SPOOKTOBER DAY 6 – CREEPY KID
OPTIONAL CHALLENGES: LONG LOST RELATIVE. SLEEP PARALYSIS, ACCIDENT
TAROT INFLUENCE: THE DEVIL, UPRIGHT
TITLE: THE FISH ARE JUMPIN’
Premise: This premise is pretty much all descended from Turn of the Screw, right? In that the kids were intermediaries for evil ghosts. In others of this genre, the kid is the true creep. What should I do? Hm…
Callie goes with her husband Hank to a family reunion, on a vacay where they have more time than plans, being spontaneous. They meet some weird turbohillbillied cousins (LONG LOST RELATIVE) and he reminisces that he had spend a fun weekend at their cabin in the backwoods once, as a child. They invite him to do it again and he accepts, dragging her with.
The Villain: Environmental lead or something. These people just ain’t right. There’s a boating accident (ACCIDENT) and she wakes up in bed. They tell her he had to be airlifted to the city hospital but they wouldn’t do the same for her, and they’ll let her go just as soon as she’s fit to drive. They insist on keeping her in bed. Water in the lungs y’know, caused some pneumonia, just a little longer.
Horror Element: Is husband actually dead? Supposedly the family don’t have phones and Callie’s and Hank’s were lost in the lake. How did they get the airlift? Shortwave radio out in the shed, but you ain’t fit to get to it, not now. She wakes in the night with creepy kid sitting on her chest (SLEEP PARALYSIS). He’s just trying to pump the water out of her lungs is all.
There’s a couple ways this would play out in a movie. Yes, Hank dead, and edgiest option he was in soup they were feeding to her. Or Hank not dead but in league with these devils, tormenting her for fun. Hm… I like to subvert the expectation a wee bit. Hank dead, kid saves Callie, helping her escape in an inner tube on a river. The folks give pursuit (THE DEVIL) and get splattered or drowned in rapids.
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This year I’m using AI tools from goog and openai plus photopea to make my covers. The tech feels close but still has some maddening irritations to it. Didn’t have time to make the art for the basis of this one, or fuss over this at all. Not intolerable for a single revision. And yes, I used Fuseli in the prompt.
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i gotta say, and this is probably because i’m pretty sleep-deprived at the moment, some of these aren’t feeling very creative. they feel like i’m just doing whatever’s obvious based on the prompts. all the undecided stuff is emblematic of that lack of enthusiasm. i need to recover my sense of fun here … tonight’s another chance.