Let's Keep It Cold

My dream on Tuesday night takes the form of what dream intuition tells me is a new Tarantino film.

The story centers around a [mostly black] gang in the 60's. They dress colorfully, like 20-something versions of Fat Albert And The Cosby Kids. The gang is forced to take a break from dodging the cops and getting into light criminal mischief when they learn about a series of kidnappings (all infants) in their neighborhood. They suspect a rival gang is behind it and they set about solving the mystery!

The gang splits up to search for clues. We follow each group of kids as they walk around the city and engage in clever banter. The soundtrack is heavy on 60's summertime favorites. Along the way, we also get some tasteful allusions to the broader struggles going on with the civil rights movement, etc. The film's tone is playful, with moments of gritty darkness. It's great.

While investigating, the gang runs afoul of another [slightly preppy, mostly white] gang. The conflict between the two groups is fiercest between two heavyset girls: the Sassy, Relatable, Heavyset Black Girl and the Bitchy, Heavyset White Girl.

Toward the end of the film, SRHBG has a big epiphany and runs through the neighborhood (in one long tracking shot) until she finds the one remaining neighbor with a baby. She snatches the baby away and runs back out through the neighborhood with it (still one long shot) in what we assume is a ruse to flush out the real kidnapper. Of course, the other gang has taken it upon themselves to also guard the neighborhood and BHWG suddenly appears and gives chase.

Both girls exert themselves over the course of a lengthy foot chase, trading verbal barbs between heavy breaths all the way. They end up alone in an abandoned building of some kind. SRHBG puts the baby down somewhere and the two heavy girls square off for their Final Showdown.

The ensuing fight is brutal, but with lots of anime high-jumping. When she seems poised to win, BHWG leaps into the air to deliver a final punch and sneers: "Remember when you said you were going to kick my ass?" [She is referencing a previous scene, in which SRHBG muttered something that sounded a lot like that as she exited a room.]

"No", the , Relatable, Heavyset Black Girl corrects her, "I said I was going to KILL your ass."

SRHBG fast-draws a sawed-off baseball bat out of nowhere and cracks BHWG gruesomely across the skull before she can land another punch. After several more jarringly serious, not-at-all-cinematic blows to the head, BHWG falls back onto a small table, her arms out at her sides. A man's arms snake up and loop around her arms, pinning her into place.

What appeared to be a table is in fact a ritualistic wooden cage with a table top. A nondescript white dude who was hanging out in the background of the [mostly-black] gang scenes is hunched over inside it, facing straight ahead [this means he and BHWG are now back-to-back with their arms intertwined and the tabletop between them]. It becomes clear that a) he is a vampire, and b) he has been taking the babies to feed on them and SRHBG has been helping him. But he's very embarrassed and shows real remorse about having to do this.

He has huge, twisted fangs that curl out of his mouth [like Batman in Batman: Year 100*]. His jaw has opened to an impossible angle and the upper fangs are embedded in a wide piece of wood, like a second, lower level to the table. The camera focuses on his pained expression as he waits for blood to run down onto the lower level of the table, into his open mouth. As SRHBG bludgeons BHWG to death with the bat, it does.

That's the end of the movie.

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