Genre: Horror
Premise: Soon after moving into their new apartment, a young couple’s idyllic life begins to unravel in the most horrific ways due to the presence of a malevolent spirit.
Why you should read (from writer): I’ve been making a living as a screenwriter here in Mumbai for the last five years, before which I studied film in Los Angeles, and even worked on a few movies as a production assistant.
I’m a horror film connoisseur, and someone who swears by the holy trinity of horror cinema: “The Exorcist,” “The Shining,” and “Alien.” Although horror is my genre of choice, I’ve also secured paid gigs writing a crime-thriller, and a Hitchcockian suspense-thriller.
Following months of depression after failing to get my first horror screenplay produced, I went about writing a story which was far more contained, thereby cheaper to produce, and thus “Ghost Story” was born. “Ghost Story” is a slow burn horror-thriller in the vein of “The Shining” and “Paranormal Activity,” but without the latter’s found footage aesthetic. What sets “Ghost Story” apart is its matter-of-fact approach in presenting supernatural events in a real and believable way. Imagine “Insidious,” but with the real world aesthetics of “The Lunchbox.” It felt great when “Ghost Story” made the quarter-finals in Screencraft’s 2015 Horror Screenplay Contest.
For the past year, I’ve been paying the bills developing concepts — two action-thrillers, and one superhero-urban fantasy — for a local production company.
I’d sincerely appreciate your feedback on “Ghost Story” — not to mention feedback from the rest of the ScriptShadow community as well — because really I want to make it better. So fingers crossed, hoping this query email piques your interest!
Writer: Sarmad Khan
Details: 102 pages
Wow, so we got some interesting stuff to discuss today. We’ve got “quarter-finalist” of a screenwriting competition written on the title page. We’ve got a blueprint of the apartment the story takes place in on the first page. And we have a movie tagline (“Some secrets won’t stay buried.”).
If I’m being 100% honest? These are the kinds of things that get you tabbed as an amateur. They’re big red flags for readers.
Let’s say, for instance, that I received an e-mail from someone who said their script had made the semi-finals of the Nicholl. You know what my first thought is? “Okay, so this person isn’t a total newb. But if their script didn’t even make the top 5, it’s probably got its fair share of issues.”
Like we discussed the other day, even the scripts that win competitions have problems. So if your script didn’t even make the top 50, that’s saying something.
Now there are two sides to this argument. In a sea of competition, anything that proves you know what you’re doing helps. But there’s a certain point where it can work against you, and quarterfinaling or semi-finaling in smaller competitions may be that point. One thing we can all agree on is not to put any contest placement on your title page. Mention it in your query e-mail if you think it will help. But think long and hard about if your personal achievement will be seen as an achievement by professionals.
Moving on to Ghost Story!
36 year-old film editor Varum Desai has just moved into a new apartment in Mumbai with his retired party-girl wife, 27 year-old, Arya. The two seem to have a solid relationship except for a few snags underneath the surface. Arya wants to jump on the baby train immediately. Varum would rather wait until they’re financially ready.
While Varum spends his days in an editing suite, Arya keeps herself busy around the apartment with the help of her maid, who has an 18 month-old daughter. Almost immediately after moving in, Arya starts observing strange things. Cabinets being left open. Noises coming from the next room. At one point while napping, her phone mysteriously makes 13 calls to her husband.
Arya’s able to confide to fellow party-girl bestie, Kat, that something is up. But she’s afraid to tell her husband lest he thinks she’s crazy. That is until she finds the maid’s baby dead inside a running laundry machine. The cops blame the maid, but Arya’s fed up. She’s convinced this is an evil spirit.
So she heads over to the University of Mumbai and begs a local professor who specializes in spirits to come look at her apartment. The professor is skeptical, but eventually relents. Will she confirm that a ghost haunts the apartment? Or could their situation be a lot worse?
I actually e-mailed Sarmad ahead of posting this and told him my big worry – that everything here felt too generic. The logline – “Soon after moving into their new apartment, a young couple’s idyllic life begins to unravel in the most horrific ways due to the presence of a malevolent spirit” sounds like every haunted house movie ever. The tagline: “Some secrets won’t stay buried” may have literally been used on over 200 posters throughout time. Even the title is the most generic title you could possibly imagine:
“GHOST STORY”
So why did I put it in Amateur Offerings? Because Sarmad’s query was the most professional of anyone submitting a screenplay in the past three months. He may not have had the most original concept. But his writing was smooth, concise, clear, and made you want to believe in him. My hope was that THAT side of Sarmad would override the generic side. Did it?
Not for the first 60 pages it didn’t. I mean, we went through about every horror cliche we could possibly go through. Open cabinets? Noises in other rooms? Guys, when you’re writing in any genre, you have to find new ways to explore old ideas. You have to find new ways to make things go bump in the night. Otherwise you’re going to put us to sleep.
But then Ghost Story pulled off a hail mary. Once we start investigating WHY the haunting was happening, the story got a lot better. Whereas before, each scene felt like plug and play, now we were learning about an extremely unique backstory where Varum’s brother killed a little girl when they were kids, and that girl had become the ghost.
I couldn’t believe that in a script where 30 pages ago, I was wondering if it would beat the jump-scare record, I was now reading a carefully crafted character piece about a marriage that was on the rocks.
It’s so clear to me why this only made the quarter-finals. Those first 60 pages are a struggle. In fact, I would go so far as to say some readers never made it past page 60. They acknowledged that the writing was good, and that was enough to get the script through. Which is why I warn writers against the slow burn. If your script doesn’t start cooking til the halfway point, expect most readers to bail before they get there.
Regardless of what you thought of the first half of Ghost Story, the most important thing here is that this CAN BE A MOVIE. And 90% of the scripts I review on Amateur Friday can never become movies, no matter how much work the writer puts into them. This can.
But Sarmad needs to rethink those first 60 pages. He has to throw out every single scare he’s written and replace it with something better. He then needs to integrate the kind of character work and intrigue that he achieves in the last 40 pages in the first 60. More needs to be going on here than a woman wandering from room to room. Because that’s what I would’ve titled this script if I’d only read 60 pages of it: “Woman Walks From Room to Room.”
You might want to bring another character in to add some intrigue. Shit, I thought bringing the dangerous brother, Vikram, in would’ve spiked that whole section. Create a “ghost story” version of “Sex, Lies, and Videotape.” No worries if that complicates your story too much. The point is, MORE needs to happen in the first half, and MORE ORIGINAL scary shit needs to happen in the first half.
This script has serious potential despite its weaknesses, and because of that, I think it’s worth the read.
Script link: Ghost Story
[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[ ] wasn’t for me
[x] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: This script is proof-positive that when you delve into the characters (the histories, the cracks in relationships, the inner flaws, the secrets, the denial), scripts get better. It’s a tale of two halves here. The first half is completely superficial, where it’s all about ghosts and jump scares. Boring. The second half is about a dark ass history with these characters and how that’s gotten them into this mess. And yes, I know that you can’t unload all of your character shit right away. But you have to unload SOME of it. You have to hint at SOME of it. I didn’t even know these two were interesting people until page 60, when they started talking about what was really going on. Don’t make that mistake!
