What's in a Phrase?

In a previous post, we considered how to use horror movie posters to generate plot ideas. In this post, we'll take a look at using commonplace phrases to do the same.

Let's stay with the “bug” them. By typing “bug” into the Internet search engine of my choice (Bing), several links appeared, including this one: Phrases, which lists these commonplace phrases that include the word “bug” and the meaning associated with each:

• bug off
• bug out
• bug in her bonnet
• bug someone
• bug storm
• cute as a bug's ear
• snug as a bug in a rug

At first, not many of the phrases may seem to inspire ideas for horror plots (or even scenes), but, of course, the phrases are raw material; we have to work with them a bit. Let's take “snug as a bug in a rug,” for example. Let's jettison the “snug as” portion of the phrase, paring it down to “a bug in a rug.” instead of the denotative, or dictionary, meaning of “rug,” let's go with a figurative use. Toupees are sometimes referred to, usually derogatorily, as “rugs.”

Could a toupee-manufacturing company plant a bug inside its hairpieces? Sure—but why? Maybe the bugs aren't really insects. Maybe they're miniature microphones that someone plants in the toupees of certain men ho wear “rugs.”

Okay—but why? The bald men are spies or suspected terrorists or masters of organized crime. Maybe the toupee company is a CIA front that makes “special” toupees for only a select few clients.

Sounds good, maybe, but why go through all the trouble of making toupees instead of using more traditional ways to bug persons of interest?

No one, least of all a spy, a suspected terrorist, or a master of organized crime, is likely to suspect there's a listening device in his toupee. It's the perfect hiding place—as long as the wig stays on the suspect's head, which I likely to be most of the time that he's in public.

There's another possibility, too. If the “rug' isn't a toupee, but a merkin, the story takes on a whole different tone. It could take a satirical or even an erotic twist. A merkin, after all, is a pubic wig, a toupee worn down under (mostly by women).

Now the client is likely to be a female spy, a female terrorist suspect, or a female head of organized crime. The possibilities aren't endless, but they're sure different than those that are likely to be inspired by a male character's wearing of a toupee.

Maybe you don't like either possibility, that of the toupee or that of the merkin. Besides, we might wonder, where's the fear in such a conceit? There could be one, if the bug is set to self-destruct, Mission Impossible style, after so many hours or days, killing its wearer out at the same time. Some suspense, or even terror, could flow from the thought that the presence of the bug, over time, scrambles the brains of the surveilled suspect—and those around him or her. Perhaps the government agency that sells the implanted toupee or merkin knows that this effect will occur; maybe they discover it as the “bugs” are put into use. Alternatively, maybe the “bugs” have this effect only on some suspects, and the government agency must discover why and how to prevent the effect from occurring.

The possibilities are many, and they have all resulted from brainstorming about a phrase that includes the word “bug.”

Of course, if you don't like the results of using “bug” phrases, you can always substitute a word associated with another horror trope or theme and brainstorm about phrases containing this (or these) term(s).

To find such tropes, check out images of horror movie posters. You'll find that many of them contain the same types of images, such as dolls (Abandoned, Dolls, Worry Dolls, The Doll, Finders Keepers, Doll in the Dark, Child's Play, Annabelle, The Devil Doll); heads (Pumpkinhead, Hatchet, Shrunken Heads, The Brain That Wouldn't Die, Hostel); eyes (The Eye, Would You Rather?, The Crawling Eye, Candyman 3, The Theater Bizarre, The Return, Cat's Eye).

Just a few of the many phrases that contain the word “eye” or closely related words include:

• up to your (my) eyeballs
• your (my) eyes are bigger than your (my) stomach
• a bird's-eye view
• a feast for the eyes
• a jaundiced eye
• a roving eye
• a worm's-eye view
• all eyes are on someone (something)
• an eagle eye
• an eye for an eye
• as far as the eye can see
• bat one's eye
• bawl one's eyes out
• easy on the eyes
• bedroom eyes
• eye opener
• eye to eye
• eyes in the back of your head
• eye popper
• eyes only
• get some shuteye
• give your eyeteeth for
• stars in your eyes
• in the wink of an eye
• keep a weather eye on

Possibilities are endless.