Today’s project is another Stephen King adaptation. Can we learn some of the movie adaptation master’s secrets from the review?

Genre: Thriller
Premise: A writer on a late-night drive stops at a rest stop only to find himself in the middle of an escalating domestic dispute.
About: This was a Stephen King short story that Lionsgate picked up last year. Her Smell’s Alex Ross Perry will direct. This is from King’s 2009 collection of short stories, “Just After Sunset.” It originally appeared in Esquire magazine in 2003.
Writer: Stephen King
Details: about 25 pages long

Stephen King has had more of his stories adapted into movies than any other modern writer. And it isn’t even close. King has 39 produced feature credits off adaptations. Elmore Leonard is second with 21. And the next closest is Nicholas Sparks, with 11. (Shakespeare, of course, has had like 250, but he did have a 400 year head start on King, so let’s give it time)

That’s fascinating to me. That someone can be so tuned in to what makes a movie concept work that nobody else is even within shouting distance of him. I’ve thought about this for years. What is King doing that nobody else is doing? The only thing I can think of is he doesn’t set out to write movies. He sets out to write novels and short stories and if a studio ends up wanting to adapt one, great.

Does that mean there’s something to the approach of writing stories for the page rather than the screen that creates better movie ideas? Or is it as simple as King is the only author who writes successful mainstream horror consistently, and since horror is cheap to produce, many of his ideas get made?

I know this about King. His concepts tend to be very simple. A clown that eats children. A killer dog. A girl who has the power to start fire. A family stays at a haunted hotel. An author’s biggest fan kidnaps him and forces him to write a book. Simple concepts mean focused narratives. And you guys know how much I value simple narratives. Yesterday’s horror script fell apart specifically due to how un-simple it was.

But that begs the question. With concepts so simple, how is King able to pull 700 pages out of them? I mean who, other than King, is able to turn a killer clown into a double book? Could that hold the secret to King’s adaptation success? Unfortunately, we won’t find out today, since this is a short story. But maybe Rest Stop will get us one clue closer to the answer.

English professor John Dykstra just finished speaking at a benefit as his alter ego, Rick Hardin. Rick Hardin, you see, is a best-selling thriller novelist. Rick Hardin is the cool guy with a hop to his step who wears shit-kicker cowboy boots. Rick Hardin is a pseudonym. And after the benefit, Rick Hardin morphs back into John Dykstra.

Dykstra is driving home late on a deserted highway, and because of a few drinks he had at the benefit, he needs to go to the bathroom. Luckily, he knows of a rest stop up ahead. When Dykstra pulls in, he sees one other car there, a PT Cruiser. Just as he’s about to walk in the bathroom, he hears a man cursing out a woman in the woman’s bathroom.

Amongst the screaming is hitting. Lots of it. Dykstra is all of a sudden faced with a tough choice. Does he, all of 5’9” and 160 pounds, try to go in and stop this guy, or does he become the guy on the news in a week who was a witness to a murder yet stood by and did nothing? As much as he wants to do something, Dykstra doesn’t have the courage.

We then cut inside the woman’s room and switch POVs to Lee, the man doing the beating. Just as he’s putting the finishing touches on his girlfriend, he gets clocked in the back with something, yanked backwards, and shoved to the ground. It’s Rick Hardin. Yes, Dykstra’s cooler alter-ego. He tells Lee if he tries to get up, he’ll clock him in he head with the tire iron he’s holding.

Rick, aka Dykstra, tells the woman to get in the car and drive away. Once gone, Rick berates the man for what he does and finds himself actually enjoying it. He likes being in this power position, being the abuser. After threatening to come after the man if he ever does this again, Rick heads off in his car, drives 15 miles, then promptly throws up on the side of the driveway, turning back into John Dykstra.

Let’s start by stating the obvious. This sold last year. 2019 is still firmly in the #metoo trending stage. Which makes this a great example of understanding what the market wants (toxic masculinity, female abuse storylines), then going back into the library of the most movie adaptable author in history, and finding a story that fits that need. That’s good producer work there.

As a story, this is classic King. He sets up a simple scary situation – being stuck at a truck stop with something dangerous – and makes you wonder what’s going to happen. One of the things I noticed about King that might separate him from other writers who likewise favor simple concepts, is he really likes to get into the details of the characters’ lives. Both what led them to this point and the unending number of thoughts going on in their head at the moment.

The entire first part of this story is Dykstra recounting how he got to this point in his life. The reason this is relevant is because readers don’t care about characters they don’t know. Had this story begun with Dykstra walking up to the rest stop, it wouldn’t have worked. We needed to know who this person was to care about him when he got into this situation.

I’m thinking this is part of King’s secret sauce. Despite his concepts being scary simple, he loves character. He loves detail. He never just sees what’s in the frame. He wants to know what’s above the frame, below it, next to it, behind it. That curiosity factor elevates his characters above what everyone else is doing.

I mean look at You Should Have Left. There’s character backstory in that script. But nothing to the level of even what this short story provides. In fact, I think when King stories don’t adapt well, that’s a common reason. The person adapting isn’t able to transfer over the level of detail in the characters that King put on the page.

Now some of you might point out that King depends too much on on-the-nose situations. We have the good guy here. And the really bad guy who’s beating up a girl. I mean how much more obviously bad can you make a character? However, I think that also is a reason King is so successful on the movie front. Too many writers try and create these ultra-complex characters with too many dimensions and, in the process, dilute who they are. There’s definitely a factor in mainstream Hollywood films where a certain level of “on-the-noseness” is required. Any Steven Spielberg movie will prove that. They’re mostly filled with archetypes.

And when it comes down to it, King puts his characters into interesting situations. Situations where they’re forced to act but can’t (Misery) and situations where they’re given a problem and must make a difficult choice (Rest Stop). If you’re ever looking to write a good story, just do this. Put your character in a bad situation and see what happens.

All in all, I liked this short story. I was more into the “what is he going to do?” stuff than the silly Clark Kent-Superman stuff. But I was definitely pulled in and wanted to know what would happen, which is an indication that the story is working. It’s going to be interesting to see how they turn this into a feature, though. I’m guessing it won’t end so abruptly. This will likely extend out into the surrounding forest and have a few more twists and turns.

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

What I learned: You have to have an insatiable appetite to get to know your characters if you want to be a really good writer. That’s what King reminded me of today. If your characters are just pawns to move the plot forward, there’s always a chance that you can make that work, such as the John Wick movies. But it will serve you better to get to know characters as much as humanly possible. It helps on pretty much every front of writing.

Today we introduce a new screenwriting term – the “reluctant active hero.”

Genre: Comedy/Drama
Premise: Based on Pete Davidson’s life, a directionless young man, whose life changed forever when his firefighter father died, must come to grips with the reality that his mother is finally starting to date again.
About: Comedy media mogul Judd Apatow, who made Amy Schumer a star by directing the semi-autobiographical film, Trainwreck, is attempting to do the same with another polarizing Saturday Night Live comedian, Pete Davidson, best known for his public breakdowns in the media, among other things. Like many movies during these times, the film decided to ditch a theatrical release in favor of going the digital route.
Writers: Judd Apatow & Pete Davis and Dave Sirus
Details: 2 hours and 16 minutes

Screenwriting Pro Tip: A hero who’s good with kids makes him instantly likable

I love reviewing Judd Apatow movies. As narratively frustrating as he can be, there is no one in the Hollywood comedy space who comes close to him. I mean, his closest competitor is Adam Sandler. And he comes nowhere near Apatow in terms of putting out a quality comedy product.

Apatow’s secret is that he finds the realness in people. He actually does the things all the screenwriting gurus say to do. He doesn’t just create backstory for his characters. He makes sure the backstory INFORMS the characters. You see that with Pete Davidson’s character, Scott. There isn’t a single element of his persona that isn’t influenced by his father dying when he was young.

The reason Apatow’s films always fall short of being classics, though, is that he doesn’t have an inner editor. He includes everything. This not only results in his movies being long. But the pacing is always off. Scenes drift. Sequences (pro tip: a ‘sequence’ is a series of scenes) occasionally feel aimless. I mean, the first thing I noticed when I loaded up the movie was the length – 2:16. “Yup,” I said. “This is an Apatow movie.”

Scott Carlin is a 24 year old loser. He’ll be the first to tell you that. Scott lives with his mother, doesn’t have a job, doesn’t have any plans except for a vague hope to be a tattoo artist some day. Scott smokes more pot than Chaz grows, using it to cope with his total and utter worthlessness.

Scott’s life gets a whole lot worse when his mother, Margie, starts dating a man from the neighborhood, Ray. Scott’s issue with Ray is that he’s a fireman (just like his dead father) and Scott sees this as an attempt by his mom to replace dad and leave Scott behind. So Scott begins acting out, doing more drugs, and even robs a store with his friends, resulting in them going to prison (Scott is the lone friend to get away).

Scott then sets his sights on sabotaging Ray’s relationship with his mother. But it backfires when they both get into a physical altercation, resulting in Margie kicking them out (midpoint shift of the movie for screenwriting structure gurus). Without any place to go, Scott asks Ray if he can stay at the fire station, which Ray agrees to as long as Scott works.

This allows Scott to experience purpose and structure for the first time in his life, as well as understand the world his father was a part of before he died. In the end, this propels Scott into the next phase of his life, where he finally accepts the responsibilities of being an adult.

I learned something interesting about this movie while watching Bill Burr on Joe Rogan’s podcast (Burr plays Ray in the film). He said that, originally, the first scene of the film occurred in the middle of the movie. At some point, someone suggested having the scene moved to the opening.

I bring this up because one of the most important things in screenwriting is making the audience understand who a character is. It seems easy when it’s done well. But in most amateur screenplays, this is one of the most common mistakes I see. Writers don’t define who their character is. And, therefore, we never get a feel for them, resulting in us not caring what they do.

The scene in question has Scott driving his car on the highway and, for about 10 seconds, he closes his eyes completely. It just so happens that there’s a wreck up ahead, so when Scott opens his eyes, he’s seconds away from crashing into those cars. He’s barely able to steer around them and avoid the collision, but it was close.

The scene serves as a key insight into Scott’s character. This is a man who doesn’t value his existence. He doesn’t think he’s worthy of life. And it helps tell us, right away, exactly why he lives his life the way he does. So always remember that. What is that first scene you’re using to introduce your hero that’s giving us a key insight into who they are? It might be a scene later in the script you need to move.

King of Staten Island is a tale of two halves.

The first half is a screenwriting cautionary tale and the second half is a course study in the value of structure.

Let’s start with the first half first.

Despite my compliment regarding the first scene, King of Staten Island has a major hero problem. Its main character is inactive. Now, granted, his inactivity is an organic extension of his character. The whole point is to explore the life of someone with no direction. So it makes sense that he’s passive.

The problem is that his inactivity creates a first half with no momentum. Like Scott, the script is sort of stumbling around looking for a point. There is no plot other than Ray coming into the picture and dating his mom. But that can only give the plot so much structure. So we’re mostly following Scott around as he does nothing and complains about how he does nothing. Not the most riveting storyline.

Things change when he and Ray get into a fight and Scott is forced to stay at the fire station. All of a sudden, the script has structure because the station has structure. Scott now has something to do every day. And we feel like we’re progressing. He gets better at what he does, starts getting more responsibility, starts valuing the job his father did. It’s a 180 degree turn from the first half of the script.

It was a reminder that structure comes in many forms. It can come from giving your hero a goal he must achieve, which, in turn, allows you to create a set of smaller progressing goals and obstacles (which structures the narrative). Or it can come from placing your hero inside a structured environment. That is naturally going to lead to a more structured story. Ideally, you’d do both. But one can work.

Wrapping things up here, King of Staten Island is clearly Judd Apatow’s Good Will Hunting. Both movies have reluctant working-class protagonists with dead father issues who have little self-worth which they make up for in other ways (Will through fighting/anger, Scott through doing drugs). But there’s a reason Good Will Hunting is better than Staten Island. And it has to do with recognizing the limitations of the character you’re working with and designing a screenplay that makes up for those limitations.

Will Hunting does this. King of Staten Island does not. And I’ll explain the difference below in the “What I Learned” section.

Despite this, King of Staten Island is a good movie. I actually marvel at the fact that Apatow anchored his film around two non-actors (Pete Davidson and Bill Burr) and still got it to work. The fact that he was able to get convincing performances out of both of them is a minor miracle. And the fact that the movie ends better than it starts leaves you feeling good afterwards, almost to the point where you forget how wandering the first half was.

If only Apatow would hire an editor, he could take movies like Staten Island to the next level.

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

What I learned: The Reluctant Active Hero – If your hero is passive, which can happen when you’re writing a movie like The King of Staten Island, construct a story whereby he’s forced to be active. That’s what Good Will Hunting did. Like Scott, Will Hunting was not an active character by any stretch. When it’s up to him, he does nothing. By putting him inside this mandated activity, however, Will is forced to be active. He must show up to both these therapy and math sessions or else he goes to jail. So the next time you’re writing a character like Scott who’s lazy and does nothing, consider injecting a structure inside your story that forces them to participate in something they don’t want to participate in.

Genre: Comedy/Horror
Premise: (from Black List) Twenty years after a failed exorcism, a meek young woman becomes unlikely friends with the foul-mouthed demon that possessed her as a child.
About: This one’s got a couple of big pillars holding it up. Buzzy indie production house A24 and none other than JJ’s Bad Robot. Megan Amran, who broke into the business a decade ago writing material for the Academy Awards, has written on The Simpsons, Parks and Recreation, and The Good Place. This is her first feature script to break through.
Writer: Megan Amram
Details: 100 pages

Feels like Emma Stone should be Kennedy

Just a reminder for those who don’t read Scriptshadow often.

The possession genre is the biggest bang-for-your-buck genre out there. Possession movies are obscenely cheap to make. Since you don’t traditionally need special effects, you can shoot them on the same budget you’d shoot a drama. Keep the locations limited and you can even keep it under a million. Even if the thing only has a five million dollar opening weekend, you’ve made a profitable movie.

BUT!

But you have to find a fresh angle. If you’re the 3824th writer to conceive of “The Exorcism of [Insert Female Name Here],” don’t expect your script to garner much attention.

Megan Amram takes that advice as far as someone can take it. Today we have a gross-out vulgar exorcism comedy. The 40 Year Old Virgin as an exorcism flick? Mixed with some Seth Rogen humor? Is that a thing? I guess we’re about to find out.

When she’s 10 years old, Kennedy gets possessed by a real mean demon named Lamashtu, who is one of the worst demons you can get possessed by. Think The Exorcism times ten. She’s really bad.

Kennedy’s mom, Karen, does everything in her power to exorcise Lamashtu, calling on all the best priests in the area. But they’re all terrified of Lamashtu and run away. Finally, Karen realizes that good old steady yoga breathing and positive thoughts can keep Lamashtu at bay. As long as you don’t get angry, she tells her daughter, you’ll be fine.

Cut to twenty years later. The reclusive nerdy Kennedy works as a coder at a Google wannabe company. Everyone overlooks Kennedy because she’s just so… well… NICE. And nice people get stepped on. Nice people get taken advantage of.

But after Kennedy gets passed over for a promotion, Lamashtu has had enough and reemerges! Lamashtu (as Kennedy) starts screaming at everyone at work, and all of a sudden, people don’t just respect Kennedy. They like her! This girl has spunk.

Kennedy realizes that she’s made a mistake by repressing Lamashtu all these years. It’s time to fully embrace her demon instead! Even her sexist office crush, David, asks her out, leading to Kennedy’s first ever sexual experience. The event is so overwhelming that Lamashtu takes over, giving David the best sex of his life, leading to him being obsessed with Kennedy.

But when Kennedy’s evil side starts affecting her one genuine friendship with her fellow reclusive coder, she begins to wonder if the juice is worth the squeeze. Will Kennedy say F-it and become Lamashtu forever? Or is there a way to be nice again and still enjoy her life?

Man.

This was a wild one.

I’ll give Amram props on a couple of fronts. This is a fun idea. What if you stopped holding in all those things you really wanted to say and just let go? Embrace that anger you’ve always repressed. It’s one of the more fun comedic premises I’ve come across.

And Amram doesn’t neuter Kennedy’s inner demon. This is not the safe cute version of this concept. Lamasthtu regularly unloads lines like, “You want dirty talk? I’m gonna rip your big fat cock through your stomach up through your mouth til you choke on it.” Full steam ahead on the vulgarity.

The script also does one of the most important things a script must do – IT DELIVERS ON THE PROMISE OF ITS PREMISE. You get exactly what the logline tells you you’re going to get. I can’t endorse this enough. I read a lot of scripts that promise a great premise but then the script becomes something else in its second half. Or it changes genres in the final act.

No! Whatever your unique element, whatever the “strange attractor” is in your story, that’s what you want to exploit. Milk that thing until there’s no more milk left in it.

The script did have some weaknesses though. Kennedy’s job felt totally made up. It was a tech company but it was never clear what the company did (or what she did). She was just a generic “coder” and we were supposed to go with it.

I’ve said this once, I’ll say it a million times. As human beings, half our lives are dedicated to our jobs. We spend 8-10 hours a day doing them. They are often the most influential part of our lives. So if you don’t know what a character does? If you don’t know where they work, what their position is, what their everyday tasks are? You don’t truly know that character. And, believe me, we the audience can feel it.

Even if you pick a generic job, like accounting or middle management, LEARN what that company does and why your character ended up doing that job. Cause if you don’t know that, you’re not giving us the full dimension of your character. You’re only giving us the part that you care about. And it’s making the character one-dimensional.

Speaking of one-dimensional, today’s script continues a recent trend of writers treating all their male characters as moronic sexist a-holes. I don’t know when this started or why writers do it. Isn’t the male species more varied than every single one of them being moronic and sexist and an a-hole? I would hope there are some who are nice. That are cool. That are complex and interesting. And yet in 2020, finding a cool masculine male character who’s intelligent and respectful is like looking for Bigfoot.

The crazy thing is it wasn’t that long ago when I was telling male writers who used to write one-dimensional female characters, “You know that women are going to read this script, right? Do you think it’s a good idea that all your male characters are complex and well thought out and all your female characters are one-dimensional and sex objects? Do you think that’s going to go over well?”

And now it’s the exact opposite problem. Female writers are writing all their male characters as simplistic sexist idiots. You know that men are going to read your script right? Do you think that’s going to go over well?

I’m not sure where I come out on Repossession. Sometimes I thought it was funny. But other times it got too vulgar or too off-track (it didn’t make any sense for the hero to be a virgin – that felt like a whole different movie).

I think if the script stripped away the stuff that wasn’t directly related to the concept of a young woman finally allowing her anger to come out, this could be that rare comedy movie that gets released in theaters. Because the concept itself is so marketable. But it hasn’t found its legs yet. And for that reason, it wasn’t for me.

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

What I learned: Here is the opening slugline for Repossession:

EXT. WEEKS FOOTBRIDGE – CRISP AUTUMN DAY

Is this okay? Traditionally, in a slugline, you only want to tell us if we’re inside or outside (INT. or EXT.), the location that we’re at (the Weeks Footbridge) and then whether it’s day or night. Amram has added “Crisp Autumn” to the slugline, which would drive purists crazy. But I think it’s perfectly fine. I like anything that gives me a clearer visual for what I’m looking at. Sure, Amram could’ve told us it was a crisp autumn day in the description underneath the slugline. But doing it here frees up the description for her to give us other information. I wouldn’t go crazy with this hack. If your additional text stretches the slugline to two lines, that’s a no-no. But if you can quickly get some relevant description in there without it feeling too imposing, there’s no harm in that.

What if I told you that someone just wrote the female version of Joker, and that it’s actually better than that movie?

Genre: F#@%d Up
Premise: A single mother in New York City begins seeing a mysterious older man from her past around town and becomes convinced that he’s come back into her life to kill her daughter.
About: This one finished with 8 votes on last year’s Black List. Writer Andrew Semans has been writing and directing short films as far back as 2000. His only feature is a 2012 movie called “Nancy, Please” about a man who must retrieve a precious book from his former girlfriend.
Writer: Andrew Semans
Details: 110 pages

Amy Adams for Margaret?

To be honest, I’m not entirely sure what I just read.

But I can tell you this. I read from the first to the last page without getting up, without checking e-mail, without going to Youtube, and without checking my phone. I can’t remember the last time that happened.

This script was so freaking weird but simultaneously so amazing!

I don’t know where to start. It’s unlike anything I’ve read before. We’re all trying to answer that everlasting question: What are readers looking for? This is what they’re looking for. Someone with a unique voice. Someone who looks at the world differently, who focuses on things that the average person can’t possibly imagine.

Us readers are so starved for originality that we’re like kids in a candy store when we finally get it.

I have no idea what’s going to come of this script but I can promise you this. A big actress will kill to star in it. This is an actress’s dream role. It has Oscar written all over it. And the writing is so atmospheric and weird (in a good way) that I’m guessing a major director gets involved as well.

I’m reluctant to summarize the script because I want it to be a surprise so why don’t those of you with access to the 2019 Black List scripts (hint hint, check the comments section) go grab this script, read it, then come back.

40-something Margaret works at New York biotech company, Biomatrix. When we first meet Margaret, she seems like a strong, if slightly offbeat, woman. She’s telling her young co-worker, who’s dealing with a controlling boyfriend, how to stand up for herself. How to set boundaries in the relationship.

When Margaret gets home, we learn she has a 17 year old cool daughter, Abbie (When Margaret texts her questions like, “Status,” Abbie texts back, “Shooting heroin”). While there’s nothing overtly dysfunctional about their relationship, we get the sense that Margaret is a bit overprotective.

One day, while on the train to work, Margaret spots a man in his 60s. Overcome with fear, she races out of the train at the next exit. A couple days later, she sees the man again in the park. This is David. Or, as we’ll come to find out, this is who *she thinks* is David, a man she was involved with from the past.

Margaret starts following David around the city and eventually confronts him, tells him to stay away from her daughter. But David, or the man who she thinks is David, says he has no idea who she is.

Margaret’s world begins to crumble. She starts spending more time at home, obsessively keeping an eye on her daughter. She goes to the police to tell them about the man, but they point out that this guy hasn’t called or approached her. There’s nothing they can do.

As time goes on, we learn more about Margaret’s past with this man. When she was 19, she stayed at a remote science lab with her parents. That’s where she met David. He swept her off her feet. But soon, he began making her do things – he called them kindnesses. Small things like not wearing shoes all day. Standing still for an hour. But the kindnesses became more difficult. He kept asking more and more of her.

Margaret eventually got pregnant, and nine months later, had their baby. Her son became her world. Until one day, she came back home to find her baby missing. **And this is where s@#% gets weird** David ate their baby. Not to worry, he says. The baby is still alive, inside of him. If she wants to be with her baby forever, she must stay with him.

But Margaret ran. Ran as far away as she could. Went and had Abbie. And for 20 years, created another life. That is until now. David is back. And he wants to be with Margaret again. He’ll start with a series of small kindnesses. And he’ll go from there…

I KNOW.

It’s weird.

But it’s not the kind of script you can judge from a summary. This script is about its nuances, the cracks and the holes in the wall are where this story lives. It’s so specific and odd and offbeat that you can’t appreciate it unless you read the thing.

I’ll start with the obvious. There’s a sophistication to the way Margaret’s mental state is approached. I see writers trying to write crazy people all the time and they treat crazy like a 10 year old sees crazy. Overly simplistic “crazy” actions like randomly screaming and saying weird stuff.

Movies like Resurrection only work if we believe the craziness. And I knew right away that this writer understood crazy. Margaret obviously has some deep-rooted PTSD that she’s repressed for years and it’s all coming out at once. Her mind is like a popcorn popper. No matter how hard she tries, the kernels keep popping out of her skull.

The thing is, I usually hate scripts about “are they or aren’t they crazy” characters. But when I read a script like Resurrection (which needs to be retitled “Margaret” right away), I’m reminded that a good writer who understands the sophistication behind how people lose their minds, can make it work. It’s that old adage of don’t write something you’re not capable of writing.

I don’t understand the stock market. I’ll never understand it. So if I tried to write a movie about the stock market, it would be terrible. Same thing about mental states. If you don’t truly understand how the mind works, don’t write a crazy character. It never comes off believably. I know this because I read tons of these scripts.

Getting back to Resurrection – this is a script that has a plot. But the real reason we keep reading is the main character. And I think that’s where you find the best scripts. When you’re turning the pages because the character is so interesting and not because you want to find out what the next plot point is.

The specific reason why Margaret is so compelling is because of the contrast in her character. We meet her as this strong, intelligent, determined hard-worker who’s very successful. But, the more we get to know her, the more we realize how fragile she is. That’s where characters come to life – when their external is opposed to their internal. Because that means they’re always going to be in conflict and we’ll want to read to find out how that conflict is resolved.

That’s why I read through this so obsessively. I wanted to know if Margaret was going to fall into insanity or if her external strength was going to pull through.

But don’t get me wrong. The plot was strong as well. We had a clear GSU. The goal was to kill David. The stakes are the safety of Margaret’s daughter. And the urgency is David threatening to kill Abbie soon. So it still works on a basic storytelling level. But the character of Margaret just took this script up 15 levels. She was such a great character. I couldn’t turn away.

If they get the right package of people working on this, this is going to be the first ever Taxi Driver slash Nightcrawler slash Joker with a female lead. And not a lip-service version either. This will stand toe to toe with those movies if it’s done well.

Wow! This was a wonderful surprise.

[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[ ] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[x] impressive (TOP 25!!!!)
[ ] genius

What I learned: There’s something about great screenwriters I haven’t yet been able to quantify. They seem to be able to write weird WITH A PURPOSE. I read a lot of weird scripts. But it’s usually sloppy weird. “All over the place” weird. There’s no rhyme or reason or plan to the weirdness. Whereas with this script, which has a man who claims to be carrying a woman’s child that he ate for the past 20 years in his stomach, the weirdness has purpose. It feels organic to the story. I still don’t know how to explain the difference. All I can tell you is that writers like Semans are able to take offbeat chances and yet back them up with a plan. They’re connected thematically. They’re set up well. They’re paid off well. It isn’t just someone throwing whatever they can think of in the moment at that wall. That’s when weird gets sloppy. So even though you have an “original voice,” that voice is too wild to be taken seriously. You need the ying (structure) with the yang (weirdness).

Genre: Contained Thriller/Apocalypse
Premise: In the near future when air-supply is scarce, a mother and daughter fight for survival when two strangers arrive desperate for an oxygenized safe haven.
About: This script finished on last year’s Black List, just below the top 20. Doug Simon co-created the 2010 TV show “Brotherhood” and co-wrote the 2015 horror movie, “Demonic,” starring Frank Grillo.
Writer: Doug Simon
Details: 97 pages

This feels like a Jessica Biehl movie to me.

I’m expecting contained thrillers/horrors/sci-fiers to be well represented in The Last Great Screenplay Contest. Writers know that everyone is looking for the next great contained flick cause they’re cheap to produce and easy to market. They’re also some of the easiest reads (low character count, easy to understand situations) meaning lots of people will give them a shot. And, of course, there are tons of production houses who can afford them (compared to if you write a 250 million dollar superhero script, where there are only two places you can go with that). So I’m always happy to read the latest contained script. Even if it’s no good, there’s always something to learn from them.

40 year old Joel lives in a bunker with his father, Mike, his wife, Amy, and his 18 year old daughter, Megan. These four are surviving in a world that’s gone airless. Or, at least, oxygen-less. Luckily, Joel was one of those weirdo survivalist people who prepared for the apocalypse. So while everyone else died, he had his family high-fiving over bunker dinners within a week.

Unfortunately, at the beginning of our story, while Joel and Mike are looking for things in their abandoned farmhouse, Mike falls through the weakened floor and loses his oxygen backpack. These backpacks, which offer 2-5 hours of air, are the only way you can survive up top. Joel fails to save his father before his oxygen tank runs out, and after informing the fam of the accident, insists on burying his father next to his mother in a cemetery.

That cemetery is over two hours walking distance though. And in this world, two hours is a long time. If something goes wrong, you won’t have enough oxygen to get back home. And that’s what happens. Joel leaves and never comes back. Cut to five months later where Amy and Megan are holding up the fort by themselves. That’s going well until two mysterious people show up – Tess and stupid Lucas, claiming to have known Joel.

Tess knows Joel was an engineer. She and Lucas are part of a small group of people living in a similar larger system miles away. Tess wants to come in and inspect dad’s oxygen system in the hopes of understanding it better so they can go back and fix their own dying oxygen system. Amy is having none of it but Megan believes them, or at least wants to. It’s a lonely existence they live. If there are other people out there, that changes things.

After a drawn out Q&A and several precautionary measures, Amy opens the bunker door, only to have a new guy, Micah, fly out of nowhere into the bunker. Amy manages to slam the door shut, keeping Tessa and Lucas out. But now they have to fight off this crazed Micah dude. Megan, whose father trained her for situations just like this, pulls out a gun and shoots him in the shoulder, putting him on the ground. They’ve contained this situation. But Tess and Lucas are still outside, determined to get in at all costs. And to give them some incentive, they each have only 45 minutes left on their oxygen packs. Things are about to get messy.

Number 1 rule of Contained Thriller Club. Give us scenarios unique to your concept! If you have a world where you can’t make a sound or monsters kill you, think up scenarios where your characters have to make noise and deal with the consequences.

I will give “Breathe” this. It embraces Rule Number 1 of Contained Thriller Club with a vengeance. There are a good fifteen sequences in this script where people get themselves in situations where their oxygen is cut off or limited and they have to fix the problem or die. This created a ton of “ticking time bombs” that kept the script MOVING.

But there’s an issue with the setup. Running out of oxygen is not a new idea. We see it all the time in movies. Especially space movies and underwater flicks. So even though the writer, Doug Simon, is doing the right thing – engaging in scenarios that take advantage of his concept – it all feels a bit familiar.

That means we get a mixed bag of oxygen-starved scenarios. For example, the bad guys clog one of the vents up top, creating a 15 minute countdown inside the bunker to find a solution or run out of air – a situation that feels way too familiar. But it also gives us a scene where Megan, who wants to know what’s really going on with these people, puts the injured Micah in an airless room and promises to pump in one minute of oxygen for every question he answers truthfully. That was certainly a more entertaining scene than what we usually get, which is to tie the bad guy to a chair and ask him questions.

Despite its weaknesses, the script stays strong throughout most of its 97 page running time (a good page length for a contained thriller). Killing off the father after we’d gotten to know him made us way more sympathetic to Megan and Amy than had Dad only been someone referred to in dialogue. So I was engaged in most of the “oxygen running out scenarios” if only to make sure these two made it out alive.

But the writer makes a choice in the third act that we need to talk about because it’s something all contained thriller writers will face. Third acts are supposed to be BIGGER. Not just in contained thrillers. In all scripts. This is the ending. You want it to feel big and exciting. So the question you run up against is: Do you stay true to your contained thriller setup or do you move out of it in order to give the viewer that big fancy finale? Simon decided to go big and I think it hurts the script.

We get this whole third act where Amy has to take an electric car to the place where her husband died to get a key card to get back into the bunker, which at this point she was locked out of. Yeah, this adds a bigger, arguably, more exciting ending. But it also no longer feels like a contained thriller.

I’ve heard the saying that when you give someone your concept, you’re signing a contract with them to deliver on that concept. Once you move out of that concept, you’ve broken the contract.

To be fair, sometimes the contract is gray enough that it’s up to the writer to decide where the line is. But the moment I was the most invested in this screenplay was when we had one injured bad guy inside, with Amy and Megan, and two determined bad guys outside who needed to get in within the next 45 minutes or they would run out of oxygen. This occurred at about the midpoint and set up a perfect real-time story for the last half of the screenplay. And it was a good setup! All the motivations made sense. They were organic to the story. And you had this sweet x-factor inside the bunker in the third guy. So there were potential pitfalls everywhere. I would’ve been happy had we stayed with that setup.

But I get it. The thing all of us writers are terrified of is boring the reader. It’s our worst fear. This can lead us to inject sequences and storylines that, on the surface, solve this problem. But they’re often fool’s gold. Sometimes you have to trust that the situation you set up is capable of delivering.

Despite that, this script had more good than bad and I’d say it’s worth reading, especially for contained thriller writers who want to get better.

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

What I learned: When you write contained stories, make sure there are things for your characters to do before the main conflict (in this case, the bad guys) arrives. For example, here they have to check the oxygen levels every 12 hours. They have to go outside and clean the solar panels. Everybody has jobs. The reason for this is: IT KEEPS YOUR CHARACTERS ACTIVE. And this is important when there’s nothing interesting going on yet. Because at least your characters aren’t sitting around, playing cards, having boring conversations. Seven pages of stillness could be the difference between the reader closing your script or continuing to read it.