Torchwood Declassified (2006) s01e06 Episode Script

It's time to get a bit gory.
One word that I can put it into is WRONG! What is it? What's in there? Aw! Terrifying! I wanna know! It is sick.
Disgusting.
Tell us what these creatures are.
Violent.
This is our little peek into the dark corners of the human soul.
Very Torchwood.
Right at the start of the series, when we planned it, I was always going, "The Hills Have Eyes, "we must do The Hills Have Eyes!" I really wanted to write something that was very scary.
And put them in realdanger.
Real personal danger.
I hate the countryside.
It's dirty.
It's unhygienic.
And what is that smell? That would be grass.
It's disgusting.
From the very start, you see the team out of their context, in beautiful surroundings - the Brecon Beacons.
Did you say "camp"? And suddenly they're in this situation where they don't know whether it's alien or something else.
They're out of their environment, out of Cardiff.
And everyone feels a little bit more vulnerable and open.
And a lot more scared.
It reminds me of, um, erholidays I'd have as a kid where your dad takes a wrong turn.
I remember that sense of, "We're far away from home.
I don't like it.
" It's a universal feeling.
If I had to spend too long up here, I'd wanna top meself.
What makes this episode even more terrifying is the fact that there are no extraterrestrial, alien forces at work.
You see, meat .
.
has to be tenderised .
.
first.
Good.
The kind of enjoyment that these people have of it - that's what makes it so sick.
You know - Owen Teale who, er His character, when he says - Gwen says to him at the end, "Why do you do this?" And he leans over and says, Cos it made me happy.
Come on.
Just creepy.
Creepy.
HE SUCKS HIS LIPS The scene where Gwen is questioning Evan at the end is really me grappling with, "Why would people do that?" What sort of people are you to wake up in the morning and think, "This is what I'm gonna do?" 'To be confronted by something' that is human but that horrifying is just appalling and horribly ugly.
And that's what Gwen reacts to.
Who are these people? Ha-ha! This is our village! The villagers are dead.
They've all been doing it.
This is our harvest.
GWEN GASPS Actually the whole thing is designed to push Gwen towards Owen.
That even though she can't stand him half the time, but she's leading this extraordinary life and cannot go home and say what's going on.
In those circumstances is when you start to have the affair at work.
What are you doing? You need to rest.
Compiling what we've got.
See if it helps.
They can't tell anyone about this organisation or about what they do every day.
It's an environment they're not used to She's not handling it well Outside their comfort zone.
They share everything.
Bet you thought you'd never be glad to see me.
They rely on each other much more in this particular episode.
They go from hell and back.
Wanna quip about feeling a small prick? No, but thanks a lot.
And that just draws them together.
They get to that point where they're like two kettles that are ready to just "Dooo!" Steam off.
In that heated moment, boom, it happens.
You and me .
.
we're not cosy at all.
We'd be amazing.
And that scares the shit out of you.
Damn! We've got every element of like a, you know, film and stuff in this.
We've got sex, blood and violence.
Rock on! CALM CHORAL MUSIC '"As you walk in the first set, well make sure you just look at this side of the room," and, you know' Typical Welsh farmhouse.
You know, lovely.
And, er, then he said, "Now turn around.
" And it was just like something out of Chainsaw Massacre.
There was, sort of, blood along the walls Bits of fingernails .
.
Along the floor Body parts everywhere Along the curtains A pile of human faeces On the sideboards Bodies hanging up.
A huge, big, like, um - it looked like a big body barbeque! Even the maggots were running off of it.
They wouldn't stay on it.
That's how gross it was! This episode needed more blood and gore than any episode and any episode to come, as well.
The whole episode is just based on a lot of people getting murdered in the backwards of Wales.
So all the victims are gonna be our handiwork.
SCREECHING Whoa! This is, um, made from all kinds of things.
I mean literally - the inner part is a plastic skeleton.
It's just bought from a medical supply house and it's used as a teaching aid.
So we've just taken that and added to it.
All the sinew and muscle is very simple.
It's just this material called "plumber's hemp.
" Which is just, kind of, fibres which we dip in pre-coloured latex and lay over a model into shapes.
When it dries you get the, kind of, muscles and tendons.
It's just fabricated from the ground up.
SCARY MUSIC I saw .
.
the rushes of Countrycide and I saw the, er, when the rushes came through of the set.
I had a conversation with Russell and Julie and Richard about how many body parts there were, frankly! Because what had happened was the design department had done something so fantastic, so brilliant and so lifelike that actually, it was a little too much.
You also have to remember that these aren't supernatural mutants! They are ordinary people who are still living in this kitchen somehow.
It's about saying, "What serves the story?" If you're doing a story about cannibals, you'll have to see bits of eaten bodies which is terrifying.
The most frightening thing is people's facial reactions.
You see their eyes, you see their fear and think, "What are they looking at?!" If you give them everything they're looking at, then actually the whole mystery goes away and the horror goes away.
So a lot of how much we show blood and gore and horror is how much we pull back on it rather than how much we show.
What did this, Jack? Cos whatever it is, it can't be human, how So this story demands it.
This is a blood and gore story.
But we never luxuriate in that.
Just having a little glimpse and an idea of what's going on just sends you off into this.
.
reallyhorrible place that I absolutely hope I will never, ever have to experience in real life! WOMAN'S LAUGHTER INAUDIBLE So, episode six, the end climax was always about Captain Jack, you know, riding in on a tractor, shooting them all, in spectacular, kind of, John Woo style.
What if the only way to fight these people was to almost get primal yourself? 'And I thought it was an opportunity to tap into some of the depth that Jack may have.
' There were two different ways that we discussed of doing it.
We'd do it - Jack would come in and be stealth-like, that he's so focussed that there's no emotion.
Or he comes in - and this is what WE decided on - 'that I'd come in and I'd be just raw and disgusted and, "Aaah!"' Guttural.
OK? And just blowing the crap out of everybody.
What turned out was Julie and Russell wanted it stealth! Hah! We wanted a big action climax to something that had been so psychologically dark and a bit gory.
And then, as with everything you shoot, you've got choices about how far you go.
And with John we had great options.
Because we could either go quite big with the performance in terms of emotion and anger.
What's the matter with you people?! We also had an option to go quieter.
The route we took was a combination of losing some dialogue and slow-mo.
It kind of gives a different spin on the scene.
I suppose it gives it - because it slows it down, it gives it an almost, I suppose, operatic quality.
Which is not what we shot.
So I was worried that it wasn't gonna work.
But I think it's worked out all right.
Oh, really? GUNSHOT Ah! Episode seven is a wonderful character portrait of Toshiko.
I think it's a very sad episode, too.
It was a great opportunity for Tosh to, kind of, rev up her engine and, kind of, become who she is capable of being.