As part of our Fear Fridays, we’ll be running a regular column featuring useful lessons screenwriters can take away from different horror movies. These will be quick tips that will hopefully help you with your next draft.
Which movies you ask? Whichever ones I’ve watched recently and feel like I have something interesting to say about! I’ve seen hundreds of horror movies and have found that no matter the quality there’s always some lesson to take away that you can apply to your own writing.
And of course we welcome posts from members of our community on terror related (or other) matters as well.
The story of a documentary film crew recording a patient with Alzheimers that reveals to be an entirely different kind of situation, this is a solid entry in the found footage and possession subgenres. Written by Adam Robitel and Gavin Heffernan, and directed by Adam Robitel, it was released in 2014.
Active Protagonists
Too often, once the characters in a horror movie arrive at the location where the scary shit is going to happen, they stop being active members of the story. They function as crash test dummies that the script can scare and abuse. You can feel the writer working backwards from the set pieces and filling in justifications rather than having characters pursuing goals.
The Taking of Deborah Logan makes the smart choice of having its protagonists investigating the context and causes of the supernatural incidents they’re experiencing. Rather than just sitting around waiting for the next spooky occurrence, they pursue clues that unravel what they’re dealing with and how they might stop it.
There’s a reason the cop procedural is such a reliable workhorse in TV. There are clear, external objectives, easy to follow progress for the plot (we’re another step closer to figuring this out), and the audience gets drawn into alignment with the main characters as both attempt to solve what’s happening.
But even if it doesn’t make sense for your characters to be investigating a mystery, do still try to find ways to make them active so that we can get invested and care about them.
Bonus Tip
Around the midpoint one of the three crew members gets fed up with the scary stuff and leaves. It’s a comedy beat that helps with the build and release of tension, but it also helps sell the reality of the movie. Often we ask ourselves “why are these people sticking around where they’re clearly in danger?” Having one of your characters say that out loud and checkout helps us trust the story more.