terror and tells what’s happened – Beth is terrified, believes bleeding shaman Jack’s story, Jan is distraught and suspicious of Jack’s crazy explanation of Michael’s disappearance/demise. Leah is concerned for Jeb and looks again at the mushrooms near Jeb that Jack earlier cut to examine closely – sees Jack wide-eyed with fear of everything outside. Jack goes to the chemical shed and pours a defensive ring of neat, toxic herbicide around the edge of the concrete slab surrounding the farmhouse. (he fails to consider the creeper growing up the outside of the house)
HORROR SITUATION: suspecting someone has been possessed
REACTION – TRY TO SOLVE IT
Leah goes to Jack and Beth’s room and discovers that Jack has kept some dissected pieces of the mushroom there.
HORROR SITUATION: suspecting forces of nature
REACTION – TRY TO SOLVE IT
Jan discovers Leah in Jack’s room and challenges her – what’s she doing in there? – Leah tells Jan she suspects Jack is hallucinating – that the mushroom he was handling is psychedelic – none of his story is real and that Michael is probably fine.
REVEAL – Jack has kept some of the (possible monster) fungus in the farmhouse
DEMAND – Is Leah right to assume hallucinogenic toxicity or is it more than that?ACT 3 — FULL OUT HORROR
Fight to the death
Jan conspiratorially shows Beth the photo of Mum’s ring then reveals the real thing – explains it’s from mum’s skeleton unearthed under the gnarly tree, how she found it and why she thinks that Leah’s hiding something – knows something she’s not telling. Tells Beth Leah thinks Jack’s just hallucinating from mushroom contact. Beth believes what Jack says happened – Jan needs to know for sure if Michael’s dead – Beth tells her not to go – it’s not safe – look what happened to Jack! Who else could go? Beth: If Leah’s so sure it’s make believe… but it’s unsafe for her too! Jan: I think mum’s come back for vengeance: did you kill her? Neither did I – it was Leah that killed her in childbirth! Let’s send her to find out what’s happened/Get help for Jeb – Beth reluctantly agrees.
Jack finishes with the herbicide and shows Leah on a map of the farm where he last saw Michael. Jan sends unsuspecting Leah out into the scary wood as an offering to monster (but officially to find Michael and also get help for worsening Jeb… )
HORROR SITUATION: internal conflict in the group/being lured into danger/suspecting forces of nature
REACTION – TRY TO SOLVE IT
As Leah and the dog tread carefully through the threatening scary forest, Jan and Beth search for paperwork in Jeb’s office that might explain the nest egg’s arrival but eventually find the Mother’s death certificate – she didn’t die in childbirth, she was poisoned – who poisoned her?
REVEAL – The mother died from poison – not in childbirth from Leah
DEMAND – Who poisoned her?Hysteria
… as the forest shimmers, hisses, creaks and groans with supernatural threat, Leah and the dog come upon the body of Michael, already being consumed by fungus and penetrated by roots…
HORROR SITUATION: monster approaching, seeing another dead, rotting body
REACTION – HIDE:
REVEAL – Leah discovers Michael’s body on the forest floor – she turns it over and there is hugely unnatural advanced decay – his body is already hollowed out by fungus and maggots which crawl out of his mouth – eel-like amphibian scavengers wriggle out of hie eye sockets…
DEMAND – How did this decay happen so quickly?On the shock of seeing Michaels grotesquely decayed face the forest floor explodes in a tsunami of roots and leaves heading straight for Leah – she’s knocked to the ground,
HORROR SITUATION: face to face with the monster
REACTION – ESCAPE:
REVEAL – Huge numbers of roots unearth and speed towards Leah
DEMAND – What is it about this particular place? Why are there so many more roots than before? (the monster’s GROWING in the dirt!)But the roots are all rushing past her – she’s hardly harmed – but she sees that all this malice is headed towards the farmhouse
HORROR SITUATION: impending doom/face to face with the monster
REACTION – FIGHT: Leah rushes to defend her family
REVEAL – The roots monster roots doesn’t kill Leah – it’s rushing back towards the farmhouse.
DEMAND – Why has Leah NOT been killed like Michael? Why is she not being chased like Jack? Why has the monster rushed past her NOW?Leah starts running back the way she came, following in the wake of the roots that are gathering power…
Jan and Beth hear creaking from under the floorboards under Jeb…
HORROR SITUATION: monster approaching
REACTION – HIDE: Jan and Beth make no movement as they hear roots moving underneath the floor where they stand… and heading towards Jeb
REVEAL – Creaking floorboards under Jeb suggest monster has got past Jeb’s defences and may be under the house.
DEMAND – How did the monster get past Jack’s defences? (Jack didn’t think of the creeper growing on the outside walls of the house – which were highlighted to us, not him when Jack finished pouring the herbicide circle.REVEAL – Jeb sees the roots assembling, scotched by and recoiling from the herbicide at the perimeter of the slab, but he feels something under his feet – he puts his ear to the concrete and hears a deep, scraping rumble
DEMAND – Have the roots gone deep under the concete?REVEAL – The creeper on the outside of the house starts to come alive
DEMAND – Jack decides the monster has activated the creeper and axes branches trying to get in the door…REVEAL – The creeper monster is growing too fast for Jack to contain – breaking through windows.
DEMAND – What can Jack do to protect everyone in the farmhouse?HORROR SITUATION: impending doom/face to face with the monster
REACTION – FIGHT: Jack attacks the roots
Inside the farmhouse, the rattling of the roots below the floorboards and the crawling of the creepers growing on the outside walls, breaking the glass in the windows jolts Jeb back into consciousness – he calls out his wife’s name, he feels her coming. Jack is using an axe to chop roots as they come inside but there are too many
REVEAL – The roots have penetrated into the house.
DEMAND – What can the family do to save themselves from a death like Michael’s?Jan screams that it’s Jeb the mother wants, not them, and tells Jack to help her carry Jeb outside to stop the house and its occupants being attacked.
HORROR SITUATION: dilemma – sacrifice Jeb to save everybody.
REACTION – TRY TO SOLVE IT
But Beth won’t allow this to happen to her father – she struggles to protect him, and Jan attacks her pregnant sister.
HORROR SITUATION: internal conflict in the group
REACTION – FIGHT: Jan attacks Beth
Jan barely notices the root wrapping itself around her ankle as she struggles with Beth – until the root abruptly pulls her off Beth and lifts her though the air as it suddenly pulls her outside, lethally smashing Jan against the walls as her body flies through the window.
HORROR SITUATION: see another killed/out of the frying pan into the fire…!
REACTION – TRY TO SOLVE IT: put out the fire.
REVEAL – Monster kills Jan by pulling her out through a window
DEMAND – Why did monster kill Jan first? Chose her over Beth, Jack and Jeb? (Jan was attacking PREGNANT Beth/unborn child)On the way, Jan’s flailing limbs knock over oil lamps which starts a fire inside. Beth and Jack immediately start to put out the fire, but as soon as Jack sees Beth has the fire almost under control, he seizes the opportunity of Beth’s distraction and picks up Jeb and carries him outside.
HORROR SITUATION: internal conflict in the group
REACTION – FIGHT: but the contraction stops Beth in her tracks
Firefighting Beth roars in protest – but a contraction starts and she falls to her knees – now the fire instantly regains its strength …
The thrilling escape from death
… Leah arrives back at the farmhouse as Jack rushes out of the door carrying Jeb – Leah sees roots and creepers suddenly turn on Jack and Jeb – Jack is grabbed by the ankle, falls forwards and let’s go of Jeb – before they both hit the ground, a root reaches up, wraps around Jack’s neck and pulls his entire body upright and backwards – snapping Jack’s back and neck.
HORROR SITUATION: seeing another killed
REACTION – FIGHT – Leah will protect fallen Jeb
REVEAL – Monster kills Jack as he carries Jeb out of the house to give him to the monster
DEMAND – Why doesn’t monster kill Jeb too? Is it because Jeb’s landed on the concrete which is somehow safe? The monster would kill Jeb if it could only get to him.Roots are converging on Jeb as he hits the ground, but a scream from Beth inside the house seems to give them pause.
HORROR SITUATION: friend in danger/dilemma: who to save?
REACTION – FIGHT: Leah rushes in to burning farmhouse
Leah rushes past Jack’s spasming body into the burning farmhouse – inside it’s ablaze and Beth is screaming with contractions, but she’s not being attacked by the roots, Leah sees that the roots seem to be trying to put the fire out, sap hissing as they’re burned in the attempt – she tries to help labouring Beth out of the fire, but structural timbers collapse onto Beth’s legs – she is trapped – in spite of the efforts of the roots the fire is out of control – Leah cannot move Beth and she cannot breathe
HORROR SITUATION: trapped/dilemma: who to save?
REACTION – TRY TO SOLVE IT
REVEAL – Monster appears to try and protect Beth from the fire that has trapped her inside the farmhouse – the fire hurts the monster – it’s costing the monster dear to protect Beth.
DEMAND – Is it because the monster wants to save her granddaughter? Beth? Leah?Leah grabs a knife, c-sections the baby out of her dying sister and manages to get out of the house alive with the dripping new-born…
Death returns to take one or more.
… Leah goes to Jeb who’s still just alive, lying on the ground that’s still rippling with menacing roots around him. Dying Jeb whispers to Leah – we hear him, but Leah can’t make sense – his lips hardly move: When mother was alive she and father farmed the land organically: they had two daughters and the land could sustain the family. The father wanted a son. The mother knew they couldn’t afford another child, but the father persuaded her that a son would be an investment in the farm, not a drain of resources – production could increase by more than what the son would consume. But they had another daughter, Leah Against mother’s wishes, the father unilaterally decided the only way forward was to borrow money and turn the farm into an intensive, agrochemical concern. This turned the mother’s postnatal depression into suicidal despair. She poisoned herself with the chemicals she believed her husband was poisoning their farm. Jeb asks for forgiveness – Leah forgives him, but… A root cracks open the concrete, emerges from beneath the ground and slides over his neck, before suddenly tightening and severing his head.
HORROR SITUATION: see another killed
REACTION – FIGHT: but it’s too late
REVEAL – The monster finally manages to penetrate the concrete, grow a root around Jeb’s neck, and tighten it to decapitate him as he’s granted forgiveness by Leah.
DEMAND – Is Leah in danger because she forgave her father when the monster couldn’t?Resolution
Leah strides away from the burning farmhouse with the baby and the dog. Even from a distance the flickering flames cast their light on the mother’s skeleton hanging in the roots of the tree. The dog barks as if possessed as it tries to block Leah’s path to her mother, but she will not be stopped – furious, she defiantly holds the baby up to her mother’s skull and dares to shout “Enough” – the dog stops barking but her mother’s unblinking eye sockets meet Leah’s gaze…
REVEAL – The monster is confronted by Leah challenging it.
DEMAND – What will the monster do in the sequel…!
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Bill Anderson’s Character Death Track for MOTHERLAND
What I learned doing this assignment is that summarising the death track crystallises the horror concept very effectively – I also learned that I’d basically done most of it as part of my Horror Plot in lesson 4 – maybe why that assignment took me so long!
Character Death 1: Michael
Why: Michael’s trying to help Jeb (who the monster’s already attacked), and threatens to hurt Beth
How: Chased and grabbed by monster root which makes him smash his head on rock and drown.
Character Death 2: Jan
Why: Jan conspires with Beth, deliberately sending Leah into danger into the known path of the monster, hoping the monster would kill Leah and not them. Subsequently Jan attacks her pregnant sister who’s trying to stop Jan sacrificing her father
How: Monster root smashes her against the wall as it pulls her outside through a window
Character Death 3: Jack
Why: He betrays his pregnant partner Beth by having sex with Jan – with Michael killed by the monster, Jack plans to undermine family and replace Jeb, insinuating himself as the singular patriarch.
How: Two monster roots snap his body – break his back and neck.
Character Death 4: Beth
Why: Conspired with Jan, deliberately sending Leah into danger into the known path of the monster, hoping the monster would kill Leah and not them.
How: Burns alive, trapped in fire accidently caused by Jan’s killing by monster root.
Character Death 5: Jeb
Why: Ignored Mother’s warnings and poisoned the earth/farm with chemicals to unsustainably over-exploit the land – caused the Mother to commit suicide in despair.
How: Left paralysed by monster root attempting to asphyxiate him as he’s trapped in a landslide crevasse; lungs attacked by spores from fungus sent by monster; finally when he confesses and asks for forgiveness monster root decapitates him.
Survivor: Leah
Why: She respects, nurtures and heals all living things and is untouched by the corruption in her family and its land. She saves Beth’s child.
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Bill Anderson’s Horror Situation Track for MOTHERLAND
What I learned doing this assignment is how useful such clearly defined elements of this track are for testing the validity of the horror situations.
ACT 1 — SET UP FOR HORROR
Atmosphere of Evil established
The sparse leaves of an ancient, gnarled tree atop a rocky outcrop on an isolated farm shiver as the last sunlight of the day is crushed below the horizon by the menacing clouds of night: we follow the sugars of photosynthesis inside the tree down to its roots which will exude them into the darkness of the dirt. A twisted root swells and splits off a piece of the rock it’s penetrated – this snaps, falls to the bottom of the outcrop, and smashes into the skull of a fox that was eating the entrails of its prey. As the fox spasms in death, something we can’t quite make out in the darkness drags the fox to its underground lair, where it disappears just before a car headlights beam sweeps past, headed along the track to the isolated farmhouse…
HORROR SITUATION: some unseen force/thing kills a fox and drags its body underground.
REACTION – DENIAL Jan and Michael glimpse the fox disappearing strangely, but dismiss anything untoward.
Connect with the characters
… the car brings eldest daughter Jan and her husband Michael to her father Jeb’s birthday celebration joining Jan’s two sisters: (pregnant) Beth + partner Jack, and Leah. Lively family reunion, fun and old scores – the one member they can all easily relate to is Jeb’s wise old farm dog who is beyond happy to see them all together…
The characters are warned not to do it.… Jeb announces he’s going to sell the failing family farm and divide the proceeds. The family start to discuss why/if/how they’ll do this but, out of character, the dog begins to bark incessantly making talk impossible. Deaf veterinarian Leah senses something beyond the dog… Jeb hears prized pregnant cow in distress outside – through a night storm Jeb and Leah attend to complications with the birth of the calf, as the others lie awake. In the same moment, at the height of the storm: the gnarled tree is blown over, to reveal a skeleton rising up out of the ground entwined in the bolus of its roots, and permeated by a mycelial web; the two-headed hideously deformed calf is born as its mother dies horribly; Beth wakes everyone in the farm house screaming with Brackston Hicks contractions (Jan is jealous she’s not pregnant too) <div>
HORROR SITUATION: crazy/possessed barking dog, birth of hideously deformed calf
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REACTION – DENIAL: Jeb and the family ignores these unnatural harbingers HIDE: Leah hides her feelings of dread about how the dead calf and mother reflect her own deformed birth – killing her own mother.
Denial of Horror
Daylight comes and the wind has subsided into heavy rain – a silent postman delivers a single letter: addressed to the Mother of the family – who died 30 years ago giving birth to Leah: it’s from a financial firm who have managed a nest-egg fund the Mother had secretly invested to mature now – on her 65<sup>th</sup> birthday – and over the years it’s grown into enough that means they won’t have to sell the farm. Everything will be OK – All they need to do is produce mum’s death certificate and will and the money’s theirs…
Safety taken away
…but Jeb violently, irrationally refuses, to produce any documents – grabs the nest-egg letter and storms out of the house into rain that has become biblical in its intensity – he’s terrified, running to escape this gauntlet from his past…
HORROR SITUATION: Jeb refuses to act – Mother has come back from the grave
REACTION – HIDE: Jeb doesn’t want the family to discover his secret about Mother’s death.
Monster: The nature of the beast.
… when a landslide suddenly opens up the ground in front of him and he slides into the crevasse but doesn’t fall to the bottom: his neck is abruptly caught by a noose-like root that starts to asphyxiate him – family rescue him before he dies, but Jeb’s unconscious body is limp as they drag him out of the crevasse – Jeb’s neck is broken, but he’s breathing.
HORROR SITUATION: Jeb is nearly killed by Mother
REACTION – TRY TO SOLVE the family rescue injured Jeb and save his life. DENIAL – they all force themselves to believe it was an accident.
ACT 2 — THE POINT OF NO RETURN
Isolated / Trapped / Abducted
Landslides have blocked/riven the track out of the farm – no escape by vehicle – and there’s no landline or mobile signal to call for help for injured Jeb.
HORROR SITUATION: isolation, cut off from help
REACTION – TRY TO SOLVE
Rain stops. Beth gives nursing Leah a break as Jan and Jack search in Jeb’s office for Mother documents – barren Jan makes sexual advances to fertile Jack, but Beth is too close… Michael tries in vain to repair the landline, and Leah goes to see the extent of storm damage on farm – Leah discovers the uprooted skeleton and a distinctive ring on one of its fingers.
HORROR SITUATION: face to face with the monster
REACTION – TRY TO SOLVE / HIDE Leah secretly tries to understand
Coming back from broken landline Michael discovers Jan and Jack secretly having sex in a barn – Michael backs away… Leah confirms the distinctive ring on a photo of her mother casually unearthed in Jeb’s bedroom by Jan and Jack.
One of us killed
Jeb’s breathing becomes more laboured – the family discover mould has mysteriously appeared in Jeb’s bedding – spores may be damaging Jeb’s lungs – Leah notices the same mould has appeared on the nest-egg letter– Jack discovers and closely examines distinctive, unfamiliar mushrooms are growing through the floorboards – family put it down to a leak in the roof caused by the storm, but it’s growth seems astonishingly rapid and Jeb is deteriorating so fast that they decide to send for help.
HORROR SITUATION: consuming fungus, unseen poison, rot, decay
REACTION – TRY TO SOLVE they will get medical help for Jeb
Jack volunteers to walk miles to the nearest doctor, and Michael says he’ll accompany him. On their journey they pass the uprooted skeleton tree but don’t see the skeleton as they leave the farm. The skeleton sees them… Michael confronts Jack for having sex with Jan and threatens to reveal it and jeopardise Jack’s relationship to Beth and his share of the farm. Jack dismisses impotent Michael with contempt, and Michael attacks him. But bleeding Jack is only hurt enough to get mad and chases terrified Michael through a forest. Jack is overtaken by what looks like a root unearthing itself like a snake wriggling under fallen leaves to catch up with sprinting Michael: Jack sees the root surface to trip up Michael who flies though the air, smashes his head on a rock, and falls face down in a pool of storm water….
HORROR SITUATION: environment changing around you/monster approaching/see another killed
REACTION – DENIAL
MIDPOINT: The monster is worse than we thought!
Full pursuit by the killer
Jack knows what he saw but can’t understand it – he lifts the root beside him from under the leaves and confirms it’s freshly uprooted itself. As he puts it down it seems to retighten itself to the ground. He hears Michael choking in the water, but as he goes to help him leaves of the forest floor start rippling as they move towards him from various directions. Jack abandons Michael (who drowns) as he runs for his life – he leaps over the tracks of the subterranean roots as they catch up with him, but they can swiftly change direction and there are more and more of them coming – a three way root pincer movement almost gets him as he propels himself out of the wood into a grassy field near the farmhouse – the grass moves towards him in waves as he sprints back to the house…
HORROR SITUATION: Monster trying to get you/ environment changing around you
REACTION – ESCAPE Jack flees back to the safety of the farmhouse
Terrorized
… Jack bursts into the farmhouse in terror and tells what’s happened – Beth is terrified, believes bleeding shaman Jack’s story, Jan is distraught and suspicious of Jack’s crazy explanation of Michael’s disappearance/demise. Leah is concerned for Jeb and looks again at the mushrooms near Jeb that Jack earlier cut to examine closely – sees Jack wide-eyed with fear of everything outside.
HORROR SITUATION: suspecting someone has been possessed
REACTION – TRY TO SOLVE IT
She slips out the door with the dog and carefully heads towards Mother’s skeleton as if the ground is a minefield
HORROR SITUATION: suspecting forces of nature
REACTION – TRY TO SOLVE IT
So far nothing untoward is happening: grass and roots all normal, dog happy
– Leah doesn’t see Jan watching her closely from a window. When Leah gets to skeleton she sees that the same mushrooms have now appeared in the ground beside her mother. Leah examines the mushrooms carefully – are they hallucinogenic? Did Jack absorb some of their active ingredient?
HORROR SITUATION: suspecting forces of nature
REACTION – TRY TO SOLVE IT
Protecting her hand with a leaf she picks a mushroom and offers it to the dog – he sniffs it carefully: uninterested, no sign of danger. Leah looks closely at the ring on her mother’s finger She puts her hand inside the skeleton and gently touches a ball of roots where her mother’s womb would have been. Leah weeps. She’s startled by Jan who has followed her. Jan looks at the ring – recognises it’s her mother’s– Jan decides their mother has returned for vengeance – it was Leah that killed her in childbirth…
ACT 3 — FULL OUT HORROR
Fight to the death
Jan returns to the farmhouse with Leah. Jan conspiratorially explains to Beth why she now believes Jack’s horror story and that Michael is dead – their Mother has returned seeking vengeance and it must be because Leah was the one who killed her in childbirth: Beth asks why mother waited till now? Jan replies the nest egg that’s matured – it must be something to do with that, but whatever- if Mother wants to kill Leah they should save their skins by letting Leah be taken before anyone else gets hurt – with Beth’s tacit collusion, Jan sends Leah out into the scary wood to find Michael and get help for worsening Jeb…
HORROR SITUATION: internal conflict in the group/being lured into danger/suspecting forces of nature
REACTION – TRY TO SOLVE IT
As Leah and the dog tread carefully through the threatening scary forest, Jan and Beth search for paperwork in Jeb’s office that might explain the nest egg’s arrival but eventually find the Mother’s death certificate – she didn’t die in childbirth, she was poisoned – who poisoned her? They hear rattling under the floorboards under Jeb…
HORROR SITUATION: monster approaching
REACTION – HIDE: Jan and Beth make no movement as they hear roots moving underneath the floor where they stand… and heading towards Jeb
Hysteria
… as the forest shimmers, hisses, creaks and groans with supernatural threat, Leah and the dog come upon the body of Michael, already being consumed by fungus and penetrated by roots…
HORROR SITUATION: monster approaching, seeing another dead, rotting body
REACTION – HIDE:
on the shock of seeing Michaels grotesquely decayed face the forest floor explodes in a tsunami of roots and leaves heading straight for Leah – she’s knocked to the ground,
HORROR SITUATION: face to face with the monster
REACTION – ESCAPE:
but the roots are all rushing past her – she’s hardly harmed – but she sees that all this malice is headed towards the farmhouse
HORROR SITUATION: impending doom/face to face with the monster
REACTION – FIGHT: Leah rushes to defend her family
she starts running back the way she came, following in the wake of the roots that are gathering power…
HORROR SITUATION: impending doom/face to face with the monster
REACTION – FIGHT: Jack attacks the roots
back at the farmhouse, the rattling of the roots below the floorboards and the crawling of the creepers growing on the outside walls, breaking the glass in the windows jolts Jeb back into consciousness – he calls out his wife’s name, he feels her coming. Jack is using an axe to chop roots as they come inside but there are too many –
HORROR SITUATION: impending doom/face to face with the monster
REACTION – FIGHT: Leah rushes to defend her family
Jan screams that it’s Jeb the mother wants, not them, and tells Jack to help her carry Jeb outside to stop the house and its occupants being attacked.
HORROR SITUATION: dilemma – sacrifice Jeb to save everybody.
REACTION – TRY TO SOLVE IT
But Beth won’t allow this to happen to her father – she struggles to protect him, and Jan attacks her pregnant sister.
HORROR SITUATION: internal conflict in the group
REACTION – FIGHT: Jan attacks Beth
Jan barely notices the root wrapping itself around her ankle as she struggles with Beth – until the root abruptly pulls her off Beth and lifts her though the air as it suddenly pulls her outside, lethally smashing Jan against the walls as her body flies through the window.
HORROR SITUATION: see another killed/out of the frying pan into the fire…!
REACTION – TRY TO SOLVE IT: put out the fire.
On the way, Jan’s flailing limbs knock over oil lamps which starts a fire inside. Beth and Jack immediately start to put out the fire, but as soon as Jack sees Beth has the fire almost under control, he seizes the opportunity of Beth’s distraction and picks up Jeb and carries him outside.
HORROR SITUATION: internal conflict in the group
REACTION – FIGHT: but the contraction stops Beth in her tracks
Firefighting Beth roars in protest – but a contraction starts and she falls to her knees – now the fire instantly regains its strength …
The thrilling escape from death
… Leah arrives back at the farmhouse as Jack rushes out of the door carrying Jeb – Leah sees roots and creepers suddenly turn on Jack and Jeb – Jack is grabbed by the ankle, falls forwards and let’s go of Jeb – before they both hit the ground, a root reaches up, wraps around Jack’s neck and pulls his entire body upright and backwards – snapping Jack’s back and neck.
HORROR SITUATION: seeing another killed
REACTION – FIGHT – Leah will protect fallen Jeb
Roots are converging on Jeb as he hits the ground, but a scream from Beth inside the house seems to give them pause.
HORROR SITUATION: friend in danger/dilemma: who to save?
REACTION – FIGHT: Leah rushes in to burning farmhouse
Leah rushes past Jack’s spasming body into the burning farmhouse – inside it’s ablaze and Beth is screaming with contractions, but she’s not being attacked by the roots, Leah sees that the roots seem to be trying to put the fire out, sap hissing as they’re burned in the attempt – she tries to help labouring Beth out of the fire, but structural timbers collapse onto Beth’s legs – she is trapped – in spite of the efforts of the roots the fire is out of control – Leah cannot move Beth and she cannot breathe
HORROR SITUATION: trapped/dilemma: who to save?
REACTION – TRY TO SOLVE IT
– Leah grabs a knife, c-sections the baby out of her dying sister and manages to get out of the house alive with the dripping new-born…
Death returns to take one or more.
… Leah goes to Jeb who’s still just alive, lying on the ground that’s still rippling with menacing roots around him…
Resolution
… dying Jeb whispers to Leah – we hear him, but Leah can’t make sense – his lips hardly move: When mother was alive she and father farmed the land organically: they had two daughters and the land could sustain the family. The father wanted a son. The mother knew they couldn’t afford another child, but the father persuaded her that a son would be an investment in the farm, not a drain of resources – production could increase by more than what the son would consume. But they had another daughter, Leah Against mother’s wishes, the father unilaterally decided the only way forward was to borrow money and turn the farm into an intensive, agrochemical concern. This turned the mother’s postnatal depression into suicidal despair. She poisoned herself with the chemicals she believed her husband was poisoning their farm. Jeb asks for forgiveness –
HORROR SITUATION: see another killed
REACTION – FIGHT: but it’s too late
a root emerges from the ground and slides over his neck, before suddenly tightening and severing his head.
HORROR SITUATION: the face of the monster
REACTION – TRY TO SOLVE IT
Leah strides away from the burning farmhouse with the baby and the dog. Even from a distance the flickering flames cast their light on the mother’s skeleton hanging in the roots of the tree. The dog barks as if possessed as it tries to block Leah’s path to her mother, but she will not be stopped – furious, she defiantly holds the baby up to her mother’s skull and dares to shout “Enough” – the dog stops barking but her mother’s unblinking eye sockets meet Leah’s gaze…
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Bill Anderson’s Horror Plot for MOTHERLAND
What I learned doing this assignment is that I just can’t think up plot independent of character and situation! But very happy to discard all or any of these elements in future assignments…
ACT 1 — SET UP FOR HORROR
Atmosphere of Evil established
The sparse leaves of an ancient, gnarled tree atop a rocky outcrop on an isolated farm shiver as the last sunlight of the day is crushed below the horizon by the menacing clouds of night: we follow the sugars of photosynthesis inside the tree down to its roots which will exude them into the darkness of the dirt. A twisted root swells and splits off a piece of the rock it’s penetrated – this snaps, falls to the bottom of the outcrop, and smashes into the skull of a fox that was eating the entrails of its prey. As the fox spasms in death, something we can’t quite make out in the darkness drags the fox to its underground lair, where it disappears just before a car headlights beam sweeps past, headed along the track to the isolated farmhouse…
Connect with the characters
… the car brings eldest daughter Jan and her husband Michael to her father Jeb’s birthday celebration joining Jan’s two sisters: (pregnant) Beth + partner Jack, and Leah. Lively family reunion, fun and old scores – the one member they can all easily relate to is Jeb’s wise old farm dog who is beyond happy to see them all together…
The characters are warned not to do it.… Jeb announces he’s going to sell the failing family farm and divide the proceeds. The family start to discuss why/if/how they’ll do this but, out of character, the dog begins to bark incessantly making talk impossible. Deaf veterinarian Leah senses something beyond the dog… Jeb hears prized pregnant cow in distress outside – through a night storm Jeb and Leah attend to complications with the birth of the calf, as the others lie awake. In the same moment, at the height of the storm: the gnarled tree is blown over, to reveal a skeleton rising up out of the ground entwined in the bolus of its roots, and permeated by a mycelial web; the two-headed hideously deformed calf is born as its mother dies horribly; Beth wakes everyone in the farm house screaming with Brackston Hicks contractions (Jan is jealous she’s not pregnant too)Denial of Horror
Daylight comes and the wind has subsided into heavy rain – a silent postman delivers a single letter: addressed to the Mother of the family – who died 30 years ago giving birth to Leah: it’s from a financial firm who have managed a nest-egg fund the Mother had secretly invested to mature now – on her 65<sup>th</sup> birthday – and over the years it’s grown into enough that means they won’t have to sell the farm. All they need to do is produce mum’s death certificate and will and the money’s theirs…
Safety taken away
…but Jeb violently, irrationally refuses, to produce any documents and storms out of the house into rain that has become biblical in its intensity – he’s terrified, running to escape this gauntlet from his past…
Monster: The nature of the beast.
… when a landslide suddenly opens up the ground in front of him and he slides into the crevasse but doesn’t fall to the bottom: his neck is abruptly caught by a noose-like root that starts to asphyxiate him – family rescue him before he dies, but Jeb’s unconscious body is limp as they drag him out of the crevasse – Jeb’s neck is broken, but he’s breathing.
ACT 2 — THE POINT OF NO RETURN
Isolated / Trapped / Abducted
Landslides have blocked/riven the track out of the farm – no escape by vehicle – and there’s no landline or mobile signal to call for help for injured Jeb. Rain stops. Beth gives nursing Leah a break as Jan and Jack search in Jeb’s office for Mother documents – barren Jan makes sexual advances to fertile Jack, but Beth is too close… Michael tries in vain to repair the landline, and Leah goes to see the extent of storm damage on farm – Leah discovers the uprooted skeleton and a distinctive ring on one of its fingers. Coming back from broken landline Michael discovers Jan and Jack secretly having sex in a barn – Michael backs away… Leah confirms the distinctive ring on a photo of her mother casually unearthed in Jeb’s bedroom by Jan and Jack.
One of us killed
Jeb’s breathing becomes more laboured – the family discover mould has mysteriously appeared in Jeb’s bedding – Jack discovers and closely examines distinctive, unfamiliar mushrooms are growing through the floorboards – family put it down to a leak in the roof caused by the storm, but it’s growth seems astonishingly rapid and Jeb is deteriorating so fast that they decide to send for help. Jack volunteers to walk miles to the nearest doctor, and Michael says he’ll accompany him. On their journey they pass the uprooted skeleton tree but don’t see the skeleton as they leave the farm. The skeleton sees them… Michael confronts Jack for having sex with Jan and threatens to reveal it and jeopardise Jack’s relationship to Beth and his share of the farm. Jack dismisses impotent Michael with contempt, and Michael attacks him. But bleeding Jack is only hurt enough to get mad and chases terrified Michael through a forest. Jack is overtaken by what looks like a root unearthing itself like a snake wriggling under fallen leaves to catch up with sprinting Michael: Jack sees the root surface to trip up Michael who flies though the air, smashes his head on a rock, and falls face down in a pool of storm water….
MIDPOINT: The monster is worse than we thought!
Full pursuit by the killer
Jack knows what he saw but can’t understand it – he lifts the root beside him from under the leaves and confirms it’s freshly uprooted itself. As he puts it down it seems to retighten itself to the ground. He hears Michael choking in the water, but as he goes to help him leaves of the forest floor start rippling as they move towards him from various directions. Jack abandons Michael (who drowns) as he runs for his life – he leaps over the tracks of the subterranean roots as they catch up with him, but they can swiftly change direction and there are more and more of them coming – a three way root pincer movement almost gets him as he propels himself out of the wood into a grassy field near the farmhouse – the grass moves towards him in waves as he sprints back to the house…
Terrorized
… Jack bursts into the farmhouse in terror and tells what’s happened – Beth is terrified, believes bleeding shaman Jack’s story, Jan is distraught and suspicious of Jack’s crazy explanation of Michael’s disappearance/demise. Leah is concerned for Jeb and looks again at the mushrooms near Jeb that Jack earlier cut to examine closely – sees Jack wide-eyed with fear of everything outside. She slips out the door with the dog and carefully heads towards Mother’s skeleton – nothing untoward is happening: grass and roots all normal, dog happy – Leah doesn’t see Jan watching her closely from a window. When Leah gets to skeleton she sees that the same mushrooms have now appeared in the ground beside her mother. Leah examines the mushrooms carefully – are they hallucinogenic? Did Jack absorb some of their active ingredient? Protecting her hand with a leaf she picks a mushroom and offers it to the dog – he sniffs it carefully: uninterested, no sign of danger. Leah looks closely at the ring on her mother’s finger She puts her hand inside the skeleton and gently touches a ball of roots where her mother’s womb would have been. Leah weeps. She’s startled by Jan who has followed her. Jan looks at the ring – recognises it’s her mother’s– Jan decides their mother has returned for vengeance – it was Leah that killed her in childbirth…
ACT 3 — FULL OUT HORROR
Fight to the death
Jan returns to the farmhouse with Leah. Jan conspiratorially explains to Beth why she now believes Jack’s horror story and that Michael is dead – their Mother has returned seeking vengeance and it must be because Leah was the one who killed her in childbirth: Beth asks why mother waited till now? Jan replies the nest egg that’s matured – it must be something to do with that, but whatever- if Mother wants to kill Leah they should save their skins by letting Leah be taken before anyone else gets hurt – with Beth’s tacit collusion, Jan sends Leah out into the scary wood to find Michael and get help for worsening Jeb… As Leah and the dog tread carefully through the threatening scary forest, Jan and Beth search for paperwork in Jeb’s office that might explain the nest egg’s arrival but eventually find the Mother’s death certificate – she didn’t die in childbirth, she was poisoned – who poisoned her? They hear rattling under the floorboards under Jeb…
Hysteria
… as the forest shimmers, hisses, creaks and groans with supernatural threat, Leah and the dog come upon the body of Michael, already being consumed by fungus and penetrated by roots… on the shock of seeing Michaels grotesquely decayed face the forest floor explodes in a tsunami of roots and leaves heading straight for Leah – she’s knocked to the ground, but the roots are all rushing past her – she’s hardly harmed – but she sees that all this malice is headed towards the farmhouse – she starts running back the way she came, following in the wake of the roots that are gathering power… back at the farmhouse, the rattling of the roots below the floorboards and the crawling of the creepers growing on the outside walls, breaking the glass in the windows jolts Jeb back into consciousness – he calls out his wife’s name, he feels her coming. Jack is using an axe to chop roots as they come inside but there are too many – Jan screams that it’s Jeb the mother wants, not them, and tells Jack to help her carry Jeb outside to stop the house and its occupants being attacked. But Beth won’t allow this to happen to her father – she struggles to protect him, and Jan attacks her pregnant sister. Jan barely notices the root wrapping itself around her ankle as she struggles with Beth – until the root abruptly pulls her off Beth and lifts her though the air as it suddenly pulls her outside, lethally smashing Jan against the walls as her body flies through the window. On the way, Jan’s flailing limbs knock over oil lamps which starts a fire inside. Beth and Jack immediately start to put out the fire, but as soon as Jack sees Beth has the fire almost under control, he seizes the opportunity of Beth’s distraction and picks up Jeb and carries him outside. Firefighting Beth roars in protest – but a contraction starts and she falls to her knees – now the fire instantly regains its strength …
The thrilling escape from death
… Leah arrives back at the farmhouse as Jack rushes out of the door carrying Jeb – Leah sees roots and creepers suddenly turn on Jack and Jeb – Jack is grabbed by the ankle, falls forwards and let’s go of Jeb – before they both hit the ground, a root reaches up, wraps around Jack’s neck and pulls his entire body upright and backwards – snapping Jack’s back and neck. Roots are converging on Jeb as he hits the ground, but a scream from Beth inside the house seems to give them pause. Leah rushes past Jack’s spasming body into the burning farmhouse – inside it’s ablaze and Beth is screaming with contractions, but she’s not being attacked by the roots, Leah sees that the roots seem to be trying to put the fire out, sap hissing as they’re burned in the attempt – she tries to help labouring Beth out of the fire, but structural timbers collapse onto Beth’s legs – she is trapped – in spite of the efforts of the roots the fire is out of control – Leah cannot move Beth and she cannot breathe – Leah grabs a knife, c-sections the baby out of her dying sister and manages to get out of the house alive with the dripping new-born…
Death returns to take one or more.
… Leah goes to Jeb who’s still just alive, lying on the ground that’s still rippling with menacing roots around him…
Resolution
… dying Jeb whispers to Leah – we hear him, but Leah can’t make sense – his lips hardly move: When mother was alive she and father farmed the land organically: they had two daughters and the land could sustain the family. The father wanted a son. The mother knew they couldn’t afford another child, but the father persuaded her that a son would be an investment in the farm, not a drain of resources – production could increase by more than what the son would consume. But they had another daughter, Leah Against mother’s wishes, the father unilaterally decided the only way forward was to borrow money and turn the farm into an intensive, agrochemical concern. This turned the mother’s postnatal depression into suicidal despair. She poisoned herself with the chemicals she believed her husband was poisoning their farm. Jeb asks for forgiveness – a root emerges from the ground and slides over his neck, before suddenly tightening and severing his head.
Leah, the baby and the dog watch the farmhouse burn. Even from a distance the flickering flames cast their light on the mother’s skeleton hanging in the roots of the tree.
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Bill Anderson’s Characters for Horror
What I learned doing this assignment was the particular value of the list of universal characters that work for horror scripts.
Group C: Family – Jeb (70, Father), Jan (eldest daughter), Michael (Jan’s husband), Beth (middle daughter), Jack (Beth’s partner and father of the child Beth’s carrying), Leah (youngest daughter)
Dying Pattern: A – Only Leah and Beth’s child survive.
VICTIMS:
Leader: without consultation, patriarch Jeb (70, Father) announces at the family gathering for his birthday that he’s going to sell the failing family farm. None of his daughters want this, they want to keep the farm where they were raised in the family, but how could they possibly make the farm work?
Complainer: Jan (eldest daughter) can’t understand why Jeb persists in not letting her take over running the farm – she graduated from agricultural college with honours, she’s been working in sales for a fertilizer company and she knows exactly how she’d turn the farm around using the latest cutting edge technology – if she was Jeb’s son it would all be so different. She blames Michael for their not having conceived a child yet.
Introvert: Michael (Jan’s husband) is a scientist specialising in genetically modified coatings to make crop seeds resistant to attack – from pests, fungi, bacteria etc. Happy in the sterile environment of the lab, he is quietly furious that the fecundity of his own seed is in question.
Rebel: Before she even knew what they were, Beth embraced the principles of permaculture and rewilding to define herself as an individual against her domineering father and high-achieving, conforming sister Jan. Beth’s semi-itinerant hippy lifestyle brought her into contact with Jack and for the latter months of the pregnancy they have been living on the farm.
Out of Control: Jack is a talented musician who fancies himself as a shamen. He also has an eye on Beth’s share of the farm. And sees that Jan has an eye on his proven fertility.
SURVIVOR:
Moral One: Leah was born deaf but at least she survived – her Mother died giving birth to her, and Leah has always been a healer – becoming a veterinarian was a way of making that useful with the animals on the farm and beyond. In addition she has always seen the hurt in Jeb for the loss of her mother and felt a responsibility to look after him in her mother’s absence. She has always lived on the farm.
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Bill Anderson’s Terrifying Monster
What I learned doing this assignment is the value of confronting specific questions about the monster to manifest it in a visceral way.
MOTHERLAND
Terror:
Terrorize: The ghost of the Mother uses every living and decaying thing in the dirt on the farm can attack and kill.
Pursue: It stalks its victims underground, unseen, travelling through roots, mycelial threads of fungus, insects and creature that live in the dark of the dirt.
Isolate: It reaches up into the air through the leaves of living trees and plants to cause sudden extreme storms, floods, etc that keep it victims on the farm and makes them more vulnerable to their hidden subterranean killers.
Terrible thing monster does: Perverts and amplifies natural phenomena into becoming lethal to its victims.
Cause of death: Asphyxiation.
Inescapable: You can’t leave the ground.
Mystery:
What will placate the vengeful ghost of the mother of the family?
Fear provoking appearance:
Grotesque and disturbing extreme escalations of creepy crawlies, rotting fungus, grasping roots, snakes, rodents…
Rules:
The ghost of the mother is protecting a child. She attacks and kills the greatest threat to the child. (Which child…?)
Mythology:
When mother was alive she and father farmed the land organically: they had two daughters and the land could sustain the family. The father wanted a son. The mother knew they couldn’t afford another child, but the father persuaded her that a son would be an investment in the farm, not a drain of resources – production could increase by more than what the son would consume. But they had another daughter. Against mother’s wishes, the father unilaterally decided the only way forward was to borrow money and turn the farm into an intensive, agrochemical concern. This turned the mother’s postnatal depression into suicidal despair. She poisoned herself with the chemicals she believed her husband was poisoning their farm. Now as new generations of her family begin to emerge, the spirit of the mother fights to protect their land she is literally part of.
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What I learned doing this assignment is that the High Tension convention in my story needs much more work!
A QUIET PLACE : in a post-apocalyptic world, earth has been invaded by aliens that feed off humans – their only sense is super-human hearing: if you make a sound you’re eaten – family with a deaf daughter try to survive.
Terrorise the characters: pre-title, the family are travelling barefoot with their 3 children – the youngest boy defies specific warning and plays with a toy that makes sound – his father can’t rescue the child from an alien – all the family witness the child’s demise. Main timeline, mom is pregnant – how do you give birth without making a sound? Banging on roof just animals – release – but the animals make sound near the family home and are eaten by aliens. Mom in labor impales her foot on a nail – makes sound – aliens come for a feast…
Isolation: beacons show neighbouring farms are distant – sources of sound are separated for protection – but this also means isolation: nobody nearby to help. Family are split up, separated, isolated at the birthing climax when maximum number of aliens descend on the farm.
Death: aliens kill all living creatures they hear – the first devastating pre-title child loss haunts the family with guilt/horror. We see snuffling animals killed just outside the family home. We see an old man grieving for his dead wife deliberately screams so the aliens will end his life. The only other death we see is the father, deliberately sacrificing himself to fulfil the promise he makes to his wife to protect his two older children – by screaming so the alien attacking his children kills him instead and they escape.
Monster: huge grotesque alien creatures with segmented, armour-plated bodies, massive rows of razor sharp teeth, and complex, highly sensitive, organic ears. They have an Achilles Ear – the frequency of the deaf daughter’s hearing aid that dad modified incapacitates them in agony.
High Tension: constant threat – if you make the tiniest sound the aliens will hear and come to eat you. Because the aliens cannot see or smell, they might be inches away from you but don’t know you’re there – a chance to survive if only you can overcome your fear and remain completely silent.
Departure from reality: alien invasion
Moral statement: do whatever you can to protect your family – you may be surprised what delivers – dad’s continuing (failed) work on improving his deaf daughter’s hearing aid is emotionally rejected by her – but his work is key to his family’s survival after he sacrifices himself.
I really liked the counterpoint of the deaf daughter with the super-hearing aliens, and the emotionally true frustration she had with her Dad’s continued failures to make a hearing aid that worked for her, and his faith that he would eventually succeed.
I also like the care taken in the pre-title to show that the family had tried to protect their youngest as much as possible – from mom catching the toy before it hit the floor and made a noise, to dad removing the batteries and telling his son the toy would be too loud. When the child was taken by the alien, it was as emotionally true as if the child had been run down by a real-world truck, and the devastation that haunts the family gave great truth to their character journeys.
My story:
MOTHERLAND
Horror Concept:
A. The monster/villain.
B. The interesting terror.
C. An isolated and horrific environment
D. The people who will be terrorized.
A. Mother: the ghost/life force of a mother secretly buried on a family farm
B. The dirt on the farm, and everything alive in it, can supernaturally kill.
C. The isolated family farm – which the dirt moves to completely cut off.
D. The farmer, his three daughters, two husbands.
When a family consider leaving/selling their failing farm, the ghost of their mother, secretly buried there 30 years ago rises up to stop them leaving, and claim them permanently…
Terrorize the characters: “Accidents” and “disasters” of extreme elemental nature – earth, air, fire and water – start to befall the father, his 3 daughters and their 2 husbands after a storm uproots a tree on their land and reveals to the daughters (discreetly, one by one) the skeleton of their Mother – the father’s account of her death is no longer credible – the belief that the dead mother is seeking vengeance for what was done to her destroys trust in the family.
Isolation: Gathered to “celebrate” the father’s 70<sup>th</sup> birthday (and divide the farm) the mother-skeleton-revealing storm cuts off access/power/internet to the isolated farmhouse. Subsequent “natural” events isolate the family on the farm even more.
Death: The whole family will be killed by extreme/supernatural forces we believe are summoned by the mother – except the youngest daughter (deaf veterinarian), the newborn baby the veterinarian has to cut out of her dead middle sister, and the father’s wise collie dog.
The Monster: The mother’s skeleton rising up out of the ground entwined in the root bolus of a tree, and permeated by a mycelial web is the manifestation of a malign force that can and will destroy you wherever there are roots and fungus…
High Tension: Will anyone have the strength and the wit to survive the forces that have been released?
Departure from Reality: Nature becomes so extremely malign it’s unnatural.
Moral Statement: Treat mother earth with respect and she will look after you – mess with her at your peril.
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Bill Anderson
Written 10 drama scripts
Hope to learn the rigour and discipline of the horror genre and apply it to a specific idea.
I am also a low-intervention beekeeper – and author of a book “The Idle Beekeeper” (Abrams)
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Bill Anderson – I agree with the terms of this release form