Let's Hear It for the Demons

Back on November 8, 2009, I jotted down the title Evil Death in one of my notebooks (an Office Depot personal size vinyl cover notebook, 'though I've since switched to a Moleskine cahier). Imagine it on a movie poster:

EVIL DEATH

Now there's a title that just screams "I promise you nothing but trash!" Such sweet, sweet assurance...sigh.

"But, Diego," you say, "what'd it be about?"

Good question. Well, let's see...what kind of movie would Evil Death be? I think it'd be a good idea to start by asking: what exactly is an "evil death"? What does it mean if a death is "evil"?

The first thing that comes to mind is "death in an especially evil manner." Like, if a rhino bit your head clean off while you were getting raped by a mandrill, that'd be an especially evil death (you might say it's an especially nasty death, too, but the title's Evil Death, not Nasty Death, so stop interrupting, okay?). Or like when that Diaper Mafia dude gets his head shoved up his own ass in Citizen Toxie: The Toxic Avenger IV. Or like when Elizabeth Taylor's cousin gets eaten by those Spanish kids in Suddenly Last Summer. That's some evil shit!

So, now that we've defined what an "evil death" is (more or less), it occurs to me that the story of Evil Death could be about troubled teen BRAD CORBETT, whose family has just moved from the Big City to some two-bit hick town in the Midwest where dancing's been outlawed, which is a major bummer for Brad 'cause what he likes to do most (after drinking, getting high, having sex, playing videogames, watching porn, and podcasting about how tough it is being a teenager these days) is dance.

With the predictably rebellious spirit of youth driving him on, Brad quickly rallies the local kids to the cause of getting the dread anti-dancing law repealed. The city council, however, is unimpressed with Brad's argument ("Leaping and dancing! Leaping...and dancing!") so Brad organizes an illegal prom across the county line, over at the old Dunwich house, a.k.a. Blood Mansion (which, if you think about it, could be another title for this turkey, i.e. Blood Mansion, but you're ingesting superheated cocaine hydrochloride [i.e. "smoking crack"] if you think I'm gonna whip up another epynomial justification for an alternate title).

It'd be explained at some point that Blood Mansion was the site of several unexplained but intensely gruesome deaths in the past; it'd basically be this story's Hill House but with a more depraved history. Our hero Brad, though, being both a charmingly flippant teen and a dismissive Big City outsider, would convince his dance fever-infected clique of bumpkin peers that Blood Mansion's ideal for their soirée and who cares about the house's reputation, it's all bullshit anyway so c'mon you sheepfuckers: LET'S DANCE!

Bad idea, Brad. Very bad idea.

So now the story'd follow the same narrative arc as Night of the Demons: aroused & awakened by the presence of so much nubile young flesh, the evil spirits of Blood Mansion would trundle up from the nether planes of their demonic slumber and right away start with their mischief, i.e. taking over the kids' bodies and slaughtering them, which'd consist of particularly atrocious modes of demise (e.g. forced inhalation of one's own penis, vaginal impalement on a bazooka, decapitation by rhino bite, etc.).

Meanwhile, you'd have some snappy-ass tunes playing on the soundtrack, like "Rude Boy," "Alejandro," and "Funplex," which wouldn't be considered "lame" or "kitschy" or "embarrassing to listen to" 20 years from now, unlike "Let's Hear It for the Boy," "Dancing in the Sheets," or "Footloose." 'Cause now we know better, right?

Anyhoo, if you've seen Footloose and Night of the Demons, you pretty much know how this whole thing's gonna turn out - except for this twist: you take the ending of Amityville II: The Possession and graft it onto this turkey, for an especially soul-chilling finale: say Brad gets possessed by one of the demons during the prom and starts wasting the farmer's daughters; then a priest shows up and performs an exorcism on Brad but ends up possessed himself; after Brad & the few kids who've survived the demonic attacks vacate the premises, the priest sits huddled in a dark corner of the mansion, waiting for the demon inside him to slowly take over...

Fade out. The end.

"Everybody cut, everybody cut!
Everybody cut, everybody cut!
Everybody cut, everbody cut!
Everybody cut footloose!"

Copyright © 2010 by Diego Baz