Q:Build a movie plot around this: What short story does Michael McDowell adapt? Arthur Conan Doyle's
A:
The story presents three vignettes that are all tied together with a "wrap-around" story concerning a witch, Betty, who has kidnapped a young boy, Timmy, and holds him prisoner. Betty plans to roast him in her oven and serve him at a dinner party for more of her witch friends. To pass the time in his cell, Betty had given Timmy an old, thick book called "Tales From the Darkside". When she reveals her plans for him, Timmy begins to stall her by reading her some of the stories.The first story is called "Lot 249". At a prestigious university, a nerdy student, Bellingham, is bullied by two rich students, Susan and Lee, who are quite contemptuous of him because he's a work-study student. Susan's brother, Andy, helps Bellingham one night with a new specimen that has arrived in the archeology department: an ancient mummy. Speaking about how the ancient Egyptians would draw the corpse's brains out through it's nose with a hook and stuff vegetables into it's abdomen, Bellingham finds the incision in the mummy's abdomen where his preparers had stuffed him with herbs and onions. Bellingham also finds an ancient scroll and remarks that it's fairly worthless. Andy leaves and Bellingham reads the scroll, finding a spell that will bring the mummy to life to be his servant. Bellingham been cheated out of a teaching assistant's position in his department, an incident that somehow involved both Susan and Lee.Bellingham brings the mummy to life and sends it after Lee. It stalks Lee through his apartment, finally cornering him and forcing a hooked wire hanger up his nose, killing him. Susan returns home to find Lee's brain on a table in the front hall and Lee himself partially wrapped in cloth bandages. The mummy attacks her, chasing her through the house, where she becomes lodged in the broken window of the front door. The mummy uses a large pair of scissors and slashes her back open, stuffing the wound with flowers from a vase.Andy goes to Lee and Susan's place and finds them both dead. Suspicious of Bellingham, he goes to...