A Fantastic Fear of Everything
(TAPPING OF TYPEWRITER KEYS)
(JACK) Once upon a time...
not so long ago...
(BREATH ES HEAVILY)
(CREAKING)
Ah!
(BREATH ES HEAVILY)
This is the story of me.
Jack.
There I am, absolutely shitting it.
I'd been carrying a carving knife
with me for three weeks
due to an irrational fear
of being murdered.
I couldn't sleep at night.
As soon as I got into bed,
(SCREAMING IN DISTANCE)
These killers were the subject
of a series of plays
I had been writing for television.
The nature of the project
necessitated research
into heinous Victorian criminals.
And I had unwittingly familiarized
myself with all the famous hackers,
dosers and severers
of the 19th century.
Faces that would've
frightened the Ripper.
Many a long night I spent there,
drenched in thoughts
of bloody murder.
I became particularly disturbed
by a man I called The Hendon Ogre.
A maniac from North London who had
boiled the arsenic out of fly papers
and introduced the result
into his lodger's broth.
I'd lie awake for hours,
thinking of the brute,
terrified someone was slipping
arsenic into my diet.
In the mornings, I'd inspect
grapefruit and milk bottle tops
looking for evidence of interference
with syringes.
Trivial events became vital clues
in the detection of my assassin.
(TELEPHONE RINGS)
If the telephone rang at half past
four, I'd look at the clock and say,
"it was half past four when the
telephone rang that fateful evening.
"How could anyone
have known at the time
"how important that telephone call
was to become?"
My situation became unbearable.
I suspected everyone and everything.
Innocent passersby.
Creeks in the corridor.
Bumps in the night got so bad,
I started plugging my head shut.
But I'd soon have to get up and
check for killers in the bathroom,
in the kitchen...
in the fridge,
or in the hallway,
where they kept a low profile,
crawling about in the shadows,
Ah!
Bloody windows, bloody draughts.
(WHISPERS) Oh, God, come on.
Argh!
This fear that I would be murdered
At lunch, to be exact.
The day I saw my literary agent...
- Newspaper?
- .. Clair De Grunwald.
- Thanks.
- No problem.
(JACK) She'd arranged to meet me at
a respectable establishment in Soho.
(VIETNAMESE ACCENT)
You like newspaper?
- Shall I bring sir the wine list?
- Yes. Okay.
Pleasure.
(JACK) "The body was found
in the East End of London,
"but the Hanoi Handshake
is the unmistakable calling card
"of a Vietnamese gang killing.
"According to one unnamed
police source
"downtown Hackney,
"is now a bloody jungle...
"of organized crime.
to be found."
Newspaper?
- Whoa, hey, no...
- Sir.
- No, it... Please...
- Jack?
- Clair.
It's not even 12:00.
- No, I...
- I'm sorry.
I'm afraid I only have an hour.
I've got to go
meet Ragsie Lawrence.
Remember Ragsie?
The dancing dyke?
She's just been made
commissioning editor at the BBC.
Can you believe it?
Never underestimate a hunchback,
that's what I say.
- Are you staying there all lunch?
- No, sorry.
Anyway...
It's good timing. I can tell her
how busy you are with your murders.
- Up to my elbows.
- Good.
- Do you have a title?
- "Decades of Death".
- Chilling.
- Well, if you want murder...
...then Victorian Britain
is the golden age.
I think murder's lost its sense
of theatre. What do we have now?
- It's just like kids...
- Mindless violence?
Exactly. Yes. Killers don't put any
thought into their murders anymore.
- Have you heard of Long Ear?
- Can't say I have, no.
Terrifying Polish plumber
who hacked off a Frenchman's head.
Disposed of the limbs, but couldn't
think of what to do with the head.
Eventually he utilized
his gas-fired crucible
filled the mouth with lead,
slung the thing in the river.
Can you imagine?
I'm sorry, sir. This is a non-smoking
restaurant. Thank you.
- Are you ready to order, madam?
- Do you know what you're having?
I'll just have a beer.
I'm not very hungry.
- One beer.
- This is my treat, darling.
Well, then I will have the chicory
salad with asparagus croutons,
chorizo and poached egg to start.
Followed by the salmon
and leek fish cake
with mushy peas, chips
and chive cream. Thank you. Lovely.
People love a good murder.
(JACK) I began to tell Clair about
my good friend Professor Friedkin,
author of an inuential paper
on the criminal stare,
an ocular condition
that instantly identified a madman.
Monsieur?
(CLAIR) Jack?
Jack? Jack?
Jack?
- Jack?
- Yes. Sorry.
- Are you all right?
- Yes.
Yes. I'm sorry.
(GIGGLES NERVOUSLY)
- What was I talking about?
- The book.
- The criminal stare.
- Oh, yes, yes. the criminal stare.
Yeah. I found... I've trawled through
hundreds of these photographs and...
Um, when you kill someone,
when you take a life,
you know, like a shark or a chicken.
- How frightful.
- But it's not just a horror show.
I've realised that's not the reason
I have to write this.
No, it's a detective story, you see,
about how they become killers.
How do they get there? What fills
them with need to victimize and kill?
- Why choose mass murder?
- Why not become a writer?
Well, actually, writers
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"A Fantastic Fear of Everything" Scripts.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 24 Apr. 2024. <https://www.scripts.com/script/a_fantastic_fear_of_everything_8001>.
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