Hello Friends. It’s week 104. Here ends year two of Fake Movie Friday. Thank you everyone for the support over the last two years. If you’ve ever given me a title, I love you. If you’ve ever read one, I love you. Huge thanks to all the friends who have tried their hand at writing one over the last two years.Very special shout out to Russ and Andrew who wrote a ton of films and helped the site a great deal when we used to actually post here. Of course none of this would be possible without Tigs, writer of over 52 films, and who gave me more 7 or 8 brilliant titles to choose from almost every week of this second year. Check facebook for the maybe 20 other titles of his I didn’t use this week.
I got a ton of titles on Facebook this week. I’m skipping the ones that have already written themselves/have a built in plot/were jokes. That’s not what Fake Movie Friday is about. But thanks to all. I’m sorry if I didn’t get to your title.
The Big Reveal Title by Erin Smith
Jack has always had a Sherlock-ian talent. We see him growing up being able to figure out just about anything. At an early age he preempts his parents revelation that he is adopted, he tells friends parents that one is unfaithful, and ruins Christmas morning every year. We cut to adulthood where he is a decently successful private eye. He sits with his long time girlfriend, who he figures out is about to propose to him, thinking it would surprise him. He proposes first, but there is a knock at the door. He’s actually confused as to who it might be. A 15 yr old girl names Erin introduces herself, and tells him she is his daughter. He faints. She moves in with him and he tries his best. His detective skills work to solve crimes but aren’t great for raising a teen. This also puts a strain on his relationship. Erin runs away after a big fight. In searching for her he realizes he doesn’t really know a ton about her and has no trail to follow. He patches things up with his fiancé and after a considerable amount of work going through all the things Erin likes and meeting her friends, he finds her and also learns he really loves her.
The Close Call Title by Erin Smith
We begin with a montage of Steve’s life. He’s a young minor league umpire and gets shit day in and day out from players, coaches, and fans though he takes it well. He gets a call one day to replace a sick umpire in the big leagues. He asks where he needs to go and they say Boston. He tells them that is where he is from but assures them that he will not have any allegiance to the Red Sox. He calls his mother and lets her know he’s coming to Boston. When he gets there he finds a small bit of fan fare around the neighborhood for him. At the local bar men buy drinks for him and women hit on him, but he recognizes the bartender as Nicole, his high school girlfriend. She’s not impressed and still a bit mad that he left town so quickly to become a ball player, so the fact that he’s just an ump doesn’t mean celebration to her. That night in the game is the debut of the newest Japanese import pitcher for the Red Sox. Tensions are high as he is one out away from a perfect game. Steve calls a runner safe in a close call that could have been the last out. He ejects the Sox manager in the argument. The next batter hits a 2 run home run and the Red Sox go on to lose 2-1. The rest of the film is the fall out. The town turns on him. He’s not asked back to stick with that officiating crew. His face is all over SportsCenter. The Irish mob are after him as well as the Japanese pitcher’s has Yakuza ties. His strive for forgiveness as well as his renewed love for the city reconnect him with Nicole. Next year baseball introduces instant replay.
And Then There Was Murder Title by Erin Smith
Before the title card text on the screen reads “in the beginning god created the heavens and the earth. Then he created the beasts of the land and see, and then he created man… and then there was murder.” Cut to present day Detriot where a young detective is put on a murder case. The victim was bludgeoned to death by a rock. He finds a small symbol freshly painted on the wall of the alley. He searches for it on the internet and finds it is the mark of the sons of Cain. He tracks down a historian to help him understand it. The professor tells him how theSons of Cain believes their namesake was in the right and murder is man’s true purpose on the planet. The professor starts helping him as more people are killed they become a big story. He meets the professors daughter and hit it off. The press publishes their photo and the professor is murdered. The detective tracks down the murder who turns out to be a crazed former student behind it all. He kills him in the prosess and him and the daughter are totes in love.
Vulture Bat Title by Evelyn Arnold
A young couple sits in the desert making out on the hood of a car. They hear what sounds like wings above their head followed by a screeching noise. Something flashes quickly slashing both their faces. The young deputy pulls his car into a farm where a cows carcass lays torn apart. He yells at the owner saying he shouldn’t have left the animal out for so long dead, the vultures must have been at it for a week. The owner tells him that the cow was alive yesterday. The deputy is confused as even a group of vultures wouldn’t have done this much damage in so short a time. He takes some hair to the local university where he meets a hot grad student. The two investigate this and find the dead kids. A few other corpses are found under similar circumstances. They find that the fur is close to that of a bat and find an expert. They figure out he was doing experiments with vultures and bats for some crazy reason and he created the beast by mistake. The grad student disappears and the bat expert offers to help him find the cave. The expert gets weird as he talks about the scavenger ways of the vulture and the deputy realizes that the beast was just picking the corpses that were killed by the expert. The deputy fights the expert and the Vulture Bat and saves the hot grad.
Hands Off My Johnson, Johnson Title by Adam Wisnieski
Not going to go too deep into this one because it’s pretty simple (which I just tried to spell with a y). It’s a bit of a Forrest Gumpian journey through the civil rights movement. Our Gump though is a former White House janitor who claims that Lyndon B Johnson touched his dick one day. He claims it wasn’t a mistake and he goes on a crusade for his own personal rights against sexual harassment. He ends up crossing paths with many civil rights leaders and because a big part in many events. He becomes a bit of a hero for the common man but many do not know the reason for his involvement. He finally confronts President Johnson at the end before being forcefully kicked out of the White House.
A League of their Own 2: Dottie’s Revenge Title by Matt Adams
We open at the end of A League of Their Own at the Hall of Fame opening. Everyone is hurtled around Dottie asking where she’s been all these years. She smiles politely but looks off into the distance with a 1000 yard stare. We cut back to 1950 and she’s living with her husband Bill Pullman. A army jeep pulls up and tells him they need him. Dottie protests since he was hurt in WWII. They say it isn’t a combat assignment but vital to the war effort. Months later she receives a folded american flag. She tracks down Jimmy Dugan and they put together a group of women ballplayers that have lost husbands in the war, including Betti Spaghetti who vows not to let this happen again. They form a USO show of sorts of female ballplayers that are really over seas to run interference covert shit that keeps the men out of harms way. Dugan is killed and Dottie and takes a life before returning home, but safe with the knowledge that they saved lives.
Deadwalk Title By Russ Stevens
We open in a world after a a zombie outbreak. There is a small settlement surrounded by a wall. The dead surround most of the wall though there is one lengthy corridor with a few shambling zombies and gates. The sadistic leader of the town calls it the Deadwalk where he forces people who don’t follow his rules to run. No one knows where the walk ends. Some say it connects to another settlement, while some say its the path way to a truly safe area. There are cameras until the 5th zone, and no ones made it past the 4th. A group is punished and sent down it composing of a sheepish electronics expert who had his tongue cut out, a former enforcer for the ruling group who killed a girl the leader wanted, that girls hot sister, and a tough action hero who spits quips. They are forced to work together but quickly the hero needs to dispatch the enforcer. As they travel and fight the tech nerd figures out some of the gates and electronic defenses around the area. They work their way to zone 3 and find a way into the outer wall. The leader dispatches the a group to hunt them down. They fight them off and take down the wall and the dead flood the deadwalk. The group of three continues into zone 5 which is mysteriously missing any zombie activity. The leader busts through and kills the tech geek. Turns out he had a secret tunnel to zone 5 which is actually a beautiful safe zone, even nicer than their safe house. The hero kills him. They open the tunnel to the innocent of the settlement moving to zone 5.
The Waffle Maker Title by Chris McShane
(I’ve started this one a few times, its driving me crazy. The title is so simple, yet brilliant, yet stupid) A 40 something older man stands in a Sears-esque store staring up the shelf. He smiles a bit and reaches up for a box and pulls it down. He checks out and gets into his pick-up truck. He pulls into a small senior community and parks in the driveway of a small house with an unkempt yard. He lets himself in and calls for his father. His father is on the back porch staring out into the yard. He helps his dad into the yard and shows him the waffle maker he bought. His dad is a bit unresponsive and every answer is 2-3 words long. Chris tells him how he needs too eat more and how he remembers the large breakfasts his mother use to cook for the two of them. His father grumbles. Chris tells his dad he has to head back to work. His dad moves slowly throughout the house, doing very little with his day, only heading outside every once in a while to smoke a cigarette. He hears some seniors out enjoying themselves at the communal pool. He opens the fridge to get out bologna for his usual meal and finds none. He sees the waffle mix and decides to give it a try. He sits and eats his waffle and a feint smile creases his lips. In the coming weeks Chris discovers his father has cleaned up the house, finally hooked up the DVD player (to watch something manly and old like Longest Day), has had ladies over for breakfast, started a poker game, and much much more. Finally when Chris gets in a car accident and is bed ridden he awakens to a sweet smell. His father enters happy, presenting him with breakfast and letting him know he’ll be staying there to take care of him for a bit.
Four Score and Seven Beers Ago Title by Brendan Goggins
Our main character Brendan is a graduate student obsessed with Lincoln. He is just finishing up his dissertation about the presidents address at Gettysburg. He finishes up his paper and goes to celebrate with his friend. His friend surprises him with a weekend trip to Gettysburg where they will drink 87 beers each. Thus begins a alcohol fueled weekend of hijinks that is interrupted by the date of his presentation being changed to that Monday. The two must fight their drunken way back to the city. Returning he tries extremely unsuccessfully to defend his dissertation. He flips out on his friend about how the weekend ruined him and was a waste of his time. He turns to find the girl he fell for that weekend is there, having been given a train ticket by the friend. She feels betrayed and Brendan now fights back to get her and make amends with his friend. This works as he realizes all his work doesn’t really mean as much as love. He ends up starting a guided tour of the area with the two of them, living happily outside of academia.
Fart Wars Title by Sarah Mulligan
We outside of a school and a fart is heard. The camera zooms in through the door and down the hall into a classroom before zooming in on Tom’s face. Everyone is staring at him about to laugh. He says “it wasn’t me”, and everyone bursts out laughing. We cut to him in the hallway walking alone only saying some passing words to other nerds and such. One nerdy girl Sarah tries to talk to him a bit more but he’s weird about it. He passes by Scott, the jock who was sitting in front of him in class and he gives him a weird look as our focus switches to him. Scott talks to everyone, picks on some people and such. Later on they meet up in the bathroom. Tom approaches Scott telling him that he knows that Scott was the one who farted. Scott denies it and hits Tom. Tom angry, bands a number of his nerdy friends together and the single fart starts a whole click war around the high school. Tom goes a bit too far and loses the respect of Sarah as the school erupts in violence, but in the end gets everyone to get along even better than before, in a “No, I’m Fartacus” style moment, and wins Sarah back.
Stone’s Shadow Title by Kevin Monahan
Text on screen: “In the year (large number) humans left earth and colonized a new planet they named Stone. In order to stop any overpopulation they sent the lowest third class to the moon of Stone. Slightly larger than Earth’s moon it is in the shadow of Stone for most of the year.” We open on Stone during the dark period of the year. Kevin a young son of an engineer looks up at the heating apparatus that his father works on. Since the planet gets little light it needs to be heated using the immensely dense core of the moon. His father has been working a lot lately since there have been problems with the heat. There are talks that the power to heat the planet is fading and that they will all freeze. They plead with Stone for help but they say they can not take all the people, that they’ll have to try and fix it. Kevin and a cute lady friend of his beginning exploring a bit more to try and find out why. Her father is a scientist from Stone was sent there to help and brought his family. There is some tension between the two kids from different worlds. They share what they know from each parent and begin to suspect the worst. They start investigating on their own and run into all sorts of interference from the Stone security representatives. The heat begins to truly fail as the Stone people go to return but she stays to help. They find that in caves it is not the heat that isn’t working its another machine buried. They destroy it in a big moment and it turns out to be controlling the moons orbit. The destruction of the machine pulls the moon out of its orbit around stone and the two become twin planets revolving around each other on their way around the new sun.
Where The Socks Go Title by Meaghan Sullivan
Meaghan is a young girl who just moved to town with her mom. She hasn’t made any new friends besides one weird kid named Dale. Meaghan’s mom works all the time and she spends a lot of her time taking care of the house. Each time she does the laundry it seems like more and more socks go missing. She brings this up to her mom who brushes it off like the normal occurrence it is. She tells Dale who tells her he’s been tracking this for a long time. He believes something is going on in this town. The two work together and discover underground tunnels that connect the basements of the entire town. They work together to fight what turns out to be an Goblin, but the goblin was only gathering socks to feed a much bigger troll. The goblin was trying to keep the troll happy that really wanted to eat children. The troll escapes and the two friends have to stop it as it is attacking the town. They run to the local mall and gather up all the socks they can, leading the Troll away before it hurts anyone. They lead it into the forest and are met by a large group of goblins, who agree to take him far away and keep him safe.
When the Time Comes Title by Tigs
A young boy is in a store with his mother. On a tv in the store there is a news story about some mysterious debris found in a local forest. He wanders outside and turns the corner. He runs into a strange man whose face we don’t see hands him a small arrow shaped pendant on a chain. He tells him that he’ll need it, when the time comes. We jump forward in time and the boy is now getting his PHD in some science. He gets a job at a lab working with a controversial program similar to the hadron collider. There are many protesters who fear the meddling with the unknown is dangerous so close to the town. He ends up meeting a woman and falling for her. He finds out that she is in fact one of the protesters but hides himself from her. Their relationship continues as the launch of the device grows nearer. She finds out about him and is upset that he kept it from her. As they get ready to activate the device the protesters break in with her in the group. the device gets switched on and the protesters cause a malfunction of sorts. A strange hole opens up and starts pulling things into the hole. She gets sucked in and he screams as he holds on. We then see something start to slip from his neck. The arrow pendant comes out of his shirt and points directly at the hole. He stares at it, closes his eyes and lets go. He wakes up in the forest next to her and the things pulled in from the lab. She is happy he came for her as they realize they are all right. They hear sirens and see a news van come up. They are worried and decide to flee. They walk out of the forest and are in a small town that he immediately recognizes. He looks at what he is wearing and runs with her to the outside of a store. He stops his a young boy and hands him the pendant and tells him he’ll need it, when the time comes.
No Man Left Alive Title by Tigs
A strange virus spreads across the planet. The American Government is successful in containing it to a few specific zones. It is announced that instead of waiting for the infected to die out, elite military groups are being sent into each zone to extinguish all life inside. The first few zones are cleared already when John is added to the group going to the next zone. They fight large numbers of infected when they first enter but going deeper things start to quiet down. John is shocked by the brutality of the rest of the squad, even against the infected. They come across a strange settlement and discover it filled with uninfected. John ends up having to defend these people from the rest of the squad and alert the rest of the country about the atrocities that have happened in other zones. He succeeds and stays with the people on the settlement.
The Fighting Finnagan Brothers Title by Tigs
Through a voice over we hear about two Boston area brothers, Tom and Brian, were hockey players in their early 20s. They were local celebs who both fell on hard times. They both got involved with drugs and ended up in prison where the elder Tom was killed. They also have a significantly younger brother Pat. Pat’s in high school now and a big kid. He has no interest in fighting or being anything like his brothers. Coaches at the school are always trying to court him for teams. Also the local crime element that his brothers were involved him are trying to get him to join up. He takes care of his mother who hasn’t been the same since Tom died. Visiting his brother in prison gets him no where as Brian is so obsessed with his past glory and wants Pat to play hockey too. Pat really wants to be a writer and has been writing about his brothers for a long time. He is encourage by a teacher who is impressed by what he has and sends it off to a small publishing house. They are interested. On his way back from meeting with them he gets word that Brian was killed. He is told on the streets that it was because he wouldn’t join up with the gang his older brothers were involved in. He consoles his mother who tries to make him promise not to do anything. He ends up fighting many of the gang members before being shot dead in the street. We jump to his mother returning from his funeral, opening a box on the table filled with copies of a book “The Fighting Finnagan Brothers” by Pat Finnagan with an old picture of the three brothers together, smiling
The Wedding, The Witch, and the War Title by Tigs
(This is my favorite title of the bunch) We open on a beautiful white castle as a grand wedding is set to take place. People and personified animals gather in preparation and the camera heads up the tower into the window to find a beautiful princess dressing in her gown. A knock at the door and in walks in the mother, it is now a plain looking room with a plain looking modern woman in her dress. The mother tries several times to get the girls attention. Kate, the bride, has always been in her head, always having vivid fairy tale fantasies. The wedding goes off and its a good time. The groom seems a bit out of her league but a seemingly good guy. We continue to see the reality and the fiction she has built in her head. We cut to one night she is sitting at home watching the clock, her husband nowhere to be seen. She imagines the clock talking to her in a regal manner telling her the prince has not yet arrived. He makes it home eventually and seems off. We see them fight in reality and flip to her fantasy and he seems to be under a spell. She visits him at work and she sees it as a group of nobles on a hunting trip. She turns a corner in the hallway and looks down to a door which she sees a dark part of the forest leading up to a small broken house. She approaches slowly but is stopped by her husband. The door of the office opens to reveal a beautiful younger woman who seems weird around the two of them. She turns an walks away and we see that Kate sees her as an evil looking witch. Later at home her and her husband get into a fight. She visits her mom for the weekend and feels better picturing her mother has a fairy godmother. She returns home early to find what she sees as the evil witch on top of her prince, his essence transferring to her. We see flashes of reality, her husband and the woman covering themselves with a sheet, him trying to explain. She runs off threw the apartment door and into a forest. Her she makes friends with some animals and such, but we never really see the reality for a bit. She returns to her castle which is now overgrown with vines and evil looking. She fights the evil witch and kills her. She sees herself being carried on the shoulders of her people as a savior and being placed into a grand carriage. the camera zooms in on her looking out the back as the carriage pulls away and she is smiling. As it zooms out again we see her smiling from the back of a cop car, the street filled with on lookers, police surrounding the building putting up crime scene tape..
Thanks again everyone. If you enjoyed these short form films, why not go back and read some old ones. there are 103 others by me and many from many more.