Genre: Horror-Thriller
Premise: (from Blood List) Deep in the winter woods of upstate New York, a retiring public school teacher, Liz, 63, uncovers a carefully guarded secret while searching for her missing student in the shuttered homes of a vacation community. As Liz fights to survive this unthinkable evil she will be forced to make a choice that will define the final chapter of her life. Bryce McGuire has written and directed a number of short films. Rod Blackhurst, who will be directing the film, directed the Amanda Knox documentary for Netflix
About: This is the number 5 script on the 2018 Blood List.
Writer: Bryce McGuire
Details: 104 pages
Many of you have been asking me to review The Broodmare (the number 3 script on the Blood List). Unfortunately, I can’t. The Broodmare is a script I consulted on. And all of my consultations are 100% private. But I will say this. The writer and I talked about “that” scene in the script, and we agreed that that was going to make it one of the most memorable scripts ever written. But it wasn’t just that. The subject matter and angle he took were unique. As soon as I read it, I knew Michael had written something special. He’s a really good writer and I’m ecstatic about the success he’s found through The Broodmare because he’s been at this for awhile.
Okay, let’s move on to The White Room, another script I’m getting e-mails about, but for different reasons. Writers are asking me if it’s okay to do what this writer and director did, which is to include a list of reasons why this film should be made before the script starts. As is to be expected, this is a very controversial choice to make, and has most purists up in arms. I’ll get to what I think about it in a bit. But first, what the hell is the White Room? And does it have black curtains?
63 year-old Liz lives up north in one of those snowy towns that requires you to have a good set of chains for your tires come winter. Liz has just lost her husband, and to add insult to injury, her job as a French teacher at the local high school has been axed due to budget cuts. She’s planning to move in with her daughter’s family soon. But she’s going to finish out the winter first.
A trip into town highlights that there’s a teenage girl missing, Krista. Most people don’t think much of it because Krista’s a bit of a problem child. They figure she’s off with her druggie boyfriend somewhere. However, one night, while Liz is driving through a blizzard, she thinks she spots a young girl in just a t-shirt running across the road. Moments later, she nearly plows into a semi truck, and steers into some trees, crashing her car. She’s forced to walk to a nearby house in the woods, where she meets a kind man named Bob, who assures Liz that he and his brother will look for the girl.
While they go out looking, Liz finds a hidden security system that shows a video feed of an empty white room. She’s able to run back upstairs just as the brothers return, and Bob offers to drive her home. During that uneventful drive, when they’re almost at her house, Bob turns cold, explaining to Liz that he’s sorry. But because she saw the white room, he can’t let her go. A struggle ensues and Liz is able to jump out of the moving car, where she runs to another nearby house, the house that the girl she saw (Krista), is hiding in.
The two of them find something horrifying in the basement of this home. Something indescribable. They make a run for it, but Krista, sadly, doesn’t survive the trip. The next day, Liz recruits the police to search these two houses, yet nothing she saw at either is still there. It’s as if everything she experienced was just a dream. However, what Liz, and we, will come to know, is that what she experienced was real, and that the reason for Krista’s kidnapping is more horrifying than anything we could’ve imagined.
Let’s get back to that opening page and if you should be explaining to readers why your script needs to be a movie. In the case of The White Room, it’s a little different, because this is a writing-directing team. For that reason, the script acts as a combination screenplay/promo reel. The director is selling why this movie needs to be made. But, in general, if you’re just a screenwriter, you don’t want to do this. Your script should speak for itself. And the funny thing is, this script does speak for itself. It’s really good. It didn’t need anything extra. So if this script would’ve been better off speaking for itself, the same thing is true for your script.
What I liked best about The White Room is that I was never sure where it was going. As I’ve told you guys before, I know where a script is going 99% of the time. It’s hard to fool me. And I think what these guys did that a lot of screenwriters don’t, is they took a low-budget premise and they upped the budget. Let me explain. Usually, when you’re writing low-budget material like this, you’re limited to one location. Get Out for example. An apartment scene, a driving scene, and then everything else takes place at the house. This leaves you with few options to surprise. But with The White Room, the locations kept changing, and that fooled me. I thought once Liz ended up at the brothers house, we were there for the rest of the movie – that she was probably going to be placed in the white room for the entirety of the second half. But that didn’t happen. And pretty much nothing that you think is going to happen happens.
I’m not going to spoil the ending because the writers clearly want to keep it under wraps, but I’ll just say that it wasn’t what I was expecting at all. Which is another coup, because I’ve seen everything. For those reasons alone, I give huge props to these writers. They really give us a movie we haven’t seen before.
I also liked how deep they went emotionally. There’s several scenes early on that explore the theme of grief, as Liz has recently lost her husband to a heart attack. There’s one brutal scene in particular where she has a waking dream where her husband is faced away in the corner of the bedroom. As he turns around, he has this hole in his chest where his heart is supposed to be. And he’s holding his lifeless heart out in his extended hand, and he asks her, “Why isn’t it working?” It’s both scary and heartbreaking at the same time.
A lot of writers are scared to get this deep. They don’t want to make the audience sad. But these are the moments that allows readers to feel the pain of the character, and, in the process, care about them. If you candy-coat the pain of real life, or worse, don’t explore emotion at all through your characters, we’re never going to care about them as anything more than a screenwriting concoction.
I mean this is real shit here. I forgot the exact line, but the writer says something to effect of Liz knows this moment is a waking dream. It’s scary to her. And yet she’s desperate to hold onto it for as long as possible because this is all she has left of her husband. Whenever a writer captures the truth of a situation, and isn’t just writing some bullshit copy of how they conveyed grief in another movie they saw (the character accidentally sets a second plate out for dinner before they remember that their spouse is dead), the chances of connecting with the reader go up exponentially.
On a personal note, I’m a sucker for horror and thriller films that take place in a remote snowy area (The Grey, anyone?). I don’t know why. But it’s like the fear is doubled. You’re not just in the middle of nowhere. You’re in the middle of nowhere in the worst conditions possible, where you can’t leave and nobody can get to you. In a medium where one of your primary goals should be placing your hero in the worst circumstances possible, this setup does double-duty.
So yeah, I was a convert. The script is a little clunky in places, some of which I can’t discuss without spoiling things. But this was a good one. Well worth the read.
[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[ ] wasn’t for me
[xx] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: Grief is a powerful character-developing trait. Someone who’s recently experienced the death of someone close allows for a powerful arc, which is the ability to accept the death and to move on. It’s the reason why Pixar’s Up is such an emotionally affecting film, and a big reason why this script is more than just a harmless horror-thriller.
