Genre: Horror
Premise: An aging rocker with a hankering for death-themed items purchases an old suit online that is said to be haunted, as it comes with the ghost of the man it belonged to.
About: This is an early adaptation of one of Joe Hill’s books. With the recent success of Black Phone, there’s a good chance the book will be thrust back onto the Hollywood deal table. Joe Hill’s title was pulled from Nirvana’s song, “Heart-shaped Box.” Neil Jordan, who adapts today’s script, has won an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay (The Crying Game).
Writer: Neil Jordan (based on the book by Joe Hill)
Details: 129 pages – 2007 draft
Keanu for Judas?
This might be the weirdest adaptation choice ever.
Neil “Crying Game” Jordan adapting Joe “Black Phone” Hill?
This feels like something Shay Hatten should be adapting. Isn’t he the Stephen King nut? (Joe Hill is King’s son, for those who don’t know)
I don’t know if I’d say that Neil Jordan feels “too good” for this, cause he hasn’t exactly been lighting up the movie marquee lately. But he definitely feels like an out-of-left-field choice. I’m not sure what to expect. But maybe that’s a good thing! Let’s find out.
Judas Coyne used to be a big time rocker in a “Megadeth” type band. These days, however, in his 50s, he’s spending a lot more time at home than on the road. It’s at his large mansion that he hangs out with his former-stripper girlfriend, Georgia. He calls her Georgia cause that’s where they met.
Judas loves to collect things like torture devices and skulls – anything that has to do with death. So when his assistant, Danny, spots a “haunted suit” online, Judas tells him to buy it. Several days later, the suit shows up (in a heart-shaped box), and Judas doesn’t even get to sleep that night before seeing James Craddock, the ghost of the man who owned the suit.
Judas soon learns that Craddock is here to kill him. More specifically, he’s going to make Judas commit a murder-suicide with Georgia. Freaked out, Judas and Georgia try and burn the suit. But that doesn’t do baloney. Craddock keeps showing up and taunting them.
Judas eventually learns that Craddock is the father of a groupie he once dated. When Judas ended the relationship, the groupie killed herself. Craddock is here for revenge. The only solution Judas can come up with is jumping in the car with Georgia, driving to Florida, and confronting the dead groupie’s sister, who tricked Judas into buying the suit.
Along the way, they stop at Georgia’s aunt’s place. Her aunt is a medium and, during a Ouija session, the dead groupie possesses Georgia. What we learn is that the cause of the suicide is a lot more complicated than originally thought. The sister may have been involved in it. So off Judas and Georgia go, this time with more purpose, to confront the sister, and get Craddock off their back for good.
I’m going to be honest – when I first saw Jordan’s name on this project, a little voice in the back of my head said, “Looks like someone needed to pay off the mortgage.” This had all the makings of a paycheck job.
And for a good 20-30 pages there, I felt like those fears were confirmed. You see, one of the biggest traps in horror is the “wait around for scares to happen” approach. This is where you put your hero in a house or a building or a barn or wherever, and they just wait for scary things to happen for 90 minutes. There is no activity. Only re-activity.
That approach doesn’t work unless your hero happens to be stuck in the location. The Shining, for example. The main character has to work here at this hotel for the off-season. He doesn’t have a choice. And they’re in the middle of nowhere, as well, so he couldn’t go anywhere even if he wanted to.
This setup wasn’t like that. The main character, Judas, lives at this house. But he can leave whenever he wants. Now, the writers try to stave off that arrangement with the old “latch-on curse” rule. Even if Judas leaves, the ghost can follow him. But I’ve found that that doesn’t work. It still feels to the reader like we’re sitting around a house waiting for scary stuff to happen.
Luckily, Judas finally says, enough is enough, grabs Georgia, and says we’re going to Florida to tell this beeyatch (sorry, that’s just how we talk in the clink) to take her curse off him so Mr. Stanky Suit can be decommissioned.
It’s amazing what purpose and goals do for a story. Cause, within a matter of seconds, we went from a “waiting around” horror story to one with actual momentum and activity. The engine driving the story revved to life, as if it had been begging to do so the entire time. And now we’ve got ourselves a movie.
From there, it’s a surprisingly thoughtful character piece. Jordan and Hill cleverly weave this concept of Georgia being a stand-in for Florida (the suicide girl). Judas has had so many women throughout his life that they’re all sort of the same. So Jordan and Hill are making this interesting statement that all the women are basically Florida. They’re interchangeable. So Judas isn’t just making peace with this girl who killed herself because of him. He’s making peace with all the girls he heartlessly disposed of.
At first, I thought Jordan was a bad choice for this. Through those first 30 pages, we get major “serious writer guy” vibes. Horror requires an undertone of fun. We don’t go to horror movies to be miserable. We go to feel fear and then anxiety and thrills and scares. But ultimately, we have to feel like we had a good time. I wasn’t getting that movie early on.
However, the further along we got, the clearer it became that Jordan was trying to do something real. And that realness eventually won me over. That’s not say there weren’t scares. Craddock was a scary dude all on his own. But I was definitely more invested in Judas’s personal journey than I thought I’d be.
After I finished this, I couldn’t help but be reminded how tough a place Hollywood is. I know this was written in 2007 when Joe Hill wasn’t as big. But it was also written a lot closer to when Neil Jordan was big. So you still had an author selling hundreds of thousands of copies of his books, and an Oscar-winning screenwriter – and even WITH THAT PACKAGE, this movie still didn’t get made.
That’s why when you hear me say, “Your script has to be great,” I’m not kidding around. Because you’re not Joe Hill. You’re not an Oscar-winning screenwriter. So if they’re getting passed up, imagine how easy it is to pass you up, an unknown writer without any credits.
The only way to overcome that enormous wall is to write something so un-put-downable that people will climb that wall for you to get it to the other side. Make sure your bar is high with you concepts and make sure it’s even higher with your execution. Cause those are the two things you can control. Everything else is up to the screenplay gods.
In the end, whether this was a paycheck job or a passion project for Neil Jordan, he’s such a good writer, that he made it work. It’s definitely worth checking out. And I’ve included the script so you can do just that!
Screenplay link: Heart-Shaped Box
[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[ ] wasn’t for me
[x] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: When it comes to character development in a horror script, you want to make decisions on a script-by-script basis. If you’re writing something with a more dramatic slant, like today’s script, you probably want to have some character development. If you’re writing something with more of a comedic slant, like An American Werewolf in London, you don’t need as much character development. Ultimately, it’s up to you. Deadstream was comedic yet still had character development. Just make sure you avoid FORCED CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT. If it feels like you’re adding character development to keep people like me happy, it’ll show in the finished product. If it doesn’t feel natural and organic to the character, you probably shouldn’t be doing it.
