Concept for an animated film (and potential sequel)
Location: N.E. Big City – a.k.a. New York City/Chicago/Boston/etc. late 1940s
Theme/Genre: Mystery, Noir, Romance, Gangster
Characters
Narration/Voice Over/Newscaster
Danny Annelid: earthworm, mid 30s
Steve Annelid: earthworm, early 30s
Stella Helminth: earthworm, late 20s
Chief Grey Harper: grasshopper, early 40s
Chirp Chitin: cricket, late 30s
Dr. Rachnid: spider, mid 40s
Boss Newton: hellbender/salamander thing, mid 50s
Beetle: beetle, 30s
Boscis: horsefly, 40s
Jackets/Wasps: yellow jackets/hornets, various
Gubernatorial candidates
It is the late 1940’s in big city America. But the troubles of mankind are of no concern to the citizens of a gutter world of discarded Styrofoam skyscrapers and tin can houses, where the members of society are divided by the straightness of their antennae and shininess of their wings, where hard times are a fact of life, and civilization hangs by a thread thinner than a spider’s web. This invisible place, nestled in an urban alleyway, unknown to the humans who bustle in the street nearby, is the place that thousands of tiny citizens call home. This is Arthropolis.
It’s the time again for gubernatorial elections in Arthropolis, and with the current state of affairs, it is to no one’s surprise that the election will be a close one. Three candidates, the top two neck and neck, are the talk of the town. It seems every front-page article has one or both of their names emblazoned above it. Known to only a few, a political machine headed by BOSS NEWTON had one of the candidates in its pocket. But the candidate was currently in second place, and time was running out.
A member of Newton’s machine named DANNY ANNELID had fallen out of Newton’s favor. Newton decides to give Danny one last chance to redeem himself – by murdering the opponent candidate.
Danny Annelid is an earthworm in his mid-thirties, though he appears older due to his unhealthy habits of heavy drinking, cigar smoking, and the many fights he’s gotten himself into. He lives just inside one of the dirtiest run-off drains on the street with his younger brother STEVE ANNELID, who is in his early twenties. The Annelid brothers’ parents disappeared many years ago, while Steve was only a child. Danny all but raised Steve on his own, and though he was a constant thorn in Danny’s side, he never quite had the heart to abandon him. Steve was born with an unfortunate mental handicap. He is a sweet young man, well-meaning and gentle, but incredibly naïve and gullible. He understands only the world that Danny fabricated for him. Danny, a disgusting slimeball of a worm, is nevertheless quick-thinking and charismatic, but amoral, ruthless, and cruel to most everyone around him, especially his brother.
After receiving instructions from Newton, Danny meets with two of his close friends (a non-descript beetle named BEETLE, and a horsefly named BOSCIS) to discuss plans for the murder. After going over the plot many times, working out the details and memorizing each step, the party disbands, only to discover that Steve had been innocently watching the whole time. Proving a point to his friends, Danny viciously beats Steve, inviting his friends to join in. They stop short of killing him. Steve is crying and apologizing to his brother. Danny tells him it’s okay and that he loves him and that he needed to make sure Steve understood him. “I know you, Stevie. I know it can be hard for you. I just had to make sure ya understand. S’why I hit ya, to make sure. But I’m sure...that you understand now. Yeah? You do. Cuz you waint gonna tell nobody about what weez doin’ here, cuz you love your brother, and your brother, I love you. I love you like pa and ma love you, and thas why I’mma take you to see the doctor, get you all patched up. Aight, boys, he ain’t no trouble, now gidoudda here. Cmon, Stevie, lets get yooz to the car.” He says he’ll take good care of him and make him all better. Danny’s friends laugh and leave the scene, and Danny takes Steve to the doctor’s office, leaving him just outside the door, instructing him to go in and get cleaned up. “Now you go on in there and tell em some thugs just roughed you up on the streets, yeah? Doc’ll have you right as rain in no time. I love you, Steve.” Just as Steve passes out from pain and exhaustion, a beautiful face appeared in the light, and then is replaced by a terrible dark shadow and the whispering voice of DR. RACHNID who recognizes the patient from previous treatments. “Doctor! Oh he’s hurt bad! Come quick!” ”Ah, the younger Annelid brother again. Poor boy. People...can be so cruel...to prey on the innocent and helpless...tragic.” “The poor thing. Don’t worry...we’ll...tak…”
Steve awakens to a soft touch. A beautiful earthworm named STELLA HELMINTH was dabbing a pain reliever on the last wound. Steve is too enthralled to speak. This is the first beautiful thing he’s ever seen, and he is immediately smitten. Dr. Rachnid enters the room to tell them (with mild disgust) that Steve’s brother Danny is here to pick him up. “Mr. Annelid, your brother is here to retrieve you.” Stella nods and looks to Steve, who takes a good look at the doctor, but shows no outward fear. Stella smiles at this. She helps him out the door. “He’s a kind man, and brilliant. Different to be sure, but I trust him. It’s nice...when someone else sees him the way I do, not...as a monster. He has that in him, but don’t we all? Well, maybe not you. But some more than others.” “STEVIE! Look at ya, I can’t believe those lowlife thugs took another swing atcha, you know I’ll get my boys on that right away, you just show me where it happened and I’ll-- Oh, my, could it be dawn already? For I see the most radiant of lights before me, what is your name, beautiful?” “Me? Oh. St-Stella. Stella Helminth.” “A star! Of course! Only such nighttime magic could entrance me with such a stunning display of vast beauty. Allow me to praise thee, as the ancients praised the heavens, I am your disciple, wonderous star.” “Goodness, Mr. Annelid, that was quite the recitation.” “Danny, please. Mr. Annelid sounds so conservative, so feeble, hardly appropo.” “Well, tough guy, the bill’s on the counter,” they cross the room and Stella scribbles down something which seems awfully like her telephone number, “And here’s your receipt.”
Dr. Rachnid is an unconventional man of medicine. He is a large spider. Spiders are rarely seen, for they are secretive, private predators. They are therefore greatly feared in society, as many are entirely heartless and emotionless monsters driven primarily by instinct and bloodlust. But the doctor is different. Dr. Rachnid is one of the few spiders who ever ventured into society. He is a born genius, gifted in all manner of chemistry and medicine. It is his curse that his natural talents are both healing and killing. He is still solitary and private, however, and the only person he’s ever really let enter his life is Stella, a graduate student who sparked his interest and showed a remarkable open-mindedness towards people who were different. He liked that in her, and she has become his filter for the outside world and only outlet of expression. Many years her senior, however, his feelings for her are mixed with brotherly love and paternal protectiveness.
Leaving Rachnid in his darkened exam room, Stella escorts Steve into the lobby where his brother, feigning worry, waited for him. Steve is unable to look away from Stella’s beauty, and therefore never sees his brother’s equally enchanted expression when he lays eyes on the woman. Danny straightens up and puts on more aristocratic airs. With a few words, Stella is blushing. Stella gives Danny her contact info, crushing Steve’s hopes. But Steve’s warped reality leaves him to believe that he’d never be good enough, and Danny deserves her. Rachnid looks on disapprovingly from the doorway, as he calls in his next patient (insert humorous bit here).
Elsewhere, Danny’s friend has procured the method of murder – Yella Death. Yella Death, the name for it on the streets, is an illegal substance made of wasp poison, bleach, and antifreeze. It was popular for some years, but a crackdown on trafficking all but eliminated it from the market. Danny is getting ready for his date with Stella when he get’s the call that the poison is ready. Danny plans the murder for after the date, hoping to use Stella as an alibi.
Danny and Stella have a nice dinner at a ritzy restaurant (something Danny could barely afford) where they dance and drink. When Stella is a bit tipsy, he drops her off at home where she falls asleep. Before leaving, he hesitates. He is terrified of the task that awaits him, but even more terrified of Boss Newton. He takes a deep breath and goes to meet his cohorts to carry out the murder plan. Things go smoothly, and Danny returns home, finally feeling like he had a good day, but the lingering pangs of fear don’t allow him to sleep a wink.
The next morning, the media is in an uproar, the authorities are doing their best to remain in control, and POLICE CHIEF GREY HARPER, a tall mustached stiff-natured green grasshopper, explains that despite having no leads, the police will stop at nothing to get to the bottom of the tragedy.
Stella sits on a park bench with Danny as he puffs away on a cigar. She explains her worry that a week has passed and it seems no progress has been made on the murder mystery. At the police station, Harper is drowning in work, and trying to keep his focus on the candidate’s murder. Just as he is having an angry breakdown, the sudden arrival of a calm person draws the attention of the room. The person, a brown cricket, walks up to Harper, removing his hat and introduces himself as PRIVATE DETECTIVE CHIRP CHITIN.. Chitin admits that the coverage of the case drew his attention. Harper, already at the end of his rope, takes immediate offense and orders Chitin to leave immediately, saying he didn’t need any help and that the police can handle it as they always have. Chitin hands Harper recent newspapers from out of state, showing the massive drug bust that made national headlines. They realize this is the same famous-yet-mysterious detective, and he was going to solve the case whether the police liked it or not, but that it would behoove them both to work together. Chitin then states that his client has given permission to autopsy the body, and that that is a good starting place. Harper, angry at being upstaged, begrudgingly agrees.
Harper takes Chitin to his office where he gets out a list of respectable practitioners to perform the autopsy. Harper tosses a few aside immediately, and reads over some other files. Chitin picks up the discarded papers. Harper mutters a few possibilities, but Chitin disagrees, offering the file that Harper had initially tossed away. Harper takes the file and gawks at the name –a Dr. Rachnid. Chitin defends Rachnid’s credentials, for it was true they far surpassed the other options. Upstaged again, Harper agrees.
At the clinic, Harper and Chitin wait in the lobby. They are arguing about something trivial (Harper quite heatedly and Chitin logically) as a young boy patient runs out of the exam room crying and shaking. The mother backs out of the room cautiously as a raspy voice explains that the child’s ailment was merely a common cold. The mother, nodding hurriedly, leaves before the diagnosis was finished. The voice then whispers to Stella, who is waiting at a nearby desk. Stella looks towards Harper and Chitin, saying the doctor will see them now. Chitin gets up eagerly, and moves towards the darkened doorway, but stopped when he realized Harper was still standing back by his chair. Harper’s face had gone pale. Chitin beckoned him with slight annoyance. Harper gulped, but obeyed. They entered the dark room, and Stella closed the door behind them, smiling. Harper made some kind of remark about his impending death, but Chitin silenced him. At the end of the room was a lit table. The two insects approached it, and in the darkness the voice (much louder, but still raspy) spoke. Coming into the light like a nightmare, Dr. Rachnid’s face descended from ABOVE them and Harper stifled a scream. Chitin, seemingly unphased, leads the questioning and Rachnid explains that the cause of death was the lethal underworld poison Yella Death. Harper again takes offense, because he was one of the leaders in the trafficking crackdown, stating that the poison has been eliminated and that there was no way that could have killed the victim. Lowering his pale face close to Harper’s, Rachnid asked him if he doubted his expertise on lethal poisons. Harper gulped, and admitted he was wrong. Chitin was excited. He knew that Yella Death required wasp venom, which could be genetically traced. Finally, they have a lead. As they exit the building, Harper remarks how he hates spiders and doctors, but Chitin just responds with a nonchalant crooked smile, “I like him.”
Danny stands below his boss, who is silhouetted against an eerie fluorescent glow. Water and slime drip around them in the sewers. Boss Newton praises Danny’s work but says that there are rumors of a Detective in town who is working with the police, and they have a lead on the case. Newton leans into Danny and tells him to wrap up loose ends and to kill his 2 cohorts, saying that Danny was always his favorite, and that he’d finally move up the ladder once this task was complete, but should he fail, he’d be the only loose end Newton cared to cut off. “But if you screw this up, Danny, I will take more pleasure in tying you up in knots than I have for this entire endeavor.” Danny, crushed by the new instructions but afraid for his life undertakes the task. He calls his fly friend, Boscis, saying they were to meet to celebrate Newton’s praise, but as the friend arrives, Danny ambushes him, and stabs him in the back with a knife.
Harper and Chitin reunite with good news that the poison was traced to a recent transaction in the sewers. The bad news was it affirmed their suspicions that the political machine run by Boss Newton was in fact involved. Harper confronts Chitin with his concern about the detective encroaching on the police’s duties and jurisdiction. Thankful for the help, but to stay out of their way when it comes to it. Chitin then reveals he’s been sent from Washington, DC to follow a connection going farther than just Newton, but to which Newton was likely heavily involved. They do some looking through files when they connect the clues (they questioned some people) that the transaction was made by Danny’s friend, Boscis. They are about to venture out to take Boscis into custody when a report rings in. An officer bursts into Harper’s office saying the criminal Boscis was found stabbed to death in an alleyway, with traces of mucus around the crime scene.
Back in Newton’s lair, Newton calls two wasps to his side. “The police are onto us, and that blasted detective from Washington. It’s time to bring this saga to a close. Kill the Beetle. And Danny. Then, go underground. The election will play out as we intend.” “Of course, Boss.”
Danny comes home. The door is slightly ajar and Danny calls inside, no answer. Danny enters the dark house only to discover that in the middle of his living room floor, Beetle is dead, stung, mauled, and shot to death -- the unique style of Newton’s wasp hitmen: Jackets. It suddenly dawns on Danny that the wasps were there for him, and that Newton has planned, perhaps this entire time, to kill Danny after he’d been useful. “They were here for me… I never even had a chance with Boss...I was his damn scapegoat! The bastard!” Danny now knows that his boss and the authorities are hot on his trail by now, and he panics. “I gotta get outta here. Can’t let them get to me. Gotta blow this town and get the hell away from--” He sees Steve huddling in the hallway and he roars toward him. “YOU! You motherfucker! You betta not have said a word or all five a your hearts are gonna be pinned to the wall like painted ladies under glass! And don’t you say a word about nothin you seen here! You hear me, you spineless, brainless, waste of my life?!” He hits him across the face and tells him he’ll be right back. “Now, you stay right here. I’m going to go get Stella. An if you give a damn about her, like I think you do, then you ain’t gonna get in my way. Now you stay here!” Danny rushes to the clinic to urge Stella to run away with him.
Just after Danny leaves, the police arrive at the Annelid house. Steve answers the door and lets them in when they ask. They see the dead Beetle and take Steve into custody. On their way, out of the night sky, two Jackets descend on them aiming to kill Steve. A brief fight occurs, and two officers are killed, but the remaining officer hits a wasp somewhere non-vital, and they retreat. The officer hails a cab and hurries to the precinct.
Danny bursts into the clinic, demanding to see Stella. He pleads to Stella to leave with him immediately, that terrible things have happened and he has to go, but more than anything wants Stella to come with him, for even Danny has enough of a heart left to feel some sort of love for the girl. But Rachnid, suspicious and mistrusting of Danny, emerges from the door and into the light. “Mr. Annelid. Do not come into my office and accost my secretary, especially in a time like this, when whispers of conspiracy and murder fill every silent second and every unsuspecting FOLD IN YOUR DELICATE HIDE. He grabs Danny by his necktie with one of his many legs, “I will not have the stain of your existence adulterate this edifice. Leave.” “Doctor, please, I’m sure Danny has a good explanation for all of this, don’t ya, honeybee?” But Danny has already fled the building, driven by instinctive fear. “Miss Helminth, you know I only want your safety and happiness. So that is why I beg you, do not trust this man. Not for anything.” Stella wants to believe him, but worried also by the sincere unabashed fear in Danny’s voice, she rushes out after him.
On his way home, Danny glances into the police station and sees Steve sitting in a chair in front of Harper and Chitin. Danny immediately feels betrayed and hurt by the one thing he thought he could rely on, his brother. Somehow deep down, he feels it coming to an end. The fear and rage surge through him.
Inside the station, Harper is shouting at Steve. He yells, barely holding back tears of anger, that he has lost two of his best officers and that all that stands between him and justice is this empty-headed legless segmented dolt. Chitin tries to calm the passionate police chief and murmurs to him that clearly the suspect has a mental handicap and he doesn’t know anything. But they know that he is Danny Annelid’s brother, a major suspect, and letting him go might lead them straight to Danny.
Danny watches in sick, blinded, pleasure as Steve leaves the precinct and heads home. Danny knows what he must do, and heads home himself to kill his brother.
Not far behind him, Stella is in a cab on her way to Danny’s house. The Jackets, who have been skulking on a rooftop, take flight back to Danny’s house as well, and the police are close behind.
Danny enters the house, where Steve is sitting quietly, nervous, for the reality of his brother’s crimes are beginning to sink in. Danny stands across the room and menacingly calls Steve to come over. Steve just gazes at his brother, knowing something is terribly wrong, not trusting him. Danny holds back his insanity, and marches over to Steve and hits him hard. He silently hits him again and again, then begins to confess his hatred of his parents and how he hated taking care of Steve. He continues to beat Steve, who is curled up in defense, but doesn’t know what to do. Danny starts to shout through falling tears that he blames Steve for ruining his life, and was finally doing what should have been done long ago. Danny pulls out a knife, and it glints in the dim light. But a voice stops him – Stella’s voice. Stella had walked through the front door and stood there shocked. She asks Danny what he’s doing. Danny turns to Stella, but before he can say anything, the Jackets crash through the ceiling. The police burst in the windows and doors, led by Harper. Bullets fly and a deafening roar of beating wings drown out the screams.
The police attempt to apprehend Danny, but a wasp kills an officer. Then Harper, enraged and hungry for revenge draws his four pistols and fills the wasp full of bullets. Steve launches himself at Stella and pushes her out of the way of the crossfire. Danny attempts to flee, but a wasp stabs him with a stinger through the chest, killing him. Harper and the officers capture a wasp and cuff him as Chitin, who entered at the end, goes to Stella and Steve to help them outside. But Steve sees his dead brother, and goes to him. Tears well up in his swollen, bloodied eyes, but then a look of confidence and determination crosses his beaten face, an expression never seen before, and he pushes back the tears. Stella grasps him and pulls him away.
Stella tends to Steve’s wounds at the clinic as Dr. Rachnid patches up a graze wound on Harper. Harper never apologizes, but the look of guilt on his face is enough to show how he admits misjudging the spider. Steve finally tells Stella that he thinks she’s the most beautiful wonderful creature he’s ever met, and Stella kisses him on the forehead.
Chitin and Harper walk down the damp steps of the clinic. The nighttime street is obscured by a thick fog, and halos of light diffuse around them from streetlamps. Chitin starts to say goodbye to Harper, and Harper nods, somewhat distracted. When they reach the bottom of the steps, Harper pauses. “With that hellbender out of the city, we can start to repair, rebuild, salvage something of this election.”
“Mmh.”
“*ahem* You know, rumor has it he’s been spotted taking refuge in New Orleans. Don’t suppose that’s within my jurisdiction, though.” He smiles. Chitin continues to scowl, “I thought you were the sharp one. If my meaning ain’t clear -- we gonna get a new governor, maybe it’s time they get themselves a new police chief around here, too.”
Chitin slows down his pace and looks at Harper sideways, “I might not be a private eye but I aint blind. You’ll stop at nothing until you bring Newton in,” Harper puts his hand on Chitin’s shoulder, “And I got no subtle way of putting this but I’m coming with you.”
“You? Come with me? What makes you think I’ll be better off with your help?”
“Well--I--”
“I’m joking. Glad to have you along.”
“Hah hah, well, this looks like the start of a beautiful friendship.”
“..........dont get ahead of yourself, Chief.”