Tag: Screenplay Analysis
An Electrifying Hot Tub in Valentine (2001)
In the early 2000’s, for my friends and I, Friday nights were reserved for the movie theater. It didn’t matter what movie it was—...
Good VS Evil: Murphy’s Death in Robocop (1987)
The pop culture zeitgeist is a machine that can metamorphose its icons into something digestible. Safe. Crowd— and therefore family— friendly. The more press...
A Congregation of Werewolves in Silver Bullet (1985)
There’s this place in horror that exists somewhere in between the innocent and wholesome and the brutal and disturbing. A place that feels so...
Written in Blood: That Bloody Mirror Scene from Poltergeist (1982)
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: as a kid who was terrified of the mere idea of watching a horror movie,...
Fruits, Brains and Bats in Gremlins 2: The New Batch (1990)
Sequels come with a certain degree of baggage. That is to say, the sequel’s greatest enemy is expectation, more often than not brought on...
Written in Blood: Bringing Down a Chopper in The Hitcher (1986)
Horror is a genre of fear, in all of its forms. Fear of the unknown, fear of the self, fear of the other— the...
Written in Blood: The Scoleri Brothers of Ghostbusters II (1989)
For years I thought my earliest theatrical experience belonged to Duck Tales the Movie: Treasure of the Lost Lamp (1990). Even in my hazy,...
Pretending to be Alive: The Zombies of Land of the Dead (2005)
My imagination was running wild.
The menacing heads of encroaching zombies stretched as far as the yellow and black horizon, under the shadow of a...
Can I Bug You For a Ride? The Subway Car in Mimic (1997)
Growing up, my house tended to be the spot where most of my friends hung out. We had video games, a pantry stacked with...
Batteries Included: The Terrifying Power of Child’s Play (1988)
The TV glowed in the center of the room, reflecting the visage of a stern looking news anchor going on about something I had...
A Case of Worms: Escaping the Graboids of Tremors (1990)
After the cereal had grown soggy and the orange juice was long gone, the final credits rolled on the morning’s last cartoon. Still, the...
Facing Down a Mack Truck: Severen in Near Dark (1987)
At first glance, I thought I was staring at a copy of Twilight (2008).
The pale, brooding face staring down from the top right corner...
Drenched in Blood: Exploring the Vampires of Waxwork (1988)
The bulk of my experience with horror as a kid can be summed up by all of the unreasonably disconcerting VHS covers I nervously...
A Pain in the Butt: The Tiny Ashs of Army of Darkness (1984)
The day the Hollywood Video finally opened its doors was a notable one in the small town where I grew up.
Over the months leading...
Bucking Traditional Wisdom and Forging a Sonic Scape in Oz Perkins’ The Blackcoat’s Daughter...
Welcome to the very first Scream Writing, your one stop shop for advice on writing the horror screenplay. Today we’re going to be talking about...