Genre: Comedy-Horror
Logline: In a city where dangerous monsters emerge from underground every night, a monster-fighting patrol team is tasked with finding and killing them before they can kill the city’s citizens.
About: Ben Wheatley is coming and he’s coming hard. One of the most buzzed about upcoming films that doesn’t have “Star” or “Bat” in the title is High Rise, which displays a unique voice that’s inspiring many to call Wheatley the next big thing. Turns out Wheatley’s been hard at work for awhile now, writing scripts with his writing partner Amy Jump, as this one was conceived all the way back in 2012. The Ghostbusters influence is pretty obvious. But I’d say this is much closer to the Deadpool version of Ghostbusters than the cuddly 80s Bill Murray version of Ghostbusters.
Writers: Ben Wheatley and Amy Jump
Details: 81 pages (2012 draft)
So I’m reading through this script and I’m thinking to myself, “Sure, yeah, this is cool.” We got ourselves some ruthless monsters. A badass monster-hunting patrol team. Some dark comedy to keep things fun. But after about 30 pages, I had to be honest with myself (and with you). If this showed up on Amateur Friday, it’d get a straight “wasn’t for me.” The only reason I was seeing it differently was because I’d watched that High Rise trailer and I knew what Ben Wheatley could do with this idea.
That’s one of the complaints amateur screenwriters turn to when subpar material moves through the system. That professional writers are getting the benefit of the doubt because of their name while we, the unknowns, have to write something perfect just to get hip-pocketed by a sleazy manager in El Segundo.
But you know what? I don’t have any problem with that. If you go out there and direct something great, I’m going to give your script the benefit of the doubt over Joe Nobody. Because the goal of the screenplay is to create a great movie. And if you’ve already proven that you can create a great movie, I’m going to assume that the deficiencies in your screenplay will be overcome by your vision for the film.
Freakshift follows Diane Largo, a young Sigourney Weaver type who lost her family to a monster known as a “Bulk.” Bulks are huge nasty beasts that wait til nighttime to emerge from giant Bulk-created holes in the ground. And what do these Bulks do when they get topside? They kill human beings of course. And eat them. And sometimes fornicate with them.
This is why we need the Freakshift, a fire-fighter like crew whose job it is to go out every night and kill these Bulks before they kill others. I guess you could say they’re doing the BULK of the work. You see what I did there? Anyway, in addition to getting general revenge on these monsters, Largo also wants to find the Bulk that killed her family, which luckily is an easy-to-identify albino Bulk.
But Bulks aren’t all they have to worry about. There are other monsters that occasionally pop up, and it seems that if you get bitten by any of these creatures, you turn into something called a “moocher,” which is this world’s version of a zombie. Moochers are trying to kill you just like Bulks, so it’s safe to say the freak shift is pretty dangerous.
The story follows one crazy night shift for these guys which shows just how crazy their job is. Will Largo get revenge on Albino? Will any of her shift mates survive? Jump on the Freakshift to find out, baby.
Yeah, so, this is a cool idea. But Jump and Wheatley are handicapped by a major problem. They aren’t very good screenwriters at this point in their careers (2012). They write in a sort-of shorthand, as if the script is meant for a few close friends who already know the details and therefore don’t need to be bothered with things such as character descriptions. For example, Diane Largo is introduced without an age or any other info. Just a name. And a lot of details are introduced like that, leaving the reader to fill in the gaps for himself.
Then there are basic things. The script is only 81 pages?? And the formatting (which clearly isn’t Final Draft) is stretched super-thin. So this would probably be closer to 65-70 pages if properly formatted. Things like dangling slug lines (slug lines that start at the bottom of the page) leave the script feeling rushed. I mean, hell, they don’t even know the difference between “its” and “it’s.”
And there’s no structure here. A good story is supposed to set the world up, set the main character’s goal up (first act), send them off on their journey, have them encounter lots of obstacles, have them fail to the point where it seems like they’ve lost (second act), before revealing one last push where they finally conquer their goal (third act).
Freakshift is more like, “Set up the main character’s past (first act?) BATTLE MONSTERS FOR THE NEXT 70 minutes (first and a half act?).”
I know, I know. There are no rules! You can tell a story however you want. But there’s a reason stories have been told with three acts (beginning, middle, and end) for thousands of years. Humans are biologically attuned to receiving a story that way. You speed up the middle, don’t tell us the beginning, or cut off the end, we’re going to look at you like, “What the hell you talking bout, dude?”
But the script has its charms. Wheatley and Jump seem to have done a lot of world building here, spending plenty of time on the mythology of their universe. For example, there’s a curfew for everyone so they don’t get eaten at night. But if you want to see Bulks, you can pay for a TMZ like nightly tour where you hop into an armored tour bus that drives around, looking for battles between Bulks and the Freak Shift.
And the dark humor’s a nice addition, as it takes Freakshift squarely away from its most obvious influence (Ghostbusters) and gives us something way more fucked up. For example, one of the first monster breakout scenes occurs with the Bulks barging up into an old folk’s home. So they’re tossing around naked old people, eating them, killing them. Old people are running around begging for their life. You’re not going to get that in Paul Feig’s newest iteration of the Ghostbusters franchise.
As much of a mess as this script is, I would LOVE to see Wheatley turn it into a movie. Get a proper screenwriter to come in and shape this into a more cohesive story and then go out there and have fun. Maybe if the new Ghostbusters does well, Wheatley will be able to convince someone to put up the money for this.
[ ] what the hell did I just read?
[x] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: With world-building, always look to go a level deeper. Surface-level world building is easy. You have a movie about guys who take on monsters at night? Sure, you could stop right there. But why? Why not ask what that world would be like? What else would be going on in that world? One of my favorite parts of Freakshift was the nightly tour bus that goes out into the city and looks for Bulks in the wild. That’s the kind of second level world building that fleshes a screenplay out. And there’s no reason to stop there. Why not go down another level? And then another? The more you can learn about your world, the more we’ll buy into it.
