The Abridged Script
INT. BEDROOM
BILL PULLMAN stands over a balcony, looking LISTLESS. ROSA BLASI awakens.
ROSA BLASI
Bill? What are you doing? Come back to bed.
BILL PULLMAN
(muttering quietly)
Mr. Wrong... While You Were Sleeping... Brokendown Palace...
ROSA BLASI
Honey? What's wrong?
BILL PULLMAN
Lake Placid... Lucky Numbers...
ROSA BLASI
Bill?
BILL turns around and looks at her for a moment, then throws himself over the balcony and totally kills himself without any context whatsoever.
ROSA BLASI
Wow. Bill Pullman dead within the first two minutes. How bad can this movie be?
EXT. JAPAN
YOKO MAKI rides her bike through TOKYO, past lots of Japanese writing and residents.
AUDIENCE
(getting up)
Oh, geeze, I'm so embarassed. I just realized I must have gone into the theater for the original Japanese version, not the remake.
DIRECTOR TAKASHI SHIMIZU
This is the remake.
AUDIENCE
But it's set in Japan, and everyone is speaking Japanese..
DIRECTOR TAKASHI SHIMIZU
Not only that, but I'm using the same sets from when I made the original movie, as well as a bunch of my original cast members reprising their roles.
AUDIENCE
So, how is this a remake?
DIRECTOR TAKASHI SHIMIZU
There are four or five American actors in it, and they speak English a little more than half the time.
INT. A CURSED HOUSE. OOOOH! SCARY!
YOKO MAKI enters to take care of GRACE ZABRISKIE.
YOKO MAKI
I'll go look around the house for no reason. Then, I'll be scared of nothing in particular for no reason while investigating dark areas that I myself choose to investigate out of curiosity and I could just turn away from whenever I want. Then I'll get killed, also for no reason.
She INVESTIGATES. She finds some random CREEPY GIRL.
CREEPY GIRL (O.S.)
....brrrraaaaaAAAAA........
Suddenly, she TOTALLY KILLS YOKO. This is STARTLING, but not SCARY.
INT. SAME HOUSE - DIFFERENT POINT IN TIME
A nearly identical scene is shown, this time with different people. In takes place years earlier, but the film's relentlessly mundane direction makes that somewhat ambiguous. Anyway, everyone gets killed by a little boy that MEOWS. This is STUPID, but not SCARY.
INT. SAME HOUSE AGAIN - PRESENT TIME
SARAH MICHELLE GELLAR enters. She gets SCARED by GHOSTS THAT WE STILL DON'T KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT. This is still nearly the same as the previous two scenes, except that SARAH lives. This is SLOW, but not SCARY.
INT. OFFICE-TYPE BUILDING, FINALLY NOT THE HOUSE
We are no longer in the same house, so the "scary" scene is different and uses video monitors because THE RING was popular. SOME WORTHLESS CHARACTER runs away and gets to her home.
WORTHLESS CHARACTER
Oh no, I'm in a home, which means the same scene that keeps taking place will probably take place again! I'm doomed! I wonder if I'll get the meowing boy or burping girl.
CREEPY GIRL
...rrrraaaaaaAAAAAAAAA....
WORTHLESS CHARACTER
Burping girl. Damn.
She DIES. This is SENSELESS, but not SCARY.
INT. THE DAMN HOUSE AGAIN
More FUTURE CORPSES show up, only to be destroyed in the exact same manner as how we've seen a handful of times already in this movie, as well as countless times in the movies that this one rips off.
Meanwhile, SARAH MICHELLE GELLAR investigates the history of the haunted house.
SARAH MICHELLE GELLAR
Interesting. Looks like some guy killed his boy and... wife? Holy shit, that girl was his wife? I thought she was going to wind up being some ghost daughter! Gross!
She and the DETECTIVE figure out that the house might be HAUNTED.
AUDIENCE
Alright, that's it! I paid $7.50 To watch a movie that's about 80% identical to a movie made just last year that I can rent at the video store for 2 bucks, and it doesn't even offer one single decent scare? God dammit!
The audience DIES in a FIT OF RAGE and begins immediately haunting DIRECTOR TAKASHI SHIMIZU, preventing him from finishing his pointless exercise in on-screen masturbation. This is SATISFYING, but not SCARY.
CREEPY GIRL
....aaaaaaaaap! Whew.
END