| The Grindhouse trailer competition has just wrapped up at the SXSW Film Festival in Austin Texas, in which amateur filmmakers submitted their delightfully tacky fake movie trailers inspired by the Robert Rodriguez/Quentin Tarantino collaboration, Grindhouse (2007). Competitors paraded all manner of bizarre sights before their camcorders such as vengeful pornstar zombies, robot-blasting laser breasts and hobos with shotguns. If I were to enter this irresistible competition, my entry would most likely be a Shaw Brothers-style melodrama with a distinctly Canadian twist. It would go something like this:
Narrator: The year is 1969. Montreal; city of brotherly love. This multicultural utopia is about to be rocked by terrorism!" (Building explodes)
(Title Card: TERRORISM! Appears over a large map of Canada, over which a sinister shadow appears)
FLQ Terrorist: To inspire terror… we will use the most terrifying weapon known to man!
(A box containing seven antique FLYING GUILLOTINES is opened)
FLQ Terrorist: These weapons were a gift to Robespierre from the Emperor of China in 1793. It was either a gesture of support or a reminder that China had invented the guillotine first. Robespierre interpreted the gift as an insult, and its existence was kept secret, until this box turned up in the estate of an eccentric collector here in Quebec. The tempered steel blades can slice through anything…
(Quick shot of a FLYING GUILLOTINE (FG) crashing through a door)
…and a skilled user can decapitate any opponent from a distance of 100 paces.
(Quick shot of an FG landing on a man’s head, and yanking it off clean)
There will be no more negotiations. We will sever seven heads a day until Quebec is free!
Second Terrorist: You must not do this! We cannot support your insane plan!
(Second Terrorist is decapitated)
FLQ Terrorist (holding bloodstained FG): "Fool! I will brook no dissent!"
(Quick shot of the map of Canada, just as an FG blade is thrown into it, neatly dividing Quebec from the rest of Canada. Over this appears the film title – THE SEVEN FLYING GUILLOTINES OF QUEBEC)
Narrator: A nation decapitated!
(Montage of terrorists training themselves with FGs; cut to House of Parliament)
Politician: The Cabinet Minister has been missing for three days! Why haven’t we heard anything?
Aide (entering with head-sized box): Sir! This package just arrived! (Box is opened; politicians all recoil in disgust)
Narrator: Panic in the streets! (Quick cut to screaming crowd) "A man, pushed by tragedy into the outer reaches of psychopathic rage!"
(Grogan, the villain, picks up an FG from a dead terrorist and faces the camera, his face contorted by madness)
Grogan: "FLQ scum! They want to separate? I’ll separate them… from their heads!
Narrator: No one is safe from the madman’s fury!
Mayor: He’s gone too far! He’s killing more people than the terrorists… women, children, innocents… He must be stopped!
Hero: I’ll do it!
(Cut to dark alleyway, where Grogan spins his FG with an ominous whoosh-whoosh sound. The hero walks on oblivious, as a panicky bystander tries to warn him in French)
Hero: What? I don’t understand. Do you speak English? (The bystander pushes the Hero to the ground just as the FG flies into frame, throwing up sparks from the pavement) You saved my life!
Michel: It isn’t safe here. Follow me!
Narrator: Can this madness be stopped?
Michel: The surviving masters of the Flying Guillotine are hiding, but they will be meeting with us tomorrow night. Perhaps together we can convince them to end this insanity… (Michel is decapitated. Hero looks up in horror as Grogan sneers at him from a rooftop)
Grogan: Negotiating with terrorists eh, traitor? You’re next!
Narrator: Trapped between an elite cabal of terrorists and a vengeful maniac!
(Cut to Hero racing through the busy streets on a motorbike. A bus pulls up beside him with Grogan standing on the roof, spinning his FG and laughing. Another bus pulls up on the other side of the bike, with two FLQ terrorists standing on the roof, spinning their FGs. Hero looks back and forth at the two buses, panic-stricken)
Narrator: Suspense like you’ve never seen it before!
Mayor: There were seven flying guillotines in that box. One of them was trampled by the crowd at the Winter Carnival… (Quick cut to screaming mob) …and two more were recovered by the RCMP. (Quick cut to a Mountie on horseback, leaping over a chainsaw-wielding FLQ terrorist) That leaves four weapons unaccounted for. Where are they? (An ominous whooshing sound is heard, and we see another terrorist grinning through the window, swinging an FG)
Narrator: Unstoppable!
(Cut to a hippie driving a VW bus; an FG sails in the side window, clamps over his head, and yanks him out the door as the tires screech and the bus rolls on its side)
Narrator: Undetectable!
Hero (in bed with a naked woman): Get down! (They leap out either side of the bed as an FG shoots across the floor like a buzzsaw, bisecting the bed in a flurry of feathers and rended cloth)
Narrator: Unbelievable!
(Grogan stands behind a HOSTAGE, whose head is covered by the guillotine)
Grogan: Stay back, or the Prime Minister gets it!
Pierre Trudeau (muffled): Mmmmph! (The crowd gasps and steps back.)
Narrator: You’ve never seen anything like… (Cut to Grogan, surrounded by RCMP, flinging his FG into the rotors of a police helicopter. The rope goes taut, yanking him up out of frame) The Seven Flying Guillotines of Quebec! Coming soon to this theatre! |
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