The Haunting

LUKE: You know what I love about wine that comes in bottles like this?

TODD: What?

LUKE: Every year is a good year.

TODD: These old Victorian houses are great, aren't they?

LUKE: It's not Victorian, everyone thinks that the whole nineteenth century was Victorian. This is gothic, this is English Craftsman, this is Romanesque. This is... insane. Who lives here?

TODD: Hi. I'm Todd Aubochon.

LUKE: Greetings fellow insomniac.

TODD: Greetings fellow sheep counter.

LUKE: Modelling small-group dynamics in the formation of narrative hallucinations. You brought us here to scare us. Insomnia, that was just a decoy issue. You're disgusting.

NELL: Is this true? I've been hypnotized?

NELL: Welcome Home Eleanor. Welcome Home? I've never been here. Who did this?

LUKE: It's somebody's idea of a joke.

NELL: Couldn't get the last ones. You?

LUKE: I did okay.

NELL: The children. The children Hugh Crain built the house for. The children he never had.

LUKE: Come on. These are the typically sentimental gestures of a depraved industrialist.

NELL: I only saw Theo drive up.

LUKE: Who's Watts?

LUKE: Hi, Luke Sanderson, bad sleeper, I'm your basic tosser-turner, and you are...

NELL: Uh... Nell Vance...

LUKE: And what kind of sleeper?

NELL: Well, I... uh...

LUKE: Obsessive worrier. Join the club. And you? I'd guess...

LUKE: You're not telling us something.

MARROW: Watts. Those were his keys Nell found. His roommate called and said Watts left when he was supposed to. I think he's here.

LUKE: It's not going to hold your weight.

MARROW: Just stay there, Nell!

LUKE: Is that the question of compassion or science?

MARROW: It's a question.

LUKE: She got the child labor stuff from me.

MARROW: I gave my key to the gate to Todd, but the Dudleys'll be here in the morning.

LUKE: Do we still get paid for the week?

MARROW: You get your money.

MARROW: And those are Luke's and mine.

LUKE: There's a carriage house around back.

LUKE: Do you need me anymore? Cause I'm going to bed. They can stay up talking another 45 minutes if they want, but I gotta try to get some sleep.

MARROW: Go ahead.

MARROW: Luke, can I talk to you?

LUKE: Sure.

MARROW: Because... well, I know I can trust you.

LUKE: Why?

MARROW: I've read your tests.

LUKE: That could have been worse.

MARROW: Yeah.

LUKE: So why did you need the Addam's Family mansion for a scientific test?

MARROW: I thought it best to be isolated, to be in a location with a definite sense of history, and I wanted to make sure that it wasn't so pleasant you'd all sleep too easily. You'll be taking a variety of tests, none of them harmful, and you've got the house, the grounds, and each other to keep you company.

MARROW: And this is my assistant, Mary Lambretta.

LUKE: Greetings.

THEO: Nell!

LUKE: We can't stay here looking for her. She doesn't want to be found...

THEO: Was sure she'd be in here.

LUKE: Where in the hell can she be.

THEO: Nell --

LUKE: -- how much is this car worth?

LUKE: You used the wrong test.

THEO: Will the two of you shut up! God damn it! Maybe the tests were right, Marrow. She's sensitive, she's vulnerable, but I don't think she's suicidal and I didn't have to test her. Maybe she wasn't trying to kill herself. Maybe she was really scared. Maybe she really heard voices.

THEO: We're fucked. We're in a haunted house and we can't get out until the morning.

LUKE: You don't really believe it's haunted... Do you believe in ghosts?

THEO: That depends on your definition of ghosts. I'm going to check on her, and then I'm going to stay awake.

LUKE: All night?

THEO: Yeah.

LUKE: You want company?

THEO: Maybe someday.

THEO: Mister very talky, would you please say what it is about this study that bothers you?

LUKE: The whole thing feels like experimental misdirection. Like he says it's about one thing, a psychological profile of environmental effects on insomnia... and that'd be a legitimate study, but I think that we've been subjected to an academic bait and switch; he's really looking at something else.

LUKE: I didn't do it.

THEO: You could have.

LUKE: So could you! Is this some fucked up idea of art, putting someone else's name to a painting?

THEO: No.

LUKE: Well, this lot is full!

THEO: He must have left. Didn't like the looks of the place or something.

LUKE: Hey! I heard screaming...

THEO: Luke.

LUKE: He said that Hugh Crain... Hugh Crain was a monster. He said that he was a brutal, horrible man. He told me that Crain drove his workers to early deaths. Crain had children chained to the looms in his mill. And listen to this: his beautiful Rene killed herself.

THEO: And why didn't Marrow tell us? Doesn't he trust women? That fuck.

THEO: The rest of you may hate your insomnia, but I find it the best time of the day for me. I'm alone. Nobody's talking to me but myself. My mind is racing with ideas, and I can think.

LUKE: Nah, you're going crazy with doubt, all of your mistakes are coming back up the pipes, and it's worse than a nightmare. --

MALCOLM: Why are you working with her? Mary Lambretta was thrown out of the department for trying to get a Ph.D. in psychic studies.

MARROW: And after she was thrown out, she needed a job.

MALCOLM: You don't believe in the paranormal.

MARROW: No, but she does, and that's all that matters.

MALCOLM: Does she know that's why you're using her?

MARROW: No.

MALCOLM: I, I just can't...

MARROW: She needed a job, Malcolm. And she's smart. And she helps me.

MALCOLM: I have a bad feeling about what you're doing.

MARROW: This is the last chapter. Please, please give me clearance. It's for science.

MALCOLM: Are you working with her?

MARROW: Mary, I'll meet you outside.

MARROW: Malcolm, this is essential work I'm doing. Just think what my research can do for education. Elementary school classrooms near train tracks or airports, where loud noise is random; this helps to prove the need for sound insulation if the children are ever going to learn to read.

MALCOLM: And that will be a good place to end this study.

MARROW: No, Malcolm! Individual performance is only part of it. I know why baseball players choke for no reason, I know why violinists throw up with fear before every concert, and need to, to give a great performance, but what I want to know is, how fear works in a group...

MALCOLM: Not the way you've constructed your group, it's just not ethical!

MARROW: But if the group knows it's being studied as a group, you contaminate the results. The deception is minor.

MALCOLM: It's still an electric shock!

MARROW: Come on Malcolm, it's only seven ohms, it's nothing, it's like a joy buzzer! And it's not about the pain, it's about the interference with concentration...

MARROW: What'll happen to us, Nell?

NELL: Nothing, if you leave right now. There's a war going on all around us. Don't get in the way, please.

MARROW: Come on.

NELL: No --

MARROW: No.

NELL: My mother used to hum this to me. Like her mother hummed it to her. And my great grandmother Carolyn hummed it to her.

NELL: But you told me to look in the paper! You told me I'd be perfect!

MARROW: Nell, the first time I ever spoke with you in person was the night we met here.

NELL: Then who called me?

NELL: The children want me. They're calling me. They need me.

MARROW: Nell. You will come here now.

MARROW: Why would we want to do that, Nell?

NELL: Because that's where he burned them up, the child laborers from his mills! Because that's where their bones are! He killed hundreds. He took them here and he killed them. Their bones are in the fireplace!

MARROW: I hadn't done a study of how group fear affects individual performance. Mass hysteria is like a story, Nell. A communal story. Someone starts it. Then we all add a little more to it. And then for some reason -- no one knows how -- we start believing it. This story shapes what we see and hear. We interpret everything through it, make it fit the story. I started our story when I gave you the history of Hill House. You've added to it. That's what this experiment has all been about. That's what it was about, the experiment's over. I'm pulling the plug. This is my fault.

NELL: It's not real? Crain? He's not real?

MARROW: Nell... please, Nell... take a deep breath...

NELL: And they're all locked together in here... and he won't let go of them!

MARROW: What is that tune?

NELL: I don't know. A lullaby I guess. My mother used to hum it to me. And her mother before that, and so on. Hugh Crain, would you care to dance?

MARROW: Someone is playing with you.

NELL: Why?

MARROW: I don't know.

NELL: It doesn't matter. Even if they're tormenting me, someone wants me. What I do with this is up to me. I can be a victim, or I can be a volunteer. And I want to be the volunteer.

NELL: Let's say it wasn't you. Who did it?

MARROW: I don't know.

NELL: It was a stupid thing to do.

MARROW: It was.

NELL: Welcome Home.

MARROW: You'll never see it again. Mr. Dudley's taking care of it. I'm sorry, Nell. Can I show you something you'd like to see?

NELL: Sure.

NELL: Are you coming to confess?

MARROW: I wish I were. I wish I had done it, then I could confess and you'd be at peace. That great moral philosopher Frank Sinatra once said to someone he loved, I wish you had an enemy, so I could beat him up.

MARROW: Hmm.

NELL: I'm sorry. I'm messing up the study.

MARROW: No you're not. Something moved you. You saw something.

MARROW: What did it smell like?

NELL: It was very specific.

MARROW: All right...

NELL: In the bathroom in my mother's room, the toilet was next to an old wooden table. It smelled like that wood.

MARROW: So... smell... is... Smell is the sense that triggers the most powerful memories. And a memory can trigger a smell.

NELL: I wasn't thinking about my mother's bathroom.

MARROW: What happened after you smelled it?

NELL: I looked at Theo. She had a look on her face.

MARROW: Like she smelled it too?

NELL: Yes.

MARROW: And then what happened?

NELL: I got more scared.

MARROW: Nell! What's wrong?

NELL: That smell... oh, God.

NELL: Sorry.

MARROW: For an American you do a good imitation of the British at their most apologetic. Pardon me. Excuse me, sorry, sorry...

MARROW: The cold sensation. Who felt it first?

NELL: Theo I think. You've asked us that three times, Doctor Marrow. What's going on?

MARROW: How do you feel about Luke's suggestion that it was just the old plumbing? Water hammer, something like that?

NELL: All the carvings.

MARROW: But there's a sad catch to the story.

MARROW: You wrote that you had trouble sleeping.

NELL: Yes, because someone was always keeping me awake. Ever since I was little. That was my job. I took care of my mother and I had to be there for her all night long, and she woke up all the time. And after she died, well, it's been a few months, but I still, I still wake up, it's... a habit. I know we've only known each other a couple of hours, but I'm really glad to be with people who let me talk about this. I'm really happy to be here with you.

MARROW: Eleanor, how was the drive?

NELL: You can call me Nell, Dr. Marrow.

MARROW: Nell. Good enough. And I'm Jim.

NELL: I'm really... honored to be part of this study, Jim.

MARROW: Well... we're glad to have you.

MARY: What happened?

MARROW: There were no children. Rene died, and then Hugh Crain built all of this, and then he died. His heart was broken.

MARY: What's this? What's this... this picture?

MARROW: That? That's Hill House.

MARY: This is where we're going?

MARROW: Yes. It's perfect, isn't it?

MARY: Here's how they're organized. Groups of five, very different personalities: scored all over the Kiersey Temperament Sorter just like you asked for. And they all score high on the insomnia charts.

MARROW: Good.

MARROW: Yes, this is Doctor Marrow.

MARY: How'd I know it was for you?

MARROW: Because it's my phone. Yes... Mrs. Dudley, just leave the boxes inside, thank you. See you soon. Thank you.

MARROW: You hear the vibrations in the wire. There's a magnetic pulse in the wires, you feel it. I could test it.

MARY: Test it.

MARY: You know what he's really upset about?

MARROW: What?

MARY: You're going to publish, he's going to perish... And why did you hire me for this?

THEO: I'm not going back to New York City. I'm going to find an apartment with a little flower garden, where you can just see the ocean and at night, when the wind comes in just right, you can hear the sound of the harbor. What about you?

MARROW: I'm a scientist. I just conducted an experiment. Now I have to write it up.

THEO: But the experiment was a failure.

THEO: Oh God, we can't get out!

MARROW: Nell, what do we do?

THEO: He's wandering around the house, and Nell heard him. She thought it was ghosts. Let's go look for him again.

MARROW: No. If he's lost somewhere in the house... he'll have to stay lost until tomorrow, until the night is over. What we have to do now is be together, with Nell.

THEO: She needs help.

MARROW: I'll take her with me to the University tomorrow. I can't believe I read the test wrong. I didn't see anything that looked like she was suicidal.

MARROW: Is she asleep?

THEO: Yes. But I promised I wouldn't let her alone the whole night.

MARROW: Your fear of him was real. That's all the ghost anyone needs.

THEO: How could you do this to people?

MARROW: Get a blanket!

THEO: It's okay... we're all here...

THEO: Maybe they're Mary's.

MARROW: Mary came with me.

THEO: Well this is a cozy breakfast.

MARROW: Good morning, Theo. Luke.

THEO: When do we take the tests?

MARROW: Every day. Basically we'll be hanging out together like we have so far this evening.

MARROW: Have either of you seen David Watts?

THEO: No, but Nell's been here longer than I have.

NELL: Why?

MR. DUDLEY: Why'd she kill herself?

NELL: Yes.

MR. DUDLEY: She was unhappy.

NELL: Why?

MR. DUDLEY: Can't say. Haven't been here that long. Well, it's Labor Day, gotta get to work.

MR. DUDLEY: That's where she hanged herself.

NELL: Who?

MR. DUDLEY: Rene Crain. Up there. Rope. Ship's hawser. Hard to tie. Don't know how she got it.

NELL: Is there something about the house?

MR. DUDLEY: Mrs. Dudley'll be waiting for you.

NELL: Why do you need a chain like that?

MR. DUDLEY: That's a good question. What is it about fences? Sometimes a locked chain makes people on both sides of the fence just a little more comfortable. Why would that be?

MR. DUDLEY: What do you want?

NELL: Oh! You scared me.

MR. DUDLEY: Me? No. What are you doing here?

NELL: Are you Mister Dudley, the caretaker?

MR. DUDLEY: Yeah, I'm Mister Dudley, the caretaker. What are you doing here?

NELL: I'm with Dr. Marrow's group. I'm supposed to check in with Mrs. Dudley up at the house. Is she here?

MRS. DUDLEY: No one could. No one lives any nearer than town.

NELL: No one will come any nearer than that.

MRS. DUDLEY: It's a job. I keep banker's hours. I set dinner on the dining room sideboard at six. You can serve yourselves. Breakfast is ready at nine. I don't wait on people. I don't stay after dinner. Not after it begins to get dark. I leave before dark comes. We live in town. Nine miles. So there won't be anyone around if you need help. We couldn't even hear you, in the night.

NELL: Why would we --

MRS. DUDLEY: -- no one could. No one lives any nearer than town. No one will come any nearer than that. In the night. In the dark.

NELL: They're so beautiful. Aren't they?

MRS. DUDLEY: I've seen 'em. Lot to dust.

NELL: Well, I've never lived with beauty. You must love working here.

MRS. DUDLEY: It's make the soup or answer the door. Can't do both.

NELL: Mrs. Dudley.

MRS. DUDLEY: So far.

NELL: Oh, Theo. You know I don't have an apartment.

THEO: Then let's go get you one.

THEO: What'd you come back for, babe?

NELL: Just had to be sure.

NELL: They're all in here. All the ones he killed. They're just children! We have to help them!

THEO: Come on! Why are we waiting?

THEO: I'm going to stay with you until you fall asleep. And then I'm going to get some brandy.

NELL: I don't think I want any.

THEO: I do.

NELL: This is real, I'm not making it up! Theo, you saw it! You were there -- the banging and last night. You, you all saw the painting!

THEO: Nell, it makes sense. It all makes sense. You and I, we were scaring each other, working each other up.

NELL: -- but the painting!

THEO: Nell, what happened?

NELL: Carolyn showed me where she hid him, hid him with all the ones he killed --

THEO: Then who is? Come on, Nell. Deep down, if you really thought it wasn't Jim, why wouldn't you be leaving right this second? Why wouldn't you be afraid? Really afraid.

NELL: Because I don't want to ruin things. Because home is where the heart is.

THEO: Marrow said the same thing as last night, he says -- -- that he checked with Mrs. Dudley. And he says that she told him that all the fireplaces in the West Wing connect to the main chimney. He says that he thinks that the flue was open, and with the windstorm, he says that what probably happened was some kind of freak air current --

NELL: -- What do you think?

THEO: Are you sure?

NELL: I think so.

THEO: Okay.

THEO: My place isn't like yours, Nell, it doesn't have a view of sea. It doesn't have a view of anything. What's interesting about the way I live is what goes on inside the walls. Living with me... My boundaries aren't very well defined, Nell. Do you know what I mean?

NELL: I'm trying. Have you ever kept something to yourself because you were afraid it'd ruin things.

THEO: You want to move to New York, you want to move in with me?

NELL: I don't know, you know...

NELL: I'll take that as a compliment. In the city, what kind of place do you live in?

THEO: I have a loft.

NELL: I'm sorry I was mad at you, Theo.

THEO: Me too. Although I learned one thing about you, that you don't know about yourself. You can be a pretty decent bitch.

NELL: I've never had a pedicure before.

THEO: Well?

NELL: Red. What else?

THEO: Well, it wasn't me. Mister Dudley had to clean it and he knows that he's in charge of all the messes so why would he make more work for himself and... You said the Good Doctor was with you.

NELL: I don't know what to think anymore.

THEO: Just think about one thing right now: What color?

THEO: That's so sad.

NELL: There's hundreds of them. This must be a record of the children who died at the mills, like Luke said.

THEO: Before he painted your name over Mister Crain.

NELL: Theo... Did you?

THEO: Maybe you did it yourself.

NELL: Why?

THEO: I don't know. You've been alone for a long time, maybe you want attention. Maybe he did it...

THEO: Is it over?

NELL: No, it's getting worse.

NELL: David?

THEO: Maybe he never came in. If he'd come in, he would have left his bags at the door, right? Or maybe he got here early, and went for a walk, and fell. Maybe he's outside.

THEO: Watts?

NELL: What's his first name?

THEO: David.

NELL: David? David Watts? Can you hear us? David! Daviiiiid!

NELL: How could he have left without his keys?

THEO: Two sets. I don't know. Maybe they're not even his.

NELL: Yes. I feel realy rested, too. Theo?

THEO: I guess. Oh, your hair! It looks good.

THEO: If this was some sort of joke, I'm going to kill him.

NELL: You know it wasn't a joke, Theo.

NELL: Good night, Theo.

THEO: You, too. Happy tossing and turning.

THEO: You've been out of the world for a long time, haven't you?

NELL: Yes. I've missed it.

THEO: No. The world has missed you.

NELL: A monster? But he built this for the woman he loved, like the Taj Mahal.

THEO: The Taj Mahal wasn't a palace, it was a tomb. Why didn't he tell us?

NELL: I love this house. I really love this house.

THEO: You're okay.

THEO: Jeez.

NELL: I know.

NELL: Not really.

THEO: Don't tell me Boston is different from New York.

NELL: Ohh, sure, you have trouble with commitment.

THEO: My boyfriend thinks so, my girlfriend doesn't. If we could all live together... but... they hate each other. It's hard to be Miss Perversity when you're the only one at the party. D'you know what I mean?

NELL: No.

THEO: A blank canvas! I could paint your portrait, directly on you. Or maybe not. So, you? Husbands? Boyfriends? Girlfriends? Where do you live?

NELL: I don't have anyone. But I do have a little apartment of my own. It has a little flower garden. You can just see the ocean. At night, when the wind comes in just right, you can hear the buoys in the harbor.

THEO: Don't worry, I probably won't be in here much. Light sleeper.

NELL: That's why we're here.

THEO: What do you do?

NELL: I'm between jobs right now. My last job... it... the person I was working for... the job ended. Over. So... And you?

THEO: That depends.

THEO: And what you're wearing, that's great, too.

NELL: This? It's from a thrift shop.

THEO: What did it cost?

NELL: Fifteen dollars.

THEO: That'd be seventy in New York. You stole it!

NELL: It's all I could afford.

THEO: Wait. You're not wearing that ironically? This is really you?

NELL: I don't know what you mean.