Plottastic! Attack of the Blood Bay Lamprey Zombies

By Ray X


Sometimes my creative genius surprises me.

I'm all set to work on a screenplay for the ultimate SF horror movie.

Plot:  An international athletic competition is being held in a major South American city.  (For legal reasons this competition isn't the 2016 Summer Olympics and the city isn't Rio, Brazil.)  The city abuts a large body of water that some call Blood Bay.  This bay has been used for countless years as a sewer, the locals dumping in all sort of environmental nasties – garbage, chemicals, sewage, etc.

The South American host city assures the international athletic committee that the bay will be cleaned up before the games begin, especially those occurring in the water.

So what if some human body parts wash up on the beach area set aside for the volleyball games.  Just a fluke.  Anyway the bay will be in good shape.  Trust us.

But when the games start the pollution reduction is only partially completed. The international athletic organization doesn't mind, the games must go on, too much money will be lost.  Anyway the aquatic athletes are tough, especially the swimmers.

The host city thinks that everything should be OK, nothing to worry, even if the whole world is watching.

The swimmers, blinded by the glory of gold and silver prizes, decide to compete.

So during one competition a group of swimmers encounter green glowing glop floating on the surface.  (I forgot to mention that radioactive waste also gets dumped, a fictional detail needed for the SF angle.)  The swimmers enter the mutagen spot and are paralyzed, sinking to the bottom.

A search is launched but the bay is so polluted the bodies can't be found.

Then a couple of nights later strange creatures rise up from the water, walk onto the beach.  They look human but their faces are replaced by a large circular sucker mouths ringed with fangs.  They enter the city, attack people people, turning them into lamprey zombies.  The contagion quickly spreads –

OK, this won't fly.  Why?  Suspension of disbelief.  Too unbelievable.

No one will believe that an international athletic organization would allow swimmers to be exposed to such pollution.  And the swimmers would never enter the water knowing they risks they would be taking.

And what major city would allow the world to focus on its polluted bay, especially with a multitude of critical articles in the media about its insalubrious state.

All of that – no one will buy it.

Scratch this screenplay.