Date: 8/15/06

Title: "The Defiled"

Author: Jack Vandagriff

Submitted by:

Submitted to: HSCL

Format: SP

Pages: 115

Draft:

Time: 1860 & 1880

Locale: Oklahoma Plains

Genre: Action/suspense

Analyst: Hollywoodscript.com

Premise: On the Oklahoma plains of 1860, one family farms the land and ekes out
a living, while the other family rapes, murders and takes from the living, and
when they meet, death harvests from them both.

QUICK COMMENT: Solid and suspenseful. Think "Deliverance" in the old West.

Concept very good

Characterization excellent

Dialogue excellent

Story Line very good

Setting/Prod. Values very good

Freshness of Story very good

SYNOPSIS:
In 1860, an iron-fisted old buffalo hunter sits on the opposite side of the campfire from his nine sons, ages six to eighteen. He gorges himself with buffalo meat, and then nods his approval for the hungry boys to eat. One of the sons, Clive, rushes to the cooking buffalo carcass only to be met by his father's knife, slashing him from the nose to the left ear. Bleeding and
writhing in pain Clive pleads with his father, "Why did you cut me, Pa?! It was my kill. I should eat first"! The father explains, "We ain't got much and we ain't much of a family, but we will have order! The eldest eats first"!

The next day as the father and his boys watch a farmer and his family, from the cover of some trees, the father explains to the boys why he is so hard on them. "In a few years the buffalo will be gone, so we'll have to live off of the land and anyone on it. You are gonna learn how to take"! The father then orders Daniel, one of the sons, "Kill the baby by the door"!

When Daniel hesitates, the rifle is ripped from his hands and given to Clive, who quickly shoots and kills the baby and the farmer in rapid succession. Once at the farmhouse, the father, disappointed in Daniel's weakness, tells him, "I need you to prove that you're a real man. Don't just sit on your horse like a festering saddle sore, get down and prove your manhood. Take the woman where she sits"!

The father has now laid the groundwork for their survival, so this band of illiterate brothers goes on a rampage through the land and the people for twenty years before coming across the Kelly farm.

An immigrant Irish couple, John and Addy Kelly, carved out a small farm and raised a daughter, Kathleen. Kathleen's handsome Indian husband, a three-year old son and devoted Cherokee grandfather made this family complete. On a beautiful moonlit night with the whiskey flowing, John and Yo-Na, the two drunken grandfathers, playfully argue whether the grandson should
be called by his Christian name, or by his Cherokee name. When the family-get-together breaks up, Kathleen and her husband, O-Sta-Yo-Na, walk to their tepee, not far from the cabin, while Yo-Na rides to the reservation. The grandson stays with John and Addy for the night.

In the tepee, with the moon shining through the center hole, Kathleen and O-Sta-Yo-Na profess their deep affection and then make love. Suddenly, three burly intruders burst into the tepee and attack O-Sta-Yo-Na with their long knives, killing him. As Kathleen wails her loss, the men drop their pants in anticipation of what is about to happen. The next morning, Yo-Na discovers
Kathleen and his son brutally butchered. He removes a knife from his son's chest, and cries toward the heavens, "Hear me my ancestors, this blade that killed the wife of my son, and my only son, and was left buried deep within his chest, is not finished! Its final resting place will be in the chest and heart of its owner"!

John and Yo-Na bury their children on a knoll overlooking the farm before riding into town, heavily armed. When the Sheriff tells them, "The boys that killed your children are a mean, smelly lot and you best exercise the utmost caution", John and Yo-Na realize, they are on their own.

They ride hell-bent across Oklahoma to the Arkansas River where, after some close calls, move in on their prey. As the morning sun rises over a campsite, John and Yo-Na lay behind bushes not thirty meters away. John is scared, and when one of the men walks toward them to relieve himself, John bursts from cover firing his rifle. The man is hit in the groin and killed instantly. Clive, now grown, scrambles for his rifle and BLAM! Yo-Na cuts him down. He falls, to the ground, paralyzed. As Yo-Na and John move in on the other brother, he touches his empty sheath. Yo-Na holds the knife that was left in his son, and asks the question. "Your sheath is empty, my hand is full. Tell me, what journey did your knife take to reach my hand"? The man tries to flee but only takes a couple of steps before Yo-Na hurls the knife into his throat, killing him.

John moves to kill Clive, but Yo-Na stops him, he has a better way. He takes bacon and smears it over Clive's body, leaving the slab resting on his back. Yo-Na tells Clive, "As you felt nothing when you killed our children, the coyotes and ants will feel the same". John and Yo-Na ride away with Clive's screams ringing in their ears.

Meanwhile, Addy, alone on the farm with her grandson, anxiously awaits John and Yo-Na's return. When she sees a rider beside the tepee, she thinks it is John. It isn't, it is Daniel and he is there for only one reason. Sensing that Daniel is no good, Addy sends her grandson into the cabin. Daniel quickly makes his intentions clear. "You're older than I prefer, but on the trail, you take what you find".

After Daniel viciously rapes Addy in her own bed, he vows, before he leaves, to return and share her with his brothers. That night, when John and Yo-Na return, Addy is in a state of shock, she has changed. She refuses to sleep in their bed and seems distant. When Addy falls into a whiskey induced neuroses, and no longer trusts John or Yo-Na, a doctor is brought to the cabin.

In the meantime, two more of the brothers, riding in a wagon through town, arouse the suspicions of the Sheriff, and he follows them to the knoll above the Kelly cabin. He has just begun to question them when, BLAM! A hole is blown through the tailgate, killing the Sheriff. Behind the tailgate is the paralyzed Clive, rescued from the coyotes, lying in the back of the wagon with a smoking gun in his hand. Clive sends his brothers, Lem and David, to the cabin where they kill the doctor, and then set up an ambush for John and Yo-Na.

While this is happening, Addy, her all consuming fear driven by flashbacks of her rape, flees with her grandson into the forest, narrowly avoiding Clive's brothers. Watching from the cover of the trees, her heart stops when she sees John and Yo-Na ride into view as Clive, Lem and David ready their rifles.

Looking through his rifle sights Clive tells his brothers, "I'm fixin' to take the Indian's horse right out from under him, and make him a one legged Indian to boot"! David replies, "They're easier to catch when they only got one leg, ain't that right, Clive"? BLAM! Clive shoots and Yo-Na's horse rears up, throwing him into the river. John, in his buckboard, whips his horse toward the
cabin but it is shot and falls to the ground.

Thus begins a vicious battle that leaves many dead and a score more than settled. But as a now readjusted John and Addy are awakened by Yo-Na to a beautiful morning on the Oklahoma plains, life and beautiful mornings won't last for long...as still more brothers make their way through town and head in an ominous direction.

COMMENTS: This is a very and inspired solid piece of work. A story filled with unsuspected twists and turns that just doesn't quit , fine characters especially the dastardly bad guys and also a sense of soul and raison detre. It's like a combination of your favorite blood and guts Clint Eastwood flick combined with a “Road to Perdition”/“Deliverance” type of soul and sensibility. Will make a damn good film. RECOMMENDED.

TO CONTACT WRITER DIRECTLY:
hppgrff@cs.com

 

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