Ripley – Character flaw: Lack of trust

I remember when I first heard the term “three-dimensional character.” It sounded like one of those things clueless producers mutter when they don’t know why they don’t like something. Oh yeah, the characters weren’t, umm, “three-dimensional.” That’s why I didn’t like it. Occasionally, you’d run into one of the more affluent execs, who might throw this curve ball at you: “Your characters never popped off the page.” What the hell does that even mean? It’s a freaking piece of paper. If you want things popping off pages, head over to the children’s section at Barnes & Noble.

Ah, but as time went on and I came into contact with more intelligent and established entertainment folk (purely by accident of course), I noticed them using these same darn phrases. “Sorry, the characters have no depth.” “They were paper thin.” “The plot was okay but the characters never popped off the page.” Urgh. Wherever I went, this three-dimensional character thing was following. I needed to find out what was going on.

So I did a little research into this “3rd dimension” and repeatedly came across the term: “character flaw.” This seemed to be the all-elusive key to achieving character depth. A character flaw, I found out, was a negative trait holding your character back from becoming whole. Okay, I could get on board with that. I started watching my favorite movies and, lo and behold, it was true! There were character flaws everywhere I looked. Neato!

But then tragedy struck (well, subjectively speaking). I was on a screenplay message board one evening and found a thread discussing this exact topic. The head screenwriting message board guy in charge (HSMBGIC) was saying that not all characters had character flaws. Indiana Jones didn’t technically have a flaw. John McClane in Die Hard didn’t have a flaw. My whole screenwriting world came crumbling down. What next? Were there screenplays without words?? How could anything make sense anymore!!!

If only that were it. As if some phantom force was set on getting me to commit scripticide, I was introduced to yet another term: “Inner Conflict,” which writers were using interchangeably with “character flaw.” Yet another screenwriter cornered me and whispered, “Don’t listen to those bums. The key to a great character? A VICE.” Don’t even get me started on 70s Writer Guy, who kept telling me all I needed was a good “character fear.” Character fear?? What the hell was that??! It was at that moment I did what any slug-fearing screenwriter would do. I bought a case of Bud Ice at the corner liquor store and got drunk.

I won’t get into how that began a three year bout with alcoholism that ended with me on the top of a stoplight on Santa Monica and Wilshire screaming (the cops informed me), “Knick-Knack Paddywack, give E.T. a phone!” The good news is, I’m better now. And I have medication. Which allows me to drive by myself. Which led to a lot of library visits, where I actually learned what all these terms meant! And because I don’t want you to have to go through what I went through, I’m going to break all of them down and show you how you can use them to add depth to your characters. Get ready for your life to change.  As one of the greatest philosophers in history once said…”I’m tan mom. Biyyyyyyaaaaattttcchhhh.”

Flaw – A character (or fatal) flaw is the dominant negative trait that’s held your character back from becoming the person he’s meant to be.  Selfishness, lack of trust, won’t open up, won’t stand up for themselves, being irresponsible – these are all flaws you’ve seen hundreds of times in films.  The most powerful character flaws tend to be the ones that have hindered your character their entire lives. So in Rocky, Rocky has never believed in himself. But flaws can occasionally be a more recent problem, typically the result of a recent traumatic experience. So if a character was recently dumped by someone they loved, maybe their flaw is that they don’t trust love anymore.

When done right, the character flaw is the most effective way to add depth to your character. This is because once a reader identifies a character’s flaw, there’s an intrinsic need to see that flaw overcome. Being able to change is one of the most universally relatable experiences there is. So seeing someone else do it makes us believe we can do it. It’s almost like we’re living THROUGH the character, and that’s what creates that deep emotional connection.

Inner Conflict – The term “Inner conflict” is often mixed up with “character flaw” because they both infer struggle within our character. But inner conflict is less about overcoming one’s big weakness and more about a battle being waged inside the character. To execute a great inner conflict, you want to give your character two opposing forces that are pulling at him. Luke Skywalker (as well as Darth Vader) is being pulled by both good and evil in Return of the Jedi. Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver is trying to decide between being good or bad. A newly announced Andrew Garfield film is about a real estate agent who starts illegally kicking people out of their homes. He becomes rich doing so, but his conscience starts to eat at him. He’s conflicted with whether earning a living this way is the right thing (inner conflict).

Again, the advantage of adding an inner conflict is that you’re tackling a universal experience. We’re constantly dealing with our own conscience, with what’s right and wrong, being pulled in opposite directions. The most unsettled we tend to be in our lives is when we’re fighting these inner battles. It’s a very intense experience, and therefore we relate to and engage when we see a character going through the same.

Vices – Vices are often used incorrectly in screenplays, as many beginning writers believe that simply adding a drinking or drug addiction will give their character that elusive “depth” all these producers and agents talk about. 99 times out of 100, however, the characters unfortunate enough to be created this way feel cliché. Why? Because unless you’re exploring the vice in all its depth and complexity, it feels sprayed on, a false veneer hiding the fact that you don’t know how to build depth. A vice is the physical manifestation of an inner conflict. It’s drugs, food, alcohol, sex, gambling – any physical addiction your character can’t control.

In my experience, the only time vices truly add depth to characters is when the writer commits to them 100% – when they explore all the complexities and faults and issues and pitfalls and devastations that come with them. We saw it in Flight, we saw it in Leaving Las Vegas, we saw it in Half-Nelson, we even see it in The Dark Knight (The Joker’s vice is chaos). The screenplay almost has to be ABOUT the vice for it to truly resonate. Otherwise, if you’re just slapping it in there to try and make your character feel “deep,” it’s probably not going to work.

Fears – Fears are the last and typically weakest way to add depth to your character. The reason being, they’re surface level. Unlike a flaw, an inner conflict, or a vice, there isn’t a whole lot going on under the hood with a fear. Take Indiana Jones. His fear is snakes. Good for a chuckle, not much else. Or Brody from Jaws. He’s afraid of water. Cool for later when he must go into the ocean to kill the shark, but it doesn’t really add much depth to his character. Or Richard Gere in Pretty Woman. His fear is heights. Sets up a nifty little finale where he must climb up the building to get to Julia Roberts, but there’s never a moment in the film where we feel the depth of Richard Gere being afraid of heights. It’s just a cute little setup and payoff, as are all these examples.

Now this doesn’t mean you don’t want characters who are afraid in your screenplays. Fear is a very powerful emotion. And as you can see from the examples above, it’s a nice little addition to a character who already has depth. You just don’t want fear to be the only element of depth in your character. Any fear should be in addition to, not in place of, these options. The one exception is if the fear is integral to the storyline. For example, if your character was raped, and now they’re afraid to leave the house in fear of getting raped again, obviously the fear is adding depth to your character.

Moving forward, my suggestion for adding depth to your character would be to start with the character flaw. If a character flaw doesn’t feel right for that particular story (Hey, Ferris Bueller didn’t have a character flaw), move to inner conflict. If your character doesn’t seem like the kind of guy with a lot of internal strife going on (aka Seth Rogan’s character in Knocked Up), go with a vice. Only use fear as a last option or if it’s integral to the kind of story you’re telling. There are a few other things you can do to add depth (backstory, mystery, your character’s relationships with others), but for the most part, if you’re not using one of the four elements featured in this article, your character will feel flat (leading to the dreaded, “Your characters never POPPED off the page.”).

Also, it’s okay to mix and match these elements. It’s okay to give a character a flaw and a vice. Or a vice and an inner conflict. If you really commit to one of these elements, one is all you need, but I’ve seen plenty of characters that are battling two or even three of these things. My only advice, if you take that route, is to connect the elements so they feel organic, as opposed to mechanically adding multiple things because a screenwriting blog told you to. For example, if your character’s flaw is that they don’t think they’re worthy of having a boyfriend, an addiction (vice) to food could keep them overweight and unattractive and therefore allow them to perpetuate that belief.

Remember that the main reason readers label characters as “thin” is that there isn’t a lot going on with them. I read so many scripts where I don’t remember the characters five minutes after I finish because there WASN’T ANYTHING GOING ON UNDERNEATH THE SURFACE. These four options are the things you place underneath the surface. Because the characters now have something underneath them, by definition, they have DEPTH. And just like that, you’ve created a three-dimensional character.

Genre: Drama
Premise: When an escaped convict infiltrates the home of a single mother and her son, the mother unexpectedly falls in love with the man.
About: This is Jason Reitman’s next movie, which will star Kate Winslet, Toby Maguire and comeback kid James Van Der Beek!  It’s slated for an early 2014 release. Reitman’s outshone his legendary director father (Ivan Reitman) as of late, directing well-received films like Juno and Up In The Air. But he better watch out. Ivan is about to make a comeback, getting ramped up to direct the mega-hot script Draft Day, starring Kevin Costner as a general manager during the most important day of the year for NFL teams, draft day.
Writer: Jason Reitman (based on the novel by Joyce Maynard)
Details – 125 pages (2/4/11 draft)

Jason Reitman is an interesting writer/filmmaker. He’s not making films like anyone else out there. Here’s the issue I have with Reitman though. I’m not sure who HE is. I know every director out there wants to be Ang Lee or Steven Spielberg, the kind of director who can jump in and out of genres effortlessly, but what’s the reason we go to see a filmmaker’s film? Because we know what kind of movie they make. Thank You For Smoking. Juno. Up In The Air. Young Adult. Where’s the common thread in those? I’m not sure I can find one.

It’s not to say someone can’t break the mold and make whatever movie they want, but it’s a hell of a lot of harder to gain traction as a filmmaker if that’s the route you’ve chosen. I think early in your career you need to pick one genre and stick with it, THEN break out. Right now, the thing Reitman is probably best known for is being the director of a couple of Diablo Cody scripts, and I’m sure that isn’t what he’d like to be known for.

To make matters worse, the only consistent element he’s got going in his films (they’re 30-60 million dollar dramas that sometimes contain comedic elements) is the exact kind of film Hollywood is trying not to make anymore. There’s no real hook to draw audiences in other than the acting, directing and writing, and it’s hard to get those things right. And these films don’t have much of an upside even if they DO do well. With Young Adult never really breaking out, this is a huge moment for Reitman. He’s gotta prove that there is an audience for these movies. And that’s going to be tough. Cause if Labor Day isn’t executed perfectly, it’s in a lot of trouble.

Labor Day tells the story of Henry…. Wait a minute. That’s not actually true. It tells the story of Adele… Actually, that’s not true. It tells the story of Henry, who’s TELLING A STORY about Adele. Yeah, so let me start over. It’s 1987. Henry is a 13 year old kid living in a small town with a single mother who’s still bitter about her divorce. She’s given up on love, and in the process, given up on life. The only thing she’s got going for her is Henry.

That changes when the two go shopping one day and are approached by Frank, who seems like a good guy with the exception of a few suspicious cuts on his body. Now you and I would probably walk away from this. But Adele, for whatever reason, decides to take Frank home with her, a man whom she later finds out is an escaped convict.

All of this is being recalled via voice over from Adult Henry, who’s basically remembering the crazy 4 day Labor Day weekend that occurred when his mother fell in love with a convict. Yup, poor Henry gets his sex education via the shaking and moaning and screaming that occurs in the bedroom next to his. It’s something he isn’t really sure how to handle. He thinks it’s strange that they have, you know, an escaped convict not only living with them. But having sex with his mom! Most people would consider that weird.

Eventually, Henry befriends a new girl in town, Eleanor, who puts two and two together and realizes Henry’s housing the fugitive. She eventually convinces him that he’s going to be cut out of the picture and abandoned if he doesn’t do something. When his mom mentions moving to Canada to start a new life, that seems to confirm the prediction, and Henry begins to wonder if he should turn Frank in. It all comes to a head when the race to get out of town is interrupted by the cops finding out where Frank is, and trying to stop him before he gets away.

The other day I was saying (like I always do) to stay away from the drama genre. Hollywood doesn’t like to make dramas. They not only have really low profit margins, but they have to be executed perfectly to work. The script has to be flawless, the acting has to be genius, the directing and the cinematography have to be awe-inspiring. They don’t have any margin for error because people only come to see these movies if they hear they’re great.  Honestly, when’s the last time you said to a friend, “Let’s go see that drama movie that’s supposed to be okay!”

Every story needs an engine. And like I often discuss, the engine is often your hero’s goal (beat the terrorists, get to the beauty pageant, get the Americans out of Iran using a fake movie as cover). Even Flight, a drama I loathe, had a goal – to win the court case against the airline for pilot neglect. Labor Day bases its engine on something a lot harder to drive an entire story with – suspense. Suspense is something you typically use in doses, to drive a scene or a sequence. Using it to drive an entire movie is hard.

The suspense engine here is: “Will Frank, Adele, and Henry get away with this?” This is achieved by making us wonder whether Frank and Adele and Henry are going to ride off into the sunset and start a new life, or get caught.  As far as I can tell, that’s the only thing driving the story.

That’s fine. A really well-told story CAN work this way. Here’s my problem though. For suspense to work, especially suspense that’s supposed to last the entirety of the movie, we have to freaking love the characters. And that’s where I had problems. The script is told through the eyes of Henry (in older Henry’s voice over). For that reason, we’re not watching the movie through the eyes of the two people who have the most to gain and lose here (Frank and Adele) but rather the character with the least to lose, Henry.

In addition to that, because we’re seeing two people fall in love through a third party, I never really felt those characters’ feelings. I never got close enough to them since I wasn’t allowed to see them unless it was through Henry’s perspective. It was kind of like watching two people kiss across the street instead of BEING one of the people kissing across the street.

Don’t get me wrong. I didn’t dislike any of these characters. I thought Henry was pretty interesting, Frank was pretty interesting, and Adele was pretty interesting. But “pretty interesting” doesn’t cut it when you’re making a drama. It’s not like The Avengers where a “pretty interesting” character is fine because you have 200 million dollars worth of special effects to fall back on. In dramas, THE CHARACTERS are the special effects. And for that reason they must be infinitely interesting, infinitely fascinating, infinitely compelling. After finishing Labor Day, I was just kind of like, “Ehh, not bad.” It was a nice little story. But that’s not enough for a drama. A drama has to be great.

Where could the script have improved? I think Eleanor should have had a much bigger part. She’s the love interest for the character we care most about, the one we’re closest to, Henry. Why do we get more time between two people we don’t really know than the actual person who’s leading us through this story?

If that could’ve been introduced earlier, and Eleanor could’ve found out about Frank earlier (in this draft, she doesn’t find out until the end), she could’ve pressed Henry to give Frank up sooner, lest he lose his mom to him, and there would’ve been a lot more conflict in the house, which as it stood was pretty conflict-free.

That was probably the biggest issue for me in the script. Frank’s situation was never really challenged. Outside of a couple of late characters dropping by, Frank could prance around worry free. And I’m not sure a movie like this works unless his situation is always in danger, unless we’re constantly feeling the possibility that he could be caught.

All in all, this draft of Labor Day had a slow story that lacked the kind of characters and conflict a drama like this needs. Hopefully, Reitman has sped the story up and addressed these issues in subsequent drafts. I admire the man for pushing stories in Hollywood that don’t usually get made, but the catch is those stories have to be awesome, and I don’t think this one’s there yet.

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

What I learned: Link up your story elements! I discussed this yesterday. Try and link up the elements of your story so they work together as opposed to separately. I thought Labor Day missed an easy one here. Henry was falling for Eleanor, who confesses sadly that she can no longer go to art school because her parents won’t pay for it (element 1). Later, Henry sees a “REWARD – $10,000” flyer for turning in Frank (element 2). Henry should be considering turning in Frank to get Eleanor the money so she can go to art school. That’s his main conflict. That’s what he’s battling every time he comes home. Should he call the police and run off with his own girl, or not call them and let Frank and Adele run off together?

I’ve been feeling bad since I wrote the article last week about the six types of scripts least likely to get you noticed. I got a lot of e-mails from people who were writing those scripts, and boy were they unhappy. I was most affected by those who had written sports movies. I love sports and I love a good sports movie. So my heart goes out to those struggling to get their sports script through a system that just isn’t receptive to the genre. I still believe that the only realistic shot you have of getting your sports spec picked up is to option an interesting true story or write about a compelling sports figure. With the unending number of sports games that have been played throughout time and the number of sports figures that have lived and died on this earth, there are still so many interesting stories that have never been told. With that said, if you’re going to write a sports script, you may as well learn from the best. And Hoosiers is as good as it gets. I’m going to find out what made this script work, as well as pass you a few tips about sports scripts in general. There’s one thing I can’t explain, though. How is it that the writer of this great movie, Angelo Pizzo, has only written TWO PRODUCED MOVIES since???

1) Character over sport! – Easily, one of the biggest mistakes writers make when writing sports movies is focusing on the sport instead of the characters. Remember, audiences don’t care about that final goal, that final shot, or that final touchdown, unless they care about the person making it. You almost want to approach your sports script as a character piece that has sports elements, as opposed to the other way around. Formulate a compelling controversial memorable main character, then feed the sports stuff in there. You see this in Rocky, The Natural, Hoosiers, Bull Durham, and all the best sports movies throughout time. A great main character first!!!

2) Try to give each player on the team small character flaws they must overcome – In a sports movie, it’s essential that each kid have that one clearly defined character flaw that’s holding them back from being the best player they can be. Take the short player in Hoosiers. He doesn’t believe in himself. He thinks of himself as just a practice player. He eventually learns to believe in himself and ends up helping the team win a key game. Every player has to have their own little storyline!

3) You need to give the coach a COACHING FLAW – Same deal. Every sports movie needs that coach who has a flaw that’s preventing him from being the best coach he can be. Gene Hackman’s character refuses to listen to his players. He’s only going to do it HIS WAY. In the last timeout of the championship game, then, we see him overcome this flaw when he allows the kids to run their play instead of his.

4) Every sports movie needs a TEAM PROBLEM – This is some play issue the team can’t seem to get over. Here, it’s the concept of “team.” Don’t dribble the ball up the court and shoot. You HAVE to pass the ball four times before anyone can shoot. This concept is a constant battle throughout the movie, with certain players refusing to go along with it. As a result, it was satisfying when they bought into coach’s game plan and started winning because of it.

5) Write around a sport – If you’re a big sports fan but don’t want to write yet another cliché sports movie about a team or player who overcomes the odds and wins the championship, consider writing about the people surrounding the sport. The reason this works is because it introduces us to a new exciting world we’re unfamiliar with. Cameron Crowe did this famously with sports agent Jerry Maguire. Zallian and Sorkin did it with Moneyball. And more recently, Scott Rothman and Rijav Joseph did it with Draft Day, the number one Black List script, which focused on an NFL general manager during draft day.

6) MIDPOINT SHIFT ALERT – Remember, a midpoint shift is a severe event in the middle of the story that shifts the second half of the movie so it feels different from the first. In most cases, that moment makes things worse for your hero. But here, it actually makes things better. The mid-point shift of Hoosiers is when Jimmy (the star player) announces that he wants to rejoin the team. With Jimmy now on the squad, it’s no longer about becoming a decent team, it’s about winning. It’s about having a legitimate shot at being great!

7) Make the romantic interest a source of conflict – I like when the romantic interest is also one of the main sources of conflict for the main character. You end up killing two birds with one stone. Here, Myra, the vice-principle and main love interest, is the only person in Indiana who hates basketball. Talk about a tough girl to chase if you’re the new basketball coach!

8) Write about the coach – As I watched Hoosiers for the billionth time, I realized something. There are no other truly good basketball movies in sports history (unless you count Air Bud and Love & Basketball). It doesn’t seem to be a sport that lends itself to cinema. I wanted to know how Hoosiers overcame that and not only became the best basketball movie of all time, but the best sports movie of all time. I came to the conclusion that it’s because the main character wasn’t one of the players. It was the coach. This falls in line with my above tip: “Write around the sport.” Concentrating on the coach allows you to tackle problems from the person with the most power over the game. The decisions a coach makes (who to play, who to sit, who to favor, who to discipline, how to train, how to strategize) in addition to the exterior pressures he faces (the way the town wants him to play, the way the manager wants him to play, the way the star player wants to play) typically make him one of the most interesting people to watch. That was definitely the case here.

9) Each game needs to be its own little movie – With each game in your script, you want to create your own little movie with its own specific problem, something the characters will all learn from and, whether they realize it or not, get better from. The first game in Hoosiers, for example, is about the players not listening to the coach. That’s the problem. So what does Coach do? He sits the most egregious player of the bunch, even when the team needs another player on the floor! He’d rather play FOUR players than have someone not listen to him. The problem is solved by the end of the game. The players now realize that it’s the coach’s way or the highway. And highways go on forever in Indiana.

10) Create a compelling goal that works concurrently with the main storyline – If the only question you have for us in your sports movie is, “Will they win the championship?” we’ll get bored. You need other storylines working concurrently with the main one, another goal our main character must achieve. Here, it’s “Getting Jimmy,” the player who many consider to be the best in the state, but who has no interest in playing.

BONUS TIP – Tie your elements together – Where real writing comes into play is when writers learn to tie the elements that make screenplays work together. So in this case, Angelo Pizzo has written in some great conflict between our main character, Coach Dale, and the romantic interest, Myra. He’s also created this great subplot (that I just mentioned) where Coach Dale needs to convince Jimmy to join the team. Individually, both these situations work well, but it’s tying them together that makes them truly powerful. Myra doesn’t like basketball. She believes it’s way more important for Jimmy’s future that he focus on his studies, which is why she doesn’t want him on the team. Therefore, one of the biggest elements of conflict in the movie, Myra, is also the obstacle Coach Dale must get past in order to land Jimmy. That’s great writing!

I must apologize about the late post. You know, ever since it was announced that Kate Middleton went into labor last night, I’ve been unable to eat, sleep, or concentrate. Just like all of you, life cannot go on until this baby is delivered. I mean so many things can go wrong in childbirth. Is it not natural that one need to know that the baby is okay? And then of course we all need to know if it’s a boy or a girl. Well, she’s FINALLY delivered. And it’s a boy! (spoiler alert) So everyone can take the rest of the day off and relax after all that intense anxiety you’ve been under. I know I will.

But that’s not the only thing that happened this weekend. R.I.P.D. was officially R.I.P.D. upon its own delivery. I reviewed the script a year ago and thought it was pretty good. But man did it land with a thud. I’m trying to glean some lessons for writers from this but I’m not sure I have any. On the one hand, I encourage writers to come up with high-concept ideas, like R.I.P.D., but I think in this case it was so similar to Men In Black that audiences had no interest in seeing a lower-rent, lesser-cast version of that film. I mean, people aren’t even interested in seeing sequels of the original M.I.B. Why would they be interested in seeing a copycat film? If there’s a lesson here, it’s to write something familiar but different, with a little more emphasis on the different than the familiar.

Speaking of, R.I.P.D. is yet another example of the Ryan Reynolds Isn’t A Movie Star Paradox, which was most famously explored in an article written by sports/entertainment writer Bill Simmons. Indeed, it is strange that Reynolds continues to be so popular amongst studios when he’s never been able to open a movie on his own (his biggest successes like The Proposal and Safe House have him coupled with bigger stars). I like Reynolds. He seems like a good guy. I love that he takes chances in his career, and I think some of his movies have been really good, like Definitely, Maybe and Buried. But he’s gotta take advantage of this time. Unless he starts giving a better return on his investment, I’m afraid he might go the way of Ben Affleck in the first phase of his career.

Also, in news that has nothing to do with that, I’m hearing an awful, awful rumor. JJ Abrams is thinking of quitting Star Wars. The main point of contention is that Abrams has a family here in the States but will have to shoot the movie in England. It’s something I actually worried about as soon as Abrams took the job. He stated that he really wanted to shoot the movie here because of his family and an issue like that just doesn’t go away. Imagine being away from your wife and kids for a year. This isn’t a simple 3 day business trip to Cedar Rapids. We’re talking AN ENTIRE YEAR.

If he drops out, I don’t know who the heck is going to take his place. But the mad scramble will probably dictate a less-than-desirable replacement. Nightmare names like Rian Johnson and Edgar Wright popped into my head. I know those names bring about happy thoughts in certain geek circles, but trust me, those guys would destroy Star Wars. That’s why JJ was so perfect. He was a big director who knew what he was doing and also had that sensibility that could make Star Wars great. I’m afraid if he leaves, there are no super-big directors who would be interested, which means taking a shot in the dark on one of these lesser guys who hasn’t proven himself. Ugh. May the force be with us.

So, in slightly less depressing news, I saw The Conjuring this weekend with Miss Scriptshadow. We’d both read the script, both liked it, and so were interested in seeing the finished product. Well, long story short, Miss Scriptshadow hated it. Which kinda baffled me because she loves scary movies.

The scene that set her off was the opening one, in which paranormal investigator husband and wife team, the Warrens, investigate a creepy doll that keeps writing to its owners, “Miss me?” in really bad crayon handwriting. Indeed, the scene felt like it was part of another movie. Coupled with its cliché scary doll cheesiness, there was a goofiness to it that contrasted heavily to the otherwise “take me seriously” tone the rest of the film exhibited. It just goes to show how powerful an opening scene is. Give us the wrong one, and we could decide we hate your film within a couple minutes. The scene didn’t turn me off as much as it did her, but something did feel off about it.

My problem with the film had more to do with the same issues I saw in the script stage. Now to their credit, the writers did eliminate a lot of the “one month later” and “two months later” stuff they had in the screenplay that gave the story a laid back feel. Instead, after the opening scene, they kept everything in one continuous timeline and made it build. In other words, they added URGENCY, which is important in any movie, but especially a horror film, where you should feel the danger increasing at a scary rate.

But getting back to my main issue, it really bothered me that every time the Warrens saw something freaky, they went, “Oh yeah that. Ppffhhh. That’s just the demon wanting attention.” “Oh, the reason the clocks stop? That’s just because it’s the time the ghost died. No biggie.” Even when they’re researching the haunting, the answers seem to bore them. “No wonder these guys are experiencing hauntings. A witch used to live here and killed her child.” I don’t know about you, but I’m scared when people have no fucking clue why they’re being terrorized and they’re freaking the fuck out about it. Everybody here was too damn calm. We needed the Warrens to be like, “Yo, we’ve never seen this before. We’re scared. We don’t know what to do.” Remember The Exorcist? Part of what made that so scary is that the priests themselves seemed terrified. We never get that with the Warrens, who always seem to be in control. That was a super-big issue with me. If they could’ve fixed that, this might’ve been a classic.

I did learn something cool from the script-to-screen translation though. One of my favorite moments in the screenplay was when Lorraine Warren was in a crawlspace in the house, and starts pulling on this rope, and pulling on it and pulling on it, and all of a sudden, at the end of it is… THE WITCH’S HEAD (who had hanged herself when she was alive – hence the rope connection). It was terrifying. But they didn’t do that in the movie. Instead, she lifts the rope up and sees at the end… a noose. Scared for a moment, the floor of the old house then breaks beneath her, and she goes shooting down through the walls into the basement. Injured and unable to move, she starts hearing scary-ass shit. She now must fend off potential danger from every side of her. In other words, the writers sacrificed what was originally a jump scare (the witch’s head), and milked an entire scene of scares out of it. There’s your lesson. If you have a choice, no matter how good your jump scare is, see if there’s a way to milk one long scene of scares instead. That’s always the better option.

Finally, I still think the script itself, while interesting and original, was clumsy. I was never entirely sure who the main characters were. Was it the parents in the house or was it the Warrens? It felt like the writers weren’t sure either, as we’d occasionally jump back to the Warrens’ home where a barely-there subplot was happening with their daughter. The entire Warren’s Home storyline felt like that friend who nobody wants to bring to the party. “Oh man, I guess we have to call Bill.” Everybody rolls their eyes. Yeah, I guess so. Everything that happened over there felt like an afterthought. But in retrospect, I’m convinced that the studio sees the Warrens as their franchise. They’re the ones with all these scary stories to tell. Sequels upon sequels upon sequels. Therefore, they have to give them weight in the story. The problem with that was, because we had to spend so much time with the Warrens, we didn’t really get to know the Perrons. I mean, somebody tell me anything about the father in this script. You can’t.  There was nothing. But hey, The Conjuring 2 is already ramping into development so it ended up working.

With The Conjuring and The Purge being two of the biggest return-on-investments this summer, you best start thinking about writing that horror spec. People love to be scared, so scary movies will always have an audience. Just try and come up with an idea that’s either based on a true story (Conjuring) or that has a really high concept (Purge). You do that, we’ll be analyzing your film here on Scriptshadow soon.

This is your chance to discuss the week’s amateur scripts, offered originally in the Scriptshadow newsletter. The primary goal for this discussion is to find out which script(s) is the best candidate for a future Amateur Friday review. The secondary goal is to keep things positive in the comments with constructive criticism.

Below are the scripts up for review, along with the download links. Want to receive the scripts early? Head over to the Contact page, e-mail us, and “Opt In” to the newsletter.

Happy reading!

TITLE: Elijah’s Gold
GENRE: Disaster thriller
LOGLINE: Set in the near future, when an industrial experiment involving the Higgs-Boson particle goes terribly wrong, resulting in an explosion that kills millions of Americans, an ex-con is recruited by a prison pastor to uncover a conspiracy to cover up the cause of the disaster.
WHY YOU SHOULD READ (from writer): “Two of my professors at USC who believe very strongly in this script are already working hard to set up meetings with agents and managers around town for me.”

TITLE: Recovery
GENRE: Drama
LOGLINE: When a man involved in a fatal hit-and-run accident learns the victim is his brother’s wife, he must decide whether coming clean and appeasing his conscience is worth the risk of shattering his family.
WHY YOU SHOULD READ (from writer): “Since the last time Recovery was up for AF consideration, back in November 2012, it’s undergone a page-one rewrite. The resulting draft garnered a quarterfinal placement in this year’s still active Page Awards, and I feel it’s ready for another shot at AF glory.”

TITLE: Ascended Master
GENRE: Horror
LOGLINE: A small town racer decodes an occult book of alchemy that enables him to build a winning engine. As his success grows, he discovers the entity behind his new found engineering skill is slowly killing his kids.
WHY YOU SHOULD READ (from writer): “It is the only spec script you’ll ever find that combines drag racing and alchemy. Growing up in the seventies around racing, there was always some “magical” technique the local racers sought out to get that extra edge. This pursuit led more often than not, to horrific results. I always wondered what would happen if one of those obscure techniques actually worked…”

TITLE: FEVER DREAMS
GENRE: Drama/Thriller
LOGLINE: When a man begins having lucid dreams in which he and his deceased wife are back together again, he must decide which world he wants to live in—reality or dreams.

TITLE: THE DIRECTOR’S GIRLFRIEND
GENRE: Dark comedy/Erotic thriller
LOGLINE: His marriage on the rocks, a hard drinking writer falls for the barely legal, incredibly hot, psychotic girlfriend of the movie director living next door.
WHY YOU SHOULD READ (from writer): “I’m a movie research coder, Diane is a blog writer/copywriter. Diane has placed in a couple screenwriting competitions. We’ve both had a manager at one time or another. This script has been under option for over five years by a pair of producers who love it, but just don’t have the dollars to move it forward. Why should you read it? When I gave my first rough draft to my partner she read it in disgust and handed it back, calling it porn. Those scenes have kinda been dialed back, but I’d like to think it still has some porn left in it. And who doesn’t like porn?”