One of my (several) side projects is Todesco, a story about a zombie cowboy vengeance trip.

Tarantino starts with music, and so do I. Here’s the track, the title track I think, playing as Jack Todesco wakes up dead in the mountain meadows. I’m imagining a montage, cuts from images to title cards (maybe in spasming blood like Dawn of the Dead), and big reveals on the guitar bits, like dead people’s eyes opening. Here’s Ghosts I, track five [mp3]:

Of course, horror is nothing without humor. We need a bouncy, happy song to do terrible things to. Imagine a dark figure on a white horse looking down from a ridge on a peaceful western village, at dusk. One of our victims plays with his family after dinner below, he committed terrible crimes in the past but now he’s settled down, a good Mormon man.

The horse starts down the mountain. His name that sits on him is Jack, and Hell follows with him. The idyllic scene turns in a fountain of blood, fire, and revenge, set to Johnny Cash’s Flesh and Blood [mp3]:

“Flesh and blood needs flesh and blood, and you’re the one I need.” <- Jack stalks victim.
“So when the day was ended, I was still not satisfied.” <- Jack catches up, gets violent.
“For I knew everything I touched would wither and would die.” <- Close on victim as his eyes die.
“And love is all that will remain and grow from all these seeds.” <- Kids huddled in the corner.
“Mother Nature’s quite a lady, but you’re the one I need.” <- Jack kills wife.

Nice and menacing! I guess any love song can also be a murder song if you just swap out the subtext. The song’s tree imagery plays well with the magical nature of the story too.

Actually, Flesh and Blood also plays as the waking-up-in-the-meadow song, maybe better. The song might be long enough to take us from waking up through to the first murder, then to NIN for the title cards. Or maybe a gunfight… That Ghosts track sounds pretty high-noon.

Two bloody massacres in the first five minutes: Hollywood, here I come.