Genre: Horror
Premise: A group of friends on a weekend getaway play a game of pretend murder called “bodies bodies bodies” which results in several real murders.
About: The hottest up-and-coming film company right now is A24. Now, typically, A24 follows a strict business model. Find an artsy director and let them direct whatever the hell they want. Don’t even look at the script. The script can be written in brail for all they care. This has resulted in a lot of beautiful looking movies (Hereditary, The Witch, A Ghost Story) with not-so-beautiful screenplays. Since A24 had to start thinking about the bottom line at some point, they’re evolving their approach to include buying and developing scripts. Which leads us to today. For the first time, A24 has purchased a screenplay without a director attached. This is that spec.
Writer: Kristin Roupenian
Details: 91 pages
You’re probably wondering how a newbie screenwriter was able to land the first spec purchase from the hottest indie company in Hollywood. It turns out Kristen Roupenian wrote a short story in The New Yorker called “Cat Person” that went viral. That success led to a publishing deal. And when A24 called to learn more about the author, she sent them bodies bodies bodies.
So, unfortunately, this isn’t the kind of sale we love to celebrate, the one where a writer toils away in obscurity for years, uploads a script to the internet, and all of a sudden there’s a massive studio bidding war. But let’s be honest. No story is ever like that. This sale represents the new normal for screenwriters – which is that you’re just as likely to break into the business due to some writing-adjacent success as you are from writing a spec screenplay.
I should point out that I knew nothing about this script when I opened it. I read it before I filled out any of the above information, including the logline. I loved the title. No idea what it meant but was intrigued. Could go in multiple directions. Let’s find out what this thing is all about, shall we?
Slutty Ashley, punky Bee, preppy Liz, hipster David, loudmouth Scott, wholesome Casey, and mysterious Matt, are visiting a remote cabin during winter for the weekend, looking for some 20-something level entertainment to enhance their endless partying.
After finishing a game of “Never Have I Ever,” Liz suggests a raucous game of “bodies bodies bodies.” Most of the crew have never heard of the game, so Liz explains it to them. While the rules are way too long for this summary, the basic idea is that two people are secretly given the title of “Murderer,” the lights are turned out, and everyone runs around trying to escape the murderers. If the “murderer” catches you, you “die,” and then everyone gathers around and, like a game of “Clue,” tries to figure out who did it.
Several chapters of the game are played before Casey finds herself all alone in the house. She announces she’s quitting, calls for everyone, but only Ashley and Bee turn up. Everyone else is gone. The three of them eventually head to the basement, where they find David, Scott, and Liz for-real dead. They freak out, run outside, only to realize it is so cold that they have to go back inside the house. Back inside where the killer is.
With several other horror tropes in play (no cell phone coverage, cars are blocked in), the three will have to figure out who killed their friend, a mystery complicated by the secret entrance of an unknown 8th player. And, oh yeah, let’s not forget that either Casey, Ashley, or Bee could be the killer as well. Bodies bodies bodies indeed.
Let me start by saying that there are a lot of “beginner screenwriter” mistakes here. For example, all the character names are capitalized throughout. You’re only supposed to capitalize names when they’re introduced. There’s a good reason for this. Capitalization signifies to the reader that a new character has entered the screenplay. So if the reader has, say, forgotten about a character, and then that character comes back later, and with a capitalized name, the reader may erroneously mistake them for a new character.
There’s also too much mundane detail in the action. For example, there’s a scene where everyone’s playing a card game, smoking a joint, and every other line is an exorbitantly detailed explanation of what the characters are doing with the joint. “MATT receives the joint from SCOTT, takes a hit, and then holds it between two fingers as he adds a card to the card house he is building out of the abandoned game of Kings. Once the card has been delicately placed, he considers his creation for a beat, then passes the joint to CASEY.”
A veteran screenwriter knows you don’t have to write any of this. The reader will fill in these unimportant details themselves.
Then there’s the explanation of the game. I don’t think I’ve ever read anything in a script that’s taken this long to explain. The rules are ENDLESS. And to make things worse, there are two halves to the game, one half for the night, the second half for the following day. Both are explained in endless detail, yet we never make it to the day. Which means that that entire section explaining the daytime rules was pointless! There were a lot of maddening mistakes like this.
Let’s get to the obvious question here: Does any of this matter? I mean, the writer sold the script, right? So these mistakes couldn’t have been that bad. That’s true. The mistakes didn’t hinder A24 from buying the script (even though it seems as if they were more keen on buying the writer than the script). However, if they send this script around to attach elements (producers, directors and actors) it matters a whole lot. The script feels so “beginner” in places that experienced parties are going to pass.
In the script’s defense, it gets better as it goes on. Once we got to the murdering, where our characters were in genuine peril, the script inherited some much needed energy that brought the story alive. The “Clue”-like mystery to the situation was also well done. (spoiler) One of my favorite parts was when they cornered Matt, convinced he was the killer, and killed him, only to learn afterwards that they were probably wrong.
What’s most interesting is A24’s decision to pick up the script in the first place. This doesn’t feel like anything they’ve done before. It’s got more of a Dimension or IFC Midnight vibe to it. I guess, because this was A24, I was looking for some offbeat indie twist. But this is popular moviemaking to the max. It should be noted that this pickup was meant to begin a new Chapter in A24’s life – development. So, conceivably, they’ll get some good people in there to guide the writer through some of these problems.
This felt very much like a writer trying their hand at screenwriting for the first time. For that reason, I could never get into it.
[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[x] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: A common question writers have is: Do basic screenwriting mistakes really matter? A reader isn’t going to downgrade a good script because of some Screenwriting 101 mistake, is he? This is a complicated question but I’ll try and answer it in an uncomplicated way. There are usually several moments in a script where a reader will need to pause and process everything to make sure he understands what’s happening. For example, in Upgrade, the hero rolls into a bar and demands to talk to a character who I didn’t remember being mentioned, leaving me unclear as to who this person was and why the hero was asking for him. Now, if up to this point, the writing has been strong, I’m going to assume that my confusion is my fault. I must have missed an important detail somewhere. However, if the writing has been lazy or sloppy, with numerous beginner mistakes sprinkled in, I’m more likely to assume my confusion is the writer’s fault. This is how basic mistakes can do a writer in. Whenever the reader is unsure, they’re going to blame YOU, not themselves. In bodies bodies bodies, there are several elaborate conversations about who might’ve killed who in the fake game and how those clues may reveal who the real murderer is. These conversations were incredibly intricate and hard to follow. Because there were so many basic script errors leading up to these conversations, I assumed that my confusion had to be the writer’s fault, not my own. Had the script been cleaner and more professional, I would’ve assumed the opposite and gone back over the conversations to try and make sense of them.
