College English senior Ramen Noodle (Ray) wants to make a name for himself as a screenwriter more than anything in the world. Unfortunately, he's got a long way to go. He gave up a football scholarship and decided to support himself and his education at Orleans University by working as a bartender in the French Quarter. Not to mention he's failing his capstone screenwriting course. But after enduring a recurring nightmare about a possessed, murdering cannibal who dresses like an alligator and terrorizes a rural Louisiana church parish, Ray has fresh material for a new horror movie. The dream is so real that he begins to have difficulty distinguishing fantasy from reality. Does he love his French-speaking girlfriend, or the bombshell of his imagination? When things finally begin to look up, he has to figure out what he's willing to sacrifice in order to achieve his dream. Unless it's already too late ...
College English senior Ramen Noodle (Ray) wants to make a name for himself as a screenwriter more than anything in the world. Unfortunately, he's got a long way to go. He gave up a football scholarship and decided to support himself and his education at Orleans University by working as a bartender in the French Quarter. Not to mention he's failing his capstone screenwriting course. But after enduring a recurring nightmare about a possessed, murdering cannibal who dresses like an alligator and terrorizes a rural Louisiana church parish, Ray has fresh material for a new horror movie. The dream is so real that he begins to have difficulty distinguishing fantasy from reality. Does he love his French-speaking girlfriend, or the bombshell of his imagination? When things finally begin to look up, he has to figure out what he's willing to sacrifice in order to achieve his dream. Unless it's already too late ...
ON WHITE
INSERT – QUOTE
“Absinthe makes the heart grow fonder.” ––Miss Quoted
DISSOLVE TO:
DREAM OF WRITING
EXT. RURAL HIGHWAY, LOUISIANA – NIGHT (A DREAM)
An ANTIQUE TRUCK cruises up an empty two-way highway through SUGAR CANE fields.
Appears to be a BODY in the TRUCK BED.
INT./EXT. ANTIQUE TRUCK – NIGHT
“Heebie Jeebies,” by Louis Armstrong plays softly on the radio.
The truck is being driven by JUDAS: a walking, talking nightmare of CREOLE descent, 40ish. He shrouds his towering physique with a BLOOD-RED, HOODED ROBE.
SKULL RING
On one of his thick fingers gripping the top of the steering wheel.
PASSENGER SEAT
His MASK, formerly an ALLIGATOR’S HEAD.
Also on the seat, a WOODEN BOX the size of a shoebox. The box contains the EVIL SPIRIT OF OBSESSION. The spirit causes the box to GLOW RED like a lamp. The red light shines through cutouts like a jack-o’-lantern on the box.
The cutouts are in the shape of VOODOO EMBLEMS: a HEART PIERCED BY A DAGGER, an ALLIGATOR, and other veve-style lines and shapes.
ALLIGATOR-SKIN BOOT
Presses the brake pedal.
DIRT ROAD
The truck veers off the highway onto a dirt road and reaches a
STEEL GATE. It’s locked.
FROM INSIDE THE LOCK
Judas inserts the KEY.
He drives ahead, not worried about locking the gate behind him.
JUDAS’S POV
As he drives on the dirt road toward a FOREST.
JUDAS
(deeply; solo)
I have something to give you, mistress.
The truck reaches the forest and stops. Looks like a TRAILHEAD.
EXT. TRAILHEAD/TRAILWAY – NIGHT
Judas steps out of the truck, wearing the alligator mask.
He opens the TRUCK BED to reveal a lifeless BODY wrapped in a bloody, white linen sheet. The sheet is tied by rope at the ankles and neck.
THUD, as the wrapped body hits the ground.
JUDAS’S POV THROUGH THE MASK
Trudging down the trail with the glowing box under one arm, and dragging the body by the rope that’s wrapped around its neck.
SOUNDS of fallen leaves and sticks cracking as they go.
SNAKE – ON THE TRAIL
A beat as it slithers out of the way.
EXT. WORSHIP SITE, FOREST – NIGHT
Judas reaches a clearing in the forest: trees bearing VOODOO-STYLE SYMBOLS; an ALTAR as the centerpiece, decorated with a variety of BONES, CANDLES, a half-drank BOTTLE of rum, PIG and CHICKEN parts, and since Judas bears traits of an alligator, ALLIGATOR parts.
THE BOX
Resting in front of the altar, glows redder.
CANDLES
LIGHT UP without any human assistance in sync with the glow of the box.
ANIMAL PARTS
With FLIES swarming.
He picks up the body and plops it on the altar.
He uses a DAGGER to cut the ropes and the sheet, revealing the handsome face of a MALE: freshly dead, 19-year-old RANDALL STEVENS, who wears a FOOTBALL JERSEY and was once a quarterback.
Randall’s bludgeoned HEAD suggests the story of his murder.
Next, Judas cuts Randall’s THROAT and catches some dark BLOOD in his hand, and DRINKS.
He kneels before the altar as LIGHTNING strikes.
RAIN starts to fall, and the Alligator Man laughs, menacingly.
In another streak of lightning, he rises, gazes over the body, and feasts on it, ending the dream.
DISSOLVE TO:
INT. RAMEN’S BEDROOM – DAWN
RAMEN NOODLE (pronounced rā-men, often goes by “Ray”), 22, handsome, ATHLETIC BUILD, pops up suddenly in his DOUBLE BED from a nightmare.
He shudders and sighs.
A bright streak of LIGHTNING through the window and a loud burst of THUNDER makes him jump.
A fly buzzes around his head. He swats at it a couple of times before giving up angrily.
RAMEN
(quietly)
Damn it!
INSERT – DIGITAL CLOCK
Reads 6:00am.
He doesn’t want to get up yet and sighs again.
INSERT – DATE
Friday, April 13, 2007 (in courier font)
He reaches for a stereo REMOTE somewhere in the bed.
A MONTAGE begins as he turns on a CD MIXTAPE to get this day started: JAZZ, “Gloria’s Step” by the Bill Evans Trio.
He flips on a LAMP next to his bed.
Welcome to Ramen’s studio apartment, comprised of a BEDROOM, a BATHROOM, and a KITCHEN. The FRONT DOOR is in the bedroom next to a long WINDOW, and a short HALLWAY doubling as a closet connects the kitchen.
He has HIGH SCHOOL FOOTBALL TROPHIES, WRITING AWARDS, POSTERS of JACK KEROUAC, THE WHITE STRIPES, BOBBY HEBERT, and NINA SIMONE on the walls.
He digs for a leftover JOINT in an ashtray.
(to himself)
What is in this weed?
He lights the joint, takes a drag, and coughs.
He stands up to stretch, wearing boxer shorts.
INT. RAMEN’S BATHROOM
Standing in the little bathroom, Ramen stares at himself blankly, if not bewildered, in the mirror.
He starts the FAUCET and runs water over his stubbly face and through his dark hair.
INT. RAMEN’S KITCHEN – DAY
The sun is up through a WINDOW over the sink. He enters the kitchen shaven and showered, wearing a BLOOD RED bath towel at the waist.
KEURIG
A cup of coffee brews.
HIS POV
Mixing two EGGS with a splash of water, butter, pouring them into a CAST-IRON SKILLET, and adding some diced HAM for an OMELETTE.
He walks away.
BEDROOM
The song changes to the UPBEAT drum snares of “A Night in Tunisia,” by Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers.
Ramen dresses in new cargo shorts and a T-shirt bearing a graphic for the movie E.T. from a laundry pile on the floor.
A beat as the SMOKE ALARM goes off.
He peeks his head down the short hall to see the skillet on FIRE.
RAMEN
Oh no!
KITCHEN
Ramen extinguishes the fire with a big cup of WATER from the sink.
He removes the hot skillet from the burner, burning his hand.
RAMEN
Shit!
He shakes off the pain with a handful of ICE from the freezer.
He fans the smoke alarm with a towel until it stops.
BURNT OMELETTE
Voilà! The watery mass lands on a plate via SPATULA.
He takes an unsatisfying bite and dumps the rest in a nearby trashcan.
BEDROOM
He puts on socks and shoes.
He picks up his SCHOOLBAG, and he powers off the CD Player.
As “A Night in Tunisia” ends, so does the montage.
Reading Dream of Writing: An Original Screenplay, it is clear that Gregory Fischer truly loves cinema. Throughout the script, there are many references to classic works like Citizen Kane and E.T., as well as an understanding of how the moviemaking machine works. Dream of Writing is as much a tale of an ambitious wannabe screenwriter as it is a critique of film schools and Hollywood... and also a teenage romance, as well as a lightly surreal horror.
Reading this screenplay (originally written during the author's time in film schools and touched up over a decade later), it is unclear what Fischer is truly interested in here. There is just too much going on in terms of characters and multiple subgenres, and none of them are blended together to create an effective mix. If anything, the narrative is overstuffed with different ideas, the most alluring one being the backdrop of New Orleans.
New Orleans has become synonymous with voodoo in genre filmmaking, with many movies like Angel Heart using it to great effect to delve into the protagonist's tortured mind. It is a shame that Fischer never embraces the vast potential present in the rich history of Louisiana Voodoo, resorting to spiritual mumbo jumbo that, like so many elements of the story here, is undercooked. This being a tale of blind ambition and a Monkey's Paw style narrative evolution, there is ultimately very little reason to even have the voodoo element, which is the most unique thing going for this script and that really needs to be expanded upon.
On a similar note, nearly everything else needs to be either fleshed out or cut. The hallucinations and nightmares that Ramen experiences could lead to disturbing moments of questioning what is reality and what is fantasy, and the multiple apparitions of a girl from his imagination make for fun banter and comic relief. Then again, this character is completely abandoned and leads to tonal imbalance, a recurring problem in the script. It is never truly clear whether this is meant to be a serious drama, a coming-of-age thriller, or a horror comedy.
Dream of Writing: An Original Screenplay is a case of having to commit to what has drawn the author to bring this story into the world, and focus on that. The writing is pleasantly descriptive, making this flow as nicely as a novel would, and the multiple inserts of songs that would play during the actual film add a nice touch. By embracing either the horror of the setting or the comedic, surreal occurrences that Ramen Noodle lives through, this would be a tighter and memorable script that would make for a fun "careful what you wish for" tale, worthy even of being picked up by Blumhouse Productions.