Ghost of a Chance?

Grab your seats, class is in session.

For today’s session, things change a bit. This time, everyone else gets to grade The Professor. A few weeks back I bothered watching Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance (no, I didn’t pay for it) and proceeded to do nothing but tell everyone I knew how terrible the movie was. It was terrible, awful in fact, worse than the first. I put something on my Facebook about how someone needed to rescue the movie and make a good one. For some reason, this sparked the creative juices going. I started having ideas of what I thought would make a decent Ghost Rider movie and I wrote them down. Not sure why, I just figured what the hell. This brings us to the point of this post. I’m going to share it, out of pure curiosity. Just want to see what some people think. If it sucks, it sucks. If not, then maybe I missed a calling. Only one way to find out, so here we go. It’s long, so be ready to read.

(Opening)

It’s a plateau landscape at night. Most of the land is covered in darkness and shadow, but it’s still just light enough where you can see certain things, like rocky crags in the distant skyline, the occasional tree, things like that. There’s a low whistling wind that is suddenly interrupted by the sound of horse hooves trotting along the hardened ground. The camera pans up to look over the shoulder of what appears to be an older cowboy, probably in his mid to late 70’s. He looks like he can barely stay up on the horse, but you can’t see his face. His clothes are tattered, covered in dust and grit. His head tilts up slightly and looks forward. The camera pans to show you what he is looking at. Off in the distance is the light of a few fires, lighting up what looks to be a camp of some kind. The cowboy tilts his head back down, adjusts his grip on the horses reins, and kicks the horse into a full gallop.

The scene shifts to the camp. As the view shifts, you can see it’s not so much a camp as it is some kind of ceremonial circle. There are large torches lining the outside ring and lines carved into the group in bizarre runes and shapes. At the top of the circle is a make-shift alter holding a strange artifact. In front of the alter is what appears to have once been an Indian Shaman, now corrupted with some kind of evil. He has shadowy marks covering his entire body, his skin is ashen and gray. He speaks very quietly and is chanting in some kind of demonic language. In his right hand he holds a bizarre looking knife that has a cylindrical blade and a bulb at the base of the hilt. Next to him, tied to a post with her hands above her head is a young woman. She appears to be fairly young, maybe 18-20. Her feet are also bound and her mouth is gagged. She looks as if she has no idea where she is or why. Behind them is what looks like the remnants of an Indian tribe, each one looking possessed similar to the Shaman, but not to the same extent. They appear almost more hypnotized than possessed and are chanting along with the Shaman.

The scene briefly shifts back to the plateau landscape showing the cowboy on his horse, galloping at full speed towards the circle.

Shifting back to the circle, the focus sets on the Shaman who is now chanting louder and more animated. His head is tilted down, never lifting, but his voice continues to get louder to the point where his whole body is shaking. Suddenly he stops, twists the knife in his hand, and drives it upwards into the young woman’s chest. She screams as much as she can with her mouth gagged. The camera focuses down to the bulb on the knife which we see is filling with the young woman’s blood.

The scene shifts again, back to the cowboy. Suddenly the horse and the cowboy both shudder and yell out in pain. The horse kicks up, almost knocking the cowboy from it’s back. As it comes down, the cowboy slumps forward on the horse, his face touching the back of the horses neck, his left hand coming to rest on the side of the horses neck. The camera slow pans in to focus on the cowboys hand on the side of the horses neck. Slowly, the hand begins to smolder and the smoke begins to get thicker. Suddenly the hand bursts into flames. As the camera pans back, we see the entire horse and cowboy burst into flames. Where the horse and cowboy were now sits a large fireball lighting up the entire scene. It sits on this view for a few moments, when without warning, the Ghost Rider, atop his nightmare horse, explode from the fireball and tears off the circle, leaving a flaming trail of horse hoof prints behind.

We go back to the Shaman, this time from behind. His body is still shaking from his loud chanting and his hand is still on the knife which is still in the poor young girls chest. The Shaman’s head snaps straight up, as if something has startled him. The camera pans up to the back of his head as he slowly turns his head to look over his shoulder. A snarl comes across his face and his eyes begin to glow a dull red. He changes his focus to something off to his left, nods at it, and motions his head backwards as if issuing a silent command. His head then leans back down and the chanting continues.

The scene shifts to just outside the circle, where we now see a group of possessed Indian tribesmen running out towards the approaching Rider. Some of the tribesmen continue running on, towards the oncoming Rider, while the rest stop and form a wall in front of the circle.

We shift back to the view of the Rider, who looks up to see the tribesmen coming at him. He reaches down to his side and pulls a demonic looking shotgun from a holster on the horses’ saddle. He takes aim at the first approaching tribesmen and pulls the trigger. A burst of hellfire rockets from the shotgun, blasting the tribesmen back, and reducing him to ash. One by one the Rider continues to destroy the tribesmen with a never ending stream of hellfire blasts. As the Rider approaches the wall of tribesmen, he’s pauses. The view switches to his perspective. The tribesmen forming the wall spread to each side. The ground where they stood starts to shake and a large earth elemental breaks away from the ground, crawls from its knees to a standing position, and towers over the tribesmen glaring at the Rider. It reaches down, pulls a rock from the ground and throws it at the Rider. The Rider ducks down and the boulder sails just over his head. It one smooth draw, the Rider aims the shotgun at the elemental and fires two shots, taking out both legs on the elemental. The elemental roars as it drops to the ground and begins to fall backwards. Just as it begins to fall, the Rider kicks his horse into a blazing gallop and runs straight up the front of the elementals body and leaps into the air. As the horse’s flaming hooves run across the elemental, it begins to char and crack, falling away into thousands of pieces.

Quick cut back to the Shaman, who spins and looks up to see the Rider coming down through the air and landing between he and the artifact. A brief pause takes place as the Rider and the Shaman lock stares. In a blink, the Rider again raises the shotgun and blasts the Shaman with a hellfire blast to the abdomen. The Shaman flies back and hits the ground, seemingly dead. The Rider’s head turns from the Shaman to the artifact, which he scoops up, drops into a saddle bag, and kicks the horse into a full gallop away.

As we see the Rider speeding off into the distance, the camera shifts back to the Shaman. Slowly the shadowy marks on the Shaman’s body start to pull away, moving towards his mid-section. As the marks move away, the Shaman’s body begins to return to normal. The focus now shifts to the Shaman’s mid-section where the hellfire blast hit. Smoke and shadows start to swirl from the hole and begin to take shape above the Shaman’s body. A non-descript face, blank aside from eyes and a mouth appear in the middle of the cloud. The eyes flare bright red and the being screams, “SLADE!” (referencing Carter Slade, the cowboy Ghost Rider.) The now cloud like being takes off like a shot, following after the Rider.

The scene now pans back, kind of a 3/4 view where we can see the Rider racing off, the line of fire behind him, and the cloud like being chasing from behind. The Rider reaches back with the shotgun unleashing shots of hellfire, trying to slow the cloud being down. The occasional shot hits the cloud, slowing it for a second, before it reconstitutes and continues after the Rider.

The Rider continues racing and appears to be heading towards a camp setup just ahead. Just as the Rider approaches this camp, the cloud being releases a bolt of pure darkness, striking both the Rider and his horse, sending the Rider flying through the air over the camp, landing hard on the other side. As he lands, we see the saddle bag containing the artifact land within the camp and spill out onto the ground. The cloud comes to a stop before the camp, swirling about and forming the shape of a man. It boldly walks forward into the camp, reaching down for the artifact. As it stands up straight again, a bright white ring appears around the camp and the shadowy form begins to freeze in place, unable to move. We pan back to the Rider who stands tall, raising the shotgun and leveling it towards the shadowy form. “Consecrated ground,” the Rider says, in almost a hiss more than a voice. “Back to hell, Blackheart!” he shouts, pulling the trigger. The hellfire shot strikes the shadowy form, causing it to explode into ash and shadow. The artifact falls safely to the ground.

(Start opening credits)

The rest of the story would explain that the existence of a cult seeking to bring the devil back to Earth and the artifact is the key. It would also explain the origin of how Johnny Blaze becomes the Rider, albeit in a brief fashion, maybe more like a quick flashback then a full explanation. He learns how the spilling of innocent blood summons the Rider and that he is the one who must stop this cult. Etc etc. I haven’t really worked on anything beyond the opening there. Hopefully what’s there doesn’t suck, but screw it. I gave it a shot.

Until next time…

Class dismissed.