Tent

References

• Save Yourselves!
• Appalachian Trail
• Addams Family Values
• Peter MacNicol
• Christine Baranski
• The Innocents
• Breakfast at Tiffany’s – Deep Blue Something
• All Is Lost
• Five Stages of Grief
• Almost Plausible: Axe
• Almost Plausible: Two Year Bracket

Transcript

[Intro music begins]

[Shep]
Fifth night. That’s when they fuck.

[Emily]
Yep.

[Shep]
Gotta have sex in your horror movie.

[Emily]
Hundred percent. Is it even horror if there wasn’t sex?

[Shep]
Right!

[Emily]
She puts the ‘whore’ in ‘horror’.

[Intro music]

[Thomas]
Hey there, story fans. Welcome to Almost Plausible, the podcast where we take ordinary objects and turn them into movies. I’m Thomas J. Brown, and with me, as always, are Emily-

[Emily]
Hey, guys.

[Thomas]
And F. Paul Shepard.

[Shep]
Happy to be here.

[Thomas]
So, tell me, how do you two feel about camping?

[Shep]
I love it.

[Emily]
I love camping.

[Thomas]
Camping is a lot of fun. Do you like glamping? Do you like rough camping? Like, where do you fall on the camping spectrum?

[Emily]
I have never done either rough camping nor glamping. I’ve only ever done car camping and I like it a lot.

[Shep]
Yeah, car camping is great. When I was a kid, though, we would do rough camping where we would carry all of our supplies and hike into the mountains and stay there for a while. And that’s just how I lived my life. And we did it all the time. We also lived in the woods, so it was like, here’s a slightly different batch of trees. So…

[Thomas]
There’s a part of me that’s always wanted to do canoe camping, but now that I’m getting older, I’m like, “It seems like so much work.”

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Well, the reason I ask is because today’s episode is about a Tent, and, Emily, you are pitching first.

[Shep]
Ha. I mean, boo.

[Emily]
Alright. A group of backpackers stumble upon a seemingly abandoned tent in a fairly remote area of the forest. It doesn’t appear anyone is around, despite all of the gear still being there. They notice weeds and dust have grown in around everything, indicating it’s been there a while. They make note of where they found it and plan to tell the rangers on their way out the next day. As they press on, the map and the trail start to contradict each other. And soon they stumble on the same campsite. They just walked in a circle. The sun is setting and they decide to set up camp. But they don’t think it’s a good idea to be so close to the tent. So they go a little further out of the way and kind of out of sight. In the night, they hear rustling and assume it’s just animals. In the morning, they wake up and the tent is right beside theirs.

[Thomas]
Well, that’s creepy.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
And then?

[Emily]
And then we write. I actually have a little plan in my head about what happens next, but I wanted to see where you guys would want to take it.

[Thomas]
All right.

[Emily]
I wasted all of my energy on that one. I put all my chips in that basket.

[Thomas]
Well, I have a couple of short ones. My first is that someone buys an old canvas tent for their live action roleplay group. When they first set it up, they discover an old treasure map tucked into the folds of the tent.

[Shep]
You turn tent into a container.

[Thomas]
A tent is a container. You sleep in it. You put your stuff in there.

[Emily]
It’s true.

[Thomas]
It’s already kind of a container.

[Shep]
That’s like saying a house is- oh, I guess a house is a container. All right, you’ve convinced me.

[Thomas]
My other idea is that a group of city-dwelling friends go on a glamping retreat that turns deadly as each morning, another camper is discovered brutally murdered in their tent.

[Emily]
I like that one.

[Thomas]
I’m not surprised to hear that. Those are my ideas. Shep, what do you have?

[Shep]
All right. I have one that is a couple, trying to rekindle their romance, take a long camping trip together. But when they return to civilization, they discover there’s been a horrific war or a deadly plague or an alien invasion, and they might be the last two people on earth. Although I am now remembering, I think this is Save Yourself, that came out in 2020. That was an alien invasion. You guys remember that?

[Emily]
No.

[Shep]
I haven’t seen it, but I pretty sure I saw the trailer for it. And I’m looking at this. I’m like, I think this was the plot of that trailer.

[Thomas]
Well, if we like this one, we can double check to make sure.

[Emily]
Oh, yeah.

[Shep]
My other one is basically Emily’s.

[Emily]
Oh.

[Shep]
Someone hiking the Appalachian Trail suddenly realizes they can’t hear any of the people that were hiking with them. They look around. Nobody is there. And then the trail peters out, and they’re lost in the woods. So they stop. They blow their whistle. They wait. But no help arrives. Eventually, they continue, following the rules, you know, head downhill, follow water, etcetera, and pass through a clearing in which a very old tent is pitched. They check, but nobody is there, nor are there any supplies. And judging by the age of the tent, it was abandoned long ago. And like Emily said, there’s weeds growing all over. And so they continue on, still heading downhill, when they come to the same clearing and same tent again. It seems physically impossible, but there it is. This time, they leave a mark and continue on, reaching the same clearing, now with the mark they left. It’s definitely the same place. They set up camp in the clearing. Now, they’re trying to survive in these woods, but discover that the limited amount of land they can reach around the clearing is getting smaller.

[Thomas]
Well, I think we’ve figured out what the story is. Clearly, this one is calling to us.

[Emily]
It’s interesting we came up with the same one, Shep.

[Shep]
Yeah. When you were saying yours, I’m like, “Uh oh.” The only difference is that in mine, it’s one person.

[Emily]
Right.

[Shep]
And in yours, it is a group of backpackers, and also in yours, the tent is creeping up on them.

[Emily]
Yeah. The tent moves. Yeah. I had done it where they were, like, circling it and came through it a couple times, but then I was like, it would be more fun, in my opinion, if every time they got away from it, boom, it was there. Because there’s something there that’s moving it, because they hear it in the night. Is it a man? Is it a beast?

[Thomas]
That would be one of those things where it’s like, I want to know what’s moving it, but also I don’t want to know.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
I’m curious whether the spot that used to have the tent is, like, dead ground or is it full of weeds, like the rest of the field.

[Thomas]
Ooh, interesting.

[Emily]
So, like, where the footprint of the tent was.

[Shep]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Or, like, the campsite in general.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
Hmm.

[Shep]
Does it look like the new spot is old, like the old spot? Is it moving the whole earth of the tent.

[Thomas]
Mmm.

[Emily]
Oh. My thinking is, whatever’s moving it, whether it’s a monster or a man, because I hadn’t decided that part yet, that was where he was camped because nobody had come through in a while, and now something’s come through. So it’s going to move and follow and stalk them.

[Shep]
On mine, it’s just a supernatural being that eats hikers off the Appalachian Trail because people go missing and are never seen or heard from again.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
So this is my explanation for that.

[Emily]
Yeah. The Appalachian Trail is full of supernatural beings that do that. That’s a thing.

[Shep]
I mean, you go where the food is.

[Emily]
Right.

[Shep]
It’s basically the land is eating the person.

[Emily]
Okay.

[Shep]
So there isn’t a creature, it is the woods. So this, in this case, it’s just something has plucked this person off of the trail. So they were with their friends or companions, their hiking companions, and then they were in this alternate reality. And it’s getting smaller and smaller as it’s preparing to digest them. And the tent in the clearing is from one of the previous hikers eaten by this same person.

[Emily]
Ah. Okay.

[Shep]
So the tent itself is just a tent. It’s not any mystical anything.

[Emily]
It’s not even really a trap set by the land.

[Shep]
Yeah.

[Emily]
It’s just-

[Thomas]
It’s an incidental marker of where this is happening.

[Shep]
Yes.

[Emily]
Okay.

[Shep]
I mean, I imagine that it ends with this hiker also being devoured. And then you set up the sequel with it happening to another hiker. But now there are two tents in the clearing.

[Thomas]
So I have a proposal that we start with two hikers, and then partway through the film, one of them disappears.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
So there’s one of them who’s our main character that we’re focusing on. But we start with those two. We get good dialogue there to sort of suss out what’s happening and whatnot. But then we have that added tension of, “Now I’m alone in the woods. I don’t know what’s going on. I don’t know where (my boyfriend or whatever, whoever the other person is), I don’t know where they went.”

[Shep]
Well, make it the couple that I had in my other pitch where they’re having romantic difficulties.

[Emily]
There you go.

[Thomas]
Oh, yeah.

[Emily]
Perfect.

[Thomas]
Additional tension. Very good.

[Shep]
They’re doing this to rekindle their romance, and it’s not going well. They’re miserable when they’re hiking, so they’re- Imagine them arguing on the hike. So at first you see them and there are other people there, and other people are talking. You can hear them as well. And the couple, they’re arguing with each other. One of them wants to quit. It’s not fun. It’s a lot harder than it seemed like it was going to be. And then they realize, “Where’s everyone else?” And they’re on their own. So you have this, they’re going to break up, but now they’re trapped together and the only other person is the other part of the couple. And so they do end up rekindling their romance briefly, and then-

[Emily]
They trauma bond.

[Shep]
They trauma bond! And then the partner disappears again. So now they’re alone again, which was what they originally wanted, but now not like this.

[Emily]
Yeah. Yeah. There’s alone in a city where, you know, the person’s safe and fine and you’ve got cats and books, and then there’s alone in the woods.

[Thomas]
Yeah. Now, the trail is very long, so presumably they’re just doing a section of the trail.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Yeah.

[Emily]
Is this sort of like, they are in a- I don’t want to make it too cliche a beginning, but couples therapy retreat. So they’re all hiking and camping together because it’s supposed to build partnership as they’re doing it. But there’s-

[Shep]
Right. Trauma bond through the-

[Emily]
Yeah, but there’s, like, a lead couples counselor and everything. And that’s who they kind of get separated from.

[Thomas]
It’s a lead couple, that’s the, they’re both couples counselors. God, they’re annoying, too.

[Shep]
It’s the couple that does the camp in Adam’s Family Values.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
Peter McNichol and the woman whose name I can’t remember. They’re both great.

[Emily]
Like I said, it’s a cliche beginning, but then you get a little, like, you don’t see them hating each other constantly at the beginning because they have, you know, a little bond over those yahoos over there making big fusses over these s’mores or something stupid. So they have that little bit of like, “Yeah, we’re in sync in some ways,” but then they also have the tension of, “I don’t want to do this. This is harder than I thought it’d be. I thought I was fit, but clearly I’m running in the park fit, not hiking the Appalachian Trail fit.”

[Shep]
“I told you we needed to exercise. I told you we should go to the gym, (etcetera, etcetera).”

[Thomas]
How do we get them off the trail? I like Emily’s idea, where the map, the expected trail and what they see kind of diverge. Or maybe there’s a fork. Or maybe one of them is like, “Hey, I have to pee.” And so they’re gonna go off the trail 30, 40ft, whatever. I don’t know. However far they feel they need to go. And the other person, we just sit on. So maybe he’s gonna, who’s our main character? Is it the guy or the woman?

[Shep]
Flip a coin.

[Emily]
Let’s make it the guy, because I feel like the woman is always the lone survivor. You know, it’s Final Girl.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
Let’s have a Final Boy.

[Thomas]
So she needs to pee. So she goes off into the bush and we’re just focused on him. He’s standing there, he’s waiting for her. And there’s like really, really slow push in on him. Very, very slow. Almost imperceptible at first. And then eventually he’s like, “Where the fuck is she?” Because he can’t hear her. Because she has gone into the, the dead zone or, you know, whatever. Right? So she’s effectively not in that reality anymore. They’re in separate realities at that point.

[Emily]
Okay.

[Thomas]
Hmm.

[Shep]
See, I would have used this as a fake out because anyone who’s seen the trailer knows what the premise of the movie is.

[Thomas]
Yeah. No, that’s a good thought.

[Shep]
So you have him standing at the trail or by the trail, within sight of the trail.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
Like toward her, and maybe he’s still talking to her, to making sure that she’s okay.

[Emily]
And she doesn’t respond. He asked her a question.

[Shep]
And she’s like, “I’m busy. Just stop. Just wait for a second.”

[Thomas]
Yeah,

[Shep]
And then she doesn’t respond. And that’s when the audience goes, “Oh.”

[Thomas]
“It’s happened.”

[Emily]
“This is it.”

[Shep]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Yeah, that’s good. That’s good. So then he starts to go to find her and she comes out from behind a tree?

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Yeah.

[Emily]
Scares the shit out of him.

[Shep]
Yep.

[Thomas]
All right, so now how do we actually get them off the trail?

[Shep]
Well, see, in my pitch, they’re on the trail, and then everyone else is gone.

[Emily]
Yeah. It traps them by sucking them out of that dimension.

[Shep]
Right. They didn’t have to leave the trail.

[Thomas]
So is that actually the moment when it happens? So it’s like a double fake, right? It’s like, “Oh, it didn’t actually happen then.” But then several minutes later we find out, “Oh, no, it really did actually happen then.”

[Shep]
See, I don’t want to. So here’s why I don’t. I want to have more time with the other couples.

[Thomas]
Okay.

[Shep]
And so maybe the first day of hiking is fine.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
This is where you establish the other characters, not that they’re going to appear much, but you get a firmer view of our two characters in how they interact with each other and how they talk to each other about the other couples.

[Thomas]
Yeah. So I was going to ask about the other couples. Is our couple having the biggest problems or is there like maybe one other couple that they can bond over and be like, “Well, at least we’re not as bad as those two.”

[Shep]
Yes.

[Emily]
Yes.

[Thomas]
Okay.

[Emily]
And then there’s the couple that clearly doesn’t need to be there, but the woman or the man is just very, like, anxious and just wants to make sure everything’s right and perfect.

[Shep]
Or maybe they’re both that way because that, they’re a really well matched couple. And so it’s like when you, you know, you go to therapy, not because you need it, you just want to check just to make sure everything’s fine.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
Right.

[Thomas]
Preventative therapy.

[Shep]
Preventative therapy.

[Emily]
And then you find out you really needed it.

[Shep]
“He does talk about his mom a lot.” So, yeah, I want them to, quote, unquote, “leave the trail” during a conversation, like mid-conversation, they’re on the trail. The trail is still visibly there. Like, if there’s a path through the woods and there are people ahead of them and behind them, they can all hear each other, and then you can’t hear the other people. So when you’re, if you’re paying attention or if you’re re-watching it, you can catch the moment that it happens because suddenly you can’t hear anyone else. But they’re still talking to each other because they’re so busy talking to each other, they don’t realize they can’t hear anyone else, they can’t see anyone else. And so maybe when the trail starts to disappear all of a sudden, they’re like, “Wait, did we leave the trail?” “No, we can. We’re on the trail. We can see the trail.” “Where is everybody else?” And that’s when they’re like, “Oh, we’ve wandered off the trail or something.”

[Emily]
“We weren’t paying attention.”

[Shep]
Right. “We weren’t paying attention.”

[Thomas]
There’s a film, I want to say it’s called The Innocents. I remember watching it and they would do this thing, and it took me a minute to figure out what was going on, but they would do this thing where like they would slowly fade down the diegetic sound and you wouldn’t really notice that it was happening, because she’d be like having a conversation with somebody in the garden.

[Emily]
Mmm.

[Thomas]
And then all of a sudden you realize, “Oh, the birds aren’t chirping, and the wind… Like, I can’t hear anything else.” And then there’d be some creepy thing and all of a sudden it would all come back, you know. And that was startling. And so I kind of like that idea of like they’re busy talking to each other so they don’t notice that they can’t hear anybody else or any birds or anything. Like, they don’t notice because they’re not focused on what’s around them. They’re just focused on that conversation.

[Shep]
And we do that at the beginning, at the fake out.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
So we set that up as a thing. It’s fine. It’s safe. Occasionally, you can’t hear stuff, but everyone’s still around. She comes out, the couple behind them catches up to them. They get back on the trail and go. And so it’s like “Oh this is okay.” And then when it happens for real but it’s not okay.

[Thomas]
Right. So does the movie start at the parking lot where they’re meeting up with all the other couples and the counselor couple and they head out?

[Shep]
Sure.

[Thomas]
I think it’s a really natural way, too, to introduce the audience to the characters because you’d be doing introductions.

[Emily]
Right.

[Thomas]
Of course, we’re meeting people for the first time, so it’s natural to say everybody’s name.

[Shep]
Right. Yep.

[Emily]
Mm hmm.

[Thomas]
It’s not forced.

[Emily]
Where they’re from, what they do.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
Yep, yep.

[Thomas]
And it helps people understand, like, what the conceit of this trip is. This is a counseling retreat. They’re going to have individual therapy sessions with the counselors, perhaps. Is this tent that they discover, is it set up on the path, on the trail?

[Shep]
There is no trail anymore. Like, they try to continue but the trail peters off because they’re sucked to this other area where the trail doesn’t exist.

[Emily]
They end up in, like, a meadow.

[Shep]
Yeah there’s like a clearing in the woods. The trail starts to peter, they don’t hear anyone anymore, they don’t see anyone anymore. And they see the trail visibly but then it starts to disappear and it’s just, you know untrodden grass and stuff in front of them and they’re like “Oh clearly this is not right.” So they turn around to go back along the trail they just walked and it’s basically gone. You know it peters out in both directions now. So they’re on a little bit of trail where they’re standing and there’s no trail like in either direction. It doesn’t go to the trodden path, and so that’s where they hang out and they wait and they blow their whistle and try to get attention from people but they don’t hear anyone, they don’t see anyone.

[Thomas]
What time of day does this happen to them?

[Shep]
Well if it’s the second day we can do this in the morning. So they have all day to panic.

[Thomas]
How long do they wait before they decide to start going downhill or trying to move away from that area?

[Emily]
That is an excellent conversation that they have.

[Shep]
Yes. They can bicker over this exact thing.

[Thomas]
Yeah. “No, everybody knows you’re not supposed to leave where you are.”

[Shep]
Yep.

[Emily]
Right. The safest place is to stay where you are.

[Thomas]
Maybe they even try to camp in that area that night. Like, that’s a concession one of them makes.

[Shep]
Yes. That’s good.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
So they get off of the little trail that they’re on that’s only, you know, 10ft long now. And they set up their tent and they sleep there over the night and then they can argue and they’re not fully panicking yet.

[Emily]
Right.

[Shep]
They can go over how much food and water they have. They can talk about their supplies.

[Thomas]
Yeah, that’s fantastic. To really set the stakes for the audience, make it super clear.

[Shep]
Yeah. So that can come back later. Anyway. When they get up in the morning that little patch of trail is also gone. So they’re like “What even direction was the trail exactly? Can you remember?”

[Thomas]
Oh, yeah. Were they responsible for all their own food, or was the couple that was running the thing, they were going to provide the main meals? So all they have is, like, snacks and stuff.

[Shep]
If I were running it I’d make every couple bring their own food.

[Emily]
As part of the process.

[Shep]
As part of the process!

[Thomas]
So how long, reasonably, how long did they expect to stay out?

[Shep]
So maybe it’s supposed to be a week long hike.

[Emily]
And this is like, day two. Right?

[Shep]
Right.

[Emily]
So they have, in theory, four days left of food.

[Thomas]
So when do they reach this clearing? They’ve spent a second night now.

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
And as the audience, we’ve gotten a sense of, “Okay, we have this much. We have enough food for the rest of the time because that’s not a concern.”

[Emily]
Right.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
We’re not that far into the trail. We’ll just go back and meet them at the parking lot.

[Thomas]
Right. So maybe this isn’t the right time to talk about the food or go through the supplies.

[Shep]
Ooh you’re right.

[Thomas]
Because it’s day two.

[Shep]
Yep you’re right. That’s got to be when they get to the clearing. That’s the third night stuff.

[Thomas]
Right. Because by the third night, they’ve hit the clearing a couple times, two or three times, and they realize something weird is going on?

[Shep]
Well its the third day before they even leave the side trail where they were.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
Because they waited a full day and no one came.

[Emily]
Right.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
And whichever one was opposed to leaving is like, “Okay, we’ve waited enough time. Somebody should have come and found us by now.”

[Shep]
Right.

[Emily]
“So I guess you’re right. Let’s go downhill.”

[Shep]
Pull ourselves up by our bootstraps. We’ll solve our own problem. We’ll just go downhill.

[Thomas]
When do they lose cell signal?

[Shep]
Right away.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Like even when they get out of the car there’s already no cell signal.

[Thomas]
Right. That’s what I was going to say. Like, they’re getting out of the car and they’re like, “Ugh.” And maybe even the counselor’s like, you shouldn’t even bother bringing them. Just leave them in your car.

[Shep]
Yeah.

[Emily]
“But they’re nice cameras.”

[Thomas]
Oh, that’s a good point.

[Shep]
Yeah. And they also have compasses and you know, stuff like that. If we can contrive a reason for them to leave their cell phones behind, that solves some problems.

[Thomas]
Maybe that’s part of the rules for the trip that they agreed to when they signed up for this trip.

[Emily]
Oh, yeah. Because you don’t want to be taking-

[Thomas]
No electronics.

[Emily]
Yeah. You don’t want to be taking pictures and selfies, because then you’re not going to be in the moment.

[Shep]
Yep.

[Emily]
So we don’t want the distraction of the phones.

[Shep]
Yes.

[Thomas]
And then also, you’re not the only couple in therapy on this trip. So for privacy reasons, they don’t want you taking pictures of the other members and-

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
I don’t know, whatever.

[Shep]
So no photos, no cell phones, no technology.

[Thomas]
Okay.

[Emily]
No flash photography or loud noises.

[Shep]
If you want to read a book, it’s got to be a physical book, not an e-book.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
You get one book, and it’s How to Survive in the Woods Naked with a Spear.

[Shep]
Oh, with a spear? Luxury!

[Emily]
Yeah. I mean-

[Shep]
Oh, we’re playing on easy mode? All right. So day three, they wake up, the trail is gone, they move on, they start going downhill. They find the clearing with the tent in it. They try to shout into it, but they’re not desperate yet. So they wouldn’t necessarily intrude and look for resources, because this is someone’s tent, possibly, although they point out that it’s very old and there are weeds all over and it doesn’t look like anyone’s been there for a very long time.

[Thomas]
Right. They’re all like pine needles or whatever on the-

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
On the tent.

[Shep]
So they see it and they try to, you know, check to see if anyone’s there, but obviously no one is, so they move on and then they see it again. How long is it before they see it again?

[Emily]
At least a meal.

[Thomas]
It’s gotta be a while, because if we want their world to be shrinking, then they’re gonna be seeing it more and more often until they can’t leave the area.

[Shep]
Yeah.

[Emily]
Yeah. So at least half a day, if not longer.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
Well, I guess half a day, just past half a day, because then it’ll be shorter for them to end up there at night. Or do you want them to camp in the weird wilderness one more night?

[Shep]
No, I want them to camp in the clearing on, what is that, the third night?

[Emily]
On the third night?

[Thomas]
The third night.

[Shep]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
So then they see it, they head out, and so maybe it’s like mid morning that they see it the first time.

[Shep]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
And then it’s sort of like around dinner time or just before dinner time, they get there again. So maybe like five or 6 hours later.

[Shep]
Yeah. So we see them going through the woods. We see them stopping to have a meal. They can have another conversation. Maybe, the bickering is heavier now because neither one is having fun.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
And this has not gone to plan. And they haven’t trauma bonded yet because they haven’t been abandoned in the woods for, you know, six days.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
Get over it, Shep. Geez.

[Thomas]
He’s just salty because he trauma bonded with a squirrel and not another person.

[Emily]
Mmm.

[Shep]
It was a mountain lion, but, yeah, yeah,

[Emily]
I guess they live longer than squirrels, at least.

[Shep]
Yeah. But they’re not as friendly.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Anyway, so they have lunch, they bicker, they keep hiking. They see the clearing again, and now it’s getting toward evening.

[Emily]
Mm hmm.

[Shep]
And so they stop. And this is where they set up camp.

[Thomas]
Right. They need to set up for the night anyway before it gets dark. And-

[Shep]
Right.

[Emily]
Is one of them hesitant and one of them’s like, “Whatever, it’s abandoned. Nobody’s here. Clearly nothing has changed since we left. No one’s come back.”

[Shep]
Oh, they’re not sure it’s the same place because it’s getting dark out. And so they’re like, “I think that’s the same tent we saw earlier. And we’ve walked in a circle.” And he can argue. “We cannot have walked in a circle. We’ve been walking downhill the entire time.”

[Thomas]
And in fact, maybe because it’s starting to get dark and they’re just going to set up their tent, they don’t actually get very close to it because they don’t want to bother whoever it is.

[Shep]
Right. They’re just on the edge of the clearing.

[Thomas]
So they can see there’s a tent. “Isn’t that the same tent?” “It couldn’t possibly be.” They set up their tent.

[Emily]
Would they shout again, though?

[Thomas]
Hmm. Maybe.

[Shep]
Yeah, maybe like, “Hey, is it okay if we set up near you where we hope we’re not intruding, but we’re going to set up over here.”

[Thomas]
Maybe because there’s no light, no fire, nothing at that campsite. They’re like, “Well, they might be sleeping. You know, they could have gone to bed early to get up early, or I’m sure we won’t even see them tomorrow.” And then they wake up and they discover it’s the same tent. “I told you we went in a circle.”

[Emily]
Do they know it’s the same tent then? Or is this when you want them to mark it?

[Shep]
This is when they mark it.

[Thomas]
Right. Yeah. So they’re having an argument about, is this the same? Like, what if it was like, “See, I told you it’s the same tent.” Like, “It couldn’t possibly be the same tent. We’ve been going downhill, so.”

[Emily]
She’s like, “And we can’t go downhill in a circle?” “No, you would have to go back uphill.”

[Shep]
“No, you would have to go uphill.”

[Thomas]
And so then one of them marks the tent.

[Shep]
Yeah. Oh, she marks it. She writes her name on it.

[Thomas]
There you go.

[Shep]
So that when she disappears later and all he has is her name…

[Emily]
Mmm.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
So sad. So sweet.

[Shep]
Yeah. Let’s make it as sad as possible.

[Emily]
Delicious pain.

[Shep]
We’re powered by the audience’s tears.

[Thomas]
Right. So this is day four. Right?

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
So same plan, head downhill?

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Yeah. “It didn’t work yesterday. Let’s do the same thing again.” That’s them arguing,

[Emily]
Yeah. “What’s the other option? There’s no-“

[Shep]
Right.

[Emily]
“There’s no trail. We don’t have a map. We don’t even have a compass because somebody forgot to bring theirs.”

[Shep]
“Th- they told us to leave our cell phones in the car!”

[Emily]
“You were supposed to buy a real compass.”

[Thomas]
On the fourth day, do they maybe find a river? And they feel like this is progress. Rivers lead to civilization, will follow this river, and so they follow the river, and at some point, maybe there are big rocks, so they have to kind of move away from the river a little bit. And then when they come around the corner of the rocks, they’re in the clearing and there’s the tent.

[Shep]
If there’s a river, I would just get in the river and coast downstream. If there’s a river, the problem is solved. It will lead to civilization eventually.

[Thomas]
But if it’s like, rough.

[Emily]
What if there’s, like, rapids and-

[Thomas]
Yeah. Rapids and rocky, and it’s like white water, like-

[Emily]
You still float?

[Shep]
Yeah. No matter how rocky it is, they’re not leaving sight of the river.

[Thomas]
But remember, they don’t know for sure something’s hinky yet.

[Shep]
So you’re saying the river disappears when they leave it.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
And it’s gone forever.

[Thomas]
Yep.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
That’s the only time we see the river. Because now the zone shrinks that they’re able to go outside of.

[Shep]
Okay, I’ve turned around, and I like this idea.

[Thomas]
Your pro river now.

[Shep]
Now I’m pro river because they refill their water. We’re halfway through the week.

[Thomas]
Oh, okay. Yeah.

[Shep]
They have lots of food.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
But they’re low on water. And so they refill all of their water, like he insists they stop and refill their water, and she’s like, fine, whatever. And then they follow it. And then, yeah, it’s rapids and rocks are in the way. And so they try to go around the rocks, and when they get far enough away, they stop hearing the river. And when they come around the rocks, it’s the clearing again. This is a one two punch, because the river suddenly disappeared. The clearing suddenly appeared, and this is when they see her name on the tent.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
Mm hmm.

[Shep]
So it’s a, it’s a one, two, three punch.

[Emily]
Do they try to go back around the rocks?

[Shep]
Yes.

[Thomas]
Oh, I would definitely.

[Shep]
Immediately.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
And then it’s just-

[Thomas]
It’s just a big boulder, and on either side is the clearing.

[Shep]
Yep. Then it’s “What the fuck is going on?”

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
Then we introduce panic.

[Thomas]
Now that our couple knows what’s going on, let’s take a quick break, and when we come back, the rest of our story for tent.

[Break]

[Thomas]
All right, we are back. Now, when we left off, our couple was just waking up on the fourth day of their supposed to be seven day hiking trip. And they’ve just discovered that this tent is, in fact, the tent that they saw before. Twice before, in fact. So now they know something weird is going on, but they have definitely been walking downhill. So what’s going on now? If they look up at the terrain, is it clear that they’ve gone downhill?

[Shep]
It’s hard to see anything outside of the clearing because it’s trees everywhere.

[Thomas]
Hmm. Okay.

[Shep]
So there is a slope to the land. It is a little bit downhill. So they can tell the direction of downhill, and they can look and they see trees are on the upside of the clearing and trees on the downside of the clearing, but they can’t see through the trees.

[Thomas]
So if you were in this situation, what would your plan be? Would you want to continue going downhill, but leave markers or something, tie something around trees? Maybe she crochets and has a bunch of wool with her.

[Shep]
I like the yarn thing. She crochets. She has a ball of yarn. It’s kind of contrived, but if we set it up early enough, then it’s fine.

[Thomas]
That’s one of the things the counselor is, “You can’t bring your electronics, so how are you going to pass your time?” And so he’s brought a book and she’s brought her crochet stuff.

[Shep]
Yep.

[Thomas]
Everybody has a thing. So there you go.

[Shep]
Yeah. That’s part of the introduction.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
“What’s your name? What do you do? What did you bring?”

[Thomas]
Yeah. So how do we want to use this yarn? Because a ball of yarn, you can’t just tie to a tree and walk. It’s not going to last very long.

[Emily]
No.

[Shep]
Oh, they’re cutting off snippets of it and tying it to branches.

[Thomas]
Right. Yeah.

[Shep]
Within view of each other.

[Thomas]
Yes.

[Emily]
Right. So do they keep doing that and then they’re going downhill in the opposite direction. They’re clearly not making loop until they- Then they see the next branch, they go to tie it on.

[Shep]
Would they see it, or would they, they get to the clearing first?

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
Okay.

[Thomas]
So what I imagine is they get to the clearing and they go to see the first tree that they tied it on. Maybe they tied it to a tree right next to the tent or something.

[Shep]
Ah, see, I pictured the tent as in the center of the clearing, far from the edges.

[Thomas]
Oh, okay.

[Shep]
Although it’s very spooky if it’s next to the edge. So I could go- I could be persuaded. Like, that could go either way.

[Thomas]
But there’s some really obvious tree, like a more- A big dead tree, or there’s one tree that’s in the clearing a little bit or something like that. You’d want a tree that would be easy to find again and not just like, well, where was it?

[Shep]
There’s one that lines up with the poles on the tent in the clearing.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
Like, if you look. If you align the two sides of the tent, you can see there’s a specific tree.

[Thomas]
Yeah. Whatever method it is they use to pick the tree, they go back to that tree. Is their yarn tied to that tree anymore or not?

[Shep]
I say there is yarn on this tree and maybe the next tree, and then no more yarn.

[Thomas]
And then do they go back to the other side of the clearing where they’ve come from and all the yarn is gone?

[Shep]
I don’t know. Do you want them-? Okay, let’s say the two trees on the other side of the clearing still have yarn.

[Thomas]
Oh, okay. Finish. Finish your thought. But, yeah.

[Shep]
Because then it established, then it establishes, like, the clearing is sort of a safe zone.

[Thomas]
Hmm.

[Shep]
Where things don’t disappear, but beyond that, things vanish.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
What were you gonna say?

[Thomas]
The thought that I had was perhaps they decide to follow- They see the trees going off into the distance that have the yarn on them, and so they start to follow them. Maybe they have some plan of how they’re going to figure out, they’re going to count or they’re going to, I don’t know. Some plans, some reason why they’re going to follow these trees. And then they come back and all the trees have yarn on them. And we can use that to establish that the world is shrinking, so there are fewer and fewer trees with yarn on them. And it kind of doesn’t matter. Like going in a straight line ends you up back in this clearing.

[Shep]
Why would they do that a second time? I want the number to be different between the times.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
But how do we establish the reasoning that they go through that again?

[Thomas]
It could be the case that they counted the first time, so they know they put up a certain number.

[Shep]
Uh huh.

[Thomas]
And then that way they follow it. And the number is fewer.

[Shep]
Okay. How far apart are the trees? How many trees are there? They can do a calculation. What’s the area?

[Thomas]
Oh, yeah, roughly.

[Shep]
What’s the rough area and how quickly is it shrinking?

[Thomas]
And actually, if they knew the number was different, they might even do it a third time to make sure.

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
“We must have miscounted. It’s only off by a few trees (or something).” Or a few numbers. “All right, well, let’s go again. We’ll count it again.” And it’s even smaller this time.

[Shep]
Yeah. Okay. The first time they recount it, are they still going downhill or are they going uphill?

[Thomas]
Down. They’re always going downhill. That’s the craziest part.

[Shep]
Okay. They never try to go uphill the whole time. I would try at least once just to see.

[Thomas]
Yeah. Maybe on the way, maybe the third counting, they decide to go the other direction.

[Shep]
Or when they hit the meadow, they disagree on how many trees it has been right then.

[Thomas]
Okay.

[Shep]
And so they’re like, we’ll just recount real quick. And so they turn around, and this is when they go uphill and it’s a smaller number.

[Thomas]
Okay.

[Shep]
And now they go back downhill and it’s a smaller number again. So they’ve established- They’ve gone back and forth on this- They didn’t even go into the meadow. They didn’t cross the meadow.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
They just went back and forth. And it got smaller each time.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Maybe only by one. Like not a lot.

[Thomas]
Yeah, I like that, where they disagree on the number, and maybe it’s only a one, you know, the difference between them is one. So they go back and they count. And the difference between them is still one, but it’s one lower for each of them. So they’re like, “Well, that was weird.”

[Emily]
That doesn’t make sense. Is her number lower?

[Shep]
Yes, because she disappears first. It’s a little hint to the audience.

[Emily]
And they just think she miscounted.

[Shep]
Right. For her, the area is smaller or something. It’s paranormal. It doesn’t have to make sense.

[Emily]
Right. It doesn’t matter. Yeah.

[Thomas]
I was gonna say, so the third time, they count out loud together. One, two. So they’re on the same page, we’re counting the same trees. We agree, and it’s smaller. Again, they get the same number the third time, but it is smaller. So, yeah, maybe that’s a little hint that she’s gonna go first.

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
But it’s not like there are always one fewer trees for her.

[Shep]
Right. Oh, there’s a part when they’re going through and counting out loud where she starts to say the wrong number and corrects herself to say what he is saying.

[Thomas]
Hmm.

[Emily]
Oh.

[Shep]
So that they are agreeing on the same number.

[Emily]
When does she disappear?

[Thomas]
Gotta be soon, huh.

[Shep]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
They need, like, a full day of just sitting in the clearing. Like, “What do we do?”

[Shep]
Yeah. Because they’re back to waiting.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
They’re back to staying in spot and waiting, which is a valid survival strategy.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
Right.

[Thomas]
“If there’s a helicopter, we’ll be able to see it, here. We’re in the clearing.”

[Shep]
Yeah. Maybe they look for branches or stuff to spell out HELP.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
That is a proactive thing that they could do.

[Thomas]
Yeah. Now, is this where they start trauma bonding? It’s gotta be before she disappears, right?

[Shep]
Right. Yes.

[Emily]
Right. So they talk about what could be going on.

[Shep]
Right. They regret going on this trip at all. They, both of them think it was a bad idea now.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Which is something they have in common. That and Breakfast at Tiffany’s. So, yeah. For the rest of her time, there they are, trauma bonding and getting closer and reconciling. So how many nights is it? This is the fifth night?

[Emily]
Yeah. So they have to be. Have they already started rationing their food? Have we already talked about that?

[Shep]
This is when they talk about it, because they’re now camping in the clearing and they’re not moving, and they drew HELP with sticks and they’re talking about their food because they can’t find the river again.

[Emily]
Mmm.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
Right.

[Thomas]
And they’re working as a team, so they need to, as a team, see “Okay, what do we have?”

[Emily]
Mm hmm.

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
And come up with that plan together.

[Shep]
Yeah, because they’re a team again. Fifth night. That’s when they fuck.

[Emily]
Yep.

[Shep]
Gotta have sex in your horror movie.

[Emily]
Hundred percent. Is it even horror if there wasn’t sex?

[Shep]
Right!

[Emily]
She puts the ‘whore’ in ‘horror’.

[Shep]
So when does she disappear? It’s gotta be the next day.

[Emily]
Right.

[Shep]
Because they’ve reconciled. So her job is done. Her part in the movie is complete. So how does she disappear? They’re not going out in the woods anymore. Or maybe they are. She’s like, “I’m gonna get more branches for the fire.”

[Emily]
And is he a little hesitant or does he think it’s fine because she’s not going to go that far?

[Shep]
What could he be doing that is keeping him preoccupied, so he’s not going with her? I mean, any activity I can think of if I apply my rational brain, it’s like it’s not going to take the whole day.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
Right, right.

[Shep]
They can always stick together. There is no logical reason for them to ever separate.

[Thomas]
Except for pooping.

[Shep]
I mean, in this situation, you poop as a team.

[Thomas]
Well, I agree, but.

[Emily]
She poops on the other side of the old tent. She’s like, “I’m not even going out of the clearing. I’m just going to the other side.”

[Shep]
It’s a repeat of the first scene where he’s talking to her, and then suddenly she stops responding.

[Emily]
Right.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
“We’ll talk the whole time. I’m not leaving clearing. I’m not even leaving you.” And he’s like, “Just let me come with you. Or-“

[Thomas]
I like that. Where she’s just out of sight. She’s just on the other side of the tent.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
They’ll talk to each other the whole time. It’ll be fine.

[Shep]
Yeah.

[Emily]
She’s got the issue about needing the privacy.

[Shep]
Right.

[Emily]
It’s just let her have this.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
Yeah. And so she asks him a question.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
And so he’s answering, which takes a little bit of time.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
Because it makes sense why she’s not talking during that. Because he’s answering her question.

[Thomas]
Right. And again, that very slow, subtle push in.

[Shep]
Yes. And you, you know, if we’ve heard birds before, we don’t hear birds anymore. And then he realizes she’s not answering. So he goes around the tent and she’s gone. And now it’s just him for the remainder of the movie. The only evidence she ever existed is her name written on the tent.

[Thomas]
Yeah. So with that in mind, he now has her supplies.

[Shep]
Yes. Which is, I talked about this earlier where it was gonna come back later. This is the later. Like, they were talking about how they’d have to ration whatever and how long they could last. And now he can last twice as long.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
And so he’s going to feel guilty about that on some level, but he’s also thankful that he has more supplies. Like, it’s a, it’s a real mixed emotions situation.

[Emily]
Right. Does he in a panic or grief stricken, decide he’s going to try to leave the-

[Thomas]
Why stay at that point?

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Why leave?

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
This is where all the supplies are. If you keep hiking, you’re just gonna die tired.

[Thomas]
Yeah. I’m just thinking that, like, it would be nice to get another count of the trees.

[Shep]
Oh, he could do that every, every morning he goes through and counts the trees.

[Thomas]
Hmm.

[Emily]
So how long do we see him on his own? A couple days? A week?

[Thomas]
So we need something to see that time has passed.

[Emily]
Mmm.

[Thomas]
We don’t need to see every day necessarily, but maybe we have a little montage of, like, he’s counting the trees. He has, like, maybe he has a routine that he does. And so we see, like, a montage of that routine happening. But instead of just being a seven day trip, it’s now like-

[Shep]
A 21 day trip.

[Thomas]
Yeah, like, yeah, I was gonna say, like 14 or 18 days. Yeah. Way more. He’s lasting way longer. How does this movie end? What happens?

[Emily]
I like that we established the montage and his activity.

[Shep]
Is it even a montage? Or is this like a big chunk of the movie where it’s just him on his own? Depending on how long it takes to do the previous five days…

[Emily]
Right.

[Thomas]
Yeah, I think this has got to be the third act, right? Losing her is the lowest low.

[Emily]
Right.

[Shep]
Yeah.

[Emily]
So we see his routine, we see his exercise. He does this, this, this. Maybe we subtly have it to where we’re further and further back from him as he does it each time. You know, like, first time it’s like POV or whatever, or, like, right over the shoulder. And the next time it’s just mid shot, whatever. Just really subtly pull that camera back each time. So the last time the camera stays by the tent, he goes to his thing, and then nothing.

[Shep]
Okay. I want to establish early on that when they’re doing a thing as a team, he is narrating out loud what they’re doing so that he can continue to do this later when he’s on his own. And it’s not crazy. He’s not talking to himself. This is just the pattern that he’s established. Even before they’ve left the trail, they’re vocalizing what they’re doing because they’re staying connected. Like when she leaves the trail and goes and poops and whatever, they’re not being silent.

[Thomas]
Maybe that’s a therapy exercise.

[Shep]
Yes.

[Thomas]
They need to work on their communication and also it helps keep bears away.

[Shep]
Yeah. However you want to justify it is great. So he gets up in the morning and he’s vocalizing his day, which he used to do to her, but she’s no longer there.

[Thomas]
Okay.

[Shep]
And so maybe there is a scene where he’s doing it and he realizes no one can hear him. So he stops for a second and then continues to do it as a conscious act. It was a habit before. Now he’s intentionally choosing to do it. Otherwise he would go insane. And he’s not going to go insane. That’s for people that don’t go to therapy. He goes to therapy.

[Emily]
Right, right.

[Shep]
So he has his breakfast. He counts how much rations he has left and his estimated days of whatever. And he does the pass through the trees to count how many trees still have yarn. And then he updates his chart. You know, “Day eight, there’s 64 trees left.” Because otherwise it’s a silent movie.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
Oh, yeah,

[Shep]
It’s All Is Lost. So he’s talking, but he’s talking to himself. And maybe he’s losing touch with reality as time is passing. Are there birds? Do we hear any birds ever? Is that a thing once they’re in the special zone? Or are there no birds and no insect sounds? I’m just saying that in actual nature, you would expect there-

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
I mean, for-

[Emily]
There’d be, like, cicadas and crickets and-

[Shep]
Right. For plants to grow and stuff, there needs to be a biome.

[Emily]
Mm hmm. I think because we heard the river. That was part of losing the river. Right? We heard it and then you didn’t, and then it was gone.

[Shep]
Yeah. Yeah.

[Emily]
So I think there would still be birds and insects. There is that ambient noise.

[Thomas]
Right. I think all that stuff is what the, what are we calling it? The monster. Whatever. The, the area. The anomaly.

[Shep]
The anomaly.

[Thomas]
The anomaly lives off of birds and insects and deer and stuff wandering into the zone. Oh, but humans. Humans taste so good.

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
I mean, I don’t think it really cares. It’s just trying to attract whatever it can and absorb that biomass and that’s what it lives off of. So, yeah, there’ll be birds sometimes if they fly into the zone.

[Emily]
You’re wanting the birds so we can hear them not be heard.

[Shep]
Yes, exactly.

[Emily]
I would like that, too, because the way I want to do the end where the camera’s pulled back. Pulled back. And then he just doesn’t come back. It just. Nothing happens anymore. Also, at that point, it could be completely silent.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
No birds, no crickets, no anything.

[Thomas]
Yeah, yeah. I think that would add weight to that scene. So I agree.

[Emily]
And then the credits roll, and we make a bunch of people angry. And I just lap up the anger where people are like, “That’s the end?” Yeah. Story’s over. He get sucked up.

[Thomas]
Yeah. He died.

[Emily]
It’s the end.

[Thomas]
Our third act is a bit weak. Is there anything we can do here at the end to bolster that?

[Shep]
So our third act is him on his own the entire time. His morning routine, his daily routine. Sorry. The things he does. He gathers wood for the fire. He checks his resources. He counts the yarn branches remaining. He writes in his diary. The diary is going to be left behind, right?

[Emily]
Of course. Because somebody’s going to find it in the next one.

[Shep]
Because yeah, in the next one.

[Thomas]
Right, right. What is he doing to try to escape his situation?

[Shep]
All the things I can think of would be things that would be too expensive to film. Like setting the forest on fire.

[Thomas]
Yeah, I had that thought.

[Shep]
Yeah. Or maybe he tries and it doesn’t work.

[Thomas]
It starts to rain and he’s like, “Well, I do need the water.”

[Shep]
Hmm. Well, then he’s not limited on water. Whenever he needs water, he just burns the trees and it causes a storm. That could be a thing. He yells at the storm. He’s like, “What do you want? What do you want. I just want to live. I want to go back to my life. Also spit out my girlfriend, if she’s not digested yet.”

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
“What did I do to deserve this?”

[Thomas]
It’s not about that.

[Shep]
It’s not about that. It’s not about deserve. He’s just unlucky.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
He’s in the wrong place at the wrong time.

[Thomas]
Yep.

[Shep]
But he’s not a bad guy. And so he doesn’t deserve to be eaten by a paranormal entity in the woods. It’s unfair. But life is unfair. So-

[Thomas]
Yep.

[Shep]
So he’s got a rant at the situation. He’s gotta yell at whatever is keeping him there. And how else does he try to escape other than lighting the woods on fire?

[Thomas]
It’s tough because he knows that there is no escape. Like, every path he tries to take, every way he tries to go, it always leads back to the clearing. So I could see him resigning himself to that.

[Shep]
Yep.

[Thomas]
But then what is the third act?

[Shep]
The third act is the five stages of grief.

[Thomas]
Hmm.

[Emily]
Resignation.

[Shep]
Yeah. He’s got to get to resignation eventually.

[Emily]
Yeah. Because with the denial, he just, he packs everything up and he goes and he walks and he walks and he walks and he walks and he walks until it’s nighttime. And then he finds the clearing again.

[Shep]
Yeah. Does he set up the tent again, or does he go into the old tent, which is already pitched?

[Thomas]
I think he walks through the clearing like three times that day, and he just scowls at the tent when he walks by.

[Shep]
He tries going uphill.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
He tries staying level.

[Thomas]
Yeah, yeah.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
He goes somewhere that’s not up or downhill. Yeah.

[Emily]
He marks each, like spoke on the clearing.

[Shep]
How is he mark-? Oh, he’s got a, he’s got a pen knife.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
He’s got a pocket knife. And so he’s doing this until the blade is dull because he’s done it so much.

[Thomas]
Mm hmm.

[Shep]
And, like, all the trees are marked.

[Thomas]
So then, I mean, I feel like he would go through the first few stages of grief pretty quickly.

[Shep]
What are the stages of grief? I know that it’s kind of been debunked.

[Thomas]
Right. Denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance.

[Shep]
Right. They’re already in denial.

[Thomas]
Right. So he goes into anger. He’s hate-hiking at this point.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
I say that he went through denial and anger with her.

[Thomas]
See, I think that- I think he goes through denial with her, but then he’s into anger on his own.

[Shep]
I think the order is wrong. I think that the order of the five stages is incorrect. They’re in denial together. But then she’s gone and he’s in- He goes to depression first because it doesn’t come out of nowhere, you know?

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
So it’s upsetting, but it’s not a complete surprise.

[Thomas]
I guess the idea is that depression is like, you’re fully broken down and then you’re ready for acceptance.

[Shep]
I. Okay, I see. So when I have him yelling at the storm again, which that would be when he’s lighting the woods on fire, which we don’t have.

[Thomas]
But you can still have him yelling at the woods. He’s standing in the clearing. “What do you want from me? Why did you do-” you know, he’s going into bargaining.

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
I think it’s not a clear, like, hard cut between them either. Like, there’s a lot of-

[Emily]
Yeah. There’s ebb and flow of it.

[Thomas]
Right. There’s blending where there’s anger and bargaining, there’s bargaining and depression, and then maybe a little more anger and then sliding back to depression, hard. And then he just sits there for a few days in the tent, just not doing anything.

[Emily]
Yeah. Doesn’t get up.

[Thomas]
And then acceptance is when he has the routine, which he narrates.

[Shep]
So he does all this before he does the routine? I thought that he had been doing the routine for a while.

[Thomas]
Yeah. I mean, that’s why I think that the first few stages go pretty quickly, and then there’s like, a few, two or three days of depression or whatever. And then we see him in acceptance, and it’s walking the perimeter, counting the trees, picking up the sticks for the fire, doing this and that.

[Shep]
Okay. He does the routine, after she’s gone, a couple times to establish that this is a thing that he does. And then as the trees are getting- As the area is getting smaller and smaller, one of the nights when he’s sitting by the fire, that’s when he has his breakdown. He’s angry at the situation.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
He’s angry at the woods. How does he bargain? He’s like, “If you let me go, I will lead other people here and you can feast. Just let me live.” This is after he’s like saying, “Why is this happening to me? I’m not a bad guy.”

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
Mmm.

[Shep]
Right. Because he’s desperate.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
He’s desperate to live, but nothing changes.

[Thomas]
No.

[Shep]
And then he’s in depression for days where he doesn’t do the routine.

[Emily]
Right.

[Shep]
He just sits by the tent and waits for death that doesn’t come. And then he goes back to the routine. He’s reached acceptance. And he, you know, keeps the diary. “Only 32 trees left. Not much longer.” So does he know when it’s going to happen?

[Thomas]
I don’t think so. I think he thinks it’s when it’s zero trees, but-

[Emily]
It’s not.

[Thomas]
It’s not. It’s way before that, I think.

[Shep]
Right, because otherwise it would be the clearing surrounded by nothing and that would be hard to film.

[Thomas]
Right. That’ll be really useful information for the sequel. When they see the last entry is ’32 trees left,’ and then there are no more entries, and they go, “Okay.”

[Emily]
And then they all die at 54 trees.

[Thomas]
I really like your ending, Emily, of just a long shot.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
He’s doing the routine. He walks out of frame.

[Emily]
Then it just goes silent.

[Thomas]
But, like, we’ve seen what the routine is, so we know he should be coming back.

[Emily]
Right.

[Shep]
Or he should be saying the next thing.

[Emily]
Yeah. You should be both hearing him, and he should be walking back in frame very, very shortly.

[Thomas]
Right. And both of those things don’t happen. And we just kind of keep-

[Shep]
Panning out until you just see the empty clearing.

[Thomas]
Yeah. And it just cut to black. Roll credits. And then at the very end of the credits, you do a slow push up on the two tents. It’s dusky, right. It’s like just past magic hour. You’re slowly pushing up on the two tents and you hear voices.

[Shep]
Yep.

[Thomas]
That’s it. Just like 8 seconds. Something like that. Real short, 10 seconds. Real quick thing. Just to suggest, ooh, more people have entered the clearing.

[Shep]
That’s post credit. Right?

[Thomas]
Yeah. Yeah.

[Emily]
Yeah, yeah.

[Thomas]
That’s the post credit sequence.

[Shep]
Okay, then.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
I think we got it. I think we got the-

[Emily]
Yep.

[Thomas]
I’m happy with this. I think this is a great movie.

[Emily]
Venus flytrap woods.

[Shep]
I’m saying we could make this movie.

[Thomas]
Yeah, I agree.

[Shep]
This is low budget enough that we could actually. If only there were woods around.

[Emily]
I don’t know.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
It’s hard to come by those these days.

[Shep]
Yeah. In the Pacific Northwest?

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Where are we going to find trees?

[Emily]
That’s ridiculous.

[Thomas]
Well, we’d love to hear your thoughts on today’s episode about a Tent. Was our scary story intense.

[Emily]
Oh, that one was bad.

[Shep]
Why didn’t I see it coming?

[Thomas]
Or should we take a hike? Let us know by leaving a comment on our website, reaching out on social media, or sending us an email.Links to all of those can be found at AlmostPlausible.com. Be sure to subscribe to the show in your podcatcher of choice so you never miss an episode. That way, you’ll be able to join Emily, Shep, and I on the next episode of Almost Plausible.

[Outro music]

[Emily]
Also, originally, I had the idea to pitch hikers finding a canvas tent at the base of a mountain and just basically make Axe part two. But the creature has moved into the tent.

[Thomas]
I’m not opposed to that, like, sequel to Axe? Boy. That’d be great.

[Shep]
Our best episode, apparently, according to Brackets.

[Emily]
Yeah. According to us, it is our best episode.

[Thomas]
Hey, I like that one. I think it’s a good one.

[Emily]
It’s a great one.