Future Cinema: Meth Mob (2014)

We open as three caravans set off for the world’s first and probably only meth-based flashmob, an event organized by a mysterious benefactor who promises a bottomless, pure, and incredibly potent batch of crank to be cooked-up in a chain of virgin septic tanks on a farm somewhere in Georgia.  Two brothers from Detroit—long unemployed and with nothing left to lose—set off in their battered old pick-up.  In Iowa, a small circle of friends from high school, now intermittently employed by the local meatpacking plant, rent a stretch limo with no plans of ever coming back.  In New Mexico, finally, a young speedmetal couple pawns their guitars for two Amtrak tickets to Georgia.  For the first 30 minutes or so, we cut between these three caravans as they discuss the accelerating implosion of the social contract in America over the past decade.  The brothers torch a Walmart, just for the hell of it.  During a violent thunderstorm, the limo kids clip a bank truck and send a million dollars in cash up into the swirling wind.  Impossibly high, the speedmetal couple laugh themselves sick throwing the luggage of an Ivy League Polo Team off the train.  

Arriving at the farm, our protagonists find themselves quickly absorbed among 50,000 fellow tweakers in an event that is larger and more awe-inspiring than anyone could have imagined.  It is the Woodstock of crank, taking the entire nation by surprise.  But before the police can organize a response, the mysterious benefactor, still unseen, orders the tanks of liquid ice to be uncorked.  There unfolds an unprecedented orgy of manic insanity fueled by a new strain of meth so strong that all are incapable of feeling any degree of pain, vulnerability, fatigue, or conscience.  The benefactor speaks once again through the loudspeakers—hundreds of school buses are now arriving for a short trip, a pièce de résistance to be staged for the world audience now watching via cable news.   Riding on the bus, our protagonists wonder what the ultimate destination will be.  They are a bit apprehensive, and yet exultant in a sense that there is no turning back.

Cut to road-sign as the buses roll by: Augusta National Golf Club

From this point on in the film, there will be NO MORE DIALOGUE.  Over the next 30 minutes, Part Chimp’s 30 Million People will play in a continuous loop, brought up in the mix 1db per minute until it plateaus for the final 10 minutes of the film (this is non-negotiable).  On screen, the buses come to a stop and the now thoroughly amped mob descends upon the golf course during the climatic final round of the Masters Tournament.  Shrieks of terror fill the air as panicked golfers and golf enthusiasts flee the line of advancing meth fiends.  They quickly take the clubhouse. Network golf commentators are shanked live on the air.  Purely ornamental sweaters tied around the neck now become nooses of pastel strangulation.  A rich old bastard tries to bribe his way out of the melee, but a crazed tweaker simply takes his C-notes and eats them one by one, never breaking eye contact.  The crystal army weaponizes all golf carts, golf-clubs, and assorted paraphernalia.  Using a water-trap to aid in their defense, a band of frat brothers is able to hold out for awhile with little more than a few well-thrown golf balls and a couple pitching wedges.  But in the end they are no match for an advancing flank of speed freaks armed with titanium drivers.   It is an unprecedented spectacle of violence and destruction—issuing not from “displaced” zombies or the “alibi” of an imaginary virus--but from years of repressed class conflict suddenly made most manifest in a brutal and globally-telecast beatdown.    

Cut to a chopper-view from above.  The local news team, now in position to report on the mayhem, notices something strange on the 18th green.  The once perfectly manicured patch of grass appears to be sinking, imploding, falling into the earth’s crust.  Zooming in for a closer view, we see flames and flows of lava rising from below, their luminous orange fury brilliantly framed by the lush greenery of the Augusta canopy.  The chaos continues unabated. Overwhelmed, the police have given up and simply wait for the promised deployment of the National Guard.  And then the reporter in the chopper sees the whole picture.  The tweakers have surrounded the course in a perfect circle and are closing their ranks, compacting the terrified golfers and golf-enthusiasts and pushing them inexorably toward the lake of fire that once was the 18th green.  Slowly at first, a few unlucky souls slip into the pit.  But as the crowd gets denser, entire walls of humanity begin falling to their fiery doom.  Men in green blazers with ridiculous visors that leave their bald-spots exposed.  Pearled women carrying lacy parasols emblazoned with the logos of local banks and real-estate firms.  Trust-fund kids.  Corporate junkets.  A secret reunion of the secret Skull and Bones society.  No one is spared.  The music hits maximum volume and holds.  Dead.  All of them dead, their bones sinking toward the earth’s core. 

Hard-cut to the shock of silence.  No one speaks, only a few birds are heard chirping in the spring air.  The camera slowly pans across the tweaking horde.  We see the ravaged faces, the hard-scrabbled bodies so beaten down by the years of deprivation and addiction.  But now there are only looks of exultation and ecstasy, beaming and beatitude. In the distance we begin to hear sirens and machinery, the advance of military reinforcements.  Slowly, a collective decision spreads almost telepathically through the crowd, a knowing smile on every tweaker’s face.  Wordlessly, a few hundred form a ring around the still-burning hell green at 18.  They look to one another and then to the sky before leaping joyously as one into the churning lava.  Resume Part Chimp—maximum volume.  Laughing.  They are laughing.  As the camera ascends higher and higher, we see wave after wave in concentric circles marching toward the pit for their turn to jump.  Clouds obscure our view.  Fade image and music.

The end.

Length: 82 minutes 
Tone: Vanishing Point crossed with The Devil's Rejects
Rating: Hard R followed by Unrated director’s cut
Odd Contract Stipulation: First suit to mention Thelma and Louisa in a production meeting will himself be tossed into the La Brea Tar Pits.
Budget: 20-30 million
Estimated global box-office: 100-300 million

Please send whatever residuals you believe are fair to my home address. 

Popular Posts