Writing Movies For Fun And Profit! (26 page)

Surrounded by well-armed GUARDS with M-16s, Dr. White is delivered by the State Prison OFFICERS, strapped to a gurney, in Hannibal Lecter headgear: We only see his creepy eyes, not his face. Dangle eyes him, scared but determined to do his duty. The prison officers tease Dangle, saying that he’d better not let Dr. White get away again this time.

The deputies escort Dr. White onto the plane in manacles.

CUT TO:

INT. AIRPLANE — NIGHT

The deputies fly first class — and love it! They’ve never seen a hot towel, and they grab handfuls of the free headphones and cashews. Dr. White is immobile, manacled, still in the protective mask. Since the prisoner can have anything he wants, they order “him” a lot of shrimp cocktails and Wiegel orders “him”
Beaches
on DVD.

Dangle sits beside Dr. White, telling him that he’s glad he’s finally caught and Dangle can now close the book on the biggest failure of his life — the one that got him stuck in Reno. Now maybe he can move on.

As the lights go out for the night and the stewardess passes out blankets — the idea comes up: this may be the only shot they have in their lives to enter the fabled “Mile High Club.” Wiegel gives Dangle the eye … he shudders and tells her how unprofessional that behavior is. Then he eyes Jones, who eyes Clemmy. The Reno love octangle weaves its creepy web. Finally, Jones sneaks out of his seat and heads to the bathroom, signaling into the dark, “Follow me.”

INT. AIRPLANE BATHROOM — MOMENTS LATER

Jones waits in the bathroom — and a moment later, Clemmy joins him. They try to figure out how to get romantic in such a tiny little room; then Williams squeezes in. She thought Jones was signaling
her
. Jones and Clemmy try to explain that they
accidentally
came in together. Then Dangle enters, excited. Then he says he also came in by mistake.

The plane hits turbulence, and the pilot announces that he has lit the fasten seat belts sign. “Please return to your seats.” Then Wiegel comes in, after Dangle. Garcia enters, thinking Clemmy was waiting for him. Kimball comes in to legitimately go 10–200. Finally, Junior enters — he was going to try to enter the Mile High Club “flying solo.” (That counts too.) The plane is shaken by turbulence, but they’re all so packed together they barely budge, like the Marx Brothers’ ”stateroom” scene.

They realize — “Who’s watching the prisoner?” SUDDENLY they’re shaken like a cocktail shaker as the jet hits horrendous turbulence. They hear screams and the whine of the engines — they are rattled up and down. There is a JOLT — and all is still and silent. What happened? They slowly open the bathroom door … and blazing SUNLIGHT streams into the bathroom.

EXT. BEAUTIFUL TROPICAL BEACH — CONTINUOUS

It’s like the Kansas-to-Oz transition in
The Wizard of Oz
— outside the bathroom is a fantastic, sunlit beach. They step out — it’s like a dream. They look at the sun, the surf, the palm trees … it’s a picture-perfect paradise …

… until the CO-PILOT of the plane runs by,
completely on fire
. The deputies try to put him out and finally wrangle him into the sea. He sighs, relieved, and thanks them … and is immediately CRUSHED by a piece of fuselage that falls down out of the sky, obliterating him.

In shock, the deputies look around the beach. The plane actually made a pretty good emergency landing. It sits almost intact,
halfway on the beach. The steward and stewardess help passengers off the plane, down the INFLATABLE SLIDE/RAFT, trying to be cheery, through their forced smiles. Other passengers are picking up supplies from the surf.

Dangle looks at the cameraman and tells him, “You know what this means, don’t you? This documentary’s probably gotta get an Academy Award.” The deputies lend a hand, and we …

DISSOLVE TO:

EXT. BEACH — HOURS LATER

The rattled, tattered SURVIVORS are gathered on the beach. The supplies are stacked in a pile. The pilot, CAPTAIN RICK (Chris Tallman) is a macho, no-nonsense all-American type with a
can-do attitude
. He bosses everybody around, and people tend to do what he says. He tells the assembled survivors that there’s no need to panic: they were on course, they sent a distress signal, they’re in the flight path for Bangkok. Rescue should be coming soon. The best thing to do is stay calm, and honestly enjoy ourselves. Think of it as an unscheduled vacation, courtesy of FunJet Airlines.

We meet the other survivors:

FLIGHT ATTENDANT STEVE AUSTIN (Jack Plotnick): A bitchy flight attendant who’s aware that he has the same name as TV’s Six Million Dollar Man. He remains reluctantly attentive to the travelers, even though they’ve crashed, seeing if they want any nuts, etc.

He is assisted by TWO SEXY FLIGHT ATTENDANTS (Irina Voronina and Verina Marcel), whose
uniforms were severely
abbreviated
in the crash.

They also are lucky enough to have a doctor: DOCTOR JOHN WELLS. A brilliant surgeon with movie-star good looks. And as a veteran medic from both Gulf wars, he’s pretty sure he can get the survivors though this.

And 15 assorted PASSENGERS: men and women, Asian and white tourists, a cute girl with a yappy poodle, etc. Everyone’s in tatters and bruised. There’s only one serious injury:

EXT. FUSELAGE — MOMENTS LATER

… A. D. MILES: A chipper, Boy Scout–like passenger who has been impaled by a large piece of the fuselage. He’s alive, but Dr. Wells says he can’t be moved: a large piece of steel is sticking straight through the middle of him, pinning him to the plane. He’s in remarkably upbeat spirits. He says he was going to China to scatter his mom’s ashes — he clutches the urn close to him at all times.

Dangle takes charge and starts issuing orders: they need to explore the island, find food and shelter, and someone needs to figure out how to make coconuts into suntan oil, or they’re all gonna burn and get all peely …

The captain asks, “Who the hell put you in charge?”
Captain
Rick’s got a higher rank: captain to Jim’s lowly
lieutenant
. Dangle points out that he’s a captain on FunJet Airlines, not the
Marine Corps
.

They fight over who’s in charge, and the survivors take sides. Captain Rick claims that as a captain in midjourney, he can even
marry people (and possibly threatens to marry two of the survivors, against their will).

Captain Rick asks how they are on supplies:
A-ha!
Dangle already had his deputies gather them and take inventory. He announces, taking charge again, “The good news is — we have a doctor and enough fuel and food for a week, all stacked right over there.” But — “we have only one flare.” He holds it up. “So we have to be careful with it.”

Then BLAM. Dangle accidentally fires the flare — straight into the pile of fuel, igniting all the food and the devilishly handsome Dr. John Wells in one HUGE blast … oops.

All eyes glare at Dangle. Captain Rick asks Dangle, “Where the hell’s your prisoner, anyway?” The deputies realize —
Where
is
Dr. White?
They look for him … he’s nowhere to be found. But they do find
his “Hannibal Lecter” MASK
, with his manacles — broken. He’s escaped.

They come to a terrifying revelation: They’ve never seen his face. He was in a mask. No one knows what he looks like. He could be any one of them. They look around at each other. Any of the men COULD BE THE KILLER.

FLASHBACK TO:

INT. DONNER MOTEL — NIGHT — 1989

Young Clemmy removes her T-shirt and tears it into bandages for Junior’s eyes. She puts her uniform back on, losing a button: now her shirt’s half open, showing off her leopard-print push-up bra — it’s the look she’ll keep later in life.

The sexy black STRIPPER in the banana skirt and fig leaf pasties rushes over to the officers.

“Don’t arrest me. This is not what I normally do,” she says, “I got a kid to feed.” Dangle asks her name. “Williams, Raineesha Williams. Spelled the normal way, with two e’s.” Dangle says, “Show’s over, sister. But we could use your help — we got a man down.”

Raineesha says, “No, thanks.” Jones enters. This is her “modeling” gig? It looks like fate is throwing them together.

MOMENTS LATER:

INT. DONNER MOTEL — HALLWAY

The deputies are creeping through the motel, Young Clemmy with her new cleavage look, Junior blinded, holding on to sexy, half-naked Williams. Junior keeps reaching out to feel Raineesha (as a guide, not to cop a feel. Raineesha asks, “Then why do you got boner?” Junior: “Adrenaline.”)

Dangle’s worried about Wiegel. Garcia says, “Don’t worry, she’s a law enforcement machine. If there’s one person who can hold her own against this psycho — it’s Trudy Wiegel.” She’s brilliant.

FLASH-FORWARD TO:

EXT. BEACH — PRESENT DAY

Trudy’s trying to open a coconut with her bare teeth, knocking it against them like a brain-damaged chimp. Dangle takes it away from her before she hurts herself.

Dangle takes charge of his deputies, determined to find Dr. White. He divides his deputies into teams — and they’ll start the search in the morning.

EXT. MAKESHIFT CAMP — DAY

Captain Rick addresses the passengers. He thinks the mainland is 15 miles west. With no supplies, they decide to send someone out on the plane’s inflatable RAFT. The current should take it straight there. They draw straws: Jones and Garcia are chosen.

EXT. SEASIDE — LATER

Jones bids a tearful farewell to Raineesha. “It’s a big ocean, maybe I won’t make it back alive, maybe this is our last chance to get freaky.” She asks him, “How many girls have you used this line on?” He admits — all of them. “It worked every time. Honestly, I’m a little exhausted.” Williams almost goes with him — but no. She’ll save it — “until you get back — with help.”

Jones and Garcia take half of the survivors’ water and head out to sea on the inflatable raft, with a makeshift sail.

EXT. THE SEASIDE — SUNSET

Junior is in the shallows spearfishing, like a castaway. He concentrates … and he stabs — his own foot. He holds it up, and the spear has gone right through his foot.

NIGHT FALLS

EXT. AROUND THE CAMPFIRE — NIGHT

They sit around in silence, worried. But when they look up, the stars are quite beautiful.

Some of the deputies talk — they always wanted to take a vacation like this, but they never could afford it. They spot some constellations in the sky: real and imagined (Orion, Dick Tracy, the Jackalope). Then Kimball complains, “Doesn’t it suck that it’s never peaceful? No matter where you go, some loud jet ruins the peace and quiet.” Then they realize …
that’s a jet
!

They rush to light the huge logs they’d laid out on the beach to spell SOS. But they knock the S as they light it — the logs roll out of line, and they’re blazing: too hot to rearrange. They struggle with it, then look at what they’ve formed. Instead of an S, they’ve made a huge, fiery swastika. The jet flies on, ignoring their Nazi message.

EXT. MAKESHIFT CAMP — NIGHT

They’ve made little shelters of blankets and palm fronds. Under Dangle’s orders, they’re gonna take shifts keeping watch, in case Dr. White returns. Junior gets first watch.

Junior watches over camp. The sexy stewardesses say good night as they turn in. He turns to watch their tent. The stewardesses go behind the makeshift barrier made of blankets that gives them privacy. But the torch they have lit inside, casts a perfect, sexy silhouette on the sheet.

He watches as they strip. He goes away, giving them privacy? No, he was just getting his camera phone to film it.

In silhouette: one helps the other unzip and take off her dress. Then one gives the other a shoulder massage. Then one bends down and “goes down” on the other. It’s a fun, giggly orgy in silhouette. Junior looks
around — EVERY GUY, and Kimball is sitting with him, watching.

The action on the silhouette peaks. When their blanket falls: the girls are actually standing
several feet apart
; one is washing her hair, the other is bent over packing. They’re not having sex at all. The guys are stunned, embarrassed …

EXT. DANGLE’S SHELTER — NIGHT

Dangle sits and watches the jungle — he knows Dr. White is out there … somewhere. He tries to stay alert, he puts his inflatable, U-shaped airplane pillow around his neck, and … falls asleep.

As he sleeps, a wise VOICE speaks to him, inside his head. It asks him, What are you afraid of? Are you truly afraid of Dr. White — or are you afraid of failing to find Dr. White? Dangle says, yes — that actually IS what he’s afraid of. Then the voice says, “What you’re truly afraid of — IS YOURSELF.”

Dangle wakes up — and sitting across from him is: a mysterious and wise Chinese man, who looks like and is dressed like BRUCE LEE. (JASON SCOTT LEE). Dangle isn’t sure if he’s dreaming or not.

Dangle asks him what he wants. The Dream Spirit tells him that
what he wants is not important. What IS important is what Dangle wants
. Dangle says he wants …
a box of Girl Scout cookies. The minty ones. No, the Samoas
. The Dream Spirit tells him he is not here to grant three wishes. Besides,
the true Samoas of happiness do not come from the Girl
Scouts. They come from within, from knowing who you are
.

Dangle’s a little bummed that he doesn’t get to spend the dream eating Girl Scout cookies with a hot Chinese dude. The Dream Spirit runs off into the jungle.

Dangle shrugs and goes back to bed. Then the Dream Spirit smacks him awake and drags him out of bed. “What part of ‘I’m taking you on a Mythic Journey didn’t you understand?’ ”

EXT. CLIFF — NIGHT

The Spirit leads him to a cliff for the first “Test of Character.” Thus, Dangle begins his Batman-Begins-esque spiritual journey. The Spirit Guide hands him a bamboo staff and squares off against him, like a kung fu master. So — the Spirit Guide hits Dangle with his bamboo staff. Many times. Really hard. The Spirit Guide says, “When your mind has power over the pain in your body, then you can lead these people.” So Dangle tasers his Dream Spirit, who drops unconscious like a sack of potatoes.