60-SECOND SCREENPLAY
TF SAVES YOU THE COST OF A MOVIE EVERY MONTH. THIS ISSUE: OLD…
Time speeds up for our Old takedown.
FADE IN:
INT. ANAMIKA RESORT SHUTTLE GAEL GARCÍA BERNAL and VICKY KRIEPS travel with their young SON and DAUGHTER to a resort they’ve never heard of for a holiday they were offered out of the blue.
SON Aww, I’m not old enough to go scuba-diving! That’s not fair.
GAEL GARCÍA BERNAL Stop wishing your life away!
AUDIENCE Yes, we get it. God, this is already getting old.
INT. ANAMIKA RESORT The family arrive at the resort and are greeted with suspiciously elaborate cocktails. They head to the beach to introduce the film’s other main victims.
MYSTERIOUS MANAGER By the way, there’s a top-secret beach here that no one goes near. It’s all arranged. My driver will take you there along with food and drinks tomorrow.
GAEL GARCÍA BERNAL Sure. All perfectly normal.
EXT. BEACH M. NIGHT SHYAMALAN drives the group to the beach himself because of course he does. Once there, they meet FAMOUS RAPPER and find a dead body.
VICKY KRIEPS Have you seen my children?
NOTICEABLY OLDER SON AND DAUGHTER Mum, we’re right here!
VICKY KRIEPS Oh my God! Doctor, what’s happening?
DR. RUFUS SEWELL In my sane and right-minded opinion… What was the name of that film starring Jack Nicholson and Marlon Brando?
VICKY KRIEPS I have no idea, but I wish we were in that instead.
Everyone tries to leave the beach but they all black out from plot nonsense.
VICKY KRIEPS Oh look, my benign tumour has grown and now I need surgery. You’ll have to use your bare hands to hold me open because knife cuts are apparently healing within seconds.
GAEL GARCÍA BERNAL Y’know, I’m starting to think that time might work differently on this beach.
VISIBLY OLDER EVERYONE You think?
Now even older, the SON gets DR. RUFUS’ daughter pregnant despite both basically being children. She immediately gives birth, but the baby dies of time complications.
VICKY KRIEPS The doctor just killed the rapper! Hey, wait, he’s mentally ill, I had a tumour, the rapper had a nosebleed, and someone mentioned epilepsy. I’ve got it! This has all been arranged by a pharmacy!
GAEL GARCÍA BERNAL It can’t be that because that is literally the dumbest explanation I’ve ever heard.
DR. RUFUS attacks GAEL, but VICKY kills him with quick-acting rust. Then GAEL and VICKY die of old age anyway.
EVEN OLDER DAUGHTER Just us left then. Sure am looking forward to finding out how the inevitable twist makes sense of all of this.
EVEN OLDER SON In the meantime, shall we try to escape? Maybe to that coral within easy swimming distance that none of us have previously mentioned?
INT. RESORT FACILITY M. NIGHT SHYAMALAN himself is revealed to be monitoring the beach, because of course he is. He reports back to the resort.
MYSTERIOUS MANAGER So everyone died, but we were able to successfully use the beach to fast-track medical trials and, somehow, found a cure for epilepsy! So it was all worth it? Maybe?
AUDIENCE Wait, so it WAS a pharmacy all along? But… how do they get these drugs to market? What evidence of this trial do they show? What data? Is it peer-reviewed?
The oldest SON and DAUGHTER yet arrive and tell the HOLIDAYING COP everything. Everyone gets arrested. There is no further explanation for the beach.
AUDIENCE I feel 100 years older…
FIN NEXT ISSUE: JUNGLE CRUISE