Movie Pitch

Marisse, Evert and I came up with this silly movie pitch while having dinner at Chili’s Sunday evening. Maybe it was all that nachos we ate. Anyway we were laughing our heads off the whole time. We actually had another silly movie pitch idea years before: different scenario but same title. Fearing that someone else is already making a movie similar to what we thought of, we retained the title and came up with another plot.

Dead Spot
A black (and white) comedy

After losing his wife to cancer, a detective and his son moves into the suburbs. There his son befriends a stray Dalmatian. He allows his son to keep the dog to help the kid get over his mother’s death. Named Spot by its new owner, the dog turns out to be a friendly one. But soon the boy started noticing strange things about Spot, like how it growls in anger whenever it sees a phone. Plus the kid starts having these weird violent dreams, seeing a particular pet cemetery marked X on a map.

Meanwhile, a series of similar deaths have been occurring in the neighborhood, and the detective is called upon to investigate. A similar pattern is seen: usually the victim is using his/her cellphone when suddenly the signal disappears. He/she then is attacked by a vicious creature. Several witnesses also claim they spotted a very thin dog slinking in the shadows near the scene of the crime.

Upon further investigation, the detective finds out the real history of Spot: years ago its previous owner would use the receiver of an old rotary phone as a “bone” and would toss it for the dog to fetch. One day he tossed it onto the street and when the Dalmatian caught it, it was suddenly run over by a telephone repair truck. But its body was never found.

To test his theory, he places his cellphone near Spot—no signal! Suddenly a skeletal dog attacks the detective. Spot defends the detective from the attacking skeleton, and the creature runs away. Spot runs after it, followed by the detective and his son. They all reach the pet cemetery, the same one marked X in the boy’s nightmares. They spot the skeleton dog lying near a very old grave—its cross is already lying on its side, forming an “x”. X marks the spot! An old faded picture is still nailed on the cross—it was a picture of Spot! Turns out that the poor dog, like Bruce Willis in “The Sixth Sense,” had no idea it was already dead! X marks the Spot.

Sadly the boy says goodbye to Spot and lets him go. The dog gently lies down beside its skeletal remains… and promptly disappears. The sun rises. The detective’s cellphone starts ringing. He looks at his son and says, “Spot is at peace now. This grave is not a dead spot anymore.” He then picks up his phone. “Hello?” He hears a ghostly dog howl on the other end of the line. Scary music as screen turns black. End credits roll.

We already have the tagline for the trailers and posters: “See Spot? Run!”