Idea Province

Horror Film on a Euthanasia Cruise

I know that the “Euthanasia Cruise” - a luxury liner that takes suicidal people out to sea and assists their suicides - was a ridiculous internet-spread urban legend exposed in the 90s, and nobody except complete fools ever believed in it. But I only know that because I recently had an idea involving the Euthanasia Cruise, and so I looked it up, and was dismayed to see it was nothing but an internet-spread urban legend.

That’s okay. A movie can be inspired by an urban legend. Just look at Urban Legend or Kidney Thieves. Like those literal sounding titles, this movie would be called Euthanasia Cruise. The movie would open with scenes that establish why our hero - a teenager - “simply cannot take it anymore” and must end it all. The scenes establishing this will be life knocking him down and being full of flaws and so on. But he doesn’t have the guts to kill himself. So he’s stuck.

Then he discovers this Euthanasia Cruise, which promises a grand last hurrah and a painless assisted suicide. It’s a little out of his price range, so he gets a job and saves up money for it. His parents are impressed with his newfound work ethic… if only they knew. He quickly earns the money for his suicide cruise, writes the cruel world a note explaining his fatal decision (life knocking him down, flaws) and disembarks onto the choppy euthanasiatic seas.

The first night, everyone receives a number, but nobody knows what it means. Of course the cruise is full of fun, colorful characters who only have a desire for death in common. Cliques quickly form amongst the soon-to-die. People in physical pain are the majority. After them comes the emotionally pained - people who were dumped or lost a friend or loved one, or who aren’t happy with who they are.

One woman is religious and just can’t wait for heaven any longer.

Then there’s the people who aren’t suffering, but object to life because it doesn’t meet their high standards for what existence should be. A lot of them are tired of the meaninglessness of life and just feel absurd and embarrassed about getting up and living every day. Our hero falls into this category, and is happy to find these others like him.

In fact, the beauty of the cruise and this new camaraderie with like-minded life-haters makes our hero question his decision to end his life. He even develops a crush on a quick-witted girl who makes the most eloquent case for suicide he’s ever heard.

He asks some of his fellow passengers about the protocol for not dying on the cruise, but nobody really knows or is interested, since they can’t begin to imagine not wanting to die. That is, except for one man who had lost his wife, but found peace on the cruise and feels ready to live again.

He and our hero agree to ask the suicide cruise authorities about how to opt out of suicide on the ship, but the honchos are all mysteriously absent. The only people wearing Euthanasia Cruise uniforms are the custodians, cooks, and servers, who all claim not to know the whereabouts of the cruise directors.

That night, our hero hears hideous screams of agony. Disturbed and curious, he gets out of bed and attempts to track the source of the screams. He stumbles through the dark toward them, but just as he’s getting close, the screams stop. Our hero shivers and heads back to his cabin.

The next morning, the hero seeks out his widower friend to see if he heard the screams too, but he can’t find him. His cabin is empty, and he doesn’t show up for breakfast. In fact, a good chunk of the people are missing. Have the assisted suicides started already? Our hero finds his crush, and is glad to see that she hasn’t quit life yet. He rants about how jealous she is not to be in the first group picked for death.

Still, our hero can’t shake the sense that something is wrong. Horribly, horribly wrong.

The next night, he hears the howls of agony again, but this time he finds his way to them in time. He spies into the one porthole that has light coming out of it, and sees sadistic cruise directors torturing a large group of the cruise passengers, slowly, violently and painfully murdering them.

And thus Euthanasia Cruise transforms into a horror movie, with our once suicidal hero in a fight for his life against evil, blood-thirsty cruise directors who take joy in killing their passengers and refuse to spare anyone, especially those who have a change of heart. They won’t rest until everyone on the boat is dead, including the custodians, cooks, and servers. The night your number is up, the crew comes to your cabin and takes you away, whether you want to live or not.

The hero tries to get the survivors to realize this and fight this sinister force with him, but they’re too depressed to put that much effort into preserving the dignities of their deaths. It’s like trying to organize an army of corpses. Indifferent corpses.  Of course the crew takes note of our hero’s antics, and make a special target out of him.

He does find one ally: his death-longing-for-crush. Eventually it’s them against the cruise directors, and after a lot of bloody horror movie style mayhem, they triumph, finding themselves the only survivors.

Nevertheless, this chick still hates life and wants to die, and she asks our hero to do the honors. They find a device for humane suicide hidden away, covered in dust, from the early days of the cruise, before the crew got their bloodlust. He hooks her up, and it still works like a charm. Killing her as she desires - painlessly and quickly - and holding her as the life fades from her eyes is the most beautiful moment of his life… his 100-year-long life.

The End.

I’d actually make this myself if I was passionate enough about horror movies, but I feel like I’d lose interest somewhere in the middle of outlining this story. So here it is, for you.