The Abridged Script
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FADE IN:
INT. STAGE
EDWARD VAN SLOAN shuffles embarrassedly out in front of the audience.
EDWARD VAN SLOAN
Ugh. Apparently I'm supposed to come out here to issue a DIRE WARNING about how SHOCKING and TERRIFYING the film you're about to witness is. Yes, it's basically like the intros to the early Simpsons Halloween specials, except those specials were scarier. The existence of Plan 9 from Outer Space isn't doing us any favors either.
(sighs)
Look, we didn't know, all right? We had no way of knowing how sophisticated horror movies would get! To us, pale dudes with creepy eyes seemed like the height of terror! IT'S NOT OUR FAULT!
(runs off, sobbing)
EXT. CEMETERY
MAD SCIENTIST COLIN CLIVE and his assistant DWIGHT FRYE are out GRAVE ROBBING.
COLIN CLIVE
Good work, creepy hunchbacked assistant who is bafflingly not named Igor, this is one fine corpse we've dug up! I think I'll take this guy's spleen, earlobes and left pinky. Now onto the next one, we're still short a couple molars and an Achilles' tendon!
DWIGHT FRYE
Okay, why exactly does this little experiment of yours need you to sew all these different corpses together? Wouldn't a single dead guy have pretty much all the necessary bits to make a person?
COLIN CLIVE
I can't just bring one dead person back to life! The whole "building a person" schtick is the entire hook of our premise! Besides, this way I can mix and match the best possible person parts. Like, check out the top of this guy's head. Did you ever see such a perfectly flat top of someone's head?
DWIGHT FRYE
That is one impressively flat and boxy head top.
COLIN CLIVE
Exactly. It'll go great with the monolithic, Neanderthal-like forehead I already installed. Now be a good chap and drop by the university for a human brain.
INT. UNIVERSITY
DWIGHT sneaks in to steal a GRADE A PREMIUM BRAIN, but is STARTLED and DROPS IT, so instead he grabs a jar labeled “CRAZY MURDERER BRAIN DO NOT TOUCH”.
DWIGHT FRYE
You thought Young Frankenstein was exaggerating, didn't you? But no, that's actually what happens in the original movie. Seriously, this stuff pretty much comes pre-parodied.
INT. OFFICE
COLIN'S FIANCÉE MAE CLARKE has come to see COLIN'S FORMER PROFESSOR EDWARD VAN SLOAN. Also some guy named JOHN BOLES is just sort of there.
MAE CLARKE
Professor, I'm worried about Colin. He doesn't call, he doesn't write, he holes himself up in a creepy abandoned tower ranting about death and chopping up bodies. What does this mean for our absurdly incongruous, tone-shattering wedding plans?
EDWARD VAN SLOAN
I wish I could help, but I haven't spoken with Colin either. He got really obsessive about destroying and creating life, and finally cut ties with the university because he didn't think our cadavers were sunken-eyed and hollow-cheeked enough.
MAE CLARKE
So a student who kept ranting about "destroying life" stormed out with the aim of sourcing his own CORPSES? Didn't it occur to you that maybe you should have kept tabs on that situation?
EDWARD VAN SLOAN
Hmm, you might have a point. Come on, let’s go talk to Colin, with any luck we’ll get there like three minutes before his big experiment happens by sheer coincidence.
JOHN BOLES
Does anybody know who I am or why I exist?
INT. CREEPY GOTHIC TOWER
MAE, EDWARD and JOHN show up right as COLIN is about to animate his CORPSOMOZAIC.
COLIN CLIVE
At last I can reveal what I’ve been working on! I discovered a sort of ULTRA-ultraviolet radiation and was able to use it to bring small animals back from the dead, and then my findings were published in every research journal and I became the most famous scientist in the world and-
(slaps forehead)
AW FUCK I FORGOT THAT STEP. Oh well, who needs to win a Nobel Prize and go down in history as the guy who cured death, when instead I can do a bunch of insane illegal electro-necromancy and be remembered as that crackpot who sinned against nature.
He straps his CREATION into his CHEESY MAD-SCIENCE ZAP-MO-TRON and exposes it to a bunch of LIGHTNING. Its HAND TWITCHES FEEBLY!
JOHN BOLES
Holy shit, you did it! Now let’s see this thing in action so our monster movie can actually start to-
INT. COSY HOME
MAE and JOHN are hanging out with COLIN’S COMIC-RELIEF DAD CHARACTER, FREDERICK KERR.
FREDERICK KERR
Mae, when oh when are you and Colin going to have your WEDDING?
MAE CLARKE
Don’t worry, as soon as he’s less busy at work we’ll have our WEDDING.
FREDERICK KERR
I’m starting to think the lad’s gotten cold feet and there won’t be any WEDDING!
JOHN BOLES
Uhhh, what the hell, guys? We JUST watched a mad scientist create an undead monstrosity. What is this shit right now?
LIONEL BELMORE
(flouncing in)
I’m the Burgomaster, and I want to know what’s going on with this big WEDDING.
FREDERICK KERR
Don’t ask me, I can’t get a straight answer about this WEDDING!
JOHN BOLES
WE’RE POINTING OUR CAMERA AT THE WRONG STUFF, GUYS. Go back to the creepy lab or I SWEAR I will get even MORE boring and pointless. GO. NOW.
INT. CREEPY LAB
Fine, we’re back in the LAB with COLIN and EDWARD.
EDWARD VAN SLOAN
Your creature is an abomination, Colin! It should be destroyed!
COLIN CLIVE
What makes you say that? All he’s done is shuffle around and not talk.
EDWARD VAN SLOAN
But he looks all weird and gives me the willies! That is a totally legitimate reason to murder a dude!
COLIN CLIVE
Wow, Steve Buscemi better keep right the fuck away from you.
Then the CREATURE, BORIS KARLOFF, enters the room BACKWARDS so he can turn around for a big MAKEUP REVEAL.
BORIS KARLOFF
Okay wait, am I supposed to face the direction I’m walking TOWARDS or AWAY FROM? I’m still getting the hang of all this.
COLIN CLIVE
(clears throat pointedly)
BORIS KARLOFF
Uh, want I meant to say was, RRRRRRRRRR.
(pause)
Come on, man, couldn’t we go with my characterization from the book? I bet audiences would love an articulate, contemplative monster.
COLIN CLIVE
Try telling that to Robert De Niro.
BORIS KARLOFF
Well do I have to move around like an arthritic mannequin in a full-body cast? I’m supposed to be threatening here, surely a more athletic and action-ready Frankenstein-
COLIN CLIVE
AARON ECKHART.
BORIS KARLOFF
...I see your point. RRRRRRRR.
(stumbles around)
DWIGHT FRYE
(bursting in)
Where is he? Ah, THERE’S my boss’s life work, that I spent many hours of back-breaking labor helping him create! Now I can resume abusing it with fire for seemingly no reason.
DWIGHT threatens BORIS with a TORCH. Freaking out, BORIS flails his arms and knocks people over.
COLIN CLIVE
It panics when terrified for its life? Damn, I guess Edward's right, the thing's clearly pure evil. To the dungeon with it!
INT. DUNGEON
BORIS is CHAINED UP and DWIGHT is menacing him with a WHIP.
BORIS KARLOFF
Who the hell supplied you with a whip anyway? Cut it out!
DWIGHT FRYE
Or what, you’ll rip your chains out and club me to death? Don’t be stupid, there’s no reason a patchwork jumble of corpses should have superhuman strength!
BORIS KARLOFF
Actually I was thinking I’d tear my chains out then fashion that whip into a noose then hang you from that fifteen-foot-high rafter there.
DWIGHT FRYE
Well that makes even LESS sense! Come on, that’s so obviously implausible that the only way you could do it is if the camera completely cut away to-
INT. LAB
DWIGHT FRYE
(offscreen)
AAAAAAAaaahhhh...!!!
COLIN and EDWARD rush down to find DWIGHT DEAD and BORIS LOOSE! They hurriedly SEDATE BORIS.
EDWARD VAN SLOAN
This can’t go on, Colin. Leave it to me, I’ll humanely dispose of the beast. It's humane to carve somebody open and start rooting around in their internal organs while they're still alive, right?
COLIN CLIVE
Fine, dissect it I guess. But remember, if it turns out to be preternaturally resistant to your sedatives-
EDWARD VAN SLOAN
I know, I know, pay basically no heed to that fact and not even strap its arms down or anything. Now, you go off to deal with that stupidly out-of-place wedding of yours, and just assume that this all went well.
COLIN CLIVE
Sounds like a plan!
(leaves)
EDWARD VAN SLOAN
(murdered)
BORIS KARLOFF
(escapes)
EXT. HOUSE SO CLOSE TO A LAKE IT’S PRACTICALLY UNDERWATER
BORIS, wandering around randomly, happens across a LITTLE GIRL playing in her BACK YARD which consists of like FOUR SQUARE FEET OF GRASS and a GIANT LAKE.
LITTLE GIRL
Oh look, a seven-foot monstrous corpse man, this is a thing that a five-year-old girl would clearly be cheerily unafraid of! Come throw flowers in the lake with me.
BORIS KARLOFF
(throws flowers)
Damn, I’m out of flowers! Well I guess there are dozens more flowers right there on the ground, so
(throws girl)
LITTLE GIRL
(drowns instantly)
BORIS KARLOFF
OH SHIT! In my innocence I didn’t know that that could hurt her! Or that this lake drops off so ridiculously sharply that two feet in it’s a bottomless pit! Or that a girl who lives right on the very edge of this death lake was never taught how to swim! And was I guess wearing clothes made of lead!
BORIS runs off in distress.
1931 CENSORS
Well that scene was one of the most effective in the movie, and entirely crucial to the narrative.
(CUT CUT CUT CUT CUT)
There, that’s better! Now the film ought to be acceptable to people with the same pathetically fragile constitutions as ours.
(looks out window, sees spiderweb)
OH MY VAPORS!
(faints)
INT. CASA DE FRANKENSTEIN
DERANGED, MAD-EYED SCIENTIST COLIN is preparing for his BIG HAPPY WEDDING TO MAE which still just doesn’t jibe AT ALL.
JOHN BOLES
Bad news, Colin! The creature has been reported terrorizing the mountain villages! And by “terrorizing” we seem to mostly mean stumbling confusedly through the undergrowth. Apparently weird-looking lost dudes counts as both high drama and primo gossip in this jerkwater berg.
COLIN CLIVE
Well if he’s wandering the mountains we’re safe at least. I mean, unless he happens to wander all the way into town and just randomly burst into this exact building, which he would have no way of knowing I’m currently in. Surely we’re safe from THAT level of utter contrivance.
INT. MAE’S ROOM
BORIS KARLOFF
(bursting in)
Oh sure, this is MUCH better than the book’s intelligent creature actually plotting an act of revenge. Me just bumbling around attacking whoever, that’s great storytelling right there. RRRRRRRR.
MAE CLARKE
Oh no! Quick, is there anything here I can use to defend myself or effect my escape - oh right, 1930s heroine.
(shrieks uselessly)
BORIS KARLOFF
Bwa ha ha, that’s right, I will now overturn some chairs, lurch clumsily after you like a slow-motion Benny Hill, then run away the moment anybody else shows up! I’M SO INTIMIDATING!
(flees)
EXT. TOWN
The BODY of the LITTLE GIRL is brought to town by her FATHER.
FATHER
I left my little girl who can’t swim completely by herself right next to a bottomless lake, and when I got home she’d drowned! Clearly she’s been MURDERED! That’s the ONLY LOGICAL EXPLANATION!
LIONEL BELMORE
Well in a similar time frame to that drowning, there's also been talk of some big guy wandering around. So based on that reasoning, let’s form a huge mob and kill him without due process!
COLIN CLIVE
I’ll help kill this guy, whoever the hell he is! If only some guy were around who could give us useful information about the creature, amirite? I'd certainly volunteer all relevant facts if it were ME who had unleashed this horror upon the town, BUT IT WASN'T SO DON'T EVEN ASK OKAY.
LIONEL BELMORE
All right, you take half the townsfolk up to Mount Fakelooking. Just take a left at the curtains with clouds painted on them, then keep going until you reach the styrofoam boulders.
EXT. SOUND STAGE THAT WE’LL PRETEND IS A MOUNTAIN
A SMALL ARMY of TORCH-WIELDING VILLAGERS go out hunting a FRIGHTENED FIVE-DAY-OLD. Eventually COLIN wanders off by himself and stumbles into BORIS!
COLIN CLIVE
All right, you loathsome creature, you may have superior strength, but I have-
(pats pockets)
Wait, did I seriously not bring a weapon? Did the ENTIRE MOB not bring any weapons? Not even pitchforks! That’s a violent mob staple! Shiiit!
COLIN flees into a WINDMILL! BORIS pursues him at the approximate speed of TREACLE RUNNING UPHILL! Eventually BORIS has COLIN cornered on a BALCONY, and instead of just RIPPING HIS HEAD OFF or something he TOSSES HIM OVER THE RAILING, for a deadly ONE-AND-A-HALF STOREY FALL!
COLIN CLIVE
Aha, but thinking fast, I’m able to survive the fall by cleverly transforming into a really obvious straw dummy!
The TOWNSFOLK set FIRE to the WINDMILL with BORIS INSIDE. The entire building is CONSUMED BY FLAME and COLLAPSES INTO RUBBLE.
BORIS KARLOFF
AAAARRRRGH, I SURE HOPE A SEQUEL HAPPENS SO I CAN IMPLAUSIBLY SURVIVE THIS
(gains power of speech)
COLIN CLIVE
Well, the climax has finished. That can only mean one thing in 1930s Hollywood: an-
FREDERICK KERR
An insultingly abrupt and goofy ending oh ho ho GOODNIGHT EVERYBODY!
END.