A funny thing happens when you start reading a lot of scripts. You become a little jaded. Your standards begin to inch up. That initial giddiness of reading a future piece of celluloid wears off. Is that what’s happened to Roger? Or has the material simply not been up to snuff lately? While you ponder that, I’ll ready my next installment of The Reader Top 25. Expect that around 6am Pacific Time. Also, expect a couple of reviews from the newly announced winners of the Nicholl Fellowship later this week. I know you guys are wondering what your scripts lost out to. Stay tuned and you’ll find out. And now, Roger’s review for “God Is A Bullet:”
Genre: Thriller
Premise: A policeman teams up with an ex-cult member to find his missing daughter.
About: Nick Cassavetes wrote this draft of the script. However, Ehren Kruger (writer of Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen) is set to take on the latest rewrite. The rights to the book were snapped up by Bold And The Beautiful head writer Bradley Bell, who will produce alongside partner Daniel Bobker. Kruger is also responsible for penning Torso, which will be shot by David Fincher.
Writers: Nick Cassavetes (The Notebook, My Sister’s Keeper, Alpha Dog, John Q). Based on a novel by Boston Teran.
Warning: This script ain’t pretty. You’ll probably get sick on the 2nd page when one of our heroes, Case, is shoved into the skinned torso of a cow. I don’t think my co-writer even made it that far. (“I started reading the first page and it was so dark I stopped.”) But that’s just a flashback, and this story has a lot of ‘em.
Supposedly, Teran’s life remains in danger because it’s purported that “God is a Bullet” is based on fact. If it is, color me scared shitless.
Who is Boston Teran?
It’s a name comprised of two cities, which is a tip-off that it’s probably a pseudonym (like Reno Vegas, or Jerusalem London). Rumor-mill palaver says it’s the nom de plume for a successful mystery author. All I know about the guy (or gal, as some people confess) is that his/her’s latest manuscript, entitled “The Creed of Violence” was leaked to Hollywood producers before a publishing contract was even signed and supposedly everyone went apeshit in a war to buy it.
Although people who have read ARCs of that novel say it rocks (and at the time of this writing it’s been out for a week or so), “God is a Bullet” is Teran’s first novel and as a screenplay I don’t feel like there’s any restraint shown in its quest to be noir.
It’s certainly hardboiled, but it’s so pervertedly earnest and over-the-top I got lost in its maze of mass murder and gang-rape. I have to admit, it’s a strange read indeed when the guy who made the “The Notebook” and “My Sister’s Keeper” achieves a Takashi Miike level of depravity.
It’s like the story hits noir, isn’t satisfied, and buries the needle until it reaches Japanese shock horror.
Which, in this case, isn’t a good thing. After last week, I tried to choose something that wasn’t horror, but dammit, horror keeps choosing me.
What, exactly, is noir?
It depends who you ask. Authors and filmmakers seem to be divided on the subject. Paul Schrader says it’s not a genre, that it’s defined by tone and mood. He also says the film noir cycle starts with 1941’s “Maltese Falcon” and ends in 1958 with “Touch of Evil”.
Which this reviewer thinks is bullshit, because people are still making film noir today. (“The Dark Knight”, anyone?) I’m a student in the school that believes noir is a genre unto itself, which can be melded to other genres, defined by the quest for personal redemption against the atmosphere of a sophisticated moral darkness.
It’s more than atmosphere.
Noir is conflict.
Noir is being trapped in Hell, and trying to claw your way out.
And I think noir characters that try to return to the light oughta have a code they live by. If not, then fucking anything goes with no regards for consequence, and “God is a Bullet” has a protagonist that doesn’t so much throw his code out the window, but never had one to begin with.
What’s the play, Rog?
A satanic Manson-like cult called The Left Hand of Darkness kidnap Gabi Hightower after they torture, rape and murder her mother and step-father. Yes, it’s particularly gruesome and the first ten pages are a force of nature.
Bob Hightower is Gabi’s cop father, and he teams up with Case Hardin, an ex-junkie and ex-cult member who lives in a Hollywood halfway house. Case is easily my favorite character, a gal so wounded and consumed with her quest for redemption she reads like a twisted Sarah Connor on meth-amphetamines.
Case escaped Cyrus’ clutches (the leader of the cult) and feels compelled to help Bob find his daughter after she hears about the murders on the news. The ones who walk on the Left-Handed Path are so elusive Case knows that she is the only one who can help. And we understand that this is her destiny, her end-game.
Her redemption.
Cyrus is a sick fuck. He makes “life sculptures” out of human beings and likes to pin Tarot cards to the corpses he leaves behind. He indoctrinates converts with drugs, gang-rape (there’s so much gang-rape in this script it becomes a motif), and nasty psycho-sexual satanic rituals.
Bob’s daughter, Gabi, is a fourteen-year old girl, and she experiences all of this.
Multiple times.
And you can’t help but wonder if Bob should put a bullet in his daughter’s head if he and Case ever rescue her.
Case takes Bob to the Ferryman, Hell’s doorman. Most of his limbs have been replaced by prosthetics. “As he comes hitching forward, he’s like some biomechanical entity.” The Ferryman supplies Case and Bob with not only artillery and tattoos to transform Bob from one of society’s “sheep” to an outlaw So-Cal “wolf”, but with information concerning Cyrus’ whereabouts.
Cyrus is on rat patrol, working “the border between Calexico and Yuma, picking up drugs brought across the line by wetback mules”. Presumably, this is how he funds his Charlie Manson lifestyle. And with this information, Bob and Case are off to the border to hunt cultists.
Surely there’s some double-dealing and bad mojo along the way, right?
Yep, and this is where the script feels not only pedestrian, but excessive. Most noir stories have some upper crust citizens who turn out to be corrupt, perverted, or just morally evil. In fact, I think the strength of good noir is exploring the concept of corruption, of evil.
And this is where “God is a Bullet” slaps you in the face, kicks you in the balls, and ejaculates in your hair while telling you that these characters are so stained they’ve crossed over into the realm of caricature.
I wanted to burn all of my clothes and scour my skin with bleach after I read this script.
Enter John Lee and Maureen Bacon. John Lee’s the Sheriff of Clay County, California, and Maureen is a wealthy business owner. This is where the plot gets convoluted.
Sam (Gabi’s stepfather, the guy who got his penis cut off in the first few pages?) was fucking Maureen. John Lee likes young boys, but he does not like Sam fucking his wife. So John Lee gets Cyrus and his gang to kill Sam, except things spin out of control when Cyrus and his “war children” hump everything to death and claim Gabi as their new toy.
Who woulda thought that a FUCKING PSYCHOPATH CULT LEADER would have caused so many problems, huh?
Things get even more snarled when we discover that John Lee, and Gabi’s grandfather, Arthur (Maureen’s business partner), have ties to Cyrus that go all the way to the “Furnace Creek Cult Murders”. Apparently, Cyrus’ pseudo-mother owned some fertile Clay County real-estate that these upper crust citizens wanted. So Cyrus kills this woman and Arthur arranged it so the land became his.
All this just proves my theory that the only people who can make me give two fucks about real-estate are Raymond Chandler, Charlie Huston, and James Ellroy.
With the Bacons, you have a woman who likes to have affairs and a man who likes to have sex with boys. There’s something to the dysfunction that makes it feel like the writer is trying too hard. It’s too much…whenever you’re writing about moral darkness, you have to have a counterpoint.
There has to be light.
A drop of light makes the darkness seem blacker. You have to have a point of reference, of comparison. You keep piling on the fetishes and it ruins everything.
The good people that lurk in the background, that live in the community, are not explored. This is only the representation of light, or good, and they are depicted (to use cult-speak) as “sheep”.
Our heroes are so stained they grapple with moments of extreme existential horror and at moments, give in to it. Bob goes from desk-pushing pussy to kill-em-all commando like the writer flipped an abrupt magical switch, and it doesn’t feel like a journey, but a cop-out.
So what happens?
Somewhere in the middle, I disconnected completely from the story. It was for a variety of reasons, but plot-wise, I feel like the screenwriter wrote all of our characters into a corner.
Cyrus is the type of villain that always has the upper hand. Case concocts a plan to hit him in his wallet (and I kept asking myself, does this guy even care about money?) by double-crossing his main drug guy and stealing the money. And they’re going to exchange the money for the kid? It doesn’t feel right. Cyrus has spent his whole life living off the grid, surely he has resources stocked up. He’s toted as the big bad wolf, the ultimate hunter. And our heroes gain the upper-hand by forcing an old-fashioned “money for the hostage” exchange?
I don’t think so. If Cyrus is really smart, he’d just kill the kid. Hunt down Case and Bob. I mean, he sends one of his “war children” to hurl a rattle-snake that’s been loaded with speed at Bob. It’s an absurd scene, but it conveys that Cyrus can strike at any moment, in any way he wants.
Instead, they meet him, they give him the money, and he points them on their way. A van full of his “war children” kick Gabi out, and let them go. Only to start hunting them at night fall. Um, again, they could have just killed Case and Bob right there.
But anyways, this hunt sort of turns into a sunburnt Route 66 So-Cal Road Warrior, and this perked my interest. Yet, after it ended, I still wanted to shoot myself in the face.
To use a noir pantheon analogy, “God is a Bullet” is more perverted Ross Macdonald than classy Raymond Chandler.
[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[xx] barely kept my interest
[ ] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: As I read this script, I got the sense that “God is a Bullet” is the type of novel you read to be blown away by the language, the description and prose-poetry of the thing. So much so that you understand that the author spent most of his energy on the poetry than on the story and plot. A script like “Big Hole” pulls off the Cormac McCarthy prosaic descriptions because it knows when to use it, and when not to. But this script is a good example of cryptic hipster dialogue gone overboard. It attains self-parody. Some lines work, and when they do, it’s pretty cool. But when they don’t, they really fucking don’t.
Roger back tomorrow!
Genre: Television Sci-Fi
Premise: An alien race arrives at our planet unexpectedly. Although their intentions appear to be peaceful, they may have more in store for us than we know.
About: The original V series debuted in 1984. A reimagining has been talked about for years. Sci-Fi happy ABC finally pulled the trigger resulting in the show’s debut this Tuesday. There has been some waffling all year about how the show was to be presented. At first what was going to be a complete season has turned into a four-episode mini-series. The mini-series approach is gaining favor in the TV business as it provides the best for both worlds. If the show is a failure, the station can celebrate the fact that they didn’t invest much into it. If it takes off, they simply turn it into a series. However, I’m not sure how you prepare a fourth episode ending that both ends the series in a satisfying way, yet also leaves it open for another 150 episodes. — Scott Peters has been a staple in sci-fi television for years. He’s written for The Outer Limits, The Sarah Conner Chronicles, The 4400, and even The Highlander.
Writer: Scott Peters
Every week I get a handful of e-mails asking me why I don’t review TV scripts. I understand where you’re coming from. To be successful in this business, you must know how to jump back and forth between the two mediums. Not to mention the TV landscape is much different than it used to be. Advancements in technology have made some of the top shows indistinguishable, production-wise, from their film counterparts. Even movie stars, who used to shun the boob tube, regularly drop in for cameos and juicy parts. In short, TV has earned a lot of respect. The simple truth is I’m not as plugged into that world as I am features. I don’t really know what pilots are shooting or who has the latest episode of Mad Men. I just don’t follow it that closely. But, you know, if the demand is strong enough, I may make it a priority. It’s up to you. Do you want to see more TV? Make yourself heard in the comments section.
The reason I picked V as my first television script was because it’s about an alien invasion, and the sci-fi nerd in me just couldn’t resist. I’ve already documented my feelings about alien invasion flicks in the past. To summarize, no alien invasion story can ever live up to the excitement the viewer feels leading up to the actual invasion. The height of these films is always what walks out of that ship because it answers the two most interesting questions: What will they look like? and What do they want? The movies never regain that level of excitement no matter how hard they try.
Yet that’s exactly what V is about: Everything that happens *after* contact. The people, the politics, the relationships, the trials and tribulations of merging two different worlds. V seems almost defiant in how much it de-stresses the spectacle that is the alien’s arrival. Taking a page from District 9 (which may have taken a page from V), the series wants to ponder the question, what would it really be like if aliens came to our planet?
We do spend *a little* time on earth before our alien buddies show up though, meeting a handful of characters in a few pages time. Erika is an FBI counter-terrorism agent who doubles as a single mom, trying to keep the reigns on her renegade teenage son, Tyler. Father Jack is a priest whose church is about to close down after 57 years due to low attendance. The seemingly ordinary Ryan is about to pop the question to his wife. Chad Decker is an Anderson Cooper wannabe, desperately searching for a way into the upper tier of the news world. All of these people’s lives are put on hold, however, when the big ships arrive.
Although we focus on Los Angeles, 2-mile wide ships are appearing over every major city in the world. This is the first sign of trouble for the planet, and the first sign of trouble for the script itself. Clearly, this is a two-hour pilot smushed inside a one hour shell. Whether it was budget concerns or caution that dictated this choice, the lean one-hour running time gives us a completely unrealistic reaction to the aliens arriving. I mean just imagine for a second a large alien spaceship arriving over your city. Could you sum yours and everyone else’s reaction in 60 seconds?
Unfortunately, that’s what V is forced to do. And in one of the worst decisions of the show’s early career, they decide to allocate 10 seconds of that time to two stoners arguing about the similarities between this and Independence Day. Although it’s supposed to be “funny”, the dated reference not only falls flat, it completely undermines every ounce of fear we have about the aliens arriving. I’m not going to lie to you. This single misstep made me lose most of my confidence in the show. If the person in charge of the series was making this big of a miscalculation less than 10 minutes into the pilot, what other dumb ideas did he have in store for us?
Unfortunately, there was more shitty writing to follow. Tyler (the teenage son) spends half the pilot arguing with his “funny” sidekick, Bryce, about how uncool they are. If the title “V” seemed too obscure, the network could’ve easily renamed it “Bryce and Tyler Talk About How Uncool They Are.” I’m all for clearly establishing characters, but there’s “we got it”, followed by, “you’re hitting me over the head now,” followed by, “Okay, now you’re just being fucking obnoxious.” Peters takes the obnoxious route. This is like Screenwriting 101 stuff here.
Anyway, as you’ve probably seen in the promos, the bottom of the spaceship turns into a giant video screen, and a beautiful woman known as Anna, assures the people of earth that they come in peace. They’re just stopping by for a little fuel and then they’ll be on their way. In exchange, they’ll share their knowledge with us, advancing many of our technologies in the process.
In the meantime, a clumsily executed sub-plot is dumped on us whereby Erika decides to look into a terrorist cell. Yeah because when aliens land, the FBI’s going to be concerned about a couple of terrorists. That’s where I’d assign my agents if I were in charge.
While Erika’s off ignoring that giant ship in the sky, Anna, the alien leader, wants to hold a press conference. She hand-picks our Anderson Cooper wannabe, Chad, yet seconds before the worldwide interview, Anna makes it clear that she expects Chad to ask questions that will paint the aliens “in a positive light.” Chad tries to put up a fight but Anna says the interview is cancelled unless he follows the rules. The lure of becoming an international news star ends up taking precedence over silly journalism ethics, but not without the requisite close-up of Chad looking very distraught over the decision.
Back in Erka’s world, she’s following badly laid out clues that lead to the phantom terrorist cell. Everything about the investigation feels fake, as if the writer knows where he wants to be, but could care less how he gets there. When we do find this “cell,” it’s actually a secret meeting. And whatever these people are meeting about, it has nothing to do with terrorism, at least not in the traditional sense. (***spoiler***) Let’s just say this may not have been our interplanetary neighbors’ first visit.
As I mentioned earlier, this is a two hour pilot crammed into sixty minutes. Whether that’s a good enough excuse for all its problems, I’ll reserve judgment. Actually, no. Judgment needs to be passed here. The V pilot moves too fast, imbued with an artificiality on top of a situation that’s already artifiicial. Questionable humor and lazily plotted storylines don’t help things. It’s a big red flag when in a pilot, the only episode in a series where the production actually has plenty of time, that so many sloppy writing mistakes are made.
Although this isn’t the V I was hoping for, I’m willing to hang with it for its four episode “run” to see if it gets better. But if this writing is indicative of the rest of the series, I’m not holding my breath.
[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[x] barely kept my interest
[ ] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: Erika’s sub-plot about chasing the terrorist cell never rang true. The reason given for it is that she believes the terrorist cell plans to blow up one of the ships. Erika’s supposedly worried that if that happens, the aliens will consider it an attack by our entire planet. This is such sloppy logic it actually hurts my brain. Amidst the arrival of an unknown potentially devastatingly harmful alien race, you’re worried about three terrorists with a stash of cherry bombs? The point is, you could tell Peters himself didn’t believe in what he was writing. It was just a means to get Erika to the final scene where the big surprise reveal occurs. This is usually an error I see beginning writers make, not professionals. You need to put 100% into every single sub-plot. Don’t half ass it. Of course you want to write the big fun revelation scene. But if you neglect all the legwork it takes to get there, you’ll have lost your audience before the moment arrives. The audience can smell your half-assedness a mile away. It’s just like anything in life. People know when you’re not giving your all.
Genre: Horror/Action/Thriller
Premise: (from IMDB) In the year 2019, a plague has transformed most every human into vampires. Faced with a dwindling blood supply, the fractured dominant race plots their survival; meanwhile, a researcher works with a covert band of vampires on a way to save humankind.
About: Michael and Peter Spierig are Australian-born brothers who first came onto the scene with a small Australian zombie film called, “Undead.” Co-writer/Co-director Michael has gone on record as saying when he started Daybreakers, he had never heard of Twilight, and became confused when t-shirts started popping up promoting “Edward the Vampire,” as he wondered how anyone had heard of his film (Edward is the name of the main character in both Twilight and Daybreakers). Lionsgate is said to be very high on the film, which is why they’re having screenings a full three months before its release. That’s pretty rare for the control freaks at the studios. Ethan Hawke was reluctant to join onto a vampire flick at first, but his agent convinced him to read the script and once he did, he fell in love. The rest, they say, is history.
Writers: Michael and Peter Spierig
Yeeeeeeeehaaawwwwwwwwwwww! Vampires! I love vampires. I especially love really good-looking badly directed marginally acted vampires. Those are my favorite vampires of all. I’m not sure when it was determined that acting really constipated for 90 minutes passed as a good vampire performance, but there are millions of teenage girls who apparently think it does! Whenever the obligatory vampire craze cycles back into Hollywood, I hold large parties where we all dress like famous vampires. I usually choose Count Chocula, which pretty much sums up my thoughts on the genre.
Okay so yes, I’m not the biggest fan of vampires. In fact, there are only two vampire movies I’ve ever enjoyed: The Lost Boys and last year’s wonderfully moody Let The Right One In (my favorite film of 2008). As you can see, both of them were untraditional, which proves that while I have my preferences, I’ll give any genre a chance if a writer can come up with a unique enough angle.
Daybreakers seems to have tapped into that requirement, as the trailer for the film feels more like a Matrix prequel than a vampire film. The look alone has me mentally pre-ordering tickets for January’s release. That and I seem to have some sort of man crush on Ethan Hawke. He’s got bad teeth, spouts clumsy philosophy, and is consistently annoying, yet strangely, I want to see everything he’s in. He’s like the anti-Orlando Bloom. So when Halloween Horror Week was shaping up, this script shot to the top of the list, which is why I’m concluding this wonderful week with it.
Daybreakers is sort of a Matrix/Blade hybrid. Except it’s not really an action film. There’s a little more thought involved here. Sometimes that gets the script into trouble (I found myself unclear about a couple of things), but for the most part the approach serves the script well.
It’s roughly ten years from today and the world population is almost exclusively vampires. Everything’s been retrofitted to handle this new reality. There are sidewalks underneath our normal sidewalks so that vampires can walk around during the day. Car windows aren’t just tinted out. They’re BLACKED out. Inside, a complex camera-LCD system allows drivers to see where they’re going. Humans are captured and harvested for their blood, kept alive so they can keep producing it. This definitely ain’t Kansas folks.
But things are looking bad for the vamps. There are so few humans actually left, that it’s estimated vampires will be out of blood within six months. Enter Ed Dalton, a blood doctor working at a pharmaceutical company who’s trying to come up with a blood substitute. Ed has a soft spot for humans, and hopes that if he can find this substitute in time, vampires won’t need to kill humans anymore. Charles Bromley, the suspiciously helpful vampire CEO of the company, seems to be in full support of Ed’s research. But Ed learns that while a blood substitute is definitely desired, Charles and his rich ilk will never give up the real thing. Humans will still die. The killing won’t end.
Ed soon runs into a renegade band of humans led by Audrey – so hot she could make a vampire’s blood boil. Audrey and her crew have way better ideas than a silly blood substitute. They’ve actually seen a vampire “cured” (turned back into a human) and they believe, with Ed’s help, they can bottle this cure, and turn all the vampires in the world back into humans.
Since cavorting with humans is considered a big no-no, if Ed is found hanging out with these bloodbags, he’ll surely be killed. So it’s a big gamble. But he decides to take the chance, and sets up shop in an old winery, where he begins his experiments. Eventually Bromley sends Ed’s own vampire brother after him, and it’s a race to finish the cure before they’re snuffed out and massacred.
Daybreakers is a high-concept idea that admittedly requires a bit of a leap to buy into. A world where vampires walk around freely like humans do today? Vampire politics? Blood-spiked cappuccinos? When we see news clips pop up saying things like, “China halts all blood exports,” it’s definitely something you’re either going to be onboard with or you’re not. But the thing is, the Spierig brothers have created such a detailed well-imagined universe here, that buying into it isn’t as hard as the concept might lead you to believe. I loved the underground walkways and the blacked out cars, and how the vampires have created sun protection suits, allowing them to go out in the middle of the day if they need to. It comes at the vampire world from more of a technical angle, which for me personally, is more interesting than whether Bella gets eaten by a werewolf or a vampire.
The script does have a few clogged arteries. We’re introduced to a man named Elvis, part of Audrey’s crew, who is the original “cured” vampire. However the explanation of how he was cured is either vague or lazy, cause I couldn’t for the life of me figure it out, even after reading it three times. He supposedly crashed his vampire protected car and was shot out into the daylight (the shot is in the trailer). Usually when a vampire in this world hits daylight, he bursts into flames. Except for Elvis, it turns him human again.
Uhhh, pardon me but…what?
Because bottling this event into a cure is such a huge part of the plot, it bothered me that a coherent explanation for why this particular vampire changed back was never given.
Other than that, though, the script really moves. It’s essentially a pot-boiling thriller. The good guys have to find the cure before the bad guys find them. There’s a few battles, a couple of nice surprises, and the Spierigs did a nice job intertwining all the characters and making their plights more personal (i.e. It wasn’t just anyone who was trying to bring Ed down. It was his own brother). I also liked the way it ended. I won’t tell you which side succeeds, but I will say that the victory was clever. Daybreakers is a fun read, which looks to have been made even better by the directors’ vision.
Could this be the third vampire movie that I like? I guess we’ll have to wait until January to find out.
[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[ ] barely kept my interest
[x] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: Speed up those deadlines people! In the script, the deadline is 6 months before vampires run out of blood. But if you’ll notice in the trailer below, it’s been changed to 1 month. By speeding up that “ticking time bomb,” everything in the script becomes more urgent. Six months is forever. It feels distant, beatable. One month is just around the corner. Psychologically, it feels like it’s bearing down on us, impossible to overcome. If it works for your story, always try to move your ticking time bombs up. You’ll notice an immediate increase in the script’s momentum.
HAPPY HALLOWEEN EVERYONE!
Roger’s back for his second Halloween Horror Week review since, well, let’s be honest, he understands this genre a lot better than I do. But before we get to this werewolf tale, a lot of you are probably wondering what the hell happened to the Reader Top 25 List. After some deliberation, I decided I didn’t want the list to get lost in the midst of this week’s horror theme and the Logline Contest. For that reason, I’ve moved it to next week, starting Monday. Bare with me and hang tight. It’ll be worth the wait. :)
Genre: Horror
Premise: When Sheriff George Waggner is killed, his son returns to Talbot, West Virginia to discover that the small town has become victim to a rash of brutal murders. The investigation points to the nomadic motorcycle gang that has set-up camp just outside of town, and the arrival of werewolf hunter Noah Packard confirms that the bikers may be more than they claim to be.
About: I don’t know much about the former status of this spec, other than that it was written by the prolific Scott Rosenberg. His first produced script was his fourteenth, “Things to Do in Denver When You’re Dead”. Other credits include “Con Air”, “Armageddon”, “Beautiful Girls” and “High Fidelity” among others. It’s said that his stuff rarely makes it to the screen preserved, and his specs “Johnny Diamond” and “Down and Under” seem to be highly praised around the board.
Writer: Scott Rosenberg
Werewolves.
A quintessential horror staple and archetype, one of the original Universal monsters that’s sadly been co-opted by the modern demand for the Vampire and the Zombie. The interest for the Vampire seems to come and go in cycles, because in the 90’s many popular authors called for a moratorium on all vampire fiction, but now we’re mired in a popular culture that worships at the altar of Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight saga, the Showtime juggernaut “True Blood”, and the CW’s lackluster “The Vampire Diaries”. And just when you think the supply for the Zombie has already flooded the market, some new George Romero flick or the promise of an adaptation of Max Brooks’ “World War Z” proves that the supply is simply catering to demand and the eternal torch of fan-service.
If “Twilight” penetrating the velvety brain-meats of teenage girls was enough to resurrect the Vampire from movie purgatory, could the arrival of Meyer’s “New Moon” in the cinematic lunar cycle usher in a new pop-culture Werewolf Age? Will the same teenage girls be interested in Joe Johnston’s “The Wolfman” remake, or will they have to be pulled by the hand by their diamond-dead boyfriends? For lovers of the lycanthrope, it’s a good question, and I suppose we’ll find out in the upcoming months, but for now, let’s turn back the page and take a look at a Scott Rosenberg shapeshifter spec from the 90’s.
“Bad Moon Rising” opens up with an Avram Davidson quote, Steppenwolf lyrics, and a 5 page sequence set in Vietnam. A wounded marine is hiding in a bunker from the VC, and a frosty marine comforts his hurt and frightened pal. It gets excruciatingly tense when the VC enter the bunker and the frosty marine changes into a wolf and protects the marine by tearing the limbs off the Vietnamese soldiers before disappearing into the jungle.
Twenty-three years later we’re at a biker rally in Tobaccoville, North Carolina and we meet The Lunar Cycles Motorcycle Club. At first glance, the gang reminds me of the nomadic vampire family in Kathryn Bigelow’s “Near Dark” (a film I hold close to my heart). The whole sequence also evokes “Easy Rider”, “The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test”, and “On the Road”. And no, I’m not being facetious or pretentious.
The gang is led by Coop, who is described as “a dash of Kerouac, a sprinkle of Manson, and 2 heaping tablespoons of the coolest guy in high school”. They’re a pretty big pack, but the notables are: Lobo, a ten-year old kid; Mighty Joe, an affable 300 pound mute; Inkslinger, the club’s tattoo artist; and Canvas, the Lunar Cycles’ very own illustrated man, whose flesh is an inked patchwork iconography of the pack’s origin and history.
At Mecklenberg Correctional Center, they pick up the wayward and troubled Locked-Down who has just been released from the slammer. Coop is tired of moving around so much and he wants the Lunar Cycles to settle for a while in Harpers Flats, a tract of land near Talbot, West Virginia, a biker friendly state. Problems arise when their arrival coincides with the mysterious mauling of Talbot’s Sheriff, George Waggner.
As you can tell, Rosenberg weaves in what must be ardor, or at the very least, appreciation, for Lon Chaney, Jr. and “The Wolf Man”. For you neophytes, Talbot is the surname for the original Wolf Man, and George Waggner is the director of said film. And just like in the older film, the innocent love interest for one of our protagonists is a gal named Gwen who works in an antique shop (but we’ll get to that in a second).
Pages 11-20 focus on my favorite character, Noah Packard. He smokes unfiltered Lucky’s, drinks undiluted coffee, and walks with a slight limp. When we meet him he’s at his own marriage ceremony, but when his pager goes off he leaves his weeping bride at the altar for more important business. Because he’s Dr. Packard of the Packard Institute of Lycanthropic Studies and Investigation and he has a grisly murder in Manhattan to investigate. In reality, the police detective hates his guts and thinks he’s a quack, until wolf-hair is discovered in the throat lacerations of the corpse during the autopsy.
Packard has an assistant named Ginny, but she’s quickly out of the picture when Columbia rescinds her internship when they find out he’s a “doctor” of “lycanthropic studies”. But I think the coolest character trait about Packard is that he is haunted by a figment of his imagination that’s named Maleva. “Remember the old Gypsy crone, from the Lon Chaney Jr. Wolfman movies played by Maria Ouspenskaya? This is her. And Noah Packard is the only one who can see her.”
Like Elvis playing a mentor to Clarence Worley in “True Romance”, or John Wayne as father figure to Jesse Custer in Garth Ennis’ “Preacher”, Maleva acts as ego and guilt-ridden conscience to Packard, and they have frequent conversations with each other. Unfortunately, after 10 pages with Packard, we’re told that we won’t be seeing him again for a while.
Because at page 20, we’re finally introduced to the main protagonist, Teddy Waggner. Estranged from his father, he escaped small-town life to pursue his dream of being an architect in Washington, D.C. Upon news of his father’s death, Teddy returns to Talbot to tend to his father’s house and possessions, and hopefully rekindle a flame with the girl he left behind, Gwen Croft.
But when teenagers and whole families begin showing up as mangled corpses, the townies assume Teddy will serve as interim Sheriff. He doesn’t argue with them. Predictably, we learn that Locked-Down is tormented with dreams of “ranging” (running free as a wolf, killing and eating anything that gets in your way) because he’s been in prison for so long.
Even his sister Dakota (who has just arrived from New York, connection?), a white-trash canine fatale, can’t control his nightly murder sprees. The town council, looking to kill the animal that must be responsible for these murders, employs a lecherous Canadian hunter named Abilene Triggs to lead the hunt. Meanwhile, tensions rise between the conservative town alderman (he does not like Warren Zevon’s “Werewolves of London”) and the merry prankster bikers, planting the seeds for the third-act finale.
We know it’s the third act when Packard arrives to Talbot, ready to kick some werewolf ass. By now Teddy has slept with Dakota (doggy-style), and the exchange of bodily fluids apparently gives him POV-style flashback visions of all the people Dakota murdered in New York, and now, Talbot. The town alderman puts together a mob of pitchfork wielding townies that attack Harpers Flats, and Coop goes off the deep end and assembles the pack for the mass murder of Talbot.
The finale is pretty fucking cool, as the townies and werewolves go to war. And let it be said that these werewolves are the half-man, half-wolf hybrids a la “The Wolf Man”. Sadly, page 112 is missing. And this sucks because page 112 is when the werewolves return to Harpers Flats, which Packard has booby-trapped with Bouncing Betties loaded with silver shrapnel. Apparently, lots of characters die on this page, but it’s alright, because we learn why Packard is so obsessed with werewolves.
The final scene with Teddy and Gwen makes no sense to me, but it gets points for the pure outlaw spirit of the thing.
Rosenberg is a guy I study religiously, and he’s been known to place himself in the “plot is for pussies” school of screenwriting. And in this manifestation of “Bad Moon Rising”, it shows. I think there are wandering structural issues and some freewheeling choices that hold the story back.
It feels too big to be a movie.
But to be fair, the characters are pretty great. Even the secondary characters are really interesting, so much so that you want to know more about them. But this kinda feels like an early draft in the sense that everyone seems to get a lot of screen-time, but I think the spotlight needs to be adjusted so the story has a sense of focus.
Case in point. Noah Packard is the type of character that can steal a whole movie. He deservedly needs a movie of his own, and compared to Teddy, he’s much more intriguing. According to the amount of pages that focus on Teddy and his journey, the message is that this story is about him. The only problem is, the whole time you keep wondering when we’re going to get back to Noah. And everything comes together in the end so that Noah and Teddy have to team-up, but the effect is that of a missed opportunity.
Thematically, I think there’s more weight to Noah’s story and his emotions. It’s simple: His story is just more interesting.
Whereas Teddy’s story feels conventional, and I dare say it, boring. It’s the typical “boy returns to small town to win back the one that got away” story that hurt Rosenberg’s television show, “October Road”. It’s not fresh and it plays flat, almost one-dimensional.
Teddy’s whole situation feels very passive, and the story suffers for it. I suppose if the father-son relationship was shown more, instead of told to us, it’d work better, but even the focus here competes with Teddy’s love story with Gwen.
Final verdict is that the roving cadence of “Bad Moon Rising” feels more novel-like (or the seedling for a pretty kick-ass HBO or Showtime television show) with its large cast of characters and sprawling tangents. For entertainment purposes, not a bad thing, but for the cinematic medium, this wolf-puppy needs a focus that’s not spread thin over so many back-stories and competing sources of conflict.
[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[ ] barely kept my interest
[x] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: For me, a good plot is always character driven. William Faulkner said that character is the engine that drives a story, and I agree. The decisions your characters make steer the plot. When characters make enough decisions that seem out-of-character, then chances are that your plot has taken over the wheel. That’s how plot-driven stories happen. Narrative harmony happens when characters drive a story, not events. At some point, your characters have to take the reins and actively try to steer their fates. Otherwise, it’s frustrating to watch a character just react to the events around them.
Genre: Horror
Premise: A college girl must fight off a series of hallucinations stemming from a traumatic childhood baptism.
About: Details about this one are sparse. It is either repped by or was sold to Heroes and Villains Entertainment last month (you can learn more about Heroes and Villains here). Riggs has paved his way into the business as a writer, director, and producer of a number of shorts. Other than that, all I can say is that it’s written by someone with the coolest name ever.
Writer: Ransom Riggs
To quote a certain Scientologist, Black River had me at “Hello.” A trusted source, someone who reads a lot of screenplays himself, thought the script was damn scary and insisted I give it a review. I admit I feel like a bit of an impostor reviewing these horror scripts sometimes. I’m not well-versed in the genre which is why you don’t see me venturing into the dark world much (and why I tend to leave those duties up to Roger). But I do like a good scary movie and, in a sense, probably represent the “mainstream” when it comes to horror films. I’m not sure why I put mainstream in quotes there, but anyway, for better or worse, it’s how I approach the genre.
What I loved right away about Black River is that it starts on a frozen river where a religious congregation is about to baptize an 11 year old girl (Henrietta). I’d never seen a baptism in a frozen river before and yet it’s such a strong image, both beautiful and frightening, that I immediately found myself drawn into the story. It also let me know that I was dealing with a writer who knew his shit. Coming up with a scene we’ve never seen before isn’t easy when you consider there’s 100 years of film history to compete with (though I have a feeling I’ve motivated a few cinephiles to prove me wrong in the comments section).
Anyway, Henrietta is the daughter of a preacher and lives in a town that takes its religion seriously. Which is probably why they couldn’t wait for good ole spring to come around – when I’d think it would be a little easier to baptize someone. The church members dig a hole in the ice, then proceed to dip Henrietta into the frozen lake. But during the baptism, something goes horribly wrong. Henrietta’s shoe gets caught on a branch and they can’t pull her out. She begins to drown, and in that moment, she looks down to realize it’s not a branch pulling her, but some kind of arm. And in addition to Sir-Arms-A-Lot, there’s also a girl down there. A freaking girl! Yikes!
Rest assured they pull Henrietta out and are able to resuscitate her. But the young girl is clearly thrown by the events. Was it all real? Or was it just a hallucination due to oxygen deprivation?
We cut to seven years later. Henrietta has ignored her father’s wishes and ran off to college, a world completely different from the secluded religious town she grew up in. She’s also dropped the “–ietta,” preferring to be called “Henry.” Henry, still scarred from that horrifying day, is more doped up than Zach Braff on the Garden State Special Edition DVD. Her life was a series of hallucinations, and pills are the only thing that keep Arielle from visiting her.
Henry eagerly gives in to college life, a fabulous world of booze and non-stop partying – and meets a fraternity boy named Blake who looks like he’s prowling for his next date rape, but is actually a sweet guy who starts to fall for Henry. In class, Henry’s hefty diet of drugs keeps her drifting in and out of consciousness, seriously hampering her ability to learn. After a little investigation, she comes to the conclusion that her preacher father has drugged her up in an effort to sabotage her college career so she’ll come back home.
In a scene that will leave drug-addicts everywhere livid, Henry flushes all her pills away, quitting cold turkey. And wouldn’t you know it, she feels alive again. The world isn’t in slow motion anymore. As this newfound celebration of life begins, her and Blake head to the bone zone, and then they’re, like, boyfriend-girlfriend soon. Has she done it? Has she really rid herself from the prison that’s defined her childhood?
What do you think?
After a couple of days that would make an Abercrombie ad jealous, Henry’s mermaid friend starts showing up again. I’m a little confused how there’s medication that keeps ghosts away in the first place (Is that benefit listed on the bottle?), but for whatever reason, now that she’s off the juice, homegirl who doesn’t seem to know what a towel is keeps appearing everywhere. Accidents start happening. People start dying. Henry has to convince Blake she’s not insane. And eventually, they go back to her old town to try and figure out the mystery.
Black River may have had me at “hello,” but it said goodbye to me somewhere in the second act. It’s in that second act where the script sorta heads off into the Land of Sparse Plotting. I forgot what it was we were after, and as a result, everything felt like a series of independent vignettes, the focus being more on scaring us than pushing the story forward. I guess I lost site of that throughline that ties it all together (for example, in Ambrose Fountain, the throughline for me was the relationship between the husband and wife). That’s not to say it wasn’t there, but it certainly wasn’t there for me. I just couldn’t find anything to latch onto to keep me turning the pages.
What’s upsetting about it all is that the movie starts out on such an original note, and yet later, we’re hitting up scene after scene that I’ve seen in a million horror films before. Going into the spooky basement, a tragic past event that haunts a town, a disgusting burn victim on life support, and of course, you can’t ignore the fact that we’re basically dealing with yet another dead wet girl. For these reasons my patience began to wane with Black River, and while there is some great imagery here that’s perfect for a horror film, the main character’s journey became lost on me. I didn’t really care what happened to her.
This very well may be one of those horror scripts that went beyond what I was willing to accept. It may not have worked for me personally, but if the premise sounds interesting to you, I’d suggest you give it a shot, because there are some things to like here, and my friend certainly liked it. It just didn’t fit into my admittedly narrow view of the horror genre.
[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[x] barely kept my interest
[ ] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: I’m not saying Black River is a big ripoff. That’s not where today’s lesson comes from at all. But the dead wet girl stuff has definitely been done before and got me thinking about a lesson every writer should know: Be inspired, but only to a certain point. We’ve all done it before. We see a movie or read a script that we love, and we immediately think, “That’s exactly the kind of movie I wanna write!” And we go home and we start writing and we’re so fucking inspired that two weeks later we have a finished draft. We give it to our friends, await their praises, but are surprised when they come back with negative feedback. We’ve never been this inspired in our lives! How could they not see the script’s greatness?? Well, what likely happened is that you just wrote a script that was almost exactly like the movie that inspired you. The way they see it, you’ve shown them a not-as-good ripoff of a much better story. This happens ALL THE TIME. George Lucas infamously watched “Heidi” right before the making of the Star Wars Christmas Special and demanded to his writers “make it like Heidi.” The point I’m trying to make is, don’t let a great film intrude upon your own vision. Be inspired, but very conscious that you’re not just writing down a slightly different version of what you just saw. Always be original!
