Genre: Contained Thriller
Premise: (from Black List) Two small time robbers become prisoners when they break into a house and discover a ten year old girl chained up in the basement.
About: This one popped onto my radar because they just signed up two actors who I really like. The first is Bill Skarsgård, who played Pennywise on “It.” And the second is Maika Monroe, who played Jay in “It Follows.” The script comes off of 2016’s Black List, where it finished in the middle of the pack with 13 votes. The writers, Dan Berk and Robert Olsen, are trying to take that next step in their careers, as they have, up until this point, only worked with actors like Dolph Lundgren. Not that I have a problem with Dolph “If he dies, he dies” Lundgren. But it’s much better to be writing for two of the hottest young stars in Hollywood as your leads.
Writer: Dan Berk and Robert Olsen
Details: 89 pages
Today we’re going back!
Back… to the screenplay.
That’s right. We’re actually reviewing a script today, folks! Let me hear ya’ll in attendance give me an “Amen!”
I can’t hear you! I said give me an “Amen!”
We’re going to be reviewing one of the standard sub-genres in the spec screenwriting world – the Contained Thriller. Why are so many specs written as Contained Thrillers? Limited location equals cheap. Small character count plus a simple situation equals a fast easy read for overworked readers. And the Thriller genre is easy to market.
If you want to write something that has a legitimate chance of getting made, I’d put Contained Thriller or Contained Horror at the top of the list.
The ONLY reason I’d tell people not to write in this genre? Is because the competition is stiffer than the ubiquitous corpse that shows up in Act 2. That and the limited location makes it hard to keep the plot fresh. Let’s find out if today’s writers pull it off.
20-somethings Mickey and Jules are an aspiring Bonnie and Clyde. Not that they have any idea who Bonnie and Clyde are. You get the feeling neither of them are very cultured. Hell, I’d be surprised if they made it past their sophomore year in high school. Which is probably why they’re robbing a gas station when we meet them.
Because they’re high on coke, the stick-up gets sloppy, and they forget to do the one thing you’re supposed to do at a gas station – fill up your car with gas. So their runaway lasts barely five miles, and the baffled duo stumble up to a nearby farm house with plans to steal a car. After they break in and can’t find any car keys, they explore the basement, where they find a 10 year old girl chained up to the wall.
Mickey wants to jet and pretend none of this ever happened. But Jules looks at him like he’s a monster (which he is. He’s Pennywise). There’s no way they’re leaving this girl here. Mickey reluctantly agrees and when they go upstairs to look for a saw to break through the imprisoned girl’s chains, they run into 50-something homeowners George and Gloria, who’ve just walked in. Mickey and Jules scream at the couple that they’re taking the girl with them, but former salesman George asks them to sit down and think this through. They just committed a crime. Do they really want to make things tougher on themselves?
It’s all a trick to buy time, of course. And the suave George gets the upper hand soon enough. The next thing you know Mickey is tied to a bed with a sexually repressed Gloria ready to turn him into her love slave and Jules is tied up in the basement in place of the little girl they were trying to save. It seems as if Mickey and Jules are 48 hours from becoming human manure. But these two feisty criminals aren’t going down without a fight. No matter how ugly that fight gets.
Remember what I told you last week? 4-6 characters is ideal for a spec script. This keeps your story focused AS WELL AS allows you to spend the time to properly develop all the characters. Every new character you add is time taken away from the characters you already have. So you want to add characters judiciously. That doesn’t mean you never do it. I’m not against movies with 10 characters or even 20 characters as long as the story calls for it. But when you’re writing specs, concepts that focus on 4-6 characters are the sweet spot.
Onto the story. Villains is a classic example of where most successful Contained Thrillers end up – in the “decent” category. Actually, let me retract that. The vast majority of amateur Contained Thrillers end up being terrible. But I’m talking about the ones written by competent writers. Most end up in the “yeah, that was pretty good” category. And that’s because this genre is hard! What’s hard about it is that after the hook, it’s nearly impossible to come up with fresh fun ideas.
Cause that’s where the real writing begins. Writing to where there’s a girl in the basement is the easy part. It’s almost impossible to do wrong because the reader already knows that moment is coming (assuming they read the logline). So they’re excited to get to that point. From there, they give you about a 10 page grace period. A sort, “Okay, now let’s see what you’re going to do.” And what most writers do is retread a bunch of scenes from other Contained Thrillers.
Villains hangs on for awhile. My favorite scene was when George and Gloria arrive and suggest talking this out like adults. A lot of writers would’ve jumped right into the violence or the running around and hiding. This scene worked specifically because it goes against that expectation. Not just that. But George made a lot of good points. You two are criminals. Is saving this girl really the best way to handle this? A lot of writers would’ve written this scene with George spouting out a bunch of movie logic. It was refreshing to hear some arguments that actually sounded convincing.
The stuff where Gloria is prepping Mickey to become her sexual toy was also pretty good. But you could sense that the writers were running out of creative steam. I find that whenever writers dip into weird sexual territory, they’re running out of ideas. Strange sex plotlines contain a certain amount of shock value. But shock is the antithesis of substance. It has a short shelf-life. I’ve encountered a few scripts where the sex stuff was so unique that I remained engaged. But it’s rare. And it turns out I was right. Quickly after this scene, the script turns into a conventional series of scenarios where the characters try and escape.
Another key problem the writers should address before production is that George and Gloria aren’t scary enough. They’re too rational. And so I was never worried that something bad was going to happen to our heroes. If you’re going to lock our characters in a house with two supposed psychos, you need to sell their psychoness. That never happened.
With that said, this is worth the read in that I genuinely wanted to know how it was going to end. That’s my litmus test for a ‘worth the read.’ If I want to read the ending, something’s working. Because the large majority of the time, if you told me I could stop reading a script whenever I wanted, I would stop. These two made me like Mickey and Jules enough that I cared about their fate. Which is saying something. If you’re thinking about writing a Contained Thriller, add this one to the list.
[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[ ] wasn’t for me
[x] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: A recent obsession of mine is differentiation in dialogue, which is a fancy way of saying make sure your characters sound different. Check out these slices of dialogue. The first is from Mickey and Jules after the gas station robbery and the second is from George when he encounters Mickey and Jules in his house.
MICKEY: FUCK yeah! That’s what I’m talkin’ bout baby! You were incredible in there! The way you ripped that thing of chips down? Fuck!
JULES (excited; flattered) I don’t know, I was just, like in the zone you know? I don’t even remember doing it!
And now George…
GEORGE: I understand. You’re the ones with the gun, you’re making the rules. All I’m asking for is a chance to state my case, maybe enlighten you as to a couple of things you may not have thought of. You can keep the gun pointed at me all you like, I just ask that you sit down and listen to what I have to say.
Notice all the ways the dialogue is different. There’s a difference in education level, in command of language, in the use of swearing, in length. If I told you to close your eyes and I read those two blocks of dialogue to you, you’d have no doubt that they came from different people. And that’s what you want your dialogue to do.
