Genre: Horror/Thriller
Premise: Three adult siblings pay respects to their deceased fisherman father by visiting the remote river he died on, only to find themselves stalked by a masked killer.
About: This script was purchased for the writer, Joshua Giuliano, to also direct. Giuliano knew that to rise above the sea of writers trying to break in, that directing his own stuff was the way to go. So he wrote and directed the short film, In Sound We Live Forever, which served as a business card for River. The plan obviously worked. Giuliano wrote River while working as a Postmates delivery driver in Los Angeles.
Writer: Joshua Giuliano
Details: 96 pages
We’re back in Halloween mode with a spoooooky masked killer spec. And I’ll be honest. I tried to read this once before and gave up on page 2. Why? Because of this note on the first page:
I read this three times and still didn’t understand it. So how did the script survive such a confusing prologue? I’m guessing because it’s a writer-director project and this is obviously a directing note for himself more than the reader. Normally, I’d say the last thing you want to do is give your reader confusing homework right before the script starts. But here, the writer gets a pass as a director.
Despite returning to the script with skeptical eyes, I was surprised by how much I liked it. River works because it’s not afraid to go to the dark places a concept like this requires.
We start our teaser with a 58 year old fisherman taking his old boat out on a remote river. After settling in, he decides to take a swim. Not long after, he hears someone in his boat. He jolts up to see that a giant man is pulling up the anchor. Then, in the boat version of North by Northwest, he starts zig-zagging around the river trying to slam into the fisherman. The fisherman runs out of energy and gets rammed, dying immediately.
Cut to a few weeks later where we meet the athletically obsessed Lucy, 29, her man-child 26 year old brother, Drew, and her super-serious older sister, Carla. The group have driven down to the same river to take that same boat out. That’s right, the fisherman was their dad. Unfortunately, they don’t know he was murdered. The local police labeled it a boating accident.
So they go out on the river, park the boat, and each say their piece about their deceased father, only to realize the engine won’t restart. Carla decides to swim to shore, go back to the car, and get help. But when she does, a masked man steps outside of the woods. Carla knows danger when she sees it, turns back to the boat, and the man jumps in and swims after her. She gets back to her siblings, and the masked man swims back to shore.
Terrified of this psycho, they figure they should take their chances on the other side of the river. But then a second masked person, a woman, appears on that side! They’re surrounded by a crazy married serial killer couple. Wonderful. They wait til night but that’s when they hear something approaching their boat. Lucy is being pulled off. Carla jumps in the water to help her. There’s a scuffle, and Drew gets Lucy back on the boat. But where’s Carla? That question is answered an hour later when they hear her screaming in pain. And then a fire lights up on the shore. It’s Carla, being burned alive.
The remaining siblings now know that waiting is not the answer. So they swim to the other side, taking their chances with the lady serial killer. They kill her by the skin of their teeth, but hear the husband close by. They must run through an unfamiliar forest in the middle of nowhere to escape this guy, a task they soon realize may be impossible. Will either of them make it out of the night alive? River does a great job making sure you don’t know the answer til the final scene.
I love simple premises like this one. You set up a clear scenario where the heroes are in danger. Make it slightly different from stuff we’ve seen before. And you’ve got yourself a movie.
Where writers run into trouble with these scripts is making safe choices. While simplicity is your ally with a concept, it becomes your enemy in the execution. Because if you don’t take the script to unexpected places, then all you’re giving your reader is a simple story with a mildly entertaining plot.
The moment I knew this script was serious was when Carla got burned alive. I’m not saying that’s a choice I would’ve made. It may not even be the best choice the writer could’ve come up with. But it is a choice where I say, “This writer is not scared. They’re going to take me to places that are uncomfortable.” That’s a different psychological reading mindset than the one where I know the writer is so safe that he’s never going to give me something that surprises me.
You don’t want to be Jimmy Fallon. You want to be Dave Chappelle.
I also liked the wife reveal. Again, you’re looking for ways to make your contained horror movie feel different. The wife brandishing this lethal cross-bow from the other side severely limits our heroes’ options. And that’s what you’re trying to do with horror. You’re trying to tip the scales so heavily in the bad guys’ favor that the reader doesn’t think there’s any chance that our heroes will survive.
Indeed, I was on page 94 here and thinking to myself, “No way. Is he really going to kill this entire family off?” I didn’t know! And that’s a really good thing for a screenplay. The worst is when you’re 50 pages ahead of the writer and already know the ending. You have to create that doubt that your hero will succeed if you really want your script to resonate.
There are some things that can be improved here, however.
I wasn’t as emotionally invested in these characters as I wanted to be and I think it comes down to the simplest of reasons. The writer didn’t put enough emphasis on making us like the siblings in their introductory scenes. I didn’t dislike anyone. But you had Lucy, who was really hard and cold. You had Carla, who was even colder. And you had Drew who was this sort of empty idiot. Remember that if we don’t connect to the characters in a horror film, we don’t feel as much for them when they’re in danger. That’s why you have to get that component right. Lucy becomes more interesting later on when we learn about her close relationship with her father. But this script could’ve been an easy “impressive” had more work been put into making these characters easy to root for.
The other problem is that their father just died. A horrible boating accident (or, at least, that’s what they think). But Carla and Lucy have this whole unresolved thread about their mother, who died years back.
It seems odd that you’re having characters getting emotional and focusing on the death of a parent from five years ago when their father just died a few weeks ago. That should be the focus right now. Bringing the mom into the equation steps on the dad’s death. And you can’t do that here. Especially since the death was so unique. It would be all they were talking about. It’s not that important of an issue. It doesn’t hurt the script. But if you would’ve taken the mom conflict and switched it over to the dad, your story would’ve felt more cohesive.
Despite that, this was a good script and should make a good movie.
[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[ ] wasn’t for me
[x] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: With simple horror movies, you have to go dark at some point. You have to burn the sister alive. You have to have the inbreds sexually assault Bobby. What this does is it creates a psychological shift in the viewer where they no longer feel safe. And that’s an important component to have in a horror film. You want to create that dangerous choice in the first half of your horror script that says, “I mean business.”
What I learned 2: In a three-person dynamic, you want at least one positive presence. All three siblings here were written as negative personalities. One was serious. One was angry. The third was weak. A positive presence allows for more interesting dialogue since the characters are going to be more opposed to each other during conversations. That conflict is where good dialogue comes from.
