This is a reposting from a long-ago newsletter. So busy this week! But since I talked about the script in yesterday’s article, I felt like I should at least give you a chance to talk about it as well! Also, a new batch of amateur offerings will be up by 2 a.m. Pacific Time.

Genre: Sci-Fi’ish Comedy
Premise: In a future where the world has been overrun by monsters, a young man risks his life to get to the woman he’s fallen for.
About: Brian Duffield is one of my favorite writers. One of his scripts, Your Bridesmaid is a Bitch, is on my Top 25. And through no fault of his own, another of his projects, Jane Got A Gun, found itself in the middle of a production circus when on the first day of shooting the director of the film just decided not to show up. This resulted in actors dropping out, other actors switching roles, and a full-on game of production musical chairs. Monster Problems was picked up last year. It’s unclear where it is in development. I’ll tell you this right now, though. If I were a studio, this is one of the first scripts I’d green light.
Writer: Brian Duffield
Details: 113 pages (undated)

Okay, so I want you to imagine Sleepless in Seattle. Mixed with a John Hughes film. Mixed with Harry Potter. Mixed with Pacific Rim.

You may be saying, “Carson, that is an unbelievable combination of films. There is nobody in the world who could make that work.”

Ladies and Gentleman, may I introduce you to Brian Duffield. The only person in the world who can make that work. And honestly, I’m in awe of the guy. I really am. I don’t know anyone else on earth who has this kind of imagination, that is also good with character, who can also create a believable and touching romance, who can also add hilarious comedy and lots of heart, whose writing style is sparse yet packed with information, who can ALSO tell a great story, and who always surprises you with his choices.

You just don’t find that kind of writer often. If ever. And it kind of depresses me. Because we’re all supposed to have weaknesses. Those weaknesses are what make other writers feel like they shouldn’t commit suicide. It’s important for them to be able to say, “Okay, sure he can do comedy. But he can’t develop characters like I can.” Duffield can do it all. I guess maybe in Jane Got A Gun, things were a little slow. Maybe when he’s not able to use comedy, his scripts aren’t as entertaining? Maybe that’s a weakness? I guess. Or maybe he purposefully slowed things down in “Jane” because he didn’t want to make all us other writers feel bad.

So what’s Monster Problems about?

This guy, Joel Dawson. A really good guy, this Joel. But he’s been dealt a shitty hand. He lives in this underground bunker with 37 people and he’s the only single guy there. Everyone else is always making out and having sex while he’s just… dreaming of what it would be like to have a girlfriend. Oh, and then, of course, it’s a hundred or so years in the future where the world’s been overtaken by monsters. Bad hand once again. It’s safe to say poker’s not Joel’s thing.

The one thing Joel’s got to look forward to is a girl. Her name is Aimee. She’s got red hair. He knows that because he asked, though he’s never seen her. See, Aimee is in another bunker 30 miles from his. And they can only contact this bunker for a couple minutes a day due to battery issues. And because the hope of being with Aimee is the only reason for Joel to put on his pants every morning, he decides to do the unthinkable – go to her.

Now that might not sound difficult to you or me. 30 miles puts a lot of stress on your quads but it’s doable. Here’s the problem. Monsters. And this isn’t the monster problem you see in Pacific Rim. Or that indie movie, “Monsters.” You know when Will Smith says in the “After Earth” trailer, “Everything on this planet has evolved to kill humans?” And then you went to see the movie and nothing on this planet had evolved to kill humans?

Well imagine a movie where that was actually the case. The second Joel leaves the bunker, he’s attacked by a strange dog-like critter, a raptor-thing, a giant frog, a giant spider, giant killer moths, a weird seven feet tall ghost-like centipede thing, a three headed T-Rex, a giant sea creature, as well as a few other beasts so strange they’re impossible to describe! And all Joel is armed with is a crossbow and a mangy dog he finds along the way.

Joel fights for his life, almost dies a thousand times, saves his dog, gets saved by his dog, meets a father-like figure, meets an astronaut robot, almost dies a thousand more times, etc. There aren’t many things Joel doesn’t experience on this perilous journey. But will he make it to Aimee? And what will happen if he does? Will she be everything he hoped for?

This script. Was awesome.

Period.

It was awesome. Where do I begin? Oh, I know. I’ll begin at the end. Duffield arcs the dog character. You read that right. Duffield GIVES A CHARACTER ARC TO THE DOG! Remember the scene in Cast Away where Wilson, an inanimate object, floats away forever? And you were crying, desperately hoping your date or parents didn’t look over at that exact moment and see you drowning in tears?

There’s a moment that rivals that here with the dog. The dog, you see, was found clinging to the dress of his long-since disappeared female master. He won’t leave with Joel until Joel brings that dress with him. And he’s so stuck on that dress. He cares more about that dress than he does Joel. And then in the end (spoiler), that dress gets stuck in the ocean, where Joel is battling a monster, and he has a choice to either go after the dress or save Joel. And he picks Joel. He changes. The dog arcs. Not barcs. Arcs. And it was so fucking good you cried just like when Wilson died.

Oh, and did I tell you about the astronaut? Yeah. One of my favorite scenes all year has this robot astronaut, split in two, only wires holding her together, pulling herself across the terrain, bumping into Joel, explaining she only has 16 minutes left before her battery runs out. And the two just share her last moments together before she dies. And it’s heartbreaking. And I don’t fucking understand how anybody comes up with this stuff. We can talk about structure until the screencows come home. But you still have to have imagination. You still have to come up with unique choices. How does Duffield bring a nearly dead cut-in-half female robot astronaut into a story about monsters taking over the earth and make it work? I don’t know but it fucking makes me jealous.

And then there’s the ending. I’m not going to get into spoilers, but let’s just say what you thought was going to happen doesn’t happen. That ALSO is a trait of great writers. They take you to the place you think you’re going, then totally change things up on you. You realize the writer is in control. Not you.

There were a few other reasons I loved this script. The main character is a lovable loser. But when he befriends this dog and loses his loneliness, we officially fall in love with him. It’s really hard to have a character befriend a dog or save a dog and not like him. As ridiculous and simplistic as it sounds: we like people who love animals. Who will protect them. It’s crazy how obvious this is, yet when it’s done well, as it is here, it makes the character irresistible.

And I love stories where the obstacles are impossible, where the writer is never easy on his hero. His hero has to earn every step he takes. Remember in After Earth, where the main character is basically guided by his father the whole way? So he didn’t really earn anything? He just follows orders. Here, Joel earns every step he takes. He finds the solutions to all the problems. He outruns or outsmarts or outbeats all the monsters. And the sheer number of monsters he has to take on is ridiculous. At one point he’s trying to get over a rickety bridge when giant moths with needle teeth attack him, teeth that inject deadly venom into him, while a 3 headed T-Rex is trying to kill him, while he drops his only weapon, his crossbow, into the monster-infested waters below. There are so many moments like this where you wonder, “How the hell is he going to get out of this alive?” And because the odds are so heavily stacked against him, we hover over the page with baited breath, reading as fast as we can so we can get the answer.

And then at the heart of this script is… heart. See that’s the thing. All these big effects movies have zero heart, have zero characters we really care about. I mean does anybody in the world really care about Shia LaBeouf in Transformers? Here, we care about Joel. We care about his dog. Because Duffield knows that none of those effects will matter. This is about the character. And you will like Joel. You will love Joel. You will love this journey he goes on. You will be shocked by the ending. And when it’s over, it’ll be one of the few times you’ve finished a script and wished there were more pages to read.

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

What I learned: The key to writing these scripts is mentally stripping out all the big creatures and monsters and robots and effects, and remembering that it’s a personal journey. Focus on making that personal journey work first. Make your audience fall in love with your main character and want them to succeed. And then build that effects world up afterwards. This is such simple advice and yet this is the first time I’ve seen it done in maybe two or three years? If you’re a big-budget writer, get this right and you’ll be golden.

What I learned 2: Choose action over dialogue to build a relationship. — Let’s say you only have one scene to make us care about a key relationship in your script. In this case, we’ll use Joel and the dog as the characters. Scene Option 1 has Joel talking to the dog over the fire. Scene Option 2 has both of them being attacked by a monster, and Joel has to make a choice between either saving himself or trying to save the dog. ALWAYS choose the second scene option. Action always accelerates a relationship faster than dialogue. Obviously, scripts are long so you’ll have the opportunity to do both, but always favor action over dialogue when you can.

I’m still mega-busy this week, which has eaten into my post time, but I’m determined to get articles up to make sure you guys continue to be equipped to tackle the hardest form of writing in the world! So a few weeks ago, I did a review on an amateur script titled, “Made in China.” At the end of the review, I mentioned that the script fell into that dreaded “pat on the back” category. And I got a lot of e-mails asking me to clarify what that meant.

Before I go into what makes a “pat on the back” script, let me start at the beginning. The worst kind of script you can write is a bad one. That’s the one where there are a lot of errors in the screenplay and little, if any, thought put into the concept, plot, or characters. The writer hasn’t studied screenwriting at all and it shows. From the very first page, everything’s a mess. These scripts constitute about 65% of the scripts I read.

A level up from that is the “finish line” script. This script typically entails a writer at the beginning of his journey who believes screenwriting is a lot easier than it actually is. Therefore, he ends up writing one draft of his script, maybe two, and believes he should win an award just for getting to the finish line. Like, “Hey, I wrote 110 pages. Where’s my million bucks?” This script is a step up from scripts where the writer doesn’t even know how to put a sentence together, but they are what they are: scripts whose only positive trait is that they actually got finished. There’s nothing of substance or interest in these screenplays at all. These scripts constitute 20% of the scripts I read.

That brings us to the “pat on the back” script. The “pat on the back” script typically comes from a writer who’s been putting a lot of effort into the craft. They’ve been at this for a few years at least, and therefore understand the value of a strong structure and a focused story. The strengths and weaknesses of these scripts will vary depending on the strengths and weaknesses of the writer (one might be strong in character while another might be strong in dialogue) but the consensus at the end of the script is always the same. The reader thinks to himself, “That wasn’t bad,” and then he closes the script and moves on to the next thing, forgetting about that script for the rest of his life. These scripts constitute about 10% of the scripts I read.

At first glance, this may seem unfair. You put all this effort into something and you actually managed to keep a reader’s attention for an entire ninety minutes. That’s extremely hard to do. But here’s the unfair reality of the screenwriting business. Producers and agents aren’t looking for “That wasn’t bad.” They’re either looking for “great” or “good enough to maybe make me money within a few years so I’m willing to take a chance on them.” The “pat on the back” script is just below that level, and therefore, despite the writer making it to an extremely high level in this craft (the “I can keep a reader’s attention” level), their skill is not recognized and they don’t get that coveted call back.

So what today’s article is about is getting to that coveted 5%, the writers who actually get representation, options, sales, and assignments. This is how you break out of “pat on the back” territory. It’s important to remember that the main issue with the “pat on the back” script is that nothing stands out. Everything is technically “fine,” but there isn’t a single element that raises the hair on your arms, that gives you goosebumps, that makes you sit up and pay attention. With that in mind, here are the five things you can do to avoid the dreaded pat on the back.

1) A big concept – This is the easiest way to leap frog the competition. And yet it’s probably one of the most ignored pieces of advice I give. I think I know why. Writers tend to think they’re the exception to the rule. They know that a big concept gives them an edge, but they also think their contemplative road trip coming of age story is going to turn the contemplative road trip coming of age genre on its head. So they write that instead. If you want to make things easier for yourself and not get that “pat on the back,” this is the fastest way to do it. Give us a big flashy concept. I’ll be reviewing a script that went into production next week about mass suicides due to scientists learning of proof of the afterlife. That’s what I mean by a big concept. Big concepts are like reader beer goggles. All of the mistakes in the screenplay wash away in the wake of a concept that can make someone money.

2) Something controversial – One of the best ways to avoid a pat on the back is to write something controversial. Controversy stirs up emotions. It gets people talking. And this gets to the core of what’s wrong with the “pat on the back” script. That script stirs up nothing. It’s the literary equivalent of potato soup. So anything you can do to stir up emotions and opinions is a plus. About ten years ago a script about Martin Luther King sold that painted his assassination as a conspiracy. That was controversial. A script that covered that same approach, but with Princess Diana, sold last year and is being made into a film. Controversy illicits a reaction, which is something you do not feel at the end of a bland controversy-less screenplay.

3) Something weird – This is the kind of script you hear about and people will go, “Wait WHAT?” Someone wrote a screenplay about that?” A great example is a script I reviewed a few months ago called “Bubbles,” a biopic about Michael Jackson told through the eyes of his pet monkey, Bubbles. We also saw it with the number 1 Black List script from five years ago, The Beaver, about a CEO who starts communicating with people exclusively through a beaver puppet he wears on his hand. If you can be weird, you won’t have to worry about getting that soul-crushing “thatta boy” pat on the back.

4) A super-unique voice – Unique voices allow the writer to easily stand out from the pack. The tough thing with a unique voice is you tend to have it or you don’t. It’s hard to craft a voice into something different from what you already have. It’s the equivalent of telling someone to change their personality. With that said, if you can find the more offbeat side of yourself, the side that observes the world a little differently from everyone around you, and write with that side in mind, you can craft something that should sound different from others. The king of the “super-unique voice” at the moment is Brian Duffield. He has an energetic off-beat style that isn’t afraid to go off the beaten path. One of my favorite scripts of his is Monster Problems, about an apocalyptic future where humans hide underground due to monsters taking over the planet. Oh yeah, and it’s told through a John Hughes-like comedic voice. That’s what I mean by “unique voice.”

5) A flashy key character – If you’re not into the whole “big concept” thing and would rather write a character piece, this is a nice consolation to ensure a “no pat on the back” policy. A big flashy character is actor catnip. To a producer, that says, “Ooh, I know [so and so big actor] would die to play this.” So even though your script might not be super marketable, have a huge concept, or even a unique voice, it can fetch a marketable actor, which immediately turns your script into a money-machine. There’s no secret here. Just think of a character that will pop off the page. Someone that’s fun, offbeat, crazy, won’t shut up, bi-polar, intense, unforgettable. Juno is a good example. Nightcrawler is even better. Lloyd Dobler from Say Anything. Clementine from Eternal Sunshine. The male or female lead in Silver Linings Playbook. Readers don’t forget big flashy characters. So even if the rest of your script is lacking, you can still win a reader over with character.

And that’s it, folks. Take one or a few of these tips into your next script and you’ll end up writing something a reader won’t forget. Good luck!

Okay so it can be a little hard to get these posts up while reading Scriptshadow 250 scripts, hence the delays in posting and the no official post today. With that said, I did get a chance to see ROOM last night and wanted to share my thoughts with you. In short, holy shit, this might be the best film of the year.

Usually when you have a film that only deals in emotions, and specifically one that deals in negative emotions, the movie can feel like a melodramatic mess. But ROOM avoids this due to some amazing acting and some crafty screenwriting.

For those who know nothing about the film but plan to see it, I’d suggest not reading this review, as I do go into spoilers. But, to be honest, this movie isn’t about spoilers at all. It’s about relationships, particularly the relationship between a mother and her son.

It follows Joy, a young women who was kidnapped by a man pretending to have a sick dog seven years ago. She’s since been stuck in this small secure room that’s impossible to get out of. Her captor has raped her every day, and five years ago, she had a little boy, Jack. The unique thing about the story is that we experience a lot of the world through Jack’s eyes. And this room is all he knows. He has no idea what the real world is really like.

This leads to one of the most harrowing dramatic scenes you’ll see all year. Joy’s had enough and is ready to escape. But to do so, she has to sacrifice her son. After setting up an extended fake illness to make her captor believe Jack is dying, she teaches Jack to pretend to be dead, then rolls him up in a rug and, the next time her captor comes, convinces him that Jack is dead and needs to be buried.

Of course, Jack is really alive, and he’s been taught to jump out of the flat bed of Captor’s pick-up truck and run for help when the truck stops. What makes the scene so amazing is that Jack HAS NEVER EXPERIENCED THE REAL WORLD BEFORE. Imagine that all you know is a 10 foot by 10 foot room and then having ONE SHOT to save yourself and your mother’s life, and you have to do it an endless world you’ve never seen before.

I don’t think my heart has ever beaten so fast.

But Room is captivating for so many other reasons, one of which is the screenplay itself. The script is divided into two halves. The first half occurs in “Room” and the second half in the real world as they try and adjust to this new completely different life. You have Joy, who thought once she escaped she’d be happy, but is instead traumatized by the event and therefore miserable. And then you have Jack, who’s trying to learn to live in a strange world with an infinite set of new rules.

One of the most heartbreaking moments is when Jack asks his mom if they can go back to Room. That’s all he knows. And because Joy protected him so well while they were in that room (pretended that all was okay), he actually liked it there.

Here’s where things get interesting though. As a screenwriter, all I kept thinking was, “This movie is going to die once they get out of Room.” Because think about it. When they’re in Room, the goal is clear – get out of Room. Escape. But once you’re out, where is the narrative engine? What are the characters trying to get to now?

Indeed, the second of the script is not as structured, but by God somehow they make it work. We’re obviously going to go along with the characters for a few scenes once they get into the real world. We’re curious to see Joy reconnect with her parents and Jack make sense of this alien universe.

But what then? How do you keep the audience engaged?

They pull this off by doing something really clever. Joy has a mental breakdown and has to go get extended treatment. This leaves Jack alone at the house with his grandparents. The narrative thrust, then, comes from something really odd. We want Jack and Joy to be together again. We spent 60 minutes with these two inside a small room together where the two were each other’s world. Something feels unfinished if they’re apart. So there really is no “goal” per se from this point on. We just need to see the two back together again.

And when Joy finally does come back and we get that satisfaction, they add one last piece of narrative thrust. Jack needs to see Room again. And it totally makes sense. This was this kid’s entire life. He has an incredibly strong attachment to it. So he needs to go back. And so does Joy, in a way. They need that closure. And man is it intense when they do go.

This is a small movie that doesn’t have anything other than acting and writing driving it. But it does such an amazing job on those two fronts that I would recommend all of you go see it. It’s top-notch stuff.

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

What I learned: I’m all about character goals driving the narrative, as you know. The second half of Room has made me reconsider some things. Maybe it’s okay just to have something unfinished driving the story. Two characters seeing each other again. If we love those characters enough, then we don’t need goals. We just need that closure of seeing the two with each other once more.

TV Pilot Tuesday is back. And with it comes the buzzy phrase, “the strange attractor.” What is this strange attractor? Why do people in the comments section talk about it so much? And does Quarry contain it? Read on, my friends, read on.

Genre: TV Pilot – Drama
Premise: A Vietnam vet comes back from the war and when he can’t find a job, is forced to become a hitman.
About: This one comes from show creators Graham Gordy and Michael D. Fuller. The show will play on Cinemax and become one of the underrated network’s steadily growing group of gritty shows it hopes will turn it into the next AMC. In fact, listening to Gordy and Fuller talk, you can practically hear the influences of Breaking Bad and Mad Men, as they want to use their hard-boiled main character to define the 70s, and see how he eventually responds when the polar-opposite 80s arrive.
Writers: Graham Gordy & Michael D. Fuller (based on the novels by Max Allan Collins)
Details: 61 pages

You know, it’s funny. As I was reading this, I kept thinking to myself, “This feels really familiar.” There was a show on Sundance called “Rectify” about a tortured quiet individual who’d just been released from prison after serving a sentence for murder. We watch him as he tries to integrate back into a changed society and a community that doesn’t trust him.

So what’s Quarry about? It’s about a man coming back from war trying to integrate back into a changed society dealing with a community that doesn’t trust him. So I check IMDB. What do you know? It’s the SAME writers. Truth be told, I liked the first couple of episodes of Rectify. But it became too slow for me, too contemplative, with one too many “tortured hero looks off in silence for 30 seconds” shots.

I was hoping Quarry would be different. Let’s find out if it is.

32 year-old Quarry has just gotten back from Vietnam with his buddy, Artie. The two seem to be doing all right. No limbs missing. No scars that stretch from one end of their faces to the other. These guys just want to get home to their wives and start living a normal life again.

But that’s not going to be easy. As we find out from the screaming protestors just outside the airport, everyone’s up in arms about a mass child massacre that took place back in Nam that our two soldiers may have taken part in. Quarry must look at giant pictures of dead children thrust into his face as he tries to get to his car.

But all of that fades away when Quarry gets home and sees his wife, Joni. As Gordy and Fuller put it, “If you have to fight a war, she’s the woman you fight it for.” The two make love like it’s going out of style and that begins Quarry’s new war – finding a job.

The problem is two-fold. There aren’t a lot of jobs to have, and everyone’s so pissed off about this Quan Thang massacre that even the jobs that are available aren’t available to HIM. Little does Quarry know, he’s been trailed ever since he got home. And he’s finally approached by the trailing gentleman, a guy who likes to refer to himself as, “The Broker” (for whatever reason, I kept thinking of “The Prospector” from Toy Story 2 whenever he came around).

So the Prospetor, err, I mean The Broker, offers Quarry a lifeline. Tells him he’ll give him 50 grand if he’ll start killing for him. Not good people, he assures him, bad people (aren’t they always?). As he points out, it won’t be any different from what you did over there, except this time you’ll be doing it to people who actually deserve it.

Quarry Refusal-of-the-Calls that shit, but when Artie takes the position he rejected, he’s forced to hop in and help. Without getting into spoilers, let’s just say that Artie’s hit doesn’t go too well. This brings Quarry into the situation on a more personal level. When he agrees to kill ONE person just to get back on his feet, he’s offered his first mission. That mission will be a shocking one – as the man he follows takes him right back to his very home, where his wife opens the door, and lets the man inside, a man, Quarry sees, who is now kissing his wife.

There’s been a lot of talk in the comments of late about the “strange attractor.” It’s something I don’t talk about a lot but maybe I should. I suppose I always considered the strange attractor to be a given, but I must remember that there are no givens in screenwriting.

The “strange attractor” is basically what makes your idea unique. A couple of brothers going to a remote island to connect with their estranged aunt? No strange attractor there. A couple of brothers going to an island of dinosaurs to connect with their estranged aunt, who runs the place? Now you have your strange attractor.

Take the time travel out of Back to the Future, the superheroes out of Avengers, the “stuck alone on Mars” out of The Martian, and you’ve lost all of their strange attractors. Now you might say, “Well duh, Carson. You don’t have a movie if you take those things away. They’re the entire film!”

Yeah but see here’s the thing. I READ all those scripts that have those things taken away. I’ve read that indie script about a guy who tries to reconnect with his parents. That is, essentially, Back to the Future without its strange attractor. I’ve read that boring script where a group of friends get into shenanigans in their middle-of-nowhere town. That is, essentially, The Avengers without its strange attractor.

Getting back to Quarry, I was looking for a strange attractor, and I had trouble finding one. Everything here is familiar. Guy comes back from war. World isn’t welcoming. He needs to find a job. We’ve seen all that before, right?

The most thrilling aspect of the concept is the hitman stuff, but is that a strange attractor? Haven’t there been so many hitman movies/shows at this point that there’s nothing “strange” about it?

To be honest, there was only one SPECIFIC component to the script, which was the Quan Thang Massacre. That’s the only thing you couldn’t see from watching any other show. And I struggled with whether that was enough.

Because the thing is, the writing here is strong. The character work is strong. You feel like you know these people. You relate to these people. And there’s something to be said for that. In fact, one of the things I struggle with is the balance between the strange and the familiar. Sure, you want that strange weird “we can’t get this anywhere else” component to your story. But if the characters are all weird, inaccessible, or boring, it doesn’t matter. We need to understand and relate to the people in your story if we’re going to care.

I’m sure everyone here has experienced that awkward feeling of walking back into a world that used to be your entire life, and now has completely changed. Shit, I used to feel it every time I flew back home for Thanksgiving or Christmas. And on that front, Quarry does an excellent job. It captures that feeling, just like Rectify did.

I’m just wondering if this is another Rectify situation where the first two episodes are good, but then we’re just treading water since there IS NO strange attractor – nothing that sets it apart from anything else. I liked the way the story unfolded. I loved how Quarry’s first hit turned out to be banging his wife. It made the script worth reading. But does this show have legs? I guess that’s something we’ll only find out with time.

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

What I learned: A nice way to add a little spice to a fight is to give both parties something they’re after during the fight. Because when you think about it, a basic fight is pretty boring. Two people swinging away in an obviously choreographed ballet. But if they’re fighting to GET to something, now the fight has a little extra kick. The classic example of this is in any Jackie Chan film, where a gun has gotten away and both guys are fighting to get it. But be creative. It doesn’t have to be a gun. It can be whatever object is important in that moment of the movie.

Genre: Horror
Premise: (from Blood List) Having moved into a “clean house” to treat his auto-immune disorder, 11-year-old Eli begins to believe that the house is haunted. Unable to leave, Eli soon realizes that the house, and the doctor who runs it, are more sinister than they appear.
About: This was the NUMBER 1 SCRIPT on this year’s just released Blood List, a list of the best horror/thriller scripts of the year, and the annual kick-off for screenplay lists. Today’s script was written by David Chirchirillo, who does have a few produced credits, but none you can come back to your hometown to and proudly use as way to say “fuck you” to all the people who never believed in you, which is, as we all know, the only reason we write. Quick side fact about The Blood List. It included a script that was posted here for Amateur Offerings just last July (Unlawful, by Carver Grey). Just goes to show – if you write a script and it gets a good reception on the site, good things can happen to you! So keep those submissions coming (details at the top of the review I just linked).
Writer: David Chirchirillo
Details: 98 pages (undated)

Note to all. For your future sanity, do not ever, and I mean EVER, drive anywhere at 1 am in Los Angeles on Halloween. Not only are there 3 million drunk hipsters stumbling around in the middle of the road, but since everyone knows someone who knows a make-up artist here, everybody actually looks like the character they’re portraying, which results in a particularly trippy experience.

Here are some of the people I ran into who could’ve easily been mistaken for the real thing: The Hulk, Homer Simpson, Elsa from Frozen (but with a short skirt), Netflix and Chill (A guy with a shirt that said “Netflix” and then a bag of ice), an Ipad, an entire flash mob of Donald Trumps, the naked white Prometheus alien, Groot, Kylo Ren, a somehow working E.T. doll/man, and a guy who was dressed up as half Jake Gyllenhaal from Nightcrawler and half Jake Gyllenhaal from Southpaw.

I bring this all up because I was traumatized by the experience and realized the only way I could move past it was to review ONE LAST HORROR SCREENPLAY. Call it script therapy, but I needed this.

11 year-old Eli has a serious auto-immune disorder, the kind that places him a few dust pans short of Bubble Boy. But lucky for him, his parents have found a unique place that treats this disorder.

So Mom and Dad join him inside a home that has the most advanced clean-air filtering system in the world. The home is run by a woman named Dr. Isabella Horn, who looks a little bit like a polygamist’s wife, and claims to know how to cure Eli.

Eli likes the place at first. Being able to run around sure beats putting on a hazmut suit and eating your cereal through saran-wrap, but then he starts seeing strange shit around the home. Like a kid his age wandering around. An older woman who always seems to be screaming, and some creepy pale dude who needs a serious trip to the tanning salon.

The ghosts eventually orchestrate the age-old ghost custom of “charades talk,” which leads Eli to a hidden room that tells him that everything about this place is a lie. But the real shocker is what happens next. Eli learns that it isn’t just this house that is a façade, but his entire life. Can Eli escape from this hell-hole? After learning the truth, does he even want to? These are just a couple of the questions posed in…. Eli!

“Eli” is a script that shows promise. But it ends with a payoff so out-of-left-field, I’m not sure even the Kansas City Royals could’ve caught it.

I can’t discuss what that ending is without getting into spoilers, but I admit having an ending this weird will get readers talking and that puts your script well above the competition. The majority of horror scripts are by-the-numbers retreads with the requisite number of spooky components (1.5 characters crab walking backwards through hallways, 7.8 jump scares) and not much else. When you go bold with your ending, at the very LEAST, you’re going to get people talking.

Speaking of “retread,” here’s the big lesson I learned from today. Your goal with a horror script – and really any script – is to find fresh ways into proven ideas. That last part is key. PROVEN IDEA. Because that’s the part the studio requires in order to purchase your script. They need a formula that’s been proven (and thus can be marketed).

The “fresh” part is what allows you, the writer, to explore things within that proven formula that haven’t been explored yet. This is where you get to show off YOUR talents, your originality, your imagination. This fresh angle can come from story, from setting, or from character. Eli does it with setting. We’ve seen haunted house movies before. But we’ve never seen one inside an air-sealed germ-centric home. This small twist gave David the ability to explore things that haven’t been explored before in this genre.

And that’s what kept me engaged. I was unfamiliar with the setting and wanted to know more. Think about that. I’ve been inside a billion haunted houses in the movies. But not one with these kinds of rules. That makes me want to learn the rules. That makes me curious. That makes me intrigued to see how this particular set of rules is going to impact the story.

This seems like a minor point but it may be one of the most important you’ll read on the site. If a reader has been down a road before, all they’re thinking about is getting home. But if you take them someplace they’ve never been, they want to stick around and explore.

Character-wise, “Eli” was good but not great. Friday we discussed how the main character was impossible to root for. Eli is the opposite. He’s a kid (innocent children are easy to root for) who has a disease that’s robbed him of his childhood. Who’s not going to root for that guy?

Where “Eli” drops the ball is with the parents. First of all, I didn’t like that the parents joined Eli in the house. The whole idea with horror is to make things as isolated and hopeless and scary as possible for your protagonist. Here we give Eli two strong adults who love him and protect him throughout the script. For that reason, when things start to get scary, I wasn’t worried for Eli.

On top of that, the parents were on the same page with everything. So there was no conflict or issues between them. In most horror movies about children, either one parent is out of the picture or the child is adopted (creating a coldness between him and the parents). You saw this in recent horror films, It Follows, The Babadook, and The Final Girls. And can even see it as far back as The Exorcist. Something about two parents screams “safety,” and that’s the last thing you want your audience to feel when they’re watching a horror film.

Now later, I found out why Chirchirillo had to include the parents. And I suppose I’m inclined to agree that they were necessary. But I still would’ve created some sort of conflict there so there was at least SOME instability in that relationship. Again, the more stability you have in a horror film, the more boring that horror film probably is.

I’ll give “Eli” this. It holds your interest until the very end. I’m still not sure I liked the ending. But I wanted to find out what happened. And if a script achieves that, at the very least it’s worth checking out.

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

What I learned: If you’re writing a horror film about a child, it’s best to give them only one parent, and preferably, you want to make that parent the mother. A big adult male screams “safety” to your audience, and that’s the last thing you want your audience to feel. Of course, you can play with this trope (just like you can play with any trope in screenwriting). For example, you can give your child protagonist a single father and place him in a wheelchair (maybe give him MS?) so he appears weak to the audience and incapable of protection. But yeah, if you want to scare us, don’t make your young hero’s father Vin Diesel. Chances are, we won’t be too worried about him.