RICIN (film)



The first film in the RCU, RICIN was far from perfect. Introducing the titular characters of Inspector Davis and Dr. McClellen, it was originally created by Producer Sam and Director Looke as a short skit for a presentation in Anatomy & Physiology class that spiraled out of control into a feature length film.

History of RICIN
Late in 2017, there was an incident at Wake Robin retirement home in Shelburne VT, during which a retiree cooked a potentially lethal concoction of ricin extract and slipped it into food in the cafeteria. Fortunately, no one was killed. Producer Sam's grandparents had both lived in the facility some years before, so he took an interest in the incident. When he and Director Looke reached the toxicology unit in their Anatomy and Physiology class, a presentation about ricin was the obvious choice.

Filming for RICIN began on February 23, 2018. The original intention was to make a short skit of someone being poisoned by ricin to be part of a class presentation. After the presentation, it was decided to continue filming in an attempt to make a feature length film. "I think at first we were kinda joking, but eventually, once the process blossomed, we realized 'damn, we can really pull this off, we can make a really cool movie'" -Director Looke.

Filming continued slowly over the course of that school year, took a short break in early summer, and then wrapped up with a few long film sessions towards the end of that summer. Upon completion, it was screened to the public at The Savoy in Montpelier, VT on August 19, 2018.

On August 26, 2018 it was uploaded to YouTube, but was blocked in all countries to do copyright infringement. Upon removing the song Band On The Run by Paul McCartney, it was viewable in most countries until sometime in early to mid 2019 when it was again blocked in all countries, this time for it's inclusion of AdultSwim material.

Plot Synopsis
RICIN begins with some brief opening credits, introducing Clubhouse Productions, Director Looke and Producer Sam, and the name of the film. Also credited is A&P Pictures, a nod to the Anatomy and Physiology class where RICIN was born. A blank trifold is used, the flaps opening like the pages of a book to reveal the names of stars and studios. A few bars of The Quiet by Marco Raaphorst play, creating an atmosphere of mystery and suspense.

After the opening credits have faded out, the camera hard cuts to a man tied to a chair eating a hamburger bun. He is in a warehouse, with a make-shift chemistry lab in the background. A masked man approaches, and they begin talking about the hamburger bun. This masked man has an anarchy tattoo on his right hand. Eventually, the masked man produces a syringe, and injects the tied man with an unknown substance, causing him to fall unconscious.

The camera then pulls back, revealing that this was a video being watched in a police station by a detective in a grey-green trench coat and brown tweed hat (Inspector Davis, played by Stephen Looke) and a forensic scientist in a white lab coat with curly black hair (Dr. McClellen, played by Sam Darmstadt). McClellen says that the video had been found, along with the body of the tied man in the video, in a dumpster downtown last night. He also speculates that the victim was killed using a poison known as iocane, and that he ingested it through the hamburger bun. The identity of the victim and the location of the murder in the video remain a mystery.

In the morgue, Davis and McClellen investigate the body. McClellen remarks that the injuries on the body are consistent with that of the victim in the video, and that cause of death indicates poisoning. Davis calibrates The Crimeometer, a device that detects crime. Reading the case report more closely, McClellen notices that the body was found by a store owner, and Davis finds the timing of the body's discovery suspicious, so they rush outside to the tune of On The Run by Pink Floyd.

Once in the parking lot, Davis has a coughing fit, but downplays it's significance. They get into Davis's police car, the 2049 Spinner. Turing on the radio, they listen to Crime In My City by Sixfinger on their way to the store. As soon as they reach the store, the camera hard cuts back to inside the police station. Davis and McClellen have already interrogated the store owner, and realized that he is innocent, and he provided them with CCTV footage of the previous night.

Upon viewing the footage, they discover a mysterious figure sneaking around the dumpster where the body was found. It is unclear who the figure is or what they are doing, but it is a good lead to follow up on. They print out the video frame-by-frame, as is required of them for record keeping purposes, and go to the evidence locker to deposit this evidence. In the evidence locker, Davis finds some "temporary tattoos", which McClellen says are safe for them to use. Unfortunately, due to the disorganized nature of the evidence locker, these were actually tabs of acid. Taking them causes Davis and McClellen to go into an elaborate shared hallucination.

Once they have recovered, they awaken back in their office and get back to the investigation. McClellen talks Davis through some forensic science techniques. He uploads the CCTV footage into a machine that can identify the DNA of a suspect from a video. Unfortunately, this machine takes a long time to produce results. However, McClellen is able to identify some sugar molecules found on the victim and trace them to a Denny's parking lot on the corner of 5th and Main Street. Davis deduces that the victim must have been killed near that location, and they rush to investigate. Suddenly, Davis remembers that they have an appointment at the local elementary school to teach the kids about the dangers of ricin poisoning.

They then travel to the local elementary school, and present a trifold displaying various facts about ricin. Several students stop by and ask questions. They eventually draw a large crowd, and the students are having a great deal of fun engaging with their presentation. This scene was created by filming Director Looke and Producer Sam's actual Anatomy and Physiology class presentation.

Now running low on time to investigate the Denny's parking lot, they decide to use the fastest mode of transportation available to them: the office chair. They speed over to the tune of Band On The Run by Paul McCartney. Once they arrive at the parking lot, they quickly determine which nearby warehouse was were the murder took place. Exploring inside the now-abandoned warehouse, they find the remains of the chemistry lab, as well as the chair and ropes that the victim was tied up with in the video, and the syringe used to poison him. Using The Crimeometer, Davis determines that this is the place where the victim was killed. McClellen swabs the evidence and surrounding area for fingerprints and DNA.

While waiting for the lab results, Davis and McClellen take a break to watch some TV. After watching some ads for Minecraft, Priority Motor Sports, and Prices, the Channel 7 News comes on with a story about Fuatai Solo's failed attempt to climb the Empire State Building. Following this, an anti-drug PSA starring McClellen and Davis comes on. Then, Davis and McClellen decide to stop watching TV and get back to the investigation.

On their way back to the police station, McClellen gets a call from the mayor, who wants them to partake in a live press conference to brief the public about what's going on. At the press conference, they give a succinct summary of the relevant elements of their investigation so far. They explain the circumstances of the body's discovery, and the detective work they did to find the crime scene and other evidence. They conclude that they are now waiting for McClellen's science machine to give them the DNA of the person sneaking around the dumpster, and to hear back about the finger prints they lifted off the syringe.

Afterwards, Davis and McClellen chill in a hot tub, debating what to investigate next. McClellen wants to go back to the store and look for more evidence regarding the mysterious figure, while Davis wants to re-examine the crime scene for more clues. Their argument becomes mildly heated, and Davis leaves in a huff for the crime scene.

In the Denny's parking lot by the warehouse, Davis is surprised to find The Crimeometer indicating crime related to the murder in the vicinity where there was previously none detected. Suddenly, the masked man from the video jumps out from behind a car and attacks Davis! They fight for an extended period of time. The filming of this extremely drawn out and somewhat unrealistic fight is metaphorical for the intensity of the actual fight, it does not show the actual fight that they had. Creative liberties are taken to enhance the emotional context of the fight. For instance, they cannot actually cast magic spells even though that is depicted in the fight; this is purely metaphorical. Also, they cannot use The Force. Several selections of songs play throughout the fight, including Lord of The Rings (soundtrack) by Howard Shore, John Wick (soundtrack) by Castle Vania, Pirates of The Caribbean (soundtrack) by Hans Zimmer, Lightsaber Fightsaber Theme by Egoraptor, Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows (soundtrack) by Alexandre Desplat, and The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly Theme by Shittyflute.

At the climax of the fight, Davis knocks the masked man's mask off with a dictionary, and it is revealed that he is Dr. McClellen!!! McClellen confesses that he was secretly the masked man from the video. Suddenly, he gets a text alert on his phone from that machine that reads DNA from videos, revealing that Davis was the mysterious man sneaking around the dumpster at night!!! They sit down to talk over these developments.

It turns out, this whole debacle stemmed from McClellen's frustration at the police station's unwillingness to pursue a rouge terrorist cell operating in his jurisdiction. He felt that the police weren't doing enough to investigate, so he took matters into his own hands. He formed a vigilante justice militia and managed to capture one of the terrorists, filming the terrorist's murder and dumping his body with the video to force the police to investigate, which would ultimately lead them to the terrorists.

Davis reveals that he was involved in a secret undercover operation to take out the terrorists from the inside out. He had disguised himself as a terrorist and was working his way up through the ranks, when he was captured by (unbeknownst to him) McClellen's vigilante justice militia. He kept his cover as a terrorist so his mission wouldn't be jeopardized, and since his disguise and acting were so convincing, McClellen didn't recognize him, and since McClellen was wearing a mask, he didn't recognize McClellen!

Once he overheard the vigilante's were planning on poisoning him with iocane and dumping the body for the police to discover, Davis hatched a plan. He had been slowly building up an immunity to iocane over the past fifteen years, so he knew he would survive. He played along, eating the hamburger bun and letting them film him. When they injected him, he played dead, and they dumped him along with that video in the dumpster. When the coast was clear, he went back to the police station to launch an investigation, but found some mysteriously missing equipment, including a missing syringe. This lead him to suspect someone working at the station of working with the vigilantes. Then, he snuck into the morgue, and removed an already dead body. He doctored the body to have the same injuries and cause of death that he would have had if the iocane had killed him, dressed it in his disguise, and placed it back in the dumpster to be found.

The next day, when the report of the body came in, both Davis and McClellen pretended that this was the first they'd heard about the whole thing. They both investigated it as though they had no prior knowledge of the case, because McClellen didn't want to let on that he had orchestrated the whole thing, and because Davis didn't want to blow his cover as an undercover terrorist while investigating who had tried to murder him. McClellen was focusing on the identity of the victim so that the investigation would lead back to the terrorists, because unbeknownst to him Davis was his victim and he had survived, while Davis was focusing on the identity of the killer, so he could track down the vigilante who was jeopardizing his undercover investigation.

Everything was going great for both of them until Davis wanted to go back and investigate the scene of the crime again. McClellen knew that there was still evidence there that would implicate him that he had neglected to collect the first time they were there, so he wanted to stall until he could go back to dispose of that evidence. Davis was adamant, however, and so after he left McClellen rushed to put on his mask and get to the scene ahead of him. They got there at the same time, and commenced to fight.

At this point in their conversation, Davis breaks down in a coughing fit. McClellen reveals that it's been thirty six to seventy two hours, and that he had in fact poisoned the hamburger bun with ricin! Davis passes out on the ground as McClellen walks ominously away. The screen fades to black.

Suddenly, we find Davis asleep in the break room of the police station, having a bad dream. He jolts awake, and topples over backwards out of his chair, confused and disoriented by his surroundings. McClellen rushes into the room, and asks if he's okay. They talk, and it is revealed that there was an office party Friday night, and that today is Monday morning. McClellen tells Davis he must have been asleep in the station all weekend! Davis tells McClellen about the weirdest dream he had, describing the previous events of the movie, and McClellen insists that none of it is true.

Just as they are leaving together, they high five, revealing that McClellen has an anarchy tattoo on his right hand.

The credits roll to the tune of Mr. Brightside by The Killers, dedicating the movie to Alex Reilly, Robin Hartzell, and Ben Heintz, with special thanks to Kathy Topping, Alison Gauthier, Mark Chaplin, The Clubhouse Patrons, Stephen Looke's Family, and Sam Darmstadt's Family.

After a humorous exchange, the credits also promise a "conclusive ending". Mr. Blue Sky begins to play, and the screen cuts to Davis relaxing on a hammock in the sun. Tensions mount as the camera cuts to someone's point of view, breathing heavily as they creep through the grass towards Davis. Suddenly, McClellen bursts out of the foliage and leaps at Davis! However, the attack is not fatal, as it is simply a tickle fight. They laugh as they tickle each other, having a good time together being friends. The screen fades to black a final time and the movie ends.