Could is be? Did someone just write American Psycho with a 13 year-old girl?
Genre: Thriller
Premise: 13-year-old Emily Derringer seems like the perfect girl. But she’s not. She’s a serial killer known as “The Misfit Butcher.”
About: Another high-ranking Black List script from last year. Chris Thomas Devlin is one of the newer writers to make the list. This is his breakthrough script!
Writer: Chris Thomas Devlin
Details: 94 pages
Like I always say, one of the best ways to get noticed is to take a common genre or idea and come at it from a fresh angle. That’s exactly what Devlin’s done. He’s taken the serial killer genre and infused it with the most unlikely of killers – a 13 year old girl.
Herein lies the challenge with doing something new. When you’re looking for things that haven’t been done, you’re likely to find that there’s a reason they haven’t been done. Making a 13 year-old girl a serial killer sounds great in a logline, but practically speaking, has all sorts of challenges.
Serial killers need to be strong to kill their victims, especially if they’re doing it without guns. So now you’re rubbing up against suspension of disbelief, and some people won’t go there with you. I’ll give you an example from the script. At a certain point, there’s a second killer, a man (more on this in the plot breakdown), and Emily “confronts” him in the woods. So you’re saying that a grown killer is confronted by a 13 year-old girl in the woods and he’s not going to kill her right then and there?
There are ways around this. You can take on a more absurdist tone, a wink-wink understanding with the audience that, yeah, we both know this wouldn’t happen in real life. But let’s have fun with it anyway.
That leads to its own set of challenges. The further into the absurdist universe you go, the less clear it is what the rules are. And without rules, it’s hard to know what the audience will and won’t buy into.
All of this is a long way of saying, I wanted to see how Devlin tackled this unique premise. Let’s check it out.
Emily Derringer is a perfectionist. When she kills someone, she wants it done right. Killing is an art. And if it’s messy or lazy, it sheds a bad light on the person responsible. Therefore, our 13 year-old protagonist makes sure that everybody she kills is killed with respect.
After taking out the local priest, Emily preps for a killing vacation, that is until she attends the first day of school and runs into former best friend turned mega-bitch Pepper Devonshire. Just a few cunty words from Pepper and Emily decides she’s going to be next.
But then a problem arises. Emily’s new milk man, Garret Bluestone, kills the local soda shop owner. Nobody else knows this, of course. But Emily is a trained killer, and therefore recognizes others with the affliction. And Emily is pissed because Garret is sloppy. If people mix up his work with hers, it’ll ruin everything she’s worked so hard for.
She confronts Garret, tells him if he does it again, there’s going to be problems, and goes on her way. Meanwhile, Emily starts planning the school Halloween party with her favorite teacher, Mr. Goodwin. But things turn sour when he also pulls in, duh-duh-duh-duhhhhhhh – Pepper Devonshire!
Emily decides to use the time to plan Pepper’s murder. However, a strange thing happens as their meetings go on. Emily and Pepper begin to mend their broken friendship. The question is, will they be able to mend it entirely before Emily decides to kill her?
The Wretched Emily Derringer was pretty good.
There’s a lot for screenwriters to take away from the script, especially if you’re writing a serial killer movie yourself.
For starters, serial killer protagonists only work when you make their plight sympathetic ON SOME LEVEL. And there are some easy ways to do that. For starters, make sure the victims deserve it. All we need to see is a slimy priest who’s trying to snare little Emily off the street before we’re rooting for her to take him out.
We also have the lesser known “voice over” technique. Voice overs are tricky to execute. But they work well when your main character is a serial killer, since they put us inside their head. If our hero seems like a good person and she makes good cases for killing people, we’ll be on board.
Without the voice over, there’s a detachment there. We’ll never feel as close or sympathetic towards them as we would if we’re listening to their reasoning.
Bonus points if you can motivate the voice over. Sure, you could just place us in their mind. But it always feels more natural if it’s motivated. For example, lots of young girls write in diaries. So it makes sense that Emily has a diary. And her musings in said diary are where we get our voice over.
Another lesson we can take away from Emily Derringer is the idea of CONCEPT EVOLUTION. One of your jobs as a writer is to evolve your concept. If your concept stays the same the whole way through the script, it’s likely to be boring.
So here, the concept is a 13 year old girl who’s a serial killer. We could play that out from page 1 to 100 and have an okay story (focusing solely on Emily’s obsession with killing Pepper). The problem with that is, readers get ahead of you. You’re not evolving the concept so there’s nothing new to look forward to.
What Devlin does is he brings in Garret Bluestone – A SECOND KILLER. Now, a story we thought we had a handle on, takes an entirely unpredictable turn. We’re not sure where things are going to go. And, of course, that’s exactly why we keep reading.
The only thing I didn’t like about the plotting was the lack of a detective. One of the easiest ways to create tension in a story where your hero is the killer (or has killed someone in any capacity – by accident or otherwise) is to have someone on their trail. That way, the whole time we’re thinking, “Oh no, they’re catching up to Emily! Will they figure out it’s her?” It’s exciting.
And, actually, the thin page count here tells me that’s exactly what was missing. This is 95 pages but could’ve easily been 110. Those extra 15 pages are your detective storyline.
I don’t know if this is going to become a movie. It’s a tough sell to say the least. They have to play it really absurd and get a director who’s a complete weirdo. Because if this is played anywhere close to straight, people are going to be scratching their heads.
With that said, it’s the perfect type of script to get you noticed. And that mission was accomplished, since this made the Black List. Sometimes, it’s about showing you’re a unique writer, not writing the perfect Hollywood screenplay. Whatever gets you through the door, right?
[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[ ] wasn’t for me
[x] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: Your premise starts as a baby. It’s your job to help it grow. If it stays the same the whole way through, the audience will get bored. This advice isn’t just for your main plot. It’s for your subplots as well. Make sure your plot elements are changing and growing into the “adult” version of the ideas. Bringing in a second serial killer was exactly what this script needed to grow into an “adult” version of the concept. Without that evolution, I fear the script would’ve been too thin.
