Love, Death and Robots. Volumes 2 & 3

NIGHT OF THE MINI-DEAD Tim Miller and Jeff Fowler

A dilapidated 19^th century church sits in the middle of an old cemetery. The scene is bathed in blue moonlight. It’s completely still except for a small breeze that rustles the grass around the tombstones and trees nearby. We linger here a bit to appreciate the solemn serenity of the slightly spooky scene.

Muffled sounds of a dubstep banger (but sped up, miniature) begin to grow louder and louder. A pair of headlights illuminate the road leading to the church. A flashy looking red import drunkenly swerves into the scene. It awkwardly pulls onto the church property. Its obnoxiously bright headlights pour into the sanctity of the graveyard illuminating the area.

We hear the dubstep boom louder and clearer as the car doors fling open. The engine cuts off, the music stops, and out stumbles a young couple (AUTUMN & STEVE) — STEVE, a guy in his mid-20s, leather racing jacket over a deep V-neck, gold chain, skinny fitted joggers, gaudy sneakers we can’t afford. AUTUMN, a girl in her mid-20s short under-boob crop top, ripped skinny jeans, cheap dye job. They look like rejected YouTube stars, and… they… seem… pretty HAMMERED.

They speak in sped up mini voices. We can’t quite make out the words but we get the tone of their chatter:

AUTUMN

(Excited mini gibberish)

STEVE

Totally.

The couple drunkenly stumbles into the cemetery. Titillated by the naughtiness of their trespassing, Steve takes a swig from a bottle, and gives Autumn the last sip. He chucks the bottle, it shatters against a nearby tombstone.

After a few flirtatious exchanges the couple starts making out… like heavy. Steve lifts Autumn onto another nearby tombstone — it sinks a bit then collapses under their weight. They giggle and keep going.

They spin around laughing and make their way to a large ANGEL STATUE in front of the church. They sit at its base and continue to make out, but slower this time. It feels as though the disrespectful nature of the situation has subsided. Maybe it’s the fact that Steve’s great-great aunt is buried here, maybe it’s the disapproving gaze of the angel statue above them… They take a breath, and look into each other’s eyes…

JUMP CUT to Autumn bent over a tombstone getting fucked doggy style by Steve. The two are butt-ass naked, clothes strewn about the graves. The sex is sloppy and awkward… but has passion. It’s the world’s tiniest hardcore sex scene.

JUMP CUT to another patch of the cemetery. She’s on top, arched back and riding him — looks painful…

JUMP CUT, he has her up against the base of the angel statue, pounding like there’s no tomorrow.

JUMP CUT, in a moment of bro’vado Steve has climbed to the top of the ANGEL STATUE and positioned himself to… fuck it right in its disapproving face. He turns back to Autumn who is giggling and filming with her phone.

STEVE

(In a sped up mini voice that mostly

sounds like gibberish)

Hehe… check it out babe… uh… uh… uh… uh…

Steve proceeds to thrust awkwardly into the angel’s face with the same drunken rhythm he gave to Autumn. The entire statue shifts slightly with each thrust. Autumn continues to film and cheers him on — this video will get so many likes.

Steve’s thrusting gets harder and faster… he might be enjoying this. The statue continues to rock back and forth until it SNAPS off of its base. It falls hard against the church with a loud crash and PINS Steve against the entrance.

LIGHTNING flashes. Music intensifies.

Autumn is in shock. Steve is dazed and maimed, his arm pinned between the statue and the church. There’s blood everywhere but he looks alive.

AUTUMN

BABE!!!!!!!

Suddenly the structure of the church begins to shift and crack from the damage at its base. The church steeple sags and tilts forward. The steeple’s CROSS dislodges and plummets off of the church. Like a sacrilegious lawn dart, it sticks UPSIDE DOWN into the pedestal where the statue used to sit. An intensely bright bolt of lightning hits the upside down cross and IGNITES it with an other-worldly GREEN FLAME, that now lights the scene. The music takes a turn.

AUTUMN

Oh my god!!!

We see the old dirt around the graves churn up into fresh mounds, and up from the ground emerges the LIVING DEAD. Decomposed, skeletal, and with purpose.

Steve frantically struggles to free himself from the statue. Autumn freaks out and clumsily runs in all directions, surrounded. The zombies close in on the couple and attack them both. We hear gargled death screams, and then silence. The zombies shift their collective focus and make their way toward the road.

We see the bloody bodies of the couple. They lay lifeless on the ground — lit by the green flame and distant lightning flashes — the bodies begin to twitch. We hear growling, and slowly Autumn and Steve rise from the dead — vicious and hungry for blood. Lighting flashes and the music swells.

An abrupt shift in the music, we see Los Angeles in the morning. The city is waking up for the day. We see sunrise over the skyline, shots of traffic, people on their morning commute. It’s business as usual.

A hiking trail in the hills above the city. Two socialites jog into frame, eager to be seen in their latest athleisure hauls. They stop to stretch and catch their breath. A few stumbling zombies emerge from the trail behind them, the women notice late on the approach. The bitchier of the two savagely shoves her friend into the lead zombie, who bites through her neck, throws her to the ground, and starts ripping into her flesh. In utter shock the friend turns to run but is overtaken by the other zombies. The brutal attack leaves both joggers dead. They twitch, rise from the bloody dirt as zombies, and follow the others down the hill.

A downtown intersection surrounded by high-rises. A group of young creative professionals, inspired to make a positive difference for the future, cross the street toward a COFFEE SHOP to get their daily macchiato and croissant. A Prius screeches around the corner through the intersection, smearing the pedestrians across the road like jelly on toast. The driver jumps out and runs away. A crowd of zombies in pursuit emerges and pours into the intersection. Bystanders scatter as the horde rushes into the coffee shop courtyard. They collide with the patio tables, cute cafe umbrellas fling about.

Sirens blasting. The camera follows an ambulance speeding down a side street. The driver swerves to avoid a group of zombies, only to take out a few others. It finds a clearing in the road then guns it ahead. Amid the pandemonium in the city we see blood on the sidewalks, smoke plumes and scattered fires in the streets.

An ER at Hope Memorial Hospital in the middle of the city. The ambulance screeches into frame, jumps a median, and smashes through a way-finding sign before careening straight through the emergency room entrance doors. There’s a small but powerful explosion, we see tires and ambulance debris fly everywhere. A flaming wheelchair rolls out of the blast.

The chaos seems to be over. A plume of smoke rises from the site of the crash. A beat goes by… then suddenly a large crowd of zombies emerges and flows from the hospital, some wearing scrubs, others bare-assed in only patient gowns. The crowd is never-ending. Zombies start to pour out from the windows and off the rooftops, then exit frame in every direction.

A once idyllic suburban neighborhood block, now completely disheveled by a zombie attack. There’s blood on the lawns, a smoking car, trash everywhere. One of the houses has a blue minivan parked in the driveway, soccer equipment still strapped to the roof.

We see a SOCCER MOM burst out of the front door with two young kids in tow. She rushes toward the van and frantically ushers everyone in. Her husband, who’s now a zombie, crashes out of the front window of their house. He races toward the van, and just as the Soccer Mom gets her door closed, he claws violently at her window. The van screeches back out of the driveway, dragging the zombie into the middle of the street. She guns it, speeds forward and plows through the dazed zombie, putting an abrupt end to their happy marriage.

The camera whip pans across the country to

A small overpass in NY.

We see a graffiti-covered subway train DERAIL and CRASH onto the freeway below. A horde of zombies flow from the train and begin chasing cars out of the scene.

Across the Atlantic to Paris.

We see a crowd of zombies chasing crowds at the base of the Eiffel tower. The city burns in the distance. A flaming car with trailing plumes of smoke tears into the scene to escape the horde.

Across the globe to a small northern city in Thailand.

We see a side street filled with markets, and signage. A lone TUK TUK drives up to an intersection and is met by the impending zombie influx. The tuk tuk turns to flee but is overtaken by the rushing horde. It gets caught up in the crowd and rolls away like a tiny Thai tin toy tumbleweed.

Back across the Pacific to somewhere in Canada.

We see the interior of a Hockey Rink, dead players in a bloody smear across the ice. All is still except an undead referee is crouched on top of the Away goalie, ravenously feasting and ripping flesh. They both drift on the slick surface, leaving a trail of guts on the ice.

A breath in the music. We see an ornate, ancient Temple atop the highest peak of the remote mountain range. A group of Shaolin Monks clad in bright orange robes do meditative training poses in unison outside the front gate. It’s a stoic, majestic scene.

The music shifts as we see a massive crowd of zombies rushing up the steep stairs toward the Temple. Right as they reach the top the monks spring into action, performing near superhuman attacks on the encroaching undead, blasting them off the mountain. It’s a high-flying, gravity-defying, display of mini kung fu mastery.

A small town main street in the middle of the US, where police and SWAT are having a standoff with the oncoming zombie attack. The horde slowly pushes an overturned car toward the cops. It scrapes the ground, grinds forward, takes heavy police fire, then EXPLODES sending flaming zombies everywhere.

The central plaza at the Vatican. We see a group of red-cloaked cardinals and other clergymen firing fully automatic machine guns into a massive horde of zombies attempting to storm St Peter’s Basilica. At the center of the battle we see the POPEMOBILE outfitted with twin machine guns, doing its best to stave off the unending horde.

Several jacked-up pickup trucks and an RV, heavily adorned with flags and misspelled protest signs, are huddled in formation against the US-Mexico border wall. A group of tiny redneck Jan 6ers, with even tinier penises, make their last stand. They take cover behind their lifted F150s and fire hopelessly into the massive horde of approaching zombies.

IDIOT 1

Aaaghhh… Shoot ‘em in the dick…

IDIOT 2

Shit man… (cowardly mini gibberish)

We gotta get outta here!

The group scrambles backward, climbs the RV, and starts to scale the wall. But their collective weight pulls the flimsy border wall down. It CRUSHES them and the RV below. A small but mighty EXPLOSION of munitions and BBQ propane tanks kills zombies and humans alike. The relentless horde continues unphased.

High above a downtown metropolis. A massive ‘HELP’ is scrawled in human blood on one of the rooftops. We see groups of survivors on the high-rises desperately waving their arms. The city is in flames. Giant pillars of smoke billow from windows and the streets below.

SNAP ZOOM OUT and we see the destruction is much bigger and more widespread. A local news helicopter spins out of control, falling through frame, leaving a corkscrew of smoke in the sky.

We’re in the US Capitol. We see the White House sitting in a pristine scene — no zombies, no damage in sight. Music cuts to silence, we hear a phone ring…

PRESIDENT

Hello?… Zombies!?!?!

…Too late for a cover-up???

We see a tiny (and surprisingly cute) elite squadron of FIGHTER JETS enter frame. They fly across the country in tight formation then release a cluster of bombs.

An aerial shot of a coastal metropolitan city overrun by zombies. We see signs of damage and signs of life. The tiny fighter jets enter frame and carpet bomb the city. From this distance the explosions look and sound like firecrackers.

CRASH ZOOM through one of the smoke plumes and into the city street below. We see that everything has gone to hell. It’s a post-apocalyptic landscape ravaged by fire and overrun by zombies.

Civilization has fallen and groups of survivors have fashioned everyday service vehicles and lame sedans into doomsday death machines to combat the zombies. Our ragtag group of heavily modified cars careen down the street in a caravan, plowing through crowds of zombies. There’s gunfire, sweet jumps, explosions, and dead bodies flying everywhere.

WHIP PAN further ahead. We see the SOCCER MOM’s Van leading the pack. Only now the Van is leveled up into a badass zombie killer on monster truck tires. We hear the tiny mom from inside…

SOCCER MOM

Come get it, motherfuckers!!!

Ahahahahahah… Burn in hell!!!!!

A roof panel on the minivan opens up, twin flamethrowers emerge. The van shoots massive streams of fire on either side of the road, leaving a wake of torched zombie crisps.

A post-apocalyptic intersection in San Francisco. A horde of zombies stagger around aimlessly with no humans in sight.

We hear a cute bell ring-ding from off camera. A cable car TROLLEY rolls towards the intersection. It’s outfitted with armor and a cow scoop welded onto the front of it. When it crosses the intersection, it lights up with machine gun fire out of the windows on either side, laying waste to the zombie horde. The gunfire subsides as it passes through the intersection. Ring-ding.

A secluded run-down gas station that doubles as a well-stocked amateur porn shop, has been heavily fortified with makeshift barricades to keep zombies at bay. We see two survivors using the gas pumps as make-shift flame throwers, taking turns casually torching crowds of zombies beyond the barricade.

An aerial shot of what looks like a nuclear power plant that’s badly damaged and abandoned. The air is thick with toxic fumes, smoke, and zombie stench. We see flashing gunfire amid the buildings below.

SNAP ZOOM into the power plant. We see a small group of human survivors taking shelter in a narrow alleyway. The alley is littered with industrial vehicles, some are flipped on their side, some carry toxic barrels. A large toxic TANKER is wedged against one of the buildings.

A massive crowd of zombies rush the alley. Large chunks of debris, along with a flaming dumpster, are dragged inside the flowing zombie crowd. The pressure from the horde begins to push the vehicles together, creating a big squeeze into the dead-end alley. Fire from the dumpster spreads. The trapped humans shoot desperately into the horde. The vehicles push and pile together, metal crunching and twisting. The toxic tanker is punctured, ignites, then BOOM.

The scene explodes into a cloud of TOXIC GREEN SMOKE that fills the frame.

The thick green smoke rolls back and we’re elsewhere in the Nuke Plant. We hear zombie growls and see the horde of tiny zombies rush from the dense green cloud. Glowing eyes rise through the mist and a group of GIANT MUTATED ZOMBIES emerge. Some big, a few bigger, all lumbering drunkenly into the clearing. From the mouth of the biggest mutated zombie spews GREEN GLOWING TOXIC VOMIT, which scorches the ground below. The mutated horde pushes through the gates and exits the plant.

From up high, we see fleeing cars crest over the hill in a frantic hurry. The horde of tiny zombies, and bigger mutant zombies, flow over the hill in hot pursuit. From behind the hill we see the head of a Giant Mutant Zombie. Right when it steps over the crest of the hill it rears back and spews the toxic attack into a building, which bursts into a bright fireball, then a raging blaze.

SNAP ZOOM wider to reveal four city blocks being ravaged by the massive flowing zombie horde. The horde quickly marches down the avenues, filling the frame with destruction and blazing fires.

WHIP PAN back to the White House lawn, now resembling a war zone. The mutated zombie horde of thousands is pressing at the fortified walls. Blackhawk helicopters are firing bullets and missiles into the crowd. We hear the President frantically over the White House comms…

PRESIDENT

… Oh no. Oh shit, they’re on the steps…

What am I gonna…

(beat)

Ahh fuck it…

A loud button smash, alarms buzz and red sirens flash. Missile silos open up in the White House lawn. A half-dozen Nukes lift into armed positions from beneath the ground. In a quick flurry the nukes flash, smoke, and shoot out of the ground with great force. Tight trails of smoke slice through the scene.

The Kremlin is surrounded by the black smoke of raging fires. Deep buzzing and flashing sirens signal. We see a cluster of missiles launch upward, ripping past and lighting up the Kremlin on their way out.

A pristine glacial landscape. We see a mass of penguins huddled together for warmth on an icy plain. The chaos of the zombie apocalypse is nowhere in sight… suddenly a massive missile blasts through the ice, sending bloody meat and penguin feathers everywhere. The nuke tears out of frame leaving a thick column of smoke to dust the carnage.

We’re high above thick cloud cover as a small cluster of missiles pierce through. Bright lights flash from beneath the clouds, then more missiles. Leaving puffy trails of smoke tendrils growing through the stratosphere on their way to space.

We jump back to see the missiles leaving planet Earth, then arcing back down toward itself.

Punching further away, drifting from the pale blue dot, past the sun…

Punching even further into the beauty of deeper space… our sun now a distant star.

The magnificent shape of the spiraling galaxy glitters. The music swells to an operatic crescendo and…

… FAaRRrrtTT.

The tiniest hint of light flashes at the edge of the galaxy — and the sound of an interstellar FART rips into the completely uninterested vacuum of the Cosmos.