FADE IN:

INT. BAR FOR PSYCHOPATHS

MALCOLM MCDOWELL and his cronies WARREN CLARKE, JAMES MARCUS, and MICHAEL TAM are sitting around drinking MILK while dressed up as JANITOR CLOWN BUSINESSMEN.

MALCOLM MCDOWELL (V.O.)

One night, me and my droogs were drinking moloko with drencrom, when we thought it’d be real horrorshow to find a devotchka and filly an eegra of the old in-out-in-out. So we frazzered some bingly-bongly fnorp watermelon until we schweeeek-

WARREN CLARKE

Whoa, hey, what the fuck are you trying to say? Is that English?

MALCOLM MCDOWELL

Bits of it is! That’s basically Anthony Burgess’s idea of the kind of slang that Damn Kids These Days are using. But hey, at least this isn’t the book, where the whole fucking thing was written in gibberish! No, the movie can thankfully be understood without a fucking instruction manual.

WARREN CLARKE

Oh? Okay, so what exactly is a “clockwork orange” then?

MALCOLM MCDOWELL

Uhhhh

(leaps to feet)

Well that’s enough sitting perfectly still and staring silently across the room for one night! Let’s go out and be randomly awful for an extended time.

EXT. TUNNEL

The GANG go out looking for CRIMES to do. They happen upon gutter hobo PAUL FARRELL and start BEATING THE SHIT OUT OF HIM.

PAUL FARRELL

AH FUCK!! What has the world come to? The Damn Kids These Days have no respect for the law or their elders, and their clothes are ridiculous and their music is just noise and GET OFF MY LAWN HARRUMPH!

MALCOLM MCDOWELL

Look pops, every generation in the history of civilisation has thought that they were the last ones who were obedient and respectful, and that society was crumbling due to a generation of smart-alecky sociopathic youths, so don’t you think-

PAUL hands them a dossier of ACTUAL STATISTICS tracking VIOLENT CRIME IN THE UK in the LATTER HALF OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY.

MALCOLM MCDOWELL

(analysing graphs)

Holy FUCK. Okay, maybe you have a point here.

(peers closer)

I’m particularly concerned about this sharp spike in youth violence after the release of a 1971 movie called-

DIRECTOR STANLEY KUBRICK

HEY MAYBE GO FIND ANOTHER SCENE OF RANDOM VIOLENCE TO DO.

INT. THEATRE

Our GIGGLING PSYCHOPATHS move along to a THEATRE, where a RIVAL GANG is trying to RAPE A WOMAN.

MALCOLM MCDOWELL

Hey rivals! The five of you seem to be having a surprising amount of trouble subduing that one screaming lady, need some help?

RIVAL GANG LEADER

Aw fuck off, we fight you now!

MALCOLM MCDOWELL

Very well! For the record, what’s our beef?

RIVAL GANG LEADER

OUR BEEF IS THAT WE WANT TO DO VIOLENCE!!

MALCOLM MCDOWELL

WELL WE ALSO WANT TO DO VIOLENCE!! I GUESS THAT’S ALL YOU NEED REALLY

They do VIOLENCE on one another. MALCOLM’S TEAM wins.

RIVAL GANG LEADER

Glack. Jolly good violence, old chap. Same time next week?

INT. HOME - NOT MALCOLM’S HOME, JUST A MANSION NAMED “HOME”, REAL IMAGINATIVE HOUSE NAMING THERE

The GANG then roll up on the house of RICH COUPLE PATRICK MAGEE and ADRIENNE CORRI for a bit of the old HOME INVASION.

MALCOLM MCDOWELL

Pardon me, madam, but there has been an accident in the road! Might I trouble you to let me come in and use the telephone to contact-

ADRIENNE CORRI

Hold on a second, are you wearing gang clothes?

MALCOLM MCDOWELL

...nnno?

ADRIENNE CORRI

Well at the very least there’s no reason I couldn’t call an ambulance myself and eliminate any risk of-

PATRICK MAGEE

Oh come on and let this stranger in, dear, during this ultraviolent dystopian future where no sane person would do that.

They let in MALCOLM, upon which WARREN, JAMES, and MICHAEL all pour in as well and immediately start WRECKING SHIT! They beat up PATRICK and start tearing off ADRIENNE’S CLOTHING.

ADRIENNE CORRI

Okay, so far we’ve had two women appear in this movie, and two vaginas visible on screen. Not a stellar start I must say.

MALCOLM MCDOWELL

(to the tune of “Singin’ in the Rain”)

I’m beeeaaating in your brains!

(clubs Patrick)

Just beeeaaating in your brains!

(kicks him in the stomach)

Why the heeellll am I singing?

It’s kiiinda insane!

(tap-dances on his spine)

There’s nooooot a fucking chance

Real buuuurglar’s stop to dance!

Still I’m singing, while beating in your brains!

(moves on to smashing things)

TAKE THAT, VALUABLE ARTWORK! EAT SHIT, RARE BOOKS! LET’S TEAR EVERYTHING IN THIS PLACE TO SHREDS!! Ha ha, this robbery is going very well I must say.

Finally out of PEOPLE TO MAIM and THINGS TO DESTROY, MALCOLM goes home to PLAY WITH HIS PET SNAKE and JERK OFF TO BEETHOVEN RECORDS, which says a lot about him that we kind of already suspected.

INT. MALCOLM’S HOUSE

Early the next morning, MALCOLM’S MOTHER tries to rouse him for SCHOOL.

MALCOLM MCDOWELL

Now now mother, as usual I am too tired for school, after going to my mysterious job where a fifteen-year-old gets hired to do vague tasks for strangers at two o’clock in the morning.

MALCOLM’S MUM

But of course! Rest up, my sweet innocent lad!

(strolls away, humming to self)

MALCOLM MCDOWELL

Heh heh, it sure is nice having blithering idiot parents who are completely oblivious to everything that’s going on in their son’s life.

AUBREY MORRIS

(bursting in)

WHY HELLO MALCOLM, IT IS I, YOUR LOUD MOLESTING GUIDANCE COUNSELLOR, HERE TO MOLEEEEEST YOU!!!

(grabs Malcolm by the crotch)

MALCOLM MCDOWELL

...Of course, it has its drawbacks.

(to director)

So, Stanley, how are we going to pull off the effect of the middle-aged man grabbing a teenager by the genitals?

DIRECTOR STANLEY KUBRICK

By having a middle-aged man grab a teenager by the genitals. With what seems to be enough force to give you a testicular torsion.

MALCOLM MCDOWELL

I suppose I knew whose movie I was signing on to.

EXT. RIVER

The next night, MALCOLM and his DROOGS are strolling by the river when they decide to hold an impromptu LABOUR MEETING.

JAMES MARCUS

Look Malcolm, just bashing and smashing and raping everything that enters our field of vision is fun and all, but maybe we need a leader who lets us steal things WITHOUT trampling them to pieces first.

MALCOLM MCDOWELL

Aw fuck, the troops are turning mutinous! I better do what I can to restore morale.

(clears throat)

(smiles)

Now, gentlemen,

(hurls James into the river)

BWWAAAaaaAAAaaaAAARGGGHH

(beats Michael senseless)

AGHLARRABLUHWHARGH

(slashes at Warren with a knife)

FFFFFFUCK YOOOOUUUUU

(beams)

And thus peace reigns once more! Now let us repair to our next home invasion target, where I may trust my adoring crew to back me up completely non-treacherously.

ENTIRE GANG

(emanating visible waves of pure hatred)

They go knock on the front door of another MANSION.

MALCOLM MCDOWELL

Pardon me, madam, but there has been an accident in the road! Might I-

MIRIAM KARLIN

Wow, maybe change up the script in case rich people read the news? I’m not falling for it, kindly fuck off.

(pause)

Oh also I’m calling the police immediately. Perhaps I should mention that so you scram instead of trying to find another way in? Nah, I’m sure it’ll all work out.

The GANG find a means of sneaking MALCOLM inside.

JAMES MARCUS

All right, and now you’ll open the door so we can come in and rob the place, right?

MALCOLM MCDOWELL

Of course, as long as my razor-thin attention span doesn’t OH I SHOULD GO TAUNT MIRIAM FOR A WHILE AND ULTIMATELY BLUDGEON HER TO DEATH WITH A GIANT CERAMIC PHALLUS

(wanders off, commits murder)

Sirens sound! MALCOLM bursts out the front door, ready to FLEE.

MALCOLM MCDOWELL

Well we’re empty-handed and on the hook for a homicide, all because of my usual short-sightedness. I’ll bet you guys are glad you didn’t go through with your plan of replacing me now, huh?

(knocked out and left for the cops)

The POLICE seize MALCOLM and take him off for a bit of the old INCARCERATION.

INT. PRISON

Two years into his prison sentence, MALCOLM approaches the PRISON CHAPLAIN.

MALCOLM MCDOWELL

Father, I know my usual aura of smug superiority isn’t really getting it across, but naturally somebody as pretty as me isn’t doing well in prison. I hear there’s some kind of dystopian futuristic program they’re rolling out that would let me skip the whole rest of my sentence?

CHAPLAIN

Yes, there’s an experimental process that will fix you so that you’re no longer capable of doing crimes. Repeat, it will render you powerless to do any of the things you like. Does that really sound like a thing you’d want?

MALCOLM MCDOWELL

Hey, you know I never consider the implications of things, ESPECIALLY the consequences of my actions! Just sign me up already.

CHAPLAIN

If you insist. You’ll need to talk to Anthony Sharp, Minister for the Interior. He’s the one authority figure in this fascist hellscape that doesn’t shout all his dialogue, so you know he’s shifty as fuck.

ANTHONY SHARP

(arriving)

Hello, Malcolm, and welcome to our super-sinister experimental program for reforming prisoners! We needed to do something, prisons are becoming massively overpopulated and expensive, and improving social welfare wouldn’t help because this is that conservative fantasy about crime where none of it’s caused by social ills, instead it’s all just assholes being assholes.

(strokes chin thoughtfully)

I suppose an alternate plan would be to privatise the entire prison system, letting corporations run them for profit and thus incentivising extended prison sentences and poor conditions... nah, fuck that, that’s too dystopian even for this movie.

INT. CINEMA

MALCOLM is taken to a MOVIE THEATRE, where he is put in a STRAIGHTJACKET and STRAPPED TO HIS SEAT and has his EYES HELD OPEN with STEEL HOOKS.

MALCOLM MCDOWELL

Okay, how are we achieving this effect then?

DIRECTOR STANLEY KUBRICK

By putting you in a straightjacket, strapping you to your seat, and having your eyes held open with steel hooks. Duh.

MALCOLM MCDOWELL

(being physically tortured)

Maybe I should contact my union rep.

DOCTOR

We’ll be showing you footage of violence and rape and random destruction and all that stuff you like so much, all under the influence of a drug that will make you associate such imagery with feelings of violent illness! We also put some Nazi footage in there, so you won’t be tempted to start any genocidal regimes either.

MALCOLM MCDOWELL

So I won’t be able to commit, witness, or even really think about violent crimes anymore in this hellhole of a future? What am I gonna do, spend the rest of my life in a cellar with my eyes shut and my fingers in my ears?

(notices music)

Hey, you’ve scored this with Beethoven music! You’re ruining my favourite composer for me too?

DOCTOR

So we are! Oh well, can’t be helped.

MALCOLM MCDOWELL

You could just mute it. Or play literally any other music.

DOCTOR

That would be a waste of valuable seconds though.

INT. DEMONSTRATION ROOM

Once his treatment is complete, MALCOLM is run through his paces in front of a CROWD.

DOCTOR

As you can see from this public humiliation of Malcolm, he’s completely cured! He neither beat up a stranger nor molested a naked woman in front of a crowd of law enforcement officials, clearly that’s proof enough!

ANTHONY SHARP

Indeed, there’s no way he was just playing along for five minutes so as to not cause any problems with his release. He’s free to go!

MALCOLM is released from PRISON.

INT. MALCOLM'S HOUSE

MALCOLM returns home to his PARENTS.

MALCOLM’S MUM

Welcome home, son! We can’t wait to get our teenage son’s life back on track now that he’s reformed! Although your snake’s dead, your stuff was all taken by the cops, and a preppy asshole has moved into your room. We made no effort to rectify any of this or even inform you despite having plenty of notice of your return.

MALCOLM MCDOWELL

Good to see you two are just as much a pair of useless dipshits as ever I guess.

PREPPY ASSHOLE

Your parents are better off without you, you violent little prick! You’re such a blight on society, you should have been left to rot in prison, you unstable psychopath with a long history of savage beatings and murder! Boy, I sure seem to have a lot of faith in that treatment having worked don’t I.

Despite wanting to EAT THE PREPPY ASSHOLE’S FACE, MALCOLM is unable to fight and must FLEE into the night!

MALCOLM MCDOWELL

(staggering, trying not to puke)

Well great, what am I meant to do now? I can’t imagine things getting any worse for-

(accidentally steps on the Unfortunate Coincidence Fairy)

Oh no.

UNFORTUNATE COINCIDENCE FAIRY

YOU MOTHERFUCKER, YOU’LL PAY FOR THIS

(flies off)

MALCOLM reels away in a panic, only to stumble into PAUL, the HOBO he beat up at the beginning of the movie, what an UNFORTUNATE COINCIDENCE!

PAUL FARRELL

It’s YOU! Funny that a drunken derelict who probably gets beaten up daily by all the dystopian hooligangs running around, can instantly recognise the face of one of the four guys who kicked his teeth in two years ago, even though he was wearing clown makeup at the time.

MALCOLM tries to RUN FOR IT.

PAUL FARRELL

Not so fast! Hobo army, ATTACK!

(one thousand hobos swarm Malcolm)

Wait, I can summon minions? Geez, I which I’d known that a dozen scenes ago.

The HOBOS start to lay into MALCOLM, but then luckily some COPS appear and chase them off! But it turns out the COPS are WARREN and JAMES, what an UNFORTUNATE COINCIDENCE!

WARREN CLARKE

Yes, we have been made police officers, which is just another way of being in a thuggish violence gang if you think about it! Or even if you don’t think about it. Seriously, in a movie full of unnecessarily obvious social commentary, this is about the most unnecessarily obvious.

They start BEATING UP MALCOM some more, dragging him over to a TROUGH to hold his HEAD underwater for a full minute.

MALCOLM MCDOWELL

Okay, how are we getting THIS effect then?!

DIRECTOR STANLEY KUBRICK

By having Warren hold your head underwater for a full minute. Are you ready for take twenty-two?

MALCOLM MCDOWELL

(burbling out through water in lungs)

WHY DO YOU HATE ME SO MUCH?!?

WARREN and JAMES leave MALCOLM coughing up water and blood. MALCOLM manages to drag his wrecked body to a random HOUSE to seek SHELTER, but it turns out to be PATRICK MAGEE’S HOUSE, what an UNFORTUNATE COINCIDENCE!

PATRICK MAGEE

Wait a minute! I know you!!

MALCOLM MCDOWELL

(sighs)

Look, what if I just hand over my remaining teeth, will that be-

PATRICK MAGEE

Yes, you’re that brainwashed kid they talked about in the paper! The one I’ve read all about, who got arrested for a violent home invasion, days after my own violent home invasion that left me crippled! Which was carried out by somebody exactly fitting your description, just wearing a silly rubber nose! Come in so that I may nurse you back to health.

MALCOLM MCDOWELL

Oh wow, you’re way less astute than that hobo. What a stroke of luck for me! In fact, it makes me feel like randomly SINGING!

(to the tune of “Singin’ in the Rain”)

I’ll giiiiive myself away!

Just giiiiive myself away!

What a duuuuumb thing to do now

I reeeaaally must say!

PATRICK MAGEE

(recoiling)

It’s... HIM! I will act shocked and horrified now!!

DIRECTOR STANLEY KUBRICK

I dunno, “shocked and horrified” is kinda done to death, don’t you think? Tell you what, give me “being electrocuted while taking a massive dump”, can you do that?

PATRICK MAGEE

You’re weird, man.

(convulses)

INT. DINING ROOM

PATRICK serves up DINNER to MALCOLM, with vengeance percolating in his heart.

PATRICK MAGEE

Grrr, I mustn’t let Malcolm know that I’ve recognised him. Better play it cool.

(shoves a glass of wine at Malcolm)

DRINK THIS FUCKING WINE, FUCKER, SHOVE IT DOWN YOUR STUPID MURDEROUS THROOOOAAAT

MALCOLM MCDOWELL

Er - thanks - are you going to drink as well?

PATRICK MAGEE

I WILL NOT TOUCH ANY OF THIS WINE BUT YOU MUST DRINK ALL OF IT

(refills Malcolm’s glass)

HAVE MORE WINE, HAVE AS MUCH WINE AS PHYSICALLY POSSIBLE YOU FUCKING LITTLE SHIT AAAHHHHH

(pries Malcolm’s mouth open with crow bar and tries to insert funnel)

MALCOLM MCDOWELL

(drinking wine)

I’m sure this is nothing to worry abo

(unconscious)

He wakes up later locked in the BEDROOM, with BEETHOVEN blaring on the stereo!

MALCOLM MCDOWELL

Oh no, Beethoven! My one weakness! Aside from any form of physical violence, I guess. Weird that he’d pick the single least painful of my triggers. But either way, fuck this, the treatment has ruined my life. Time for a bit of the old suicide!

He leaps out the WINDOW to his DEATH.

INT. HOSPITAL

BUT WAIT! He doesn’t die after all, instead waking up in a hospital bed being fed by ANTHONY.

ANTHONY SHARP

So after we gave you this state-of-the-art new treatment and released to your new life, within literally a day you’d become homeless, gotten repeatedly beaten up, nearly drowned, then attempted suicide. Now we’ve hastily fixed your brain so you’re back to being a psychopath, and scrapped the whole program. But if you smile and shake my hand in some photographs, somehow this becomes a PR win for the government!

MALCOLM MCDOWELL

(eating as sarcastically as possible)

Okay, I think that I can see what the overall message is that you’re supposed to take away from this movie.

ANTHONY SHARP

(nods)

That no matter what a person’s sins may be, to rob him of his free will is the greater crime, denying him the chance to truly-

MALCOLM MCDOWELL

That violent hooligans are the smartest, coolest, most charismatic and exciting people in the world, and everyone who tries to interfere with them or make them suffer consequences is a total lamewad and a jerk!

ANTHONY SHARP

I - ah.

(looks at all footage from the movie)

Well, let’s hope that audiences really absorb all the in-your-face social commentary, and don’t romanticise your character too mu-

(buried in decades of Alex DeLarge posters and Halloween costumes and fan art and Funko Pops)

Oh dear.

END.