Random Palaeo-Work idea of the Day #23

It's the start of the Spooky Season! What better way for Mesozoic Mind to celebrate it then a concept for a palaeontology-centric horror film? My idea is inspired by all the horror pictures on Twitter (I will never call it X) I've been seeing around the time I wrote this.

Like this one for example.

Thieving Lizards

Our protagonist is palaeontologist Billy DeSantis, a hotshot palaeotologist who begions the film making. However, he starts seeing these ghostly beings who resemble prehistoric life. Some are raptors, some are mammalian creatures, but either way they unnerve the heck out of Billy, who recognises them all as creatures he has studied directly in particular the taptor, which he has named Kleptiasaurus (from Klepto, the greek). They even start to get more and more aggresive, charging at him, breaking into wherever he is, and snarling in his face.

Initially it looks like Billy is an innocent victim who doesn't deserve the haunting, and you want him to escape them somehow. However, as the story goes on, it becomes clear that DeSantis is really bad person who has backstabbed, stolen, and harassed into order to get ahead and knock out anyone who threatens to overshadow him, making him the titular thief lizard (as in a despicable human). The ghosts, however they came, are punishing him for his crimes in the classic vengeful ghost way. I'm deliberately leaving it ambiguous how the ghosts came to the mortal realm, just for the mystique Nothing is Scarier factor, by the way.

By the end of the story, Billy is a reclusive shut-in terrified of going out lest the ghosts come after him, having pushed others who still care about him away. While karmic, I intend readers to still be scared by the state he's in, as well as the fact that not only will there always be thanks to the society we all live in often encouraging his behaviour and hid actions will still haunt others.

This idea was inspired by some rather prroblematic palaeontologists you may have heard about, in particular Robert DePalma of Dakotaraptor infamy; he's been acused of plagerising other scientists' work and even sexually assussalting a colluege of his. yeah, he is an ass through and through, who's behaviour would not be out of place in the Bone Wars of the 1800's and does not belong in the 21st century, so deserves to be devoured by his work that was never even his, or anyone's for that matter.

Think this could make for a good palaeo-horror film? Anything you would add or change to it? Let me know!

Bonus!

I also created a new blog where I discuss cryptids and monsters whenever I want, starting, with a short story inspired by monsters. It's name? Monster Mind!

The inaugaral post is a short stort inspired by monsters in my dreams, Something Crossed my Path, just in time for the Spooky Season.