I've been reading cult/indy/schlock director Roger Corman's book "How I made a hundred movies in Hollywood and never lost a dime." In it, I found an outline for a script that sounds just like something I would write. I've never felt that way about a screenplay before. Here's the synposis of The Man with the X-Ray Eyes:
Dr. James Xavier injects himself with an experimental serum he has developed to expand human eyesight and he goes insane because he soon sees everything. Obsessed with the God-like possibilities, he pushes a colleague out of a window when he tries to inject X with a tranquilizer. He is now a mad genius on the run from the law.
Lead-reinforced goggles shield him from overpowering light but his life becomes a pathetic, tormented odyssey. Aided by a con artist played by Don Rickles, he works as a sideshow mind reader and healer before winning $20,000 in Vegas so he can develop an antidote. In a tussle with security guards, his goggles fall off and he panics, tossing the money into the air. When patrons riot, he flees to the desert.
Driving toward the desert, he sees through buildings and describes "a city unborn, flesh dissolved in an acid of light, a city of the dead." The car crashes and X staggers, blind into a desert tend revival. The preacher, offended by X's claim to see at the center of the universe the light of God, quotes Matthew: "If thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out." Tortured by voices in his head, he bends down and gouges out his own eyes.
Hmmm. A few months ago, I was reading about how cult/indy/schlock director Lloyd Kaufman was strongly influenced by film artist Stan Brakhage (see troma.com). It might be obvious to some people but I guess I never made the art film/b movie connection before. Think about our bird hitting the windows scene--it's very similar to a scene out of the upcoming remake of The Omen. And the fire at the end... that's straight out of Corman's The Fall of the House of Usher. Now where did I put that bucket of fake blood?
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