| ELEVATOR PITCH: Two burnt-out, young soldiers return from the Iraq war and immerse themselves in online gaming to hide from society. They've become immune to both violence and love. One night their car kills a coyote in the road, who transforms into a human in death. They’re plunged into a world of shape-changers and learn they can further distance themselves from society, living a pack mentality life, free from redemption, if they completely renounce their humanity. |
Setting: Arizona Desert or like locale
Screenplay available in Final Draft
2010 Buffalo Screams International Horror Film Festival
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CONCEPT:
What's the price we’re paying for our never-ending orgy of online gaming, texting, FaceBooking and MySpacing? Is it our Humanity? Or am I beling too melodramatic? Modern trends in communication and entertainment have created an environment where human contact has reached its lowest point. We’re raising generations who can live, work and eat without ever seeing another person. Gaming is considered social interaction. Rockstar is considered high art. Texting has replaced the conversation. It can be argued that we have so dehumanized ourselves that we are closer to being animals now than we were millennia ago. Without interaction, people become desensitized to what it takes to be human, and ultimately lose their humanity. Upon this notion occurs the high concept plot of our two soldiers back from Iraq. Each is dealing with his own issues but none more important than trying to reintegrate into a society where interaction doesn’t occur. Although Justin and Peter are both slackers who’d rather spend their days playing first person shooters, it is Justin who begins feeling unrest. He needs interaction of any sort. But on the way home from a bar he hits a coyote. He slams on the brakes, stares fearfully in his rearview mirror and doesn’t see a dead coyote, but the body of a naked and very dead woman. This moment propels first Justin and then his friend Peter into a netherworld of changelings, whose subculture entices both the young men, promising them that there is a world where they can be free of the weight of being human, which seems to be what they’ve wanted all along—but at what price? |
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Weston Ochse (pronounced 'Oaks) (1965 - Present) lives in Southern Arizona with his wife, and fellow author, Yvonne Navarro, and Great Danes, Pester Ghost Palm Eater and Goblin Monster Dog. For entertainment he races tarantula wasps, wrestles rattlesnakes, and bakes in the noonday sun. His work has won the Bram Stoker Award for First Novel and been nominated for a Pushcart Prize for short fiction. His work has also appeared in anthologies, magazines and professional writing guides. He thinks it's damn cool that he's had stories in comic books. Weston holds Bachelor's Degrees in American Literature and Chinese Studies from Excelsior College. He holds a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from National University. Contact him at www.westonochse.com or email at westonochse at gmail dot com. |
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Creative Commons Licenced Picture, Courtesy of Phillip C