Praying for Mantis Love by Rachel Healy

Script – Praying for Mantis Love

Close-up shot of an eye, zoom out a bit to show the eye is peering through some foliage.

We see what the eye is looking at which is two praying mantis mating, back to the eye which we now see is a shocked face of another praying mantis (the daughter).

The mating couple have finished and the male (the step-father) looks scared all of a sudden and the female (the mother) attacks him, biting his head off.

The daughter is now completely horrified, and the mother sees her.

The daughter starts backing away from the approaching mother. But mother grabs daughter and embraces her and guides her towards a hollow tree stump (their chapel is inside).

Now inside the chapel the mother shows the daughter the paintings on the walls of the tradition of the female biting the male’s head off.

Daughter doesn’t understand and disagrees with this tradition. She shakes her head and runs off in floods of tears.

The daughter is walking through the jungle when she sees a male, he is walking towards where she has come from, towards her mother and the other female praying mantis who believe in the tradition.

The daughter wants to save the male from certain death so she stops him.

He is surprised and confused as to why she is taking him back the way he came.

They run for a little way then sit down to rest, the daughter looking back to see if they are safe and have not been followed. Then they both realise she is still holding his hand. They look at each other. And kiss.

We then see a montage of shots of them having a wonderful time together:-

A butterfly flutters near them and the male catches it, rips it in half, and shares the meal with the daughter. They look lovingly at each other while they munch away at the butterfly.

They ping water droplets off leaves at each other.

They tickle each other with fluffy seeds, the tickling leads to them rolling on floor, which leads to them looking at each other intently and then they mate.

But an eye is watching them.

After they have mated, they sit and watch the sun set and hug, when they get up to leave together we find out that the eye that was watching them was mother as she bursts in on them.

Mother is angry that the daughter has not killed the male. She grabs the male and hold his neck to the daughter’s mouth. The daughter refuses to bite his head off, she is crying, mother is about to do the job for her, but daughter pushes her mother over and grabs male back and they run.

Mother gets up and starts to run after them.

The daughter and male are running and holding hands, all of a sudden they fall.

They are lying side by side at the bottom of a small ravine/cliff, injured and dazed. Mother is climbing down to them, they are too injured to get up and run, they look at each other lovingly. Still holding hands.

Mother picks male up, daughter clambering to stop her, but in vain. Mother kills male by biting his head off.

Daughter is mortified, crying, on her knees, she looks up at mother with great hate and throws her pendant (that symbolises the tradition) at her. The daughter is screaming, with tears streaming, and she crawls over to the male’s headless body.

Mother realises how much daughter loved the male and feels bad about killing him. she picks up male’s head and gives it to her daughter.

Mother and daughter look at each other. Daughter gets up and leaves. Mother lets her go as she realises her daughters happiness is more important than tradition.

Mother is left with her pendant/tradition as daughter walks off in distance.

The end credits show a montage of photos of the daughter new life. She is walking with a backpack in first photo, then she is with a male in another photo, then with a baby in another photo and having fun with her new male and her baby in the last photo.