SILVERFISH
A simple pest problem spirals out of control.
Burn After Reading, Intermission, In Bruge, Fargo, Very Bad Things, Go, American Beauty, and the list goes on... There’s one thing these movies all have in common and that is that their narratives all feature strong elements of tragedy and very dark comedy.
Combining gallows humour with just the right amount of laugh out loud comedy and having an audience buy the blend of both is no easy task. Scenes and taboo subject matter that make us not know whether to laugh or cry or gasp in horror or cover our eyes can be hard to watch. Tim Wolfe’s Silverfish captures this essence of Black Comedy perfectly, with the addition of also having a very clever plot.
We open on an everyday situation and an everyday bloke. At least that’s what we first think. We are introduced to Blaine Babbitt, described as –
A ‘normal enough looking dude’ in his late thirties.
The thing is, what Blaine is about to do is far from normal –
... In Blaine’s living room a silverfish crawls along the wall.
A red dot appears on its back. Blaine tracks it for a few feet, then...
BLAM!
A puff of plaster bursts into the air.
I don’t know about you but when I’m faced with creepy-crawlies I usually reach for a fly-swatter or a can of bug-spray. Blaine however, has an entirely unique and extreme method of extermination which involves shooting that pesky silverfish with a 9mm pistol. And if that weren’t enough first equipping said pistol with an infrared laser. Talk about overkill.
What Blaine’s about to discover next though will make your hair curl. Turns out he’s just blown a hole in the living room wall and the bullet has gone straight into the bedroom wall behind it.
Did I mention Blaine’s fifteen-year-old son is home?
Upon realising the potential gravity of the situation -
Blaine staggers to the first door on the left, slowly twists the knob and enters...
Holy shit. Whatever he just saw made his blood run cold.
Did I also mention that Blaine’s wife has chosen this exact time to call?
Oh, and that a neighbour has just turned up because he’s terrified he heard a gunshot?
It’s no spoiler to reveal these details by the way, because where this tale is going and the chain of events that little silverfish has set off, well, suffice to say this is only the tip of the iceberg. Blaine’s about to discover that if he thinks things are bad now, they’re only going to get a hell of a lot worse.
The mark of an exceptionally talented writer is in giving us the unexpected, in subverting our expectations, and in entertaining us thoroughly along the way. With its blend of horror, crime-thriller, tragedy, and comedy of errors, Silverfish is quite simply rollickingly good entertainment. Every time I thought, oh no, that won’t work, or I thought I knew where the story was headed the writer surprised me with something else. The twists and turns of the plot, the characters, the humour, the seamless dialogue - wow!
As a final selling point regarding its broad appeal, I’m going to borrow a fellow writer’s feedback who (after reading Silverfish) posted this. Bear in mind her favourite genre is Romantic Comedy.
... From page one, I could not stop reading... It is well written, engaging and I could not stop laughing (even at the “sick” parts and even though it got a little grim)... This is obviously the work of an experienced screenwriter ... It really is golden. I’m still “clutching my pearls” at some of the content but still able to give a definite thumbs up for this script.
Sincerely, Cringing but still Laughing (aka Kathy)
I’m betting this one’s going to be in hot demand. No need to hold a gun over anyone’s head; a few words of admiration via email will do, but my prediction is if you want to hear the words Crowd-pleaser and Award-Winning in the same sentence, you’d best not dilly-dally and get this one in the can.