Treatment, First Draft

LELAND AND HOGARTH (formerly “Wallflower”)

It’s a Saturday night and a purple house shaped like a cat’s face bobs up and down to techno music playing within. Through its orifice-shaped windows, lights flash and monsters dance, chat, drink, and play games.

Inside, weird monsters jive to the music as they stand around a “beer pong” table, except instead of ping-pong balls, the balls are drunken frogs. Demonstrating the game, one player pokes the frog’s butt, jolting the frog awake and sending him careening off into a giant bucket. SCORE! The crowd cheers. Monsters dance and do the wave.

Leland sits in the corner with a goopy drink that seems to be alive. Leland’s eyes are wide and somewhat shaky. His body is completely still, as a group of monster pass him doing a hip-thrust conga line. He doesn’t notice that his drink is crawling out of his cup in attempt to escape. The drink plops on the floor, but its moment of success ends when another partier steps on it and it fizzles into the carpet.

The monsters bounce the drunk frogs on their heads to impress the female monsters. Hogarth, a tall, lanky creature, is sitting next to Leland. Hogarth is very drunk. He unabashedly breathes down Leland’s neck and stares at him. Leland scooches away from Hogarth, until he notices a guy hip-thrusting in his direction. Hogarth passes out on Leland’s lap.

The monsters continue to play frog pong. The newest player, an overly excited little twit thing, hyperventilates and pokes the frog a little too hard. The frog flies over in Leland’s direction and into the wall, nearly splatting on Leland’s face. Fearing for his life, Leland looks over to see the front door exit glimmering in the distance. He pushes Hogarth off his lap and proceeds to the door, until…

OJ, a big fluffy teddy-bear looking monster, bursts through the doors with a large smile on his face. His cronies follow behind him, including his girlfriend, Bonita. The music is turned up. OJ smooches Bonita and begins to do a dance. Bonita, a female monster with a long tongue, gets so excited that she throws herself at OJ as he is dancing. OJ, however, doesn’t notice her. As he is doing a weird spin move he whacks Bonita, sending her flying into Leland. As Leland and Bonita collect themselves, they make eye contact. Bonita licks his face. Leland, startled, jumps up and makes a run for it.

Just as he is about to reach the front door, Leland bumps into a large, fluffy wall. He looks up to see OJ smiling down at him. All of a sudden, OJ’s expression changes into a death glare. OJ picks up Leland, and throws him into the roof.

Leland breaks through the roof, flying out of the house and onto the sidewalk. As he gets up, another monster is thrown out through the roof: Hogarth. Leland timidly looks at Hogarth, who seems to be dead. All of a sudden, Hogarth gets up. He stands awkwardly next to Leland for a minute and then impulsively gives Leland a hug. Leland and Hogarth become friends.