As the deadline approaches for the Make My Horror Movie comp, I thought I’d put on my imaginary producer’s hat and give you my picks for the entries I would, and would not give $200,000 to make. Just to be clear, I am not a judge on the panel, just your average opinionated horror fan offering his 2 brutal cents.
Plowing through all these story pitches and trying to select a Top 5 has been a bit of a brain-frying slog, so I don’t envy the position the judges find themselves in. But it’s also rather been interesting seeing what people perceive a “good horror film” to be, and how many variations on the same idea you can have, etc.
To save you trouble of trawling through them, here’s a quick look at the sort of things you can find in there: period horrors (The Ghost Master, Medipocalypse), techno-phobia (Final Call, diePhone), creature features (Kea, The Maul), dark satires (Big Beach Body Count, Fat Farm), serial killers (The Dead Earth, Lifeless), psychics (Forensic Killer Instinct, Gravedust), viruses (Airborne, Mr. Cutter), faux-cult/grindhouse (Big Tits Massacre, Chaos!!! on Delivery), possessed objects (Chair Evil, Spirits of a Jester), torture porn (The Game, Worms Never Die), Maori legends (Tapu Island, Tiki), terror-in-space/sky (Log, Flight Time), meta-movies (The Director’s Cut, Bad Idea), weird-small-towns-with-secrets (Dead Reception, Horrors of Currans Creek) and a decent helping of what-in-the-goddamn-fuck (Land of the Dead, Body and the Brain). There’s even a Bad Taste sequel.
observations/thoughts
Keep it simple, concise. The worst thing about reading a synopsis is tuning out because it doesn’t make any sense or is too waffly. The winner will have a nifty hook and some semblance of a narrative arc. Too many pitches devolve into the “nothing is as it seems” school of storytelling, which in most cases here is shorthand for “I don’t know what my movie is ultimately about or how it’s going to end” more than “boy, just you wait, I’m gonna blow your mind”.
Use spellcheck. I’m giving you a lot of money so I’d like to know that you can spell, or at least have the smarts to get someone who knows how to. Ditto for punctuation, grammar, coherent sentences.
I don’t expect you to be a Photoshop expert but again, conviction and first impressions are everything. If you slap something together that looks like you have zero sense of design and are not even trying, I’m gonna pass. For example, if you don’t know the basic implications of using Comic Sans, it’s unlikely your horror movie will be made.
Personally I’d like to see a horror movie in the purest sense. Not something done for laughs. Not some tongue-in-cheek over-the-top zombie-stoner-splatter fest. Something with TONE, that’ll get underneath my skin. One of the great things about making horror movies is that it’s one of the few genres where it works best when there’s NOTHING to see on the screen. The negative space, the way it prods your imagination through mere suggestion. Hence, it’s very cost effective… which brings me to my next important point…
Remember the BUDGET! You only have $200,000. If you can create “a super-expressway populated with bizarre inhabitants” (Highway ∞) or a Voltron-type robot (Red Zone) with that much money, more power to you… otherwise it’s smart to think about budget when you’re punching away at the keyboard. Tie those great ideas directly in with what you think is achievable convincingly within the given budget. If you’re going for costumes, make sure you’re confident that you can pull the viewer into that time, and not have it look like cruddy theatre with am-dram actors.
TOP 5 picks
A GOD FEARING MAN
This one had me at “an 80-year-old atheist intellectual”. Admittedly, octogenarian protagonists in horror movies don’t tend to put bums on seats but the notion of an atheist theology professor questioning his sanity in a retirement home is a heady, thought-provoking proposition for me. I can imagine this being a late ‘70s George C. Scott/Paul Schrader-type collaboration. Low-key, slow-paced, cerebral, with a compelling lead performance. The poster is a striking piece of design too.
EVERYONE EVERYWHERE
The last-person-on-Earth premise is one of my favourite “what if” scenarios, and I think there’s still so much potential there to mine. Everyone Everywhere kinda sounds like it could be a retread of The Quiet Earth, but its themes of anxiety and connection in our social networking-obsessed age could make it function more like an eerie spiritual cousin to Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s Kairo and its icy horrors of solitude. Ambitious and intriguing.
LEAVE ME COLD
Not crazy about the title, but I can see this teen-romance price-of-vanity monster flick really hummin’ in the Deadgirl/May/Ginger Snaps vein. The myth-like idea of a bullied misfit feeding a creature with powers to make her beautiful is resonant, and “South Auckland’s state housing neighbourhoods and bleak industrial parks” would make a vividly gritty backdrop to anchor the fantasy elements in some realism. I’d be interested to see how the character’s physical transformation will be handled (two actresses? prosthetics?). Of all the entries, this probably has the most workable beats.
39 DAYS
If the filmmakers can effectively execute the logistical challenge of shooting entirely on location at sea, 39 Days could be one intense, terrifying movie. The merging of relationship-on-the-rocks drama, survivalist thrills and mutation horror unfolding in a nerve-rattlingly tight space is something I’m perversely excited about seeing. It’s Long Weekend meets Open Water meets… The Fly! Stripped-down nature will require script, direction and acting to be top-notch.
PLEASE COME IN
Winner of the Would-Greenlight-Solely-Based-on-Poster Award. The elegant simplicity of this teaser poster stands out from the pack and is almost enough to make me want to see the film. The synopsis itself doesn’t necessarily live up to the poster — it’s just a little bit underbaked — but I dig the working class/kitchen sink vibe, and the idea of leaving your children in the care of “comforting” strangers while you work long shifts is a solid foundation to build a horror movie that feeds into parental nightmares.
THE BEST AND WORST OF THE REST
RUNNERS-UP BEST POSTERS
Carousel, The Blue Bloods, They Only Come At Night, The Monster Among Us, Red Zone
HOW NOT TO DESIGN A POSTER
Mate or Mate?, Clearwater Creek, Infringement, Infection, The Harpoon, Silence in the Shadows, Body and the Brain, The Director’s Cut, Ready or Not Here They Come, The Ponsonby Killer, Eternal Death, To Hell and Back Again, News Cycle, It’s All In Your Head, Storytelling, Bad Idea
RECOGNITION FOR ATTEMPTS IN SOCIAL MEDIA RELEVANCE
Face-Book, Unfollow, Internet Friends
BEST FLATLINERS RIP-OFF
HORROR MOVIE… IS THAT YOU? & BEST JOHN COUGAR MELLENCAMP REFERENCE
I SORT OF WANT TO SEE THAT
A movie about melting people, sleep paralysis, giant lampreys, a talking facial sore.
BEST CHARACTERS
Either Liz Hunter, the retired cop-turned-mall security guard in The Maul, or Dustin, the scrapyard inventor and part-time crocodile wrestler in The Melt People.
Got a better idea?
There’s still time to score a $200,000 budget and bring your horror film to life.
Visit www.makemymovie.co.nz and get your idea in by October 10th – or they’ll make someone else’s and all you will be able to do is complain about it.
