“Picture this:”
A ragtag group of friends stumbles upon an old, decrepit house rumored to be the haunted home of a secret treasure. One night, in spite of countless warnings, they venture inside and witness a ghastly sequence of supernatural events as they discover the house’s mysteries.
“Hm. There’s some potential there, but we need something specific, something dramatic to catch people’s interest. What if…”
[Man vs. Man]
The disgruntled old landowner, who has long feigned senility, is actually a ruthless treasure hunter who has been searching the property for the rumored riches for decades without success.
Concerned that the kids will discover his intentions or, worse, find the treasure themselves, he orchestrates elaborate mechanical illusions to imitate supernatural occurrences. Chairs floating; doors opening and closing of their own volition; strange voices and noises echoing from inside the walls; and shadows shaped like monsters dancing across the walls and floor.
Eventually, the kids are so affrighted by one of his devices that they inadvertently break through the floor and discover a hidden chamber with the treasure inside. Though the landowner technically has claim to it, he is convicted for deliberately endangering the children, and the treasure is disbursed among the victorious friends.
“Eh…too Scooby-Doo for my taste. That’s almost as overdone as my mother’s green bean casserole. The masses crave secrets and controversy. This is what should really happen:”
[Man vs. Society]
The mechanical illusions are set in place not by the disgruntled landowner, but by a secret board of community leaders who are worried the treasure will contain evidence condemning some of the town’s most eminent figures as charlatans and crooks. What’s more, they have convinced all the kids’ parents and the entire community that the house must remain abandoned and unsearched.
The kids spring the same traps and discover the sealed chamber with the treasure, and they use the information contained within to win the community to their side and oust the corrupt board members.
“We could do that…if we just wanted to play it safe. But conspiracy film’ll be out of vogue within the decade; if we really want to get ahead of the times and stand out, we’ve gotta catch the renaissance wave of cataclysm narratives. Like this:”
[Man vs. Nature]
The landowner really is senile; there is no secret board; and there are no mechanical illusions. In reality, the night the kids enter the house, a terrible storm rages outside, causing strange noises and movements in the house and threatening to collapse the entire manor.
The kids find the treasure as before, but they must work together to escape before the elements bury them all beneath the crumbling house.
“I think we’re losing sight of the original vision, guys. Serious filmgoers are only interested in external events in relation to character and internality. Here’s a more robust focus:”
[Man vs. Self]
Georgie, the youngest of the group of friends, struggles with intense irrational fears of the dark and the unknown—even to the point of hallucination. His older brother urges him along so he can overcome his phobias and self-doubts.
Georgie enters the house with the rest and is terrified by each impossible thing he sees—but his friends encourage him and assure him he is safe and nothing supernatural is happening. As the night goes on, he grows more confident, and even saves his brother from falling through the old floor when it collapses. He leaves not only with the treasure of centuries-old jewels, but with the priceless prize of thwarted insecurities and strongly asserted independence.
“No, no, no. We’re not marketing to the artistically erudite here; that would bring us about as much box office sales to order a pizza. What we need is a high-tech sci-fi twist:”
[Man vs. Technology]
The house is actually a sentient machine which has guarded its treasure—its power core—from fleshy outsiders since time immemorial. It senses the kids’ intrusion and deploys increasingly dangerous alien technology to prevent the intruders from robbing its core. However, the kids stumble upon a gap in its structure and find the treasure, and its incomplete protocol allows for the children to slip by and disconnect its power source, rendering it harmless.
Even so, the kids never understand what the house truly was, and it is demolished before humans ever discover its high-tech alien origins.
“All of you have been thinking too small. Monster House and Smart House have already been done. We have to expand our scope to embrace the genre we’re tiptoeing around. If we’re gonna breach horror, then let’s commit to it. For instance, what if…”
[Man vs. Fate/the Supernatural]
Angry spirits really do haunt the house, and they are eager to usher in the fulfillment of the ancient prophecy, which predicts that the six children who discover their secret will catalyze the spirits’ violent necromantic rebirth.
The children try to escape from the house’s haunts, but they are driven toward the sacrificial chamber deep underground where the otherworldly ritual is to take place.
“So…do they find a way to change their fate, then?”
“Heh. Depends on our mood, really.”
“I dunno…this is all a little too Goonies for me.”
“I have an idea.”
“Yeah?”
“Here’s something that I’ll bet no one’s ever seen before. It’ll shock viewers in ways they’ve never felt. Try this on for size:”
[Man vs. the Unknown]
The children experience all the same haunts—the floating chairs; the self-opening doors; the disturbing voices in the walls; the monstrous shadows. However, they collectively decide it’s not worth the risk and leave the house and never return. They never learn what force they had been up against in that house—angry spirits, or alien robots, or individual hallucinations born of personal insecurities, or stormy interferences, or a secret board, or a pseudo-senile landowner. They just move on with their lives until the next conflict arrives.
“A little anticlimactic, don’t you think?”
“Maybe. But how about if, alternatively, they all vanish in the house and are never seen again?”
“Until the sequel, right?”
“Of course. The key is to leave the viewer with more questions than answers, but just enough clues so that they think they can predict what happens next.”
“But the way we write, they’ll never get it right.”
“That’s the point.”
The Commonplace Notebook 