CHAPTER FOURTEEN

The Movie Version II

Here again, we begin our blow-by-blow (as it were) analysis of the divergence of Forever Evil from my script. As before, the script we went over last time is in RED; feel free to skip it if you don't need it.

INT MAIN ROOM CABIN NIGHT

A small digital clock reads 5:12. Marc is beginning to nod off. He sits suddenly erect. There is a SCRABBLING SOUND in the chimney. Small bits of debris are falling into the fireplace.

Marc aims the shotgun at the fireplace.

The spider-beastie, still burned and mutilated, crawls down the chimney.

Marc pulls the trigger. The firing pin clicks on an empty chamber. The spider leaps for him...

As mentioned earlier, the spider-beastie is from the middle storyline which was deleted. Instead, the Demon Baby makes another appearance. More on that next time.

Marc awakens suddenly as Reggie shakes his shoulder.

Marc! Marc, wake up!

What?

There's something in the bedroom.

Silently, they walk toward the bedroom door. Reggie carries a high-intensity lamp along with her shotgun.

Okay. Just like in rehearsals. GO!

INT BEDROOM

Reggie and Marc burst through the door. Reggie slams the lamp down on the floor and snaps into her firing position. They both freeze.

Revealed in the light is an ancient, rotted shambling corpse. An open wound across its abdomen reveals maggots crawling in its entrails. The eyes are gone, gouged out.

Everything is still for a moment. The the zombie takes a step toward them...

Incredibly fast cuts of the shotguns firing over and over again; Shells fly through the air. The pump action continues until the guns click on empties.

The zombie hits the floor, hard, and lies still. Marc and Reggie stand in the gunsmoke haze for a moment; all is quiet.

As Marc and Reggie start for the door, the light comes on in the bedroom, a sort of bookend to the same thing happening in the first massacre scene. It should also be noted that only Marc was deemed manly enough for a shotgun. Reggie was given a .45 auto, which is nothing to sneer at.

As they are about to throw open the door, Alfie, the zombie, does it for them and grabs Marc's shotgun. Roger's concept was that Alfie, in pulling the shotgun away from Marc, caused the gun to go off (sort of a hard thing to get across, all things considered).

As a side note: it took several times for the gunpowder squibs planted on Alfie to work. When they did, the smoke was so extreme the camera couldn't see the Ultra-Slime being splashed on the wall behind him.

The blast apparently stuns Alfie, and he slumps in the doorway. He rouses himself and Reggie shoots him, blowing off his shoulder. Alfie falls.

A bit of (perhaps inappropriate) comedy was injected earlier, which seemed to show that Reggie didn't know how to operate the gun. This was also probably the case with Tracey, our actress: Note that when she fires at Alfie, she thrusts the gun forward, as if to drive the bullets into his chest.

That's it? That's all there is to it?

We got it. We actually got it.

They walk cautiously toward the still form of the zombie. Suddenly, the zombie makes a grab for them! Marc brings the shotgun down on its head, shattering the stock and knocking the zombie back down. Marc and Reggie head back out the door, tout de suite.

INT MAIN ROOM

Marc and Reggie slam the door shut behind them. Reggie jams a door under the knob. The zombie starts smashing against the door.

Marc spies a pair of battle axes crossed over the fireplace. He runs to them.

The chair under the door begins to give way.

Reggie is feverishly reloading her shotgun.

Marc grabs one of the battleaxes and yanks; it's a display secured to the wall by u-bolts - it won't come down.

The chair under the doorknob begins to splinter.

Reggie fumbles, dropping shells.

Marc forms a circle with his thumb and forefinger, concentrating.

Sorry, another brief interruption here; one of the excised scenes is Marc and Reggie training in tae kwan do - well, it was karate in the film - and the finger-circle is an exercise to focus your chi - your inner strength.

A great calm comes over Marc's face. He reaches up and effortlessly rips the axe off the wall.

Reggie snaps shut the action of the shotgun, aiming it at the door, as....

The smashing stops.

Silence.

SUDDENLY, the zombie crashes through a window behind Reggie. It backhands her across the room - she hits a wall and lies still. The zombie starts toward her...

...Only to find its way blocked by Marc. Marc advances, slashing with the axe, forcing it away from her. Surprisingly fast, the zombie ducks and weaves, avoiding the blade. One final duck, and the axe plows into a chair, wedging there.

The zombie knocks Marc away from the axe. Marc hits the floor, and then it is upon him, bony hands around his throat, strangling him. Marc claws for its eyes, but they're gone. He brings both fists up, into its temples. BONES CRACK. The Zombie begins to laugh at him, a deep, guttural sound. Marc would scream, but he can't breathe.

THEN, looming behind the zombie, is Reggie - with the axe. The axe comes around in an arc, chopping off the back of the zombie's head. Brains and black slime fly everywhere, especially across Marc's face.

The impact of the blow knocks the zombie off Marc and the axe out of Reggie's hands. Marc scrambles, grabs the axe and rears it back, like he's about to chop the biggest damn piece of wood in the world. He smashes the axe down, into the zombie's face, nailing it to the floor. The zombie stiffens, then lies still.

Marc crawls away from it. Reggie joins him. Both sit on the floor, holding each other, having a good case of the shakes.

The zombie's hand clenches. Reggie gasps.

Easy, easy. That's a spasm... corpses have them all the time.

Even one that's been dead as long as this one?

As if in response, the zombie grabs the axe and pulls it from his face. Marc an Reggie scramble to their feet.

NO FAIR! NO FUCKIN' FAIR!!!!

He smashes a chair across the zombie, who goes down.

Okay, forget all that. After the dialog, Alfie rises and throws Marc against a wall. The he backhands Reggie into a corner. Alfie strangles Marc. Reggie picks up an axe from the corner of the room.

Reasonable people will no doubt ask, "Why is there an axe in the room?" I know I did. Roger's reply was, "To chop firewood." "Inside?" "Sure." "Why is it on a chain?" "So people won't steal it." I sighed heavily. I still sigh heavily, but now note that in The Brain from Planet Arous, John Agar also keeps an axe for chopping wood inside the house. I herewith direct all questions to that film. Next!

Well, at least Reggie was getting to do something heroic, at last. She was still supposed to make the martial arts chi-gathering thumb-and-forefinger circle, but that got cut out when the martial arts training sequences got cut. So now Reggie just snaps the chain because her heart is pure or something. With advantage of my 20/20 hindsight, I can now see that we should have done an alternate shot where Reggie has more of a struggle to break the axe free, but who knew we were going to jettison the entire martial arts training angle?

Reggie's feat of strength, incidentally, was accomplished by attaching the chain to the axe with a paper clip.

Reggie still whacks off the back of the zombie's head.

No more axe to the face nailing the zombie to the floor. Another zombie head, rigged for axe bisection: $100. Setting up and dressing our little platform on the sound stage to match the floor of Roger's duplex, with a section cut out to accommodate whatever it was the axe was really biting into: another $100, plus another day of second unit work. Staying on time and under budget: priceless.

After the rude trepanning, the zombie turns on Reggie, and she goes all girly again, backing away. Marc tackles him, and he grabs the poker.

Reggie grabs a poker from the fireplace and plunges it into the zombie's chest. The thing spasms and clutches at the poker, screaming. Marc kicks its hands away and literally stand on them.

Get a log!

What?

GET A GODDAMN LOG!!!

Reggie grabs a log from the fireplace. Marc struggles to keep the zombie down as it struggles. Marc points the poker.

HIT IT!

Reggie hammers on the poker. The zombie groans, stiffening with each blow.

Stake in the heart, hah? Don't like it, do ya?

The handle of the poker splits. The zombie is still, black ichor flowing from its burst heart.

Marc staggers back. Reggie tosses the log aside. They look at the now even more messed up zombie.

Guess we should've thought of that in the first place, huh?

Let's get the hell out of here.

There's no hammering. Marc just rams it in. The fluid you see erupting from Alfie's chest is actually water, which was used to get enough pressure behind the Ultra-Slime to force it out. Alfie's grimacing during the water footage looked better, so that's what we used.

As I glancingly mentioned earlier, this scene was shot in Roger's duplex (the price was right) - a small space that couldn't have accommodated my fight scene, at all. Even if we had wanted or been able to expend the time, effort and money to do so. The fight, as it appeared on film, took one loooong day to film, the final shots setting up at 3AM the following morning. As written, it would've taken at least three - likely, more.

The mantra the writer always has to use in a situation like this is "Well, I'll use it next time." If I couldn't get my ultimate kung fu monster battle into this picture, well, I could save it and use it in the next picture.

Before you ask, the next picture hasn't happened yet.

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