Horror Film Writing, Beyond Props

Horror Film Writing, Beyond Props

Hitchcock when asked about horror films said that he did not make them (maybe the Birds). He said that all they really amounted to were movies about walking props.

The Frankenstein monster was just a prop and the history of horror movies is mostly dependent upon them.


Jason is just a walking machete.


Michael Myers a walking kitchen knife.


Freddy is a walking glove that cracks jokes.


These films in their original forms were not all prop and no content. I would argue that Michael Myers in the
original film was more than a knife. The character represented a total lack of humanity that in is own way made him a compelling creation. In the Rob Zombie remake (the only remake worth talking about) the character represents aggression and rage. A kind of overwhelming rage that is triggered all to easily by people in the world around him.


Freddy when he was first introduced represented our own inner demons. Our worst nightmares come to life. Then the character began a franchise and soon after he became little more than comic relief.


When sitting down to write a screenplay we all to often go for the cheap scare. Creating characters who’s sole purpose is to die in as gruesome a way as possible. Is this the best that we can do?


Can you name any of the character who went out like that?


I can name Heather from the Freddie films because she is the only real character in those movies. She fought, she struggled, she tried to survive as any of us would do.


I know that Ripley was the star of the Alien films that were good.


I remember Sam and Juno from the Descent.


Can you name one single character from any of the Final destination films? Who were they? You do not know because you were never asked to care.


It is the character first and not the situation that makes for great horror films. Far too many horror movie scripts are written with situation in mind. When writing a horror screenplay it is easy to think up a place where character will find themselves trapped and then butchered by another character who is nothing more than a prop. Look at the movie Saw. It could have been just another slasher film and that is the problem with its sequels, but the first one does a great job of getting you inside the heads and lives of the two guys we meet chained in that filthy bathroom.


Writing about characters that you know and like will be one of the easier things that you ever do. Can you imagine being Sam Raimi and partner sitting down to write more dialogue for Ash in one of the Evil Dead movies. That trash talking character has become loved by millions of fans because he was first loved by the person who created him.


Create good characters and the story will take care of itself.


Or create Props and they will lumber around like the dead weight that they are.


No one ever said that screen writing was going to be easy. It is fun at times, but rarely easy. None of us really consider ourselves masters of this craft. We have good weeks and bad weeks. There are times when pages will flow and then there will be weeks when you will not be able to write more than a sentence or two. Just try to do one thing when ever you sit down in front of that blank screen, try to do your very best. Try to create characters that are more than blocks of wood.


Okay that is it for today. Please take a moment to share this post with a friend.

Horror Movie Writing

                Writing A Good Horror Film


    There is a pattern that has developed over the past few years at the box office. Horror films open up at number one and then the bottom drops out of their box office.

    Hollywood is a hype machine and they have become expert at hyping horror movies. The problem is that they pick really bad movies in an effort to steal a few quick bucks. Most of these movies fall into three categories. Terrible originals, terrible remakes and terrible redone versions of foreign horror films.

    Let Me In vs. Let The Right One In.

    The Chainsaw Massacre 3D vs. The Chainsaw Massacre.
   
    Some of this is the quest for money. Some of this is the directors fault and some of this is poor writing. In the case of Let Me In it is the director’s fault because the original has an almost perfect script.

    This post needed to be written for the simple fact that many of the micro to no budget scripts that will be written will be horror screenplays.

There are actual rules to writing a good one and I guess that it is about time someone wrote them down and reminded the screenwriting world of them.

    The rule that is broken most often and usually in the first five minutes. The rule that once broken the story has a huge mountain to climb before it can reach the level of watchable. The rules that you must keep in mind at all cost is,

    ESTABLISH REALITY!

    Your script must establish the real world before it can or should introduce the supernatural world.

    “But I want to start my script with a bang. I want to jump right into the story.”

    Seriously? If you want to write a great film that will be remembered over time then do not break this one rule.

    The movies that followed this rule as if it is religious doctrine are the following:

    The Sixth Sense. Wife, husband, home, normal world, violence, and then mom and boy, street, church and now the supernatural begins to creep in.

    The Exorcist, old Priest, dig in holy lands, people working, heart problems, a hint at something bizarre or supernatural. Jump to a city in America, a Mother and daughter, a home, a ordinary world that is rocked by something supernatural almost 30 pages later. The recipe for the greatest horror film of all time.

    The Descent, a rafting trip with friends, a drive home, a fatal car accident, friends gather at hospital, friends unite a year later for another group outing, they worry about the one who almost lost her life and did lose her family, they go cave diving in an un-explored cave because one of them is a risk taker and they end up in a life and death struggle with flesh eating cave dwellers.  Released at the end of a summer movie season, totally untouched by the Hollywood hype machine, barely lasted in theaters for three weeks and has gone on to be considered a modern horror classic.  (Note, I was lucky enough to see The Descent at a film festival where it won best after dark film. The house was sold out and the place rocked from almost beginning to end. There is nothing like seeing a really good horror film.)

    The Original Chainsaw Massacre watches like a documentary at times. The opening scenes of that movie establishes reality and then goes on to create what feels like a darker level of reality.
    The same could be said for the original The Hills Have Eyes.

    They all became classics by establishing reality first and then subverting it.

    The next Rule has been written about before at this blog and I must go over it again.
    Rule 2,

    THEY WILL BELIEVE ANYTHING ONCE!

    The audience will believe in a killer shark.

    They will believe in a possessed child.


    They will believe that a massive undersea creature is rampaging through New York, Cloverfield.

    They will believe in Vampires.

    They will believe in any one thing, but not two things. Two or more things is comedy and not horror.

    Child’s Play 1 and 2 are horror movies. Once you get to Bride of Chucky you are into comedy.
    A Killer Shark is Jaws, a Killer Shark that can swim under the sand is Sand Shark, it is a sci-fi channel film and it stinks.

    No matter what that second thing is do not include it in your screenplay. Do not make the argument that M. Night does it all the time. A twist ending is not the same as a second thing that they must believe. Hey I do not like the ending of The Village any more than the rest of you guys, but it was fair and he did not ask you to believe more than one thing. We were just fooled by what the story really was about.

    The movie that broke this rule and completely lost me and many of those who had high hopes for it is the movie Grave Encounters. Great premise. Solid Act I and part of Act II. This movie promises an experience like the Shining and out of no where jumps to Rose Red and a second rate episode of the Outer Limits. Spoiler Alert!  For those of you who have seen the movie the ghost hunting team arrives at the building and get locked inside. At this point we have a time limit given to us where around 6 AM the doors will be opened. Survive until then and all is well. Then the building starts changing shapes. Really? Then time does not run the way that it does in the rest of the known universe. Really?

Too much to believe. I think the movie falls apart when these things are introduced and never recovers. I will offer a slight defense and maybe a reason why this happened. The script was written by a writing team.  That could explain the introduction of these unnecessary elements.

    Find a horror film that disappointed you and ask yourself if it asked you to believe in more than one thing. I would bet that almost all of them did.

    There are a few more rules, but at the end of the day these rules are the most important. If you break any of them then you are probably writing a bad horror movie.

    How to write a really good horror film is going to be another post and I will try to be as helpful in this area as possible, but no one has perfected a formula for this yet. The greatest screen writers of all time are hit and miss.

    Okay that is it for today. I have added social marking tabs on the post so could you please share this and any other post you like and tell a friend about this site.

    Last note, I am working on doing an Anthology contest this year. Unlike most of the recent anthologies that have been released this one must have a common theme and the theme is still being discussed. It will be suspense/horror and it will need something to tie it together. Watch Trilogy of Terror (find it on Youtube) as an example of what we will be aiming for.

Vampires And Budgets, Your Screenplay

            Vampires And Budgets


    There is a mega budget feature film world that is dominated by Vampires. Sure they are vampires covered in glitter, but still vampires. There is room in the low budget and micro budget world for vampires to dominate as well.

    When writing your screenplay it is okay to glance at some of the films that are being made and are dominating the competition. If you did not do this you would not be doing your job as a screenwriter. Look to the big budget films and understand that they are mostly dominated by over paid stars and massive special effects.  The low budget counterparts are usually plot and character driven.

    Today we are going to look at the most successful vampire saga in modern history and the best vampire movie produced during the last twenty years and they do have many similarities.

    The most successful is of course the Twilight Saga.

    The best is the amazing low budget foreign film Let the Right One In. Please do not confuse this movie with the watered down and dumbed down Hollywood remake that came out a year after the original.

    Okay both movies are basically love stories. Twilight buries the fact that this is a somewhat creepy relationship between a old old man and a teenage girl. Appearances are all that matter in the universe of this film. Everyone looks good and that is all that counts.

    In Let The Right One In, it is more of the love between two friends than an actual romance. The boy is twelve and is on the verge of being hazed to death by other vicious boys at school. The girl appears to be twelve and since she is a vampire is a great deal older. This character is handle much better than any in the world of twilight. Though there are special effects in this film and because they are far between and amazingly well paced they are far more affective and realistic than those in the mega budget Twilight. The script of this film is so well crafted you never for a moment get that waiting for the next massive explosion that most larger budget horror films give their audiences. The final act of Let The Right One In is about the price of friendship. Both characters have to make sacrifices and take risks for the other. The characters are younger than those in Twilight but are so much more mature in how they interact with their world and the people around them.

    Let The Right One In shows us how plot and character can make up for a massive budget. Your no budget script can be one that stands out from the rest if you focus on the idea that we stick with and stand by characters that we know and can relate to. Hey not everyone has been the outcast, but all most everyone has felt like an outcast at one time or another. The children of Let The Right On In feel more familiar than the Romeo and Juliet like teens of Twilight.

    The no budget screenplay world is usually a world filled with characters who do not have it all together and never will. The character we introduce at the beginning will most likely be just as screwed up at the end of the story with the only difference being that they have someone to share their journey with.  The greatness of Let The Right One In is that the characters only seem to have it together, to have control over the world they occupy when they are together.

    Good luck with your screenplay and remember to try to write something everyday.

Your Screenplay, The Classic Film Lessons

            Your Screenplay, The Classic Film Lessons

    It seems that the majority of film critics agree that the best year ever generated by film makers was the year 1939. At least 10 four star all time classic films were released that year. The Wizard of Oz, Stagecoach, Young Mister Lincoln, Destry Rides Again, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Wuthering Heights and The Oscar winner that year, Gone With the Wind.

    All of these movies have one thing in common. They are almost pure story from beginning to end. Every scene has value. In movies like Gone With The Wind almost every line of dialogue is there to reveal something about the character who delivers it.

    “How can these movies help me to write my micro budget screenplay?”

    I will go back to what I just told you. These films were pure story. Some had the equal of multi million dollar budgets and some did not. All of them had great story telling at their core. In the low to micro budget world story telling will have to make up for massive special effects and overpaid actors.

    We live in a world where board games become major summer releases. Pointless and plot-less releases that are quickly rejected by the movie viewing public. A great story well told is what we should all aim to produce.

    The problem is that no one knows exactly how to do this because no two people tell a story in exactly the same way. I can suggest things to you, but I cannot give you a special formula that will get it done every time. The best screen writers on earth have written great films and turned around and written something lifeless and boring. You are the writer of your no budget screenplay.

    One of my favorite modern horror movies is Jeepers Creepers. I love the script for that movie. The writer/director of the film based it largely upon the great Universal films of the 1930's and the Creature from the Black Lagoon from the 1950's. My favorite Vampire film of all time  Fright Night (1985) and the movie Disturbia is based upon the Hitchcock classic Rear Window. The writers of these films took lessons from these movies and gave them their own spin.

     Learn to watch classic films in a new way. Not just as a member of an audience, but as a writer. Watch how one sense is connected to another. Study how dialogue is selected to tell you all that you need to know about the characters and their motivations. The greatest scene ever written of this type is in the movie It’s A Wonderful Life.  You find out everything that you will ever need to know about these characters by what they say about themselves and about each other. And it is all done in one minute.  Violet, Mary and George are revealed to us through this little exchange.  Here is a except from the shooting script of It's A Wonderful Life.

 INTERIOR DRUGSTORE —– DAY

MEDIUM SHOT –– George comes in and crosses to an old-fashioned
cigar lighter on the counter. He shuts his eyes and makes a wish:

GEORGE
Wish I had a million dollars.

He clicks the lighter and the flame springs up.

GEORGE (cont'd)
Hot dog!

WIDER ANGLE –– George crosses over to the soda fountain, at which
Mary Hatch, a small girl, is seated, watching him. George goes on
to get his
apron from behind the fountain.

GEORGE (calling toward back room)
It's me, Mr. Gower. George Bailey.

CLOSE SHOT –– Mr. Gower, the druggist, peering from a window in
back room. We see him take a drink from a bottle.

GOWER
You're late.

MEDIUM SHOT –– George behind soda fountain. He is putting on his
apron.

GEORGE
Yes, sir.

WIDER ANGLE –– Violet Bick enters the drugstore and sits on one
of the stools at the fountain. She is the same height as Mary and
the same age, but she is infinitely older in her approach to people.

VIOLET (with warm friendliness)
Hello, George.
(then, flatly, as she sees Mary)

VIOLET
'Lo, Mary.

MARY (primly)
Hello, Violet.

George regards the two of them with manly disgust. They are two
kids to him, and a nuisance. He starts over for the candy
counter.

GEORGE
Two cents worth of shoelaces?

VIOLET
She was here first.

MARY
I'm still thinking.

GEORGE (to Violet)
Shoelaces?

VIOLET
Please, Georgie.

George goes over to the candy counter.

VIOLET (to Mary)
I like him.

MARY
You like every boy.

VIOLET (happily)
What's wrong with that?

GEORGE
Here you are.

George gives Violet a paper sack containing licorice shoelaces.
Violet gives him the money.

VIOLET (the vamp)
Help me down?

GEORGE (disgusted)
Help you down!

Violet jumps down off her stool and exits. Mary, watching, sticks
out her tongue as she passes.

CLOSE SHOT –– George and Mary at fountain.

GEORGE
Made up your mind yet?

MARY
I'll take chocolate.

George puts some chocolate ice cream in a dish.

GEORGE
With coconuts?

MARY
I don't like coconuts.

GEORGE
You don't like coconuts! Say, brainless, don't you know where
coconuts come from? Lookit here –– from Tahiti –– Fiji Islands,
the Coral Sea!

He pulls a magazine from his pocket and shows it to her.

MARY
A new magazine! I never saw it before.

GEORGE
Of course you never. Only us explorers can get it. I've been
nominated for membership in the National Geographic Society.

He leans down to finish scooping out the ice cream, his deaf ear
toward her. She leans over, speaking softly.

CLOSE SHOT –– Mary, whispering.

MARY
Is this the ear you can't hear on? George Bailey, I'll love you
till the day I die.

She draws back quickly and looks down, terrified at what she has
said.

CLOSE SHOT –– George and Mary.



    It has never been done better.  You will know who George is, who Violet is and who Mary is for the rest of the story. George is a dreamer. Mary loves George and Violet is well Violet. Their characters are defined in that one scene.

    Okay that is it for today. Sorry that the post are coming about a month apart, but I am working on a script and it is taking longer than I thought. It always does doesn’t it. Remember to add us to your google plus.

Allowing Your Lead To Lead

            Allow Your Lead to Lead

    I had the opportunity this week to see The Birds on a big screen in a full theater. Because I have seen this movie so often I decided to do two things, to study the film and to study the audience. Hitchcock always talked about what he was trying to do to the audience with his films. I never understood this until now.

    Average movie audience these days talk and chatter and check their phones. In other words they are rude. They believe they are at home. For the first thirty minutes of this movie that is how this audience was and then the ride began to grind into motion. That roller coaster Hitchcock would talk about started up.  The next hour and twenty minutes was dead silence except when Hitchcock wanted his audience to react.

    Hitchcock along with his screenwriter Evan Hunter achieved this in many ways. The way that I want to look at today is through the lead character of the screenplay.

    Melanie Daniels, played by Tippi Hedren, is the first character that we meet. We learn about her through her actions and by the reputation that she had built up over time in the tabloids. She is on  the screen for over 90 percent of the time. She becomes our gateway into this world that is being revealed. She becomes our gateway into the lives that she comes in contact with. Let’s face it they call this character the lead because that is what he or she does. They lead us through the story. What they fear we grow to fear. Who they love we grow to love. If you got a good one then they will make your story so much easier to tell.

    If you have a poor lead or worst you do not know who the lead is then you are probably having a problem with your script. They take you places that you do not wish to go or they talk too much or worst they have nothing to say.

    How do we solve this problem?

    Start over?

    Switch leads?

    Do a rewrite?

    Many of us have done all the above. The advice that you are going to get from me is sit down with your lead character and ask him or her what is it that they want. What is it that they need?  Keep asking questions until you run out of them and if at that time you are still interested in them then and only then should you continue with them as the lead of your story.

    “What if their answers are simple?”

    That would be great. What do you want? To stop these shark attacks, the sheriff in Jaws. What do you want? To get my daughter back, the father in Taken. What do you want? To survive these Bird attacks, Melanie in the Birds.
 

    What do most characters want? In one way or another it comes down to getting back to normal. The abnormal or strange has changed their world and they want to go back to the world that they knew.

    Allow your lead character to lead you to where they want to go. Part of the problem that many of us have with our scripts is that we try to lead rather than allowing our characters to lead. We have a plot and we must follow that plot even if our lead is not a willing traveler.

    I will end by putting it in sports terms. You have a superstar on your team. In who’s hands do you want the ball? Do you want to give the ball to the kicker? Why would you? His job is to give it back to the other team. Your lead is your point guard. Your lead is your quarterback. Your lead is your Ace pitcher. You are the coach, but they are the ones who execute  the game plan. Allow them to do it. Encourage them to do it.

    In the Birds Hitchcock keeps the character of Melanie Daniels on the field into she has to be carried off. Battered, beaten up and pecked half to death she did her job. She got the ball across the goal line again and again until the it reached historic levels. Watch the end scenes of the Birds. She left it all on the field. There is nothing more that this character can do and better still nothing left that she has to do.



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Is Your No Budget Script Limited?

                The Sky is The Limit on Your No Budget Script

    Just because this is going to be a low to no budget screenplay does not mean that it has to take place in an abandon building or a kitchen. You can include anything that is available in the free world. What I mean by free world is the places all around us that cost nothing to shoot a movie in.

    I understand that you are not shooting the movie, just writing it, but you have to think as if you are. Where can I set my scenes that will cost little to no money while at the same time adding something to my script. Hopefully adding size and or scope to your script. Many free interiors are parking garages, auditoriums, meeting halls. If you include scenes in a school, do not worry about the cost, many schools will allow a film crew to visit just as a teaching exercise. If your story offers positive views of the church, many churches will allow your story to be shot there for free. Many public places will be available for free or a small fee. What I am saying is do not be afraid to add size to your script just because you believe that a location you wish to include will cost too much so why bother. I am telling you to go ahead and included it. If the scene is solid and is necessary for the script it will get shot. If the location you have written about can not be gotten there will be a way to work around it.

    Most out door locations are good. You can always include a athletic fields. Parks, woods, open land. If you are not only the writer, but the film maker as well you will no if there are hills or mountains or water ways near and available. If there are farms or factories or scrap yards that can be used. The size of your free budget is largely up to you.

    Some of you reading this use to live in big towns and near economic centers that have now become much smaller or are past the point of no return. Left behind are factories and shipping centers. Left behind are boat yards, docks and storage areas. They are just waiting there to become a part of your story. These forgotten places can make a no or low budget script seem like a medium to big budget script.

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The Found Footage Saga, Cont.

                The Found Footage Saga Cont.

    I keep coming back to found footage for two reasons. First there is a part of me that thinks that it will fade away and die off in its present form. Mostly horror films and dark suspense. And the second reason is that they keep coming. This fall we have a slate of new found footage films, some look good and at least one is a sequel to the found footage franchise Paranormal Activity.

    My last post was about Anthologies and the movie that sparked that post was V/H/S. Found footage told in a multi story format.

    The best series of found footage movies for me at least is the foreign series know as Rec. So far a trilogy of horror films about a demonic plague. I like the concept of the third film, I have not seen it yet. I plan on seeing it on demand this weekend with friends.  The concept seems to revolve around a wedding video. Why hasn’t that territory been tapped sooner. Many film makers start off filming wedding videos to help pay the bills. There are so many stories that can be told using that kind of footage. From drama to screwball comedy.

    The movie Cloverfield showed us that you can start with footage taken at a party and branch off into a totally different direction.

    What I am suggesting is that we need to do different things with this format or it will disappear. Right now I am in the middle of a screenplay where I have decided that the entire second act will revolve around found footage.

    What, what was that? What genre?

    Okay.

    You caught me. It is a horror movie. Hey, I am writing this one to actually shoot, hopefully by the end of the year, and for all involved horror was the best economic choice. Meaning cost to shoot, cost to market and return on investment.

    Keep in mind that no movie has to be made. I cringe when I hear an actor or director say of a movie that it had to be made. No it does not. Pick the ten most important or impressive movies ever released and none of them had to be made. At least breaking even has to be considered when crafting your script. People are going to be investing money based upon your script. This act is going to be the their clearest way of saying that they believe in your talent. Found footage and horror movies are being done because they are cheap to make. They are easy to market. If well done they rarely loose money.

    Money should never be your first thought when writing a low to no budget script, but it should be a factor. Found footage is a response to economics as much as it is a genre that the public is willing to embrace.

    Okay enough about the money talk.

    Here is some advice about your main character in this type of film.

    He or she must be driven. Must be the type of person who could not turn that camera away even if their children were being eaten by wild dogs.

To quote a fantastic episode of Doctor Who, “Don’t Blink.”

    They are the one’s in the story who never blink and you need to answer why before the interesting stuff starts to happen.

    The audience will want to know why he or she won’t drop that camera and run. Why is it so important that they keep shooting. Perhaps it is as complex as the fact that they are obsessive compulsive or as simple as the can not see what is happening without the camera. Give a good reason during the first few minutes and the audience will have one less voice whispering in the back of their minds. 

    Okay, I think that is it for today.

    Remember to add us to your google plus. Stumble us on stumbleupon and tell a few friends about this blog.

    This is where I will make this offer again. If someone out there wants to write a guest post I am open to it. If you have written a low to no budget script or two and you believe that you can offer some good advice. You can contact me by leaving a comment and I will get back to you.

    That is all, now get back to writing guys.