"THE LONG KISS GOODNIGHT" (1996)

THE LONG KISS GOODNIGHT

Written by

Shane Black

A WINDOWPANE

Assaulted from without by SNOWFLAKES. Wind tossed.

INSIDE, a bed, dappled with moon shadow. A LITTLE GIRL, fast asleep. The wind whistles and sighs outside. She DREAMS... Eyelids closed, eyes roving beneath... then suddenly they SNAP open. A stifled cry. She thrashes for her STUFFED BEAR, as a soft voice says:

VOICE Shhhhh.

And there's MOM, kneeling beside her. Vague shape in the dimness. The full moon throws light across one sparkling eye.

The mother nods. Passes her left hand gently over the girl's forehead.

The child subsides, breathing steady. Eyes closed. The mother rises. Regards her through the dimness. Slowly turns, heads for the door. Flicks on a Winnie the Pooh NIGHTLIGHT --

Her entire right forearm is slicked with blood. More blood on her Czech-made MP-5 machine gun.

She staggers just a little... barely noticeable. Passes out on the light. Into darkness. Sits beside her daughter's bed. The child sleeps peacefully. Outside snow slithers at the glass.

FADE OUT. Pause. Blackness.

FADE IN:

It's snowing in southwestern Ohio. Before us, nestled in the rolling hills: a postcard slice of suburbia. SUPER the legend:

UPPER SANDUSKY, OHIO.

Three Weeks Earlier.

Peaceful. Serene. It's the town in the glass bubble, the one God shakes to watch it snow...

CHILDREN, dozens of them, bursting from houses. Slapping of screen doors. A HORSE-DRIVEN SLEIGH is rattling down Main Street. Flanked by kids. Christmas carols, droning from loudspeakers.

HAPPY, LAUGHING SANTA waves howdy, chortling his "Ho's" in groups of three, meanwhile he's really a grizzled old fire marshall named EARL, freezing his nuts off.

Beside him sits MRS. CLAUS, about whom we notice two things: First, she's the June in this June/December pair -- and second, she's to kill for, an effortlessly beautiful woman. For the record, meet SAMANTHA CAINE.

Santa produces a bottle of Seagrams. Starts to open it.

Earl complies, grumbling. Some teenage burnouts howl from a street corner:

Samantha squirms in her seat, scowling.

Samantha stares at him.

Throughout the following NARRATION, we watch Sam: 1) Rallying the varsity CHEERLEADERS; 2) Showing off a GERBIL to her seventh graders; 3) Kneeling in church with her HUSBAND, blessing herself; 4) Absently fingering a silver KEY which she wears round her neck; and finally 5) Probing at a tiny ridged SCAR under her hairline.

Samantha walks with her husband HAL. Late thirties. Balding. Coming out of St. Paul's Episcopal Church.

She hugs him good-naturedly. As they near their house, an eight year-old GIRL drops from a TREEHOUSE and comes running, leaps into Mommy's arms --

The kid leaps into her arms, as we HEAR:

The family troops up the driveway to their SUBURBAN HOME. Chipper little A-frame. Christmas lights abound. Behind the house, a vast frozen POND. It is idyllic.

PARTY in progress. Laughter. Mingling. In the corner, CAITLIN puts pipe cleaner antlers on the gerbil. Samantha shepherds her home room class past the punchbowl. She is radiant. EARL surreptitiously nips from a silver flask.

ACROSS THE ROOM -- Her daughter CAITLIN hangs with two young girls. Shows off a plush TEDDY BEAR, says:

GIRL #1 points, whispers excitedly:

GIRL #1 That's her?

Caitlin nods. Kid #2:

GIRL #2 That's who?

GIRL #1 (excitedly) Her Mom, she's got amnesia.

GIRL #2 Swear?

GIRL #2 Too weird.

A voice interrupts their reverie:

The girls whirl around, startled -- Samantha is leaning on the desk behind them. Busted. She smiles amiably:

The girls look at her like she's grown a tail.

A DOOR KICKED OPEN, WHAM-! Splintered. Lock shattered.

A NUDE COUPLE on the bed. They look up, startled -- as three men burst through the door. The LEADER: a haggard-looking man sporting a soup-stain on his tie, whoops, that's the design, sorry. MITCH HENESSEY, private investigator and con man extraordinaire. He flashes a phony badge:

Donleavy looks pale, pasty. He stutters a few words. Loses interest. Wanders away across the room.

Donleavy plops in a chair. Belches. Grins foolishly. The man in bed points to him:

THE REMAINING COP is swaying on his feet. Like a tree in a hurricane. Donleavy pukes all over the floor. We CUT TO:

THERE'S THE GIRL. The one in bed moments ago. She and Henessey are dividing a wad of bills.

He indicates an envelope earmarked for him. Labeled in magic marker: SAMANTHA CAINE.

Henessey opens the envelope. Extracts a black and white HEAD SHOT of Samantha, says immediately:

Stares, mesmerized. Trin peers over his shoulder:

SAMANTHA and HAL bid goodnight to their friends and neighbors. Hal steers her away from a middle-aged teacher.

She notices EARL sitting in the bushes by the side of the building. He is speaking intently to the gerbil.

Samantha takes the keys from him. Breathes deeply of the chill night air. Smiling. Surveys the scene... their friends. The neighborhood. Sighs:

At which point, young Caitlin says:

ESTABLISHING SHOT - STATE PRISON - OHIO - NIGHTTIME

Switch gears: A grim, grey building. Guarded. Patrolled.

A tired TV set drones to an audience of one. Let's call him ONE-EYED JACK. In fact, let's give him one eye, the other replaced by a PATCH. He smokes cigarettes, stubs them out on the chair's armrest. Throws offhand glances at the TV screen.

The happy news chatter continues. Jack isn't listening. Jack isn't talking or breathing either. He's simply STARING at the TV screen, jaw slack...

He SCREAMS as we CUT TO:

If you had to pick a night to die horribly, you'd be hard pressed to find a nicer one. A country highway. Bathed in moonlight. Crusted with snow. Pontiac Sunbird, wending its way through the wooded slopes.

SAMANTHA drives while Earl (the SANTA we saw earlier) reclines, still drunk.

He makes a thumb circle. Jabs his finger in and out of it:

He starts playing the Hawaiian nose harp. In Sam's ear, she can't help it, snorts laughter --

THE ADULT DEER appears perfectly framed in the Sunbird's headlights. Dead ahead.

Sam looks up, face etched in sudden TERROR. *No time to think*. SWERVES, no dice...! BROADSIDES the animal --

And it comes THROUGH THE WINDSHIELD. All two hundred and fifteen pounds of it. Fucks up their night altogether. Actually, it only makes it *halfway* through --

But the damn thing is ALIVE. More than alive. KICKING. Thrashing. Squawling with pain and rage. A FLAILING HOOF takes out Earl. Kills him in less than a second. Collapses his skull.

Sam rides the wheel, screaming. An antler gouges her chest. Rips. Draws blood. She SWERVES, madly -- Hits the tree doing

ANOTHER ANGLE

Sam goes airborne. Explodes through the windshield, outward bound. Shower of glass, spritz of blood... And then she's flying. Slow motion, end over end... We lose all SOUND. Silence as she tumbles. Below and behind her, the Sunbird noiselessly ERUPTS. Fireball, sky high --

Sam floating. Describes a lazy arc in mid-air... Whoomph-! Disappears into the snow. Swallows her, leaves a silhouette. Around her, trees catch fire. Burn. She lies in her impromptu sarcophagus. Out of sight.

THE FLAMING DEER totters from the wreck, thrashing. Scene from a nightmare. Nightmare part two: from the snow, from the human-shaped divot -- arises a woman of blood.

She stumbles from the drift. Toward the wreck. And though it's clearly Sam Caine under all that crimson, there's something wrong about her *eyes*.

En route to the car, she kneels beside the suffering deer, its flesh scorched and torn -- and KILLS it. Puts it away with a sharp CRACK-!ing blow to the head. Stands, eyes squirming with madness...

The car's an inferno. Earl is dead. She turns away, wiping blood from her eyes -- Comes face to face with a SNOWMAN.

A jolly white fellow. Charcoal briquettes for eyes. She watches, fascinated, as he MELTS in the blast furnace heat -- With warning, she *screams*. Crumples to the ground.

The snowman's eyes fall out. He melts away and away...

Elsewhere. Tract housing, late-model cars. MITCH HENESSEY delivers a Christmas gift to his nine year-old son TODD: not just any gift, the *Midtown Saturn Orbiting Precinct*, with action figures. Henessey points to the box, engrossed:

VOICE interrupts them:

VOICE (O.S.) TODD, TIME FOR DINNER. NOW.

An awkward pause. Henessey scowls.

Henessey manages to control his face. Says tightly:

He watches, forlorn, as his son vanishes inside the house. Christmas lights, blinking feebly. We HEAR, supered:

As he reaches his car, his BEEPER goes off.

Henessey on the phone. Dials. Waits. We HEAR:

The phone picks up. He says:

Samantha, having survived. Laid up now in an austere hospital room. Listening to silence. Stares out the window at a sunlit tree. Head bandaged. Frowns:

Outside, snow slithers... Her eyelids, slowly closing. Slides off the edge of consciousness...

IN THE DREAM: She stands on a windswept cliff, before an incongruous FULL-LENGTH MIRROR. Staring at her reflection -- it's bleeding from a scalp wound.

She probes her head... frowns. Nothing. Nothing but the tiny RIDGED SCAR she's had for as long as she can remember.

The reflection eyes her grimly. Haggard. Tired.

Samantha is suddenly holding a cigarette. She raises it to her lips. Her reflection MIRRORS her precisely. Except Samantha COUGHS, chokes on the smoke -- While her bloody reflection takes a long, satisfying drag.

They are now in perfect synchronicity. Sam inhales easily.

The reflection grins. There's blood on its TEETH.

Back at home, business as usual, pre-Christmas. A COMMOTION has arisen: Gingerly, bones still aching, Samantha moves toward the KITCHEN. HAL and CAITLIN trail behind.

Hal worriedly exits to the garage. Plucks a tomato from the fridge, tosses it to Caitlin, who stands in the door.

Caitlin turns, tosses it to Sam --

Who catches it, plops it on the cutting board and proceeds to DICE it to SIMTHEREENS. Razor-thin slices. Knife a blur. Missing her fingers by millimeters, never faltering, like a mad mumblety-pegger --

Sam catches it. Knife flurries. Pieces, flying up.

And it becomes a bucket brigade. Hal heaves veggies to Caitlin who spins and relays to Mom who slices, dices, purees, and even makes curly fries. Veggies, incoming. HAL starts to lose it, starts lobbing them at Caitlin, one after another, she giggles, starts throwing them overhand --

And now it's a food fight, PELTING Mom, and the floor is COVERED with food as Hal stumbles in laughing, scoops up Caitlin --

Samantha shakes her head, grinning, dices to pieces a last, lovely radish. Ends with a flourish, TA-DAH-! Doesn't think: Flips the knife point up on ONE FINGER. Tips it for balance. Lobs a tomato. Slings the knife without looking, pins it to the wall, KA-CHUK--!

Everyone goes silent. The knife, quivering. Caitlin and Hal turn as one, gaping at her. She shrugs numbly. Blinks.

Underground. Water GURGLES through overhead pipes. Furnaces hum and tick in the sweaty gloom.

A SHIRTLESS MAN is tied to a chair. Weeping. Before him, what looks like a young GQ model. Blonde. Gorgeous. Impeccably attired. For the record, TIMOTHY. He looks his captive in the eye as the guy blubbers:

Timothy stares him full in the face, eyes narrowed... as though seeing into his brain. He nods, satisfied.

He slams home the knife. We don't see it, but we FEEL the impact. The FBI man's face contorts in SHOCK. Twisted. Inches away from Timothy, their eyes lock...

A CELLULAR PHONE BEEPS. Timothy reacts, annoyed. Plucks it from his belt and flips it open:

VOICE (O.S.) Message from Mr. Daedalus.

He shrugs at his captive. Rolls his eyes. The guy's still dying, still on the KNIFE.

VOICE (O.S.) He says he's sorry, but he needs you right away. Something's come up.

VOICE (O.S.) He's aware of your weekend plans, and he apologizes.

VOICE (O.S.) Your old colleague, One-Eyed Jack...? Recently escaped from a high-security prison, as you're aware. But listen to this: prior to his escape, seems he saw something on TV that disturbed him. So much he had to be sedated.

VOICE (O.S.) The man was overheard talking to himself under sedation. (beat) He said Charly Baltimore's alive, sir.

Timothy is silent.

He clicks off, face troubled. Withdraws the knife. Checks his clothing. Not one speck of blood.

A CARTON OF MARLBORO REDS hits the stack of groceries. HAL looks at his wife, bewildered.

At the next register over, a duo of Canadians throw looks her way. Confer in rapid-fire French, subtitled for us:

CANADIAN #1 Ooh, j'aimerais la baiser. (Subtitle: I'd like to fuck her.)

The checker looks up, smiles:

CANADIAN #2 Oui, j'veux etirer celle-la autour d'une chaise. Comme je le vois, une femme c'est comme Gumby avec des seins. (Subtitle: I'll stretch her over a chair, women are merely Gumbys with tits.)

He turns to Samantha -- except Sam isn't there. Her arm shoots out-! CLAMPS on one of the men. By the throat. Catches him like a fucking VICE. Her voice a sibilant hiss:

Subtitle: "Gumby's gonna stretch your neck, motherfucker." Accent flawless. Eyes like steel. The man will go on to start a profitable construction business with the bricks he shits.

SAMANTHA - ON THE PHONE TO HER SHRINK - INTERCUT

Jubilant, can't contain herself: