We’re wrapping up our week-long series from Uncle Jam with a Fear Friday edition on the most common scripts he encountered during his time as a Hollywood reader, as well as the lessons we can take away from them.
The Set-up
We begin with a group of people en route to a generic horror movie location. They’re making their way to an abandoned mental hospital. They’re driving to a forest. They’re in a remote village outside of an ancient ruin in the jungle. Any location you’ve seen in a trillion horror movies before, as long as it’s remote and cheap to film in.
We start specifically outside of these locations for two reasons. The first is to justify why they’re going to the horror movie location in the first place. They’re archeologists heading to a site. They’re athletic twenty somethings on a camping expedition. They have a YouTube channel where they explore supposedly haunted locations. Something like that. Whatever their reason, the group has traveled to be here, and they’re dedicated to go forward.
The other reason is to get to know each person and, if needed, their role in the group. These people are:
- The sarcastic nerd who handles the equipment, provides one-liners when levity is needed, and freaks out when the shit goes down.
- The lone woman of the group who knows about the local culture/ecosystem and drops exposition when needed. Most of the slow burn horror scripts I’ve read deploy a “hot, but doesn’t know it” when introducing her.
- Our broody handsome male protagonist.
Other members of the group may include an alpha jock who’s good in a fight or an off-putting loner who we think is up to something or a married couple. Often there’s a local guide. But the three listed above are the unshakable core of this kind of script.
The Script
The trek into the location begins. It’s here we learn why our broody protagonist is so damn broody. Usually it’s because a member of his family died. One of his children or, as is more often the case, his wife. (Whether or not this information has any emotional resonance depends on you and the skills of the writer.) Rarely do we learn anything this detailed about any of the other characters, and as we get to know our protagonist, the writer hopes you don’t notice that zero storytelling has happened.
We trek further into our horror location. We talk more and flesh out some details of our protagonist’s dead spouse. More often than not, we get a flashback to the wife running on a beach or laughing in bed or doing other generic dead wife stuff.
We then encounter some horror creepiness. Dead animals. Carvings. Creepy ritual items that the lone female expert explains to the rest of the group and the audience. (“Well, the legend goes that these were made by INSERT ANCIENT CULT/EVIL MONSTER/HORROR MOVIE THING/ETC.“) Once they encounter this horror creepiness, there’s a debate about whether to turn around and head back. In the end, they decide to keep going and the sarcastic nerd whimpers.
More walking. More talking. Finally, at around sixty or seventy pages in, we reach the heart of the horror location and the monster emerges. It brutally kills a member of the group, and the surviving members immediately turn and flee.
From here on in, we’re in free fall. The monster hunts the group and kills each member Alien style until only the protagonist remains. He has the opportunity to run away, but he chooses to stand his ground. You see, this monster isn’t just any monster. No, this monster’s a Grief Monster! It’s our writer’s attempt at injecting “meaning” into the story. “This isn’t another dumb throwaway horror script!” the writer implies. “The monster is a metaphor for the protagonist’s grief! And the protagonist has to overcome it! SEE WHAT I FUCKING DID?!?”
So he fights it. He’s either killed or he seemingly defeats the monster only for it to turn up again right before we fade out. It’s never not one of those two options. The reader then closes the screenplay and checks to see if it’s lunchtime yet. It’s not.
The Takeaway
Horror is instinctive. It deals in the most gut level emotions. Fear, dread, insecurity, revulsion. Hell, the genre’s literally called “horror.” Unfortunately, this means that horror attracts a lot of embarrassing writers who rely on blood and nudity and back it up with nothing.
I think many horror writers know this, and I think the slow burn horror movie is an attempt to head in the opposite direction. (As well as signaling to producers that this script can be done on the cheap.) After all, it has foreshadowing and subtext and all that shit us screenwriters love so much!
However, a formula is still a formula. It’s easy to see why this particular template exists, as we get to know the characters a little more intimately before they’re all killed. However, the attachment these writers seek simply isn’t possible when they’re being too obvious in how they’re trying to earn it. Add a lack of creative spark and a healthy injection of boredom and it makes it that much easier to pass on these scripts.
Attempting to have depth is nice. But it’s not enough. You have to actually provide.