Feverman
Tim C
I just watched the "Feverman" episode of Monsters. Was that your first
produced script?
I was kind of knocked out of the story by how silly the fever looked. Was
that how you had envisioned the monster?
Tim C
nmstevens
Actually no. In the very first draft of the script, in fact, the whole
thing took place in a sort of country cottage rather than a mansion --
and the fever was described as a sort of raw, ferocious thing -- I
think I described it as something resembling a skinned werewolf -- and
that when you summoned this thing out -- it would come out and just go
for your throat like, well -- like a werewolf.
But the thing you have to understand about Monsters is -- they have no
money. And that monster would have required a full-body suit. That's
expensive.
What they proposed as an alternative, which I guess is kind of
ingenious in its own demented way, was not a "fever" per se, but a
"sickness" -- and there are some lines to that effect -- so it's a
sort of white, pale, slug like thing.
Okay -- it's not exactly a fever, it's a sort of sickness.
What, of course, it actually is, is a five hundred pound naked fat
woman with a make-up covering her head and breasts. Other than that,
and some slimey stuff on her body -- it's just her. Naked.
Thus, of course, not requiring very much make-up.
Personally, the look of the creature never really bothered me --
believe me, there were creatures on Monsters that were plenty worse.
We did one episode (this show was divided up east coast and west coast
-- this was shot on the west coast) -- it was about this old man who'd
found about this secret Indian cave with a pool that gave you eternal
youth -- and his daughter, who was an anthropologist, knew about it
and he talked her into into taking him there.
And in the script, they find this giant statue of a caterpillar poised
over the pool, and two statues of Indian warriors on either side.
Well, with this and that, it turns out the only way he gets what he
wants is if he kills his daughter and mixes her blood in the pool. In
the end he does it -- but he doesn't get what he wants, because it
turns out that the way it makes you immortal is by slowing you down
like ten thousand times, so that, to the outside world, you look
you're made of stone -- like those two warriors and the caterpillar,
which abruptly come to life -- they grab him, take him toward the
caterpillar. The cave is sealed off. Way in the future -- some
"future-cam" -- comes into the cave -- finds the "statues" of the
three of them -- the two braves holding the guy with the jaws of the
caterpillar around the neck of the guy -- and this presumably like in
the year three thousand or something -- and as the camera watches, the
guy's head falls off.
Well, okay -- not exactly great art, but what the fuck.
Next thing you know, I get a note from the down the hall, they don't
like the "future" stuff -- so now it ends just with the Indians taking
the guy toward the caterpillar thing and it closes its jaws around his
throat. Okay -- they don't quite get the point -- but, who am I? Fine.
Next thing you know, I get a note from the west coast -- after they've
put a director on it. They don't like the caterpillar -- would it be
okay if it was a snake. After all, what's the difference?
And I make a big mistake -- and here's a piece of advice. When ever
anybody says, "What's the difference" you should always say, "Well, if
there's no difference, why not just leave it the same?" -- If they
want to change it -- make them tell you why.
Because after I said fine -- and they change it to a snake, we found
out why. Because they wanted it to be different. The director -- or
somebody -- had an inspiration.
They didn't just want the caterpillar to bite the guy around the head
-- that would have been too easy. Or maybe not *too* easy, but at
least it's something that we could have done.
No. What they wanted was the snake to grab the guy, pick him up, shake
him like a terrier shakes a rat, fling him across the cave, have him
hit the wall of the cave -- and, hitting the far wall of the cave, he
would then *shatter* -- because, apparently, for reasons unclear to
me, or anybody else, he had turned to stone.
Well, we get this footage back and this fucking piece of shit snake
wouldn't have passed muster at mardi gras.
The end result of this is that this episode ended up having to be
recut and is now the only episode of Monsters with no fucking monster
in it.
NMS
Marifasus lupinus
> The end result of this is that this episode ended up having to be
> recut and is now the only episode of Monsters with no fucking monster
> in it.
>
> NMS
I have nothing to add to this, just want to say they're very fun
stories, thanks for sharing! One of my favorite genre authors, F.
Paul Wilson, wrote an episode of Monsters which I've never seen
although I read the script in one of his short story collections.
-ml
nmstevens
wrote:
This was Glim Glim -- which has to be, hands down, one of the most
down beat "Christmas" episodes of any series in the history of the
universe -- for which I, by the way, can take no credit, since it was
all done prior to my active involvement on the show.
NMS