The Village: The Abridged Script
By: Rod Hilton on Dec 3rd, 2004 | Movie Rating: 
FADE IN:
EXT. SOME BORING VILLAGE
JOAQUIN PHOENIX walks around, bored. He greets a bored looking BRYCE DALLAS HOWARD.
JOAQUIN PHOENIX
Though I am glad to live in such a small, quiet, ridiculously dull village, I often wonder about what is beyond the borders.
BRYCE DALLAS HOWARD
Unfortunately, we can never know much of the borders, because the idyllic nature of our existence is subverted by…
JOAQUIN PHOENIX
Yeah subverted by….
They both look at DIRECTOR M. NIGHT SHYAMALAN.
DIRECTOR M. NIGHT SHYAMALAN
(consulting ‘Directing Sleeper Hits for Dummies’)
Uh.. Let’s see, ghosts, superheroes, aliens….uh… Oh! Monsters! Your mundane lives have been made watchable on film because your village is surrounded by monsters.
JOAQUIN PHOENIX
Monsters? Really?
BRYCE DALLAS HOWARD
Kinda scraping the bottom of the supernatural barrel now, aren’t we?
DIRECTOR M. NIGHT SHYAMALAN
Ha! You should be so lucky! I still have to direct a film centering around ESP, multiple dimensions, time travel, faith healing, magic, and voodoo.
JOAQUIN PHOENIX
(sighing)
Okay, monsters. They’re not really monsters though, right? That’s the big surprise?
DIRECTOR M. NIGHT SHYAMALAN
(slapping him)
Quiet, you fool! How dare you even suggest that a component of the film or even the entire film exists merely to set up a single twist in the story! Don’t go spoiling the surprises!
(to you)
In fact! I don’t want anyone reading this Abridged Script! Go visit Fark or a porn site or something. And shouldn’t you be working, anyway? They don’t pay you to read web sites, you know.
Everyone wanders around their 19th century lives. Conversations take place, backgrounds are revealed, and generally nothing happens. Eventually, the village is attacked… by monsters!
MONSTER
Boo!
Everyone runs for their lives. Even this is boring. Eventually, JOAQUIN PHOENIX is HURT.
BRYCE DALLAS HOWARD
I must go into town to get medicine.
WILLIAM HURT
It is time to reveal something shocking to you. It will seem like quite a twist, if you will, fueling your interest to see this story conclude.
DIRECTOR M. NIGHT SHYAMALAN
No! Please, stop reading this! Without implausible twists, my films are worthless garbage!
WILLIAM HURT
You see, the creatures are actually the village elders in costumes. It’s to prevent anyone from going out to the town, which contains much scarier things. Now that you know this, you may go into town to get medicine.
BRYCE DALLAS HOWARD
Wouldn’t it have been easier to not tell me all about this and just go out to the town yourself?
WILLIAM HURT
No. I can’t show my face in the town ever again. The townspeople have all seen Lost in Space.
BRYCE leaves, heading past the border and into the woods.
AUDIENCE
It’s only the second act and we already know the twist? What the hell?
Suddenly, a MONSTER shows up!
MONSTER
Perhaps I am real after all!
It’s NOT. BRYCE continues on. She gets to a wall, and climbs it, exiting the village and entering….
DIRECTOR M. NIGHT SHYAMALAN
Dammit, if this abridged script reveals the ending, I’m going to unleash upon you all a film that makes no sense whatsoever, filled non-stop with red herrings that you’ll try in vain to piece together, only to discover the main character imagined it all!
END
Ha ha. As much as I enjoyed this film, this script was pretty funny. You ought to do one for Lady in the Water.
September 12th, 2007 at 4:15 pmAgreed. I haven’t seen Lady In The Water, but I do know about all his ridiculous character names. The Village was a bore (sorry, Nick), but LinW appears to be a complete laughing stock.
November 10th, 2007 at 7:40 amI thoroughly enjoyed this film. The only thing with it though, is it’s a one-watch movie. Once you’ve seen it, there’s no point in ever seeing it again.
Unbreakable though, I could watch that again. Sigh, and yes, 6th Sense is definitely watchable a second time, cliché as that may sound.
March 21st, 2008 at 9:34 amGee, I wonder what the ending twist is. I hope it’s not something stupid, like that the village is actually in the middle of a throughly improbably modern-day wildlife reservation.
April 21st, 2008 at 4:04 amGood one george…
May 2nd, 2008 at 4:57 pmThat was the part in the movie where i was really creeped out.
It felt like we were the ones brainwashed as well as all the people in the village… Stupid cults…
Since Rod predicted the ending for Unbreakable in the Sixth Sense script, I was certain the surprise for Lady in the Water was going to be that everything was all in his head. But instead there were eagles.
.. Eagles.
June 13th, 2008 at 3:37 ami just love the scene with the litle blind girl running across the field…i cant understand why blind people dont do more running in the wild…the exciment…what am i gonna step next and fall and break a bone….a foxhole?….cowdumps??…..a stone??….what fun..
and living in a village with the tecnology of the 1800 century…what fun, that is until you need to go to the dentist, Winther begins, You get old, Need to plove the fields with age old tools that will make sure your body is a broken shell by the time you turn 50, Wearing pig or sheep intenstns for a kondom since we have no birth control what so ever other than a kick to the stomach…i guess you can fill in many more
November 11th, 2008 at 11:06 pm