WHEN THE WIND STOPS BLOWING…

An idea for a Halloween movie…

It’s a cold and windy night. A group of campers are seated around one side

of a campfire. Their faces are not seen. We hear their voices. We see their subjective view. The camera is their eye.

They sing non-descript summer camp songs, songs whose melody and lyrics are almost discernible to the audience, but not quite. We want the audience to think that they have heard the songs, that they know the songs… but they do not.

As one song ends, we see a lightning strike in the distance. About three econds later, we hear thunder. It’s terrifying. The camera shakes subjectively, imitating a camper. We hear the leader say: “That bolt was pretty close. I think we hould douse the fire and look for shelter until the storm blows over.”

The camera rises from its seated position. We turn around, walk toward the ring of trees surrounding the group. There’s a brook there. The camera bends, takes a pail, fills it with water from the brook and walks over to the fire. More lightning is seen and thunder is heard.

“Hurry,” the leader says. The water splashes from the bucket onto the campfire, creating a haze.

We dissolve to the group, subjective view, front member and rear member.

They’re walking through a thick fog. They’re scared, but won’t admit that they are. The fog-lined path leads them through a cemetery. Gravestones line their left and their right.

One camper cries out as the camera stumbles on a low marker. The leader turns a flashlight on the monument and we read “TIMOTHY O’LEARY, June 6, 1984 – October 28, 1988, ‘HE LEFT US BEFORE THE END’.”

The wind howls and the campers hurry. Suddenly a Victorian-type house, rising out of the fog, appears in front of them. Lightning surrounds the house in a horseshoe pattern. The only thing they can do, the only way to protect themselves is to enter the house. The door blows back and forth in the wind. They hurry in and close the door behind them.

Dust and cobwebs are everywhere. In the distance is heard a muffled moaning and chanting. The campers are afraid and two of them turn back toward the door. They try to open it but the wind outside the door is blowing directly on it. It refuses to budge.

The moan starts to become understandable, “When the wind stops blowing we shall all be dead. When the wind stops blowing we shall be dead.”

Lightning flashes through the dust-shrouded window like a timed pendulum. On and off, on and off. The backs of the campers light up suddenly and are alternately dark. On and off. “When the wind stops blowing we shall all be dead,” the voices moan.

The leader, quite normally concerned, tells his campers, “Look, we can’t get the door open and even if we did, the lightning outside is too dangerous. Let’s try to get a fire going in that fireplace. We’ll spend the night here and by morning the storm should be over, and we can get back to Camp Colony.”

One camper called out, “I don’t think anybody lives here. I don’t know what

that moaning is but we all have camped together many times. We have heard animals calling one another. We have heard what seemed to be voices but was just the wind whistling through the trees. “When the wind stops blowing we shall all be dead.”

The chant became louder. Another camper said “That isn’t the wind whistling. I think we should look around the house. Does anybody have another flashlight?”

Suddenly another flashlight gets turned on.

“Come on, let’s split into two groups and see where that noise is coming from.” One group starts to climb the stairs, while the other heads into one of the other ground floor rooms. The chant gets louder as the group reaches the top of the stairs.

They start walking toward a closed door. The chant gets louder and louder. “When the wind stops blowing we shall all be dead.”

The campers are brave, but still they’re apprehensive about opening that door.

A burst of very loud thunder suddenly jolts the camper near the door and it

is pushed open.

The lightning strikes and thunder continues. The room is as bright as day. The wind suddenly becomes calm. The campers are thrown against a bathroom wall, and in the bathtub full of water is a tiny raft heading toward the drain.

“The wind has stopped and we all are dead.” The three tiny humans on the raft float toward the opening as water rushes down the drain.

One camper, the camera, looks at the three creatures on the raft, and then

at the other campers. They are giant roaches.