Wide-Eyes
As well as being a regency-era novelist, Jane Austen had a side-hustle as a 1980's horror film writer/director. Her most well-known film is 1987's Wide-Eyes. Austen cast the main role of Catherine 'Wide-Eyes' Morland after discovering the actress at a Kate Bush tribute night. Early on in the film Wide-Eyes is invited by her neighbours, Mr and Mrs Plot-Necessity to go to Bath with them.
Bath turns out to be a town populated by both humans and monsters, and within a short space of time Wide-Eyes becomes acquainted with two pairs of siblings, the monsters BadCad and SmileyFace and the humans; the Tilneys, Serial Killer and The Only Normal Person (TONP). Wide-Eyes quickly becomes infatuated with Serial Killer and a key scene in the Bath section of the film is when Wide-Eyes, Serial Killer and TONP go for a boating trip on the Sea of Saxophonia. This is when we first get concerned about Serial Killer's homicidal tendencies, but the presence of TONP prevents him from acting on them at this stage.
We get introduced to some other characters in Bath. Wide-Eyes brother who is engaged to SmileyFace, but exists only to be forgotten about. Far more crucially we meet the Tilney's father who, in a clever use of dramatic irony, Austen allows us to know what his children don't know: their father is a dimension-traveller called Sir John Middleton. We also learn that he is best friends with a Vampire.
There were repeated press reports of widespread consumption of Magic Mushrooms on the set of the film, and these seem to be confirmed by a scene where most of the cast go for a bath. The most successful part of the film is the dream sequences, but inexplicably they didn't have a cameo from 80's pop sensation Adam Ant, despite his stated wish to do so. This was corrected in the far superior 2007 film The Return of Wide-Eyes. The Bath section of the film ends when Wide-Eyes is invited to the Tilney's mansion and the P-N's have no problem agreeing to this.
When they move to Northanger Abbey (the mansion), we get a lot of confusing scenes. Serial Killer constantly carries his murder weapon, a cane, but when he has an opportunity to murder Wide-Eyes he doesn't take it, presumably because he's worried that a Canary that is present is a possible witness. We also learn why Sir John has come to this dimension (he has gambling debts). The vampire also makes a re-appearance, but this doesn't seem to alarm anybody. We hear that SmileyFace and Wide-Eyes brother have split up, but this doesn't affect the plot. Sadly, the Magic Mushrooms had obviously also made a reappearance as we are treated to some slow-motion Gymnastics.
Wide-Eyes abruptly leaves Northanger and we then get a scene that explains a lot of the plot but also brings up many questions: Serial Killer comes to murder his father, but we find that the reason Sir John has been able to move dimensions is because he is a wizard, and by skilled use of his Falcon patronus he manages to block Serial Killer's attacks. We are left wondering about many things, are Serial Killer and TONP also a wizard and a witch? Does the cane contain Serial Killer's wand? Is TONP an Aurora deep undercover? Presumably these would have been addressed in the planned spin-off series, but it was shelved due to the poor critical reception of the film.
Serial Killer then decides to play the long game, he goes to Wide-Eyes house and proposes to her. She accepts and we are left thinking at the end of the film that though Sir John's sending her away from Northanger might have temporarily saved her, the prospects for Wide-Eyes future safety do not look good…