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INT. A COLLEGE DINING HALL – DAY

SHERMAN

(gesturing at Toozie’s magazine)

Say, that’s not an original, is it?

TOOZIE

No way I could ever afford an original. It’s a reproduction.

SHERMAN

Mind if I look?

TOOZIE

Help yourself.

Sherman picks up the magazine. He looks through it. The cover is clearly visible, showing the magazine title TALES OF SHOCKING HORROR! The cover painting shows a nude girl in a tube being experimented on by a mad scientist.

MIRANDA

What do you see in that icky stuff, Toozie?

TOOZIE

I’m entertained by it. And I’m also thinking of making it the subject of a senior honors thesis.

MIRANDA

Seriously?

TOOZIE

You know the American horror writer Thomas Ligotti? He once famously remarked that “Literature is entertainment or it is nothing.” I want to write a thesis arguing for a an aesthetic re-evaluation of the so-called weird menace fiction of the 1930s.

MIRANDA

But why does anyone find it entertaining?

TOOZIE

Let’s face it, human life itself is a horror story. Everybody dies in the end, and along the way there’s lots of suffering. But it’s a dreary horror story. Everybody dies, but usually when they’re old and feeble and largely forgotten-about in some home somewhere. Or stupidly and for no reason in a traffic accident.

MIRANDA

Whereas in these stories?

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INT. A COLLEGE DINING HALL – DAY

TOOZIE’S VISION – HERSELF AS MAD SCIENCE VICTIM

(Note: this scene to some extent is meant to evoke a silent movie so its sound should all be non-diagetic.)

In a dungeon-like environment, Toozie is trapped in a transparent tube made of sections held together by bolted rings. She is naked, but the tube’s rings are positioned such that her nipples and pubic area are obscured.

A satanic-looking mad scientist in a Howie coat is reaching for a large electrical switch with a black, rubber-gloved hand.

TOOZIE (V.O.)

Whereas in these pulp stories, death and suffering are part of an adventure and an eroticized spectacle.

The mad scientist throws the switch. Blue bolts of energy surge over Toozie’s body. She screams (silently).

BACK TO SCENE

MIRANDA

So I suppose you agree with Edgar Allan Poe: “The death of a beautiful woman is unquestionably the most poetical topic in the world.”

TOOZIE

I suppose I do at that. The thing is, these “horrible” stories take an unacceptable reality and reflect it back to us in a way that is actually enjoyable to the reader. Sherman puts the magazine back on the table.

SHERMAN

Stories don’t track reality.

TOOZIE

What?

SHERMAN

All stories are false simply by virtue of being stories.

MIRANDA

Oh, come on!

SHERMAN

I’m serious. What makes a story a story, as opposed to merely a descriptive list of events, one of which follows the others?

TOOZIE

Beats me, Sherman.

SHERMAN

What makes a story a story is that it seems plausible to its listeners as an account of characters with motivations of a certain kind. But our sense of what’s plausible doesn’t itself track reality. It’s just a piece of folk psychology, no more a realistic guide to why people do what the do than folk physics is a reasonable guide to piloting a rocket ship. What makes a story a story is a false theory about the world.

MIRANDA

I don’t get it.

SHERMAN

You know the old saw that “truth is stranger than fiction?” Well, there’s a reason that that’s so. Fiction needs to be plausible or no one will read it. But reality doesn’t care whether it’s acting plausibly or not. It just rolls along as it does, uncoiling in accordance with the second law of thermodynamics, toward the heat death of the universe.

MIRANDA

What a cheerful world view you have!

TOOZIE

Should I care about whether the stories are true, so long as they are entertaining?

MIRANDA

Speaking of entertaining, we’re not letting all this intellectual stuff get in the way of going to this evening’s Film Society Cheesefest, are we?

SHERMAN

Oh, hell no.

TOOZIE

Most definitely not.

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INT. A COLLEGE AUDITORIUM – NIGHT

Toozie, Miranda, and Sherman are sitting in the darkness watching a movie being projected.

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THE MOVIE SCREEN

The movie is a 1950s style black-and-white monster film. A buxom woman in a one-piece swimsuit, diving mask, and fins is trying to swim away from a giant octopus that is wrapping its tentacles around her and trying to drag her down.

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THE MOVIE SCREEN

The movie is a 1950s style black-and-white monster film. A buxom woman in a one-piece swimsuit, diving mask, and fins is trying to swim away from a giant octopus that is wrapping its tentacles around her and trying to drag her down.

The woman’s struggles with the hungry (or horny?) octopus are intercut with shots of a man in full scuba gear and a wetsuit swimming, implied toward her, with his spear gun.

CLOSE-UP ON SCREEN

A little rip appears in the woman’s swimsuit, exposing a bit of cleavage.

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BACK TO SCENE

Toozie GASPS.

TOOZIE

I have to leave for just a little while.

Toozie gets up and leaves hurriedly.

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INT. AUDITORIUM LOBBY – NIGHT

Toozie, Miranda and Sherman are among many other students leaving the showing of the movie. On the wall is 1950s-style poster advertising PERIL IN THE DEEP by showing the buxom heroine of the movie menaced by fish-men.

MIRANDA

Are you all right, Toozie?

SHERMAN

You had to run out so quickly.

TOOZIE

I’m fine.

(grins)

I’m better than fine.

MIRANDA

Let’s take a shot to remember Cheesefest by.

The three friends line up in front of the movie poster. Miranda holds out her mobile phone and snaps a SELFIE of the three.

INSERT – SELFIE

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INT. TOOZIE’S DORMITORY ROOM – NIGHT

Toozie is sitting cross-legged on her bed in panties and a t-shirt advertising the OKLAHOMA ROTO-ROOTER MASSACRE. She is searching for something on her laptop. The room is dark, illuminated only by the light of the computer’s screen.

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THE SCREEN

Toozie types in “damsel in distress” as a search term, then flips across several pages, finally landing on one that reads WARNING: VORE! MANY VIEWERS WILL FIND THIS MATERIAL OFFENSIVE.

There are two radio buttons on the screen: OKAY and GET ME OUT OF HERE. Toozie mouses over and clicks on OKAY. A swift parade of vore images across the screen, probably too quick to be readily seen. Toozie finally settles on an image of an anime girl being swallowed whole by a dragon.

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INT. TOOZIE’S DORMITORY ROOM – NIGHT

BACK TO SCENE

Toozie’s face, lit by the screen, studies the image intently.

Toozie the closes the laptop and gets under the covers of her bed. She moves in a manner suggestive of lowering her panties and then masturbating.

Toozie’s mouth drops open, her eyes close, as she begins pleasuring herself. She MOANS softly

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