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.