My Plot For a Horror Story

I drifted into the movie rental store yesterday. This is not something I do very often, as my local library carries a wide selection of slightly outdated but still excellent films. I ended up being a bit disappointed in the amount of horror and violence apparent in the selections available on the perimeter of the movie rental store. It has been a while since I rented and something seems to have changed. What happened to romantic comedy, family films, heroic adventure and film noir intrigue? Now we have guts, violence, guts, sex, and more guts.

There were way to many people on DVD covers screaming in anguish, cowering in fear and running for their lives. There were hideous monsters, horrible machines of torture and unidentified slimy things. There was way to much blood and random body parts being served up for our entertainment. I felt like I had to cross myself and next time I go in that store I’m wearing a garlic necklace. Who the heck is renting all this stuff and where are their parents while they are watching it? Who the heck is making all this stuff and how could they make a living like this and frankly, why would they want to? Haven’t they heard about that quantum theory that goes like this: You are what you eat- oh, wait , wrong one- this is it- Your life becomes like that which you focus your attention on.

After a close to complete circuit around the store I had zeroed in on two possible films for my evenings entertainment. There were a few others I thought might be good, and I made a mental note to check the library for them. Then I got to the A’s (I started with the Z’s) and my choice was clear. I ditched the romantic comedy starring nobody we know and the adventure starring nobody we know either.

I rented American Gangster, purely for aesthetic reasons, I mean Russell Crowe of course. Not that Denzel Washington is anyone to sneeze at, he was looking very fine too.

The story is a true one, about the corruption that comes with drugs and big money. The US military was flying heroin in from Asia during the Vietnam War. Yes, the US military! They stashed it in coffins along with our fallen soldiers, and you can’t tell me the brass didn’t know. The cops were protecting the drug kings, and in doing so earning their big money payola. People were dying right and left from these drugs but that didn’t seem to matter. Oh, except of course to the one good cop and his newly formed DEA buddies.

It just illustrates how large organizations can become involved in corruption, how the people who are suppose to be protecting you are not always doing that, what some people will do to protect their ass- ets, and how expendable people can be when there is a product like drugs that can make big money for some unsavory types.

I recommend the film, a little violent but very well done and full of aesthetic value.

Meanwhile, I’ve been working on my own plot for a horror story. A what if, if you will. It’s been rolling around in my meandering mind for a few weeks now, growing and changing. Now, anyone who knows Stephen King is welcome to pass this on to him, I don’t care if he steals my idea and makes it a best seller because it sure would be nice to see the story in print.

The story goes like this:
What if there was, say, a country full of abundance, a population full of bliss who could afford many luxuries? What if they all seemed happily occupied by their jobs, homes, electronic gadgets. What if all looked normal on the surface but something was terribly wrong? Part of the horror is in the realization that what looks normal may not be. Like Invasion of The Body Snatchers- nobody was really sure who was real and who was a monster! The setting for the story is rather normal feeling. Just homes in a town in a state in a country where the “everyday normal” stuff is happening. It all looks so serene.

What if at a very young age, all the people were injected with something that they were told would keep them healthy, but in reality, made them start to get sick? What if their bodies were having bad reactions to the injections, but the reactions didn’t show up right away in most people, so there was no way to know? What if parents were told this was the way to protect their kids, and the “Evil Empire” made the stuff by the bazillions of doses so there was plenty to go around and people had money so they didn’t mind paying to protect their kids, in fact, they were happy to do it. The parents had no idea what was in the injections.

What if when the people got sick, they were convinced that another injection or pill or potion would make them well, so that’s what they did. There were all kinds of drugs available, always a new remedy to give the ever increasing sick population. People were eating multiple pills, multiple times a day, and were all happy because they thought it would keep them young, alive, well. Meanwhile the “Evil Empire” was making huge fortunes off the drugs sold to the happy population.

What if the people were being exploited and didn’t even know it? What if they were fooled into thinking everything was normal? Like in Soylent Green! Remember that movie? Soylent Green, which was set in 1999 by the way, depicted a society where nothing was as it seemed and people were a commodity. What they were eating was in fact, each other – Oh the horror!

What if, in my horror story, the whole happy-go-lucky population was being farmed? The Evil Empire has turned the whole society into a farm full of people they could make sick. The people who were being farmed and made ill, would pay to get something that was supposed to make them well. The people spent their whole lives toiling away in their abundant society just so they could pay to be well. They spent alarming amounts of time in the horror of illness, disease and symptoms created in their bodies intentionally by the “Evil Empire”- Oh the horror!

What if the body farm includes a prison with out a cell? A prison of trip after trip to small cubicle offices where “smart guys” poke and prod with instruments and then give the people pills to take, pills that get rid of one symptom but cause another, which necessitates another trip to the cubicle?


What if some other unsavory types, like food producers, wanted a piece of the action, and teamed up with the “Evil Empire”? What if they introduced the prosperous population to all kind of designer foods that were really sweet, bright colored, full of chemicals, foods that looked and tasted good? BUT- what if all that food did was increase the chance that the population was going to get sick and need more drugs from the big drug kingpin- I mean- “Evil Empire”?

What if the population became suspicious and insisted on someone to oversee the safety of the drugs and food? They design a regulatory body to ease their minds and protect them from harm. What if the population doesn’t know that the regulatory body is on the take! Gasp – oh the horror! The regulatory body is protecting the Evil Empire and in doing so, they get their payola! They make huge amounts of money! They become rich and powerful!

I know, it all sounds far fetched, but doesn’t it make a good horror story?

Think of the horror as parents watch their children become introverted and silent after an injection, the horror of having a child born with no arms-just hands stuck to shoulders, waving in the breeze like five fingered wings, after the parent took a drug to stop the nausea of pregnancy. Think of the children being drugged as young as a few years old, and the horror of the parents when they find the number one side effect of this drug they have given their child is, in fact, suicide. Think of the horror of the parents when they find that a drug they gave their child so he could breathe better had turned his bones into spongy soft sticks that break all the time.

Think of the horror of masses of people with hearts that don’t work right, extreme body fat, blood sugar problems, breathing problems, sleep problems, attention problems, arthritis, pain, pain and more pain! They are trapped into being dependent on the “Evil Empire” and they don’t even know it! Think of the horror of a population of people getting old, but they can not die because the “Evil Empire” keeps feeding them stuff to keep them alive- but not well. As long as they are alive and sick, they are cash cows for the “Evil Empire”.

Most horror stories have an underdog- so in my story that would be the few people who figured the whole scheme out and refused to take part. They didn’t get the injections, they didn’t go to the cubicles, they didn’t take the pills, and they didn’t eat the foods that were enhanced. They, of course, were shunned and lived as outcasts on the edge of society. The “Evil Empire” said they were crazy, and most of the population believed it. They would pass their truth on to those who might listen, but few listened. They had to be careful what they did and said so the regulatory body would not hunt them down and stone them to death or shoot them in the head, which is what happened to the people in that other movie based on a true story, “The Constant Gardener”.

My God! I have an imagination don’t I? Scary isn’t it?