House on Haunted Hill Page #14

EDDIE:

What are you doing? Are you okay?

Sara has no answer.

INT. THE MAIN SALON - SHORTLY AFTER

Pritchett enters the room. The blood-caked Eddie and Sara

stumble in, right behind them. Pritchett grimaces...

PRITCHETT:

Now it's marked the two of you.

EVELYN:

I suppose it's too much to hope that

all that blood means --

A grim-faced Price enters.

EVELYN:

(disappointed)

-- nope, he's still alive.

She pours herself another huge drink.

PRICE:

Evelyn, could you just zip it for a

moment? It looks like we're stuck here

'til morning -- let's make the best of

it.

EDDIE:

Best of a nightmare.

SARA:

There is something very not

normal going on here!

PRITCHETT:

This? This is nothing. You've only been

dealing with the House itself. You have

no idea what you're tinkering with.

Sooner or later, the darkness that is at

the core will get out... One of you

will release it... Not meaning to, of

course... then...

(singing)

...Bye, bye, Miss American Pie...

SARA:

Pritchett, what is this "core of

darkness"?

PRITCHETT:

I thought you understood.... It's the

souls of Vannacutt's dead... The

insanity... The horror... Victims burned

alive... All that pain percolating

somewhere in the house for seventy-some

years...

(singing)

...singing this will be the day that I

die... This will be the day that I....

He makes a beeline for the sideboard.

BLACKBURN:

There must be some other way out.

PRICE:

Well, until that's found, I think it's a

good idea we all stick together.

(turns to his wife)

Or wouldn't that fit into your plans,

baby?

EVELYN:

Fine with me. Just somebody then better

go and round up Melissa Marr.

PRICE:

Where is she?

EVELYN:

Stalking the wild poltergeist.

INT. HALLWAY - SIMULTANEOUS

VIDEO IMAGE:
A DARKENED HALLWAY rife with grainy shadows.

The image cruises down the corridor, peering into the

twisting passageways that intersect our path as we drift

like some Flying Dutchman.

INT. HALLWAY - SIMULTANEOUS

and we see that we've been watching from the POV of Melissa

Marr's CAMCORDER. She's gliding up and down the hallway,

eye glued to the viewfinder, taking in every square inch of

the place.

POV CAMCORDER:

The bumps and pits in the carved-stone CORRIDOR walls are

becoming more vivid.

ANOTHER ANGLE:

Melissa seen taking a left into ANOTHER HALLWAY.

POV CAMCORDER:

an ODD SHADOW plays in the corner at the end of this new

hallway. The CORRIDOR appears to grow smaller, more

claustrophobic.

ANOTHER ANGLE:

Melissa letting loose a half-uneasy, half-exhilarated gulp.

She stops walking. Slowly lowers the Camcorder, scans the

end of the hall with her naked eye:

Other than having the creepy ambience as the rest of the

house, the hall appears normal again: large and long without

a trace of anything extraordinary. She returns her eye to the

viewfinder.

POV CAMCORDER:

the SHIFTING SHADOW she saw before disappears into an OPEN

DOOR at the end of the hall.

MELISSA (O.S.)

Curiouser and curiouser. We're talking a

fifty share, minimum.

-- just then:
a murmur of MANY VOICES heard around her.

ANOTHER ANGLE:

Melissa lowers the CAMCORDER, eyes darting everywhere,

scared -- but she sees nothing. CAMERA back up to her eye.

She moves to the doorway. As she turns the corner, we see

the PATTERN ON THE WALL. It is really a painting done in

ANAMORPHOSIS - it has now become a terrible Gothic demon,

ready to strike.

POV CAMCORDER:

We reach the vault-like door and peer down the steps that

disappear into a pool of darkness. The VOICES heard again.

Indistinct basso. Emanating from somewhere below. We

descend down the stairs.

INT. BASEMENT - CORRIDOR - CONTINUOUS

MELISSA comes to a stop at the bottom of the stairs: her eyes

go wide at the sight before her.

WILD IMAGES painted by some long-dead madman, start on the

floor, sweep up across the wall and onto the ceiling.

SHE PEERS CLOSER, sees: that they're images of torture and

death painted in blood. MELISSA stares at them, wide-eyed.

She puts the camera back up to her eye.

POV CAMCORDER:

the IMAGES come alive: WRITHING in AGONY, what passes for

their mouths open wide in silent screams. Melissa is awe-

struck:

MELISSA (O.S.)

F*** me bald.

She moves down the corridor to a room at the end. A sign

proclaims "CEREBRAL HYGIENE". As she nears, the voices grow

louder. And now mixed in with them are terrible MOANS.

INT. CEREBRAL HYGIENE ROOM -

Melissa enters --

POV CAMCORDER:

A strange room filled with odd devices is laid out before us.

Clearly left over from another era, quack electric machines

and bizarre instruments line the walls.

In the middle of the room, a small group of PEOPLE in white

stand huddling urgently around something, their backs to us.

A MAN in white, off to the side, is filming whatever it is

going on with a spring-wound 16mm CAMERA.

MELISSA (O.S.)

Jesus...

And then the Huddled Group whips around, revealing the

objects of their-activity:

TWO HUMANS -- crammed together on one gurney: a Woman in

a savaged Nurse's uniform; a Man, in what little is left of

his surgical scrubs, a name plate pinned right into his

flesh:
"Vannacutt."

Both SCREAMING like banshees as they're being VIVISECTED.

It is the identical image we saw on the B&W footage from 1931

at the beginning of the movie.

ANOTHER ANGLE:

With a GASP, MELISSA pulls the camera from her eye.

Rate this script:0.0 / 0 votes