The overnight story

Eyes Wide Shut

The overnight story takes place in a strange land. It’s the same place as the daylight world but magically transformed by darkness into a new reality. This shadow world has new rules and experiences. It’s a place where the protagonists will face their fears. They will encounter wonderful, strange – and often terrifying – characters. They will be forced into a new understanding of reality. The compressed format of the overnight story works perfectly for film. It’s less optimised for the expansiveness of the novel.

Time is ticking. As surely as day turns to night, dawn will also arrive in the morning. The protagonist must survive the night or achieve their quest. They must do this before sunrise. When the new day does come, the ordinary world will be restored.

Overnight, young people will find meaning, love and friendship in films like The Myth of the American Sleepover, Before Sunrise, Dazed and Confused, and American Graffiti. Monsters will emerge in Night of the Living Dead and From Dusk Till Dawn. Crimes will be perpetrated and solved in Assault on Precinct 13, Die Hard and The Long Goodbye. An unpalatable truth will emerge in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Love won and enemies defeated in The Warriors. A safe middle-class existence will turned upside down in After Hours and Eyes Wide Shut.

When morning arrives the world will be the same again, but the protagonists will be changed by their experience.