Here you will find the overall narrative structure of Pest Control, using a mixture of written narrative text and storyboarding.
Idyllic picket fence Americana, suburbia, nice house nice car, perfect lawn, something’s off. Everything is clean and pristine to the point of being unsettling. Sweltering heat, everything’s got a weird yellow tinge.
Orderly rows of houses and orderly rows of photographs line the walls inside, one depicts a happy couple on their wedding day. The wife Hilda beams in the photograph, in her blinding white dress. The husband’s face is just out of frame.
The sound of a kettle boiling is heard in the background getting louder and more insistent, cut to the kettle, cut to the spout spewing steam. Hilda removes it from the gas and clicks it off, then turns up the volume on the radio and goes about setting the table for presumable dinner. Her movements are precise, dainty, and practiced. Show a few steps in a montage to establish the norm and Hilda’s character acting.
The aftermath of something happening at the dinner table. Broken dishes, tablecloth on the floor, some blood. Is this the infestation?
Hilda is alone most of the day, her single-minded goal being the perfect housewife like those in the adverts. Having no other outlet, she puts her energy into keeping the house immaculately clean at all times. There is an infestation of MOTHS and possibly other vermin she cannot seem to quash no matter how many insects she swats. Keeps the dead insects in a jar below the sink with a tally of how many she’s killed. Keeps a board of pinned insects somewhere else, equally hidden.
Something’s not quite there behind her eyes, but whatever her malady she keeps it well hidden. Her husband hits her, and is generally an asshole – cut of Hilda washing her bruised hands vigorously (with the proper technique), seemingly trying to wash them off; this scene goes somewhere near the end of the establishing section. In the following cut, she has gloves, oven mitts, or similar on. Shot of her lying in bed, eyes wide open, looking generally miserable. Hilda doing the ironing picks up a shirt, and looks through a moth-eaten hole in it with one eye.
Night time, indoors, lit by the TV. It plays an advert for some super strong insecticide. "LADY KILLER, for all your pest control needs." This is the solution to Hilda’s problems! She watches with rapt attention (zoom in on face/eyes, show parts of commercial as reflection) and orders it in bulk at the next available opportunity. The packaging of the insecticide is bright orange with unexpectedly cheery branding for what the product is. Commercial presented in different animation styles to the main narrative - more colourful, little to no black, simplified cutout-style figures, lineless finish.
Hilda enters through the front door, carrying bags of shopping. Upon unpacking them she finds a rotting piece of meat – that she picks up before realising it is rotting and turns it over to find maggots everywhere. Cut to expression of shocks, she slams it to the floor and stomps on it violently – closeup of foot coming down, shot of Hilda from the back, breathing heavily.
She begins mixing the insecticide, spurred on by the appearance of the maggots. She pours the bright orange liquid into a spray bottle, for the first time, makes it easy to edit, and keeps the shadows here normal. An appearance of more moths in the house, fluttering out from an opened wardrobe, a dress inside completely moth-eaten.
Return to the insecticide same scene but with distorted light and slightly longer shadows.
She is cleaning up after dinner, she puts away several items, offering a good shot of the counter. She looks back and there are suddenly more moths.
A third return to the same scene, heavily orange light, offering strange shadows to her face. Almost maddened look in her eyes.
Opens the box of clothes, shot from the inside of the box as the light gradually hits a writhing mass of moths and maggots
She simply pours a bucket of the insecticide. The light orange, the shadows wild. She looks in the mirror at herself, her hair messy, her dress stained in places from the insecticide. Her skin begins to change into maggots and moths, they fly away as a transition.
A broken Hilda sits in a chair in the living room, Yellowpages open to an exterminator’s number, the phone cord wrapped around her wrist. Pan to the wall where we see a horde of moths, consuming the furniture from earlier. Cut to black.
Hilda's husband finds the moth jars while he is looking for something of his in the kitchen. Hilda enters from the doorway behind him, carrying leftovers of the insecticide in a bucket. Cut to her perspective - there is now a giant moth. Hilda sees red. Cut to black.
The Doorbell rings, Hilda looks through the peephole (PARALLEL to earlier shot with the moth eaten shirt), it’s the exterminators. Shown first distorted through the peephole. Hilda opens it with the chain still on, she smiles brightly. Wearing a red dress now, it has what look to be moth-eaten holes in it. “Thank you but I have everything handled now!”. Exterminators look confused, flies can be heard buzzing in the background. One tries to crane his neck to see inside. Hilda slams the door in their faces and the rhythmic clicking of her heels can be heard retreating. The two exterminators share a look of confusion. Zoom out and fade out.
Fade back into Hilda, seen through a doorframe, sitting at the kitchen table with a steaming cup of tea. She is having an animated conversation with someone at the other end, currently not visible through the door, looking happier than ever. A faint sound of flies buzzing but it’s drowned out by a record player, playing the same song from the beginning, seen in the room that the shot is cut from (looped animation of it playing). Hilda’s legs swing under the table to the rhythm of the music.
Cut to Hilda’s husband, at the other end of the dinner table, very clearly dead, a knife/icepick/some appropriate stabbing tool through the center of his chest like the specimens in Hilda’s bug collection. Flies buzz around him, a large moth crawls up his sleeve. Hilda kicks his chair (closeup shot of foot? cut back to husband); his head lolls forward. The insects scatter.
Cut to Hilda, still smiling, she nods in agreement.
END
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