Genre: Thriller/Horror
Premise: After suffering a devastating miscarriage, a young woman and her fiancé travel to Italy where she meets his family for the first time, but her grief turns to shock when the local doctor declares that she’s still pregnant.
About: This scored 10 votes on the latest Black List. Writer Christina Hodson still doesn’t have a produced credit, but the former development executive turned screenwriter is churning out lots of product in the hopes of getting there. She wrote previous Black List script, “Shut In” (a creepy script about a woman who must take care of her catatonic son), is adapting the thriller, “Unfogettable,” (about a man whose new wife is being harassed by his ex-wife) and also adapted the novel “Good People,” with James Franco starring (about a couple in debt due to expensive fertility treatments, who stumble across a solution when they find money in a deceased tenant’s apartment). Hodson making the Black List has been pointed out by some to be a rarity, after it was revealed that only 20% of the Black Lists selections are from female writers. While many declare this cause for alarm, when this very topic was brought up during Ladies Week on Scriptshadow, a commenter pointed out that if you go by the number of females who comment on Scriptshadow (few), any disparity in the male-female screenwriting community shouldn’t be surprising at all. If there aren’t that many female writers participating in the screenwriting community, why would it be surprising that they make up a small percentage of said community? This is a debate that will continue on until someone figures out the actual percentage of female writers pursuing screenwriting. Only then will we know if 20% on the Black List is a disproportionately low number.
Writer: Christina Hodson
Details: 96 pages
Winter’s Tale tagline: It’s 1846! No, it’s 2014! My horse can fly! Love is forever!
There is a new phenomenon sweeping the entertainment industry that’s making Gangnam Style look like Flappy Bird. It’s called Winter’s Tale! The runaway sweeping fairytale-slash-romance-slash-time-travel-slash-immortality flick from Akiva Goldsman killed it at the box office, finishing number 5 for the weekend. So many people have gone to see Winter’s Tale, they now have a name for those who have seen it five times or more (Winter’s Tailies). I’ve only seen the movie twice myself but I can confirm it’s every bit as heart-wrenching and mind-bending and utterly-baffling-that-someone-decided-to-make-it-ing, as has been rumored. The character-naming alone is downright historic. I mean, who hasn’t dreamed of naming their characters stuff like “Pearly Soames”? Or “Dingy Worthington”? Or “Cecil Mature”?
Oh! And guess who makes a cameo in the film! (Close your eyes if you’re going out to watch the movie this week and don’t want to know). None other than Jaden Smith’s dad! No word on who he plays, but estimates are on the flying unicorn that’s become so popular in the trailer. Whatever the case, you have to wonder what kind of dirt Akiva Goldsman had on Mr. Smith, Colin Farrell, and Russell Crowe to force them to be in this movie. Clearly something unsavory is going on here.
And if we’re being honest about unsavoriness, I have to admit I haven’t actually seen the film. Sadly, I am not three viewings away from being a Winter’s Tailie. So that was a lie. But a good lie. Because, I mean, come on. There’s no way this movie can be good. In fact, I’m convinced it was made by accident. Some editor in the Warner Brothers’ editing room has been randomly splicing together outtakes from the last 20 years’ worth of Warner Brother’s films and during the recent regime change, someone assumed that the finished product was a film they were releasing. That’s the only excuse for this film being released, right?
So how does all this factor into today’s script review? Well, Seed looks to be inspired by the classic Roman Polanski film, Rosemary’s Baby. Which was, of course, about a woman who has the devil growing inside of her. And since hell would freeze over before anyone were to go see Winter’s Tale, I figured they were a perfect fit to blog about.
Seed introduces us to a chick named Leila. Leila is 29, and one of those lucky gals who was able to snag a hot Italian guy. And she didn’t even have to use Tindr to do it. Tomaso, 33, is a hunk and a half, prime-rib Valentine’s Day meat, you might say, and head over heels in love with Leila. What he’s not in love with, though, is his past. Tomaso had such a bad experience back in his home-country, Italy, that he’s never gone back.
Unfortunately, Tomaso’s father is dying and the family thinks he should come say his goodbyes. Not only does Tomaso hate his dad, but he and Leila are having their own problems. He inadvertently impreg-sauced Leila, who’s since found out that the baby has died inside of her. Because surgery to remove the stillborn fetus is too expensive, all she can do is wait for it to pass through her body naturally.
The thing is, because the two have zilch in their bank account, they can’t even afford rent, so they figure they can kill 2 birds (and one father) with one stone, by going to Italy, saying goodbye, then mooching a room and meals for a couple of months while they look for some more permanent options.
When they get there, though, Leila is shocked to learn that Tomaso’s family is extremely rich. They live in a picturesque, sprawling vista at the top of a hill, and are quite famous in the area.
Tomaso’s father was a well-known “new-age” author in Italy, and preached about spirituality and one-ness and all that other new age gobbledy-gook that women love. But at his deathbed, we get a hint of why Tomaso hates his old man so much. With his last breath, the dad reaches up and rape-kisses Leila! It’s unsettling, and Leila is so not cool with it. Strangely enough though, a day later, the doctor says that that supposedly dead fetus in her isn’t dead at all. It’s growing! Yaaay!!! Or… not yay?
What happens next is pure Creepy Factor 9000, as Tomaso’s older sister Myrra starts teaching Leila the ways of her father, and Leila starts buying into it. She doesn’t think to question the people who live off the family’s land, who sleep in nearby housing, and who are starting to look an awful lot like a cult. Tomaso sees where this is going and does his best to convince Leila to leave with him. But Leila decides she’s staying, that she’s having her baby here. Regardless of what that baby is!
I really like Christina Hodson as a writer. I liked her script, Shut In. She knows how to come up with a concept and exploit it. That’s what screenwriting is all about. It’s finding a cool concept that people will want to pay to see. Then it’s figuring out all the scenes and characters and situations you can milk from that idea, so the audience (or reader) feels like they got their money’s worth.
The worst thing that can happen is when you promise an audience something, then give them something else (or barely give them anything at all). I recently re-watched the 1999 film The Haunting (with Catherine Zeta-Jones and Owen Wilson) wanting to see a film that really exploited the haunted house concept. Instead I got a bunch of over-the-top effects and a rambling storyline. When that happens, you feel gypped.
In this case, Hodson’s trying to write the next Rosemary’s Baby, and she just might have pulled it off. By taking the story out of the U.S. and into Italy, then involving a cult, you have enough external dressing to distract you from the fact that this is basically a remake. It’s a smart move. We’re all basically re-hashing plotlines from the movies we love. The problem is, if our creations are too similar to the movies they’re inspired by, they feel like inferior copies. So you have to change the key ingredients involved so they feel fresh.
Rosemary’s Baby happened in the most populated city in the world. So where does “Seed” take place? The countryside! It seems like a small change but because it changes every aspect of the visual surroundings, it’s actually quite dramatic.
If I have any issue with Seed is that it’s unapologetically formulaic. I mean, there are strong and unique choices made here, as I mentioned. But the way the story evolves and the way it sits squarely within its pigeon-holed genre, it feels a teensy bit generic. The thing that I’m realizing these days with the ever-evolving VOD market, is that these genre movies are being measured on whether they’re big enough to have a theatrical release or if they’re going straight to VOD. If they’re going to have a theatrical release, there needs to be something special in them (an amazing role for an actor, a unique twist that’s never been seen before, or a unique voice that an esteemed director is going to want to do something with).
I can honestly trace the moment studios got scared of giving films like this wide releases back to the film, The Rite. The movie simply didn’t have the muscle to be released on 3000 screens, and opened weakly as a result. Since then, something’s changed. Studios are more cautious when deciding which path to take these movies on.
Look at Robert Ben Garant and Thomas Lennon, two of the biggest comedy writers in the business. Well, their recent film, Hell Baby, went straight to VOD. Talk about a tough reality. However, then there’s The Conjuring, which probably went through this vetting process as well. In the end, The Conjuring was based on a real story, which makes the horror genre a lot easier sell to audiences. That was its X-factor.
Ironically, I believe Hodson’s other script, Shut In, does have this quality. It’s unique and different and I could see some weirdo hot-shot up-and-coming director wanting to do something fun with that.
None of this is a bad thing, of course. I still think this script rocks. But I’m learning that, with the market getting more and more competitive, particularly with horror films, you need to bring something big or different to the table to get that coveted theatrical release.
[ ] what the hell did I just read?
[ ] wasn’t for me
[xx] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: Every writer needs an opposite-sex bullshit detector. If you’re a guy, give your script to a girl after you’re finished and have them “bullshit proof” all the female characters. Ditto if you’re a woman. Have a guy read your script with the focus on, “Would a guy ever act like this or do these things?” If you don’t, those characters are bound to come off a little false.
