Genre: Horror-Thriller
Premise: A group of young adults channel their inner Charles Manson and attempt to terrorize a rich couple in their remote home. But they soon realize that they picked the wrong couple.
About: This one was written by brothers Justin and VJ Boyd, who are relatively new on the scene. This script actually won the Screamfest Screenplay Contest, which has since resulted in VJ securing a writing job for the TV series, Justified. The two brothers also created a comic called Ghost Cop, fortifying the Scriptshadow rule of “Go out there and attack the industry in as many ways as possible.”
Writers: VJ Boyd & Justin Boyd
Details: 96 pages
It was not a pretty weekend at the box office. The Last Witch Hunter ended up getting hunted by much better movies. People always talk about Vin Diesel’s amazing social media presence, despite the fact that it doesn’t seem to do anything for him outside of Fast and Furious. Jury’s still out on whether a star’s social media affects ticket sales.
“Jobs” only made 7.3 million bucks. To put that in perspective, the Ashton Kutcher version of Jobs made 6.7 million bucks on its opening weekend. As for why this happened, I think you strip away all the industry talk and just admit that Steve Jobs isn’t a topic the average person is interested in. With that said, I loved this movie, and hopefully we’ll see it play through the Oscars.
One of the more baffling things about the weekend was the release of Jem and the Holograms, which couldn’t even scrape together 2 million bucks. The film doing badly wasn’t a surprise. What was a surprise was how sure mega-producer Jason Blum was that the movie was going to do well. Of the ten films he released this year, this is the only one he tabbed as a “sure thing.”
I don’t know a single person on this planet who would’ve agreed with Blum here. This looked like a bad idea from the get-go. It just goes to show that even someone as plugged into the Hollywood machine as Jason Blum can be completely off-base about an idea. That’s scary.
Speaking of scary, I’m here to recruit a little anger from you readers, a little frustration, a little HATE. 17 year-old Cassie is just trying to fit in at school. She’s finally got one of the popular girls, the mean-spirited Stacy, taking an interest in her. So when Stacy suggests bringing Cassie out for a night to remember, Cassie doesn’t hesitate.
However, she starts having doubts when she meets Stacy’s older boyfriend, JP, who the Boyd’s describe simply as, “He looks like one of the Columbine shooters.” Cassie’s ready to bail until the last member of the group shows up, the uber-sexy, Razor. All of a sudden, Cassie thinks the night is worth a shot.
The group heads out to a remote location where they find a beautiful large home. Cassie soon picks up on the fact that our trio holds a grudge against the rich, and are ready to make an example out of the couple who live here. Cassie is not down but as Razor explains to her, “Where are you going to go? We’re out in the middle of nowhere.”
The group eventually sneaks in, targeting Kurt and Gail, a seemingly helpless pair in their forties. But there’s something off about it all. Even when they tie these people up and hold guns to their heads, they don’t seem scared.
I think you know where this is going. All it takes is one mistake and Gail and Kurt are able to get free. Just like that, the hunters become the hunted. As our group runs around the house, trying to save one another, they discover a series of Nazi paraphernalia. Each side goes all in, set on taking the others down. May the side with the most hate win.
I’ll be the first to admit, I love home invasion scripts. LOVE’EM! I don’t know what it is about them but if you look through all my reviews, I always give these scripts high marks, and Hate Night is no exception. I didn’t think it was as good as some of the other stuff I’ve read, but I still enjoyed myself.
And even if you aren’t a home-invasion lover, you could learn a couple of things from this script, namely, how it pulls you in via its use of suspense.
You see, most writers don’t know how to use suspense. Sure, if you asked them what suspense is, they’d probably have an answer for you. But as far as effectively utilizing suspense in one of their screenplays? Don’t count on it.
With Hate Night, right away Stacy and JP are acting creepy towards Cassie, hinting at things to come, which makes us wonder if they’re going to do something bad to her. We also know there’s a plan being put into action here, which likewise keeps our interest.
It’s for this reason that the Boyds have us wrapped around their finger. We ARE GOING TO READ until we find out what this plan is – and what’s going to happen to Cassie. That’s suspense 101 right there. And the typical amateur screenwriter doesn’t know how to do this. They instead write linearly. By that I mean they write whatever comes into their head at the moment, unable to forward-think the situation into a suspense-driven version.
My issue with Hate Night was that once we got to the home, much of that suspense was replaced with shock value. And while I’m not against shock value, it’s definitely not as effective as a well executed line of suspense.
The reason is simple. Shock takes up one second of screen-time. A character bites off another characters mouth. That’s fine. I’ve seen that work in movies before and it might work effectively when put on screen here. But it’s over within a second. There’s nothing left to extract from a “one person bites off another person’s mouth” moment.
With suspense, you can draw things out for minutes, even hours. One of the reasons It Follows worked so well is because its premise is inherently suspenseful. We know it’s only a matter of time before the next “follower” is coming. And we’re on guard about who or where they could be.
Hate Night had the opportunity to extend its suspenseful approach with the Nazi stuff. Start with something small so the audience wonders what’s going on, then with each new series of scenes, reveal a little more about the Nazi stuff, until a big explanation of how the couple is connected to that world is revealed. But Hate Night chooses not to explain these things. And I suppose that’s fine. But I guess I was looking for anything that would keep me invested the way those the first 20 pages did.
Despite this, I still enjoyed Hate Night. I love the genre in general. I like that the Boyds twisted things around and made the hunters the hunted. And I liked how the main characters didn’t represent a united front (with Cassie being against this). The reality in these situations is that even on the “attacking” side, there’s going to be dissent, and I read too many scripts where everybody on the bad side agrees with each other, which isn’t realistic.
I’m glad to get Halloween Week started off right. And by the way, if you know of any good horror scripts from the last couple of years you want to see reviewed, let me know. I have the new Friday the 13th script, but I didn’t know if you guys would be interested in that, seeing as it’s part of an overly-exploited franchise. But if you’re interested, I’ll review it. Let me know in the comments!
[ ] what the hell did I just read?
[ ] wasn’t for me
[x] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: Create LINES OF SUSPENSE to keep your scenes engaging. Think of a “line of suspense” as a literal line between when you hint at something happening, and when it actually happens. The longer the line, the longer the suspense. To understand how this works, I want you to write two practice scenes for me. In the first scene, I want you to put characters JOE and LISA in a room together and have them talk. I don’t care what they talk about. Just write 2-4 pages of a scene with those two talking. When you’re finished, come back here. Okay, now I want you to write the same scene, but this time, have the two preparing the room for something (cleaning, arranging), then start with this dialogue. JOE: I thought she was supposed to be here by now. LISA: You know how busy she is. JOE: I just can’t believe she’s coming here. — Continue to write the dialogue between the characters however you want until this third person shows up. What you’ll notice is that the second scene works much better because you’ve created a LINE OF SUSPENSE. The audience is now anticipating the arrival of a character. And not just any character, a seemingly important character. So the reader is clearly going to want to find out who this person is. This is how to use a LINE OF SUSPENSE to keep the reader engaged.
