The Abridged Script
FADE IN:
INT. UNIVERSITY LAB
Physics students PHI VU, SURAJ SHARMA and SARAH YARKIN are doing SCIENCE STUFF in a COLLEGE LAB, when evil dean STEVE ZISSIS bursts in on them.
STEVE ZISSIS
Hey gang! I was just watching Ghostbusters, and the bit where the jerk dean kicks them out of college for being flaky pseudo-scientific jackoffs looked SO FUN that I decided to come give it a try myself. So kindly fuck off!
PHI VU
But we’re just starting to get results! Just yesterday at one past twelve in the morning, our quantum mechanics machine had a huge energy surge and quantumed ALL the mechanics! Who knows what it even did? Why, it might have caused an entire sorta-horror movie’s worth of time loop antics!
SURAJ SHARMA
Woah, what? Are we seriously going to change the first movie’s premise from vague magic realism to sci-fi gobbledegook? Do you have any idea how much stupider we just made that movie?!
SARAH YARKIN
Yeah, like, if our machine caused the time loop, how come one random person in the general vicinity kept her memories? How does it make any sense that the trigger for the loop was her death?
SURAJ SHARMA
And what were the odds that she’d be exposed to this bizarre quantum effect that allowed her to come back from death, on the EXACT day that she wound up dying? Basically, we used to have something ambiguously metaphysical; now we just have bullshit.
PHI VU
Eh whatever. I’m just gonna follow these creepy texts somebody is sending me, which contain just photos taken of me seconds beforehand.
SARAH YARKIN
Are you going to check who sent them, ie the first thing anybody does with any text ever?
PHI VU
Oh God no, that’d be a huge fucking spoiler.
He tracks down his creepy texter to a supply closet and it’s the BABY MASK GUY who then STABS HIM DEAD.
EXT. UNIVERSITY CAMPUS
PHI wakes up and it’s the same day again.
PHI VU
Oh my God! This time I’M looping the day when I die! I guess when the heroine of the first movie broke the loop she passed her Reading Steiner onto me, which is another thing which makes way less sense with science fiction than with magic, AND the nerdiest reference the author of this script has ever made!
He rushes to report the odd goings-on to his roommate and his roommate’s girlfriend, STARS OF THE FIRST MOVIE JESSICA ROTHE AND ISRAEL BROUSSARD.
PHI VU
Hey Israel, I’m stuck in a murder-loop. Figured I would tell the first random people I saw, on the off chance that that they would happen to be the only two people in the world who know precisely what’s happening to me.
JESSICA ROTHE
Okay, this movie is going to be doing a LOT of call-backs, so if you haven’t seen the first one it’ll be kind of incomprehensible unless you pay close attention to the infodump I’m about to unleash. Ready?
(deep breath)
YesterdayIwasmurderedoverandover
inatimeloopsoIfollowedthetopsusp
ectstoseewhothekillerwasturnedou
titwasserialkillerRobMellosoIkil
ledhimbutthenturnedouthoaxrealki
llerroommateRubyModinewhojealous
medatemarriedprofessorCharlesAit
kensokilledherbrokelooptheend.
PHI VU
Whaaa...? I can’t imagine anybody could possibly have taken all that in.
JESSICA ROTHE
Too bad! Let’s go prevent your murder!
They go to a BASKETBALL GAME to make sure PHI is safely in PUBLIC. But then there is a FIRE ALARM and everybody is told to LEAVE.
JESSICA ROTHE
Oh no! The game has stopped and now we’re supposed to leave the stadium? We have no plan for such an eventuality! Apparently we assumed that the game would last forever.
PHI gets separated from the group! He winds up in some STORAGE AREA where the school is keeping all its MANNEQUINS DRESSED IN BABY MASKS, because this school is run by CRAZY PEOPLE.
PHI VU
Oh great. Let me guess, I’m gonna have my attention directed to some part of this big dark room while I back slowly towards some mannequins, when suddenly SURPRISE SURPRISE the killer pops up behind me. I only ask because I already saw that trick in EVERY SLASHER MOVIE EVER MADE.
His prognostications prove CORRECT and the MASK GUY tries to STAB HIM, but then JESSICA and ISRAEL stop and catch the guy. Then they unmask him and it turns out it’s... PHI?!
PHI TWO
That’s right, I’m your time clone! We did something unexplained with the quantum machine that made there be two of me somehow, which is going to destroy the universe for reasons which are ALSO unexplained! That’s why I need to kill you!
PHI VU
And you had the idea of doing it in the same baby mask, hoodie and butcher knife combo that happened in the first movie, which I could never have possibly heard about since Jessica erased it from time?
PHI TWO
Uh, I guess? Hobo Murder Baby is a very popular look right now, one has to assume.
PHI VU
Well then I’m going to stop you from killing me by doing ANOTHER completely unexplained thing with the quantum machine, which will then explode for unexplained reasons!
PHI TWO
Sure, whatever random crap we have to pull in order to get the main storyline happening!
They screw around with the QUANTUM MACHINE which then goes all ZAPPO-KABLOOIE and blasts everyone with TIME MAGIC.
INT. HA HA HA, YOU THOUGHT JUST BY REACHING THE END OF THE FIRST MOVIE YOU COULD BE FREE OF THAT SAME FUCKING DORM ROOM? DREAM ON, PAL
JESSICA ROTHE wakes up in a DORM ROOM with-
JESSICA ROTHE
OH FUCK, I’M BACK IN THE SAME LOOP AS LAST MOVIE!! YOU HAVE TO BE GODDAMN FUCKING KIDDING ME!!! GRARRRFFFFHGGGGGHHHH oh well at least we finally got past the fuckton of contrived setup and into the actual main body of the movie.
She summons ISRAEL, PHI, SURAJ and SARAH and goes to confront her roommate and would-be murderer RUBY MODINE, again.
JESSICA ROTHE
Where’s the cupcake you plan on poisoning me with, bitch?! I have backup and witnesses with me this time, so you can’t try to get out of it by turning this into a brawl to the death, ha!
(pause)
Now that I think of it this is absolutely what I should have done at the end of the first movie. Kinda obvious in hindsight.
RUBY MODINE
Poison cupcake? I didn’t bake any poison cupcake! The fact that I’m saying this means that it must be true.
JESSICA ROTHE
Wait, what? This isn’t how it usually happens! Guys, how come my predictions of what will happen in this time loop are wrong? And don’t say “From our perspective it seems most likely that there is no time loop and you’re just a crazy person”, that’d REALLY piss me off!
ISRAEL BROUSSARD
Weirdly none of us will even consider that option, and instead instantly take you at your word about being an immortal time traveller, in order to hurry the story along.
PHI VU
Clearly when the quantum machine exploded, it knocked you into an alternate reality for some fucking reason! Boy, screenwriting sure gets easy when you can just explain away every event with “The MacGuffin did it”.
SURAJ SHARMA
Yes, now you are in a reality where a whole bunch of random things are different. Here your mom is still alive, and Israel is dating your bitch friend Rachel Matthews, and you never took professor Charles Aitken’s class OR had an affair with him.
JESSICA ROTHE
But wait, if my life is completely different from the ground up, isn’t it weird that I still got blackout drunk last night and passed out in Israel’s dorm room in IDENTICAL circumstances to usual? Didn’t we find out last movie that I only got that drunk because I was drowning my dead-mom grief?
SARAH YARKIN
Er, well this time you were drowning your... mom-having emotional stability? I don’t know.
PHI VU
Anyway, we can quantum the machine so that it stops the time loop and sends you back to your original reality. We’ll just need to-
JESSICA ROTHE
Woah, hold on a sweet minute there! I think I’ll stay in the universe where my mom isn’t quite so dead, thanks.
PHI VU
Oh. Aren’t you at all concerned about this reality’s Jessica, whose consciousness you seem to be currently overriding, and who you would essentially be murdering if you stayed?
JESSICA ROTHE
Fuck that bitch.
PHI VU
Okay then. We can just press different buttons and make the machine keep you here instead, this thing basically does whatever the fuck we want it to.
They are about to stop the LOOP when suddenly JESSICA sees a thing on TV about the capture of serial killer ROB MELLO.
JESSICA ROTHE
Oh shit! He’s being held at the hospital just like last time! That means that Ruby is going to set him free like last time, in a convoluted ploy to kill me, even if my run-in with her this morning suggests she’s not doing that anymore!! I better stop him.
ISRAEL BROUSSARD
By calling the hospital and warning them, or calling in a bomb threat or something?
JESSICA ROTHE
Nope, by running off unarmed to fight a serial killer by myself of course!
(leaves)
INT. HOSPITAL
JESSICA goes to check on ROB only to find out he has indeed GOTTEN LOOSE! Then the MASK GUY shows up.
JESSICA ROTHE
I know it’s you, Ruby! Clearly you already got dressed up in your murder clothes all ready to murder me, even though there was no reason for you to think I would be anywhere near here!
Suddenly RUBY shows up and gets KILLED by the MASK GUY!
JESSICA ROTHE
Yeah, honestly that makes way more sense.
(runs away)
She FLEES up the stairs! Then FLEES out onto the roof! Then FLEES off the roof onto the pavement below! At which point she stops fleeing.
INT. DOOOORM ROOOOOM
JESSICA wakes up IN YET ANOTHER ALTERNATE REALITY AND THIS TIME ISRAEL IS EVIL DICTATOR OF THE WORLD ha ha just kidding, we’re still just doing the time loop thing.
JESSICA ROTHE
DAMNIT! Hey Israel, get the others. Oh and uh, just instantly believe me about the time loop on almost no evidence like usual, yeah?
ISRAEL BROUSSARD
You got it!
They meet with the NERD HERD.
JESSICA ROTHE
So that whole Rob Mello thing didn’t work out, so fuck it for now, let’s just turn off the loop and I’ll deal with the mad killer later.
PHI VU
You mean later after you’ve lost your immunity to getting murdered?
JESSICA ROTHE
Yeah, that. So what do we need to do?
PHI VU
Okay, the machine needs us to type in an algorithm to work. But we don’t know which algorithm! Basically we’ve got like eight or nine algorithms sitting in a pile and we have to plug them in one at a time until one works.
JESSICA ROTHE
Okay, that’s not really how computer science works, but fine.
SURAJ SHARMA
Ah, but it’s not that simple! Each algorithm will take literally hours to test for some reason, so we’ll only have time to test one before the evil dean bursts in and steals all our equipment, and then we’re screwed!
JESSICA ROTHE
...Can’t you just move it someplace where he can’t find it, then? Then you could test all the algorithms at your leisure. Or if he does steal it, you could just build a new one, since you invented it.
SARAH YARKIN
We hear you, but what you have to understand is that we’re trying to force a scenario where you have to reset the day to give us more chances at the algorithm, so the audience gets to watch you snuff it a bunch more times.
JESSICA ROTHE
Ugh, fine. So how do I tell you which of the algorithms you’ve already tried? I guess you should think of a logical order to list them, like character length or something. Then when I respawn I can just tell you “Okay so the shortest two didn’t work, let’s do the next one”.
PHI VU
Or, even better, you can just memorize every single algorithm we try.
JESSICA ROTHE
What.
SURAJ SHARMA
Yeah, just commit an endless string of meaningless characters to memory. Every single day.
JESSICA ROTHE
But. What? No. Huh? That’s the stupidest-
ISRAEL BROUSSARD
So it’s agreed! We try an algorithm, Jessica memorizes it, dies, we start over.
JESSICA ROTHE
(sighs)
All right, whatever. I guess I’ll just memorize the thing, go thwart the murderer, then live out the remainder of this life. Travel, learn new skills, just let fate take me where it will... eventually passing away and returning to this day. And then I can begin a whole new life, a whole new path. Living dozens of lives, hundreds of years, gaining a depth and breadth of experience that nobody before me has ever dared to dream-
ISRAEL BROUSSARD
Or you could just kill yourself this afternoon, and do that over and over and over.
JESSICA ROTHE
YOUR PLANS ARE ALL TERRIBLE. Fine, whatever! Groundhog Day-style suicide montage, coming up!
ISRAEL BROUSSARD
Well there’s no real need for a montage, as you’ll probably just choose one neat, convenient suicide method and do that every time-
JESSICA ROTHE
(electrocutes self with bathtub toaster)
ISRAEL BROUSSARD
...I was more thinking something quick and painless, you know, so you didn’t have to suffer needlessly-
JESSICA ROTHE
(dissolves digestive tract with drain cleaner)
ISRAEL BROUSSARD
.....Like maybe you would try to minimize the damage at least so the slow accretion of internal damage doesn’t-
JESSICA ROTHE
(jumps into woodchipper and reduces herself to mulch)
ISRAEL BROUSSARD
Okay, what the fuck?! Have those evil trees from The Happening been talking to you?
Eventually they hit a day where they input an algorithm and instantly get a notification that THIS ONE is going to WORK.
PHI VU
And funnily enough, it turns out the absolute last one was the one we needed all along!
JESSICA ROTHE
YES I FUCKING NOTICED.
While they wait for the QUANTUM MACHINE to do its thing, JESSICA goes to see her not-dead mother MISSI YAGER and have some last-minute DOUBTS.
JESSICA ROTHE
Mom, when you first started dating Dad, how much of a priority was he to you? Not much, right? I mean, say you’d only known him a couple of weeks, and most of that time you were too busy getting murdered over and over to really pay him much attention. And now you had to choose between a life where you’re dating him, and one where you get to see your mother ever again. That’d be a no-brainer, right? Pick your mom over some nerd you’re crushing on?
MISSI YAGER
Oh, no honey! When you’re in the giddy super-passionate stage of a new relationship, you should be ready to throw all other things into a fire as unimportant chaff. Don’t you even know how to teenager?
JESSICA ROTHE
Damn. I only have minutes until the machine finishes quantuming, at which point it’ll be too late to change my mind. If only there were something that would simplify this decision for me...
TV NEWS
This just in: crazed murderer Rob Mello just escaped, and a guy called Israel Broussard was killed trying to stop him!
JESSICA ROTHE
Oh neat.
(kills self)
INT. LAB
On the next life, JESSICA makes the choice that she’s going to send herself back to her original universe.
ISRAEL BROUSSARD
Woah. After all the time you’ve spent fighting to stay here, we know how heavy this decision must hang on you. Even though we don’t remember any of that and are only just past the stage of wondering who the hell you even are.
But then the EVIL DEAN shows up to confiscate the machine!
ISRAEL BROUSSARD
What? But in all the other timelines you didn’t appear until tomorrow! Why is it happening differently all of a sudden?
STEVE ZISSIS
Literally no reason, this seriously makes no sense at all! We just shoved this new bit of conflict so we could pad things out and turn into a wacky heist comedy for five minutes.
JESSICA ROTHE
All right, whatever, let’s get this over with. We’ll just steal back the machine while Rachel distracts him with a goofy bit worthy of a fifth-rate episode of Three’s Company.
RACHEL MATTHEWS
I am, ow you say, ze blind Frenchwoman? Zut alors!
(slapsticks)
Once the movie is done being FUCKING TERRIBLE, they get the machine back and start QUANTUMING IT again. While it does its thing, JESSICA goes to say farewell to her MOTHER.
JESSICA ROTHE
Mom, I just want to let you know I love you. In a teary and vague monologue which makes it pretty clear I never expect to see you ever again, which you should probably be a bit worried about.
MISSY YAGER
Never see me again? But surely Phi and Suraj and Sarah are going to actually, you know, work on their machine some more. In which case it’ll probably only be a few years before they figure out how to send you back here to see me as often as you want.
JESSICA ROTHE
Don’t ruin the moment, Mom.
(checks watch)
Oh hey, I still have time to go stop the crazed murderer. Remember how that’s a thing?
INT. HOSPITAL
JESSICA goes to see RUBY.
JESSICA ROTHE
I figured it out. In this reality I never hooked up with Professor Charles Aitken, which means that you were able to have an affair with him yourself. Then his wife found out, so she told him to murder you, and he agreed? Wait, that’s so stupid, forget I said that.
CHARLES AITKEN
(unmasking)
Actually you were pretty close! My wife did tell me to kill Ruby, but MY plan was, since my wife and my mistress know about each other, fuck it, just kill them both, clean slate.
(murders wife)
So clearly the problem with your theory is you weren’t thinking stupid ENOUGH.
RUBY MODINE
But, hang on a second. Are we now saying that Charles AND time-clone Phi AND original-reality me ALL independently thought up the exact same identical murderer costume?
CHARLES AITKEN
Well, considering that I also came up with the same “blame it on the serial killer” plan that you did in the first movie, I guess the only logical conclusion we can come to is that when the quantum machine goes off it induces a very specific kind of homicidal mania in random people in the vicinity. In which case I’m an innocent person not responsible for his actions and-
(stabbed by Jessica)
JESSICA ROTHE
Okay, the murderer is dealt with, and now I’m about to get booted back to my own reality. Hey Israel, kiss me right as I go, even though I’m a virtual stranger to you and you have a girlfriend.
ISRAEL BROUSSARD
Sure! But wait, won’t that mean that when this-world Jessica returns to consciousness it’ll be in mid-kiss with a boy she’s never met? Won’t that seriously freak her out?
JESSICA ROTHE
That’s her problem. Seriously, she can just get fucked. I wish I could punch her in the face.
She returns to her own universe.
INT. LAB
JESSICA arrives back at the precise moment of the quantum machine’s explosion.
JESSICA ROTHE
So the time loop is ended, I’m dating Israel again, nobody’s out trying to murder anyone, and my Mom is back to being dead, hooray! We managed to resolve all the dangling plot threads. Goodnight everybody!
PHI VU
Wait a minute, is the universe still going to explode if my time clone doesn’t kill me?
JESSICA ROTHE
Uhhhhh
END.
Suddenly, GOVERNMENT AGENTS show up!
NOT NICK FURY
Jessica and nerds, we want you to come with us, so we can set up some important plot elements which will leave people who see the possible third instalment without sitting through these closing credits totally fucked! We stole the design for your quantum device, please help us use it.
JESSICA ROTHE
Oooohhh, I have a certain bitch roommate we could stick in a time loop.
NOT NICK FURY
...Actually we could get any number of volunteers. There’s no need to literally murder somebody you know over and over and over again.
JESSICA ROTHE
(draws butcher knife)
Pleeeeaaaase?
NOT NICK FURY
Wow. That quantumly-induced homicidal mania theory is seeming pretty solid right about now.
END.