House on Haunted Hill

                           PRICE
                There's someone else in the House!

     INT. CORRIDOR - MAIN FLOOR - SIMULTANEOUS

     Eddie and Sara pulling with all their might on the iron grate
     to one of the windows. Eddie stops.

                           EDDIE
                You hear somebody?

                           SARA
                No -- keep pulling, it's moving!

     INT. BASEMENT CORRIDOR - SIMULTANEOUS

     Dr. Blackburn, armed with Sara's flashlight and his medical
     bag, strides with determination through the labyrinth. Then
     stops when he hears a faint VOICE in the distance:

                           DISTANT VOICE (O.S.)
                Blackburn!

     Blackburn finds he's stopped right by the door to the
     "Cerebral Hygiene" room.

                           BLACKBURN
                     (suddenly nervous)
                Ms. Marr...?

     INT. EVELYN'S BEDROOM - SIMULTANEOUS

     We see the locks on the door, deadbolt and knob-lock both,
     SNAP OPEN simultaneously. Beat. In the distance, a VOICE:

                           DISTANT VOICE (O.S.)
                Someone else -- !

     The door SLAMS. WHIP-PAN to Evelyn's bed: clearly it's been
     slept in -- but now it's completely empty.

     INT. VANNACUTT'S STUDY - SIMULTANEOUS

     Pritchett on his hands and knees going through a large
     cabinet, tossing books and papers over his shoulder in a
     frenzy of frustration.

                           DISTANT VOICE (O.S.)
                 -- in the House!

                           PRITCHETT
                     (to himself)
                I know, I know -- it's gotta be
                here somewhere!

     INT. GRAND FOYER - CONTINUOUS

     Price tearing down the stairs:

                           PRICE
                You sonovabitch, where are you,
                I saw you!!

     INT. CORRIDOR - MAIN FLOOR - CONTINUOUS

     Eddie and Sara drop their arms from the window, exhausted.
     But there is now a space about two inches wide between IRON
     GRATE and OPEN WINDOW.

                           SARA
                We can do it...

                           EDDIE
                Sure, with three days and a
                blowtorch.

                           SARA
                It's a thousand years old -- we just
                need a crowbar or something to get
                leverage -- the sucker'll pop!

                           EDDIE
                No prob: I'll just hop down the
                hardware store --

                           SARA
                 -- no. The basement -- the room with
                all the controls to this thing: big long
                iron levers just lying there --

                           EDDIE
                 -- not a chance -- there's too much
                weirdness down there I don't think even
                bullets are gonna stop.

                           SARA
                You're starting to sound like Pritchett.

      -- and then the LIGHTS zap to BLACK and Sara SHRIEKS --

     INT. HALLWAY - CONTINUOUS

      -- Pritchett shrieks as the LIGHTS ZAP BACK ON -- blinding --
     then OFF AGAIN -- then ON --

     INT. BASEMENT - CONTINUOUS

      -- the lights in the wall sconces are strobing like an
     epileptic's worst nightmare. The sheer schizo-psychedelia of
     it all has Dr. Blackburn frozen in his tracks --

     INT. BASEMENT STAIRWAY - CONTINUOUS

      -- as is Price.

      -- then the SOUND starts. Price is first to hear it -- it
     puts an expression on his face like someone is ramming both
     eardrums with icepicks over and over again:

     A LOUD CRACKLING ELECTRIC SURGE -- on-again, off-again,
     in direct sync with the dimming of the lights. What makes
     it so especially unsettling is the noise that accompanies
     each Sledgehammer Surge: a straining, strangulating CRY. A
     noise like a calf would make as its throat is slit.

     The light-show be damned, Price leaps down the stairs,
     sprinting towards the Noise.

     INT. BASEMENT CORRIDOR - CONTINUOUS

      -- likewise Dr. Blackburn --

     INT. HALLWAY - CONTINUOUS

      -- likewise Sara and Eddie, running as fast as they can --

     INT. BASEMENT GALLERY - CONTINUOUS

     Price spies Blackburn at the other end of a Corridor, shouts
     over the Noise to him:

                           PRICE
                Where is it??

                           BLACKBURN
                I don't know!!

     Sara and Eddie appear, spot them; Sara shouts:

                           SARA
                What is it??

                           PRICE
                Something with the power, I don't know!!

     And then Pritchett is seen at the far end of another
     Corridor.

                           PRITCHETT
                It's down there!

     He's pointing to a long corridor - a light strobes at the
     end.

                           EDDIE
                What's down there?

                           PRITCHETT
                     (awe-struck)
                The...Fourth of July.

                           BLACKBURN
                What are you babbling, you lunatic??

     And then clarity comes to Price's eyes.

                           PRICE
                Electro-shock.

     INT. HALLWAY/ELECTRO-SHOCK THERAPY ROOM - BASEMENT

      -- and the Noise suddenly stops. The lights stop pulsing.
     Pitch dark and dead quiet.

     Eddie squints and points at something deeper in the room.

                           EDDIE
                There's something --

      -- MOVING inside the Room. Blackburn lashes his arm out,
     stopping anyone from going any further into the room. He
     whispers:

                           BLACKBURN
                Don't move, don't make a sound...

     In the darkness, in the distance, they can make out

     AN ANIMATE PRESENCE at waist level. Pale. With something
     flowing from its sides, almost wing-like. And it's
     squirming, undulating like a snake -- and then, softly
     this time, that calf-like cry. High-pitched, almost female-
     sounding.

     Price ducks under Blackburn's arm and starts walking slowly
     into the room, towards it. No one tries to stop him.

     ON PRICE as he gets closer, and can see that whatever it
     is, it's perched atop one of the TABLES --

      -- the CRY -- and Price steps closer, and he can make out
     to the side of the table, something that looks like....a
     hand?

      -- the CRY -- closer now: a hand discerned -- human -- with
     rings on the fingers, polish on the nails --

                           PRICE
                ...Ms. Marr...?

      -- no response -- just the CRY -- Price reaches out to
     touch that hand --

                           SARA
                Is it Melissa??

      -- a look of horror comes to Price's face:

                           PRICE
                OH JESUS NO!!

      -- and then lights flash BLINDING WHITE -- and the bug-eyed
     face of EVELYN STOCKARD-PRICE is seen -- screaming that CRY
     through the RUBBER BITE-DOWN that's been taped tight to her
     teeth --

      -- her head, her torso, her limbs BUCKING like they're jet-
     propelled against the leather straps restraining her --

      -- as the MASSIVE VOLTS of electricity from the DYNAMO she's
     wired to punch into her like ten thousand razors at once --

      -- and Price reaches for her instinctively --

      -- only to have Blackburn lunge in and yank his hand away --

                           BLACKBURN
                 -- are you crazy!?!

      -- and for a moment all anyone can do is watch as Evelyn
     gets jolted and slammed again and again and again -- and
     sparks fly from the electrodes on her head and smoke starts
     to billow --

                           PRICE
                Turn it off!! Somebody turn
                the damn thing off!!

     En masse, the Guests charge into the room, scrabbling
     everywhere around the DYNAMO, looking for a wire, anything
     they can use to stop the current ripping through her body --

      -- and Price is near-insane, smashing buttons, yanking
     switches off their moorings as he watches the pupils
     disappear from the eyes of his bucking, jerking wife --

      -- and Sara pulls a cord from a socket in the wall and
     nothing happens --

      -- and Blackburn spies something running down the table
     leg --

      -- and Price is literally SCREAMING --