SPOTLIGHT: Script of the Month - "Nepenthes"
- Dec 4, 2022
- 2 min read
LOGLINE: Two teenagers explore the area of an abandoned church, and the haunted water well next to it.
"This isn't The-fucking-Ring."
Back when I was working on AfterLife AfterDeath: Stories for the Dark, I was struggling to come up with new stories to help build onto the anthology and have enough content for the book. Usually when I hit that type of writer's block, I reach out to people I know and ask them to give me a noun, typically a 'thing,' rather than a person or a place.
Nepenthes was accomplished after a friend gave me the reference "church" and eventually I came up with what I came up with. While the story doesn't focus on a church specifically, it is included in the script as the primary location. The true horror comes from the water well near the abandoned church, and what's inside that our fateful characters end up discovering.
Yes, I know what you're thinking...
The Ring involved a water well with a little girl inside. As mentioned above, stated by one of my characters, this isn't The Ring. While that film was scary (and truly one of the only good American remakes of an Asian film), this is a totally new story with only those two similarities.
For those who are unaware, and semi-spoilers in a way, Nepenthes is a type of Pitcher Plant, a carnivorous plant that looks like a pitcher, or a bell, with a small pool of acid inside of it. It uses a scent to attract insects, which, when inside the pitcher plant, they slip into the acid and drown. The plant then feasts on their bodies. They're actually quite beautiful plants and I would love to own one, one day.
Eventually, and recently, I decided to transcribe Nepenthes from prose to screenplay. While a lot of the character development was lost in translation, the story gets straight to the point, ready to spook ya the moment you begin reading.
Go ahead, give it a look...If you dare!
Stay spooked!
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