HOTEL - A Short Film

1. EXT, INT. TRAIN STATION, IRISH COUNTRYSIDE, MORNING.
The film begins at a TRAIN STATION, in use, but barely used, away from the city, isolated, quiet. It is old and in dire need of renovation. Cheery but mildly sinister muzak plays in the background over a loose loudspeaker. The wire-mesh fence between the TICKET BOOTH/NEWSSTAND and the PLATFORM is torn, meaning anyone can wander onto a train without a ticket. The tiled floors are cracked and splayed with dirt and sand and flakes of mud. The TICKET CLERK, an old bald man of about ninety years of age in pebble-glass spectacles is visible, his head jutting out of the TICKET  BOOTH, reading a PAUL RAYMOND-type SOFTCORE PORNO MAG. A TRAIN, a well-used old cross-country diesel workhouse in gaudy brown and black livery and decals arrives, in a pool of soot. Out of the TRAIN, we see a small mass of passengers as they leave. There are an ELDERLY COUPLE dressed in their SUNDAY BEST (MAN in flat cap and tweed suit, WOMAN in floral dress and big hat) and their LITTLE GRANDSON dressed immaculately and somewhat anachronistically in typical SCHOOLBOY UNIFORM and CAP, holding a RED BALLOON. Then, we see ALICE, early twenties, brown hair neatly cut in a long bob, dressed in a no-nonsense gray skirt-suit. She is holding a single battered brown leather suitcase that looks as if it is about to crack open and pour out onto the tiled rubble, since it is filled to the brim with ALICE's myriad belongings. ALICE turns and exits the station.
2. EXT. TRAIN STATION, IRISH COUNTRYSIDE, MORNING.
Outside, the station is on the outskirts of an IRISH ANYTOWN. It could be THURLES. It could be BRAY. It could be DROGHEDA. We see mountains in the background, and a few REDBRICK HOUSES, possibly a CORNER SHOP, perhaps even a LIDL, although that would shatter the TIMELESS QUALITY in the story. An old, weathered 70s-era TRANSIT VAN with a possibly purple livery reading "LAUNDRY SERVICESS" (sic) arrives. Its driver, BENNY steps out. He is somewhere in his late twenties  or early thirties. He is simple, child-like, dressed in a blue inflatable raincoat with wooden bottle-cork-like buttons, like those in duffel coats, matched with a similarly light blue bobble hat.
ALICE (curious, handing her suitcase to BENNY)
Are you from the Santa Mira Hotel?
BENNY (nodding)
Yes, you have been sent here, haven't you?
ALICE (nodding, friendly)
Yes, I'm Alice. I'm the niece of the owner, Ingrid, I believe.
BENNY (nodding back, enthusiastic)
Yees, your Aunty Ingrid sent me. There isn't much a resemblance.
ALICE (shaking head, laughing)
Oh, we're not related. She's the wife of my Uncle Andre, my father's elder brother.
BENNY (nodding in realisation)
Oh, I see. I'm Benny by the way. Andre died before I was here. You mustn't have known him then, seeing as you look young.
ALICE (sadly)
No, I never met him. My dad and him were very close, being brothers. Then again, I have never met Ingrid, even.
BENNY (happy, listening)
Oh, well, to be honest, I never have either.
ALICE (realising the truth)
Oh, she's a recluse. Dad said that she never leaves the hotel, since Uncle Andre died.
BENNT (breathing a sigh)
Yes, she apparently calls her hotel "the Best", but the locals aren't too far of her, well those who have known her, like Daddy. They call her "the Wicked Bitch of the Best".
ALICE (nodding, quizzical)
So, she has a staff?
BENNY (cringing)
Yes, well, there isn't much. She has this Assistant Manager. I forget his name, but he is an English fella, one of them lads.
ALICE (confused)
What lads?
BENNY (hushed tones)
Likes other men.
ALICE (laughing)
Gay?
BENNY  (nodding)
Yes, this town is still quite primitive, so the elders' opinions aren't exactly equal to all. They view him with disdain. He's nice enough, though, perfectly harmless, since there's none of his type within a ten mile radius.
ALICE (amiable)
Anyone else?
BENNY (thinking)
Ooh, there is this butler, who sometimes appears, but he's usually busy caring your Aunty.
ALICE (confident, like a PR lady)
I see. Well, I am here to shoo the cuckoos from the nest, the Nest of the Best.
3. EXT.  ROADS, IRISH COUNTRYSIDE, MORNING.
We see the LAUNDRY VAN as it trundles through the seemingly glowing, fresh, grassy hills before it enters rougher, muddier, gorgeously brown mountainous terrain. It then glides onto a road, blanketed by sheets of ice. These sheets of ice lead onto a rough, winding, thin road, like a spindling snake made of snow. It looks slippery and dangerous. The LAUNDRY VAN seems to battle the elements, but it wins in the end.
4. EXT. SANTA MIRA HOTEL, IRISH COUNTRYSIDE, MORNING.
Eventually, the road leads onto the large rectangular CAR PARK of the grandiose  and hugely impressive, four-to-five storey SANTA MIRA HOTEL. Its name is written in black BLOCK CAPITALS upon the first floor of the hotel, among the flaking white paint of the first four or five storeys, before leading to the ATTIC. the ATTIC is housed in the black wooden clapboard roof, ornately segmented. Circular-rectangular CHATEAU-type windows hawking out of the roof, which is topped by a similarly blackened wood clapboard clock tower with a metal hen on top.
ALICE (stepping out, amazed)
What a palace!
BENNY (nodding, breathing a sigh of relief)
Glad you like the exterior.
ALICE (scathing)
I believe she has not exactly been forthcoming in giving us a star rating.
BENNY (child-like, quizzical)
What do you do exactly?
ALICE (confident, takes out CV)
I am working for my father's tourism review board. We are reviewing all hotels or guesthouses with more than fifty rooms on the island of Ireland to check if their standards have improved or decreased.
BENNY (carrying a basket of neatly-folded towels out of the VAN, gives ALICE her suitcase)
Here, your suitcase.
ALICE (slightly taken aback)
Er, thanks.
BENNY (still carrying the load, whistling, leading ALICE in)
Here, come on, follow me in. I need to deliver this load.
ALICE begrudgingly follows. She looks slightly tired and worn out.
5. INT. HOTEL LOBBY, IRISH COUNTRYSIDE, MORNING.
The two, BENNY and ALICE enter the LOBBY. It is he opposite to the old fashioned gothic of the exterior. It is tacky as anything. Everything is styled in "vanilla beige". The vanilla wallpaper is flock-beige, resembling a sheep's backside in fuzzy-felt form. The vanilla beige sofa is engulfed in awful shaggy zebra-fur cushions. There is a gold lobby desk with baubles on each side, that include carved-in owls. A tacky instrumental disco orchestration of "Begin the Beguine" plays on a loudspeaker. The leather guestbook at the center of the table only has oone signature on it - "L. Tate".
ALICE (suspicious)
There is no one around, and only one guest booked.
BENNY (blowing the wind)
Oh yes, possibly due to it being so expensive and due to the remote location. I don't know how she keeps up.
ALICE (suspicious)
Yes, the lack of business has somehow not sent them into decline.
BENNY (thinking)
Then again, this place is so big, it probably has gold hidden.
VELCRO (OOV, camp, Northern English)
May I be any help for you, Ma'am?
VELCRO, a figure at least somewhere in his forties appears. His hair is dyed peroxide blond, and styled in an unruly sub-Beatle mop/bowl-cut. He has visible lip gloss and eye liner. His nails are varnished. His hands are adorned with fingerless purple velvet gloves. He wears what appears to be an adult communion suit, coloured greyish-mauve. The suit consists of bell-bottom trousers, roll-neck sweater and wide-brim-lapelled jacket, possibly with a matching striped cravat.
VELCRO (bitchily)
Ah, so the lioness and the monkey...
ALICE (unsure, speaks up)
Ah, you must be the assistant manager. I'm Alice, Andre's niece.
VELCRO (kissing ALICE's hand)
Ah, mon ami, a pleasure to meet you. I am Johnny Velcro.
ALICE (taken aback)
Is that your real name?
VELCRO (laughing)
No, it is my stage name when I was in a band. But I kept it. It is better than my real name.
BENNY (curious)
What is your real name?
VELCRO (deadpan)
X. Norbert Meldrum.
ALICE (realises)
I can see why. Did you know my uncle?
VELCRO (wistful)
Andre, I knew him only slightly. I came here to step in when he got ill, but unfortunately he never recovered. You look too young to know him.
ALICE (sadly)
Well, I only know him from what my father told me. He sent me down to check the rating.
VELCRO (friendly)
Ah, I see. Well, our last rating was in 1986, a three star, just barely scraped in, but I assure you that we have improved.
ALICE (chewing)
So what is it now?
VELCRO (unsure)
Well, your Aunt Ingrid keeps all that. She is very secretive.
ALICE (curious)
Where is she now?
VELCRO (bitchily)
She, the Cat's mother?
ALICE (confused)
Eh, no, Aunt Ingrid?
VELCRO (rolls eyes)
Oh, she's ferreting away upstairs, cavorting freely to her heart's delight, cos she's no longer and frankly never was prone to the family way.
ALICE (curious)
I'd like to go on a tour.
VELCRO (friendly, relishes the opportunity)
Well, of course, we always welcome industry people. I met your father, very like Bunny.
ALICE (confused)
Bunny?
VELCRO (excuses himself)
Oh, that was your aunt's pet name for your uncle.
ALICE (to BENNY)
You want to go on this tour.
BENNY (turning, declines in a friendly manner)
No, I have to do these and then get back. Anyway, I've seen this hotel enough times. Enjoy it, it is a maze!
ALICE waves, slightly saddened by the reluctance of BENNY.
BENNY (runs back in with a pile of oddly youthful and glitzy dresses, ALICE not noticing)
Oh, I forgot to bring these dresses back for Ingrid.
VELCRO (grabs the dress, grateful)
Thank you, she'll be pleased. (Turns bitchy) Now go away, or else you'll be the one playing Escape from Colditz with the lady 'erself!
BENNY (confused, quickly runs out)
Eh, yeah, see ya!
ALICE turns, having not noticed BENNY's return.
ALICE (curious)
Whose dresses are these for?
VELCRO (chirpy)
Your aunt.
ALICE (confused)
Isn't she`a bit too old for these garments?
VELCRO (nodding, bitchily)
I agree. Mutton lavishly draped as lamb, rather than dressed. No amount of glitter and fur can cover the crows' feet or cloven hoof.
6. INT. KITCHEN, HOTEL, MORNING.
ALICE and VELCRO enter the labyrinthine, sterile, characterless, beige-walled and stainless steel-caked KITCHEN, livened up by the most basic of foods - e.g. Pot Noodles, Vesta boil-in-the-bag curries, Betty Crocker cake mix, a lot of disused takeaway packaging.
ALICE (confused)
Where's the chef?
VELCRO (melancholy)
Oh, Kurt, he died last month...
ALICE (sad)
Oh, I am sorry for your loss.
VELCRO (weeping)
Don't be! We were together twenty years!
ALICE (quizzical)
You were a couple?
VELCRO (nodding)
Yes, you could say that. He was a fiery Greek.
ALICE (curious)
Was he handsome?
VELCRO (wistful)
Not conventionally, but there was a strange magnetic aura of his bald pate and hairy eyebrows and the way he swigged a bottle of wine. Ah, happy days...
ALICE (disproving the food)
I am afraid to say you seem to be lazy.
VELCRO (pleading)
We don't have enough money to pay a chef yet. When we have the money, we will get one. We had to pay for the funeral. Kurt had no family. They all sank on the Poseidon, after a knees-up in New York.
ALICE (angry)
I understand the costs, but that ship is fictional.
VELCRO (shows puppy-dog eyes)
It's based on a true story!
We hear banging from up the stairs.
ALICE (confused)
What is that?
VELCRO (cheerful)
Oh, nothing, furniture movin', that's all!
ALICE (angry)
Oh, really, I am unable to trust someone whose only potatoes on the menu are a packet o'Smash, a few McCain's home fries in the freezer and some Tayto in the bar!
VELCRO (cheerful)
At least, we don't buy Lidl!
ALICE (stresing)
I know it is hard for you, but this hotel needs to stretch its wings in regards of budget and availability.
VELCRO (bitchy)
Trying hard to sound like a seasoned pro, eh? It would work if you didn't sound so bloody needy and patroniing. I'm old enough to be your mother (awkward pause) or at least your grim uncle.
ALICE (sadly nods towards VELCRO)
Yes, sir.
The tour begrudgingly continues. VELCRO opens the fridge, and finds a bottle of tonic water.
VELCRO (looking for a reaction, trying to break the ice)
Is it just me or does tonic water taste like that acidic vomit?
ALICE (shrugs)
I suppose so.
ALICE wanders over to the larder, guarded by a big metal safe/vault-type door.
ALICE (confused)
Why the security?
VELCRO (amiable)
Ah, it is a kind of anti-nuclear bomb shelter. Your aunt put it in here. She thinks we'll be nuked by the Ayatollah so Russia can gain a foothold in Western Europe.
VELCRO picks up the pile of AUNT INGRID's dresses left in the corner, and dumps them in the suspiciously large dumbwaiter.
ALICE (suspicious)
Isn't that too big?
VELCRO (confused)
Too big for what?
ALICE (specific)
Too big to be a dumbwaiter.
VELCRO (snide)
It's adapted for heavy use.
ALICE (rolls her eyes)
I see.
7. INT. BAR/DINING HALL, HOTEL, AFTERNOON.
THE DINING HALL is cavernous, and is clearly a ballroom with some tables and chairs. A small wood-trimmed bar is in the background. The place echoes with the sound of ALICE and VELCRO's footsteps. At the bar, we see ROLLO, seemingly in his late teens, red-haired, red-haired, dressed in a bell-boy outfit. He doesn't seem to speak and disturbingly looks at ALICE with the glare of a sex maniac.
VELCRO (friendly)
This is Rollo. Say hello to Alice, Rollo.
ROLLO (guttural grunt)
Heh.
VELCRO (trying to break the ice, friendly, calm)
Don't worry, he's young, uneducated, left here as a babe on the doorstep for our excellent service. We don't get much guests, let alone young girls. You're a novelty to him.
ALICE (slightly uncomfortable)
To be a novelty is an honor.
VELCRO (cautious)
Trust me, it isn't.
ALICE (confused)
What do you mean?
VELCRO (wistful)
I was in a pop band.
ALICE (pleasantly surprised)
Really?
VELCRO (nostalgic, lost in the mists of time)
Well, we were in fact a rather late-flowering glam rock band. We were called "Scotch Courage" as opposed to Dutch Courage, despite only one of us being Scottish.
ALICE (confused)
Why was that?
VELCRO (laughing)
Mal was born in Aberdeen, that's why, you fool!
ALICE (quizzical)
No, why were you called Scotch Courage?
VELCRO (wistful)
Our manager, Nicky Mitch thought that if we were more outwardly Scottish, we could eat a slice of the pie that the Bay City Rollers had cooked, even though their name was American. Because they were so obviously Scottish, the manager had been told by the record label that he wanted another Scottish pop act. We were thrown into the arena, to be fed by the proverbial lions.
ALICE (curious)
Did you have a success?
VELCRO (lost in thought)
We had a few Top Forty hits. "Oh, What A Sham", that was No. Thirty-Nine. And we had unexpected success with a sub-Boney M "political pop" (mimes inverted commas with hands) anthem called "I for Independence" which was banned on the BBC and in Ireland for being about the Romeo and Juliet esque love story of the daughter of a British general and an acne-faced ginger Irish Republican who was of an IRA dynasty.
ALICE (quizzical)
Did you know about Ireland when you wrote it?
VELCRO (laughing)
Nothing much, bar the leprechauns, the green and so on, and what was in the news. No, we did tour Ireland, and that is how I first came here. I immediately fell in love with the place. I was disappointed that it was more brown than green, but I came to appreciate brown. Now, it is my second-favourite color.
ALICE (curious)
What is your favorite colour?
VELCRO (camply)
Vanilla beige. Can't you tell?
ALICE (laughing)
Oh yes, but I had been mistaken in that I thought that was Aunt Ingrid's favorite color.
VELCRO (laughing)
We share many things including our favorite color.
ALICE (realising)
Ah, I see.
VELCRO (continuing the story of his life)
Any road, the band split when our lead singer, Les Tate, god rest his soul (VELCRO blesses himself) died in a tragic accident involving a steamroller, a goldfish bowl and a rake at a village fete he was opening up. (Uses hand gesture to stop ALICE, who is about to interrupt) Never mind, I have gotten over it.
ALICE (curious)
Where are we going now?
VELCRO (energetic)
To the bedrooms...
8. INT. UPSTAIRS CORRIDOR/BEDROOM, HOTEL.
CUT - ALICE and VELCRO wander the bland, beige-walled, grey-carpeted CORRIDOR. ALICE opens a room. The CAMERA TRACKS as she enters the grey-carpeted, beige-walled room, with a thin-sheeted camp bed and a lamp on a stool beside it. The TV is on a trolley, and seems to be coin-operated.
VELCRO (points at the TV)
The telly is coin-operated.
ALICE (nods)
I can see. Why is that?
VELCRO (smiling, sinister)
It pays for the license.
ALICE (pleased)
I see you go for a no-frills style. You know, functional.
VELCRO (calm)
Well, she wanted it glitzy, but we can't afford it, so with lack of effort comes lack of style and lack of expense. That's what they want with their Travelodges. Each room is identical.
9. HOTEL BEDROOM.
VELCRO and ALICE are now in a different room, the BED slightly askew but otherwise identical to the other room.
ALICE (pleased)
Yes, I see, you are right. Apart from the bed.
VELCRO (pushes the bed back with his foot)
Eh, yes, but not now!
10. HOTEL CORRIDOR.
VELCRO and ALICE are walking back towards the stairs.
ALICE (cautious)
May I check up on Aunt Ingrid?
VELCRO (stops ALICE)
No, she doesn't like being interrupted.
ALICE (polite)
Then, I'll knock.
VELCRO (begrudgingly)
Okay, you can. She's in Room 180. I have to do something.
ALICE (curious)
What?
VELCRO (thinking)
I noticed that there was a band called Scotch Courage playing in a local club. I wanted to see if they were my band and not a copy, a bloody tribute.
ALICE creeps in. She opens the door marked "180" in chalk. The door opens up. There is no one inside the BEDROOM. It is empty. ALICE peeps in, then walks out. She then runs back into the CORRIDOR. She reaches towards the DUMBWAITER, and walks inside it. It goes straight down with ALICE trapped inside.
11. INT. SECRET FLOOR, HOTEL.
ALICE walks out of the DUMBWAITER. She is in a dusty small area, a floor between floors, a secret floor only accessible via DUMBWAITER. To walk through, ALICE has to bend over or kneel. It is about five foot high leading to the roof.
ALICE (to herself)
So that's why it is so big!
ALICE then reaches a cobwebbed figure knelt and frozen. She sees a huge ginger flame of hair, perfectly coiffured and skeletal hands wearing velvet gloves. It is a skeleton, a skeleton dressed in a zebra-print dress and beige fur coat. It is AUNT INGRID, who has seemingly been secretly dead all along.
CUT - The DUMBWAITER falls down. ALICE is seemingly stuck.
12. HOTEL LOBBY.
CUT - We see VELCRO, maniacally grinning, as he talks to the PHONE.
VELCRO (aghast)
So, they're not the same band? They're a covers band who pass themselves as various has-been acts. Paper Lace sued them for copyright infringement? You must be joking! What, Violinski? They had the cheek to pass themselves off as Violinski by badly playing a violin whilst wearing a Jimmy Hill beard and a glittery jacket? Blasphemy! I haven't had such a shock since I was told my bellboy was a castrato. No wonder he don't speak anymore or got that promotion.
The CAMERA pans up to reveal the CEILING seemingly being torn apart from the inside. An odd shoving, pulling noise is heard from above. VELCRO is caught up too much in the phone call revealing that the band he had heard about was not his own but a scam.
13. INT. SECRET FLOOR, HOTEL.
ALICE looks down and makes a climb down the DUMB WAITER.