Cut to a TV set which has been turned on, downstairs. It's showing some black and white bit of Ozzie and Harriet engaging in a rapidly escalating tiff in the background while this weird, mysterious stalker guy is doing some kind of bizarre stiff-fingered jab at these items he's apparently pulled out and put on the kitchen table. All you see is his hand and part of his arm in a dark coat sleeve as he clumsily bumps things across the surface of the table with his fingertips. This is scary, jarring, psycho behavior that seems pointless at first, then you see: Ketchup... milk... the white and red carnations. He jabs repeatedly at each item until it falls over the edge of the kitchen table. The ketchup mixes with the milk on the floor. The flowers are trashed... the bizarre, jerking-jabbing hand comes back as if it's going to jab something else off of the table, then (as Ozzie and Harriet crescendo in the background) suddenly clenches into a fist and violently smashes a teacup to bits with a loud crash.
The girl sits up in bed with a shriek, then listens, wild-eyed, finally aware that something is really wrong. She slips out of bed and goes to the door, then is afraid to go any further. She listens anxiously, her hands and cheek pressed to the door, her heart pounding (oh wait, maybe that was the music I mentioned, which was so well chosen all the way through). We see the intruder climbing the stairs, though we still don't get a good look at his face. There's not much time, the girl doesn't know what to do, and just as she seems to be thinking maybe she should go call the cops or something... Those weird jabbing hands burst through the door! Yes, THROUGH the door. One arm grabs her around the neck, the other hand forces through with a huge, vicious looking knife and starts stabbing awkwardly, hitting the door, almost striking her in the face over and over again. She's struggling and screaming - we get a close up of her white teeth and red tonsils. There's that white and red theme again. Finally he manages to drive the knife into her abdomen - agonizingly slowly. Her white silky robe now runs red down the middle. Somehow she manages to break free from him at last, wrenches the knife from his hands and stabs him through the hole in the door - burying it to the hilt into his mouth full of hideously brown and blacked teeth. We get a brief glimpse of his face as he stumbles back, the handle of the knife protruding from his gaping mouth, then he falls backwards down the stairs. (It's a rough-faced, dirty-looking scary Scott Spiegel, and he took quite a tumble down those stairs.) The girl stumbles away from the door, blood streaming from the gash in her gut. She's gasping for breath, dazed and shaking, trying to make her way to call for help. She falls against the bureau, knocking a vase of (you know it!) white and red flowers to the floor as she falls herself... white and red... fading to black. Trippy. No dialogue. But very very spooky. I loved the symbolism and the sparse, enduring emptiness of the setting in contrast to the beauty and fullness of the doomed young woman. I thought it was scarier than Within the Woods, and the images have really stayed with me. White and red... innocence... danger. Wow.
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