House on Haunted Hill

                           EVELYN
                     (disappointed)
                 -- nope, he's still alive.

     She pours herself another huge drink.

                           PRICE
                Evelyn, could you just zip it for a
                moment? It looks like we're stuck here
                'til morning -- let's make the best of
                it.

                           EDDIE
                Best of a nightmare.

                           SARA
                There is something very not
                normal going on here!

                           PRITCHETT
                This? This is nothing. You've only been
                dealing with the House itself. You have
                no idea what you're tinkering with.
                Sooner or later, the darkness that is at
                the core will get out... One of you
                will release it... Not meaning to, of
                course... then...
                     (singing)
                ...Bye, bye, Miss American Pie...

                           SARA
                Pritchett, what is this "core of
                darkness"?

                           PRITCHETT
                I thought you understood.... It's the
                souls of Vannacutt's dead... The
                insanity... The horror... Victims burned
                alive... All that pain percolating
                somewhere in the house for seventy-some
                years...
                     (singing)
                ...singing this will be the day that I
                die... This will be the day that I....

     He makes a beeline for the sideboard.

                           BLACKBURN
                There must be some other way out.

                           PRICE
                Well, until that's found, I think it's a
                good idea we all stick together.
                     (turns to his wife)
                Or wouldn't that fit into your plans,
                baby?

                           EVELYN
                Fine with me. Just somebody then better
                go and round up Melissa Marr.

                           PRICE
                Where is she?

                           EVELYN
                Stalking the wild poltergeist.

     INT. HALLWAY - SIMULTANEOUS

     VIDEO IMAGE: A DARKENED HALLWAY rife with grainy shadows.
     The image cruises down the corridor, peering into the
     twisting passageways that intersect our path as we drift
     like some Flying Dutchman.

     INT. HALLWAY - SIMULTANEOUS

     and we see that we've been watching from the POV of Melissa
     Marr's CAMCORDER. She's gliding up and down the hallway,
     eye glued to the viewfinder, taking in every square inch of
     the place.

     POV CAMCORDER

     The bumps and pits in the carved-stone CORRIDOR walls are
     becoming more vivid.

     ANOTHER ANGLE

     Melissa seen taking a left into ANOTHER HALLWAY.

     POV CAMCORDER

     an ODD SHADOW plays in the corner at the end of this new
     hallway. The CORRIDOR appears to grow smaller, more
     claustrophobic.

     ANOTHER ANGLE

     Melissa letting loose a half-uneasy, half-exhilarated gulp.
     She stops walking. Slowly lowers the Camcorder, scans the
     end of the hall with her naked eye:

     Other than having the creepy ambience as the rest of the
     house, the hall appears normal again: large and long without
     a trace of anything extraordinary. She returns her eye to the
     viewfinder.

     POV CAMCORDER

     the SHIFTING SHADOW she saw before disappears into an OPEN
     DOOR at the end of the hall.

                           MELISSA (O.S.)
                Curiouser and curiouser. We're talking a
                fifty share, minimum.

      -- just then: a murmur of MANY VOICES heard around her.

     ANOTHER ANGLE

     Melissa lowers the CAMCORDER, eyes darting everywhere,
     scared -- but she sees nothing. CAMERA back up to her eye.
     She moves to the doorway. As she turns the corner, we see
     the PATTERN ON THE WALL. It is really a painting done in
     ANAMORPHOSIS - it has now become a terrible Gothic demon,
     ready to strike.

     POV CAMCORDER

     We reach the vault-like door and peer down the steps that
     disappear into a pool of darkness. The VOICES heard again.
     Indistinct basso. Emanating from somewhere below. We
     descend down the stairs.

     INT. BASEMENT - CORRIDOR - CONTINUOUS

     MELISSA comes to a stop at the bottom of the stairs: her eyes
     go wide at the sight before her.

     WILD IMAGES painted by some long-dead madman, start on the
     floor, sweep up across the wall and onto the ceiling.

     SHE PEERS CLOSER, sees: that they're images of torture and
     death painted in blood. MELISSA stares at them, wide-eyed.
     She puts the camera back up to her eye.

     POV CAMCORDER

     the IMAGES come alive: WRITHING in AGONY, what passes for
     their mouths open wide in silent screams. Melissa is awe-
     struck:

                           MELISSA (O.S.)
                Fuck me bald.

     She moves down the corridor to a room at the end. A sign
     proclaims "CEREBRAL HYGIENE". As she nears, the voices grow
     louder. And now mixed in with them are terrible MOANS.

     INT. CEREBRAL HYGIENE ROOM -

     Melissa enters --

     POV CAMCORDER

     A strange room filled with odd devices is laid out before us.
     Clearly left over from another era, quack electric machines
     and bizarre instruments line the walls.

     In the middle of the room, a small group of PEOPLE in white
     stand huddling urgently around something, their backs to us.
     A MAN in white, off to the side, is filming whatever it is
     going on with a spring-wound 16mm CAMERA.

                           MELISSA (O.S.)
                Jesus...

     And then the Huddled Group whips around, revealing the
     objects of their-activity:

     TWO HUMANS -- crammed together on one gurney: a Woman in
     a savaged Nurse's uniform; a Man, in what little is left of
     his surgical scrubs, a name plate pinned right into his
     flesh: "Vannacutt."

     Both SCREAMING like banshees as they're being VIVISECTED.

     It is the identical image we saw on the B&W footage from 1931
     at the beginning of the movie.

     ANOTHER ANGLE

     With a GASP, MELISSA pulls the camera from her eye.

     She looks at the room: the equipment is all there but the
     room is completely EMPTY of anything living.

     She lets out a small sigh of relief and TURNS to leave --

      -- and suddenly in front of her is... THE PATIENT... that
     Vannacutt and Nurse had originally been dissecting. He's
     jittering so fast he's a blur. And then he lunges at her.

     INT. MAIN SALON - SIMULTANEOUS

     The SCREAMS of Melissa Marr echo wildly in the room -- long,
     agonized HOWLS that just grow louder and louder. Everyone
     looks up in alarm -- with the exception of Evelyn, whose sole
     focus is on pouring herself a new drink.

                           EVELYN
                Could be old Melissa found what she was
                looking for.

     As the SCREAMS grow even more hideous, Price and Guests dash
     out of the room. Pritchett downs the rest of his huge tumbler
     of Scotch, then proceeds very halfheartedly after them --
     and then the SCREAMS stop. Pritchett sits back down in his
     chair, pours another drink.

                           PRITCHETT
                She's dead. Chalk up one for the House.

     INT. HALLWAY

     Price and Blackburn striding down a long hallway, eyes
     darting everywhere, shouting:

                           PRICE
                Melissa!

                           BLACKBURN
                Ms. Marr!

     And then hearing from down in the basement:

                           EDDIE (O.S.)
                Oh, Jesus: down here!

     INT. BASEMENT CORRIDOR - CONTINUOUS

     Price and Blackburn arrive to see Eddie and Sara standing
     outside the door labeled "Cerebral Hygiene."

                           PRICE
                What?

                           BLACKBURN
                Is she alright?

                           SARA
                ....I don't...know.

     The two men follow their gaze. To the FLOOR. Lying there is
     MARY'S CAMCORDER the lens shattered, the hand-grip broken
     off.

                           BLACKBURN
                Something just must've...frightened
                her, that's all.

                           SARA
                Yeah...something.

     Sara holds up her finger: it's drenched with fresh blood. And
     with it, she points into the empty room. On the tile is a
     wide, red and glistening DRAG MARK leading from the doorway
     to the foot of the half-rotted... OPERATING TABLE.

                           PRICE
                Jesus.

     Price and Blackburn run into the room. Blackburn kneels down,
     examines the drag mark. Utterly baffled and not a little
     unnerved:

                           BLACKBURN
                It just...stops here.

     Sara sticks her head in the door, nervously:

                           SARA
                Maybe....maybe she went up on the table.

     Price runs a finger along the table bed; he's able to dig a
     trench the entire length of it through the three-inches-deep
     worth of dust.

                           PRICE
                Nobody, nothing's been on this in...67
                years.

     Eddie stomps into the room, frightened and frustrated, trying
     to make sense of it all:

                           EDDIE
                Well, she went somewhere! She didn't
                just up and disappear into thin air!

                           SARA
                No...not air --

     The three men turn to look at her -- Sara's staring at
     something above them: a spot on the... CEILING directly over
     the Operating Table, where the bloody DRAG MARKS resume,
     continuing all the way to the point where concrete ceiling
     meets equally solid wall, and then vanish altogether.

                           SARA
                 -- into the House.

     They just stare at the sight in dead, scared-shitless
     silence.

                                                        HEARD OVER:

                           EDDIE (V.O.)
                There's gotta be some way out --

     INT. MAIN SALON - SOON AFTER

     Eddie seen haranguing a near-dead drunk Pritchett: