"\\\ BackslasherBlog.com \\\"


                           Screenplay By

                  Anikó J. Bartos & Alan C. Baird



                                    Registered WGAw
                                    © 2012 Anikó J. Bartos &
                                      Alan C. Baird
                                    e: HotTip [at] Gmail.com
                                    w: www.BackslasherBlog.com



FADE IN:

INT. SWEATY PALMS PUBLIC LIBRARY CARREL - EVENING

DEREK and MOLLY, two moderately-geeky teenagers, huddle
over a computer keyboard, WHISPERING:

                        MOLLY
         Okay, the contest blog is almost
         ready to go.  We just need a good
         name.

                        DEREK
         Let's call it BackSplash.

                        MOLLY
         What's that?

                        DEREK
         The water that sprays upward, when
         you drop a huge turd in the toilet.

                        MOLLY
         Eww.  (long pause)  I like it.

She begins TYPING and CLICKING the mouse.

                        DEREK
              (overeager)
         Wanna post a sample contest entry?
         Maybe your tatt?

                        MOLLY
         Hey!  How do you know about that?

                        DEREK
         Umm, I saw it when you bent over to
         pick up some books.

Molly stares at him, hard.  Then she stands up and
looks around their carrel.  It's almost closing time,
and very few patrons remain in the library.  She raises
the back of her teeshirt and lowers her jeans slightly,
exposing the tattoo:  a rabbit sliding merrily down
into her butt crack.

                        MOLLY
         Hurry up.

Derek can't believe his luck, and scrambles to retrieve
a phonecam from his knapsack.  He SNAPS the photo.

                        DEREK
         What's that address again?

Molly moves the mouse arrow over a link, and points at
the bottom line.

                        MOLLY
         Do it fast.  They're closing.

The lights CLICK OFF and ON, several times, while Derek
frantically TYPES the address into his cell phone.

                        DEREK
         Sending... sending... okay, it
         should be blogged.

Molly reloads the webpage and voila!  There's her
tattoo.

                        MOLLY
         I wonder if anyone else will enter
         this contest... or even see it?

                        DEREK
         I'll send out a couple of eMails
         after I get home.


INT. BOB'S BEDROOM - LATER THAT EVENING

The room lights are off.  BOB, a severely-geeky
teenager in Mickey Mouse pajamas, nearly drools while
gazing into the cool white glow of his computer screen.

                        BOB
         Ooo.  Bunny.  I liiike bunnies.

After a few moments of staring, Bob gets busy, CLICKING
his mouse and TYPING furiously.


INT. SWEATY PALMS HIGH SCHOOL BATHROOM - NEXT MORNING

JENNIFER, an unusually-buxom teenager, stands in a
closed stall and glances at a computer printout.

                        JENNIFER
         Bunny, my ass.

Jennifer yanks down the left side of her spaghetti-
strap top, and covers her nipple with the other hand.
She pulls a phonecam out of her pocket, holds it at
arm's length beside her, and CLICKS a snapshot.


INT. SWEATY PALMS H.S. LIBRARY - LATER THAT MORNING

BILLY stares at one of the school's computer screens,
where the tattoo of a tiger is scratching and clawing
its way up the enormous curved mound of Jennifer's left
breast.  JIM walks by, behind Billy, then backs up to
peer over Billy's shoulder.  The two students ogle:

                        JIM
         Ooo.  Tiger.

                        BILLY\JIM
              (in unison)
         I liiike tigers.


INT. SWEATY PALMS H.S. LOCKER ROOM - THAT AFTERNOON

SUSIE, a willowy student, sits in front of her open
locker, looking at a printout of the tiger tattoo.  She
folds it, as the OTHER GIRLS in her gym class begin to
drift back into the locker room, GOSSIPING and drying
themselves with towels.  JILL CALLS OUT:

                        JILL
         Better hurry up, Susie.  You don't
         want to be late for Social Studies.
         This might be the day Billy stops
         ignoring you.

The other girls LAUGH with Jill, and Susie joins the
fun:

                        SUSIE
         Jill, you look a little parboiled.

Jill is genuinely worried and examines her body
minutely:

                        JILL
         Where?  WHERE?!

The other girls GIGGLE again.  Susie strips off her gym
duds, reaches into her locker for an object that she
wraps in her towel, then heads for the showers.

Once inside, Susie makes sure she's alone, then opens
up a phonecam.  She holds it out in front of her waist
and SNAPS a photo.

                        SUSIE
         Tiger, my ass.


INT. BILLY'S FAMILY ROOM - THAT EVENING

Billy and his football TEAMMATES (including SAM) stare
silently at Billy's computer screen, awestruck.  The
upper left quadrant of Susie's pubic hair has been
shaved off at a precise right angle, revealing the
tattoo of a cat with a lawnmower, cutting the rest.

                        SAM
              (stuttering)
         Ooo.  P... p... p... kitty.  I
         liiike p... p... p... kitties.


INT. SWEATY PALMS PUBLIC LIBRARY CARREL - MINUTES LATER

Derek and Molly huddle over a computer keyboard, mouths
agape:

                        DEREK
         Wow.  10 entries in 24 hours.

                        MOLLY
         And 632 hits.  I think we may be
         onto something.  (worried)  Does
         anyone know we're behind this?

                        DEREK
         Nope.  I bounced the eMails off a
         remailer in Amsterdam.  We're
         totally anonymous.  And our
         entrants...?

                        MOLLY
         They're protected, too.  I disabled
         the IP tracking feature.

                        DEREK
         Hey, that tattoo can't be real.

                        MOLLY
         It looks like a stick-on.  But this
         one...

                        DEREK
         ...is too ugly to be fake.

They SNICKER, until the OTHER PATRONS begin to SHUSH
them.

                        MOLLY
         Wow!  That guy has a great set of
         abs!!

                        DEREK
         But the stupid dickwad just HAD to
         call more attention to his muscles.
         What kind of idiot tattoos a half-
         dozen Budweiser cans onto his
         stomach?

                        MOLLY
         A six-pack on his six-pack!  Funny.

                        DEREK
         He'll be laughing a different tune,
         when his Budweiser turns into a big
         fat beer belly.

                        MOLLY
         Derek, you're envious!

                        DEREK
         Nah.  I could have a body like
         that.

                        MOLLY
         Maybe, if you did five hundred
         situps a day.

                        DEREK
         I'm a busy guy.  I don't have time
         for that kind of silliness.

                        MOLLY
         Of course you don't, Pudgy-Wudgy.

Molly tickles his stomach.  Derek instinctively draws
away, but clearly wants to soak up more of her
touching.  To cover his confusion, Derek points at
another photo on the computer screen.

                        DEREK
         This guy says his tiny house-fly
         tattoo grows into a gigantic
         horsefly, under the right
         conditions.

                        MOLLY
         How does it do that?

                        DEREK
         Ya got me.  Hm.  Look at all those
         veins.

                        MOLLY
         What part of the body...?

                        DEREK
         Oh, I get it.  That's a closeup of
         his... umm... thingie.

                        MOLLY\DEREK
              (in unison)
         EWW!!

The other patrons SHUSH them again.


INT. SWEATY PALMS STARBUCKS - CONTINUOUS

A pack of TEENAGERS surround Jim's laptop computer,
CHUCKLING at the same house-fly tattoo.

                        JENNIFER
         "Horsefly," eh?  I'll bet it's more
         like a mosquito.

                        BILLY
         Trouser Trout is back on the menu!

                        JIM
              (fake deep voice)
         Stay tuned for fresh new adventures
         of the Purple-Veined Avenger...

GALES OF ADOLESCENT LAUGHTER greet each new attempt at
humor.


INT. DARKENED ROOM - CONTINUOUS

A shadowy FIGURE looks at the same house-fly tattoo on
another computer screen, while slicing a carrot with a
razor-sharp hunting knife and CACKLING hideously.


INT. SWEATY PALMS H.S. CLASSROOM - NEXT DAY

MR. HECKMAN, a young teacher, lectures to his STUDENTS:

                        MR. HECKMAN
         Twenty years ago, little Susie
         Cheerleader would have written her
         private thoughts inside a locked
         diary...

                        SUSIE
         Hey!  That's obscene!

                        MR. HECKMAN
         Oh - sorry, Susie - I didn't know
         you were a cheerleader.

                        SUSIE
         I'm not.  That's why linking my
         name with those bobble-heads is
         obscene!

Most of the students LAUGH, but 3 GIRLS try to OBJECT.

                        MR. HECKMAN
         Okay, okay, my bad.  I was just
         trying to say that if the typical
         1980s teenager suddenly discovered
         that her younger brother had found
         the key to her diary, she would
         have thrown a fit.  Fair enough?

The 3 girls calm down, after a bit of GRUMBLING.

                        MR. HECKMAN
              (continuing)
         But today, that teenager is writing
         about her Friday-night backseat
         adventures on a public blog.

                        STUDENTS
              (in unison)
         Woo-hooooooo!

                        MR. HECKMAN
              (continuing)
         And she's sending the web address
         to all her friends...

The class CHUCKLES.

                        MR. HECKMAN
              (continuing)
         ...and she's shopping the material
         to all the major New York
         publishers, trying to land a
         six-figure book deal.

The class LAUGHS LOUDLY.

                        MR. HECKMAN
              (continuing)
         But does anyone know the main
         reason I've been encouraging you
         all to start blogs?

                        DEREK
         Freedom of the press?

Everyone looks at Derek as if he's babbling gibberish.

                        MR. HECKMAN
         Excellent, Derek!

Derek smiles victoriously.  Molly gazes at him with
pride.

                        MR. HECKMAN
              (continuing)
         A famous journalist, A.J. Liebling,
         once wrote:  "Freedom of the press
         is guaranteed only to those who own
         one."  So, how many of you own
         printing presses?

The students GIGGLE a bit, but no hands go up.

                        MR. HECKMAN
              (continuing)
         Come on, everyone needs their own
         printing press.  And I can get a
         fantastic deal on a used one.  Five
         thousand dollars.  Any takers?

                        SAM
         Th... th... that's several
         lifetimes of working at the B...
         B... Burger Hut.

The rest of the class LAUGHS.

                        MR. HECKMAN
         And we wouldn't wish that fate on
         our worst enemies, would we?  But
         what if I said you could get one
         for free?  Does that sound
         interesting?

                        BILLY
         Uh-oh.  I smell another blog pitch
         coming on.

The class LAUGHS again.

                        MR. HECKMAN
         Exactly.  If you have a blog, you
         can get your message out to nearly
         a billion people.  That's BILLION,
         with a capital B.  Billy, what
         would you say to a billion people?

                        BILLY
         I would ask those billion souls to
         please help make the world a better
         place... (pause) ...by each sending
         me a dollar.

The students, and Mr. Heckman, all GROAN.


INT. DARKENED ROOM - THAT EVENING

The shadowy Figure is now using an optical scanner to
upload an image onto a blog.  The same razor-sharp
hunting knife is sitting next to the scanner.  Blood is
spattered everywhere.


INT. SWEATY PALMS PUBLIC LIBRARY CARREL - MOMENTS LATER

                        MOLLY
         Hey, look - our BackSplash blog now
         has a trackback!

                        DEREK
         Cool - somebody likes our little
         contest!  Click the link.

                        MOLLY
         It's from a site called
         BackslasherBlog.  Hm, this image
         seems familiar...

                        DEREK
         It looks like that guy's house-fly
         tattoo, doesn't it?

                        MOLLY
         Yeah, but it's been transferred
         onto pink tissue paper.  A little
         rough around the edges, perhaps...

                        DEREK
         Oh, no.

Derek turns pale, runs over to the next carrel, and
THROWS UP.

                        MOLLY
         Derek, what's wrong?

                        DEREK
         That tattoo image wasn't
         transferred onto pink tissue paper.

                        MOLLY
         You mean...?

                        DEREK
         Yeah, I think BackslasherBlog has
         peeled the actual skin off that
         poor guy's thingie.

. . .

© 2008-2012 Anikó J. Bartos & Alan C. Baird · return to blog · return to synopses · ^