Summer of the Cicadas

It’s been awhile since my last post, but I have felt an urgent need to get an idea out on the interweb that has been festering in my imagination since high school.  In a state of inebriation, often in the summer on the roof of one of my friend’s boyhood home, I have often acted out a trailer for a movie idea that I made up called Summer of the Cicadas.  I’m sure some movie has used loads of dead cicadas before in a horrific context, but this movie is about the sheer power of these pests, brought to the screen in the same teen-centered manner as a slasher flick.  Upon the passing of the late and awesome Don LaFontaine, the idea for this film came back to me at full force, simply because my acted-out trailer started with his classic line “In a world…”.  So without further ado, I present to you…

In a world, where innocence is squandered…

Teenage boy: “This is going to be the best summer ever!” (Chugs a beer by a bonfire)

There are creatures that can take it all away…

(Shot: Teenagers entangled in an embrace.)

Teenage girl: “Josh, stop, I told you to go slower!”

Josh (covering Cindy’s mouth): “Shhh, Cindy what’s that?”

When you least expect it.

Cindy: “The… the forest… its like I hear… flapping… so much flapping…” (points a quivering finger into the night)

Josh: “There’s something on my neck…” (pans to his hand, holding a cicada) “oh…God… Cindy NOOOOOO!” (As he screams, thousands of cicadas erupt out of the forest, swallowing the couple in blackness. Some of the insects ignite into flames as they crash through the bonfire.)

Every 17 years, they will come… and every time it will be worse than before…

Shot: Overhead view of a clan of teens screeching and writhing madly on the ground as they are pelted repeatedly and bloodied by the onslaught of cicadas, as the camera pans upward to show you MORE dying teens and more cicadas.

-Jarring violin noise (a la There Will Be Blood) and cut to…

Another teenage boy: “Screw the cops, I’m going to find those cicadas, Jenny.” (heads toward the woods)

Jenny: “Todd, you’re an idiot! Don’t leave me here!!!”

and more people… will DIE!

Todd (emerging from woods): “There’s nothing to be afraid of Jenny, not a cicada in sig…  Jesus.“

(Closeup of Jenny’s swollen face with cicadas spilling out of it and fighting into her mouth, her eyes moist and as wide as God.)

Todd: (Blood curdling)”Aaauuuuuuuughhhhh!”

SUMMER OF THE CICADAS.  SUMMER 2009.

~ by caspring on September 9, 2008.