Your Script, The Reality Test
One of the biggest problems that I have noticed in most horror and or action films is that they by pass the basic act of establishing reality. The art of the horror movie is to subvert reality. Or in other words you have to construct a real world before you can de-construct it. I have seen too many movies lately
where the screenwriter hurried passed the basics to get to what they believed to be the heart of the story.
Let’s talk about the opening of the movie the descent. We get introduced to the lead characters in the opening scene. We are shown not told that they go on adventures together. We get a glimpse into the dominate relationship in the movie, Juno and Sarah. We see the lead character lose her husband and child in a horrible car accident. We see all the friends gather together at the hospital to check on the one who has survived. We see them a year later. Time for another adventure that they hope will help heal their still damaged friend. We see all of this in the first fifteen minutes of the film and if not for all of this real world business what happens beneath the earth in those caves would not nearly have the same impact.
Getting to know the characters and the world that they live in can only make the horror more intense when we watch that world being picked apart. The movie that did this better than any other was of course The Exorcist. We get almost a half an hour of real world before we are slowly let in on the fact that something supernatural is happening.
I am going to agree with Neil Marshall on the fact that Deliverance is sort of a horror movie. Call it a thriller if you wish, but it does follow the rule of establishing reality. Then watch that reality get torn apart by men who see life and death in a completely different way.
The problem with the majority of horror films being written today is that logic and reason are thrown out the window. Shock and gory replaces real suspense and what are you left with? A film that is seen once, then laughed at and soon forgotten. I want more And I believe that so do you. If you did not you would not be reading this blog.
Here is what I am going to suggest. You can write your script anyway that you wish, but when you rewrite it I want you to keep your eye on reality.
Does my script occupy a recognizable world?
But I am writing a walking dead film.
Really?
Let’s time travel back to the first one and see if George Romero established the real world first. A brother and sister visiting a grave. The brother is picking on his sister. Real world as can be until the dead guy walks up and then their world and the world of horror films is forever changed.
Last movie to look at is The Sixth Sense. This film is as well written as any movie ever written. The opening scenes with Bruce Willis and the wife are the scenes that make the rest of the movie possible. It shows you a world that is so familiar and easy to relate to that we never question the reality that his character brings with him until the very end of the film.
You do not have to do it that well, but well enough so that we know the world that the characters are fighting to get back to. That we can relate to the world that has fallen apart, it is easy to relate to it: after all it looks a whole lot like our own.
One of the biggest problems that I have noticed in most horror and or action films is that they by pass the basic act of establishing reality. The art of the horror movie is to subvert reality. Or in other words you have to construct a real world before you can de-construct it. I have seen too many movies lately
where the screenwriter hurried passed the basics to get to what they believed to be the heart of the story.
Let’s talk about the opening of the movie the descent. We get introduced to the lead characters in the opening scene. We are shown not told that they go on adventures together. We get a glimpse into the dominate relationship in the movie, Juno and Sarah. We see the lead character lose her husband and child in a horrible car accident. We see all the friends gather together at the hospital to check on the one who has survived. We see them a year later. Time for another adventure that they hope will help heal their still damaged friend. We see all of this in the first fifteen minutes of the film and if not for all of this real world business what happens beneath the earth in those caves would not nearly have the same impact.
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| The Descent |
Getting to know the characters and the world that they live in can only make the horror more intense when we watch that world being picked apart. The movie that did this better than any other was of course The Exorcist. We get almost a half an hour of real world before we are slowly let in on the fact that something supernatural is happening.
The problem with the majority of horror films being written today is that logic and reason are thrown out the window. Shock and gory replaces real suspense and what are you left with? A film that is seen once, then laughed at and soon forgotten. I want more And I believe that so do you. If you did not you would not be reading this blog.
Here is what I am going to suggest. You can write your script anyway that you wish, but when you rewrite it I want you to keep your eye on reality.
Does my script occupy a recognizable world?
But I am writing a walking dead film.
Really?
Let’s time travel back to the first one and see if George Romero established the real world first. A brother and sister visiting a grave. The brother is picking on his sister. Real world as can be until the dead guy walks up and then their world and the world of horror films is forever changed.
Last movie to look at is The Sixth Sense. This film is as well written as any movie ever written. The opening scenes with Bruce Willis and the wife are the scenes that make the rest of the movie possible. It shows you a world that is so familiar and easy to relate to that we never question the reality that his character brings with him until the very end of the film.
You do not have to do it that well, but well enough so that we know the world that the characters are fighting to get back to. That we can relate to the world that has fallen apart, it is easy to relate to it: after all it looks a whole lot like our own.
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