Genre: Horror
Premise: Something terrifying awakens within a middle-aged mom when she finally decides to watch the now-classic horror film that she starred in as a child.
Why You Should Read: To this day, rumors persist of a supposed “curse” attached to the modern classic horror film, “The Beholder”. The movie enjoyed both critical acclaim and box office success upon its premiere in October of 1983, and it is still commonly hailed as being among the most terrifying films in the history of American cinema.

But the film’s production was plagued by an endless string of on-set accidents, misfortune and tragedy. And the “curse” only seemed to intensify in the months and years following the movie’s release with the mysterious and untimely deaths of many of the cast and crew, including director John Friedman and lead actors, Betsy Cartwright and Peter Monahan.

Only nine years old at the time, the film’s youngest star, Joanne Harvey, seemed poised to take the movie industry by storm. But in the wake of an auto accident that claimed the lives of her parents after the premiere of “The Beholder”, Joanne Harvey disappeared from Hollywood, never to be heard from again.

Writer: Nick Morris

Details: 88 pages

It’s funny that I read this script when I did. Just yesterday, I was watching Halloween for the 10 Tips article I wrote, and noticed that the little girl Laurie’s friend was babysitting in the movie looked familiar. I went on IMDB to find out that her name was Kylie Richards. I then googled that name to find out that Kylie Richards was now on the cast of Real Housewives of Beverly Hills. Ah-ha, I thought, that’s where I recognized her from. If you need proof that child actresses are doomed to a bizarre trauma-filled life, look no further than where that young girl ended up.

Meanwhile, back at the farm, Nick Morris has won yet another Amateur Offerings, and in a competitive situation. I can’t remember the last time every script got at least three votes. Usually, a couple of scripts are left with 0 or a single vote, which tells me this may be Nick’s biggest win yet. I also heard Nick say he hopes this is finally the script that gets him that “worth the read.” Let’s find out if it does!

45 year old Joanne Bennet’s best years are behind her. One look at her family life and you get a sense why. She’s stuck on her second husband, a trucker who cares more about Call of Duty than couples time, and his weirdo 12 year old son, who’s basically a clone of his father. Even Kaley, Joanne’s 22 year old daughter, is saddled with a newborn that prevents any quiet moments at home.

One morning, while on her way to work, Joanne gets rear-ended by a hipster in an Audi, Brent, who immediately recognizes Joanne. It turns out Joanne was a famous child actor in the horror classic, The Beholder. Brent freaks out because The Beholder is known for being cursed. Many of the people who worked on it mysteriously died. Nobody even knew what happened to Joanne. After geeking out, he invites Joanne to the Dallas Horror Fest, where she’ll be able to make a ton of money signing autographs.

Joanne’s reluctant as she’s never seen the movie. She knows of its “cursed” past and simply figured it was better not to watch it. But she needs the money so she goes. The experience turns out to be a blast, with Robert Englund and Linda Blair admitting they’re big fans. Joanne heads home on a high, and when Kaley suggests finally watching the film, Joanne figures, why not?

The two sit down to watch the movie, which centers around a couple of cursed parents who want to kill their daughter. After the movie, Joanne starts seeing glowing eyes in the house, only to later rip out her own eyes, becoming a “beholder” herself. She then kills her poor daughter, then waits for her husband and stepson to show up so she can kill them too. She succeeds, killing them all, then later goes on to star in the sequel to the film, Beholder: Redemption.

While I tried to stay out of the comments, I did catch a few tidbits about the script – the first being that Nick was rushing to finish the script in time. The second being a lot of people had problems with the third act. Both of these issues affected my read as well. I could tell this script was rushed, and I couldn’t get on board with the ending.

The script started out strong. I loved the way the family was set up. Compared to Wednesday’s script review, and even yesterday, with the original Halloween, this family felt more complex and more interesting than any of the characters set up in those two scripts. The scene where Joanne comes home and her husband and step-son are playing Call of Duty while her daughter is nursing her grandchild – it painted such a clear picture of what this woman’s life was like.

Unfortunately, after that, each subsequent scene felt more rushed than the previous one. And a lot of that had to do with the fact that our hero wasn’t carving her own path. She was waiting for the writer to carve it. It was the writer who crashed a car into our hero. It was the writer who, coincidentally, made the driver of that car the Horror Fest Coordinator. It was the writer who brought our hero to the Horror Fest. Our hero wasn’t doing anything but following the lead.

It wasn’t until the third act that Joanne started acting on her own. But by that point, things had gotten so ridiculous (she’d ripped her eyes out and was running around killing people) that I was now focused on new problems. Usually, in these movies, the main character is either running or trying to defeat the monster. But in Evil Eye, she’d become the monster. And she was killing characters we liked, like the daughter. So I had all these confused feelings as I was reading the climax.

The thing is, there’s SOMETHING TO THIS IDEA. When I read this logline, I liked it. But I didn’t imagine something this cheaply thrown together. I wanted the same kind of depth that was given to the family to be applied everywhere, the plot in particular. Why can’t Joanne watch the film in the first act, and then, as she goes through her daily life, she starts seeing these glowing eyes in the eyes of the people she knows. So she’s trying to figure out if she’s going crazy or not. By the end, of course, she does go crazy. And that’s when she kills her family.

But if you’re going to do that, you need to spend a lot more time with the family. We need to get to know the dad, the stepson, and daughter, beyond that first scene. Because once you switch Joanne into a demon, we need someone else to root for. And you’re probably going to want that to be the daughter. Or, if you want to take this to a dark place, you can make the daughter a bitch as well, and that way when we kill the entire family, we feel like they got their just due. But right now, half the family is good and half is bad, so it’s confusing when they’re all killed.

Here’s the reality of screenwriting. Any reader worth his salt can tell when they’re reading an early draft. You can’t hoodwink them. I know when a writer is rushing things along because everything in the script happens too easily and many of the choices are uninspired. Good choices come from putting your script through the ringer, going through the rewrites and asking yourself, repeatedly, “Is this the best scene I can write?,” “Is this the best plot twist I can come up with?” And if the answer’s no, you one-up it. And if you keep one-upping things every draft, you’re eventually going to have a good script.

What’s so frustrating about The Evil Eye is that there’s a movie here but the script is maybe 25% of where it needs to be. Every aspect of this story needs to be expanded. We need more detail, more specificity, more stuff to happen. I don’t even think there’s a character goal in any of this. Which is a big reason why the plot feels so empty. I don’t know if I’m repeating what others have pointed out or if this is new information, but regardless, I love Nick’s passion for horror and hope he turns this into something great.

Script link: The Evil Eye

[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[x] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius

What I learned: I’m not sure you can turn your hero into the villain for the final act. There may be a few movies that have done it. But it’s confusing for an audience member who’s been rooting for a hero the whole movie, to then be asked to root for everyone besides the hero. I don’t know how that works.

Holy Slutty Halloween Costume! There were a TON of Halloween Amateur Offerings entries. If I’d known there were going to be this many, I would have created a more elaborate competition. Alas, it’s a cut-throat business out there. As per the rules of the game, only five of you made it in. It wasn’t easy pickings. I tried to cover multiple sub-genres so not everything felt the same. Unfortunately, this meant that some strong contenders didn’t get in. Who knows, maybe I’ll throw a few of these into a future competition.

Since I have to stay out of the comments (can’t be persuaded by the reactions), I’ll be checking out the latest Halloween movie this weekend, then review it on Monday. There’s a lesson in “Halloween” for aspiring screenwriters, by the way. One of the things that will happen when you break in, is that you’ll meet with a bunch of people in town. Some of these people will own famous old properties. If you can come in and pitch a fresh take on one of these properties, they may pay you to write a draft. David Gordon Green and Danny McBride came up with this idea of, “What if we pretended that none of the Halloween sequels existed and made this a straight sequel to the original Halloween?” The studio liked that take and allowed them to make the movie. So when that opportunity comes for you, be ready! Have a take formed and a pitch prepared. Even if they had no intention of bringing it up themselves. “Hey, I know you guys own Nightmare on Elm Street. I have an idea for a sequel.” What are they going to say? “We don’t want to hear it?” Of course they do. So be ready!

If you haven’t trick or treated at the Amateur Offerings house before, here’s how the game is played. Read as much of each screenplay as you can, then vote for your favorite script in the Comments Section. Voting closes on Sunday night, 11:59pm Pacific Time. Winner gets a review next Friday. — If you’d like to submit your own script to compete in a future Amateur Offerings, send a PDF of your script to carsonreeves3@gmail.com with the title, genre, logline, and why you think your script should get a shot.

Oh, and one last thing. Move over Trajent Future. Out of the way Larry the Lyft Driver. Sayonara Orbitals. I’m pretty sure “Slothigator” just became the newest Scriptshadow Meme.

Title: THE EVIL EYE
Genre: Horror
Logline: Something terrifying awakens within a middle-aged mom when she finally decides to watch the now-classic horror film that she starred in as a child.
Why You Should Read: To this day, rumors persist of a supposed “curse” attached to the modern classic horror film, “The Beholder”. The movie enjoyed both critical acclaim and box office success upon its premiere in October of 1983, and it is still commonly hailed as being among the most terrifying films in the history of American cinema.

But the film’s production was plagued by an endless string of on-set accidents, misfortune and tragedy. And the “curse” only seemed to intensify in the months and years following the movie’s release with the mysterious and untimely deaths of many of the cast and crew, including director John Friedman and lead actors, Betsy Cartwright and Peter Monahan.

Only nine years old at the time, the film’s youngest star, Joanne Harvey, seemed poised to take the movie industry by storm. But in the wake of an auto accident that claimed the lives of her parents after the premiere of “The Beholder”, Joanne Harvey disappeared from Hollywood, never to be heard from again.

Title: The Bachman Books
Genre: Horror/Biopic
Logline: A freelance journalist becomes entangled in one of the greatest literary coverups of the 20th century. Based on a true lie.
Why You Should Read: This is based on the true story of the journalist who discovered that Stephen King was writing under the pseudonym Richard Bachman – and I should know, because that journalist is me, Steven P. Brown. – Consider this a sidebar to the real story, which involved a simple trip to the library of congress, where I pulled the copyrights to the Bachman books. Boring! What if, in my pursuit of the truth, I got roped into a terrifying game of cat and mouse with a man claiming to be the real Richard Bachman? You mention that a surefire way to break in as a screenwriter is to write a biopic, so I’ve put my own twist on it with a horror/thriller that I hope would make Mr. King himself proud.

Title: Slothigator
Genre: Horror Comedy
Logline: A dysfunctional family must work together when a giant, man-eating sloth/alligator hybrid creature wreaks havoc at their Louisiana amusement park.
Why You Should Read: Despite it’s admittedly bonkers premise, Slothigator offers a healthy share of sentimental family drama to accompany its creature-feature gore fest. By providing the audience with a well rounded family, we believe Slothigator goes beyond its genre and would be able to connect with the audience at a more personal level. After months of sleepless, research filled nights, we can confirm that the science presented in this script is 100% accurate.

Title: In the Basement
Genre: Family Horror
Logline: When some neighborhood kids go trespassing in an abandoned house, they accidentally open the door to Hell, and have to battle a crazed demon horde to close it back before the Devil escapes.
Why You Should Read: Poltergeist is easily one the best, scariest movies ever made, yet somehow it’s for the entire family (well, minus the face-ripping scene). Recently, Amblin has returned to family horror with the House With a Clock in Its Walls—according to Eli Roth, Spielberg told him to make it as scary as possible, that “kids love good scares.” I agree, but every Halloween I’m reminded there aren’t really that many quality horror movies for kids. ‘In the Basement’ takes up the challenge, and is intended to scare the shit out of little kids while keeping things fun and exciting (it’s “fun scary,” as I would tell my kids). The script has gotten some festival love, and was a finalist at Crimson Screen and a Night of Horrors. I hope you enjoy, particularly if you’re under the age of 15.

Title: BLACK LIGHT
Genre: Monster / Action
Logline: In a world overrun by nocturnal monsters only seen under black light, four survivors are forced to travel overnight through a post-apocalyptic Detroit in order to reach a boat that will take them to safety.
Why You Should Read: Not only is it a character based horror film with a hook, but it’s also got some kick ass, Carson-inspired G.S.U. going on. Four people who need to get from one place to another — only five miles — but they have to do it overnight in a world where the last thing you’d ever want to do is go out past dark. Basically, I set out to write something big and fun with cool / scary set pieces and limited locations to keep the budget managable. Think ALIENS meets FURY ROAD with a touch of TREMORS sprinkled in for good taste. As far as I’m concerned, if it turned out even remotely similar to any of those three films, then it would have to be worth some kind of consideration. And yes, I understand that’s a big “if.” Either way, thanks for taking the time and happy Halloween.

Genre: True Crime/Thriller
Premise (from writer): After the arrest of David Parker Ray, one of the most sadistic men in US history, the consequences of his heinous crimes unfold through the eyes of different characters in search of countless missing victims.
Why You Should Read: I’ve been obsessed with this little-known true story ever since I read about it a year ago. Although it’s filled with shocking turns and twisted details, I wanted to focus on a theme more relevant to today: the search for truth in a world where there are as many versions of it as there are individuals. For those faint of heart, I can assure you, I didn’t want to write a cheap and gruesome horror movie, instead, this is something more human. I could’ve written this like a real-life version of Saw, but why bother turning it into a torture-porn movie when the investigation after his arrest became greater than anyone could have imagined. For anyone willing to give it a try, I would be eternally grateful and will obviously try my best to be part of any discussion.
Writer: Kit Anderson
Details: 114 pages

Claire Danes for Sally?

Mucho movie news has been hitting the internnoying this week, starting with reviews for Venom, a film that has a wild amount of support despite its sub-30% Rotten Tomato Score. And Jon Favreau, who’s building the new Star Wars TV show, announces a director line-up so diverse, Twitter usage has decreased 26% due to the SJW Mob’s inability to criticize his choices.

While it’s tempting to dedicate an entire post to that, I’m happy to announce that today’s script is so captivating, you won’t be thinking about symbiotes or mandalorians by the end of the review. Truth or Consequences is definitely going to end up on my Top 10 Amateur Scripts of the Year List. But how high will it rise? Follow me and we can find out together.

It’s 1999. We’re looking at a window on the outside of a mobile home in the middle of nowhere, New Mexico, when CRASH, a hand shoots out. Soon-after, a woman, Cynthia, completely naked, beat up and bloody, metal collar strapped around her neck, breaks out and starts running for freedom. She makes it to a nearby home where an older couple take her in and quickly call the police.

Cynthia is taken to the hospital, and we slide over to a fresh-out-of-school cop, Costa, who joins a gaggle of policemen inspecting the trailer Cynthia was held captive in. They find that virtually the entire home was built to capture women and make them sex slaves. The home’s owner, David, would mostly lure prostitutes in, then he and his girlfriend would torture them.

But here’s where things get weird. The evidence points to David not killing these women, but rather brainwashing them and sending them back into society, with no memory of what happened. The cops aren’t sure if they buy this, but it’s a key detail, since it’s the difference between this guy being a serial killer or a serial torturer.

The script makes the ballsy decision to follow a new protagonist every 15 pages. First it’s Cynthia. Then it’s Costa. Then it’s an FBI agent. Then it’s a female cop. Then it’s David himself. Then it’s Costa’s girlfriend, Sally. That’s who we’re left with 13 years after the original crime. Now a reporter, Sally is attempting to learn the whereabouts of a woman whose ID was found in David’s home. Sally hopes to not only provide closure for the girl’s mother, but to prove once and for all that David didn’t simply release these girls back into society, but killed each and every one of them.

Let me start by saying I’ve never read anything like this. It’s quite the mesmerizing script. In fact, the first thing I want every writer here to do is download and read the first 15 pages of this script. I tell you so many times you have to GRAB THE READER RIGHT AWAY. Yet there’s all this debate about what that means and what kind of scenes qualify as “grabbing the reader.” This. THIS is how you grab the reader. Go ahead, open this script. I DARE YOU to stop reading through the first 15 pages.

Now that we’ve got that out of the way, let’s talk about why this script kicks butt. For starters, I never knew what was coming next. The protagonist-swapping mechanism ensured that even if I did know where the plot was going, I was never sure whose eyes I’d be experiencing it through. Not only that, but the character journeys themselves were unpredictable. (Spoiler) One of the most shocking moments in the script is when we follow a cop for 10 pages only to see her blow her brains out afterwards. Once you do something that shocking to the reader, you’ve got them, because now it’s impossible for them to know what’s coming next.

On top of this, the script introduces a non-traditional take on the serial killer genre. What does an investigation look like when you’ve captured the killer within the first 20 pages? That added a whole new twist to everything because as David is being interrogated, denying everything, I’m wondering, “Are they going to let this guy go? Are they going to screw this up?”

Then there was just all this weird stuff. David made these audio tapes which were instruction-based rules for every woman he captured. The tapes explained, in detail, what would happen to the women and what they should prepare for. In addition to this, he had a separate mobile home known as “The Toy Box” where he brought the torture up another level.

When you combined these things with the constantly changing protagonists, you can understand why this was unlike anything I’ve read before.

But did it all come together in the end?

Unfortunately, that’s where I had some issues with the script. I’ve always told you guys to watch out for big time jumps. Every time you jump forward in time, you pop the tension balloon you’ve been building. Once you jump to 2000, then 2011, you’ve taken so much air out of your story, it’s nearly impossible to blow it back up. And that’s what happened here. You hooked me with intensity. But as the script went on, the story became more drawn out. It felt like I’d been sold a bill of goods.

On top of this, the latter part of the story focuses on a random news reporter we barely met in the first act, looking for the body of a random girl who we never met so that we can bring peace to a random mom who we knew for 2 scenes. You were introducing crazy cool characters one after another throughout the first 50 pages. Why, then, are we spending the climax with, arguably, three of the least interesting people in the script?

This script reminds me a lot of Zodiac. To some of you, that will be good news. But my issue with Zodiac was that the longer it went on, the more pointless it got. We began to realize that we were never getting the truth. So what was the point of sticking around? The point that Fincher would argue is that it mirrored the real case and how that would’ve felt to the detective. I suspect Kit would make the same argument here. And it’s a valid argument. Lots of people loved Zodiac. So who am I to say it’s the wrong choice?

Despite that issue, this script has too many positives not to be celebrated. The writer takes some huge chances. He makes unconventional choices. He weaves a story that’s impossible to predict. This script and the writer have so much potential that this will definitely end up in my Top 5 Amateur Scripts of 2018. Worth a weekend read for sure!

Script link: Truth or Consequences, New Mexico (updated draft)

[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[ ] wasn’t for me
[xx] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius

What I learned: Time = connection in a script. The more time we spend with a character, the more connected we’ll be to them, the more invested we’ll be in them succeeding. We don’t spend enough time with Sally early on, which is why it’s hard to stay invested in her pursuit later. If I were Kit, I would add a large “Sally” section to the first half of the script. Make her one of the more memorable protagonists. That way, when she comes back later, we’ll care a lot more about her pursuit of this girl.

Just a reminder that Halloween is fast approaching. That means we’ll be doing an all-horror Amateur Offerings the weekend of the 20th. Get those horror scripts prepared and have them in by October 18th!

If you haven’t played Amateur Offerings before, shame on you. A vote from you could mean the difference between a screenwriter starting his career and spending the rest of it in obscurity. So stop watching those lame Netflix C-movies over the weekend and read some damn screenplays! Afterwards, cast your vote for your favorite script in the comments section. Voting closes on Sunday night, 11:59pm Pacific Time. Winner gets a review next Friday. — If you’d like to submit your own script to compete in Amateur Offerings, send a PDF of your script to carsonreeves3@gmail.com with the title, genre, logline, and why you think your script should get a shot.

Good luck everyone!

Title: Death Swap
Genre: Horror
Logline: Four friends must survive the night and each other when a cursed board game possesses their bodies with evil spirits.
Why You Should Read: Following the massive box-office success of ‘Truth or Dare’, I wanted to come up with another horror spin on a well known game. My brainstorming led me to this Jumanji meets Hellraiser mashup, where teens find a board game that swap their souls with evil voodoo spirits. It’s a pretty much contained horror that I hope has enough potential to get some feedback from the SS community. But honestly guys, I just want to get better as a writer. I am looking for brutal, honest feedback. If you think it’s a script worth pursuing, I would be grateful for any notes you can provide.

Title: The Fighting Girlfriend
Genre: WW2, Biopic
Logline: When her husband is killed by Germans in WW2, a widow propositions Stalin to be one of the first-ever female tank commanders. She becomes a symbol of hope for the Russian people as she aims to recapture her hometown, but also a target for a ruthless and elite Nazi tank commander…
Why You Should Read: It’s a WW2 version of UP but instead of a house with balloons, it’s a badass T-34 tank. We’re replacing the grumpy Carl with a 36-year-old woman hellbent on revenge whose crew is barely 18 years old and have never been in battle. She’s not heading to Paradise Falls, she’s clawing her way to Minsk, her hometown, and will partake in one of the largest (and bloodiest) tank battles of the entire war. I’ve been reading Scriptshadow since the Avatar film review and proud devotee of G.S.U. Thank you for the opportunity and I hope you enjoy.

Title: Truth or Consequences, New Mexico
Genre: True Crime/Thriller
Logline: After the arrest of David Parker Ray, one of the most sadistic men in US history, the consequences of his heinous crimes unfold through the eyes of different characters in search of countless missing victims.
Why You Should Read: I’ve been obsessed with this little-known true story ever since I read about it a year ago. Although it’s filled with shocking turns and twisted details, I wanted to focus on a theme more relevant to today: the search for truth in a world where there are as many versions of it as there are individuals. For those faint of heart, I can assure you, I didn’t want to write a cheap and gruesome horror movie, instead, this is something more human. I could’ve written this like a real-life version of Saw, but why bother turning it into a torture-porn movie when the investigation after his arrest became greater than anyone could have imagined. For anyone willing to give it a try, I would be eternally grateful and will obviously try my best to be part of any discussion.

Title: Remorseless
Genre: Sci-Fi/Thriller
Logline: A PTSD-afflicted veteran joins a secret military program that promises to wipe his traumatic memories and give him a fresh start with his daughter, but discovers the only memories being erased are of the brutal missions meant to earn him his freedom.
Why You Should Read: Title, genre and logline, or I’ve not done my job… But for added support, a Black List review had this to say: “Hollywood loves a smart, sophisticated grounded sci-fi spec, and this script definitely delivers on that front. It’s easy to imagine this script making waves in the industry considering its bold concept and strong, complex leading man. Massaging the sequence of twists, as well as the way the story ends, could give it the extra shine it needs to stand out among the crowd and deservedly rise to the top.” I’d be interested in your – and the Scriptshadow community’s – take on how to help this script “rise to the top”

Title: DILATION
Genre: Thriller
Logline: A young woman terminating her pregnancy is kidnapped by a pro-life extremist with plans to terminate her once the baby is born.
Why You Should Read: This is a Nicholl semi-finalist. Since its placement, I’ve had feedback from producers/agents and refined it. It’s also had a logline consult from Carson. All this has been in preparation for the ultimate test. The scriptshadow community. — One important note. Although the antagonist is pro-life, and inspired by research into extremists, this is not a belief bashing exercise. It deals with big and divisive themes, but ultimately, it’s an imaginative thriller driven by carefully crafted characters with personal motivations. And it has a talking toy called Richard Dog. Please read and comment. I’d like to this to be all it can be.

Genre: Musical Horror Comedy
Premise: In 1985, an eager teen in search of an exciting summer signs up to work at a musical summer camp where counselors are stalked and murdered by an unknown assailant.
Why You Should Read: A Killer Musical is three things: a musical, a slasher movie, and a comedy, in that order. I wanted to have legitimate song and dance numbers to go along with the jump scares and brutal murders of a slasher film, all while keeping the humor from moving into Scary Movie territory where the characters behave as if they are aware that they are in a horror film. — This script is for everyone that has watched Friday the 13th and said to themselves, “Why aren’t there any song and dance numbers in this camp counselor murder romp?” — I’ve only been lurking Scriptshadow’s AOW for a short while and I haven’t seen a musical yet. Perhaps it’s time?
Writer: Chris Hicks
Details: 97 pages

As I lament the fact that I don’t have a Playstation 4 and therefore cannot play Red Dead Redemption 2 – sad face – I’m reminded that all is not lost. Maniac, by new Bond director Cary Fukunaga, debuts today on Netflix, and I’m going to be reviewing it Monday. The series is supposed to be unlike anything you’ve seen before, so it’ll be an interesting watch. Make sure to catch at least the pilot episode so you can participate in the discussion.

Speaking of unique ideas, we’ve got a true original one today with our Amateur Offerings winner. I can count the number of musicals I’ve reviewed on Scriptshadow on one hand (There’s La La Land, there’s Bob the Musical, there’s… any more?) and there’s a good reason for that. Musicals are the hardest genres to critique in the script stage. How can you adequately examine something without hearing the very portion that defines it – the music?? I don’t know. But I’m going to try!

It’s 1985. 17 year old virginesque Alyson has just accepted a counselor position at a brand new musical camp in the woods. She’ll be joining her chain-smoking slutty best friend, Nikki, who will be bringing along her boyfriend, Brett, and his hot best friend, Tommy, who Alyson immediately has eyes for.

Teaser Opening

The group will meet up with a second older group led by Mitch and Colleen, a couple who’s been in one endless fight since they got together, and the Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle-Dum of the gang, Lonnie and Danny. The goal is to get to the location and prepare it for camp, which will begin next week.

What nobody here knows is that the area of woods they’re going to is CURSED! People have been disappearing there since 1865. At least that’s what the psycho gas station attendant tells them. Needless to say, the second they show up, people start getting killed. A theater-masked assailant (half his mask a smiling face, the other half crying, with a stitching down the middle) who carries a makeshift axe welded to an old guitar frame begins killing the poor counselors one by one!

Oblivious to the mayhem, our Final Girl, Alyson, falls in love with Tommy, only to learn that he’s gay. And to make matters worse, after recovering from the embarrassment, she finds that half the group has disappeared. As she starts looking into the mysterious development, it becomes clear that they’re in serious danger. Can she use the power of song to escape? Or will she end up like everyone else in the crew, a one-hit wonder?

I’ve never truly understood the slasher formula.

The point is to create a group of characters we dislike enough that we want to see them killed, however, keep them just likable enough so that, in the meantime we’re not bored by them. I don’t know how you do that. And I suspect that that’s one of the reasons the genre fell out of favor in the 2000s. Audiences aren’t interested in watching movies where they don’t care if the characters live or die.

To revive the formula, you’re going to have to do something different. And give it to Chris Hicks for infusing the genre with just that – MUSIC!

I love this idea. It’s inherently ironic (singing chirpy songs while characters are brutally murdered) and provides the script with that “same but different” element executives are always pining for.

But ideas don’t matter unless the execution is in place. And I’m not sure the execution is there yet with A Killer Musical, beginning with the awkward setup. I went into this thinking that Alyson was one of the camp members, not a camp counselor. She was still in high school so it seemed like a logical assumption. Therefore it was very confusing when she got to the camp and started preparing it for other camp members. I kept thinking, “I’ve never gone to a camp where I had to first prepare the camp.” I eventually realized she was a counselor but that could’ve been clearer.

Once I got past that, I did like what Chris did. Having to prepare the camp gave the characters something to do. Lots of writers have trouble with this. They don’t give their characters any goals and therefore struggle to come up with things for them to do. As a result we get a lot of the cliche scenes like, “Wanna join me for a smoke on the porch,” or “Let’s play Truth or Dare.” By needing to prepare the place, you place the characters in a number of situations where they are isolated and can therefore encounter our stalker.

But what the success of this script really comes down to is: Are the songs enough to invigorate a tired concept? And in this iteration, I would say no. The reason being that while the songs are informative, they’re not clever enough. I was looking for more jokes in the song-writing, more clever asides. Instead, many of the songs were exposition-driven, and fairly straight-forward exposition at that.

The gold-standard for comedy musicals now is the South Park guys, Matt Stone and Trey Parker. These guys are so funny and their song-writing masters the art of being expositional, pushing the story along, AND throwing jokes in there. I wanted more of that in A Killer Musical. Here’s one of their most famous songs, Blame Canada.

To Chris’s credit, he does let loose, but it happens too late – all the way in the third act. One of my favorite moments in the script was when a couple of dead characters reanimate and start sing-narrating Alyson’s escape sequence. It was fun and clever – exactly what I was looking for. But it was TOO DAMN LATE. I was like, “Where was this at the beginning??” And while I understand the need to build up to that moment, I felt Chris took too long to get there. I mean, this is a SLASHER MUSICAL. We expect crazy. You can start giving it to us earlier.

I will say I liked the killer. I liked that his main weapon was music-inspired. I thought the mask was great. These movies are so dependent on the mask because that’s what’s going to be used to market the film and a good mask can get you 10 million bucks on opening weekend. And I loved that the kills were musical-inspired. My favorite was him sneaking up on a character with cymbals and then slamming them together on her head, exploding it like a watermelon. Only thing that was missing was him saying, “Well that was cymbollic.”

But for a script with a hook this zany, it was surprisingly tame for the majority of its running time. If I were Chris, I would go back through this and let loose, particularly with the song lyrics. I think this script is worth pursuing because I can see it as a movie. But the author needs to un-muzzle himself and deliver on the promise of the premise much earlier than the third act.

Script link: A Killer Musical

[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[x] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius

What I learned: Readers loooooooove scripts with this much dialogue. When a reader sees a script like this, it’s heaven. They know that their read time has just been cut down by half an hour, possibly more. I’m not saying that every script should have tons of dialogue. I’m only saying that if all else is equal and you’re trying to decide between a dialogue-driven script and a description-driven script, pick the dialogue one.