They (film)

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They
Movie poster for the They.
Directed by	Robert Harmon
Produced by	Tom Engelman Ted Field
Written by	Brendan Hood
Starring	Laura Regan Marc Blucas Ethan Embry Dagmara Dominczyk Jon Abrahams
Distributed by	Dimension Films
Release date(s)	November 27, 2002 (USA)
Running time	89 min.
Language	English
Budget	$17 million (estimated)
IMDb profile

They (also known as Wes Craven Presents: They) is the title of a horror film released in 2002. The plot centers on the phenomenon of night terrors and their impact on the lives of adults who experienced them as children.

The film has received a very mixed reaction since its release, but it should also be said that They had a very troubled production with many re shoots by Rick Bota and rewrites by an estimated group of ten people including Joel Soisson and Frank Spotnitz. The original spec script by Brendan Hood (which has developed a cult following online via websites where it has been posted) had absolutely nothing to do with night terrors, and not a single word of his work ended up in the finished film aside from the title and a few character names.

1 Plot
2 The Original Spec Screenplay
3 Cast
4 See also
5 External links

[edit] Plot

They tells the story of a Psychology grad student named Julia (Laura Regan) and an event that turns her life upside down. As a child she experienced horrifying night terrors, but has seemingly overcome the problem. She reunites with a childhood friend, Billy (Jon Abrahams), and he tells her that he believes their night terrors are caused by something otherworldly and warns her to stay out of the dark, before suddenly committing suicide. At his funeral, Julia meets two of Billy's friends who slowly begin to believe his claims. Julia's night terrors return and she begins to doubt her perception of the world around her.

[edit] The Original Spec Screenplay

A combination of science fiction, subtle horror, and full-scale paranoia in the vein of "Invasion of the Body Snatchers," the original spec dealt with a group of four recent college grads who make a terrifying discovery: our planet is populated by a race of organic machines which prey upon human beings for "spare parts" and have the power to erase their victim's identities (as well as the memories of others) out of existence. Soon afterwards, the college kids start to vanish from photographs, their identification disappears, and family members fail to recognize them. As the students are picked off, one by one, the script's main character realizes that both she and her friends aren't the first people who have suffered their inescapable fate, and they certainly won't be the last. The original script's central idea combined fears of rampant technology and loss of identity with several memorable, creep-out scenes: the students accidentally hit a dog with their car on a darkened, lonely road -- only to discover that it isn't a dog at all, a little girl confides about something which is watching her from a shed, and a boy offers a truly hideous smile on a subway train. Nevertheless, the producers who bought the script in the summer of 2000 threw out Hood's entire concept and started over from scratch.

At least three endings were eventually filmed, but only two are present on the DVD. With several release date changes, poor test audience scores, and box office failure, They is not what Robert Harmon and Brendan Hood intended it to be, but what the producers molded it into.