Round Seven [Rachel, My Dear v. Methane Madness]

Rachel, My Dear (Shockah rank: #15, Burley rank: #2)

v.

Methane Madness (Shockah rank: #7, Burley rank: #9)

AND THE ANCHORPERSON ON TV GOES LA DEE DA DEE DA...

Rachel, My Dear
Rachel had it all: a promising new career, loyal friends, and a loving fiancé. But one morning, she wakes up to find it all gone -- and discovers herself in a world of brick and glass, imprisoned by an architectural madman. She need only confess her love for him to be free -- but Rachel is going to fight back.

Pro
The first thing that hits me with this one is, unlike the other ideas, how literally down-to-earth it is. No aliens, no spaceships, no alternate realities, no unusual social systems that have to be built from the ground up, just one woman, one man, one house. (Two lungs, two lips, one tongue...) So there's definitely an immediacy to this -- it doesn't take a lot of explanation.

It's also a genre that creeps me out: The House As Prison. (See also: Misery, Intensity.) One of my favorites (which, admittedly, I haven't seen in years) was a 80s Mary Steenburgen flick called Dead of Winter, where she goes to an audition and ends up being imprisoned in a mansion for reasons she doesn't understand. (It's a lot like that bit in Code Unknown, come to think of it.) I'm trying to think why, exactly, this particular kind of story attracts and repulses me in equal measure, thinking that if I knew what made it tick, I could bring that consciously to this story. But I have no idea -- it just creeps my shit out.

It might be fun to design this crazy house. Did this "madman" design it solely for the purpose of confining Rachel? Has he done this before, then tire of his "true love", dispose of the victim, and start over? What kind of ingenious traps does it contain? Is he controlling everything from a safehouse, or does he actually live there somehow? He wants her love -- but what does that mean, exactly, and what's he going to do if he gets it?

Con
Although the Prison Planet connection is kinda weak, that's not my most pressing con. What I'm most worried about is transcending the genre/setup/expectations. Burley mentioned that he liked this one because it sounded like something David Fincher would give his eyeteeth for (or something like that). I can't disagree with that -- I'd love to see what Fincher would do with this idea, but I'm a little nervous to be the guy to provide the foundation for him to work from. I guess I'm not quite seeing the story here -- I see some of the action, but not the story, if you know what I mean. I see lots of opportunities for clever traps and gimmicks and whatnot, but I'm not seeing the opportunity for why I should care.

(On second thought, that might be a low blow -- what I'm saying here is that I'm not seeing an interesting character, yet, while I prefer Methane Madness at this point, there's nothing in that description that suggests an interesting character, either. Why the difference? Simply personal preference? Or something else?)

Another con (but potential pro) is that the godawful Saw series has kinda already staked out this kind of material. Certainly there's an expectation that this kind of material be grisly in a Roman arena sort of way. But perhaps that's the signal to try and wrestle this story and its genre away from those without taste and do something interesting and thoughtful with it. But it brings up another difficulty: assuming that Rachel is the only one imprisoned in the house, then we, as an audience, know that whatever she encounters there simply isn't going to kill her (unless we're pulling a Psycho). So maintaining tension through, say, the second act looks difficult at this point.

However, I suspect that Burley has a completely different take on this story, and hopefully it'll alleviate some of my concerns.

Methane Madness
In a World where stranded humans must guard themselves from a poisonous atmosphere, one scientist finds a process for rendering the air on the planet breathable. The only problem is, the planet is a prison and the guards will kill them all if they found out about the experiments.

Pro
Well, I love the idea of a small isolated outpost that has a poisonous atmosphere -- so claustrophobic, and threatening to both the prisoners and the guards. I can imagine there's a scene where the brutal guards institute some frontier justice and throw a prisoner out into the atmosphere, and we get an idea of what this stuff can do to a body. Or worse: the prisoners have to go out into the atmosphere for some kind of work detail, but they have to work fast or else the bad air will eat up their suits, and the guard cruelly close the gates on the last guy for some reason. Oh god, even worse: for kicks, the guards throw a prisoner outside, let the atmosphere have its way, then drag him back in just in time before he dies. (Jesus, where did all that dark stuff come from? :-)

Another thing: Above, I said that the description didn't suggest an interesting character, but I'm wrong. What's suggested is that the scientist who thinks he can turn the dangerous atmosphere harmless, is a prisoner. Okay, that's interesting. What did he do? Kill his wife? Not bury the research his superiors told him to? Conspire to kill Glorious Leader? And did he actually do any of these things, or was he unjustly imprisoned, a la Shawshank Redemption? Regardless, it seems clear to me that he wants to change the atmosphere in order to escape. (Or might there be another reason?)

And so, we have this scenario where the prisoners are figuring out how to escape their prison, but the key to doing it isn't necessarily carving a tunnel through rock or jumping in the laundry truck but attempting to do a science experiment under the noses of the guards. I think that's brilliant. Admittedly, the tense scenes they suggest are at heart no different if if the prisoners were trying to hide an escape route in their cell, but the idea that the work being done is intellectual (as opposed to physical) is really interesting to me.

Con
Too similar to "Prison Break"? They're not on another planet, but there's some crazy shit on that show. (Also some stupid shit, but that's mostly confined to the lame-brained lawyer character.) Also, while I see this as a pretty straightforward story... we kinda already have our straightforward story in Time to Die, which also has some (potentially) interesting philosophical/moral angles and a three-sided conflict. This story seems to, as of now, lack these added features.