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Day 7 Assignments
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Assignment #7: Monster Reveal Track
John Garofolo’s Monster Reveal Track
What I learned from this assignment is to make sure your character reveals help reveal something about your character to help your characters and audience solve the “why” question (why is this happening?)
1. A.) Who is your monster and what is their terror?
The monster is an early-twenties tall, good-looking, boy next-door who may have an altar boy, was raised by an overly religious mother who regarded sex as evil and probably shamed the monster when he was developing as a mature, sexual being, using basic pscycho mother mind-fuckery, some physical abuse and encouraged a general unhealthy attitude about sex. This led to confusion as the boy entered high school and had to deal with his own sexuality (and normal teenage desire) and the attitude that sex was sinful.
When he was in late high school or early college, he walked in on his girlfriend (who he and she had agreed on saving themselves for marriage) having sex with another boy. This triggered the psychopath in waiting.
Of course, the character reveal is just a young man and woman getting brutally murdered after getting caught in the act by someone who didn’t want to see that.
The Monster’s terror is to punish any kind of expression of sexuality directed toward him (and once triggered, anyone associated with the transgressor will be killed as well).
His powers are: keen intelligence, stealth, speed, strength and an eerie ability to seem to be in multiple places almost simultaneously. Also, once triggered, not bothered in the least by killing people
Limitiations: Is not supernatural and, thus, is limited by the environment and materials around him (he can only kill with his bare hands or implements he finds in the physical space where the murders take place).
Weaknesses: Assumes invincibility and the inability of his victims to pose a threat.
Plan/Purpose/Appetite: No particular plan, since he’s triggered by circumstances that he can’t predict and the person who triggers is unaware of the danger. Once triggered, the frenzy continues until everyone in his environment is dead. The appetite then goes away and the psychopathic killer is dormant. Has a preference for towns called “Oak Park” since that was where his first murder took place.
OUTLINE
Act I – Set up for Horror
Atmosphere of Evil: A brutal murder of a young man and woman takes place in Oak Park, Illinois.
Horror Situation: A young man and woman are having sex when the door is pushed open by a figure (POV). (First Monster reveal: The audience never sees the monster’s face or hears his voice)
Reaction: The couple reason with the figure, apologize, try to calm things down. Reason turns to pleading. The male attempts an escape.
Horror Situation: The figure strangles the male lover.
Reaction: Terror, screaming. The girl tries to escape.
Horror situation: She’s caught and slowly strangled to death by the figure and then thrown back on the bed. Her lifeless face stares.
The murderer escapes. Dissolve to detectives at the crime scene saying they couple was caught having sex and probably killed by a boyfriend (maybe on Halloween)
Connect with the Characters: Oak Park, California, Five years later. A group of young women are getting ready for a nice suburban party. We learn about the characters through their discussion and are aware that there going to a bridal shower and will come back to the house for an after-party.
The characters are warned: We meet the fiancé and learn more about the characters. An old boyfriend shows up and corners the bride-to-be to tell her not to get married.
The only one who “sees” the monster: He tells her there’s something off with him.
Reaction: Denial.
Denial of Horror: After the Maid of Honor and several of the bridesmaids intervene, the bride-to-be tells him that it’s pretty despicable for him to trash talk her fiancé like that and she tells him to leave.
Safety taken away: The old boyfriend leaves. But before he gets in his car, he sees the groom-to-be glaring at him in a way that gives him the chills.
Horror situation: As he drives off, the groom (looking pretty angry) chases after the car for a moment, then goes back to the restaurant and returns to the party as if nothing happened. (Monster Reveal—still uncertain…could be just a rightfully angry fiancé)
(She probably asks him what he was doing out there and he replies nothing, acting perfectly normal)
Monster–Nature of the beast: A little later, the old boyfriend has returned to his apartment. There’s a knock at the door.
Reaction: He opens the door, recognizes whomever is there and looks surprised/afraid, “ what the hell are you doing here?” The figure (POV) pushes the old boyfriend, steps in the apartment. The sounds of a scuffle are apparent…then silence. (Monster Reveal: Unclear who is knocking on the door. It could be our fiancé, it could be someone else)
Act 2 – The Point of No Return
Isolated/Trapped/Abducted: The bridal party goes back to the suburban house (Horror situation: Isolation) for the real party to open up the presents not suitable for family and friends outside the bridal party to see. We learn more about the dynamics between the characters (of particular importance is the discussion that the groom-to-be was adamant about no sex before marriage).
Horror situation: Not quite trapped, but a little more isolated and less options for getting help. The mother (step-mother) collects all the cell phones to make sure that no evidence of the party gets out and car keys to make sure no one drive while intoxicated.
The groom-to-be shows up a little later, bringing an expensive bottle of champagne. Everybody’s happy.
Horror situation: Probably a little too much drinking for an after party.
Reaction: While they’re coherent, they’re definitely impaired, which will impact their decision-making and ability to plan and execute an escape Also, denial. Except for the groom-to-be who is perfectly sober and the mother (step mother) of the bride-to-be who is an obnoxious drunk.
Horror situation: Isolating the mother (step-mother) and Monster approaching. The girls convince her it’s finally time for her to go to bed and when she gets into the master bedroom, the groom-to-be comes out of the master bathroom, apologizing profusely.
One of us killed:
Horror situation: Face-to-face with the monster. The mother (step-mother) tells him to stay, then starts seducing the groom-to-be, who tries to politely escape, but she persists and eventually, they end up on the bed, with the groom-to-be on top of her. When she reaches down and grabs between his legs, she literally flips a switch and the seduction turns deadly, first he tears at he clothes, paws her and then strangles her to death. The monster is now unleashed.
(Monster Reveal—this is the first concrete reveal of the monster doing monstrous things)
Reaction: Terror, Panic as she’s slowly strangled to death.
MIDPOINT
Horror situations: Impending doom. From this point on the monster engages in a cat and mouse game with the victims, who still aren’t aware that anything is wrong (so their Reaction is nothing-denial).
Horror situation: The second victim is killed and hidden. (Monster Reveal)
Reaction: Surprise, panic, terror as she realizes she’s going to die. (The rest of the partiers are still not aware they’re in danger (Denial).
Horror situation: A third victim is killed (Monster Reveal)
Reaction: panic, terror, fighting back, making some noise.
Horror situation: Because of the noise made in this killing the survivors finally realize something’s going on.
Reaction: Try to solve it and see what’s going on.
Horror situation: They go to the master bedroom and see the bride-to-be’s mother (step-mother). They finally know they’re in big trouble.
Reaction: They are disgusted, horrified, traumatized. But, they still have to solve the mystery. They look for their friends and fiancé, who they now assume may be dead too.
They find the second victim’s body
They can’t find their cell phones and can’t call 911, because the landline isn’t working, either.
Act III- Full out Horror
Fight to the death:
Horror situation: One of them runs outside to the closest neighbor’s house for help.
Reaction: There’s no answer, as she screams and knocks on the door. She knocks again, pleading. But there’s still no answer.
Horror situation: She’s grabbed from behind and strangled to death. The figure carries her body across the shared driveway toward the house, but goes through the front gate to the side of the house into a dark side yard. (Monster Reveal)
Horror situation: Back inside the house, the girls slowly search the house looking for their other dead friend and the fiancé.
Reaction: They’re so afraid, they spook themselves, while they do their awkward search.
They decide to get out while they can and get out the front door to join their friend who they think has gotten help. But they can’t open the front door, it’s jammed shut so they run back to toward the slider in the family room, but when they flip the light switch, the killer is standing there with the body of the girl he just killed.* (Monster Reveal)
Reaction: Panic, hysteria. The four remaining survivors decide to stay inside the house, and hide since they can’t get outside and they can’t call for help.
*Alternate, the girl’s not dead yet and he strangles her as the girls helplessly watch in terror. Alternate 2, he slices the throat of the girl as the others watch in terror.
Reaction: Helplessly watch in terror.
Horror situation: But, the killer can get inside. And he does, stalking, finding and killing two more survivors as they try and escape from the killer. (Monster Reveal).
Reaction of the two victims: Escape, panic, hysteria.
Reaction of the two survivors still in hiding who know their friends have been killed: panic, sorrow, guilt, shame.
Now, just the bride-to-be and the Maid of Honor are still alive.
The thrilling escape from death:
Horror situation: Face to face with the monster. The killer turns off all lights in the house and stalks the remaining two. (Monster Reveal)
Reaction: Terror, resigned to the fact that they have to fight to survive.
Horror situation: He finds them and they fight like hell, both taking one hell of a pounding, but finally they get an advantage and one hits him with whatever heavy or sharp object they have and the killer goes down.
Reaction: During the fight, tenacity, anger.
Reaction after the fight: Exhaustion, sorrow, simultaneous guilt and gratitude they’ve survived.
Death returns to take one or more:
Horror situation: Friends in Danger. Impending Doom. They think they’ve won. They limp through the house and take stock the toll. They look for their phones and go back up to the second floor bedroom and continue looking for the fiance. But, the killer comes from behind and round two of the fight continues. (Monster Reveal)
Reaction: Fighting fury.
But, another one bites the dust. This time the maid of honor and the groom-to-be appear to be dead.
Reaction: The bride-to-be sobs heavily as she caresses her best friend’s body, holding her tight to her chest.
Resolution:
Horror situation: Injured, debilitated, Tricked. But, then, she realizes the killer is the man she almost married, comes back, grabs her from behind and starts choking her, lifting her off her feet. (Monster Reveal)
Reaction: Fight to the death.
She struggles to break the hold, throwing elbows, reaching around to grab anything. She’s almost out of air and with one final effort, pokes him in the eye and he releases his grip. She rushes to the side of the bed and reaches for a baseball bat. She grabs it, but he grabs her and pulls her away, and she swings away at him and finally strikes a killing blow.
Reaction: It’s over. There’s no joy. Just survival.
But, everyone knows that somehow the killer’s not really dead…at least not yet.
Alternate ending: When it’s all over and the first police are on scene. They find the fiancé dazed, handcuffed with legs tied at the ankle in a closet in a room that hadn’t been checked. It turns out that the twin brother, who had some serious mental health issues came to town to confront his brother for not inviting him to the wedding. The two had had a fight and he was blindsided with a knockout shot to the chin. He was disoriented and he ended up in the closet.
Horror situation: Walking into a trap, working with someone, who becomes the evil one. After he’s reunited with the bride-to-be, the two walk away from the camera, but after a few steps, he turns to the camera and gives it a disturbing, evil grin. (Monster Reveal: If I do go this direction this is the real monster reveal).
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Wayne’s Monster Reveal Track Script
I learned that seeing the Monster as unfolding knowledge based on a series of actions gives us another way to increase tension.
ACT 1
Atmosphere of Evil established: Surveillance footage of agent Peter’s death.
Horror Situation: An agent is hiding from unseen monster, peeking out, trying to get to his car.
Reaction – Escape: The agent makes a dash for his car. As he closes the door a mysterious cloud with a hint of a face slips in. As if the car were a blender, blood and chunks of the agent splash onto all windows. An army of soldiers rush the car, open the doors. Almost no remains are there.
1. DEMAND: Intrigue! Who is Agent Peters hiding and running from. We see nothing. Peters is fiercely arguing as he dives into his car.
MONSTER REVEAL: There is a wisp of something almost invisible traveling to Peters, following him into his car.
Character Death #1. Agent Peters.
Why: Establish Monster.
How: The agent makes a dash for his car. As he closes the door a mysterious cloud with a hint of a face slips in. As if the car were a blender, blood and chunks of the agent splash onto all windows. An army of soldiers rush the car, open the doors. Almost no remains are there.
2. DEMAND: Who/why are all these armed soldiers racing to Peters’ car?
MONSTER REVEAL: A swirling cloud with a hint of a face has somehow “blended” Peters in to little chunks in a matter of seconds and vanished.
Connect with characters: Task force is watching surveillance footage and sizing up their team, a six person CIA hit squad.
Denial of Horror: Stella reads. The CIA manual says I should “Exude confidence.” I will delegate that if anybody is feeling confidant… No? Didn’t think so. Good news. She (the monster) took the bait. Bad news. She seems to have eaten him.
Safety taken away: An army couldn’t save him and kill the bad guy. It’s our turn to try.
The characters are warned not to do it: I hereby warn each of you not to take this mission. You have this opportunity to resign.
Monster – The nature of the beast: How did the Monster get in, get out, where is the body? We are not safe. After some arguing they are all in.
3. DEMAND: We have to understand what this horrible thing is. If we don’t, we might be next.
MONSTER REVEAL: A serious Monster is killing CIA agents. We are infected. It has to be stopped.
Horror Situation: Abby, am I the only one who sees the Monster? That cloud has a face.
Reaction – Denial: Micheal: So do my tea leaves. They all give a laugh which fades to a look, this is bad.
Horror Situation: Face it team. You are the bait. Let’s build the trap.
Reaction – Try to solve it: They show off the weapons, sensors, and psychic skills in a brief moment of chutzpah.
Character Death #2. Agent Donna
Why: Establish Monster’s presence at the TRAP. Also, Donna challenged the leader’s (Stella’s) authority. Creates a tone shift for ACT break into ACT 2. Hint that Stella is connected to Monster.
How: Donna prays and tries to bless their trap. Stella warns. Monster warns, then gently steals her soul and vaporizes her. It’s all caught on Abby’s instruments, which annoys Stella.
Horror Situation: One of us killed: Stella’s Monster kills Donna. There is a crosscut connection between Stella’s climax with Brad and the Monster killing Donna.
Reaction – escape: They attempt to shut down the trap. Request denied.
4. DEMAND: Able to hear/feel thoughts and desires. It’s a bit strange but several agents mentioned it prior to turning up dead. Is it drugs? A network? We are in the dark. Let’s just call “it” “the Monster”.
MONSTER REVEAL: The monster somehow engaged them and killed when they resisted.
ACT 2
Isolated / Trapped / Abducted: A frightened task force challenges the Monster by building a trap, sealing it with them and their arsenal inside.
Brad and Stella slip away and spark lust.
5. DEMAND: Can transform its form to the fears of a victim. Very deadly.
MONSTER REVEAL: Agents find a desire to communicate fears. Think they are being controlled with drugs. Visions come in daydreams and nightmares.
Abby’s instruments detect the lust then presence of the Monster.
6. DEMAND: Research: Abby’s instrument detect the activity, but can’t interpret. It’s like a language.
MONSTER REVEAL: Abby puts sensors on agents and they babble under the influence of the monster or monsters as it is now detected. The monster is terribly under estimating Abby’s ability to know what’s going on. Abby has used similar mind games on friends and lovers. She thinks the monster is helping someone.
Bradley flirts with Abby.
7. DEMAND: Paranoia: Mommy has tired of me. My dream thoughts have stopped. I think she is mad. That’s how an agent feels just before his death.
MONSTER REVEAL: Abby is piecing together that the Monster is playing on thier mommy complex. Their reason to go into the agency.
Character Death #3. Agent Bradley. Killed by new Jack’s Monster.
Why: Jack, jealous, enraged, let’s his monster out on Bradley. We now have two monsters
How: With a burst of questions, about love and morality, each answer is wrong. What do you expect from a CIA agent? And with each wrong answer a different part of him ages 150 years. “You like your nose? How about now. Boom.
MIDPOINT – The monster is worse than we thought:
Stella wants to abort the mission. Jack pulls rank.
Horror Situation: Stella discovers she isn’t the only one with a monster.
Reaction – Fight: Stella’s monster and Jack’s monster are fighting in the ethers. Monsters are fighting and don’t care about humans for a moment.
Abby is learning through her instruments and getting better visuals of monsters.
8. DEMAND: Projections: Michael talks about a tipping point. If too many people want to be stand up comedians or CIA Agents or anything it all goes bad. If everyone wants to be boss. Or no one wants to be boss.
MONSTER REVEAL: Stella makes a proclamation that things are going to be different. Michael, oh we are not caught in a trap, being sacrificed, so other can live and prosper. No, that is still true. I want us all to sing a little song with me. (the song from Stella’s monster – the Dance of Spring).
Abby declares she can kill the monster, she knows what it is. They all can sense the presence, especially Stella. Abby gets involved distracts Jack’s Monster. And Stella’s monster kills Jack’s monster. Then Jack dies.
9. DEMAND: Apprehension: I can’t sing. I can’t sing. Jack is loosing it.
MONSTER REVEAL: This is an impossible situation. Can we back out.
Character death #4. Jack’s Monster.
Why: Stella’s Monster went out of control. Mad that Jack’s Monster killed Bradley.
How: Stella’s Monster yanked off a series of human necessities. You didn’t feel? Took hands. Couldn’t see? eyes. Didn’t want? Take heart. Eats each one. Burns the remainder slowly. Odd that it is conscious with serious parts missing.
Micheal suspects Stella as having info not shared.
Horror Situation: Jack’s Monster is killed by Stella’s Monster.
Reaction – walking into a trap: The Agents feel relief. But not much.
ACT 3
10. DEMAND: Paranoia: The Monster calls a meeting, wants to work things out.
MONSTER REVEAL: It’s an experiment. A game. She just wants to know if they are loyal. Afraid. What they make of their new gifts. Insight. Feeling. Intelligence.
Full pursuit by the killer: Stella’s Monster attacks Abby and Michael.
Fight to the death: Abby detects, then tracks, disempowers, then kills Stella’s Monster.
The thrilling escape from death: Whew. We’re safe.
Hysteria: Stella is becoming a new Monster.
Death returns to take one or more: Stella kills Jack.
Character Death #5. Jack.
Why: Stella’s Monster went out of control. Mad that Jack’s Monster killed Bradley.
How: The Monster yanked off a series of human necessities. You didn’t feel? Took hands. Could see? eyes. Didn’t want? Take heart. Eats each one. Burns the remainder slowly. Odd that it is conscious with serious parts missing.
Character Death #6: Stella/and Stella’s Monster
Why: It’s obvious that to live Abby and Micheal need to kill Stella. She is injured and weak and they feel sorry and hesitate till Stella flashes a very wicked smile.
How: Abby sensors can absorb and redirect whatever god awful energy Stella projects. So basically with Abby’s help Stella kills herself.
11. DEMAND: The Monster looses temper, feels betrayed by Abby, and considers killing her.
MONSTER REVEAL: Monster Death. Or she just leaves.
Resolution: Is it attacking Stella? No, it is Stella. Abby finishes killing Stella!
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What I learned from doing this assignment. The more layers we add the more complex the story becomes, and less superficial. Meaning grows with each layer.
ACT 1
Atmosphere Of Evil Established: A girl walks along a deserted path. The shadows appear ominous.
Demand (Curiosity – what is this thing?
Horror situation: She’s uneasy, sees shadows, her own, someone else’s. Then objects. She’s freaked out. The lights go out. She’s alone. Her cell phone is dead.
Reaction Escape: The girl hears someone, panics and runs off the beaten path through the woods.
Horror situation: She’s being chased, by something, holding a meat cleaver. But there is no one to be seen – just the weapon.
Death #1: The meat cleaver comes down on her, slashing her to bits – In the distance there is a cloaked figure, watching. (Monster reveal)
Connect With The Characters: A lecturer Peter G talks about the art of Umbrakinesis and its power then takes a group of shadow dancers to an old victorian theatre to test out its theories.
The characters are warned not to do it: He’s hired them to demystify a myth – that the theatre is haunted by shadows.
Denial Of Horror: The producer assures the cast its all bull shit. Suggests if they want a paycheck and a chance at stardom then need to unpack and meet for rehearsal.
Safety Taken Away: No bodies cell phone works. So they try the doors
Horror Situation: All the doors have become locked.
Reaction: Confusion and anger.
Horror Situation. They try the emergency exits and system. Then the windows, but nothing works
Demand: Conflict. The cast argue amongst themselves about what to do.
Reaction Denial: “Let’s all calm down, block a scene. Something will work out in the morning.”
Monster: The Nature Of The Beast. The cast members start to see shadow figures in the theatre, and then shadows are manipulated onto the walls. A waving finger beckons one of the troupe to follow.
Horror Situation: They hear screaming coming from the prop room.
Reaction: They run downstairs, to find one of dancers (Amanda) spread-eagled over a three foot spike.
Demand: Terror: Whatever is going on, someone is trying to kill us.
Horror Situation: Unless they can remove the girl before the ropes burn through, she will be impaled.
Reaction. After some near disasters, they remove the girl, but she’s injured and will require medical attention.
ACT 2 – THE POINT OF NO RETURN
Isolated/trapped/abducted: They regroup. Decide all they can do is prepare for the concert.
Horror Situation – run a routine – going well until a shadow wields a life threatening weapon.
Reaction: The director floods the stage with light. Demands to know who was holding the machete. No one owns up. They go their own ways – each distrusting and pissed at each other.
Horror Situation; One of the girls screams out in the costume department.
Reaction: They rush down to see a shadow of a Guillotine on the wall. It disappears. The washers is running the dryer is running.
Horror Situation: On a wall the audience sees a decapitated body dragged away.
Death #2: In a row of wigs, one of the styrofoam heads is the severed head of Peter G.
MID POINT – They know that unless they can get out, they will all die.
Full pursuit by the killer: The cast gathers onstage
Horror situation: The decapitated body drops to the floor from the fly system – splatters the stage.
Reaction: The cast are freaked out, trying to make sense of all this madness. Why is it happening to us.
Terrorized:
Horror situation: A machete slashes safety lines. A rain of sandbags and stage weights descend form the fly-system – exploding like bombs.
Reaction: The cast runs for cover.
Horror Situation: A cast member gets caught up in the curtains.
Demand: Discovery – they realize what’s killing is a shadow
Death #3: We HEAR the slashing of the knife – and SEE the curtain being splattered with blood – severed limbs spill out from under the curtain.
ACT 3
Fight to the death: The director kills the lights. The theatre is pitch back. He figures if there is no light, the master cannot create a shadow.
Demand: Putting together the pieces – if there is no light, there can be no shadow.
Horror situation: Candle lights flip on. They see a cloaked figure.
Reaction: They run – separate ways. The director peels off and pulls on a lever. The monster disappears into the trap room under the stage.
Hysteria:
Horror Situation: We realize the master can see in the dark. He dusts himself off – walks up the stairs.
Reaction: A cast member hides in a dressing, between costumes.
Horror situation: The monster moves into the room. Flips on candles. Searches around the room. No where else to look, it pulls back the costumes.
Reaction: The cast member bolts for it, but the monster summons a medieval spike ball and chain shadow and hurls it. It strikes the cast member on the back of the head.
Horror Situation: Death #4: The cast member is stunned and bleeding but alive when the monster picks up the ball and repeatedly slams it into the cast members body.
Cast members run into the prop storage room – find knives and body armor.
Horror Situation: The monster arrives. A cast member stands behind a door ready to strike. It sees blood on the floor from the injured girl.
Reaction: The monster slams on a button on the wall. The floor under the cast member opens up an she falls into a pit. The poor closes up again.
Horror situation: Death #5 Jose is trapped in a tomb and the walls slowly close in, crushing him to death.
Reaction: The remaining cast member throws a rope net over the monster and escapes.
Demand: Putting the pieces together. I’ll stay in front of the light – if there’s no back light he can’t create a shadow.
Upstairs the three survivors run towards the foyer – when nature calls – she has to use the bathroom.
Horror Situation: She sits in the toilet – she hears the monster enter.
Reaction: She prepares to leave when.
Death #6: A spike comes up through the system, into her body and out of her mouth.
Demand: Trying to figure out the mystery – it creates mayhem through meditation – have to distract it to break its concentration.
The Thrilling Escape From Death: They have figured out what can kill a shadow is direct light. One takes a position on the spotlight. The other entices the monster onto the stage. Once there, they hook its cloak and expose the monster. It’s a decomposing body – full of maggots, dung Beatles and worms etc. It’s agonized dying. In a last gasp effort it form a shadow of a javelin and takes out the light.
Reaction: The cast member scales the wall ladders up to the fly rail.
Horror Situation. The monster is in pursuit – throwing daggers and hatchets.
On the rail the cast member is cornered. The monster creates a sledge hammer – starts to break up the rail.
Reaction: The cast member grabs onto a fly rope – swings off of the rail to another wall ladder. Heads toward the roof.
Horror Situation: The monster is firing arrows, spears, anything he can muster.
At the roof access the door is locked – Our cast member is about to die. The the door releases.
Reaction: He allows sunlight to hit the monster – he backs off and falls three stories to its death –
Horror Situation: The lovers unite, when the wind throws the access door shut.
Death returns to take one more effort to kill
Horror Situation: The monster regains its power. It summons a batman like pulley-device and fires it toward the roof – lands on the fly rail and charges at the last guy. Stabs him in the neck.
Reaction: The girl reaches for a can of inflammable liquid and deuces the monster, then ignites it. He falls off the fly rail – hits the deck, burning.
The sprinklers turn on, dousing everything in water but this time the monster is burnt to a crisp.
Resolution: Outside, the medics and police are clearing bodies.
Horror Situation: The girl sits alone in a blanket when she suddenly sees a shadow.
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Quinn’s Monster Reveal Track
What I learned doing this assignment is…seriously, I plan way too far ahead.
1. Create each part of this model:
A. Who is your monster and what is their terror? – Alien spores which control you.
- Powers? – Control you and make you build the hive; sheer numbers
- Limitations? – Only good if they can be inhaled
- Weaknesses? – Same as limitations
- Plan/Purpose/Appetite? This is how the aliens colonize
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B. Sequence the reveals.
- Cow explodes and infects dog
- Dogs hunt down rancher and infect him
- Rancher explodes and infects hospital
- Infected people hunt down non-infected
- Contact tracing leads to hive
- Aliens attack
- Beckett tells them the alien’s plan before he dies
C. Create Demand for each clue/reveal.
- Cows are acting strange, almost aggressive
- Dogs are running in packs
- Rancher is feeling off and goes to hospital
- People whose nose and mouth are protected are safe
- Contact tracing
- The habitat inside of the hive is completely different
- The troupe finds chrysalises
2. Lay that over your current outline and fill in each clue/reveal using the tag “Monster Reveal:.”
ACT 1 — SET UP FOR HORROR – 23 pages
Atmosphere of Evil established – Meteorite hits and affects the livestock.
Horror Situation: Metoeorite lands in a pasture and vaporizes a couple of cattle. Then, spores release.
Connect with the characters – Colleen visits the site with the sheriff; Becket treats Mandi, etc…we see them in their normal world
Horror Situation: Colleen notices the cows are acting strange.
Reaction: Try to Solve It – she quarantines the herd and takes samples.
Monster Demand: Cows are acting strange, almost aggressive
The characters are warned not to do it. – Colleen talks to people at the grange about the livestock quarantine
Denial of Horror – no one takes the quarantine seriously; the mayor gives an interview with a nearby news station
Horror Situation: ranchers discover the infection has spread. A cow explodes near a cowdog and covers the dog in spores.
Monster Reveal:
Reveal: Cow explodes and infects dog
Safety taken away – pets become infected; quarantine was broken
Horror Situation: the dog goes and infects other dogs. They begin traveling in packs.
Reaction: Denial – most don’t take the animals acting differently seriously.
Monster Demand: Dogs are running in packs
Monster: The nature of the beast. – First human infected
Horror Situation: the pack of dogs attack the first rancher’s house.
Reaction: the rancher first tries to flee, then fight….
Horror Situation: …but is subdued. They hold him down while one explodes, covering him in spores
Monster Reveal: Dogs hunt down rancher and infect him
ACT 2 — THE POINT OF NO RETURN – 50 pages
Isolated / Trapped / Abducted – Cell tower has interference; a barrier has been erected; no one can escape or call out
Horror Situation: Trapped in the community – no escape, no communications – The sheriff discovers that communications have been interrupted.
Reaction: Try to solve it – he goes to check the phone lines and cell towers.
Horror Situation: Sheriff discovers the barrier around the community
Reaction: Tries to determine what the nature of the barrier is.
One of us killed – Rancher succumbs to the spores
Horror Situation: The rancher goes to the hospital – infects people there
Reaction: Escape it – people flee, though already infected
Horror Situation: people are being infected as the people in the hospital go out among the masses
Reaction: Hide from it – people lock themselves in their homes.
Horror Situation: the spores get into the homes.
Reaction: Escape it – people try to leave town only to find the barrier.
Monster Demand: Rancher is feeling off and goes to hospital
Monster Reveal: Rancher explodes and infects hospital
Monster Demand: People whose nose and mouth are protected are safe
Monster Reveal: Infected people hunt down non-infected
MIDPOINT: The monster is worse than we thought!
Horror situation: the discovery of biomechanical machinery made from the livestock and pets
Reaction: Try to solve it – they try to determine what the machinery is for
Monster Demand: Contact tracing
Full pursuit by the killer – Colleen and Becket discover the spores and their source.
Horror: the hive is discovered – it’s truly alien and spores are everywhere
Reaction: Escape – they try to find a way through the barrier
Monster Reveal: Contact tracing leads to hive
Terrorized – more people are becoming infected and Reverend Paul and his fanatics are starting to take others to be infected, amping up the process; Becket is taken by Reverend Paul’s followers
Horror: The non-infected are working for the infected
Reaction: Fight it – The small troupe try to fight their way out
Horror: There are too many converts
Reaction: Escape – The rest of the troupe flee to the jail.
ACT 3 — FULL OUT HORROR – 17 pages
Fight to the death – The troupe decide (against Colleen’s warnings and Carter’s pleadings) to try to destroy the hive and the infected with it. The Mayor and the sheriff are killed here.
Horror: There are new beings in the hive that are protecting it.
Reaction: Fight – try to kill them all and take out the hive
Horror: A chrysalis is damaged and the half-liquified remains of someone comes out.
Reaction: flee
Monster Demand: The habitat inside of the hive is completely different
Monster Reveal: Aliens attack
Monster Demand: The troupe finds chrysalises
Hysteria – Becket appears and tells them some people are being converted into a new life form, an alien race. This is how they proliferate throughout the cosmos. The hive has selected Mandi as its queen.
Horror: Alien invasion is well under way
Reaction: escape and find help from the outside
Horror: The warriors pursue them
Reaction: Fight, then escape
Monster Reveal: Beckett tells them the alien’s plan before he dies
The thrilling escape from death – Colleen, Mandi, and Carter escape the hive and discover a way through the barrier.
Death returns to take one or more. – Reverend Paul and his followers appear. They grab Mandi. Colleen holds the zealots off to allow time for Carter to escape. She uses the last bullet to commit suicide.
Horror: The converts attack the remaining troupe.
Reaction: Fight. Rev Paul is killed.
Horror: The warriors appear and wipe out the converts and take Mandi. They attack Colleen
Reaction: Colleen fights while Carter flees.
Horror: Colleen is infected.
Reaction: She shoots herself.
Resolution – Carter punches through the barrier only to thousands of more barriers as far as the eye can see. Mandi awakes as the new queen.
Horror: The world has already fallen.
Reaction: denial, despair.
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My monster is Fred/AKA Cernunnos: basically a Celtic God and protector of the forests and all the wild things who live in them. In this film he and his wife Diana/AKA Fildias in a remote and mountainous part of the Appalachian. Folks in the region have long reported a huge monster with antlers that eats hunters. Fred works a a deer hunting guide who has moved around from forest to forest, protecting his deer. In his Cernunnos aspect he is eight feet high at the withers, has a huge rack of antlers that can move and drip loosen, and has blood red eyes. He shows up in this aspect only when hunters are over hunting or wounding animals and leaving them to die. But once his ire is raised he is a relentless, stealthy killing machine.
He and Diana cannot killed and will fade from one forest to go protect another .
Perhaps their greatest limitation is they have to much patience and expect Hunters to respect The forest.
When one greedy hunter kills another hunter , wounds a die,(Diana in Doe form) and stalks their twin fauns then Cernunnos takes revenge.
The story begins with a hunter being gored in the neck by a stag
But we do not
See much of the stag. Then we go to the hunting lodge where Fred works and meet the two hunters he takes out, Things start to go badly very soon as one of the hunters shoots at everything that moves, wounds a die, which sends and enraged Fred in search of her. The two hunters fight and one of them is shot. Horace keeps on his quest fir a big buck, not realizing that Fred in stag firm is stalking him.
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Assignment 7 – Carmen’s Monster Reveal Track
What I learned doing this assignment was that even though my monster is revealed and we know his motive early on, he can build the tension, by stalking and creating terror, questions, and chaos in his wake. This exercise helped me examine how he builds his strength, but also how to keep the audience engaged and scared.
ASSIGNMENT 2
A. Who is your monster and what is their terror?
My Monster is motivated by good old-fashioned revenge! He couldn’t believe anyone in his family would betray him, especially after his deal with the Devil years earlier – that deal of power and money made him feel invincible.
Powers: The power to go anywhere to seek revenge, is paranormal so can travel and appear and disappear.
Limitations: Owes the Devil his due – while still wanting to cause chaos, pain, terror, dread, and havoc. His revenge will take time.
Weaknesses: He has to pay his debt or he will perish in hell… He has to have human souls and physical matter to complete his revenge mission.
Plan/Purpose/Appetite: To seek revenge for betrayal from his nephew and wife and also to pay his debt to the Devil – which is souls
ACT 1 – Establishing the Horror
Atmosphere of Evil established: Don Bruno makes a deal with the devil for power and money.
Horror Situation: Doing something forbidden – Fredo and Cecilia have an affair – The Don finds out.
Reaction – Fight: Fredo and Don Bruno argue – it escalates and Fredo shoots the Don and bury him in the desert south of town.
MONSTER REVEAL: The Don swears vengeance!
DEMAND: Will he really come back from the grave?
Horror Situation: Impending doom: Fredo and Luca dig up the Don’s grave – looking for the money
Connect with the characters: Flashback to Don Bruno and Cecilia, the kids and the whole family at an anniversary party for them. Dancing and having fun.
The characters are warned not to do it: At the party Grandmother Sofia tells them of the Don “curse”. How every Don generation has made a deal with the Devil for wealth and power and subsequently the entire family or the Don’s “old team” dies to fulfill his pact.
MONSTER FORESHADOWING: Did Don Bruno make the same pact with the Devil?
DEMAND: Is Grandmother Sofia’s story true? Some evidence exists
Denial of Horror: The group laughs at her story – the Don especially – in his own denial since he has already made the pact a few years before
Safety taken away: The Don is targeting the family!
Horror Situation: See another killed – Fredo is forced to watch the Don kill his oldest son.
Character Death 1: Dante Salvatore (Fredo’s Son)
Why: He is the next who would take over the Family
How: His Soul is sucked out and it’s the first portions of “skin” the Don puts on his face
MONSTER REVEAL: 1ST ACT TURNING POINT: Fredo watched a semblance of the Don kill his son – the curse is true!
DEMAND: All bets are off when he is willing to kill a kid – terror is established – chaos ensues
Reaction: Escape – Fredo tries to hide his twin teens from Don Bruno.
Horror Situation: Trapped – it becomes clear that it doesn’t matter where they go – Don Bruno can get to them.
Reaction – Fight: Fredo enlists the help of his brother, Leonardo, who lives out of state and left the family “business” to do other things.
Monster: The nature of the beast: Don Bruno comes to Fredo in a dream promising him that he will see everyone he loves die before he dies his own horrible death.
Horror Situation: Physically tortured – Cecilia gets tortured – he sucks her soul and uses some of her skin to put on him
Character Death 2: Cecilia Salvatore is killed (the Don’s wife)
Why: Revenge – she cheated on the Don with the nephew, Fredo
How: The Don, stalks her on the Las Vegas Strip tearing and slashing at her before cornering her and sucking her soul dry and breaking all of her bones. Takes some of her skin for himself
Reaction: Try to solve it – They go to Grandmother Sofia for answers.
ACT 2 — THE POINT OF NO RETURN
Isolated / Trapped / Abducted: They try to drive to California, but the borders are closed due to water shortage. The UT border is closed as well.
Horror Situation: Mentally tortured – The Don stalks his victims – torturing them not knowing who is next.
MONSTER REVEAL: MONSTER IS PRESENT, BUT HIDDEN: The Don is rejuvenated with every kill – but it takes time in between.
DEMAND: When will he come back? Can they hide? Who’s next?
Reaction: They go back to the family home highrise and try Grandmother Sofia’s warding off spell.
Horror Situation: The spell doesn’t work! The start to hear strange noises
Reaction: They Flee – Leonardo and Bianca keep looking for answers.
MONSTER REVEAL: MONSTER IS WORSE THAN WE THOUGHT: Grandmother Sofia’s spell didn’t work – now what?!
DEMAND: Is the Don invincible?
Character Death: Two more members of the family are brutally killed.
Character Death 3: Antonio Salvatore (Fredo’s young twin boy)
Why: Revenge – makes Fredo watch again and to show the ferocity of the Don’s anger
How: Off-Screen, screams and begging to be spared – soul sucking and bones crunching
Character Death 4: Luca Costa – (Fredo’s cousin on his mother’s side) – his partner in crime
Why: He helped Fredo cover up the affair with Cecilia, although not in the bloodline – he is collateral damage and punctuates the Don’s rage directed at Fredo’s actions
Horror Situation: Don Bruno follows Fredo and his family to a bunker.
Character Death: One of Fredo’s twins is savely killed.
MONSTER REVEAL: MONSTER PURSUING/ ATTACKING CHARACTERS, DELIVERING CLUES WITH EACH ATTACK: The Don takes pieces of each victim, leaving clues that he needs their physical matter and watched him sucks souls – needs their souls to keep his vengeful pursuit going!
DEMAND: What is the plan? Can they stop him before he rejuvenates? Maybe appeal to his human side – what’s left of it?
ACT III
Horror Situation/Character Death: Fredo’s wife, Sasha is killed in front of him. Don Bruno is patchworking the skin of his victims onto his face and arms. He is even scarier now!
Character Death 5: Sasha – Fredo’s wife
Why: To ensure there will be no more Salvatore’s from Fredo’s bloodline
How: Fredo is held against the wall and eyes forcibly opened to watch the Don skin her alive and each her flesh then cut a section and stick it on his neck.
Reaction: Fredo tries to appeal to Don Bruno’s human side. He weeps and yells.
Character Death: Don Bruno slits Fredo’s daughter’s throat.
Character Death 6: Caterina Salvatore (Fredo’s young twin daughter)
Why: Revenge – to further torture Fredo – makes him watch
How: Although off-screen the soul-sucking and bone-crunching are heard. He spares her taking any skin
Horror Situation: Leonardo and Bianca and Fredo are cornered.
Reaction: Hide: Fredo tries to hide under a couple of the dead bodies, but Don Bruno finds him.
Character Death: Fredo’s soul is sucked out and he is skinned and Don Bruno takes his flesh to wear on his face.
Character Death 7: Fredo
Why: Revenge – the final blow to the bloodline
How: Fredo is in such a state of dread and hysteria that he begs. The Don makes Fredo eat one of the pieces of flesh from his mangled/disgusting face. Then he skins him alive and eats his entrails.
Horror Situation: Leonardo and Bianca are trapped in the bunker
Reaction: Leonardo appeals to Don Bruno’s human side and strikes a deal.
MONSTER REVEAL: CHARACTERS SOLVE THE PUZZLE AND FIGHT BACK, APPARENTLY KILLING THE MONSTER: Leonardo and Bianca are spared because he wasn’t involved in the betrayal can appeal to the Don’s human side and they strike a deal!
DEMAND: What will happen to the Don, to them?
MONSTER RESOLUTION: SURVIVORS LIVE… BUT THE MONSTER IS SOMEHOW STILL ALIVE FOR THE SEQUEL
Leonardo becomes the new Don – Don Bruno’s debt is paid and he is at rest. Leonardo and Bianca leave the bunker. Leonardo on the phone setting a meeting with his second cousin – ready to start giving souls for power and money!
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Paige’s Monster Reveal Track
What I learned doing this assignment is I’m already doing a substantive rework of the center body of my story. But since I’m naturally incorporating the next lesson, the Character Journey Track, I’m going to keep working on the outline and try to post whole under Lesson 8. More and more parts are being filled in, but I also keep shifting sections, reveals and more. A work in progress.
A. Who is your monster and what is their terror?
Lesson 2, Crafting Your Monster, covered a lot of my monster’s background. But to summarize:
Powers: Ability to camouflage themselves as human women, power of suggestion to control their victims and if the victims refuse, the victims go mad, “dream walking” where they complete the mating act in their victims’ dreams by psychic projection of their glamoured form, ability to regenerate severed limbs, like an octopus, or to recover from a knife or gunshot wound, super strength.
Limitations: To heal themselves, they must revert to their real alien form. Their mating and birthing cycles are generational, every 22 years.
Weaknesses: Sunlight diminishes their powers but doesn’t kill them; however, fire will kill them. Decapitation will also kill them. The “matron” is at her weakest after releasing a material to activate all the eggs.
Plan/Purpose: To propagate and continue the lifeline of their species at the expense of whomever is around them.
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Jennifer’s Monster Reveal Track
I learned that it is not enough to create terror – we also need to provide the audience with mysteries and intrigue and gradually reveal the answers and the nature of the monster to create a satisfying horror experience.
Who is your monster and what is their terror?
• Powers? The monster comes out of a book to inhabit the body of a young innocent, and then it controls forces of nature and makes animals terrorize and attack.
• Limitations? It can only work through a human host – a child, it has powers only when the sun goes down,
• Weaknesses? The child needs to be near the book (and book must be open?), it goes dormant at sunrise
• Plan/Purpose/Appetite? It wants to avenge wrongs – rid the world of evil masquerading as good, expose liars and exploitation, make the world a better place for children.
DEMAND: Intrigue – Why did the parents on yacht get attacked?
REVEAL: Maybe they weren’t the best people – little girl survived.
DEMAND: Mislead – Who is the unseen “she” who is shot? Who is the killer?
REVEAL: She is a cow who was torn up in a breech birth. Rancher had to shoot her.
DEMAND: Mystery – Are the gold miner ghosts responsible for the terror?
REVEAL: Nope.
DEMAND: Mystery – Is Dad’s ghost the source of the terror.
REVEAL: Nope. Or maybe, a little?
DEMAND: Mystery – What is the real story of Dad’s death?
REVEAL: Richard let him fall.
DEMAND: Mislead – Are the strangers who wandered into the campsite ghosts? Killers?
REVEAL: They are ranchers who shoot a rattler, and get cactus out of Frank.
DEMAND: When does the terror appear?
REVEAL: At sunset.
DEMAND: Where does the terror appear?
REVEAL: Near the campsite (where the book is) but only if Leya is there as well.
DEMAND: Who is the target?
REVEAL: It always happens when Leya is near.
DEMAND: Did Leya do something? Pick up some gold?
REVEAL: No, nothing ever harms her.
DEMAND: What is the evil voice?
REVEAL: It’s the monster in Leya who knows what Richard has done.
DEMAND: Who is pursuing Richard?
REVEAL: Leya – possessed by monster.
DEMAND: Where does the monster come from?
REVEAL: The book.
DEMAND: Can the monster be stopped? How?
REVEAL: (Close the book?) Destroy the book, or let the monster kill the guilty one.
DEMAND: What happens when the monster has killed its prey?
REVEAL: Monster retreats back into the book.
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Charles Ferrell’s Monster Reveal Track
What I learned from doing this assignment is I need more characters earlier, more scenes and more monster complexity to clue in.
A. Who or what the is the monster?
What are its powers?
Manipulation, Surprise, Shock, extreme emotional torture via choice.
What are its limitations?
Physical Strength
What are its weaknesses?
Prefers to involve others in the killing, not always reliable
What is its Plan/Purpose/Appetite?
Her twin disappeared when she was young, she has strong drive for the rest of world to feel terrified, unsafe, and as if part of them is missing. Couples or pairs of friends must choose to lose a limb or lose their partner, either way part of them will be missing. Misery is her playground, taking her back to the childish origin of her psychotic break.
B. Reveal Sequence
ACT 1
Atmosphere of Evil established: Security camera footage of killings in the street, bodies being tossed over the side of cargo ship, literal blood in the water and on the side if the ship
Horror Situation: Helping a good person and being attacked Cry for help freeing a badly injured crew member
Reaction – Try to solve it: Group of friends boards the anchored cargo ship to help
Monster Reveal: Back lit by the blazing sun a single silhouette can be seen in the bridge, high above the deck.
Horror Situation: Tricked They spot the injured and run the length of the ship only to find a body that has been dead for days.
Connect with the characters: momentary inner tension/dissention erupts within the group, are we fools? Are we heroes too late? Or is something greater afoot?
Denial of Horror: The groups decide loosely this is a misunderstanding and youthful panic on the part of the crew member who can now not be found. Choose to return to their fishing trip and lives.
Safety taken away: They walk back to where they last spotted the crew member, only to hear their boat pulling away.
Horror Situation: Trapped They run back towards the hatch which leads to the stairwells to the waterline porthole. Only to be shot at from on high near the bridge
Reaction – Hide They run inside another hatch. Bullets follow only to ricochet inside the hatch forcing them to go lower into the cargo hold of the ship away from the hatch, away from familiar territory.
Horror Situation: Escape route taken away. The hatch is suddenly shut and locked from the outside; they try the hatch with no avail. They must find another way out.
Reaction – Escape: They must find another way out, deeper into the belly of the beast.
Monster: The nature of the beast: This is no accident and the desire to trap them is becoming apparent, with no known motive or map for survival.
Monster Reveal: A metal hatch door is heard squeaking in the darkness, footsteps high above are heard slowly walking on a catwalk.
Horror Situation: Lost Wondering in poorly lit conditions of spilled cargo, finding more blood and evidence of the fate of the crew.
Reaction: Fight They split up to seek anything in the cargo that could be used as a weapon or way out.
ACT 2 — THE POINT OF NO RETURN
Isolated / Trapped / Abducted: Armed with what amounts to damaged cargo (weapons, tools, furniture) they search separately for a way out between the cargo containers blocking visibility to each other.
CHARACTER DEATH 1: Jimmy
Horror Situation: Being lured into danger. Jimmy armed with a pipe wrench, climbs to a higher level sees a figure dart by a door and pursues
Monster Reveal: Jimmy is ambushed and in his final moments partially glimpses the monster.
Reaction: Fight. He alone pursues, is ambushed from behind is killed and in his final moments catches a glimpse of a female silhouette watching from a distance.
WHY: Jimmy the assumed leader of group, tough and/or brave is removed from the equation. He leaves the others alone and dies, creating the necessity for the others discover a new leader and arc.
HOW: He chases his first impulse to act, causing him to get blindsided and stabbed in the back by another. His body is tossed down upon them, dividing them literally and emotionally.
MIDPOINT: The monster is worse than we thought
Horror Situation: Fall through the floor\ horror from above. Hearing the echoed screams, they begin to call out locating each other (jimmy is missing). Creaking catwalk steps above in the darkness, jimmy’s body swings from the darkness above in their midst. His feet wrapped in chain, a bloody pendulum.
Reaction: Hide They scatter like roaches, hiding separately between cargo containers.
Monster Reveal: Above in broken light as shadows move, they catch a partial glimpse of the monster; enjoying their suffering. The vantage point from where Jimmy’s body came down. As the body swings back up the blood spatter hits the monster unflinching, like a soft welcomed rain.
Horror Situation: Mentally Tortured Crouching the darkness separately, they can partially see Jimmy’s body swing as Chris starts to break down.
Reaction: Try to solve it. Chris mentally breaks down and is frozen, Eric tries to calm him and refocus his energy on survival and that Chris is too cautious to get caught in a trap.
Monster Reveal: The monster covered in fine blood spatter, jumps onto the chain with the swinging Jimmy’s body. Forcing the chain to swing in an ever wider arch, crossing thru small silvers of light in its path. The blood is now causing makeup to run beginning to expose some of the tattoos and scarring.
ACT 3 – FULL OUT HORROR
Horror Situation: Impending Doom The monster lets out a shrill scream, suddenly the sound of metal-on-metal scraping of weapons on the containers; banging on others. Loud hurried footsteps across the tops of the containers coming closer. Building to what sound like a small army of steps and in the echoing dark it seems to be from all directions.
Reaction: Hide some characters fumble in the dark for a means of defensive, while others cower further into the darkness in fear.
Horror Situation: Environment changing around you The ship begins to move, while listing to one side as an anchor point pulls against it. Cargo Containers begin groan and creak, cargo securing chains begin to snap one by one, sending containers sliding and spilling. As the whole area tilts.
Reaction: Escape. Forcing the group to run, climb to avoid being crushed, pick any direction just one together
Horror Situation: A Character refuses to take action Eric enters hallway off of cargo bay, is confronted with armed teen who is slightly hesitant to kill. He hears more frantic footsteps and yelling coming.
Reaction: Try to solve it Eric tries to reason with the youth, while waiting for Chris sprinkled with a misting of Jimmy’s blood and frozen in the shadows is unable to act.
Horror Situation: Friends in Danger Chris gathers himself and leaps, taking down the attacker
Reaction: Escape The youth beg for his life and promises to help if they will save his sister
Horror Situation: Impending doom Bullets fly down the metal hallways, the group must decide and move.
Reaction: Hide The group is now + 2 as they pick up the hiding child aurie and her brother. No chance of out running, they duck inside a boiler room.
Horror Situation: Injured, wounded, or debilitated Several youths spilt off to explore the boiler room.
Reaction: Fight. Eric now protecting Aurie, along with the youth and Chris fight using any means they find. The youth is injured, one pursuer is killed the other badly injured calls the troops.
Horror Situation: Dilemma..who to save Eric with the guidance of the youth begins a long ladder climb up to a deck hatch, injured youth and chris (afraid of heights) behind him, with aurie climbing reluctantly between him and the ladder.
Reaction: Escape In the climb the are confronted with urgency, Chris’ fear of heights, an injured youth and the further physical challenges of a physically smaller and immature child in a mature situation.
The thrilling escape from death: The group makes it topside to the deck, locking the hatch behind them, only to discover the real danger, the real killer in waiting.
Horror Situation: Monster approaching Weary of the ineffective young killers the monster directly pursues
Monster Reveal: The monster wiping blood from her eyes exposes her true face
CHARACTER DEATH 2: CHRIS
Reaction: Fight & Escape Chris seeing escape for all not possible, arcs from coward to hero and faces the monster alone, Chris dies. While Eric escapes with Aurie and her injured brother.
WHY: Character arc, Chris is afraid of everything and in the end faces his demons and the monster for the good of all.
HOW: In direct battle with the monster, in this the monsters true appearance is revealed. Chris appears to be winning then is attacked from behind by a second attacker bringing him to his knees before the monster & his demons before his throat is slit.
Resolution: The injured youth joins the fight with Chris against the monster, Chris is visibly killed and all in battle seem lost and survivors are safe.
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Larry Fraller’s Monster Reveal Track
What I learned doing this assignment is it can be really hard to reveal the monster little by little, at first only by its effects. This would be a surprise reveal for the audience as well as the characters. However, I wonder how it would work if the audience saw the monster(s) from the beginning and knew they would prey on someone, but not say how or when or even who. The audience expectations might be heightened by what they know but can’t see or understand yet. Especially in the beginning when the weird Eumenides talk in riddles. It worked for Shakespeare and Aeschylus. But I’m not them, of course.
I couldn’t help putting it all together in the outline. It’s the only way I could see what was a clue or a reveal, and how they work together. It also helped me reduce the actions/scenes to their essence.
1A. Who is the monster and what is their terror?
* Powers: One’s conscience, by unleashing forces of nature commensurate with the person’s transgression that are both real and symbolic
*Limitations: Person’s transgression must be life altering, with the person knowing their transgression is wrong, and a function of carnal desire.
*Weaknesses: If a person recovers from their transgression and returns to their vow, then the Eumenides have no power over them any longer
*Plan/purpose/appetite: Justice, destruction of the violator and all those present in their life. No one is immune, not even themselves.
SET UP FOR HORROR
PROLOGUE (result of their violence)
CLUE: Why do they stir water of a pond while chanting weird mysterious predictions?
CLUE: Why does the pond boil and turn to blood and stench?
Alecto, (ALESSA) Consequence of violating spiritual knowledge
Megaera, (MEGARETTA) Consequence of violating volition
Tisiphone (STEPHATTA) Consequence of violating carnal desires
CLUE: Why does a wolf drag a dead deer to the Eumenides?
MONSTER REVEAL: They eat the deer raw (chanting that this is the soul of the transgressor) (would love to use lamb, as symbolic of innocence, but then it would give away that Lorette is the transgressor when she tastes the lamb)
ACT 1 (foreshadowing as clues)
CLUE: Why does Chambers pick a rose, but only told afterwards it violates rule?
CLUE: Why does ALESSA warn they can smell but not touch the roses?
CLUE: What happens if they violate traditions?
INCITING INCIDENT
CLUE: Why does Lorette get a fever?
MONSTER REVEAL: Lorette sees darkness in MEGARETTA and feels cold draft.
CLUE: Why do gnats swarm Chambers, irritating his eyes and his nerves.
ACT 1 TURNING POINT AND TWIST (locked into horror)
MONSTER REVEAL: Lorette dreams Chambers is evil, keeps her in dungeon so he can keep her to himself. In dream, he’s a demon, same darkness in Megaretta, eyes try to poison her soul
ACT 2 POINT OF NO RETURN (HORROR EVERY 10 TO 15 MINUTES)
CLUE: Why does their well water turns foul with parasites?
CLUE: What is the secrets the servant girl wants to tell but dies before she can tell them?
MONSTER REVEAL: They find her body at edge of creek, rotting with worms consuming her.
CLUE: Why does MEGARETTA determines the girl died from terror that stole her soul?
CLUE: Why does ALESSA blame LORETTE and CHAMBERS for not retrieving their own water from the river?
CLUE: Why do bees take over the vines while the VINTNER’s wife is picking grapes?
MONSTER REVEALED: She’s stung mercilessly.
CLUE: Why and how does she survive by a potion her husband keeps on hand?
CLUE: Why is Megaretta killed by the bees, which is really weird, considering she’s one of the Eumenides?
MONSTER REVEAL: Creek overflows and washes out the roads, bringing more parasites, larger and more
CLUE: Why are these parasites mysteriously not native to the region?
ACT 2 MIDPONT – MONSTER IS WORSE THAN WE THOUGHT
CLUE: Why does Megaretta’s younger sister STEPHATTA replace her?
CLUE: Why is she’s the opposite in temperament and action from Megaretta?
MONSTER REVEAL: Lorette sees the same darkness in her that she saw in Megarette, but there’s no cold draft.
CLUE: Why does Stephatta let blame Lorette and Chambers for her sister’s death?
ACT 2 CONTINUED
CLUE: Who are these singers and dancers and why are they there?
MONSTER REVEAL: Singers and dancers beat PRINCE OSSIMON
CLUE: Why was S&M forbidden by MEGARETTA?
MONSTER REVEAL: Orgies of pain and torture of the younger servants. They are forced to whip OSSIMON and one another.
CLUE: Why do one of them have to die every night?
MONSTER REVEAL: until the person guilty of killing MEGARETTA is revealed.
MONSTER REVEAL: Servants are tortured with spiders and snakes, which kill them slowly.
MONSTER REVEAL: Larger, more dangerous predators from the river attack Chambers and Lorette
CLUE: Why does Alessa bring them a tiny exotic fish she claims is to keep evil away?
CLUE: Why is LORETTE drawn to the orgies of sex?
CLUE: Why does Chambers agree to let her go?
MONSTER REVEAL: It tortures him to hear from her what she experiences.
CLUE: Why does she enjoy torturing him with his sexual failures?
CLUE: Why does ALESSA brings him a remedy?
MONSTER REVEAL: When she leaves, he’s attacked by wolves.
CLUE: Why do the wolves leave when LORETTE returns from the all-night orgy?
CLUE: Why do the gypsy women bathe her in rose petals?
MONSTER REVEAL: OSSIMON ties her to a post and pours freezing water over her.
CLUE: Why does Ossimon let her escape as the sun’s coming up?
MONSTER REVEAL: A naked woman in the tub now boiling and being pecked to death by ravens.
MONSTER REVEAL: Torrential rains turn the path home to mud. Weird animal cries all around her. She almost drowns in the mud. Vultures circle overhead.
ACT 2 END TWIST
CLUE: Why does Lorette tell CHAMBERS only about her excitement in the tub?
MONSTER REVEAL: When they fall asleep after making passionate love. The stream overflows and flood creeps toward their house.
ACT 3 FULL OUT HORROR
MONSTER REVEAL: Bodies float by. Some still alive and pulled underwater, blood spewing into the flood around them. Vultures pick at the corpses.
CLUE: Why do vultures watch LORETTE with knowing eyes, hypnotizing her?
MONSTER REVEAL: She swings sword wildly at demons only she can see. Almost chops off Chamber’s foot.
MONSTER REVEAL: Rats escape from the basement.
MONSTER REVEAL: Flood seeps into the house.
MONSTER REVEAL: Large fish consume the rats, which squeal and roar as they die.
MONSTER REVEAL: The water turns bloody.
MONSTER REVEAL: The herbs that ALESSA gave to CHAMBERS warms the waters to bath temperature, then warmer.
MONSTER REVEAL: CHAMBERS and LORETTE flee up the stairs as the water chases them higher.
MONSTER REVEAL: Worms and snakes and rats attack them. LORETTE goes mad. Tries to swim.
MONSTER REVEAL: Chambers can’t catch her. He goes higher. High as he can go to the rafter in the loft.
MONSTER REVEAL: LORETTE’S body floats to him. Her eyes open, peer into him as if she’s alive. He starts to faint from the hot water. Hallucinates visions of piranhas swimming towards him.
MONSTER REVEAL: Chambers uses LORETTE’s body to fend off the piranhas. They attack and devour her while he’s holding her.
CLUE: Why is there nothing left but her skeleton after the water cools and recedes? ‘
CLUE: Why is he left holding her skeleton, her eye sockets still piercing into him?
CLUE: When he opens the box into which he had placed her bones, why is there only dust?
MONSTER REVEAL: ALESSA describes how LORETTE had violated her own vow to never eat animals. It’s a tradition that anyone who breaks a sacred vow is punished according to the manner of the vow they broke, unleashing forces of vengeance and retribution.
CLUE: Why does Stephatta tell Chambers to spread LORETTE’s dust among the roses?
CLUE: Why does Chambers touch a rose?
MONSTER REVEAL: It’s ambiguous whether he’s pushed into the roses or the roses grab him. Either way Chambers is caught in the roses and the more he struggles to free himself, the deeper he plunge into the roses, completely torn to pieces by the thorns.
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Doug Ryan’s Monster Reveal Track
What I learned from doing this assignment is I am really able to flesh out my villain and have him have a small backstory of anger issues that is satiated by the surgery and death he causes.
Powers: Charismatic to adults, able to be unnoticed by authorities, he is smart and calculating. Assimilating to the situation around him, knowledge of the town and well liked by all allowing him to get away with murder and his odd collections.
Limitations: He can’t really kill anyone from the town, and when he does it opens up all kinds of problems, including attention by the police.
Weakness: His work to save restore his wife’s site and the fact he is not a surgeon and she is an eye surgeon poses a problem as he is learning on the fly.
Plan/Purpose/Appetite: Dr. Xeno is practicing eye surgery on unsuspecting people in order to find the perfect eyes to transplant to his wife. The killing was a perk for his anger issues and he enjoys keeping the eyes as trophies of his progression in his amateur surgery skills.
Who or What is the Monster: Dr. Xeno, an optometrist with anger management issues that harbors a lust for killing and is enabled by his wife.
1. Demand: There is a man with a popped out eye on Dr. Xeno’s front porch with the sheriff in tow.
Monster Reveal: Dr Xeno removes the eye and asks to keep it, then puts it in his eye room.
2. Demand: He has to scare some kids.
Monster Reveal: He tells the child to take care of his glasses or else, and tells the teen she has near perfect eyes.
3. Demand: Dr. Xeno is questioned by police at a clinic he works at in the city.
Monster Reveal: Xeno stares long and hard at pictures of his victims and has no reaction.
4. Demand: Daniella is forced into an eye exam.
Monster Reveal: Xeno hurts a child and denies it.
5. Demand: Xeno must be creepy.
Monster Reveal: He takes an interest in Daniella’s “perfect” eyes.
6. Demand: Xeno can’t get Daniella alone.
Monster Reveal: He gives an after hours exam to her guardian and kills her.
7. Demand: Xeno has to feed his addiction
Monster Reveal: He murders a transient.
8. Demand: The teens must witness this and tell on him.
Monster Reveal: He kills the sheriff and her son.
9. Demand: He has to stalk Daniella
Monster Reveal: He follows his son to her house and waits outside, and kills her other guardian.
10. Demand: The police must close in on him.
Monster Reveal: He kills the cop chasing him.
10. Demand: He tries to get her eyes.
Monster Reveal: He kills his son to get to her.
11. Demand: He has to get her eyes.
Monster Reveal: Mary shows up at the hospital telling her she still needs one eye from Daniella.
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Anthony Ward’s monster reveal track
What I learned: This lesson helped me get on track with knowing more about my monster. There were some things that I did not think about when I came up with the concept. I kinda realized I don’t like my story as much as I originally did. I am going to finish what I started but once this course is over I am going to start a new script that I think will be better.
Who is your monster and what is their terror?: My monster is the Ghost/ ashes of Errol Brennon. He terrorizes those who have invaded his mansion.
Powers? His powers are he can form as dust in the shape of a man. He can pass thru air ducts and cracks and holes.
Limitations? Errol can not move any physical objects nor can he grab anything.
Weaknesses? He can not move very fast.
Plan/Purpose/Appetite? He gets in the mouths of his victims mostly when they scream. They choke to death. His children killed him to get an inheritance but he left them nothing. So he kills the young adults who are in his home.B. Sequence the reveals.
Some looters break into Errol Brennon’s mansion after he is dead. They steal some valuables. They accidentally knock over an urn holding his ashes. Years later a group of young adults visit the abandon mansion to throw a memorial day party there. One girl thinks the mansion is haunted so she does a spell to summon a spirit. She awakes the ghost of Errol. He goes on a killing spree leaving only one survivor.
C. Create Demand for each clue/reveal.
I am struggling with this section. I need to go back and rework my monster and the story. I feel as if I created a situation that does not have enough horror. The goal was to write a horror not a thriller.
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Jason Lassen’s Monster Reveal Track
What I learned doing this assignment is… I really enjoyed this exercise. I like a slow reveal, but it made me think maybe it’s too slow? As fun as it is to write death scenes, I realized I may have too many characters.
A. Who is your monster and what is their terror?
The Devil discovered a vortex where he can directly possess items that are accompanied by evil spirits in the form of children. The items are watched over by the Toy Keeper.
Powers? The children whisper in the ears of people who are around the item they possess and try and convince them to “Play” with it. And by play, they mean to use the item to kill.
Limitations? The whispers only work on people who are sinners or have done wrong to others purposely.
Weaknesses? People with a good heart can not hear the children’s whispers and can only become victims but are safe from being possessed.
Plan/Purpose/Appetite? If a person good or bad is killed by one of The Devils Toys, the devil gets their soul.<div>
B. Sequence the reveals.
01 – A man standing at the end of a hall in a storage unit facility. We only see this for a second before it goes dark. We hear the man running and breathing heavy. The lights come back on when we hear the man turn on the hall light timer. He looks around and goes out a door into yet another dark hallway. We continue to hear him run and breath. Finally, he comes across some light. It’s from the main rolling gate of the facility. As he runs he can see the outside. He gets to the gate and breaths a sigh of relief. His relief is cut short by the door slamming down and cutting him in half.
02 – An eerie drone shot shows a vast forest with nothing around for miles until we come across the storage unit facility. There are people gathered around the main door waiting for it to open.
03 – While outside waiting a few people look around as if they hear something. They shrug it off.
04 – They are warned about the lights going off every thirty minutes and having to be turned on.
05 – People start asking other people they are with if they hear voices.
06 – Our first kill. While she’s doing it she talks to the voice that she hears. The lights go out.
07 – The guitarist complains of not being able to perform because the voice won’t stop talking to him. He kills the drummer. The lights go out.
08 – A light is turned back on and the person jump scares another person.
09 – Keytarist sees a unit open and goes to it for help. It’s Toby, who says, “Why do you keep talking to me?!” And she kills again. The lights go out.
10 – Guitarist runs after worker #2, singing, “Let’s play, let’s play, play with our toys.” The lights go out and you can hear the singing. The worker turns the lights back on and gets impaired by a guitar. The lights go out.
11 – Erick, Nathan, and Gayle confirm with one another they all hear the voices of children. Nathan kills Erick. Flashback of Erick’s sinning past. The lights go out. We hear a child’s voice whisper, “Let’s play.”
12 – Toby talks with the voice saying she’ll play. Gayle acknowledges she also hears the voice but doesn’t know what it means by your hands are also a toy. Flashback to Gayle’s sin. Toby kills Gayle. The lights go out.
13 – Nathan and Honey are having sex yelling, “Let’s Play! Let’s Play!” Flashback to Nathan’s sin. Honey kills Nathan
14 – The Guitarist and Toby compare what each other’s voices are saying to them while each is at the end of a long hall of unit doors. The guitarist is on a mini motorcycle holding a mic stand like a joust. He yells, “Let the games begin, bitch!” He chases her and stabs her with the mic stand. She puts his scarf in the wheel of the bike and revs it up. Flashback to Guitarist sin. Toby kills the guitarist. The lights go out.
15 – Andrew confronts Honey. Honey stabs Andrew and with his last breath, he slits her throat. Flashback to Honey’s sin. They both die. The lights go out.
16 – Jumpscare as the Bass player and Heather see the way out. Toby kills Bass player.
17 – We hear the voices talking to Toby. Toby and Heather fight. Flashback to Toby’s sin. Toby dies.
18 – Heather runs outside. She starts crying from being overwhelmed. She is harpooned and dragged back into the storage unit. The door slams down. The lights go out.
C. Create Demand for each clue/reveal.
The reveal of the voices is slow. At first, we don’t know why the killers kill. We think it’s just Toby but then the Guitarist kills. Both claim to hear voices. Then we get flashbacks on some characters and not others. Slowly revealing that the people who hear voices are the ones who kill and are the ones with flashbacks to sins. By the end, the audience can fully hear what the voices are saying.
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Toby Watts’ Monster Reveal Track
What I learned doing this assignment is that it’s helpful to know what to reveal and when about your monster, and that it’s important to create demand for reveals and clues about the monster.
Concept for BELOW GROUND: A super wealthy family retreat into their half-built underground bunker after a surprise vigilante attack on them in the night, only to find they have no way back out again and worse: someone — or something — is down there already.
MY MONSTER
Powers: Incredibly strong, good at fighting, brutal warrior, uses nearby heat to power itself.
Limitations: Is only active when a nearby human heat source so can only engage in close physical combat with an enemy or must fight in groups of two or more, otherwise is unconscious and vulnerable.
Weaknesses: Can be killed when unconscious, and can be bargained with.
Plan/Purpose/Appetite: To kill the family.
Who or what the monster is: A trio of ex-marine killer assassins, bio-engineered by someone skeptical of the father’s biotech invention and who wants the father to see what his technology can do in the wrong hands.
ACT 1 – SETUP FOR HORROR
Atmosphere of evil established: The sleeping family are mobbed by vigilantes trying to break in in the middle of the night. Flaming torches, bricks through windows, angry people in face masks threaten them outside the house.
Horror Situation: Family terrorised by vigilantes trying to break in.
Reaction: Father tells them all to escape into bunker.
Connect with the characters: The father runs around the house waking everyone up and we meet his family. Their reactions reveal something about who they are as they all rush towards the underground bunker for safety.
Horror Situation: Family are pursued by vigilantes through their house.
Demand: What is going on? Who are these people?
Monster Reveal 1: Three assassins fight in close proximity to one another and can only separate when they have another person to hold onto. They take out the family’s security guard as the family rush down to the bunker. CREATES INTRIGUE and reveals the brutal power and menace of the monster.
Reaction: Son tries to fight one of them, but father has to rescue him.
Death #1: The security guard is taken out by these highly trained assassins with unusual tactical plays.
The characters are warned not to do it: Just before they lock the door to the bunker, the father and mother argue about whether to do this. There are barely any supplies down there, it’s unfinished, they could be trapped for days, weeks. But they decide to do it.
Horror Situation: They realise they don’t have enough supplies down there to live very long and there’s a chance it’s not secure.
Reaction: Parents hide their fear and carry on.
Denial of horror: Once inside, the family begin to relax and think they’ll be okay. They’re safe. The father has done well to create this bunker to protect them.
Safety taken away: A disfigured stranger collapses through a vent into their bunker, terrifying them all. This strange unconscious man is trapped in there with them!
Monster Reveal 2: Stranger bursts through hole in ceiling but is comatose until they go near/touch him. CREATES INTRIGUE and a DEMAND to understand this. The family assumes the man is messing with them.
Horror Situation: A disfigured stranger (looks as though he’s been surgically altered) crashes onto their dinner table.
Reaction: Family freak out and hide, discuss what to do.
Monster: the nature of the beast: The stranger animates to life and attacks them when they get within a metre of him. It’s a close call with some grappling and struggling, but they’re all okay…
Horror situation: Father finally approaches the monster but it animates to life as he gets too close.
Reaction: Father tries to fight it off, family join in and it’s a huge struggle to free the father, who gets hurt in the process.
ACT 2 — THE POINT OF NO RETURN
Isolated / Trapped / Abducted: Except the daughter is not okay. She starts having an asthma attack caused by all the struggle and shock, and her only inhaler is back above ground in the house. They plan to force the maid to go and get it, but the son finally decides to bravely go in her place.
Horror Situation: The daughter is struggling to breathe and could lose consciousness within minutes.
Reaction: Her brother volunteers to go and get her inhaler.
Horror Situation: They have to get past the body of the stranger.
Reaction: Devise a plan to get around it and keep watch until the son returns.
Reveal 3: The son bravely ventures into the house but is tricked and one of the two remaining killers is still holding onto the security guard, who is barely alive. Son gets taken out. CREATES DEMAND to know what this is about — why do they need to be in contact with someone like this.
One of us killed/Death #2: The son returns with the inhaler but gets captured and beaten — possibly killed — just outside the bunker door. The family inside the bunker watch him get dragged away, covered in his own blood.
Horror Situation: The son narrowly manages to grab the inhaler, but gets caught on his way back by the vigilantes.
Reaction: Family fight back.
Horror situation: Family have to decide whether to shut the door on the son or not.
Reaction: They shut the door (escape).
MIDPOINT: The monster is worse than we thought!
Full pursuit by the killer: They try to move the stranger’s body but keep waking him up by coming too close to him and he nearly kills one of them.
Monster Reveal 4: Family can awaken the stranger by having controlled close contact. It talks and appears to work for someone the father has heard of. Is it to do with the father somehow? INTRIGUE.
Horror Situation: The stranger kidnaps the daughter and locks himself and her in a room together.
Reaction: The family try to solve how to open the door.
Horror situation: the daughter must tell the truth or she’ll die.
Reaction: She tries to solve the situation by telling the truth. But when she doesn’t know the answer, she gets hurt and the family become hysterical.
Terrorized: They unwittingly chain him to a radiator where he absorbs the heat, which brings him to life (due to a human-machine hybrid modification), and he gains strength, breaks away and chases them all down, trying to get to the father.
Horror Situation: The father bursts into the room and sees his daughter collapse, but he can’t attack the stranger because it will give him energy to wake up.
Reaction: The father screams and rants.
ACT 3 — FULL OUT HORROR
Fight to the death: The father grapples and fights with the stranger, until eventually he remains up close to him, keeping the stranger alive long enough to talk with the father. He explains he is like this because of the father’s heat exchange technology that has been put in him. He wants the father to fix him so he doesn’t work like this.
Horror Situation: The father realises this stranger exists because of his life’s work.
Reaction: Denial.
Horror Situation: The vigilantes begin to pump gas into the bunker.
Reaction: The family find a limited number of gas masks and try to hide.
Reveal 5: The stranger can absorb a family member’s oxygen to survive a gas attack in the bunker. ESCALATES TERROR.
Horror Situation: The maid tries to make a run for it to save her family before she dies.
Reaction: The family watch on the monitors as she’s savagely attacked and killed by the vigilantes.
Death #3: The maid is killed by the assassin vigilantes.
Horror Situation: The Daughter thinks the police have arrived, blue flashing lights, policemen in uniform. She makes a break for it and hugs one of the officers in the corridor.
Reaction: Her family watch in terror on the monitors as she gets double crossed and policemen turn out to be vigilantes in costume — they slash her up with a huge sword and she dies. The family are sick with horror.
Horror Situation: the family are pursued by the stranger in the smoky bunker.
Reaction: Hiding, running.
Hysteria: The family see the son tied up outside the bunker door. The vigilantes are beginning to torture him until they open the door. The father changes the stranger’s code via a terminal in the back of his head, and the stranger can live without the heat from humans or elsewhere now. In return the stranger vows to help save the father’s son. The vigilantes begin to break in via the vent above the bunker too.
Horror Situation: The family see the son tied up outside the door.
Reaction: Hysteria, try to fight. But the father holds the mother back.
Horror situation: they have to approach the stranger for his help.
Reaction: It works! The father changes the stranger’s code.
Monster Reveal 6: Monster has its own will and can be reprogrammed to survive on its own. Setups DEMAND to know how it will use this to defeat the other assassins.
The thrilling escape from death: The stranger kills all the vigilantes in the corridor outside the bunker and rescues the son. The family fight off the vigilantes in the bunker. It looks like they’ll all escape safely.
Horror Situation: The doors from their bunker to their house are going to be opened.
Reaction: The stranger takes out the vigilantes one by one and saves the son.
Death returns to take one or more: But the father closes the door on the stranger, who thought the father would let him back in to reprogram him. The father turns the cameras off so he can’t see what’s happening anymore. The stranger begins to realise what’s happening to him, and comes back for revenge on the father once more, with the family all trapped in the bunker. After a tense cat and mouse game in the bunker, the son finally shoots the stranger and kills him.
Horror situation: The father has double crossed the stranger and now it wants revenge. A noise rumbles in the vent.
Reaction: The family hide in the bunker, but the father decides to shoot whatever is coming through the vent. He shoots up into the dark space, not knowing what he’s shooting at. BANG BANG BANG!
Monster Reveal 7: The monster is more clever than we realise, setting up the father to kill his own son.
Horror Situation: It turns out, he’s shot his own son! His son crashes onto the table.
Resolution: The family emerge into their trashed house. Somehow, they’re all still alive — just — and in one piece. But is the stranger lurking around to take revenge or not?
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George’s Monster Reveal Track
What I learned from doing this assignment is that I got ahead of myself on an earlier assignment.
· 1. Create each part of this model:
A. Who is your monster and what is their terror?
Powers? It is super tough with an exoskeleton. It is super strong because it came from twice the gravity. Its jaws and teeth are fearsome. It is highly intelligent. It sees in the infrared part of spectrum. It can better stand icy, cold conditions.<div>
Limitations? It comes out only at night.
Weaknesses? Yellow light blinds it. It is susceptible to higher temperatures.
Plan/Purpose/Appetite? It is scouting Earth for invasion. It intends to survive. Its appetite is us.
B. Sequence the reveals.
A. It rips people apart and devours them.
B. It only comes out at night.
C. It is super strong.
D. Intelligent as it rips out power lines.
E. It came in a landing craft; therefore, super intelligent.
F. It is not bothered by cold and blizzard conditions.
G. Visible light bothers it.
H. Fire can stop it.
I. It mutilated captives.
J. It can communicate—and intends to do so with its planet.
K. It can’t survive several tons being dropped on it. LOL
C. Create Demand for each clue/reveal.
2. Lay that over your current outline and fill in each clue/reveal using the tag “Monster Reveal:.”
ACT 1
Atmosphere of Evil established: A mountain-climbing couple set up tent on snowy mountainside and go to sleep. They awaken to a large dark shape with faint neon highlights hovering near them. Monster Reveal: Something grabs the man in the darkness, and he screams in intense pain. The woman falls down mountain in the struggle.
Horror Situation: Physically tortured: The man’s terrible screams and Hitchcockian Sound FX and the woman’s fall.
Reaction – Escape: She awakens in woods with a twisted ankle. She grabs a branch for walking stick.
Horror Situation: No sign of boyfriend—until Monster Clue: she finds his severed arm.
Horror Reaction: Escape: She tries her cell phone—no signal. Then limps on her way.
Connect with the characters: The lead scientist, the second and the analyst at the nearby radio telescope think they have found Monster Reveal: an alien transmission, which may have knocked the telescope out.
Climbers’ family calls police. Only mild concern.
Leader and intern climb on the giant dish to repair element before approaching snowstorm.
After lunch, police and paramedics search for mountain climbers.
Leader and intern encounter climber by road at sunset. She has hypothermia. They bring her to control area. Snow starts falling at heavy pace. Paramedics called.
Horror Situation: Attack: Ambulance becomes stuck in ditch during blizzard. Monster Reveal: The creature attacks. One paramedic gets in cab to radio. He is also attacked. Bloody snow covered by heavy snowfall.
Reaction – Confused and apprehensive. No paramedics. The scientists resign themselves to isolation. When the climber awakens, Monster Reveal: she tells her story.
Denial of Horror: They look for scientific explanations: a bear, hallucination etc.
Next day, Climber has frostbite. They decide to try to drive her to hospital. She resists. Warns them not to do it. Monster Reveal: They find the deserted ambulance with a door ripped off and scratch-like dents. “That was no bear.” They return to telescope.
Horror Situation: Forces of Nature. Another night isolated in blizzard at telescope.
Reaction – Hide: They check security of building from ”bear” and set a watch schedule.
Monster: The nature of the beast: Monster reveal: he leaps around control buildings rips out power and phone line.
Horror Situation: Face to Face w? Monster/Kidnapped: Maintenance man goes out to check generator with intern. Monster Reveal: Intern witnesses huge monster as it mauls and bounds away with maintenance man. She goes inside. It pounds on door, breaking it. Dawn is coming. It stops.
Reaction: They now believe it’s a monster and try to explain it.
ACT 2
Isolated/Trapped: They realize that it comes out only at night. They repair generator and search for Maintenance Man. Roads are impassable.
Reaction: They see Monster Reveal: landing ship partially concealed by trees on ridge. Leader and black Custodian go to investigate. Sun is going down when they arrive. Leader photographs it. They look for a way in when hatch opens…
MIDPOINT – The Monster is worse than we thought: As they run to snowmobile, monster rolls down mountain like a pinball. They drive off.
Full pursuit by the killer: It pursues in large leaps and lands in front of them. Monster Reveal: Its mouth would scare a great white shark.
One of Us Killed: Leader tells custodian to get camera back to control and runs toward creature. He sacrifices himself and is devoured. Custodian makes it, and Monster Reveal: creature is reluctant to close for the kill with the lights of control on.
Terrorized: They barricade in control while monster looks for a way in. It rips power lines again and takes out pole. The generator is failing. They need to elect a new leader. It comes down to Second scientist and Custodian. Vote is split. Monster Reveal: Creature breaks through doorway. They must fight him off with tactical flashlight, douse him in gasoline and ignite him. Climber and Intern die. He jumps flaming into the night as they fight blaze in control.
ACT 3
Reaction: Fight: At night Custodian and Second break into landing craft, video it and damage the controls of craft.
Hysteria and Monster Reveal: They find mutilated remains of autopsied paramedic and Maintenance Man. Second is a coward. Unknown to them, craft sends out an alarm. Then Daddy’s home.
Fight to the death: They use tactical flashlights to keep burnt creature at bay. Creature pins Custodian, and escape from death: Second escapes at dawn leaving Custodian to die.
Reaction: Second works out way to communicate with it.
Death returns to take one or more: Creature attacks Control. Monster Reveal: It communicates with Second. We are to be food. They realize that it intends to phone home. Analyst and Climber killed trying to burn it again.
Resolution: Intern climbs dish by moonlight and disables it and decides to drop transmitter into dish. Second reluctantly helps. Creature grabs Second. Intern causes several-ton transmitter to fall on creature. It dies. Intern lives.
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Jeff Hall’s Monster Reveal Track
What I learned doing this assigned is reveal needs to be cautious but deliberate… discreet and clear.
1. Create each part of this model:
A. Who is your monster and what is their terror? This small feral woman needs to protect her “nest”. She protects it like the most wildest of animals… teeth and claw.
Powers? Spurts of extraordinary strength and agility.
Limitations? Human
Weaknesses? Lonely and frightened
Plan/Purpose/Appetite? Protect nest and take Lynn for her own.
B. Sequence the reveals.
shadow at the window
Long black hair in food.
Food is missing
urine dripping from the ceiling
muddy foot prints in the house
C. Create Demand for each clue/reveal.
2. Lay that over your current outline and fill in each clue/reveal using the tag “Monster Reveal:.”
ACT 1 — SET UP FOR HORROR
Atmosphere of Evil established – Old damaged house with dead body inside.
Monster Reveal: Shadow
Connect with the characters – Family moves into house, hard work, kids at play.
The characters are warned not to do it. – Neighbor warns around paranormal activity.
Denial of Horror – Parents, Ada and Rob reassure that there are no such things as ghosts
Safety taken away – something is in there new home
Monster: The nature of the beast. An entity is disturbing them and destroying their home.. and something has scratching/injuring the kids.
Monster Reveal: Missing food
ACT 2 — THE POINT OF NO RETURN
Isolated / Trapped / Abducted – new home, no money, can not move or stay elsewhere.
One of us killed. Rob is seriously injured.
Monster Reveal: Urine drips through the ceiling.
MIDPOINT: The monster is worse than we thought!
Monster Reveal: Rob is stratched up by something in the attic.
Full pursuit by the killer – Feral woman crashes out of the ceiling.
Terrorized – A Paranormal Investigater is found dead.
ACT 3 — FULL OUT HORROR
Monster Reveal: Feral woman crashes out of the ceiling.
Fight to the death – She attacks Rob and several Paranormal Investigaters.
Hysteria – Blood, screams, back door blocked by debri, She blocks front. Kids hide in bedroom.
The thrilling escape from death – Rob and other PI’s is left gravely injured.
Death returns to take one or more. She grabs another PI and drags him into the attic. Lynn disappears.
Resolution – Zoey gets through to the Feral Woman’s layer and saves Lynn.
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