If you have those Blood List scripts, keep sending them in.  My mailbox definitely isn’t bloody enough.  This week is the week of the amateur as Roger reviews an amateur script today and I review one Friday (Amateur Friday got moved forward a week).  In the middle, we’ll have…some other scripts.  How’s that for a teaser?  Hey, I’m tired.  I just spent the entire day walking back and forth to the front door giving kids candy.  HERE’S ROGER!

Premise: After committing a massacre in an Indian village, a cavalry troop finds their remote fort under siege by vicious flying reptiles seemingly sent to avenge the massacre. Fort Apache meets Aliens.

It’s a genre mash-up I have an affinity for. Something about those big, wide open spaces and shots of vast, rugged terrain framed by doorways seems like a rich setting for scares, thrills and a healthy dose of repulsion. There aren’t many of these suckers. For me, the most notable as of late are JT Petty’s “The Burrowers” and perhaps Antonia Bird’s “Ravenous“. The latter is definitely a Period Piece, but I suppose it can be debated whether or not it’s a Western. In screenplays and literature there’s always Zahler’s “The Brigands of Rattleborge” and McCarthy’s “Blood Meridian“. I guess people attempt to write these genre mash-ups but I rarely come across a script that pulls off this particular brand of alchemy.

What I learned: I’m a firm believer in treating B-material like A-material. Just because something has monsters in it doesn’t mean it can’t have heart or a powerful story. I think the key is creating a protagonist who is looking for something more than just defeating the monster. In Aliens, Ripley wanted to be a mother. She had a hole in her heart for a child. Newt filled that hole. When Newt was endangered, the stakes went through the roof. Create a character who has a void in their heart they yearn to fill, and let the plot become an obstacle to try and prevent them from filling that void. If you do that, I think you’ll find that the theme will rise to the surface as you write and polish and shape your story. That’s my two cents, anyways.

If you’ve been hanging around the site this week, you’ve been hearing of “The Blood List,” an informal list of the best horror scripts of the year.  Last year’s was posted, and this year’s has just been released.  So, what’s on the list?  Download it yourself and see, although I think a fault of the list is that, unlike The Black List, they don’t give loglines.

If you know the loglines for some of these scripts, please post them in the comments section.  And if you have any of the scripts, please send them to me.  Maybe we can wrangle this thing together. I have Chronicle and a few others, but that’s it.  Enjoy.

THE BLOOD LIST 2010

Genre: Horror
Premise: A young priest who does not believe in the Devil travels to Rome to study at an Exorcism School.
About: Oh yeah baby. It’s Halloween Week! Why the hell was I thinking of reviewing Wanderlust on Halloween Week? Instead I’ve decided to review a more appropriate script, The Rite. The Rite will star Anthony Hopkins, Alice Braga, and an unknown actor in the starring role (at least he’s unknown to me). It’s directed by Michael Hafstrom, who directed 2007’s fun Steven King adaptation, 1408. Michael Petroni adapted the screenplay from a book by Matt Baglio. In 1994, Petroni moved to Los Angeles to study screenwriting at the AFI Conservatory, graduating in 1996. While at AFI, he wrote and directed his first feature, Till Human Voices Wake Us, starring Guy Pearce and Helena Bonham Carter. He also wrote The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys and the new upcoming Narnia flick, The Voyage Of The Dawn Treader.
Writer: Michael Petroni (based on the book by Matt Baglio)
Details: 123 pages – April 2008 draft (This is an early draft of the script. The situations, characters, and plot may change significantly by the time the film is released. This is not a definitive statement about the project, but rather an analysis of this unique draft as it pertains to the craft of screenwriting).

No offense to some of the recent writers whose scripts I’ve reviewed, but man can you tell when someone knows how to write. Writing isn’t about dictating real life events word for word. It’s about constructing those events in a dramatically entertaining way for an audience. It’s about knowing when to step on the gas and when to ease up. It’s about ratcheting up the conflict when the audience wants it, and keeping it subtle in the meantime. Yesterday my reading experience was pure frustration. I kept thinking, “Is this good and I’m just not getting it?” Today reminded me what real writing reads like.

These days, all you need to do is look around to see to see how many people are acting out their most sinful thoughts. We’re devolving as a species, and the devil is using it as a means to get inside of us. Over 500,000 possessions were reported last year. Priests are our last line of defense against this growing problem. For that reason, in 2007, Pope Benedict XVI instructed all bishops of the Catholic Church to appoint an exorcist in every diocese world wide. But before these exorcists can operate, someone has to teach them.

Thomas is an intelligent 24 year old embalmer for his father’s lifelong business, a funeral home. Close to retirement, he wants Thomas to take over when he leaves. But Thomas has other plans. He wants to get an education. He wants to live a normal life.

But a normal life requires schooling, and his father has made it clear that you don’t need an education to run a funeral home. If Thomas is going to go to school, he’ll need to find the money himself. That’s when he comes up with a plan. If you pledge your life to God, the church will pay for your education. In a move that would surely guarantee his spot in Hell if Thomas believed in such a place, Thomas plans to get his four years of education, then, before taking his vows, say “thanks but no thanks.”

As the climax for his plan approaches, one of the priests sees Thomas perform an amazing act of God without a shred of fear. He believes Thomas is destined for bigger things and suggests he consider becoming an exorcist. Thomas is reluctant, but the priest convinces him to go to Exorcism School in Rome for two months. If he doesn’t like it, he’s lost nothing.

Once at this school, Thomas is thrust into lectures about exorcism protocol, exorcism subjects, and the spookiest of the teachings, documentation of past exorcisms. But even the most spectacular of cases – and some are truly horrifying – are yawn-inducing as far as Thomas is concerned. He knows there’s a rational explanation behind everything and all this nonsense about God and the Devil are clouding these priests’ ability to judge.

The head priest senses Thomas’ skepticism and decides to send him off to one of their more “unorthodox” priests who does his work off-campus.

Indeed Father Carmine lives by his own code. There’s a protocol to go through before performing exorcisms. You have to see if a patient is mentally unstable. You have to rule out multiple personalities or trauma or psychological issues. Carmine couldn’t care less about that shit. If he thinks someone’s possessed, it’s time to slam a cross onto their forehead and batter them with the word of God.

It just so happens Thomas walks in during one of Father Carmine’s exorcisms, a young 17 year old pregnant woman named Rosaria. The event is horrifying, this young girl doing and saying the most unimaginable things. But even after what he’s seen, Thomas still believes that her problems can be explained away through abuse and trauma.

The rest of the story centers on Thomas and Carmine’s relationship as Carmine takes him through the daily treatment of his clientele. Even when these subjects bring up personal issues about Thomas’ life, he is convinced they’ve either done research or heard information about him from other parties. He knows that it is impossible for a person to be possessed by the devil. Of course, at some point, this conviction will be tested, as he will have to perform the exorcism to end all exorcisms, a task so impossible he will need to believe if he has any chance in succeeding.

I really really liked this screenplay. First of all, this is exactly what I was talking about when I reviewed our last exorcism script. In that review, I talked about how every exorcism movie is about some priest coming into a town to perform an exorcism on some woman. EVERY ONE! Borrr-ing. So taking the exorcism idea and coming at it from the angle of a school was, in many ways, genius. It’s a great reminder that finding a new angle to a tired subject matter just requires a little thought.

Also, as dumbed down as this sounds, this script proves how effective the “crazy mentor character” is. I was talking about this in my review of The King’s Speech the other day (with the part that Geoffrey Rush plays). There’s something about a mentor who does things “his own way” that’s simply fun to watch. It works here with Father Carmine, it worked in The King’s Speech, it’s one of the reasons Karate Kid is so popular. About the only time it hasn’t worked is in Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins.

The construction of Thomas’ character here is also well done. We have a built in fatal flaw – he doesn’t believe. He has a complicated unresolved relationship with his father that we keep going back to. He’s resistant to the job, which infuses most of the scenes with conflict. We understand where the character’s been. We understand where the character wants to go. So many times I don’t know who a character is in a screenplay so it’s refreshing when the writer takes the time to map him out like he does Thomas here.

I think the one challenge for the script was the tricky notion of putting a priest in Exorcism School who didn’t believe in God. This was an essential component to the script working, yet not a logical situation. Petroni (or Baglio) decided to use this desire for education as the reasoning behind why someone who didn’t believe in God would join the priesthood, and it’s admittedly the one conceit you have to make in order to buy into the premise, but I think he gets away with it. And I have to admit, it was a lot more interesting than the tired choice we’re used to seeing , which is to have someone close to the priest die right as he’s starting his journey.

Another dramatic mainstay the screenwriting gurus will tell you is that your main character should have a goal and that that goal should drive the plot. So in The Exorcism, the goal is to exorcise the demon from the girl. In Borrelli’s script, it’s the same thing. This approach keeps the point of the story crystal clear to the audience. But The Rite doesn’t do this. There is no single goal for our protagonist, which gives the story an uncertain quality. We’re not quite sure where it’s going. Which is good if it works, but usually if this goes on for too long, an audience will check out. So how does The Rite make it work?

Well Petroni shifts the focus of the movie from a physical goal to an internal question. Will Thomas believe or not? The answer to that question becomes the driving force of the story. It’s a risky move that I see fail way more than I see succeed because it just doesn’t give the story the same driving force a goal does. But because the characters are so compelling here, because the situations are so interesting, and because we want to find out what happens with Thomas, Petroni makes it work.

If I had a beef with the script, it’s that the ending gets a little crazy. One of the effects of focusing on several exorcisms instead of one is that you have to resolve them all, and with Thomas running around at the end to see all these threads to their conclusion, the finale feels a little scattershot.

But overall, I enjoyed this way too much to let that bother me. A highly recommended read.

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

What I learned: A big reason why this script works is that it’s steeped in conflict. Thomas and his father don’t agree on his direction in life. Thomas doesn’t believe in God. Thomas doesn’t believe in Exorcism School. Thomas doesn’t agree with Carmine’s methods or practice. Everywhere you look in this script, two diametrically opposed ideas are colliding, and it’s the resulting conflict that brings so much entertainment to the ride. Remember, as a story teller, conflict is always your best friend!

Genre: Indie Drama
Premise: A man must deal with day to day life while fighting his crippling sex addiction.
About: This is the next project for rising star Michael Fassbender, who was said to have had the inside track to star in the new Total Recall remake, although now that role looks to have gone to Colin Farrell. The Inglorious Basterds vet has a role in the upcoming X-Men movie, and is said to have a part in the new Hobbit films, though I’m not sure what that part would be. The director and co-writer, Steve McQueen, is also a rising star who’s constantly looking to push the film medium. Many of his early films were made to be projected onto three walls instead of one. His style is very minimalist. His last film, “Hunger,” about Irish hunger striker Bobby Sands, was well-received. His co-writer, Abi Morgan, is a successful TV writer who has recently segued into features.
Writers: Steve McQueen and Abi Morgan
Details: 119 pages, June 28th, 2010 draft (This is an early draft of the script. The situations, characters, and plot may change significantly by the time the film is released. This is not a definitive statement about the project, but rather an analysis of this unique draft as it pertains to the craft of screenwriting).

Indie movie scripts are kind of like Indian food. They’re either the best meal you’ve ever had or a horrible adventure that puts you in the bathroom all night. Okay, well, maybe that’s not the best analogy. But reading indie scripts always feels like a gamble to me. Before I open them I’m constantly saying to myself, “Please don’t be a pointless wandering character study where nothing happens. Please don’t be a pointless wandering character study where nothing happens.”

The big issue is that most of them tend to lack any drama, and it’s often hard to tell if it’s because the writer doesn’t know how to write or because they don’t believe in the conventions of artificially constructed conflict. There’s a lot of “real life is boring” as a rationalization for why 30 pages can go by with nothing happening. There’s definitely an audience for this, and the mumblecore movement proves it, but my feeling is that if you’re going to sit an audience down for a couple of hours, make something happen onscreen. We want to see some drama.

So, does Shame fall into that aforementioned category? Or does it rise above and become an interesting indie story?

Brandon is in his late-20s. By the way people treat him, we assume he’s good looking, but we never actually know because for some reason McQueen and Morgan keep that information a secret, limiting his description to his age. This was my first uncomfortable moment with the script.  It seems like in a movie about sex addiction, what the protagonist looks like, whether he’s ugly or handsome, would be an incredibly important detail to the story.  But I digress.

We follow Brandon through his mundane daily life, going to work, mulling through the streets, chilling at his apartment. McQueen’s minimalist tendencies are on full display here, as we rarely hear anyone even speak. And when someone does speak, it tends to be irrelevant to the story. It’s just people talking like they’d talk in real life, in chopped off phrases and random observations. On the one hand it’s frustrating but on the other, it creates a distance between you and the story that strangely helps you understand Brandon’s distant character better.

Eventually David’s sister, Sissy, arrives at his apartment, needing to stay for awhile. The two have a friendly if strange relationship, arguing often about petty things and resorting back to childlike tendencies such as calling each other names and tickle fights.

But the real issue here is that Sissy is intruding on Brandon’s secret. You see, Brandon is a sex addict. He goes to the bathroom at work any chance he gets in order to masturbate. He fills up his days with internet porn. The graphic outline of a female body on a shampoo bottle can get him off.

Alone, he can feed this addiction. But with his sister there, it starts putting undo pressure on this shameful side of him, which begins manifesting itself in his day to day life.

Eventually he meets Marianne, a new assistant at work. In a way, he sees her as his salvation. If he can find a way to have a normal relationship with a woman, maybe he can finally overcome these urges. However, like a lot of the script, it’s hard to get a feel for their relationship. Words are barely uttered between the two, giving us no insight into their characters. Again, I think it’s supposed to feel more like real life, but instead, the characters just feel thin.  I’m not looking for, “My dad died when I was six so I moved in with my grandparents and then got cancer at 13…” but how people talk and what people say and even a simple opinion here or there is what brings characters alive.  Without that, we don’t know these people.

Anyway, Brandon starts living this double life where he’s dating Marianne yet satisfying his insatiable sexual appetite with anyone else he can find. His sister is digging further and further into his condo, forcing Brandon to stay out later and later. Will Brandon overcome his sexual addition in time to save his relationship with Marianne or become a victim of it? “Shame” keeps you guessing til the end. 

If you’ve been paying attention, you probably already know my reaction to this. “Shame” is unapologetically minimalist. It’s indie to indie extreme. And like I mentioned at the beginning, I just don’t respond to that.

There were so many opportunities for conflict and drama here that were avoided, I couldn’t help but feel frustrated. For example, there’s a subplot at work where Brandon’s been accumulating a lot of porn on his computer. He then comes to work one day to find out his computer has gone in for repair. They have to go through the hard drive and clean out some viruses.

This would appear to be the setup for a great dramatic sequence. How does he get the computer back before they find the porn? The stakes are pretty high as well. He might end up losing his job. But a few scenes later, the problem resolves itself. Brandon doesn’t have to do anything. Again, this may be how it happens in real life, but can’t we all agree that watching our protagonist try to solve a problem is way more interesting than it simply getting fixed on its own?

I think the most frustrating subplot of the script, however, is the sister Sissy. (Sorta spoiler) A ton of emphasis is put on this weird relationship between the two that’s full of tension and flirting and unfinished business. Coupled with Brandon’s uncontrollable sexual urges, it seems like 70 pages is all leading up to something happening between the two. And yet, it never does, making you wonder if the sister should’ve ever been introduced into the story in the first place.

I will concede that the last 30 pages pick up considerably. We watch Brandon’s addiction spiral out of control and to the writers’ credit, I don’t think it would’ve had quite the same punch if the script hadn’t been such the slow burn that it was.

But in the end, I think I have a different philosophy on telling stories than McQueen and Morgan. They wanted to convey real life. I wanted the drama that only a good fictional story can provide. I’m guessing some of you will really hate this and some of you will really like it. If you enjoy Soderbergh’s experimental films like Bubble and Keane (which he produced) or any Mumblecore films, you should give this a shot. But if you like a little more drama for your buck, like me, my advice is to pass.

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

What I learned: The porn-at-work storyline really bothered me because you never want your protaginist’s problems to just solve themselves. It’s boring and feels like a cheat. The audience WANTS to see your character try to solve his/her problems. That’s what they come to watch. The character may not succeed. But you at least have to show them trying.

Genre: Horror
Premise: A group of 20-something’s find themselves out in the middle of the forest with dead bodies everywhere and no memory of how they got there.
About: This a script from the ’0-SIX Black List. It received SIX votes. And today is the twenty-SIXTH. Get it? 666. Hey, Halloween’s coming up. Work with me. In addition to its Black List pedigree, the script also landed on the 2009 “Blood List” which is an unofficial list of the best horror scripts. The writers, Eddie and Chris Borey, recently got a gig to rewrite the Japanese horror film, “The Neighbor Number 13,” about a boy who becomes psychologically disturbed after an extreme case of bullying. That picture will be helmed by Final Destination director James Wong.
Writers: Eddie Borey and Chris Borey
Details: 98 pages (This is an early draft of the script. The situations, characters, and plot may change significantly by the time the film is released. This is not a definitive statement about the project, but rather an analysis of this unique draft as it pertains to the craft of screenwriting).

Sometimes when I’m trying to decide what to review, I poke inside a handful of scripts, giving each a couple of pages. This isn’t some universal approach I’m trying to endorse. I’m merely performing a quick preview to see if I’ll like something. Most of the time there isn’t enough information to make a surefire decision, but scripts that start strong right off the bat definitely have an advantage. Open Grave was one of those scripts.  I was onboard halfway through the first page.

The story starts out with a guy named John stuck in a pit with no memory of how he got there. This is not an ordinary pit. It’s a pit full of gooey mangled tangled bodies. Some of them are decomposed. Others are fresh. Many of them have a hole in the forehead. Which is a curious detail since John finds that he is holding a gun.

For those of you who have also been in this situation, you know it can be pretty harrowing. Pits of dead bodies are particularly hard to get out of.  And while John’s trying to pull it all together, he sees a young Asian woman (who we’ll know as “Brown Eyes”) peer over the pit. He screams for help but she’s either too scared or too busy to comply.

Meanwhile there’s a cabin full of fellow amnesiacs nearby who are also trying to figure out what the hell is going on. There’s Logan, a take-no-prisoners dickhead. There’s the neurotic obsessive babbling Michael. There’s the caring Sharon. There’s the mysterious Nathan. And, of course, Brown Eyes, who seems to know the most out of everyone but can’t communicate it since she doesn’t speak English.

And to really add to the suckage. No internet.

When they hear John yelling from the pit, the group is split on what to do. The lone man in a pit full of dead people has a gun. Aren’t many convincing arguments to save the guy. But while everyone else goes back to the cabin, Brown Eyes drops a ladder down for John and he crawls out.

John joins the group and after a lot of infighting and accusations, they decide they have to work together to figure out what they’re doing here and what’s going on. So they begin exploring the surrounding forest to get a lay of the land and immediately run into some compounds. These metal shacks look like they’ve been built recently. The question is for what.

We find out pretty quickly as inside one of them, they find a woman tied up. Unfortauntely she’s one step down from the crazy homeless people you see on Lincoln Boulevard, deliriously babbling something about the number 18 (or any combination of numbers that add up to it). They notice a surveillance camera in the shack. Someone’s been watching this woman. What the hell is going on??

Madness descends as each of the characters begins to suspect one another as the responsible party for the dead bodies and makeshift compounds. Even John starts to wonder if he’s responsible. All of this will lead to the most pressing question of all: What in the world is going on out here in this forest, and how did they all get involved?

Open Grave starts out great. But maybe a little too great.  Like I’ve pointed out before, a good concept gets you through the first act, but after that, it’s up to you to tell a story. Jerry Seinfeld used to say that whenever he went out on stage, he could say anything he wanted for the first five minutes and people would laugh because he was Jerry Seinfeld. But after that, after the thrill of seeing Jerry Seinfeld dies out, he has to start being funny or he’s dead. Same idea with a great concept. It makes the reader pay attention.  But at some point, you need to start telling a compelling story.

I think my biggest problem with Open Grave is that the emerging storyline is more shock than substance. There’s some great imagery here, such as this old woman tied up in a shack with a bucket of her own waste placed underneath her. Gross, eerie, scary. But in the end she’s no more than a scare-tactic, someone whose involvement has very little to do with the actual plot, and more to do with freaking out the audience.

This approach is epitomized by a scene at the midpoint where Brown Eyes looks over and sees a group of small kids eating the body of a dead man. It’s a wonderfully spooky image. But when she tries to point it out to the others, the kids have turned into dogs. This visual, while arresting, has nothing to do with the plot at all. It’s simply there because it’s freaky.

Contrast this with one of my favorite scary movies of all time, The Others. (This is a major spoiler if you haven’t seen the film) One of the freakiest images you’ve ever seen has Nicole Kidman’s character walking in on her daughter, her back turned to us, dressed in a wedding dress, singing to herself. Kidman approaches her and the daughter turns around, only to have an old woman’s face with milky white eyes, speaking to Kidman in her daughter’s voice. It’s horrifying. But it’s also perfectly logical within the context of the story. The old woman turns out to be the medium who’s searching the house for ghosts for the current tenants, who we realize were the “ghosts” our characters had been seeing all along.

This leads us to the explanation for our characters predicament in Open Grave, which unfortunately isn’t very original, and a lot of that had to do with the writers writing themselves into a hole, no pun intended. If you wanted all of this craziness to make sense, it was really the only direction you could go. And I think the reader senses that, which is why they’re not surprised when it’s revealed.

Now the script does bring into play one of those things that screenwriting teachers will tell you never to use because of its overuse – amnesia. But I thought the collective amnesia was one of the better parts of the script and was the key element that made the opening work so well. I would’ve liked it to have been better explained, but it worked for me here.

In the end, I liked this more than a similar script I read a few weeks back – Vanishing On 7th Street. And if you’re a fan of Jacob’s Ladder or those types of freaky nonsensical imagery type films, then you should check this out. You might like it. It just didn’t come together for me.

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

What I learned: One of the mistakes we often make when writing complicated plots is patting ourselves on the back just for tying everything together at the end.  Weaving multiple mysteries, subplots, and chracters into a cohesive whole is actually one of the hardest things to do when telling a story.  Unfortuanately it’s also expected.  It’s not unlike all the hard work (lighting, make-up, focus, camera movement, blocking) that goes into just putting a good-looking shot together. But nobody in the audience cares about that because it’s expected.  So just tying all the pieces together so they make sense at the end isn’t enough.  You have to then look at your story from the reader’s perspective. Have you satisfied them? Have you surprised them, tricked them, made them think? That’s the ultimate goal. Once you get to the finish line, work on making the finish line great.