Lesson 5

[Donna Donna Hoke Hoke]

ACT 1 — SET UP FOR HORROR

• Atmosphere of Evil established: Kenny Keller gets angry with a deli clerk. She leaves; he goes about his business when a man enters, good-looking, charming–but something’s off.

HORROR SITUATION: When the last customer leaves the store, man brandishes a knife and forces clerk into back room.

REACTION: FIGHT, but he loses

Connect with the characters: Kenny Keller is at work when she notices commotion outside her window. She goes outside and finds out that that deli owner “committed suicide.” Somebody is still watching. In the melee, somebody shoves a note into Kenny’s hand: “It wasn’t a suicide and it’s your fault.” She’s freaked out, but convinces herself the note wasn’t meant for her. But then she feels like she has to go to the police. She does, but the cop doesn’t feel there’s much to go on.

HORROR SITUATION: the cop is killed (gross horror). Message: Don’t try that again.

REACTION: More denial, but at the same time… she can’t really go back to the cops, can she?

Safety taken away – She’s learned she can’t talk to anybody about this or who knows what will happen? she asks what she needs to do?

• Monster: The nature of the beast. – the killer tells her she needs to kill someone herself.

HORROR SITUATION: Nightmares about her family

REACTION: She needs to solve this because she certainly can’t kill someone.

ACT 2 — THE POINT OF NO RETURN

• Isolated / Trapped / Abducted –now she can’t talk to anyone but needs to figure this out herself.

• One of us killed – Freaked out and on edge, Kenny fires her assistant—

HORROR SITUATION: She finds the dead body at her house.

HIDE: Now she looks guilty and has to bury the body because nobody will believe it wasn’t her.

MIDPOINT: The monster is worse than we thought!

• Full pursuit by the killer – what do they want?! They told her: kill someone. Kenny can’t do it and when she has a fight with her husband, she totally freaks out and sends him out of town for his own safety. But the killer knows where he is, so she fake kills someone

HORROR SITUATION: Her husband is found and killed.

REACTION: ESCAPE. She grabs her daughter and leaves town.

ACT 3 — FULL OUT HORROR

• Fight to the death – Kenny knows nobody in her life is safe. What can she do? She sneaks into the hospital and pulls the plug on a terminal patient.

HORROR SITUATION: Her daughter is kidnapped. Full on hysteria.

FIGHT: She figures out who it is and kills him. She is arrested.

• Death returns to take one or more – she is arrested.

• Resolution: Her daughter visits her as she awaits trial.

[Tasha Espinoza]

Tasha’s Horror Situation Track

What I learned doing this assignment is that mapping out the horror situations is a great and easy step for weaving the horror into a horror screenplay?

ACT 1 — SET UP FOR HORROR

Atmosphere of Evil established: Sheena, a young girl traveling at night is stalked by the Mirror Mirror serial killer.

Horror Situation: Attacked and Chased – Mirror Mirror runs her off the road and chases her through the dark woods.

Reaction: Escape – She makes it to the road and flags a van down, explaining that a crazy guy ran her off the road and is following her. She needs to be taken to the nearest gas station or police station, anywhere but there.

Horror Situation: Refusing to take action – The van of thuggy dudes refuses to give her a ride because she can’t give them anything. She promises to haunt them to their graves.

Reaction: Denial – They don’t care if anything bad happens to the girl and mock her vow to haunt them. They drive away leaving her stranded.

Horror Situation: Physically Tortured – The next day she’s found mutilated (partially dismembered?) on the side of the road.

Connect with the characters: The lead thuggy dude, Kade picks up his boys, Targ, Jean Tyrone and Ike, one by one to go to a party. They give Jean Tyrone’s beloved little sister, Nikki, a ride to her friend’s house.

The characters are warned not to do it: Ike sees a news story about Sheena’s murder and thinks back to Sheena’s vow to haunt them to death because they didn’t help her.

Denial of Horror: Kade tells Ike he’s worried about nothing. He pins Sheena’s news picture to a dart board and Targ sends a dart into it.

Reaction: Guilt – Ike goes to Sheena’s funeral. (Note: this can be revealed later. He sees Sheena’s mother there who looks like a ghost of herself because she’s overwrought with grief).

Safety taken away: Ike sees the apparition of Sheena on his ring camera and she blows up his phone with a text saying she found him.

Horror Situation: Impending doom – Sheena knows where Ike lives.

Reaction – Denial – Ike tells Targ who blames it on the last crazy “bitch” that Ike ghosted. He tells him that he needs to learn to stop fucking girls at his place.

Horror Situation: Environment changing around you – Targ experiences cold spots and the feeling that someone is watching him. He shows up at Ike’s asking to stay the night. Targ wakes up in the middle of the night. The house is an icebox. He sees a figure in the doorway. It’s Ike. Ike asks if he can hear the woman crying in the basement.

Reaction – Escape: They go to Kade’s place. They ask Jean Tyrone if he’s experienced anything and he says no.

A character refuses to take action: Kade sends them home.

Monster: The nature of the beast: Kade’s TV shuts off and he sees Sheena’s obscured image in the barely reflective surface of his screen.

Horror Situation: She points at him and moves to him. On the surface of the reflection he sees her grab him and start whispering in his ear.

Reaction: Escape – He jumps up and tries to shrug her off. Chilled, he grabs his coat and heads out of the house.

ACT 2 — THE POINT OF NO RETURN

Isolated / Trapped / Abducted: Sheena begins her customized assaults on the group.

Horror Situation: Being lured into danger – Jean Tyrone hears “Nikki” calling him for help.

Reaction: Solve it – He frantically follows the sound to find Nikki.

Horror Situation: Tricked – He sees Nikki lying dismembered at the bottom of the stairs.

Reaction: He runs to her and she disappears.

Horror Situation: Mentally tortured – Ike is stalked by Sheena’s apparition in various stages of mutilation everywhere and it’s driving him to madness.

Horror Situation: Monster trying to get to you – Targ hears footsteps running towards him but nobody’s there. Doors and cupboards fly open all around him.

Horror Situation: Monster trying to get you – An apparition of Sheena’s dismembered body flies after him. Sheena makes him see her cut open his throat in the mirror (note: Sheena can manipulate what you see in surfaces and shadows, etc.). All the activity makes him think the monster is going to get him.

One of us is killed: Escape – Targ runs into the street and gets fatally hit by a car.

Reaction: Denial – Kade berates the group for letting some bitch ghost scare them into doing “stupid shit” and points out that her scare tactics are actually harmless. All she can do is make them see things and open a few cupboards. He says put on a jacket and ignore the bitch.

MIDPOINT: The monster is worse than we thought! Full pursuit by the killer: Out of the frying pan and into the fire – Sheena influences (whispers, dreams, etc) Mirror Mirror to visit the block that Nikki walks down to get to school.

Horror Situation: The monster is coming – Mirror Mirror follows Nikki and sees Liv (her mother), Faye (her sister) and Jean Tyrone (her brother) throughout the day.

Horror Situation: Kidnapped – Liv is injected with a sedative.

Horror Situation: Trapped – Liv wakes up in a basement room.

Reaction: Escape – Liv bloodies her fingers to work the pins out of the door hinge.

Horror Situation: Fall through the floor – Liv almost gets out of the abandoned house but falls through a trap door onto a surgical table.

Reaction: Fight – Liv hurts herself falling onto the surgical table, but she tries to fight Mirror Mirror as he straps her down.

Horror Situation: Physically tortured – Liv dies from the body modification Mirror Mirror does to her.

Terrorized: Mirror Mirror abducts other members of the group.

Horror Situation: Menacing Stranger – Faye finds an old lady in her back seat.

Reaction: Denial – Sheena influences Faye to deny the red flags of the situation as she tries to help the lady, who ends up being Mirror Mirror in disguise. Faye is taken by Mirror Mirror.

Horror Situation: Tricked – Jean Tyrone sees Faye’s car broken down on the side of the road and Sheena influences him to think Mirror Mirror is Faye is under the hood.

Reaction: Solve it – Jean Tyrone stops by to see if he can help his sister and gets stab in the neck by a paralytic. Mirror Mirror, disguised as Faye, takes Tyrone.

Horror Situation: Impending doom – Liv’s dead body is discovered by Ike with body modification that seems familiar.

Reaction: Solve it – With Jean Tyrone nowhere to be found, Kade has a grieving Nikki stay at his place.

Horror Situation: No escape – Ike realizes that Sheena figured out how to use Mirror Mirror to exact her revenge.

Reaction: Solve it – Kade and Ike realize they have to kill Mirror Mirror and banish Sheena.

ACT 3 — FULL OUT HORROR

Fight to the death: Kade fights to stop Mirror Mirror from taking Nikki.

Horror Situation: Monster trying to get you – Mirror Mirror breaks into Kades home and tries to get Nikki.

Reaction: Fight – Nikki fights and almost gets away, but Mirror Mirror gets the upper hand.

Horror Situation: Monster trying to get you – Kade comes home and tries to stop Mirror Mirror from taking Nikki, but he escapes to his car with her.

Reaction: Fight – Wounded, Kade jumps in his car and tries to follow Mirror Mirror. He calls Ike and says he’s in pursuit of Mirror Mirror because he took Nikki.

Horror Situation: Lost – Kade loses Mirror Mirror.

Reaction: Solve it – Kade drives around and finds the only abandoned structure in the area.

Horror Situation: Friends in danger – He shares his location with Ike and tells him he’s going to check out the abandoned shack.

Reaction: Solve it – Kade goes into the house.

Horror Situation: Walking into a trap – Mirror Mirror is alerted to Kade’s arrival in the house by a nest camera.

Hysteria: Kade and Ike encounter their dead friends as they get closer to Nikki and Mirror Mirror.

Horror Situation: See another dead body – Kade runs into Jean Tyrone’s hanging dead body.

Horror Situation: Slime – Kade thinks Jean Tyrone’s blood is on him but he realizes Jean Tyrone is covered in red lipstick. Now it’s all over Kade. Jean Tyrone’s body modifications freak Kade out.

Reaction: Escape – Kade runs further into the house.

Horror Situation: Lured into the Horror – Ike finds Kade’s car and enters the shack.

Horror Situation: Seeing another dead body – Faye’s dead body falls out a hole in the ceiling and Ike becomes tangled up with her.

Reaction: Escape – He struggles to free himself from the tangle of Faye’s body pulling him to the ground. He aggressively steps back.

Horror Situation: Trap door in the floor – Ike steps onto the trap and he falls through the floor with Faye on him.

Horror Situation: Injured – Ike falls onto the surgical table with Faye on top of him and breaks his leg.

Reaction: Escape – Ike tries to get out from under Faye

Reaction: Hide – Ike gets dragged into the other room by Kade. Kade is badly burned with bleach and blind in one eye.

Horror Situation: Face to Face with the monster – Mirror Mirror enters the room.

Horror Situation: Seeing other dead body – Mirror Mirror shove’s Faye’s into the other room with Kade and Ike. Kade reacts violently to seeing the dead body of his girlfriend but tries to keep quiet.

Horror Situation: Friends in Danger – Mirror Mirror roles Nikki into his “surgical room”.

Horror Situation: Cannot see – Kade and Ike strain to see through the hole in the wall if Nikki is still alive. It looks like Mirror Mirror has already begun making modifications to her.

Horror Situation: Face to face with the monster – Distracted, Kade and Ike don’t see that Mirror Mirror has entered their room. Mirror strikes down Kade with several fatal knife stabs (or something else that fits his MO – maybe Mirror Mirror injects him with the sedative, drags him into the “surgery” room and starts taking vital things off of him to put on Nikki – maybe if he catches Ike).

Reaction: Escape – Ike runs into the surgery room to find Nikki still alive. He frees her from the surgical table/gurney on wheels and they run back through the house of horrors and make it outside.

The thrilling escape from death: Ike douses the shack in gasoline from his car and lights it on fire. The shack is dry and made of flammable materials and it quickly turns into an inferno. Ike calls the cops. He didn’t call them earlier because he was going to commit arson??

Death returns to take one or more: – Ike sees Sheena in the flames. Distracted, he doesn’t see Mirror Mirror emerge to grab Nikki and pull her back into the inferno of the house.

Reaction: Fight – Ike heads into the burning building to get Nikki but Mirror Mirror had dragged her deep into the flames.

Horror Situation: Dilemma – Nikki screams in pain and horror. Ike tries to go in further, but Sheena crashes into the burning structures of the house so they start to fall around him. Nikki can still be saved, but when Ike sees Sheena at the doorway, he knows he has only one chance to jump through it before she rams it and the whole place collapses on him. He saves himself.

Resolution: Ike lives. He gives his statement to the local police exposing Mirror Mirror. He’s a local hero. But at night when he sleeps, he dreams of killing himself over the guilt of leaving Nikki behind. When he’s able to calm himself and return to sleep, Nikki whispers into his ear and Sheena joins her to increase Nikki’s power of influence.