FADE IN:

EXT. FLORIDA - WAIT, WHO DID YOU SAY WROTE THE SOURCE MATERIAL? OH. NOT FLORIDA THEN, MAINE OBVIOUSLY, ALWAYS MAINE

JASON CLARKE and AMY SEIMETZ are moving to the charming little town of BUMFUCK NOWHERE, MAINE, with their beautiful pre-teen daughter JETÉ LAURENCE and their adorable toddler HUGO and LUCAS LAVOIE and their cute cat LEO and TONIC and JAGER and JD.

JASON CLARKE

Boy it’s a good thing we don’t have any more dependants, because their actors seem to be undergoing a geometric progression.

JETÉ LAURENCE

(sweetly)

I can’t wait to see our new home, I bet it’ll be the bestest!

HUGO AND LUCAS LAVOIE

(innocently)

I wub you Mommy and Daddy!

LEO/TONIC/JAGER/JD

(mewls lovably)

AMY SEIMETZ

Jeez guys, we’re not posing for a Hallmark card, tone it the fuck down will ya.

They arrive and pile out of the car to look at their new house.

JASON CLARKE

Isn’t this place great? It’s got everything, sinister shadowy forest, disquieting desaturated cinematography, and we’re conveniently right on the Doom Truck’s route!

AMY SEIMETZ

What the hell is a Doom-

DOOM TRUCK

(blasting past their property at two-thirds the speed of light)

DEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAATHHHHH

AMY SEIMETZ

...I see. Guess that’s handy for whenever we run low on doom.

JASON CLARKE

Indeed! ...Although trust me that’s not gonna be much of an issue in this movie, yeesh.

JETÉ explores the property, and soon espies a group of SOLEMN ANIMAL-MASK KIDS walking through the woods, wheeling a DEAD DOG.

JETÉ LAURENCE

Boy, kids are hard up for entertainment around here.

JOHN LITHGOW

(materializing)

Oh they’re just on their way to the local pet cemetery. You know how it is, when you’re a kid and your pet dies you and a coterie of your friends carry the corpse several miles with no adult supervision to dig the grave and conduct the burial by yourselves. In eerie silence. While wearing pagan masks of horses and rabbits and shit. Just regular kid stuff!

JETÉ LAURENCE

Who are you, and who forgot to tell you that wandering onto somebody else’s property and approaching an eleven-year-old girl while her parents aren’t around is frowned upon?

JOHN LITHGOW

I’m your nearest neighbor and exposition repository. By the look of me I think I’m supposed to be some kind of hick, which makes it weird that I’m still doing my usual “Yale professor ordering a fine wine down at the polo club” voice.

JETÉ runs home to JASON and AMY, distressed about the CEMETERY.

JETÉ LAURENCE

Holy shit you guys, did you know that PETS... can DIE?! Oh no, what’s going to happen to Leo-Tonic-Jager-JD when his number is up? Maybe if you give me wildly extreme answers to this it’ll wind up averaging out to something resembling an adequate response!

JASON CLARKE

Okay then. When the cat’s biological processes inevitably halt, his consciousness will be similarly terminated. All that will be left is a pile of rotting organic matter which will never think or feel or experience anything again.

AMY SEIMETZ

Whereas MY perspective is that Leo-Tonic-Jager-JD will live many many more years, and IF he does eventually pass away, which I’m not saying he will, his spirit will immediately ascend to a plane of butterflies and daffodils and sunshine and cotton candy! Death is never for real, and it’ll probably never happen to any of us anyway, and either way SHUT UP ABOUT DYING I DON’T WANT TO THINK ABOUT DYING LA LA LA I CAN’T HEAR YOU.

JASON CLARKE

Yikes. Why are you so neurotic about death?

AMY SEIMETZ

Because when I was a little girl my sister was horrifyingly crippled with a twisted spine, and then one day I sent her some food through the dumbwaiter and something reeeaaallly confusing happened and she died somehow. I hallucinate about it all the time.

JASON CLARKE

Oh okay, and we added that in to further explore the theme of Man’s Abhorrence of Death?

AMY SEIMETZ

Partly that. Partly because any time Stephen King thinks of a thing that he finds creepy, he finds any old excuse to jam that creepy thing into whatever he happens to be writing at the time.

JASON CLARKE

And the thing he finds creepy today is... disabled people?

AMY SEIMETZ

Not his finest moment, I’ll admit.

INT. MEDICAL CENTRE

JASON is at his JOB as a DOCTOR. Suddenly, a GRUESOMELY INJURED PATIENT is wheeled in!

NURSE

Doctor! This boy was just run over! At a high school, so it probably wasn’t the Doom Truck, but I wouldn’t put it past that fucking thing.

JASON tries to save the patient, OBSSA AHMED, but the kid dies on the table. But then he SITS UP ANYWAY!

OBSSA AHMED

Surprise! Remember, if there’s one cliche Stephen King likes more than making random characters psychic, it’s having dead people not being quite too dead to deliver portentous warnings. That said:

(grabs Jason by the shirt)

JASON! You must not... under ANY circumstances... make Terminator: Genisys!!

JASON CLARKE

Oops. I kinda already did.

OBSSA AHMED

(gasps)

Then the worst has come to pass!!! Oh well, at least I can still hopefully prevent the zombie family stuff.

JASON CLARKE

Wait, zombie family?

OBSSA AHMED

Oh sorry, I was supposed to be a lot more vague and cryptic than that. So THE BARRIER MUST NOT BE BROKEN et cetera et cetera.

EXT. DOOM ROAD: HOME OF THE DOOM TRUCK!

JOHN summons JASON to see that LEO/TONIC/JAGER/JD has been turned into PASTE by the DOOM TRUCK.

JOHN LITHGOW

(picks up cat)

Yep, he’s dead all right.

(lets cat’s corpse flop around in his hands)

See? Cat spines aren’t supposed to bend that way. And you usually can’t see this much of their brain matter.

CAT LOVERS IN AUDIENCE

...Why the hell did we think it would be okay to watch this movie.

AMY SEIMETZ

We have to secretly bury him and tell Jeté that he ran away! That way we can stop her from being confronted with her cat’s death. At least for like five years, until she suddenly goes “Heyyy, WAIT a damn minute!” and then hates us forever.

JASON and JOHN go to the PET CEMETERY to bury the cat.

JASON CLARKE

Okay, this looks like a good spot right here.

JOHN LITHGOW

Eh, it’s fine I guess, but you know what would be better? If we climbed over this big jumble of pointy logs, waded through a swamp, went to a creepy barren moor and buried the cat there under a pile of rocks.

JASON CLARKE

Go home John, you’re drunk. Sure, can’t see why not.

They go and DO THIS.

INT. HOUSE

The next morning, JASON and AMY go to have a talk with JETÉ.

JASON CLARKE

Sweetie, I’m sorry to say this, but Leo-Tonic-Jager-JD ran away. He hasn’t been seen since yesterday, and if a cat with almost boundless territory to explore doesn’t show up for twelve hours at a stretch obviously the only option is to write him off forever.

JETÉ LAURENCE

What are you talking about? He’s just inside that closet. I locked him in there because I’m a terrible pet owner.

Confused, JASON opens the CLOSET to find that LEO/TONIC/JAGER/JD is ALIVE AGAIN, and now looks perpetually like he just FELL IN A LAKE right down to the PISSED-OFF SNARL.

JASON CLARKE

What the hell?! That cat was DEFINITELY dead, as we made nauseatingly clear.

JOHN LITHGOW

Oh right, see the thing about that place I showed you is that it brings dead animals back to life. I don’t know who discovered that little factoid; somebody with very weird ideas of how he wanted to bury his pet, I guess.

JASON CLARKE

It resurrects things? This is a reproducible effect that people around here know about? Why hasn’t this phenomenon been documented? This should be the most famous place in the world! Experiments could be performed here which would unlock some of the metaphysical mysteries which have plagued mankind for millennia!!

JOHN LITHGOW

Maybe, but instead we’ve been using it to bring back guinea pigs and bunny rabbits.

JETÉ LAURENCE

Um, Daddy? There’s something wrong with L-T-J-JD. He’s been biting and scratching without warning for no reason!

JASON CLARKE

Well yeah. He’s a cat.

AMY SEIMETZ

I think Jeté might have a point, honey. He just dragged a not-quite-dead bird into the house!

JASON CLARKE

Again: that’s a cat thing.

JETÉ LAURENCE

But he keeps glowering at me like my very existence is an insult that he resents with a spitting passion!

JASON CLARKE

I know. Have you not met a cat before?

AMY SEIMETZ

I don’t know, it really seems like he’s some soulless monster forged of pure malevolence and bloodlust.

JASON CLARKE

THAT’S WHAT I’VE BEEN SAYING.

JOHN LITHGOW

Actually they’re right. I probably should have mentioned, the animals that come back alive from the pet cemetery - well, the place kinda nowhere near the pet cemetery - are all pure evil.

JASON CLARKE

Damnit, you need to exposit everything like three scenes earlier! Why did you even get me to bury the cat there if it makes monsters?

JOHN LITHGOW

Because I was sad for Jeté. And I thought it might work better for you. And the place has a sort of supernatural hold on me. I’ve got more justifications if you want, just stop me when we’ve made my dumb contrived decision seem plausible.

JASON CLARKE

Okay just stop there, the demon cat is trying to eat Hugo/Lucas, I think it’s time to get rid of the little bastard’s other eight lives!

He takes LEO/TONIC/JAGER/JD into the BASEMENT to POISON HIM.

JASON CLARKE

That’s it! I’m finally gonna murder that evil fucking cat once and for all-

(is hit with ten thousand volts of Cute Kitty Face)

ACK! Damnit!! As much as I want to kill the horrible furball, the cuteness makes it impossible! CURSE YOU CAAAAT

CAT LOVERS IN AUDIENCE

...Honestly we’ve all totally been there.

Instead of KILLING HIM, JASON drives the cat WAY OUT OF TOWN.

JASON CLARKE

There we go, nothing wrong with releasing a would-be child-murderer into the wild. I’m glad that cats aren’t notorious for their preternatural homing instincts!

EXT. BIRTHDAY PARTY

The FAMILY is holding a BIRTHDAY PARTY for JETÉ, who is SUPER-BUMMED about her MISSING CAT.

AMY SEIMETZ

Come on honey, it’s your birthday! Cheer up! Seriously can’t we have at least one micron of levity in this movie, tonally so far this has been like all the bleakest bits of Grave of the Fireflies playing on a loop.

JETÉ LAURENCE

Okay I guess I’ll try to make sure this movie has ONE scene that’s not totally oppressively miserable OH LOOK MY CAT’S IN THE MIDDLE OF THE STREET, I SHOULD RUN OUT INTO THE MIDDLE OF THE STREET

(runs)

HUGO AND LUCAS LAVOIE

GOOD IDEA JETÉ I WILL ALSO RUN BLINDLY INTO THE MIDDLE OF THE ROAD

DOOM TRUCK

CAN I JOIN IN GUUUUUYYYYSSS

AMY manages to grab HUGO/LUCAS out of the path of the speeding DOOM TRUCK but, well, you know that old bit the Three Stooges would do, where Moe would try to poke Curly in the eyes, so Curly would duck out of the way, which just meant that Moe wound up poking Larry in the eyes instead? Long story short, JETÉ GETS SMUSHED.

INT. GRIEF HOUSE

AMY and HUGO/LUCAS are packing to LEAVE.

AMY SEIMETZ

I can’t stand to be in this creepy, corpse-riddled house any more. We’re going to my mother’s.

JASON CLARKE

Good idea. I’m going to stay here, sitting alone in the house of death. Such a sane decision, yes? You run along now and at no point wonder what the hell I’m doing.

After the others leave, JASON sneaks over to the GRAVEYARD and digs up JETÉ’S GRAVE. He flings open her COFFIN to find her peaceful, pristine body lying inside.

JASON CLARKE

Wow, those undertakers sure know their business! Seriously that truck should basically have turned her head all the way inside out.

He grabs her CORPSE and legs it over to the PET CEMETERY. When he gets there, OBSSA’S GHOST tries to STOP HIM.

OBSSA AHMED

Okay, you know what, this is on me. I guess my warnings could have afforded to be a little more specific. So to be clear: DON’T BURY YOUR DAUGHTER IN A CURSED PIT SO THAT SHE COMES BACK AS A MURDER DEMON. That really shouldn’t be something you have to be told, dude.

JASON CLARKE

Fuck off, I don’t have to listen to doom predictions from a guy who couldn’t even see a two-ton vehicle coming!

Ignoring OBSSA, he goes and buries JETÉ then goes home to wait. Finally JETÉ returns, ALIVE AGAIN kinda!

JETÉ LAURENCE

Hello. Father.

(long stare)

I am back.

(long, cold stare)

JASON CLARKE

Yeah, it’s pretty obvious that I absolutely ought to kill this thing right here and now. But I think I disembarked the Smart Decision Train quite a ways back by now.

He tries to enjoy the simple pleasure of brushing his daughter’s hair. But as he does this, he discovers METAL STAPLES IN HER HEAD.

JASON CLARKE

What the fuck?! This introduces the possibility that the resurrections are some kind of Frankenstein-esque surgical procedure, or at least that there’s some kind of human ritual involved, which raises the question of-

JETÉ LAURENCE

HEY. Fuck that, we spent too much time getting to me being a zombie, we don’t have time for new plot points. We’ll just have that whole thing go nowhere, and rush through the remainder of the story WAAAYYY too fast.

JASON CLARKE

But as much of a downer as this movie is, we’ve actually been doing a good job at pacing and building atmosphere, do we really want to throw that all away and-

JETÉ LAURENCE

(starts smashing things)

YEAH WELL IT’S YOUR FAULT YOU ASSHOLE!! WE WERE BEING A DECENTLY THOUGHTFUL AND HUMANISTIC HORROR MOVIE, BUT THEN YOU RESURRECTED ME AND NOW IT’S A SCARY MOVIE ABOUT AN ANGRY STRINGY-HAIRED GIRL WHO WANTS TO DO MURDERS, HOW FUCKING ORIGINAL!!! I HATE YOU!!!! I HATE YOU SO MUCH I’M GONNA KILL... JOHN FOR SOME REASON!!!!!

(storms off)

INT. JOHN’S HOUSE

JOHN hears a spooky sound. Arming himself with his CHEKOV’S GUN, he goes and investigates, and finds... LEO/TONIC/JAGER/JD!

JOHN LITHGOW

Oh phew, false alarm, it’s just a cat! Just a murderous demon cat from the pits of Hell, nothing to be worried ab-

Then JETÉ uses a SCALPEL to slice right through his FLIMSY, FLIMSY ACHILLES’ TENDON! He collapses in a pool of BLOOD and drops his GUN.

JETÉ LAURENCE

Mwa ha ha! And now I shall taunt you by assuming the form of your dead wife!

JOHN LITHGOW

Wait, what? Are you shapeshifting, or making illusions? I don’t recall any other scene suggesting you have superpowers...

JETÉ LAURENCE

Well very shortly my Mom has hallucinations about her dead sister while I’m around, but she was already doing that so that doesn’t really tell us anything. Anyway:

(slices John into confetti)

INT. HOUSE

AMY has returned with HUGO/LUCAS. Suddenly she has a HALLUCINATION which doesn’t really go anywhere, then JETÉ comes after them with a BUTCHER KNIFE! AMY flees to an UPSTAIRS BATHROOM, where she opens the WINDOW to pass HUGO/LUCAS down to JASON.

AMY SEIMETZ

Quick! Jeté is after us, take him for the love of God!

JASON CLARKE

Honey, Jeté is like three and a half feet tall. Just push her over. Pick her up and throw her down the stairs, seriously this shouldn’t be an issue.

But instead AMY tries the tactic of GETTING A KNIFE SHOVED INTO HER STOMACH.

JETÉ LAURENCE

You deserve this, Mother. You say it was an accident, but we both know you wanted your sister to-

AMY SEIMETZ

AAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRGGGGGGGHHHHHHHH OOOOOOHHHHHHUUUUUUUUGGGHHHUUUGGHHH

JETÉ LAURENCE

Hey, pay attention! I’m trying to do a sadistic taunt here and you’re ruining it!

AMY SEIMETZ

I’M SORRY, WHAT? THE ONLY THING I CAN FOCUS ON RIGHT NOW IS THE GIANT KNIFE STICKING IN MY SPLEEN

JETÉ LAURENCE

Ugh, you’re no fun.

(carve’s Amy’s insides out)

EXT. PET CEMETERY OKAY SEMATARY, I GUESS IT WOULDN’T BE RIGHT TO SPELL IT CORRECTLY THIS WHOLE SCRIPT

JETÉ has just dealt with AMY’S BODY. JASON encounters her, wiping the dirt from her hands as she walks from the grave.

JETÉ LAURENCE

Jeez, what took you? I had time to haul Mom’s body - which weighs twice as much as I do - out of the house, down to the cemetery, over the huge log pile somehow, through the swamp and into the cursed place, then bury her, build a cairn on top of her, and make it all the way back here before you got here. What were you doing all that time?

JASON CLARKE

I poked my head in at John’s place and saw that he was mince meat, that surely would have taken all that time. Anyway, I double-kill you now!

JETÉ LAURENCE

With the gun that was lying right next to John’s body, which you just visited?

JASON CLARKE

The what now? I was just gonna use a shovel. COME AT ME, LITTLE G-

Suddenly ZOMBIE AMY appears and IMPALES HIM TO DEATH.

AMY SEIMETZ

Wow, that resurrection stuff works FAST.

EXT. HOUSE

HUGO/LUCAS is sitting in the FAMILY CAR. Then his dead-alive family stalk up to him, having just burnt down JOHN’S HOUSE for some reason.

JASON CLARKE

Hi Hugo/Lucas! Wanna join in a game we’re all playing? It’s called Everybody Get Brutally Murdered and Then Have Your Corpse Inhabited By an Ambiguous Demonic Entity!

HUGO AND LUCAS LAVOIE

Okay seriously? We’re gonna show a toddler getting murdered now?

JASON CLARKE

Well the movie will cut away before it actually happens. But the first shot of the movie was of a blood trail leading from this car to the house, so it's kinda clear where this is going.

HUGO AND LUCAS LAVOIE

So wait. You’re saying it’s left up to the audience’s imagination what happens after this part.

JASON CLARKE

Yeah I guess, but it’s pretty fucking unambiguous.

HUGO AND LUCAS LAVOIE

Right, but strictly speaking, it IS acceptable for the audience to interpret the missing scenes however they choose.

JASON CLARKE

Well I suppose technically-

HUGO AND LUCAS LAVOIE

GOOD.

He SLAMS THE CAR DOOR OPEN, knocking JASON down and BREAKING HIS NOSE and leaving him DAZED.

HUGO AND LUCAS LAVOIE

THIS MOVIE IS DEPRESSING ENOUGH ALREADY YOU FUCKS

(suplexes Amy)

YOU DON’T HAVE TO KILL LITERALLY EVERY CHARACTER IN THE WHOLE DAMN MOVIE INCLUDING SMALL CHILDREN AND PETS

(pounds Jeté’s head into the ground over and over and over)

I MEAN THROW US A FUCKING BONE HERE

(grabs Leo/Tonic/Jager/JD by the tail, swings him around and hurls him over the horizon)

JASON stumbles bleeding into the HOUSE, while the rest of the family DISPERSE, utterly demoralized and determined to re-bury themselves as soon as possible. Then HUGO/LUCAS is adopted by a RICH AND LOVING FAMILY and grows up to CURE CANCER, win the SUPER BOWL and become PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.

END.