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Genre: Horror/Slasher
Premise (from writer): Deep in the twisted and lawless labyrinth of San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park, a hip sociologist named Vega and her dirty gutterpunk friends are viciously hunted by the Lurkers, a pack of deranged, homicidal hobos — or maybe something even worse.
Why You Should Read (from writer): It’s always a lucky day when an idea picks you. Here, I had no desire to draft a horror screenplay, but frequent walks through San Francisco’s parks got me obsessed with what goes on there after dark. I mean, if the City streets are this sketchy during the day, then the nighttime park must be a fucking murder zone. And so the Lurkers were born, and now I’m half convinced they’re real. Definitely dirty business. — I’m more than a little over the current state of horror movies, so this is my effort to take it old school, with a focus on characters and a slow build. But for the shots of San Francisco it would cost little to make, so I hope I can convince an edgy director to take a chance. — Thanks again for all your hard work, Carson, it’s a real inspiration.
Writer: Todd Scott
Details: 87 page
Finding a horror idea isn’t that difficult. You simply identity something that scares you and build a story around it. I don’t think there’s anyone who hasn’t walked down that dark street late at night, saw that homeless person sitting or standing there, and thought to yourselves, “What if this man just went crazy and tried to kill me?” So I completely understand the appeal of building a story around that idea.
Here’s the problem though. Lrkrz is stuck in genre no-man’s land. Is it a zombie movie? Not really. Is it a slasher movie? Kind of. And that’s an issue. When a movie gets stuck between the cracks, it can slip through them. We saw it just a few weeks ago with Crimson Peak. A horror movie? Maybe? A ghost story? Possibly? A box office bomb? Definitely.
That had me wondering if Lrkrz could survive the same night its characters got stuck in. But here’s the good news. If you write something great, it transcends genre. People don’t care because they’re just happy to see a good movie. Let’s find out if Lrkrz was able to achieve that rare feat.
Vega is a beautiful 20-something latina who lives in San Francisco. She writes for a local paper, and has been working hard on a story about San Francisco’s “traveller” community, which is a politically correct way of saying, their “gutterpunks.” For those of you who’ve never been to San Francisco, it’s one of the most beautiful cities in the world. But it has one drawback – its rampant teenage homeless problem. These dirty aggressive vagrants, who aren’t afraid to use the very sidewalks you walk on as their toilets, are a stain on your memory of the city that cannot be erased.
The gang we hang with here have names like Mama Kat, Yahtzee, Shine, and Dusk. And their community is an open one, which makes them more than happy to give Vega access to their group. They honestly believe they’re part of a “movement” (being lazy is a movement?) that will change the way people live in the future. So they take Vega into their favorite parks, get drunk, get high, and tell her all about the wonderful lifestyle they live.
But something strange is a-brewin. Certain homeless men are walking around with blackened eyes. These men can move faster than Neo, are stronger than The Rock, and are set on crushing and killing any living being in their path, particularly – it seems – these gutterpunks.
It just so happens that it’s the vagrants’ big night to show Vega their lifestyle when these “lrkrz” go crazy. It’s the gutterpunks unbridled belief that the entire world is their playground that gets them in trouble. It starts when they start coupling up and heading off to screw. That’s when the Lrkrz attack. And when I say “attack,” I mean “attack.” Like one guy gets his head smashed in like a watermelon.
Because our group is so high and drunk, it takes longer than usual for them to realize what’s going on. And when they do, their goal becomes simple: Get the fuck out of this park! But it seems like wherever they go, more and more of these lrkrz appear. And that means they’re probably screwed. As Vega espouses when the chips are down: “I’m going to die in a Forever 21 sweater.” I don’t know if Vega’s going to die. But I can guarantee that a lot of these people are going to die. And I think the question that bothered me most as I finished Lrkrz was, “Is that a bad thing?”
I can see why Lrkrz won the weekend. As someone pointed out in the comments, it’s the only script with a voice. Todd’s the only one who bothered to infuse some actual personality into his writing (“VEGA looks like shit. She’s a beautiful twenty-something latina woman, but in the elevator mirror all she can see is last night’s make-up, clothes from off the floor, jizz stain on her skirt.”). There’s nothing worse than boring by-the-numbers writing. So Lurkrz gets an A+ in that department.
But despite personality bursting from every page, Lrkrz starts to display a critical problem. There was no one to root for! You’ve got the gutterpunks themselves, who are so dirty and annoying and lazy, you can’t possibly like any of them. That leaves us with Vega herself. And as you can see from her intro, she doesn’t exactly ooze Tom Hanks-level likability. She rails against her subjects the second they turn their back. And her life is just as lurid and directionless as theirs (she drinks, gets high, parties, fucks randoms). That choice might have been on purpose, a commentary on the hypocrisy of her stance on these kids. But I just didn’t like the woman. And that left me with no one to root for.
It’s an important question to ask when you write a screenplay. Who is it that the audience is going to root for here? It doesn’t always have to be the protagonist. But it has to be somebody. And that means considering how you’re going to make that character – gasp – LIKABLE. If you’re not at least considering that question, you’re not doing your full homework as a screenwriter.
Lrkrz’ big strength also turned out to be its biggest weakness. What pops about this script is the authentic realistic bickering between all its characters. I definitely felt the personality of each and every character come out (even if I didn’t like them). But that wandering authentic babbling came at a price. The story started to wander as well. There are only so many scenes I can listen to of these kids’ random opinions. That may work in real life. It doesn’t work on the page when we need some sort to structure to guide us, to remind us where all of this is going.
I mean, what are we looking forward to once they realize they have to escape the park outside of escaping the park? Yesterday we had the reveal of a 200 year-old wellness center to try and figure out. Tuesday we had the revelation of how a little boy became a doll. In Lrkrz, there is no mythology. It’s just people trying to run out of a park. And that’s fine. Not every movie needs to have some deep-set mythology. But if your genre-piece DOESN’T have mythology, it needs to have strong characters we’re rooting for. And that was the thing. I didn’t like any of these characters so I didn’t care whether they got out of the situation alive or not.
I think, moving forward, Todd should work on BALANCE. Instead of making every single character a fast-talking hard-partying trainwreck, look to build more variation into everyone. And always consider the “root for” question. Nobody’s going to root for a character just because you created them. You must GIVE THEM A REASON to root for that character. And Todd didn’t give me a reason to root for anybody. That’s what doomed Lrkrz. And that’s what I’m hoping he’ll learn for the next script. I wish him luck cause he’s very talented.
Script link: Lrkrz
[ ] what the hell did I just read?
[x] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: Today’s “What I Learned” actually comes from BellBlaq, a former professional reader who gave some great notes to all the entries last week. I read the opening of his notes for Lrkrz and couldn’t agree more: “Reads to me like all of the disdain in this piece comes from you, the writer. I want to be immersed in and enamored with the story, not distracted by how you feel about some shit.” I definitely got that “I hate everything” vibe when I read the script as well, and it probably was a big reason for why I didn’t like anyone. Because the writer didn’t like them either! All the emotions and feelings in a script should come from the characters and the story, not the writer’s opinion about what he’s writing. Never forget that.
Genre: Horror
Premise: A company man is tasked with recruiting a rogue board member who’s disappeared while attending a remote “wellness” center in Switzerland.
About: I’ve always liked Gore Verbinski. A lot of people gave him shit after cashing in with the Pirates’ sequels. But before that he did the offbeat “The Weather Man,” the awesome, “The Ring,” and the cool underrated flick, “The Mexican.” He even made one of the most unique animated films ever in Rango. So when he’s not big-budgeting it, I always pay attention. And it looks like Verbinski’s going back to his roots with “Cure for Wellness” (currently in post-production). Verbinski wrote the script with Justin Haythe, who’s probably best known for penning the underrated Dicaprio/Winslet flick, Revolutionary Road. Let’s see what the two have in store for us today.
Writer: Justin Haythe (Story by Justin Haythe and Gore Verbinski)
Details: 118 pages – 2/17/15 draft
One of the hardest things to do in the horror genre is find a concept or location that hasn’t been used before. There are those who will tell you that everything has been done before so you shouldn’t even try. It’s best, according to them, to find a well-worn idea and put a new spin on it.
But I have a theory about writing. I call it “Hard vs. Easy.” Every writer makes a choice to write in either “Easy Mode” or “Hard Mode.” Easy Mode is when you turn off the analytical side of your brain and just write. You are not judgmental of your writing. You don’t go back and wonder if you could’ve done better. Whatever you put on the page is what you put on the page.
I call this “Easy Mode” because it doesn’t take any work. You write what you write and that’s it. “Hard Mode” is the opposite. In “Hard Mode,” you ask the tough questions like, “Have I seen this before?” And if you have, you go back to the drawing board and try to come up with a better choice. Hard Mode is hard because it’s not fluid. There’s a lot more stopping, a lot more thinking, a lot more judging. When you do come up with something, you have to rev yourself back up since you haven’t put anything on the page for awhile. Overall, it’s a much more taxing experience.
However, “hard mode” tends to provide better results because you’re nixing the clichés and obvious story choices that plague the majority of scripts out there. Writers who work on hard mode are more likely to find new locations, new ideas, new characters, because they just aren’t satisfied with the status quo. They know how vast their competition is and realize that the only way to compete with them is to challenge every idea they come up with.
A Cure for Wellness takes us to a place we’ve never been to before in a horror movie. That’s a “hard mode” choice. Sure, Verbinski and Haythe could’ve placed us in yet another mental institution. But we’ve seen that before. We’ve bought that t-shirt. Is it hard to nix that and spend a couple of weeks trying to come up with a location we HAVEN’T been to? Of course it is. But in the end it pays off because you’re giving the audience something ORIGINAL.
A Cure For Wellness introduces us to Castorp, a rising star at an unnamed company. Castor is the embodiment of the American upper-class male. He works 18 hours a day and is driven only by making more money and gaining more status than his fellow man. Castorp has no family, no friends, and defines his worth simply by how much business he can bring in for the company.
Right now, business is good. Castorp has been recognized by the board for his outstanding work. And they want to reward him. But first, they have a task for him. One of the board members, Roland Pembroke, went off to a “wellness” center in Switzerland and hasn’t come back. A big merger is coming up and Pembroke needs to sign off on a few things before the merger can happen.
Castorp isn’t happy, but anything that gets him further up the company ladder is a price he’s willing to pay. So off he goes to this remote wellness center, which happens to be in the mountains of Switzerland, one of the most beautiful places in the world.
Once there, Castorp realizes there’s something “off” about this place. While it’s state-of-the-art and all of the wellness clients seem happy, there’s a mysterious air about it all. Everyone always seems to be going off to their next “treatment,” and when they come back, there’s something a little less “there” about them. Oh Castorp, if you only knew how much worse it was going to get.
Castorp requests to see Pembroke at the manager’s office, but it’s past visiting hours, which means Castorp will need to wait until tomorrow. Castorp, personifying the impatient American businessman, demands to see Pembroke now. He’s eventually visited by the wellness center’s founder, Henrich Volmer. Volmer is a calming man, and assures Castorp that he’ll be able to see Pembroke soon.
A frustrated Castorp decides to head back into town while he waits, but ends up getting in a car accident. He wakes up three days later inside of, you guessed it, the wellness center, where Volmer informs him that his body is all out of whack. Volmer encourages Castorp to participate in his program, which, as you can imagine, takes Castorp down a rabbit hole he may never climb back up from.
Cure for Wellness invokes movies like The Wicker Man, The Shining, and Shutter Island, but manages to be something in and of itself. Its best asset is its irony. Here we have the world’s topmost “wellness” center, and yet as the story goes on, its clear that its patients are descending into an unrecoverable sickness.
As I pointed out in the beginning, Verbinski and Haythe committed to writing this on hard mode, allowing it to feel quite different from movies with similar setups. One of the creepiest (and more original) choices was the design behind the wellness “cure” for its patients, which was based around hydrotherapy. All of the treatments were designed around water.
You were placed in water, water was infused in you, you were asked to drink a certain water. And so there are a ton of creepy scenes that involve the innocuous fluid. One of my favorites was when Castorp was placed in a water tank not unlike the one Luke is placed in after getting injured in Empire Strikes Back. The techs responsible for him sneak off and engage in a weird sex game. In the meantime, two black eels appear inside the tank and Castorp starts freaking out, accidentally destroying the breathing apparatus, resulting in him losing consciousness, all while the techs are off in the other room, enjoying themselves.
Water tank therapy. Black eels. Tech operators engaging in freaky sex games. Can’t say I’ve ever seen THAT in a movie before. And that, my friends, is how you write on hard mode.
The only thing that worried me while I was reading Cure for Wellness was that it was going to be a “smoke and mirrors” screenplay. What’s that, you ask? “Smoke and mirrors” screenplays – which I see a lot of in the horror genre – are when the writer’s story is driven by a series of red herrings, twists, and half-baked mythology.
They’re essentially one giant sleight-of-hand, a desperate hope that you’re looking at the trick rather than what’s really happening. A good script has its mythology, backstory, and storyline figured out ahead of time so that everything comes together and makes sense at the end. Since horror is an inherently sloppy genre, with writers more focused on scares than story, you see a lot of smoke and mirrors. God forbid you actually do the hard work and make it all make sense.
There are people who feel that Shutter Island was a smoke and mirrors screenplay. There are people who think It Follows was a smoke and mirrors screenplay.
It’s particularly easy to go the smoke and mirrors route when you’re writing one of these “main character is going crazy… or is he???” scripts. The rationale is that because he doesn’t even know if he’s going crazy, we can be unclear about everything, leaving it “up to the reader” to decide what’s real or not. The problem is, when you leave EVERYTHING up to the reader, you prove that you haven’t figured anything out for yourself. Leaving your script feeling lazy and uninspired.
But I’m getting off-track. Cure for Wellness had so many weird things going on that I didn’t think it could bring itself back from the edge. However, the deep and rich backstory about the wellness org’s origins (which dated back 200 years), as well as the reveal of what Volmer did to all his patients –indeed came together in a satisfying way.
I get the feeling that this will be an even better movie than it is a script. It’s got a bit of a “blueprint” feel to it as opposed to a standalone script feel (like yesterday’s screenplay). I’m betting the trailer is going to look amazing. Good to see Verbinski recovering from Lone Ranger.
[ ] what the hell did I just read?
[ ] wasn’t for me
[xx] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: One of the things that drives me nuts when reading a script is when the writer preps us for the setting AND THEN FOLLOWS THAT BY GIVING US THE SETTING. Just give us the setting! Screenwriting is about conveying as much as possible in as few words as possible. Telling us you’re about to say something before you say it is a waste of time. Here’s an example from Cure For Wellness: “The Mercedes moves through an idyllic setting: rolling green lawns, terraced gardens where PATIENTS play shuttlecock, shuffle board, lawn boules. Others walk along well-trimmed pathways, through gardens with bountiful flowers.” The first part of that description is superfluous. We should grasp the “idyllic setting” when you describe the “rolling green lawns, terraced gardens, etc.” You don’t need to first tell us it’s an “idyllic setting.” I should point out that this is a personal preference thing. There is no “right” way to write. But writers who follow this rule tend to have smoother easier-to-read scripts.
Genre: Horror
Premise: (from IMDB) An American nanny is shocked that her new English family’s boy is actually a life-sized doll. After violating a list of strict rules, disturbing events make her believe that the doll is really alive.
About: In a Dark Place was retitled “The Inhabitant” which has subsequently been retitled “The Boy,” and it already has one of the creepiest trailers I’ve seen all year. It stars Lauren Cohan, who Walking Dead fans will recognize as Maggie Greene. The script is written by Stacey Menear, who wrote one of my favorite scripts (it’s over to the right in my Top 25) five years ago. This is his first produced credit. The film hits theaters in January.
Writer: Stacey Menear
Details: 115 pages
Halloween Week continues here on Scriptshadow and today makes me soooooo happy! Stacey Menear, whose script, Mixtape, I reviewed five years ago and who gave an interview to us around that time, has finally broken through with his first produced credit! It kills me when super-talented writers give up amongst the hard knox of Hollywood and I’m so happy to see that Stacey pushed through the tough times and got a film made.
It’s important to remember that one of the most underrated components to making it in this business is sticking it out. Getting better and better with each draft, meeting more and more people who become fans of your work, until finally, one day, talent, skill, experience, and all that networking come together for a film opportunity. Stick with it folks. Don’t give up before it all comes together for you!
20-something Gerti Evans is running from something. Why else would you leave your country to come be a nanny for people you’ve never met? As we’ll find out later, Gerti just got out of an abusive relationship with some crazy psycho and moving halfway across the world was the only way to escape him.
But Gerti is about to learn that she hopped out of the oven and into the frying pan (or however the saying goes). She arrives at a mysterious mansion in the English countryside and is introduced to the Heelshires, an older couple with a son. Well, sort of a son. The Heelshires, you see, kind of maybe possibly take care of a porcelain male doll who they believe is their boy. His name is Brahms.
Gertie assumes this has to be a joke, but quickly realizes that the Heelshires are anything but jokers. They go on to explain that taking care of Brahms requires following a strict set of rules that involves never leaving him alone, giving him a bath, reading to him, playing music really loud for him.
As soon as Mrs. Heelshire determines Gertie can handle the job, she and the hubby head out for a three-month vacation, leaving Gertie all alone. In this giant house. With a doll. Who they believe is a real boy. Yeah, cue the Exorcist soundtrack.
At first Gertie treats this situation like you’d expect it to be treated. She throws a blanket over the creepy doll and goes about her day. It helps that the cute local grocery boy (or man), Malcom, comes by every once in awhile to deliver some food. And periodic calls with her sister back home, which include updates about her evil ex-boyfriend, Cole, help pass the time.
But then strange things start to happen. Gertie’s clothes are moved. Brahm isn’t always where she left him. She even finds her favorite meal made for her in the dining room one evening. Could it be a joke? Malcom maybe? Eventually, Gertie finds that following the rules laid out by the Heelshires stop these mysterious events. And before Gertie knows it, she’s treating Brahms, gasp, like a real boy. Might Gertie be falling into the same trap as the Heelshires? Or is there some real otherworldly shit going on here?
Uh, this script was fucking awesome. I was thoroughly creeped out. But not just that. Stacey has proven once again why he’s such an awesome screenwriter. There is so much here to celebrate, starting with the structure.
I’ve read tons of these scripts before. And all of them work for exactly one act. The setup . Because these scripts are easy to set up. You have a creepy doll. You have the main character. We know that that doll is going to do creepy shit later. So we want to read on.
But they always fall apart once they hit the second act because instead of the writer actually building a story, they try to fill up space between cliché doll-movie scares. The doll not being in the room they left them in. Some old record player playing old music. Who turned it on?? The sound of laughing or crying in the other room but when our hero goes to check the sound, it stops.
The thing is, In a Dark Place does include some of these tropes, but because it’s also building a story, they work. That’s what screenwriters forget. A trope or cliché by itself is empty. But if it’s something that’s carefully and organically worked up towards via good storytelling, it will kill.
So here, Stacey makes a couple of smart decisions that ensure the script extends past the first act. First, there’s Cole, the evil ex-boyfriend. His presence lingers throughout the script, conveyed mainly through Gerti’s phone conversations with her sister. We know this guy is going to show up at some point, and that leaves a LINE OF SUSPENSE open for some later dramatic shenanigans.
We also have Malcom, who serves as our love interest, and also as our gateway into the Heelshires’ past. In that sense, he pulls double-duty. We like this guy and we want Gertie to move past this terrible relationship she got out of, so we’re rooting for the two to get together. And also, Malcom is nervous about talking about the Heelshires’ past, so we get these sporadic spooky tidbits about their history, including how they got to this point with Brahms.
This leads us, of course, to the mystery of Brahms himself. Who was the real Brahms? How did he die? What are these rumors about him doing something horrible to a little girl? About a fire? How is he able to move? Is his soul really trapped inside this doll? There are so many questions when it comes to Brahms that I couldn’t wait to turn the pages to find out more. This isn’t fucking Annabelle where the extent of the doll’s history is: “Doll is possessed. The End.” There’s an entire mythology built into this weird doll-thing and it was awesome to keep learning about.
And then there were the story twists. One of my favorites was (spoiler) when we learn that the Heelshires aren’t coming back. That they freaking walked into an ocean to kill themselves. And that they left a will that makes Gertie the owner of Brahms. And then they left a separate letter for Brahms. Which said: “Now you have a new doll to take care of.” As in, yes, Gertie is HIS doll. Not the other way around.
I also loved that Gertie becomes a believer and starts taking care of Brahms as if he’s a real child. In every other doll-horror script I’ve read, from the mid-point on, it’s a series of scares with the doll being in other rooms and making noises and our hero getting more and more freaked out until there’s a final battle with the doll.
Gertie becoming a believer was, in many ways, a thousand times creepier. And by making that unexpected choice, it led to a better ending (spoiler) where Cole shows up, starts calling her crazy for thinking the doll is real, and we set up a situation where Brahms can now defend the girl who’s become his protector. You don’t get that story option if you go the traditional route, which is why I love Stacey’s writing so much.
And then on top of that, Stacey’s just a great word-for-word writer. Here’s him describing Gertie’s driver at the beginning of the script: “He’s an ancient looking guy, more hair coming out of his ears than on his head.” Or Gertie herself: “She’s blonde and pretty in that “Hi, I’ll be your waitress for today” kind of way.” And he just added these technically unnecessary but creepy atmospheric things, like the rat problem in the house, with Gertie being forced to clean up the bloody dead rats from the rat traps every week.
There’s not much more to say. I’m a fan! Check out In a Dark Place out if you can get your hands on it!
[ ] what the hell did I just read?
[ ] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[x] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: This is the perfect example of a great writer who struggled to get stuff through the system UNTIL he went with a genre script. The thing is though, he didn’t sell out. He found an idea that allowed him to still utilize his particular brand of writing, his voice. This still feels like a “Stacey Menear” screenplay. So don’t think you have to give up your soul to write a genre piece. Find a marketable genre that allows you to still be you as a writer and that way you can write something and actually have a chance of getting it made/sold.
Can one of the biggest sci-fi screenwriters in town infuse some life into Universal’s vaunted monster franchise?
Genre: Horror/Fantasy/Action
Premise: After a black ops team awakens a 2000 year-old mummy, they must prevent him from opening the gates of hell.
About: Many of you may have read how Universal was going to create a universe/franchise (a la Avengers) out of their monster IP. This project, The Mummy, was going to be their flagship film. Then, for whatever reason, they slowed the train down, and while it appears they’re still going to unleash these monsters onto the world at some point, they’ve decided to hit the pause button for the time being. What this means for the Spaihts’-written script of The Mummy, we’ll have to see. Jon Spaihts, as many of you have heard, broke into Hollywood with his Black List topping script, Passengers, and then went on to write an early version of Prometheus. Sony just recently decided to take a chance on that Spaiht’s marketing-challenged script, with The Imitation Game’s Morten Tyldum directing and Jennifer Lawrence and Chris Pratt attached to play the leads.
Writer: Jon Spaihts
Details: 125 pages – 7/11/2013 draft
I know some of you wanted me to review Friday the 13th, but I asked a few industry folks about it and they said it was one of the worst scripts they’ve read all year, which makes sense, since the studio decided to scrap the script entirely and start over again. So alas, there will be no goalie masked Jason Voorhees love today.
While Jon Spaihts’ last name may be impossible to spell, his particular brand of sci-fi is some of the best in the business. If there was a sci-fi film you watched within the last five years, chances are he wrote a draft of it. That makes Spaihts’ move to the Mummy franchise a little surprising, but as you’ll see with the direction they went, it may not be that surprising after all.
Navy Seal Tyler Colt was just following orders while on a secret mission in Iraq. But when his team stumbles upon an ancient tomb, they all inexplicably go crazy and start killing each other. Tyler escapes, but for the next two years is haunted with specific nightmares about ancient kings and armies killing each other in terribly brutal ways.
Eventually, Tyler is approached by Colonel Gideon Forster, a member of a special weapons group that does the same kind of stuff as they chronicled in that bad George Clooney movie. Forster wants to go back to that tomb because he thinks there’s something valuable in there. Tyler resists, but in the end goes along with it because this is the movies.
Forster also brings along Jenny Halsey, a sort of female Indiana Jones, except instead of raiding tombs, she uses her female assets to con greedy billionaires into giving her their ancient amulets and such (which she then returns to museums). Needless to say, Tyler and Jenny don’t see eye to eye.
The group goes and raids the tomb once more, stealing the coffin inside, then hopping on a plane back home. Everything seems great until their plane hits an unexpected storm and crashes into the middle of Rome (later it looks like the storm wasn’t an accident). The mummy within the coffin (who we’ll later learn was King Ashurbanipal, the most violent king in history – he made Genghis Khan look like a girl scout), gets loose and – this is the first time I can use this phrase literally – all hell breaks loose.
The Mummy is looking for his crown and his sword, ancient artifacts that are somewhere in Rome, which forces Tyler and Jenny to find these items first. As Jenny tell us, if the Mummy gets these items, he will open up the gates of hell. And once that happens, it’s game over, insert new coin.
Let’s get this out of the way. This ain’t your Brendan Fraser’s father’s Mummy. Universal has decided to go with the darker edge that made all those superhero films between 2006-2012 so popular. It worked for superheroes. Why can’t it work for monsters?
Of course, 2013 was right when the audience tone pendulum started swinging in the other (lighter) direction. This may be why Universal pushed its planned monster franchise back. They want to wait and see how the tone dust settles before investing 175 million dollars into something.
With that said, I liked the more serious tone. Those old Mummy movies played like they were written by a third grader, especially the last couple, which were borderline embarrassing. What Spaihts has done is he’s brought the same attention to detail that he brought to his sci-fi offerings and made you believe in this mummy.
I’ve said this before about screenwriting but that’s where the men leave the boys behind. An amateur screenwriter will fill in the mummy’s backstory with his imagination. The pro will actually research their mummy and make him a real person. And that’s what Spaihts did. Ashurbanipal is a badass mummy with this entire history of being the most violent king in history and being obsessed with the underworld. Therefore when he gets loose in the present, he actually carries some weight. It’s not just a guy wrapped in toilet paper.
I also liked how the backstory for Ashurbanipal was handled. It wasn’t like, “Oh, he ruled the land in 300 B.C. and first found his Caniful Sword in the Battle of Rysaficus when he was seven…” Our characters HAD to learn his backstory in order to figure out how to defeat him, in order to understand what he was doing. So any backstory we were given was relevant, as it held clues as to how to take down the villain.
Spaihts also does a good job keeping all characters goal-oriented, including the villain. Remember, a character with a goal is an ACTIVE character. So you want as many characters with goals as possible. And, as you can see from this synopsis, it’s okay to give the heroes and the villains the same goal (the crown, the sword). As long as the characters are after something and being active, they can be after the same thing, different things, whatever.
If the script has a problem, it’s that Spaihts focused TOO MUCH on the Mummy. I mean, I get it. The movie is called “The Mummy.” But because the Mummy is so fucking cool, our heroes, Tyler and Jenny, get overshadowed.
The two KIND OF have something going on. For Tyler, he’s been haunted by these terrible mummy nightmares for a couple of years after the Iraq invasion and that’s made him unable to function in society (a commentary on PTSD maybe?) and for Jenny, she’s paid a ton of money to run around with billionaires and coerce them into giving away their artifacts, so she’s burdened with the stigma of putting money ahead of duty.
But I’m not sure either of those things registered with me. For a character to pop, I feel like he/she needs to have a flaw that the masses can relate with. To bring up one of Spaihts’ favorite movies, Aliens, Ripley was racked with distrust, which drove the majority of her actions and really made her accessible. It was more of a human emotion than a script-created screenplay 101 “problem.”
And it’s not like Spaihts doesn’t know how to do this. His best script – the one he broke in with, Passengers – is all about human emotion. I think there’s just a pressure with these action-adventure popcorn movies to keep the leads light and fluffy. Make them dislike each other a bit so there’s a lot of conflict-fueled banter (Jurassic World anyone?) and the studio heads will be happy. Still, I would’ve liked a little more depth to these two. I mean, having a great villain is great and so few writers put enough thought into their villains. But if the audience doesn’t love their hero (ahem, Indiana Jones) then they’re not going to be as engaged.
So despite the fact that we probably won’t see this version of The Mummy, I thought Spaihts wrote a solid draft. If you can find this one, check it out. It’s a good blueprint for how to write a PG-13 studio-friendly family-friendly film with just a teensy bit of edge.
[ ] what the hell did I just read?
[ ] wasn’t for me
[x] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: If you want an unconventional way to grab your reader, start your script with a scene that’s the complete opposite of your subject matter. That’s what I liked about The Mummy here. I’m sure when I say “The Mummy” to you, the first thing you think of is being in an Egyptian pyramid somewhere 2000 years ago. Spaihts’ version of The Mummy starts with a team of Navy Seals invading Iraq through an underwater oil pipe. That caught my interest immediately, making me sit up and pay attention.
Genre: Horror-Thriller
Premise: A group of young adults channel their inner Charles Manson and attempt to terrorize a rich couple in their remote home. But they soon realize that they picked the wrong couple.
About: This one was written by brothers Justin and VJ Boyd, who are relatively new on the scene. This script actually won the Screamfest Screenplay Contest, which has since resulted in VJ securing a writing job for the TV series, Justified. The two brothers also created a comic called Ghost Cop, fortifying the Scriptshadow rule of “Go out there and attack the industry in as many ways as possible.”
Writers: VJ Boyd & Justin Boyd
Details: 96 pages
It was not a pretty weekend at the box office. The Last Witch Hunter ended up getting hunted by much better movies. People always talk about Vin Diesel’s amazing social media presence, despite the fact that it doesn’t seem to do anything for him outside of Fast and Furious. Jury’s still out on whether a star’s social media affects ticket sales.
“Jobs” only made 7.3 million bucks. To put that in perspective, the Ashton Kutcher version of Jobs made 6.7 million bucks on its opening weekend. As for why this happened, I think you strip away all the industry talk and just admit that Steve Jobs isn’t a topic the average person is interested in. With that said, I loved this movie, and hopefully we’ll see it play through the Oscars.
One of the more baffling things about the weekend was the release of Jem and the Holograms, which couldn’t even scrape together 2 million bucks. The film doing badly wasn’t a surprise. What was a surprise was how sure mega-producer Jason Blum was that the movie was going to do well. Of the ten films he released this year, this is the only one he tabbed as a “sure thing.”
I don’t know a single person on this planet who would’ve agreed with Blum here. This looked like a bad idea from the get-go. It just goes to show that even someone as plugged into the Hollywood machine as Jason Blum can be completely off-base about an idea. That’s scary.
Speaking of scary, I’m here to recruit a little anger from you readers, a little frustration, a little HATE. 17 year-old Cassie is just trying to fit in at school. She’s finally got one of the popular girls, the mean-spirited Stacy, taking an interest in her. So when Stacy suggests bringing Cassie out for a night to remember, Cassie doesn’t hesitate.
However, she starts having doubts when she meets Stacy’s older boyfriend, JP, who the Boyd’s describe simply as, “He looks like one of the Columbine shooters.” Cassie’s ready to bail until the last member of the group shows up, the uber-sexy, Razor. All of a sudden, Cassie thinks the night is worth a shot.
The group heads out to a remote location where they find a beautiful large home. Cassie soon picks up on the fact that our trio holds a grudge against the rich, and are ready to make an example out of the couple who live here. Cassie is not down but as Razor explains to her, “Where are you going to go? We’re out in the middle of nowhere.”
The group eventually sneaks in, targeting Kurt and Gail, a seemingly helpless pair in their forties. But there’s something off about it all. Even when they tie these people up and hold guns to their heads, they don’t seem scared.
I think you know where this is going. All it takes is one mistake and Gail and Kurt are able to get free. Just like that, the hunters become the hunted. As our group runs around the house, trying to save one another, they discover a series of Nazi paraphernalia. Each side goes all in, set on taking the others down. May the side with the most hate win.
I’ll be the first to admit, I love home invasion scripts. LOVE’EM! I don’t know what it is about them but if you look through all my reviews, I always give these scripts high marks, and Hate Night is no exception. I didn’t think it was as good as some of the other stuff I’ve read, but I still enjoyed myself.
And even if you aren’t a home-invasion lover, you could learn a couple of things from this script, namely, how it pulls you in via its use of suspense.
You see, most writers don’t know how to use suspense. Sure, if you asked them what suspense is, they’d probably have an answer for you. But as far as effectively utilizing suspense in one of their screenplays? Don’t count on it.
With Hate Night, right away Stacy and JP are acting creepy towards Cassie, hinting at things to come, which makes us wonder if they’re going to do something bad to her. We also know there’s a plan being put into action here, which likewise keeps our interest.
It’s for this reason that the Boyds have us wrapped around their finger. We ARE GOING TO READ until we find out what this plan is – and what’s going to happen to Cassie. That’s suspense 101 right there. And the typical amateur screenwriter doesn’t know how to do this. They instead write linearly. By that I mean they write whatever comes into their head at the moment, unable to forward-think the situation into a suspense-driven version.
My issue with Hate Night was that once we got to the home, much of that suspense was replaced with shock value. And while I’m not against shock value, it’s definitely not as effective as a well executed line of suspense.
The reason is simple. Shock takes up one second of screen-time. A character bites off another characters mouth. That’s fine. I’ve seen that work in movies before and it might work effectively when put on screen here. But it’s over within a second. There’s nothing left to extract from a “one person bites off another person’s mouth” moment.
With suspense, you can draw things out for minutes, even hours. One of the reasons It Follows worked so well is because its premise is inherently suspenseful. We know it’s only a matter of time before the next “follower” is coming. And we’re on guard about who or where they could be.
Hate Night had the opportunity to extend its suspenseful approach with the Nazi stuff. Start with something small so the audience wonders what’s going on, then with each new series of scenes, reveal a little more about the Nazi stuff, until a big explanation of how the couple is connected to that world is revealed. But Hate Night chooses not to explain these things. And I suppose that’s fine. But I guess I was looking for anything that would keep me invested the way those the first 20 pages did.
Despite this, I still enjoyed Hate Night. I love the genre in general. I like that the Boyds twisted things around and made the hunters the hunted. And I liked how the main characters didn’t represent a united front (with Cassie being against this). The reality in these situations is that even on the “attacking” side, there’s going to be dissent, and I read too many scripts where everybody on the bad side agrees with each other, which isn’t realistic.
I’m glad to get Halloween Week started off right. And by the way, if you know of any good horror scripts from the last couple of years you want to see reviewed, let me know. I have the new Friday the 13th script, but I didn’t know if you guys would be interested in that, seeing as it’s part of an overly-exploited franchise. But if you’re interested, I’ll review it. Let me know in the comments!
[ ] what the hell did I just read?
[ ] wasn’t for me
[x] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: Create LINES OF SUSPENSE to keep your scenes engaging. Think of a “line of suspense” as a literal line between when you hint at something happening, and when it actually happens. The longer the line, the longer the suspense. To understand how this works, I want you to write two practice scenes for me. In the first scene, I want you to put characters JOE and LISA in a room together and have them talk. I don’t care what they talk about. Just write 2-4 pages of a scene with those two talking. When you’re finished, come back here. Okay, now I want you to write the same scene, but this time, have the two preparing the room for something (cleaning, arranging), then start with this dialogue. JOE: I thought she was supposed to be here by now. LISA: You know how busy she is. JOE: I just can’t believe she’s coming here. — Continue to write the dialogue between the characters however you want until this third person shows up. What you’ll notice is that the second scene works much better because you’ve created a LINE OF SUSPENSE. The audience is now anticipating the arrival of a character. And not just any character, a seemingly important character. So the reader is clearly going to want to find out who this person is. This is how to use a LINE OF SUSPENSE to keep the reader engaged.
