How to make putrid movies awesome
I saw a horrible movie last night--no mistake, it was truly wretched, despite crediting Roger Corman as executive producer--but what made it even worse was that I could see a really good movie peeking out from just below the surface.
Clearly, it wasn't bad enough that I spent an hour and a half of my life last night waiting for this crappy movie to get better, but the better part of today has been given over to how I could rewrite it to make it good. Not that my movie will ever get made, of course, but I feel I owe it to myself to make it right.
Here's the plot: Woman enroute to LA picks up hitchhiker and has throwdown sex with him in a sleazy hotel room, but when they get to LA he turns out to be an obsessive stalker who insists they "made love" and are now bound together for life. Ewwww. Her boyfriend is a criminal defense lawyer who secretly employs a private eye to track her, so he finds out all about her philandering, but the private eye turns out AT THE VERY END to be a psycho killer WHOM WE KNEW NOTHING ABOUT, only by this time we're ready the stupid movie to be over already. The hitchhiker ends up killing the psycho killer (his own life is spared in the stupidest way possible, BTW) and we are led to think, at the end, that he was not stalking her all along, but protecting her from the psycho killer that only he knew was there. The final scene shows the woman and the hitchhiker and the cat walking hand in hand along the beach. WTF??? Along the way, she's harrassed at home and at work (BY THE HITCHHIKER), her pregnant best friend gets killed (BY THE PSYCHO KILLER WHOM WE KNEW NOTHING ABOUT), and she goes to some cops (one slut-shaming, one sympathetic) who don't seem to help her much.
See? It's got all the bones of a great story, and would take just a few tweaks to fix. There were in fact inspired moments, such as when the woman pulls her gun on one "Mr. Skank." That was awesome. Anyway, here's how I would fix it:
1. Plot.
i. First of all, the audience ought to know there is a psycho killer at large from the very start, but not know who it is. Maybe show a headline in the diner where they meet, or have a news report coming off her car radio. We should be know it's not the hitchhiker, but not know it's the private eye. At some point we should suspect the boyfriend; as a criminal defense attorney, he seems to be too sympathetic to the killer and know too much about how to get away with shit. We as the audience should know the hitchhiker is watching over the woman, trying to protect her from the killer he knows is after her, rather than stalking her for stalking's sake.
ii. The hitchhiker should have a very compelling backstory (a la Rambo, maybe something involving having seen all manner of atrocities in Iraq and thus not able to readjust to civilian life) and we should understand him and his motives. He should be unhinged and unsettling as well as hot as balls.
iii. There should be some casual interaction between the woman and the private eye, so she does not suspect him and it's that much more shocking when he turns out to be the killer. She would know him as a business acquaintance of her boyfriend, but not in what context. Also, the psycho killer needs a motive for wanting to kill the woman. It doesn't have to be a good one--it could just be because she's blonde or whatever--but there needs to be a reason.
iv. No pregnant best friend is necessary; the psycho killer should instead kill the cat. They don't have to show the cat being dead, just make him disappear under nefarious circumstances and everyone would figure out what happened. As much as I hate the idea of cats being killed by psycho killers, it would be more effective than offing the pregnant best friend whom you really didn't care much about anyway.
v. The hitchhiker definitely needs to die at the end while saving the woman from the psycho killer, because, really, there could be no happy ever after anyway, and this way the film could close with a great Baby Jane moment.
2. Casting.
The Hitchhiker: Oh, Miles O'Keeffe, you were the Fabio of the trailer park ... brilliant as Tarzan, but that's where your career should have ended. You look like the cover of a cheezy romance novel, but you couldn't act your way out of a box of Crunchberries. Seriously, you make Rowdy Roddy Piper seem like Laurence Olivier. I cannot help but compare this character to Brad Pitt's in Thelma & Louise, three years later ... same archetype, but what a difference a little talent makes! This is a complex character. He should never quite resolve ... he should be too creepy to be sympathetic, but not creepy enough to be repulsive. You should totally get why someone would want to have dirty hotel sex with him, then not be able to get away from him fast enough the next day, and in the end you want to fully believe he was the good guy all along. Stallone could have done this, back in his Rocky/Rambo days. If I were to make this movie now, I would cast Joe Manganiello and it would make him a star.
The Boyfriend: Timothy Bottoms, did you need the work that badly? The Last Picture Show, The Paper Chase, now this? I was almost as embarrassed to watch you in this movie as you were to appear in it. For the role of the secretly douchey criminal lawyer boyfriend, I would cast Vincent Kartheiser, because, well, who doesn't want to see Pete Campbell get a bullet between the eyes?
The Woman: Kim Delaney, you tried. You really did. You had great 80s hair, and great rapport with the cat, but you were unlikeable and unsympathetic. I couldn't understand why this unhinged psycho drifter chose you as the object of his obsession; worse, I didn't care. It should have been horrible to watch your autonomy and confidence being whittled away by a stalker, but it wasn't. You should be funny and adorable, fully capable of shooting to kill and/or enjoying throwdown sex in sleazy hotel rooms with nameless hitch hikers, and we ought to cheer you on all the way. I would cast Rachel McAdams, because I'm sure I'm not the only one who sat through Red Eye kind of wanting to see her character schtupp Cillian Murphy in the airplane lavatory.
The Private Eye/Psycho Killer: Where the hell did you come from? You were the worst kind of red herring. But I liked you; you were the most fun part of the whole movie, and you should have been in it a lot more. I could totally see a young Nicolas Cage doing justice to this, but if I were to cast it now ... Seth Rogen. He'd be perfect. No one would see it coming.
The Cops: I would cast Sam Rockwell as the sympathetic cop, only because I really like him and I don't think he gets enough work. The slut-shaming cop? Ray Liotta, in an hilarious cameo.
Clearly, it wasn't bad enough that I spent an hour and a half of my life last night waiting for this crappy movie to get better, but the better part of today has been given over to how I could rewrite it to make it good. Not that my movie will ever get made, of course, but I feel I owe it to myself to make it right.
Here's the plot: Woman enroute to LA picks up hitchhiker and has throwdown sex with him in a sleazy hotel room, but when they get to LA he turns out to be an obsessive stalker who insists they "made love" and are now bound together for life. Ewwww. Her boyfriend is a criminal defense lawyer who secretly employs a private eye to track her, so he finds out all about her philandering, but the private eye turns out AT THE VERY END to be a psycho killer WHOM WE KNEW NOTHING ABOUT, only by this time we're ready the stupid movie to be over already. The hitchhiker ends up killing the psycho killer (his own life is spared in the stupidest way possible, BTW) and we are led to think, at the end, that he was not stalking her all along, but protecting her from the psycho killer that only he knew was there. The final scene shows the woman and the hitchhiker and the cat walking hand in hand along the beach. WTF??? Along the way, she's harrassed at home and at work (BY THE HITCHHIKER), her pregnant best friend gets killed (BY THE PSYCHO KILLER WHOM WE KNEW NOTHING ABOUT), and she goes to some cops (one slut-shaming, one sympathetic) who don't seem to help her much.
See? It's got all the bones of a great story, and would take just a few tweaks to fix. There were in fact inspired moments, such as when the woman pulls her gun on one "Mr. Skank." That was awesome. Anyway, here's how I would fix it:
1. Plot.
i. First of all, the audience ought to know there is a psycho killer at large from the very start, but not know who it is. Maybe show a headline in the diner where they meet, or have a news report coming off her car radio. We should be know it's not the hitchhiker, but not know it's the private eye. At some point we should suspect the boyfriend; as a criminal defense attorney, he seems to be too sympathetic to the killer and know too much about how to get away with shit. We as the audience should know the hitchhiker is watching over the woman, trying to protect her from the killer he knows is after her, rather than stalking her for stalking's sake.
ii. The hitchhiker should have a very compelling backstory (a la Rambo, maybe something involving having seen all manner of atrocities in Iraq and thus not able to readjust to civilian life) and we should understand him and his motives. He should be unhinged and unsettling as well as hot as balls.
iii. There should be some casual interaction between the woman and the private eye, so she does not suspect him and it's that much more shocking when he turns out to be the killer. She would know him as a business acquaintance of her boyfriend, but not in what context. Also, the psycho killer needs a motive for wanting to kill the woman. It doesn't have to be a good one--it could just be because she's blonde or whatever--but there needs to be a reason.
iv. No pregnant best friend is necessary; the psycho killer should instead kill the cat. They don't have to show the cat being dead, just make him disappear under nefarious circumstances and everyone would figure out what happened. As much as I hate the idea of cats being killed by psycho killers, it would be more effective than offing the pregnant best friend whom you really didn't care much about anyway.
v. The hitchhiker definitely needs to die at the end while saving the woman from the psycho killer, because, really, there could be no happy ever after anyway, and this way the film could close with a great Baby Jane moment.
2. Casting.
The Hitchhiker: Oh, Miles O'Keeffe, you were the Fabio of the trailer park ... brilliant as Tarzan, but that's where your career should have ended. You look like the cover of a cheezy romance novel, but you couldn't act your way out of a box of Crunchberries. Seriously, you make Rowdy Roddy Piper seem like Laurence Olivier. I cannot help but compare this character to Brad Pitt's in Thelma & Louise, three years later ... same archetype, but what a difference a little talent makes! This is a complex character. He should never quite resolve ... he should be too creepy to be sympathetic, but not creepy enough to be repulsive. You should totally get why someone would want to have dirty hotel sex with him, then not be able to get away from him fast enough the next day, and in the end you want to fully believe he was the good guy all along. Stallone could have done this, back in his Rocky/Rambo days. If I were to make this movie now, I would cast Joe Manganiello and it would make him a star.
The Boyfriend: Timothy Bottoms, did you need the work that badly? The Last Picture Show, The Paper Chase, now this? I was almost as embarrassed to watch you in this movie as you were to appear in it. For the role of the secretly douchey criminal lawyer boyfriend, I would cast Vincent Kartheiser, because, well, who doesn't want to see Pete Campbell get a bullet between the eyes?
The Woman: Kim Delaney, you tried. You really did. You had great 80s hair, and great rapport with the cat, but you were unlikeable and unsympathetic. I couldn't understand why this unhinged psycho drifter chose you as the object of his obsession; worse, I didn't care. It should have been horrible to watch your autonomy and confidence being whittled away by a stalker, but it wasn't. You should be funny and adorable, fully capable of shooting to kill and/or enjoying throwdown sex in sleazy hotel rooms with nameless hitch hikers, and we ought to cheer you on all the way. I would cast Rachel McAdams, because I'm sure I'm not the only one who sat through Red Eye kind of wanting to see her character schtupp Cillian Murphy in the airplane lavatory.
The Private Eye/Psycho Killer: Where the hell did you come from? You were the worst kind of red herring. But I liked you; you were the most fun part of the whole movie, and you should have been in it a lot more. I could totally see a young Nicolas Cage doing justice to this, but if I were to cast it now ... Seth Rogen. He'd be perfect. No one would see it coming.
The Cops: I would cast Sam Rockwell as the sympathetic cop, only because I really like him and I don't think he gets enough work. The slut-shaming cop? Ray Liotta, in an hilarious cameo.