[James Burns Burns]

James Burns’s outline version 1

Title: Carrion

Logline: When a group of friends crash in the wilderness, they’re terrorized and picked off one by one by a hillbilly cannibal with a twisted sense of values. He has sworn to only eat carrion — people who are already dead — but bends the rules by laying traps that will bring about their deaths.

Outline:

<b style=”font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit;”>ACT 1

EXT. WILDERNESS – DAY

An extreme hiker, OUTDOORS OLLIE, walks through a very secluded area. He is clearly an extreme hiking vlogger, but much crapper than he appears on camera. As he walks along, he holds a selfy stick as he films himself. He hears a rustle in a bush, thinks it might be a deer, hushes at the camera and creeps over to the bush. As he moves the bushes out of the way, a bear jump scares him. He screams and quickly scrambles up a tree, but when the bear comes after him, he pepper sprays it.

After the bear leaves, he walks to a clearing and makes a fire to cook a meal. He videos himself eating rabbit but just as he is about to put it in a mouth, a racoon jump scares him and steals the food from him. He jumps so much that he falls backwards off his chair shrieking and saying how much he hates those shifty little bastards. Later, he is walking through the woods, on edge, when he hears a noise behind a tree. He is immediately on edge and slowly circles around the tree. Suddenly a chipmunk leaps onto his face, blinding him and totally freaking him out. He runs around, his arms in the air, screaming, until the chipmunk leaps off him and he runs into a tree, knocking himself out.

EXT. WOODLAND CLEARING – DAY

Ollie has made a camp for the evening and has set up his camera on a small tripod. He stops, looks up at the setting sun and then starts the camera recording. He gives a report on his day, (Hey guys, Outdoors Ollie here). He’s very macho and says it’s been an interesting day with some close encounters of the natural kind, pointing to the bump on his forehead from the chipmunk incident. He says I’m now literally hundreds of miles from the nearest living soul.

He hears a noise that sounds like someone sniggering behind him.

It freaks him out a bit, but he tries to look macho in front of the camera. Maybe I’m not alone! he says, trying to laugh it off, but he is clearly unnerved. He walks towards the noise, after taking out and unfolding a comically large pocket knife. He steps onto something, which makes a slight clicking noise, which suddenly and swiftly sets off a huge bear trap that sinks into his midriff. He screams, then hears a loud ticking sound and looks puzzled but then we hear a second trap set off and an even larger bear trap flies up and decapitates him just below the shoulders.

He doesn’t have time to react, it all happens too quickly. We hear the sniggering sound again and then we see a shoeless foot stamp on a lever and the trap opens back up, the hiker’s body falling to the floor. A filthy hand picks the head up off the floor, and the body is dragged away by the unseen killer.

INT. BRUNO’S BEDROOM – DAY

This room is chaotic. There is stuff everywhere, and on the walls thee are framed video game posters for The Forest, The Last of Us, Mortal Kombat, Wolfenstein II, Manhunt and Carmageddon.

This room is chaotic. There is stuff everywhere, and on the walls thee are framed video game posters for The Forest, The Last of Us, Mortal Kombat, Wolfenstein II, Manhunt and Carmageddon.

CELINE and BRUNO, early 20s, are having fairly raucous sex. Celine is bouncing up and down on Bruno who is loving it. She is saying come on, come on, but s we close on her face, we see she is focusing on her smart watch calorie counter. As Bruno climaxes, Celine shouts Yes! iI just burned 100 calories. So not a complete waste of time.

Bruno says, Babe, you say the nicest things. He clearly doesn’t care. He’s not in love with her, he just loves shagging her. He’s not a complicated guy. She smiles a fake smile.

Suddenly the mood changes as there is a strange noise coming from the bathroom door. She asks him what it could be, and he says no idea. She climbs off him and slowly walks towards the bathroom door. As she gets there, there is a loud bang, which makes her jump. She tentatively opens the bathroom door: suddenly, a cat leaps out on top of her. She shouts fuck and freaks out. I fucking hate cats. Bruno says, but he loves you. She looks at her watch. We’d better get going. We are not going to be late.

He says, Are you sure you want to come, ‘cos…

Of course I want to come, I wouldn’t miss this for the world.

It’s just, you know, you’re not technically invited.

Yes, but where you go I go, right?

Uh, sure…

Come on, let’s go. I fucking hate being late.

INT. AUBREY’s BEDROOM – DAY

This room is pristine. Nothing is out of place and there are a couple of Monet paintings on the wall and a couple of literary posters – one for Jean-Paul Sartre’s Huis Clos and another for Camus’ L’Etranger.

SHANIA and AUBREY are also having sex, but it is quite dull. They have clearly been together for some time. He tells her he is about to come and she says OK, she smiles but clearly isn’t that into it. He comes in a very protestant way and she feigns interest, He says it’s amazing how the sex is still so good, even after all these years. She says yeah…

Aubrey complains about the trip, he really doesn’t want to go – why does Justin have to invite us on these fucking trips? He knows I hate the outdoors. He’s a damn sadist. Shania tells him it will be fun, she can’t wait to hang out with Brittany. If she comes, says Aubrey. She hates the wilderness as much as I do.

The mood changes to one of suspense when they hear a noise. What was that? I’ve no idea. He slowly walks over to the closet and freaks out when the whole closet suddenly moves. He jumps back but then slowly reaches out and opens the door. A large white shaggy dog leaps out, knocking him over. Aubrey craps himself and then shouts, Enrique, for the love of god, how many times do I have to tell you to keep Bojo out of my room? I fucking detest dogs. Shania is petting the dog and says, I love Bojo – you’re such a good dog, aren’t you!

There is a car horn, and Aubrey goes to the window. That can’t be Bruno… Sure enough, Bruno is outside, waving and smiling broadly, like the cat that got the cream. It’s a miracle, he’s NEVER on time, what the hell..?

EXT. SUBURBAN STREET – DAY

They go down to the car and are both shocked to see Celine sitting in the passenger seat. Bruno jokes around, isn’t it great? Celine was able to come! Shania mutters, that’s more than I could manage. She greets Celine, they’re both civil and outwardly smiling, but it’s clear they’re not besties. Aubrey gives Bruno a look. What? Justin is going to be most displeased.

INT. JUSTIN’S BEDROOM- DAY

Justin’s room is so manly it’s painful. The wall has photos of lakes and mountains and wildlife. He is clearly an outdoors fan.

JUSTIN and BRITTANY are having movie star sex. Everything is perfect, they are clearly very much in love. They reach a loud and hilarious climax. Justin is a big guy, in very good shape, Brittany is a bit more bookish but still very attractive.

The mood changes when they hear a noise. She is freaked out and asks what’s that? She hears another noise and slowly walks over to the bedroom door, then jumps as the door bangs. Tentatively, she opens the door and a huge tiger roars, jumps into the room and knocks her over. She laughs and starts petting the tiger, who is rubbing up affectionately against her, saying I fucking love tigers.

Justin complains that she isn’t coming on the camping trip. Justin is a real outdoors type, Brittany not so much. She tells him that she’s not going to go, you go without me. You know I hate camping – it’s not camping, it’s a cabin! They’re all c-words to me. If god had wanted us to stay in cabins he wouldn’t have invented hotels with en-suite bathrooms and jacuzzi hot tubs. Does this cabin have a bathroom with hot water and a kitchen with a proper stove? Yes. And a butler. And a bar, with a really good bartender? He tries to persuade her. They hear the car horn. Seriously? Bruno is never on time…

He looks out of the window and sees Celine. Always on time, damn her. Shit. Justin begs Brittany to come with him now to protect him from Celine. Reluctantly, she agrees, but neither are happy about Celine being there.

EXT. CITY STREET – DAY

They come over to the car and Bruno smiles and points at his watch – what kept you? Brittany is frosty with Celine who is outwardly friendly. Brittany jumps into the back of the car with Shania and they hug, clearly good friends. She whispers, so..? Shania nods her head, smiling, but whispers to her to be quiet. She hasn’t told Aubrey yet, it’s still early.

Justin has a chat with Bruno and Aubrey away from the car – it is clear they are good friends who go back a long way. Justin is furious that Bruno has brought his ex without asking. It’s bad enough you’re dating her, but bringing her along? How fucking dumb can you get? Bruno calms him down, it will be great. She’s over you man. She’s just using you to get to me, you know that right? With that body she can use me to get to anybody.

Aubrey takes the piss out of the car – didn’t see you as a mini-van man, Bruno. Are you finally ready to settle down. It’s a rental, dickhead. And it fits six, so shut up. Did you pack your slippers? And your pipe? Fuck you. Eloquent with the come-backs, as ever. Bruno imitates Aubrey’s voice in an exaggerated way, repeating his sentence.

EXT. CITY LIMITS – DAY

The car winds its way along a highway that quickly turns into countryside.

INT. CAR – DAY

In the car, Bruno complains about this being a fucking gas guzzler. There’s no way we’ll be able to get to the cabin without running out of gas. They are in a pretty remote area already, but there is a big house that he spots and pulls over.

EXT. COUNTRYSIDE – DAY

Bruno gets out and walks over towards a house where the owner is watering the lawn. He is a really dodgy-looking guy, the opposite of a city slicker. The guy nods at him and Bruno asks if he might have some gas going spare. The guy says are you serious? He points to the huge gasoline truck parked next to his house. Cool!

They all get out of the car to stretch their legs. Shania and Brittany go to find a spot to pee and Celine climbs into the very back seat and settles down to sleep.

Justin and Aubrey join Bruno and the man and they all chat as the guy fills the car’s tank with gas. He asks them where they’re heading, and they tell him – Victorville Lake. Let me give you some extra to take – you don’t want to run out of gas if you’re heading that way. Whatever you do, don’t leave the main road. And don’t go west, up by the pines. Stay away from the pines. Why? Strange things happen out there. Papa Carter went up there just a few weeks ago to do some oil painting in the woods. Came back. He shakes his head sadly.

Bruno is intrigued – what happened? No paint brushes. They’d just disappeared. And he had no face. What? Well, no that last bit’s not true, but he couldn’t see properly no more. What? Yeah, he lost his reading glasses. Now he can’t fuckin’ read – can you imagine that? Not being able to read? Horrible. And Ma Hardesty went out there to go fishing. Never seen again. Well, not without a sunburn, anyway. And it was a really bad sunburn. It stung for days, she said. Just stay away. Nothing good happens up there. Shania tells Bruno to listen to the man – he seems to be very wise.

They all get back in the car

INT. CAR – DAY

They carry on with Justin now riding shotgun next to Bruno, Celine is trying to sleep in the far back next to a reluctant Aubrey who asks her to let Shania sit there. Celine refuses, saying she needs to sleep and the middle’s not comfortable enough. He says, Whatever makes you happy, princess.

I’m a fucking princess? You’re the one who brought a juicer on a camping trip.

The cabin’s kitchen is woefully ill-equipped, I’m not eating burnt burgers all weekend.

Woefully ill-equipped? Who even talks like that?

Someone with an education.

You arrogant fuck.

You joyless harridan.

I don’t know what that means, but it’s probably not good, so fuck you, you ass hole. Justin shouts back telling them to shut up. Go to sleep, Celine. She opens her mouth to retort, thinks twice about it and mutters damn right I’ll go to sleep. Because I want to go to sleep. Not cos you told me to.

Justin also settles down to sleep, as does Aubrey. Shania and Brittany chat quietly among themselves. Shania tells her she has a few girls’ names picked.

EXT. MAIN ROAD – DAY

Bruno ignores the warning and, without telling the rest of them, leaves the main road. He trundles along a pretty crappy road, but comes across a large diversion sign. Shit, He turns onto an even crappier dirt road, gets exasperated and starts driving really fast. The GPS on his phone has stopped working, he’s driving blind.

Justin wakes up and they have a big argument about him leaving the main road – where the fuck are we? I don’t know, but who cares? We’ll get to somewhere! Justin tells him to slow down, as do the others, but instead he speeds up, yelling out loud. Bruno, for once go against type says Aubrey. Justin loses it and tells him to stop the car, this is bullshit: Bruno smiles and takes his hands off the wheel – you wanna drive? You drive, buddy!

Justin grabs the wheel but, just as he does the tires all suddenly burst, Justin loses control, the car careers off the road and slams into a tree stump at such a speed that the car rears up on its hood and falls onto its roof.

As it does, it lands on a spiked tree stump that crashes through the windscreen and impales itself into Justin’s face. There is silence, all the passengers are knocked unconscious except Justin, who is very dead. We hear footsteps and the passenger door opens. We hear the same sniggering as in the opening scene.

EXT. DESOLATE COUNTRYSIDE – DAY

The survivors slowly start to wake up one by one but there is no Justin. There is however, a lot of blood. Brittany and Celine are really worried – Shania says he just went for help, that’s typical of Justin – he’s seen us all unconscious and decided to find help. He’ll be back soon with a tow truck and an ambulance. And some breakfast burritos! But Bruno says that is a lot of blood.

Aubrey says Justin’s a fucking animal, he’s gone for help. That’s the only explanation. Initially Brittany is in tears, desperately scared for Justin’s life. But she asks the fuck is going on? Where’s the blood trail? There is no way he went for help – has he been taken? Celine is also scared for Justin and beats up on Bruno, laying the blame squarely on him. “If Justin is dead because of you, I will slice your balls off. And not in a good way.”

Now Justin has gone, she no longer pretends to care about these people. She also blames Brittany – “If you hadn’t stolen Justin from me, we wouldn’t have come on this trip with you losers, it would have just been the two of us and shit for brains here wouldn’t have been driving and we wouldn’t have crashed, and Justin wouldn’t be…” She can’t say the word and breaks down.

Brittany tries to get her shit together, realizing this situation got very real very quickly. Bruno says they must have hit a rock. Brittany checks out the tires, seeing that they were sliced by something sharp – this was no rock, they must have driven over some spikes or something. There is nothing in the road, though, no spikes, no rock either… Brittany says why would someone lay a trap like that?

Aubrey’s cocky self-assuredness is gone, and he laments that the only person who knows what the fuck they’re doing out here in the sticks is gone. Brittany takes charge, but Bruno teases her, we’re not your students, miss.

Aubrey goes for a piss (I have an enlarged prostate, OK, I can’t help it. Man, you’ve got an enlarged sense of your own worth, that’s what you’ve got, says Bruno). Shania begs him not to go, just go behind that bush, he whispers that he needs a number two and says, what’s the worst that can happen?

EXT. CLEARING – DAY

Aubrey walks into a clearing away from the others, to find a suitable dumping place, but almost gets killed in a fiendish trap. He steps on the trap mechanism, which makes a clicking noise that makes Aubrey move to one side, just in time, as a spear flies out of the ground and just grazes his knee. He cries out in shock and pain and the others quickly come to investigate.

They all take close look at the trap – Brittany takes the lead. She says this isn’t a regular hunter’s trap. It is very well made and fiendishly clever – none of them has seen a trap like this before. It looks designed to kill people, not animals. Bruno laughs it off – he’s not ready to believe this.

EXT. CAMP – DAY

They go back to their camp: While Aubrey escaped with just a minor flesh wound, this makes him even more of a whining annoyance. Brittany, Celine and Aubrey think that they are being hunted, except Shania, who still won’t accept it. We’re not in Texas! This isn’t a massacre, it’s just hunting season and we got unlucky, that’s all. We got into an accident because someone was driving too fast, and Aubrey walked into a hunter’s trap. It will all be fine once Justin gets back.

Celine rips into her: Justin lost like a gallon of blood and then just disappeared without leaving a blood trail – do you think he somehow patched himself off before setting off to find help? Yes, I do, Justin’s a real outdoors guy – he’ll have used his first aid kit to cover his wound and… Brittany shows her the first aid kit. It hasn’t been touched. Get real – he’s not coming back!

ACT 2 — THE POINT OF NO RETURN

Bruno decides to be all macho and go off in search of food. He has a spear gun and some spears and sets off looking to hunt for “a deer or something”. Brittany knows this is a bad idea but wants to keep an eye on him and recce the area “It would be good to get a lay of the land”. Celine also goes with them, Shania stays with Aubrey, who has no intention of going anywhere or doing anything. “Did you bring snacks, baby?” “Of course I did, sweetie.”

EXT. WILDERNESS _ DAY

Brittany and Celine are arguing behind Bruno, Celine now convinced that Justin is dead.

Bruno turns around, annoyed with all this bickering and asks them to shut up – how the hell are we supposed to kill a deer with you making all this noise? And anyway, I thought you were over Justin? As Bruno turns his head around to talk to them, he walks backwards. He trips a wire and as he turns around, a huge axe swings down from the tree above him and splits his head in two.

As he falls backwards to the ground, he fires the spear gun into the air. The two women stare at Bruno for a moment, stunned, not believing what they’ve just seen. Suddenly, the spear comes back to earth, landing in Bruno’s chest. They both scream fuuuuuuuck! Now it is undeniable: these traps have been laid to kill them – they are being hunted and the killer is nowhere to be seen.

The two women leave Bruno there and head back to the camp, after picking up his spear gun and wrenching the spear out of him. They are both horrified, and Celine blames Brittany for everything, she just won’t stop bickering.

MIDPOINT: The monster is worse than we thought!

EXT. WILDERNESS TRAIL – DAY

They walk along the trail in trepidation, scared to death that they will set off another trap and die. For a while they follow behind a rabbit, but it dies when it is blown up by a landmine. They try to make their way back to the original trail they took to get here, but Brittany walks into a wire, which sets off another trap. She trips on a rock and falls just in time. Five arrows all whistle over her, all coming from different directions, missing her by inches. That was close.

But there is a scream behind her – Celine has been hit by an arrow – clean through her left boob. Brittany finds one of the crossbows that fired one of the arrows – this is a really intricate trap. Someone really wants us dead. They head back to the camp, Celine refusing Brittany’s help – I got shot in my boob, not my leg, I can walk just fine!

EXT. CAMP – DAY

They get back to the camp and tell Shania and Aubrey about what happened. Aubrey is freaked out and is also devastated at losing his other best friend. When Shania tries to convince them these are probably just some animal traps set by hunters, Celine points to her breast arrow and asks if this looks like the work of a hunter. Aubrey explodes sarcastically, and Shania says fuck you and walks away. Brittany convinces Shania that these are no hunters’ traps, there’s a maniac out there, the sooner you accept that, the better the chance we have of surviving. Brittany snaps the arrow and takes it out of Celine’s boob and helps her to patch it up.

EXT. CAMP – DAY (Cont.)

Brittany gets them all to start looting the car for anything that might protect them, then regroup: – we need to be able to fight this fucker. They regroup and show their weapons. Aubrey has a BB gun, shows it off, Celine asks if that’s a BB gun? Yes, yes it is. God help us. “This could take someone’s eye out.” Celine has a pair of tweezers, (“You’re gonna pluck his eyebrows to death? asks Aubrey. “Shut up BB boy. These are fucking sharp tweezers”). Brittany has the spear gun and a large hunting knife (she offers the knife to Celine who refuses, saying she is just fine with her tweezers, thank you very much). Shania says, I’ve got Lucy. Lucy? She pulls out a .44 Magnum. WTF?

She tells them of when she was younger, she got attacked by two men who tried to drag her into an alleyway. Thankfully, unbeknown to Shania, her mum was psychopathically over-protective and she used to follow her when she went out at night. “My mom shot them both in the ass, then taught me how to shoot. I’ve been packin’ ever since. They rest up for the night in their makeshift camp. Aubrey: you think you know somebody… You didn’t know she has a gun? I had no idea!

EXT. CAMP – NIGHT

As the four survivors sleep, a figure lurks in the camp: it could easily kill them but doesn’t. We only see its shadow. It lurks around the women, sniffing them and licking their necks and arms. As it walks away, it snaps a twig. Quick as a flash, Shania sits up and fires a few shots into the dark. There are two cries of pain. “I got the bastard!” and the others wake up really quickly. Aubrey limps back to the camp, “Don’t shoot!” a bullet having grazed his leg. He had gone behind a bush for a pee. But he did see a shadowy figure get shot. He didn’t go down, but he took a bullet.

Brittany says we’ll go after him in the morning. Celine wants to go now, Brittany says off you go, chasing off after a psycho killer who’s been laying traps for us, in the dark. Fair point. Bitch. One of us has to stay awake, I’ll take first turn, holding the spear gun. She won’t take the gun, scared she’ll kill someone with it. That’s kinda the point. Aubrey finally tries to be macho, there’s no way I’ll be able to sleep now, I’ll take first watch.

EXT. CAMP – EARLY MORNING

Brittany wakes up and sees that Aubrey is indeed asleep, cradling the spear gun in his arms. Pissed off, she wakes him and the others up, let’s eat then let’s take the fight to this bastard. They all start eating from the food coolers they brought with them.

ACT 3 — FULL OUT HORROR

EXT. WILDERNESS TRAIL – DAY

Armed as well as they can be, they follow the blood trail left by the killer. Brittany beats a path with a very long stick. The trail dries up, but they see smoke and come to a very dilapidated house.

EXT. DILAPIDATED HOUSE – DAY

Three small, ragged-looking children play in the yard with a gun. One of them waves it around and accidentally shoots it, closely missing one of the other kids, who only has one ear. “If you go shooting my other ear off, Annie,” she cries. “Vickie will kill you!”

The survivors can’t believe that this could be the killer’s home – there are children here! At the sound of the gunshot, a young woman, VICKIE, comes out of the house, angry and afraid, and shouts at the kids, What have I told you about playing with guns on a Sunday? She stops when she sees the strangers. They ask if she has seen someone come by with a wound – they tell her they are being hunted. She shakes her head but says there are a lot of hunters out these parts, but I ain’t seen nobody for weeks.

They ask her for help but she says she ain’t got no phone and don’t want to get involved. If there are hunters out there, she has to think of the kids. Shania asks if they can stay with her – the woman looks scared – no, I don’t know you, I can’t have strangers coming into my house. I’m sorry. Y’all gotta leave. Aubrey: anyone else getting a hills have eyes vibe? No? just me? Fuck. They leave.

INT. HOUSE – DAY

Vickie comes inside the ramshackle house and talks to her brother, EARL. He heard the conversation. She thinks Lonnie has been killing people. Trapping them. Last night’s dinner wasn’t no carrion. Earl is furious. He’s killing again. I’ll go find him.

EXT. WILDERNESS TRAIL – DAY

On the way back to the camp, Brittany and Celine set off traps: Shania prevents Celine from being killed, though Celine is maimed (again) and Brittany miraculously survives, although her leg is snapped in two. She straps a piece of wood to it with a couple of belts, but she is horribly wounded.

Aubrey says fuck this, come on, Shania, she says no, we’ve got to help them, he says fuck that, come ON. Shania shouts at him, don’t be such a fucking coward! Wanting to live does not make me a coward. See you back at the camp. She shouts after after him, incensed, he wavers, but then turns and runs, falling into a pit of snakes. Lying there, he is winded and doesn’t realize he is surrounded by very angry serpents.

Shania’s initial reaction is to jump into the pit to help Aubrey, but Celine of all people stops her. Shania struggles to hold her shit together, she is terrified for Aubrey. Aubrey sweetie, are you OK? He stirs a little, still stunned. He is about to sit up but she quickly calls out, don’t move! He replies brusquely “Don’t tell me what to do, I’m fine to move. You’re always telling me what to do…” As he moves to get up, several of the snakes bite him. He screams as other snakes attack and soon he falls silent. Shania struggles in Celine’s arms then breaks down, not quite able to believe what she’s just seen. She holds her belly.

EXT. CAMP – DAY

Back at the camp, Celine roots around in her bag, then takes hold of Shania and pops a pill in her mouth – swallow. Brittany says, come on sweetie, we need you. We have to fight this fucker.

Brittany says she has a plan.

EXT. WILDERNESS TRAIL – EVENING

Lonnie comes along the track where they all got trapped and finds Aubrey still in the pit, his face contorted in a complaining expression. We see Lonnie’s silhouette; he is dressed like a ragged pianist, with top hat and tails but no shoes. He walks in a very menacing fashion, confident and dangerous, carrying a vicious-looking long hook with a rope attached to it, which he aims to use to pull Aubrey out of the pit, and another metal hook hangs from his belt.

As he starts to pull Aubrey’s body out of the pit, he is shot by a bullet and then by a harpoon. Shania comes out of hiding with her gun firing. As Lonnie’s face lifts and we finally see it – a hideous, deformed child-like in-bred face. He manages to get away but is bleeding badly. Shania shoots again and he takes one in the shoulder.

EXT. WOODED AREA – EVENING

He leads them into some covered woods and Brittany almost falls into a trap, but teeters on the edge, trying not to fall in. Celine pushes her in. Shania screams, Celine! And shoots Celine, in the other breast, and Celine runs away, cursing her. Shania helps Brittany out of the trap: she is, unbelievably, still alive, but this time with her arm snapped in two. She shrugs it off.

EXT. WILDERNESS CLEARING – EVENING

Lonnie has caught up with Celine and they are fighting, but with both of them very injured it is hard for each of them to deal a final blow. He is hideous – he looks like an in-bred child in the face, but with a man’s body comically and hideously deformed.

Lonnie is badly shot up, with one arm useless, while Celine is bleeding from both breasts. He draws back his hook to kill her, but Celine stabs him in the eye with her tweezers. He screams, drops the hook and slowly pulls out the tweezers, which pops his eyeball out. He looks at the eye for a second, pulls it off the tweezers and stuffs it back in his eye socket. He turns back to Celine, who has been watching this with morbid curiosity. He then proceeds to stab Celine in the chest with the tweezers.

He stops when Celine appears to be dead and looks up in time to see Brittany and Shania hobbling towards him (Shania helping Brittany to walk). Lonnie goes after them, very slowly, brandishing his hook in one hand and the tweezers in the other.

Brittany can’t do much, but Shania shoots him twice before running out of bullets. Lonnie keeps coming and hits Shania, knocking her to the ground. Brittany is also on the floor now, unable to get up with her snapped leg, but she screams at him, come on you bastard, I’ll bite your legs off. I’ll rip your fucking heart out with my teeth!

Lonnie stands over Brittany, raises his hook and is about to deliver the final blow… She summons up all her strength and kicks him in the balls with her one good leg. She is an amazing example of the sheer willpower to live. Lonnie falls to the floor, Brittany kneels on her good leg, lifts up the hook with her good arm and is about to plunge it into him when a gunshot goes off. It is Lonnie’s brother and sister, with crazy feral kids in tow.

Earl has shot into the air and now points the rifle at Brittany. Just leave him now, he won’t bother you no more, we’ll make sure of that. We’re not bad people. Lonnie just likes to bend the rules a little. Vickie helps Lonnie up and takes him away. Earl says come with me, I’ll help you get home. The two women look at each other, unwilling to trust him. “I’m not like my brother, I’m no killer. And if I wanted you dead, you’d be dead.”

EXT. CLEARING – EVENING

Earl leads them to a trail and points to a wheelbarrow. I’ve got some transportation you can borrow. Brittany climbs in and Earl points to the trail. Follow that trail for a couple of miles, you’ll come to a road. Cars come along there once in a while. They set off, silently.

EXT. DIRT ROAD – EVENING

Shania, her head covered in blood, and Brittany, hardly conscious, slowly make their way to the end of the trail, which brings them to a road. They eventually manage to flag down a car. As they tell the driver what happened, a beaten-up pickup truck slowly drives in the other direction. They see Lonnie and his siblings in the front, and the feral kids and a very large freezer on the back.

[James Burns Burns]

James’s horror outline Version 1

I learned how to write scenes from the point of view of a large amount of horror emotions and situations.

(Apologies for the weird code that embedded the bullet points – not sure what that’s all about)

ACT 1

EXT. WILDERNESS – DAY

An extreme hiker, OUTDOORS OLLIE, walks through a very secluded area. He is clearly an extreme hiking vlogger, but much crapper than he appears on camera. As he walks along, he holds a selfy stick as he films himself. He hears a rustle in a bush, thinks it might be a deer, hushes at the camera and creeps over to the bush. As he moves the bushes out of the way, a bear jump scares him. He screams and quickly scrambles up a tree, but when the bear comes after him, he pepper sprays it.

After the bear leaves, he walks to a clearing and makes a fire to cook a meal. He videos himself eating rabbit but just as he is about to put it in a mouth, a racoon jump scares him and steals the food from him. He jumps so much that he falls backwards off his chair shrieking and saying how much he hates those shifty little bastards. Later, he is walking through the woods, on edge, when he hears a noise behind a tree. He is immediately on edge and slowly circles around the tree. Suddenly a chipmunk leaps onto his face, blinding him and totally freaking him out. He runs around, his arms in the air, screaming, until the chipmunk leaps off him and he runs into a tree, knocking himself out.

Horror situation: Ollie is attacked by various wildlife creatures

[if !supportLists]· [endif]Suspense as he pulls back the bush to reveal the bear

[if !supportLists]· [endif]Surprise as the bear jumps out at him

[if !supportLists]· [endif]Fear as the bear comes after him

[if !supportLists]· [endif]Panic as he tries to escape, scrambling to climb the tree, the bear hot on his heels

[if !supportLists]· [endif]Shock as the racoon steals his food

[if !supportLists]· [endif]Apprehension as he hears the noise from behind the tree

[if !supportLists]· [endif]Suspense builds as the sound keeps moving around the tree as he moves around it

[if !supportLists]· [endif]Shock as the chipmunk attacks

[if !supportLists]· [endif]Panic as he runs around, blinded by the chipmunk

[if !supportLists]· [endif]Release as he knocks himself out

EXT. WOODLAND CLEARING – DAY

Ollie has made a camp for the evening and has set up his camera on a small tripod. He stops, looks up at the setting sun and then starts the camera recording. He gives a report on his day, (Hey guys, Outdoors Ollie here). He’s very macho and says it’s been an interesting day with some close encounters of the natural kind, pointing to the bump on his forehead from the chipmunk incident. He says I’m now literally hundreds of miles from the nearest living soul.

He hears a noise that sounds like someone sniggering behind him.

It freaks him out a bit, but he tries to look macho in front of the camera. Maybe I’m not alone! he says, trying to laugh it off, but he is clearly unnerved. He walks towards the noise, after taking out and unfolding a comically large pocket knife. He steps onto something, which makes a slight clicking noise, which suddenly and swiftly sets off a huge bear trap that sinks into his midriff. He screams, then hears a loud ticking sound and looks puzzled but then we hear a second trap set off and an even larger bear trap flies up and decapitates him just below the shoulders.

He doesn’t have time to react, it all happens too quickly. We hear the sniggering sound again and then we see a shoeless foot stamp on a lever and the trap opens back up, the hiker’s body falling to the floor. A filthy hand picks the head up off the floor, and the body is dragged away by the unseen killer.

Horror situation: Ollie hears a creepy voice and is killed by a double bear trap

[if !supportLists]· [endif]Creepy moment when he hears the sniggering voice behind him (he’s supposed to be hundreds of miles from anyone)

[if !supportLists]· [endif]Apprehension when Ollie investigates

[if !supportLists]· [endif]Shock when the trap springs on him for the first time

[if !supportLists]· [endif]Fear for a brief moment that he is going to die

[if !supportLists]· [endif]Surprise when the second trap decapitates him

INT. BRUNO’S BEDROOM – DAY

This room is chaotic. There is stuff everywhere, and on the walls thee are framed video game posters for The Forest, The Last of Us, Mortal Kombat, Wolfenstein II, Manhunt and Carmageddon.

CELINE and BRUNO, early 20s, are having fairly raucous sex. Celine is bouncing up and down on Bruno who is loving it. She is saying come on, come on, but s we close on her face, we see she is focusing on her smart watch calorie counter. As Bruno climaxes, Celine shouts Yes! iI just burned 100 calories. So not a complete waste of time.

Bruno says, Babe, you say the nicest things. He clearly doesn’t care. He’s not in love with her, he just loves shagging her. He’s not a complicated guy. She smiles a fake smile.

Suddenly the mood changes as there is a strange noise coming from the bathroom door. She asks him what it could be, and he says no idea. She climbs off him and slowly walks towards the bathroom door. As she gets there, there is a loud bang, which makes her jump. She tentatively opens the bathroom door: suddenly, a cat leaps out on top of her. She shouts fuck and freaks out. I fucking hate cats. Bruno says, but he loves you. She looks at her watch. We’d better get going. We are not going to be late.

He says, Are you sure you want to come, ‘cos…

Of course I want to come, I wouldn’t miss this for the world.

It’s just, you know, you’re not technically invited.

Yes, but where you go I go, right?

Uh, sure…

Come on, let’s go. I fucking hate being late.

Horror situation: They hear a noise coming from somewhere

[if !supportLists]· [endif]Suspense as Celine approaches the door

[if !supportLists]· [endif]Fear as a loud bang scares her

[if !supportLists]· [endif]Apprehension as she opens the door

[if !supportLists]· [endif]Surprise as the cat jumps out at her

[if !supportLists]· [endif]Panic as she freaks out

INT. AUBREY’S BEDROOM – DAY

This room is pristine. Nothing is out of place and there are a couple of Monet paintings on the wall and a couple of literary posters – one for Jean-Paul Sartre’s Huis Clos and another for Camus’ L’Etranger.

SHANIA and AUBREY are also having sex, but it is quite dull. They have clearly been together for some time. He tells her he is about to come and she says OK, she smiles but clearly isn’t that into it. He comes in a very protestant way and she feigns interest, He says it’s amazing how the sex is still so good, even after all these years. She says yeah…

Aubrey complains about the upcoming trip, he really doesn’t want to go – why does Justin have to invite us on these fucking trips? He knows I hate the outdoors. He’s a damn sadist. Shania tells him it will be fun, she can’t wait to hang out with Brittany. If she comes, says Aubrey. She hates the wilderness as much as I do.

The mood changes to one of suspense when they hear a noise. What was that? I’ve no idea. He slowly walks over to the closet and freaks out when the whole closet suddenly moves. He jumps back but then slowly reaches out and opens the door. A large white shaggy dog leaps out, knocking him over. Aubrey craps himself and then shouts, Enrique, for the love of god, how many times do I have to tell you to keep Bojo out of my room? I fucking detest dogs. Shania is petting the dog and says, I love Bojo – you’re such a good dog, aren’t you!

There is a car horn, and Aubrey goes to the window. That can’t be Bruno… Sure enough, Bruno is outside, waving and smiling broadly, like the cat that got the cream. It’s a miracle, he’s NEVER on time, what the hell..?

Horror situation: They hear a noise coming from the closet

[if !supportLists]· [endif]Suspense as Aubrey approaches the closet

[if !supportLists]· [endif]Fear as the closet moves

[if !supportLists]· [endif]Apprehension as Aubrey opens the door

[if !supportLists]· [endif]Surprise as the dog jumps out onto him

[if !supportLists]· [endif]Panic as she freaks out

EXT. SUBURBAN STREET – DAY

They go down to the car and are both shocked to see Celine sitting in the passenger seat. Bruno jokes around, isn’t it great? Celine was able to come! Shania mutters, that’s more than I could manage. She greets Celine, they’re both civil and outwardly smiling, but it’s clear they’re not besties. Aubrey gives Bruno a look. What? Justin is going to be most displeased.

INT. JUSTIN’S BEDROOM – DAY

Justin’s room is so manly it’s painful. The wall has photos of lakes and mountains and wildlife. He is clearly an outdoors fan.

JUSTIN and BRITTANY are having movie star sex. Everything is perfect, they are clearly very much in love. They reach a loud and hilarious climax. Justin is a big guy, in very good shape, Brittany is a bit more bookish but still very attractive.

The mood changes when they hear a noise. She is freaked out and asks what’s that? She hears another noise and slowly walks over to the bedroom door, then jumps as the door bangs. Tentatively, she opens the door and a huge tiger roars, jumps into the room and knocks her over. She laughs and starts petting the tiger, who is rubbing up affectionately against her, saying I fucking love tigers.

Justin complains that she isn’t coming on the camping trip. Justin is a real outdoors type, Brittany not so much. She tells him that she’s not going to go, you go without me. You know I hate camping – it’s not camping, it’s a cabin! They’re all c-words to me. If god had wanted us to stay in cabins he wouldn’t have invented hotels with en-suite bathrooms and jacuzzi hot tubs. Does this cabin have a bathroom with hot water and a kitchen with a proper stove? Yes. And a butler. And a bar, with a really good bartender? He tries to persuade her. They hear the car horn. Seriously? Bruno is never on time…

He looks out of the window and sees Celine. Always on time, damn her. Shit. Justin begs Brittany to come with him now to protect him from Celine. Reluctantly, she agrees, but neither are happy about Celine being there.

Horror situation: They hear a noise coming from outside the bedroom

[if !supportLists]· [endif]Suspense as Brittany approaches the door

[if !supportLists]· [endif]Fear as the door bangs

[if !supportLists]· [endif]Apprehension as Brittany opens the door

[if !supportLists]· [endif]Surprise as the tiger jumps out onto her

EXT. CITY STREET – DAY

They come over to the car and Bruno smiles and points at his watch – what kept you? Brittany is frosty with Celine who is outwardly friendly. Brittany jumps into the back of the car with Shania and they hug, clearly good friends. She whispers, so..? Shania nods her head, smiling, but whispers to her to be quiet. She hasn’t told Aubrey yet, it’s still early.

Justin has a chat with Bruno and Aubrey away from the car – it is clear they are good friends who go back a long way. Justin is furious that Bruno has brought Celine, his ex, without asking. It’s bad enough you’re dating her, but bringing her along? How fucking dumb can you get? Bruno calms him down, it will be great. She’s over you man. She’s just using you to get to me, you know that right? With that body she can use me to get to anybody.

Aubrey takes the piss out of the car – I didn’t see you as a mini-van man, Bruno. Are you finally ready to settle down. It’s a rental, dickhead. And it fits six, so shut up. Did you pack your slippers? And your pipe? Fuck you. Eloquent with the come-backs, as ever. Bruno imitates Aubrey’s voice in an exaggerated way, repeating his sentence.

EXT. CITY LIMITS – DAY

The car winds its way along a highway that quickly turns into countryside.

INT. CAR – DAY

In the car, Bruno complains about this being a fucking gas guzzler. There’s no way we’ll be able to get to the cabin without running out of gas. They are in a pretty remote area already, but there is a big house that he spots and pulls over.

EXT. COUNTRYSIDE – DAY

Bruno gets out and walks over towards a house where the owner is watering the lawn. He is a really dodgy-looking guy, the opposite of a city slicker. The guy nods at him and Bruno asks if he might have some gas going spare. The guy says are you serious? He points to the huge gasoline truck parked next to his house. Cool!

They all get out of the car to stretch their legs. Shania and Brittany go to find a spot to pee and Celine climbs into the very back seat and settles down to sleep.

Justin and Aubrey join Bruno and the man and they all chat as the guy fills the car’s tank with gas. He asks them where they’re heading, and they tell him – Victorville Lake. Let me give you some extra to take – you don’t want to run out of gas if you’re heading that way. Whatever you do, don’t leave the main road. And don’t go west, up by the pines. Stay away from the pines. Why? Strange things happen out there. Papa Carter went up there just a few weeks ago to do some oil painting in the woods. Came back. He shakes his head sadly.

Bruno is intrigued – what happened? No paint brushes. They’d just disappeared. And he had no face. What? Well, no that last bit’s not true, but he couldn’t see properly no more. What? Yeah, he lost his reading glasses. Now he can’t fuckin’ read – can you imagine that? Not being able to read? Horrible. And Ma Hardesty went out there to go fishing. Never seen again. Well, not without a sunburn, anyway. And it was a really bad sunburn. It stung for days, she said. Just stay away. Nothing good happens up there. Shania tells Bruno to listen to the man – he seems to be very wise.

They all get back in the car

Horror situation: They are warned not to go near the pines

INT. CAR – DAY

They carry on with Justin now riding shotgun next to Bruno, Celine is trying to sleep in the far back next to a reluctant Aubrey who asks her to let Shania sit there. Celine refuses, saying she needs to sleep and the middle’s not comfortable enough. He says, Whatever makes you happy, princess.

I’m a fucking princess? You’re the one who brought a juicer on a camping trip.

The cabin’s kitchen is woefully ill-equipped, I’m not eating burnt burgers all weekend.

Woefully ill-equipped? Who even talks like that?

Someone with an education.

You arrogant fuck.

You joyless harridan.

I don’t know what that means, but it’s probably not good, so fuck you, you ass hole. Justin shouts back telling them to shut up. Go to sleep, Celine. She opens her mouth to retort, thinks twice about it and mutters damn right I’ll go to sleep. Because I want to go to sleep. Not cos you told me to.

Justin also settles down to sleep, as does Aubrey. Shania and Brittany chat quietly among themselves. Shania tells her she has a few girls’ names picked.

EXT. MAIN ROAD – DAY

Bruno ignores the warning and, without telling the rest of them, leaves the main road. He trundles along a pretty crappy road but comes across a large diversion sign. Shit, He turns onto an even crappier dirt road, gets exasperated and starts driving really fast. The GPS on his phone has stopped working, he’s driving blind.

Justin wakes up and they have a big argument about him leaving the main road – where the fuck are we? I don’t know, but who cares? We’ll get to somewhere! Justin tells him to slow down, as do the others, but instead he speeds up, yelling out loud. Bruno, for once go against type says Aubrey. Justin loses it and tells him to stop the car, this is bullshit: Bruno smiles and takes his hands off the wheel – you wanna drive? You drive, buddy!

Justin grabs the wheel but, just as he does the tires all suddenly burst, Justin loses control, the car careers off the road and slams into a tree stump at such a speed that the car rears up on its hood and falls onto its roof.

As it does, it lands on a spiked tree stump that crashes through the windscreen and impales itself into Justin’s face. There is silence, all the passengers are knocked unconscious except Justin, who is very dead. We hear footsteps and the passenger door opens. We hear the same sniggering as in the opening scene.

Horror situation: Their car crashes, killing Justin in a horribly violent and bloody way

[if !supportLists]· [endif]Apprehension as Bruno speeds up on a bad road

[if !supportLists]· [endif]Anxiety when he takes his hands off the wheel at high speed and Justin has to take over the steering

[if !supportLists]· [endif]Shock when the car crashes and tips over onto its roof

[if !supportLists]· [endif]Horror when Justin gets impaled by the tree stump

[if !supportLists]· [endif]Creepy moment when we hear the same sniggering as at the beginning of the film

EXT. DESOLATE COUNTRYSIDE – DAY

The survivors slowly start to wake up one by one but there is no Justin. There is however, a lot of blood. Brittany and Celine are really worried – Shania says he just went for help, that’s typical of Justin – he’s seen us all unconscious and decided to find help. He’ll be back soon with a tow truck and an ambulance. And some breakfast burritos! But Bruno says that is a lot of blood.

Aubrey says Justin’s a fucking animal, he’s gone for help. That’s the only explanation. Initially Brittany is in tears, desperately scared for Justin’s life. But she asks the fuck is going on? Where’s the blood trail? There is no way he went for help – has he been taken? Celine is also scared for Justin and beats up on Bruno, laying the blame squarely on him. “If Justin is dead because of you, I will slice your balls off. And not in a good way.”

Now Justin has gone, she no longer pretends to care about these people. She also blames Brittany – “If you hadn’t stolen Justin from me, we wouldn’t have come on this trip with you losers, it would have just been the two of us and shit for brains here wouldn’t have been driving and we wouldn’t have crashed, and Justin wouldn’t be…” She can’t say the word and breaks down.

Brittany tries to get her shit together, realizing this situation got very real very quickly. Bruno says they must have hit a rock. Brittany checks out the tires, seeing that they were sliced by something sharp – this was no rock, they must have driven over some spikes or something. There is nothing in the road, though, no spikes, no rock either… Brittany says why would someone lay a trap like that?

Aubrey’s cocky self-assuredness is gone, and he laments that the only person who knows what the fuck they’re doing out here in the sticks is gone. Brittany takes charge, but Bruno teases her, we’re not your students, miss.

Aubrey goes for a piss (I have an enlarged prostate, OK, I can’t help it. Man, you’ve got an enlarged sense of your own worth, that’s what you’ve got, says Bruno). Shania begs him not to go, just go behind that bush, he whispers that he needs a number two and says, what’s the worst that can happen?

Horror situation: They wake up from a horrible accident with Justin mysteriously missing, having left behind a lot of blood.

[if !supportLists]· [endif]Shock at what has happened – they just survived a horrible accident, but Justin has disappeared, leaving a lot of blood behind.

[if !supportLists]· [endif]Apprehension – was this an accident? Justin is gone, but there is no blood trail and the tires were purposely slashed by something in the road.

[if !supportLists]· [endif]Fear: did someone do this on purpose?

EXT. CLEARING – DAY

Aubrey walks into a clearing away from the others, to find a suitable dumping place, but almost gets killed in a fiendish trap. He steps on the trap mechanism, which makes a clicking noise that makes Aubrey move to one side, just in time, as a spear flies out of the ground and just grazes his knee. He cries out in shock and pain and the others quickly come to investigate.

They all take close look at the trap – Brittany takes the lead. She says this isn’t a regular hunter’s trap. It is very well made and fiendishly clever – none of them has seen a trap like this before. It looks designed to kill people, not animals. Bruno laughs it off – he’s not ready to believe this.

Horror situation: Aubrey walks into a lethal trap and narrowly escapes with his life

[if !supportLists]· [endif]Suspense as Aubrey steps on the trap and sets it off

[if !supportLists]· [endif]Surprise and shock as the trap fires a spear at him, grazing his leg

[if !supportLists]· [endif]Apprehension as they gradually realize that someone is out to get them

EXT. CAMP – DAY

They go back to their camp: While Aubrey escaped with just a minor flesh wound, this makes him even more of a whining annoyance. Brittany, Celine and Aubrey think that they are being hunted, but Shania, still won’t accept it. We’re not in Texas! This isn’t a massacre, it’s just hunting season and we got unlucky, that’s all. We got into an accident because someone was driving too fast, and Aubrey walked into a hunter’s trap. It will all be fine once Justin gets back.

Celine rips into her: Justin lost like a gallon of blood and then just disappeared without leaving a blood trail – do you think he somehow patched himself off before setting off to find help? Yes, I do, Justin’s a real outdoors guy – he’ll have used his first aid kit to cover his wound and… Brittany shows her the first aid kit. It hasn’t been touched. Get real – he’s not coming back!

ACT 2 — THE POINT OF NO RETURN

Bruno decides to be all macho and go off in search of food. He has a spear gun and some spears and sets off looking to hunt for “a deer or something”. Brittany knows this is a bad idea but wants to keep an eye on him and recce the area “It would be good to get a lay of the land”. Celine also goes with them, Shania stays with Aubrey, who has no intention of going anywhere or doing anything. “Did you bring snacks, baby?” “Of course I did, sweetie.”

EXT. WILDERNESS _ DAY

Brittany and Celine are arguing behind Bruno, Celine now convinced that Justin is dead.

Bruno turns around, annoyed with all this bickering and asks them to shut up – how the hell are we supposed to kill a deer with you making all this noise? And anyway, I thought you were over Justin? As Bruno turns his head around to talk to them, he walks backwards. He trips a wire and as he turns around, a huge axe swings down from the tree above him and splits his head in two.

As he falls backwards to the ground, he fires the spear gun into the air. The two women stare at Bruno for a moment, stunned, not believing what they’ve just seen. Suddenly, the spear comes back to earth, landing in Bruno’s chest. They both scream fuuuuuuuck! Now it is undeniable: these traps have been laid to kill them – they are being hunted and the killer is nowhere to be seen.

The two women leave Bruno there and head back to the camp, after picking up his spear gun and wrenching the spear out of him. They are both horrified, and Celine blames Brittany for everything, she just won’t stop bickering.

Horror situation: Bruno is killed by a horrible trap that is clearly aimed at people, not animals

[if !supportLists]· [endif]Horror as Bruno’s head is sliced in two

[if !supportLists]· [endif]Panic at the horrific scene they have just witnessed

[if !supportLists]· [endif]Fear that someone is out there coming for them all

MIDPOINT: The monster is worse than we thought!

EXT. WILDERNESS TRAIL – DAY

They walk along the trail in trepidation, scared to death that they will set off another trap and die. For a while they follow behind a rabbit, but it dies when it is blown up by a landmine. They try to make their way back to the original trail they took to get here, but Brittany walks into a wire, which sets off another trap. She trips on a rock and falls just in time. Five arrows all whistle over her, all coming from different directions, missing her by inches. That was close.

But there is a scream behind her – Celine has been hit by an arrow – clean through her left boob. Brittany finds one of the crossbows that fired one of the arrows – this is a really intricate trap. Someone really wants us dead. They head back to the camp, Celine refusing Brittany’s help – I got shot in my boob, not my leg, I can walk just fine!

Horror situation: Two more murderous traps are set off

[if !supportLists]· [endif]Surprise and horror as the rabbit is blown up and its entrails splatter the two women

[if !supportLists]· [endif]Apprehension as they try to avoid another trap

[if !supportLists]· [endif]Fear that they will both die out here

[if !supportLists]· [endif]Shock when Brittany sets off another trap and Celine is shot

EXT. CAMP – DAY

They get back to the camp and tell Shania and Aubrey about what happened. Aubrey is freaked out and is also devastated at losing his other best friend. When Shania tries to convince them these are probably just some animal traps set by hunters, Celine points to her breast arrow and asks if this looks like the work of a hunter. Aubrey explodes sarcastically, and Shania says fuck you and walks away. Brittany convinces Shania that these are no hunters’ traps, there’s a maniac out there, the sooner you accept that, the better the chance we have of surviving. Brittany snaps the arrow and takes it out of Celine’s boob and helps her to patch it up.

EXT. CAMP – DAY (Cont.)

Brittany gets them all to start looting the car for anything that might protect them, then regroup: – we need to be able to fight this fucker. They regroup and show their weapons. Aubrey has a BB gun, shows it off, Celine asks if that’s a BB gun? Yes, yes it is. God help us. “This could take someone’s eye out.” Celine has a pair of tweezers, (“You’re gonna pluck his eyebrows to death? asks Aubrey. “Shut up BB boy. These are fucking sharp tweezers”). Brittany has the spear gun and a large hunting knife (she offers the knife to Celine who refuses, saying she is just fine with her tweezers, thank you very much). Shania says, I’ve got Lucy. Lucy? She pulls out a .44 Magnum. WTF?

She tells them of when she was younger, she got attacked by two men who tried to drag her into an alleyway. Thankfully, unbeknown to Shania, her mum was psychopathically over-protective and she used to follow her when she went out at night. “My mom shot them both in the ass, then taught me how to shoot. I’ve been packin’ ever since. They rest up for the night in their makeshift camp. Aubrey: you think you know somebody… You didn’t know she has a gun? I had no idea!

EXT. CAMP – NIGHT

As the four survivors sleep, a figure lurks in the camp: it could easily kill them but doesn’t. We only see its shadow. It lurks around the women, sniffing them and licking their necks and arms. As it walks away, it snaps a twig. Quick as a flash, Shania sits up and fires a few shots into the dark. There are two cries of pain. “I got the bastard!” and the others wake up really quickly. Aubrey limps back to the camp, “Don’t shoot!” a bullet having grazed his leg. He had gone behind a bush for a pee. But he did see a shadowy figure get shot. He didn’t go down, but he took a bullet.

Brittany says we’ll go after him in the morning. Celine wants to go now, Brittany says off you go, chasing off after a psycho killer who’s been laying traps for us, in the dark. Fair point. Bitch. One of us has to stay awake, I’ll take first turn, holding the spear gun. She won’t take the gun, scared she’ll kill someone with it. That’s kinda the point. Aubrey finally tries to be macho, there’s no way I’ll be able to sleep now, I’ll take first watch.

Horror situation: The killer comes into their camp

[if !supportLists]· [endif]Creepy moment when the killer is sniffing and licking the women

[if !supportLists]· [endif]Dread that he might kill one or more of them

[if !supportLists]· [endif]Shock when Shania shoots Aubrey

EXT. CAMP – EARLY MORNING

Brittany wakes up and sees that Aubrey is indeed asleep, cradling the spear gun in his arms. Pissed off, she wakes him and the others up, let’s eat then let’s take the fight to this bastard. They all start eating from the food coolers they brought with them.

ACT 3 — FULL OUT HORROR

EXT. WILDERNESS TRAIL – DAY

Armed as well as they can be, they follow the blood trail left by the killer. Brittany beats a path with a very long stick. The trail dries up, but they see smoke and come to a very dilapidated house.

EXT. DILAPIDATED HOUSE – DAY

Three small, ragged-looking children play in the yard with a gun. One of them waves it around and accidentally shoots it, closely missing one of the other kids, who only has one ear. “If you go shooting my other ear off, Annie,” she cries. “Vickie will kill you!”

The survivors can’t believe that this could be the killer’s home – there are children here! At the sound of the gunshot, a young woman, VICKIE, comes out of the house, angry and afraid, and shouts at the kids, What have I told you about playing with guns on a Sunday? She stops when she sees the strangers. They ask if she has seen someone come by with a wound – they tell her they are being hunted. She shakes her head but says there are a lot of hunters out these parts, but I ain’t seen nobody for weeks.

They ask her for help but she says she ain’t got no phone and don’t want to get involved. If there are hunters out there, she has to think of the kids. Shania asks if they can stay with her – the woman looks scared – no, I don’t know you, I can’t have strangers coming into my house. I’m sorry. Y’all gotta leave. Aubrey: anyone else getting a hills have eyes vibe? No? just me? Fuck. They leave.

Horror situation: They find a creepy family living in a shack

[if !supportLists]· [endif]Creepy moment when the child almost shoots its sibling

[if !supportLists]· [endif]Suspense: is this the killer’s family?

INT. HOUSE – DAY

Vickie comes inside the ramshackle house and talks to her brother, EARL. He heard the conversation. She thinks Lonnie has been killing people. Trapping them. Last night’s dinner wasn’t no carrion. Earl is furious. He’s killing again. I’ll go find him.

EXT. WILDERNESS TRAIL – DAY

On the way back to the camp, Brittany and Celine set off traps: Shania prevents Celine from being killed, though Celine is maimed (again) and Brittany miraculously survives, although her leg is snapped in two. She straps a piece of wood to it with a couple of belts, but she is horribly wounded.

Aubrey says fuck this, come on, Shania, she says no, we’ve got to help them, he says fuck that, come ON. Shania shouts at him, don’t be such a fucking coward! Wanting to live does not make me a coward. See you back at the camp. She shouts after after him, incensed, he wavers, but then turns and runs, falling into a pit of snakes. Lying there, he is winded and doesn’t realize he is surrounded by very angry serpents.

Shania’s initial reaction is to jump into the pit to help Aubrey, but Celine of all people stops her. Shania struggles to hold her shit together, she is terrified for Aubrey. Aubrey sweetie, are you OK? He stirs a little, still stunned. He is about to sit up but she quickly calls out, don’t move! He replies brusquely “Don’t tell me what to do, I’m fine to move. You’re always telling me what to do…” As he moves to get up, several of the snakes bite him. He screams as other snakes attack and soon he falls silent. Shania struggles in Celine’s arms then breaks down, not quite able to believe what she’s just seen. She holds her belly.

Horror situation: Celine and Brittany are injured by traps, Aubrey falls into a pit of snakes

[if !supportLists]· [endif]Surprise as Celine and Brittany set off traps

[if !supportLists]· [endif]Horror at Brittany’s nasty injury – she snaps her leg in two

[if !supportLists]· [endif]Dread and fear for Shania after Aubrey falls into the pit

[if !supportLists]· [endif]Horror when Aubrey is killed by the snakes

[if !supportLists]· [endif]Shock for Shania at what has happened – her unborn baby’s father has just died in a horrible way, right in front of her

EXT. CAMP – DAY

Back at the camp, Celine roots around in her bag, then takes hold of Shania and pops a pill in her mouth – swallow. Brittany says, come on sweetie, we need you. We have to fight this fucker.

Brittany says she has a plan.

EXT. WILDERNESS TRAIL – EVENING

Lonnie comes along the track where they all got trapped and finds Aubrey still in the pit, his face contorted in a complaining expression. We see Lonnie’s silhouette; he is dressed like a ragged pianist, with top hat and tails but no shoes. He walks in a very menacing fashion, confident and dangerous, carrying a vicious-looking long hook with a rope attached to it, which he aims to use to pull Aubrey out of the pit, and another metal hook hangs from his belt.

As he starts to pull Aubrey’s body out of the pit, he is shot by a bullet and then by a spear. Shania comes out of hiding with her gun firing. As Lonnie’s face lifts and we finally see it – a hideous, deformed child-like in-bred face. He manages to get away but is bleeding badly. Shania shoots again and he takes one in the shoulder.

Horror situation: We finally meet the monster

[if !supportLists]· [endif]Monster reveal: we see Lonnie, a creepy-looking weirdo

[if !supportLists]· [endif]Dread at what this deformed creep is capable of

EXT. WOODED AREA – EVENING

He leads them into some covered woods and Brittany almost falls into a trap, but teeters on the edge, trying not to fall in. Celine pushes her in. Shania screams, Celine! And shoots Celine, in the other breast, and Celine runs away, cursing her. Shania helps Brittany out of the trap: she is, unbelievably, still alive, but this time with her arm snapped in half. She shrugs it off.

Horror situation: Betrayal as Celine pushes Brittany into a trap

[if !supportLists]· [endif]Shock at Celine’s attempt to kill Brittany

[if !supportLists]· [endif]Horror at Brittany’s new injury, her arm being snapped in half

[if !supportLists]· [endif]Fear for the fight ahead

EXT. WILDERNESS CLEARING – EVENING

Lonnie has caught up with Celine and they are fighting, but with both of them very injured it is hard for each of them to deal a final blow. He is hideous – he looks like an in-bred child in the face, but with a man’s body comically and hideously deformed.

Lonnie is badly shot up, with one arm useless, while Celine is bleeding from both breasts. He draws back his hook to kill her, but Celine stabs him in the eye with her tweezers. He screams, drops the hook and slowly pulls out the tweezers, which pops his eyeball out. He looks at the eye for a second, pulls it off the tweezers and stuffs it back in his eye socket. He turns back to Celine, who has been watching this with morbid curiosity. He then proceeds to stab Celine in the chest with the tweezers.

He stops when Celine appears to be dead and looks up in time to see Brittany and Shania hobbling towards him (Shania helping Brittany to walk). Lonnie goes after them, very slowly, brandishing his hook in one hand and the tweezers in the other.

Brittany can’t do much, but Shania shoots him twice before running out of bullets. Lonnie keeps coming and hits Shania, knocking her to the ground. Brittany is also on the floor now, unable to get up with her snapped leg, but she screams at him, come on you bastard, I’ll bite your legs off. I’ll rip your fucking heart out with my teeth!

Lonnie stands over Brittany, raises his hook and is about to deliver the final blow… She summons up all her strength and kicks him in the balls with her one good leg. She is an amazing example of the sheer willpower to live. Lonnie falls to the floor, Brittany kneels on her good leg, lifts up the hook with her good arm and is about to plunge it into him when a gunshot goes off. It is Lonnie’s brother and sister, with crazy feral kids in tow.

Earl has shot into the air and now points the rifle at Brittany. Just leave him now, he won’t bother you no more, we’ll make sure of that. We’re not bad people. Lonnie just likes to bend the rules a little. Vickie helps Lonnie up and takes him away. Earl says come with me, I’ll help you get home. The two women look at each other, unwilling to trust him. “I’m not like my brother, I’m no killer. And if I wanted you dead, you’d be dead.”

Horror situation: Celine is murdered by Lonnie and Shania and Brittany have to fight him

[if !supportLists]· [endif]Horror and panic for Celine as she fights Lonnie

[if !supportLists]· [endif]Creepy moment when Lonnie’s eye pops out and he pops it back in

[if !supportLists]· [endif]Horror when Lonnie stabs Celine to death with a pair of tweezers

[if !supportLists]· [endif]Fear and panic when Lonnie comes after the two women and seems to be unstoppable

[if !supportLists]· [endif]Anguish when he easily knocks Shania to the floor

[if !supportLists]· [endif]Fear that both women will be killed by Lonnie

[if !supportLists]· [endif]Panic as Brittany musters her last strength to take down Lonnie

[if !supportLists]· [endif]Surprise when Earl shoots his gun into the air

[if !supportLists]· [endif]Release when Lonnie’s family say they’ve come to take him away

[if !supportLists]· [endif]Suspense as the women don’t trust Lonnie’s brother and can’t be sure that he won’t kill them

EXT. CLEARING – EVENING

Earl leads them to a trail and points to a wheelbarrow. I’ve got some transportation you can borrow. Brittany climbs in and Earl points to the trail. Follow that trail for a couple miles, you’ll come to a road. Cars come along there once in a while. The women set off, silently.

Horror situation: The women come face to face with the killer’s family

[if !supportLists]· [endif]Release that they are being shown a way home

[if !supportLists]· [endif]Apprehension that Lonnie or his brother may still come after them

EXT. DIRT ROAD – EVENING

Shania, her head covered in blood, and Brittany, hardly conscious, slowly make their way to the end of the trail, which brings them to a road. They eventually manage to flag down a car. As they tell the driver what happened, a beaten-up pickup truck slowly drives in the other direction. They see Lonnie and his siblings in the front, and the feral kids and a very large freezer on the back.

Horror situation: They see the family leave and realize Lonnie will be free to kill again

Dread that Lonnie is still out there

Horror as they realize that their dead friends’ bodies are in the freezer and will be the family’s main course for some days to come

[James Burns Burns]

James’s scary as hell scene

I learned to build a scene using emotions first, then action, to make it an emotional rollercoaster of thrills and scares.

EXT. WILDERNESS TRAIL – DAY

Brittany and Celine walk along the trail, both hyper vigilant and terrified. Celine is concentrating hard on walking exactly in Brittany’s steps, while Brittany walks as if she’s on egg shells, each step is delicate and tentative.

Celine spots a bunny ambling along the track.

CELINE
Brittany! Follow the rabbit.

She points and Brittany nods, following the very cute fluffy bunny. The rabbit is a little spooked by them but also intrigued, so it never goes too far ahead of them, but never lets them get too close. It twitches its nose and hops along, vigilantly keeping them in its vision.

BRITTANY

Oh my god, he is so cute! Hi bud…

As she speaks, the bunny gets spooked and takes a leap, then as it lands it sets off a landmine and explodes. Bits of bloody bunny splatter Brittany and some parts even reach Celine. They both freak out, trying to wipe the dead rabbit from their faces.

CELINE

Oh my god! Who is this bastard – Rambo’s fucked-up brother?

BRITTANY

Shit! Shit!

They daren’t move and use the end of their shirts to finish wiping off their faces.

CELINE

At least Thumper didn’t die in vain – he’s cleared a path for us.

BRITTANY

This bastard is industrious- how many fucking traps has he laid?

CELINE

Enough to kill us all, I’d bet.

Brittany shakes her head and looks about her. She finds a long stick and starts prodding the ground in front of her, slowly making her way back to the camp. Celine follows in her footsteps but not too closely.

CELINE

Did we come this way?

BRITTANY

Kind of, not along this track though, I think we followed that track over there.

CELINE

So why don’t we get back on that track.

BRITTANY
OK, genius, why don’t you lead the way.

CELINE

Well, you’re the one with the stick.

BRITTANY

I will happily give you the stick.

She holds the stick towards Celine, but Celine holds her hands up, away from it.

CELINE

I couldn’t possibly accept that. That is a beautiful stick, you need to keep hold of it.

BRITTANY

How very thoughtful of you.

Brittany starts cutting through some rough, long grass to get to the other trail. She waves and prods the stick ahead of her.

BRITTANY

Fuck!

CELINE

What is it?

BRITTANY

I stubbed my toe on a rock. Damn that’s sharp.

She keeps walking, more slowly this time, but then trips and falls, straight onto a tripwire.

BRITTANY

Shit!

As she falls onto the trip wire, four arrows whistle over her body, missing her by inches. She sighs in relief but then hears a scream behind her. Celine has been hit by an arrow that has gone into and through her left boob.

CELINE

He shot my boob! She shot my beautiful boob!

Brittany rushes over to her and takes in the damage.

CELINE

(crouching down)

Are we being attacked? Is he out there?

BRITTANY

No, it was another trap, I set off a trip wire when I fell. I think he set up a bunch of crossbows that were set to fire when the wire was tripped.

CELINE

Who is this guy, some sort of hillbilly Einstein?

BRITTANY

He’s focused, that’s for sure. Come on.

CELINE

Get it out of me first!

BRITTANY

I’ll do it when we get back to the camp. I’ll need the first aid kit to stop the blood once I take the arrow out.

CELINE

(angry)

OK, let’s go then!

Brittany goes to help Celine, but she bats her arm away roughly.

CELINE

He shot me in the boob, not the leg, I can walk.

Brittany shakes her head in exasperation, then slowly makes it to the other trail, and they quicken their pace back to the camp.

[James Burns Burns]

James’s level 3 horror emotion scene

I learned how to add the most extreme horror emotions to elevate a scene’s scariness.

EXT. WILDERNESS CLEARING – EVENING

Lonnie catches up with Celine and they are now circling each other. Celine finally gets a proper look at Lonnie: he is hideous – he looks like an in-bred child in the face, but with a man’s body, comically and hideously deformed. Celine’s face is one of utter repulsion.

Lonnie is badly shot up, with one arm useless, while Celine is bleeding from both breasts. Lonnie makes a big production of lifting up the hook with his one good arm and swings it in a very twisted, evil way – he is clearly enjoying this. Celine makes a similar production of lifting up her tweezers and pointing them towards him in a comically menacing fashion.

CELINE
Why are you doing this? Huh?

Lonnie scoffs.

CELINE

Is it because you’re such an ugly fucker?

Lonnie grunts in anger and swings the hook, missing her by an inch.

CELINE

Is it ‘cos no one would screw you at high school?

She has hit a nerve and Lonnie lunges at her, but she is able to dodge the blow and stab him quickly on the side of the face with the tweezers.

CELINE

Or is it ‘cos your mommy wouldn’t screw you, is that it?

Lonnie gets really angry and lunges at her again, this time landing a blow and knocking her over. Celine panics and starts kicking out at him blindly.

CELINE

You in-bred failed motherfucker!

She manages to kick Lonnie hard on the knee and he goes down. They start to wrestle, and Lonnie’s ugly face gets close to Celine.

CELINE

Holy shit, your breath stinks. What have you been eating?

LONNIE

(with a twisted, ugly smile)

Your boyfriend.

Lonnie gets on top of Celine, straddling her, and draws back his hook to kill her, but Celine stabs him in the eye with her tweezers, leaving them impaled in his eyeball. Lonnie screams, drops the hook and slowly pulls out the tweezers, which pops his eyeball out. He looks at the eye for a second, puzzled, as Celine looks on, horrified. He pulls the eyeball off the tweezers and stuffs it back in his eye socket.

He turns back to Celine, who has been watching this in horror.

CELINE

What the fuck are you?

Brittany and Shania have just arrived in the clearing and rush, hobbling towards them, Shania helping the badly battered Brittany to walk.

BRITTANY

Celine!

Lonnie quickly turns towards them, and Celine takes her chance, punching him in the face. Lonnie simply takes the punches and then suddenly starts stabbing Celine ferociously in the chest with the tweezers. Horrified, Shania and Brittany try and reach Celine faster. Shania tries to take a shot.

SHANIA

I don’t want to hit her.

BRITTANY
Just take the shot.

Shania takes a shot, but it whistles just over Lonnie’s head. He quickly turns towards the two women and slowly stands up, picking up his hook, holding it in his good hand, the tweezers in the other.

Shania takes another shot and hits him in the shoulder. He falls to the ground but slowly gets back up and comes towards them. Shania fires again, but the gun is out of bullets. As he approaches, she throws the gun in his face, but he keeps coming and knocks her to the ground.

Brittany is now on the floor, running out of options. Her snapped leg makes it almost impossible for her to fight, but she’s not giving up.

BRITTANY

Come on you bastard, I’ll bite your legs off. I’ll rip your black heart out with my teeth!

Lonnie stands over Brittany, enjoying the anticipation.

LONNIE

You’re gonna taste so good.

He raises his hook and is about to deliver the final blow when Brittany summons up all her will to survive and with her last strength kicks him in the balls with her one good leg.

Lonnie falls to the floor in agony. Brittany kneels on her good leg, grabs the hook with her good arm and is about to plunge it into him when a gunshot goes off. Brittany pauses and looks around her. Standing a few yards away are Lonnie’s siblings, Earl and Vickie, with the crazy feral kids in tow.

Earl walks towards Brittany, his rifle pointing at her.

EARL

Just leave him now, he won’t bother you no more.

BRITTANY

Yeah, right. That fucker’s killed four of us.

EARL

Look, we’re not bad people. We only eat carrion. We don’t murder people. Only, Lonnie likes to bend the rules a little when we get hungry. Take him away, Vickie. We won’t let him hurt you no more.

Vickie helps Lonnie up and leads him away, the kids following after them, kicking each other in the ass. Lonnie looks back, longingly, but Vickie clips him across the head and he turns away.

EARL

Come with me. I’ll show you how to get home.

Shania has got up off the floor and slowly helps Brittany to her feet. Both women are looking at Earl fearfully.

SHANIA

Why should we trust you?

EARL

My dear, if I wanted you dead, you’d already be on my dining room table. Follow me.

Earl walks down a different trail from the one taken by Lonnie and Vickie, and Shania and Brittany look at each other.

BRITTANY

What choice have we got?

Shania shrugs and nods and they follow him down the trail.

[James Burns Burns]

James’s Level 1 Horror Emotion Scene

I learned how to incorporate different levels of horror anticipation – apprehension, surprise and then shock – to build up the suspense in a scene.

EXT. MAIN ROAD – DAY

Bruno is smoking a joint, which he keeps out of the window, as he drives along the main road, which is long, straight and really boring, Celine, Justin and Aubrey are all asleep. Brittany and Shania are chatting among themselves quietly, not paying attention to the road ahead.

BRUNO

(quietly, to himself)

Fuck, man, this is boring as shit.

He looks around him and sees pine trees over to the left.

BRUNO

(to himself)

Those pines look way more interesting. Let’s check ‘em out.

Without saying anything to the others, Bruno leaves the main road and trundles along a pretty crappy road. It is more interesting, with more beautiful scenery, but it is clearly becoming even more desolate than when they were on the main road.

He drives along for some time, then but comes across a large diversion sign.

BRUNO

Shit.

He slows down and follows the diversion sign onto an even crappier dirt road, which is full of potholes and in really bad shape. He turns to his phone but there is no signal, and the maps app doesn’t work.

BRUNO

Oh, that’s just great…

The bumpy ride wakes up Justin, who looks around him.

JUSTIN

(loudly and annoyed)

Where the fuck are we? Did you leave the main road? You idiot!

Celine and Aubrey wake up at this disturbance.

BRUNO

We’re just taking a detour through the pines.

SHANIA

The pines? Are you insane? The man said we had to avoid the pines. What the fuck’s wrong with you?

Justin pulls out his phone and realizes there is no signal or map app.

JUSTIN

Turn back.

BRUNO

What?

JUSTIN
Turn back. We have no idea where we are and no GPS to get us out of here. Turn around and get us back on the main road.

Bruno puts his foot down and speeds up considerably.

BRUNO

Look, every road leads somewhere, right? We just keep going ‘till we get there!

AUBREY

Bruno, for once act like a grown-up and turn around.

BRUNO
Shut up! Jesus! You’d think I was driving you all to your deaths the way you’re whining!

JUSTIN

Slow down and turn around.

Bruno speeds up even more and lets out a long howl.

JUSTIN
Are you fucking high?

BRUNO

Just a little, just enough!

JUSTIN
Stop the car.

BRUNO

You want to drive? Go ahead and drive, buddy!

Bruno lets go of the wheel, lifting his arms up and laughing like an idiot. Justin grabs the wheel but, just as he does, the tires all suddenly burst, Justin loses control, the car careers off the road and slams into a short tree trunk at such a speed that the car rears up on its hood and falls onto its roof.

As it does, it lands on a large, spiked tree stump that crashes through the windscreen and impales itself into Justin’s face. There is silence: all the passengers are knocked unconscious except Justin, who is very dead. We hear footsteps and the passenger door opens. We hear the same sniggering as in the opening scene.

[James Burns Burns]

I learned how to put all the plot pieces together and turn them into a solid and coherent outline.

ACT 1

EXT. WILDERNESS – DAY

An extreme hiker, OUTDOORS OLLIE, walks through a very secluded area. He is clearly an extreme hiking vlogger, but much crapper than he appears on camera. There are a number of jump scares. He gets chased by a bear, climbs up a tree and pepper-sprays the bear. Then he gets freaked out by a racoon (I hate those shifty little bastards). He hears a rustling in a bush and a chipmunk leaps out at him, freaking him out.

He stops, looks up at the setting sun and sets up a camera on a tripod. He gives a report on his trip out here, (Hey guys, Outdoors Ollie here) very macho, says it’s been an interesting day with some close encounters of the natural kind, and now I’m literally hundreds of miles from the nearest living soul.

He hears a noise that sounds like someone sniggering behind him.

It freaks him out a bit, but he tries to look macho in front of the camera. Maybe I’m not alone! he says, trying to laugh it off, but he is clearly unnerved. He walks towards the noise, after taking out and unfolding a comically large pocket knife. He steps onto something, which makes a slight clicking noise, and suddenly and swiftly sets off a huge bear trap that sinks into his midriff. He screams, then hears a loud ticking sound and looks puzzled but then we hear a second trap set off and a larger trap still flies up and decapitates him just below the shoulders.

He doesn’t have time to react, it all happens too quickly. We hear the sniggering sound again and then we see a shoeless foot stamp on a lever and the trap opens back up, the hiker’s body falling to the floor. The head is picked up off the floor by the hair by a filthy hand and the body is dragged away by the unseen killer.

INT. BRUNO’S BEDROOM – DAY

This room is chaotic. There is stuff everywhere and a couple of video game posters for The Forest, The Last of Us, Mortal Kombat, Wolfenstein II, Manhunt and Carmageddon framed posters on the walls.

CELINE and BRUNO, early 20s, are having fairly raucous sex. Celine is bouncing up and down on Bruno who is loving it. She is saying come on, come on, but s we close on her face, we see she is focusing on her smart watch calorie counter. As Bruno climaxes, Celine shouts Yes! iI just burned 76 calories. So not a complete waste of time.

Bruno says, Babe, you say the nicest things. He clearly doesn’t care. He’s not in love with her, he just loves shagging her. He’s not a complicated guy. She smiles a fake smile.

Suddenly the mood changes as there is a strange noise coming from the bathroom door. She climbs off him and tentatively opens the bathroom door. A cat leaps out on top of her. She shouts fuck and freaks out. I fucking hate cats. But he loves you. She looks at her watch. We’d better get going. We are not going to be late.

He says, Are you sure you want to come, ‘cos…

Of course I want to come, I wouldn’t miss this for the world.

It’s just, you know, you’re not technically invited.

Yes, but where you go I go, right?

Uh, sure…

Come on, let’s go. I fucking hate being late.

INT. AUBREY’s BEDROOM – DAY

His room is pristine. Nothing is out of place and there are a couple of Monet paintings on the wall and a couple of literary posters – one for Jean-Paul Sartre’s Huis Clos and another for Camus’ L’Etranger.

SHANIA and AUBREY are also having sex, but it is quite dull. They have clearly been together for some time. He tells her he is about to come and she says OK, she smiles but clearly isn’t that into it. He comes in a very protestant way and she feigns interest, He says it’s amazing how the sex is still so good, even after all these years. She says yeah…

Aubrey complains about the trip, he really doesn’t want to go – why does Justin have to invite us on these fucking trips? He knows I hate the outdoors. He’s a damn sadist. Shania tells him it will be fun, she can’t wait to hang out with Brittany. If she comes, says Aubrey. She hates the wilderness as much as I do.

The mood changes to one of suspense when they hear a noise. He goes to the closet and opens it slowly and a large white shaggy dog leaps out, knocking him over. Aubrey shouts, Roger, for fuck’s sake, how many times do I have to tell you to keep Bojo out of my room? I fucking hate dogs.

There is a car horn and Aubrey goes to the window. That can’t be Bruno… Sure enough, Bruno is outside, waving and smiling broadly, like the cat that got the cream. It’s a miracle, he’s NEVER on time, what the hell..?

EXT. SUBURBAN STREET – DAY

They go down to the car and are both shocked to see Celine sitting in the passenger seat. Bruno jokes around, isn’t it great? Celine was able to come! Shania mutters, that’s more than I could manage. She greets Celine, they’re both civil and outwardly smiling, but it’s clear they’re not besties. Aubrey gives Bruno a look. What? Justin is gonna fucking freak.

INT. JUSTIN’S BEDROOM- DAY

Justin’s room is so manly it’s painful. The wall has photos of lakes and mountains and wildlife. He is clearly an outdoors fan.

JUSTIN and BRITTANY are having movie star sex. Everything is perfect, they are clearly very much in love. They reach a loud and hilarious climax. Justin is a big guy, in very good shape, Brittany is a bit more bookish but still very attractive.

The mood changes when they hear a noise. She is freaked out and goes to open the bedroom door and a huge tiger roars and knocks her over. She laughs and says I fucking love tigers.

He complains that she isn’t coming to the camping trip. Justin is a real outdoors type, Brittany not so much. She tells him that she’s not going to go, you go without me. You know I hate camping – it’s not camping, it’s a cabin! They’re all c-words to me. If god had wanted us to stay in cabins he wouldn’t have invented hotels with en-suite bathrooms and jacuzzi hot tubs. Does this cabin have a bathroom with hot water and a kitchen with a proper stove? Yes. And a butler. And a bar, with a really good bartender? He tries to persuade her. They hear the car horn. Seriously? Bruno is never on time…

He looks out of the window and sees Celine. Always on time, damn her. Shit. Justin begs Brittany to come with him now to protect him from Celine. Reluctantly, she agrees, but neither are happy about Celine being there.

EXT. CITY STREET – DAY

They come over to the car and Bruno smiles and points at his watch – what kept you? Brittany is frosty with Celine who is outwardly friendly. Brittany jumps into the back of the car with Shania and they hug, clearly good friends. She whispers, so..? Shania nods her head, smiling, but whispers to her to be quiet. She hasn’t told Aubrey yet, it’s still early.

Justin has a chat with Bruno and Aubrey away from the car – it is clear they are good friends who go back a long way. Justin is furious that Bruno has brought his ex without asking. It’s bad enough you’re dating her, but bringing her along? How fucking dumb can you get? Bruno calms him down, it will be great. She’s over you man. She’s just using you to get to me, you know that right? With that body she can use me to get to anybody.

Aubrey takes the piss out of the car – didn’t see you as a mini-van man, Bruno. Are you finally ready to settle down. It’s a rental, dickhead. And it fits six, so shut up. Did you pack your slippers? And your pipe? Fuck you. Eloquent with the come-backs, as ever. Bruno imitates Aubrey’s voice in an exaggerated way, repeating his sentence.

EXT. CITY LIMITS – DAY

The car winds its way along a highway that quickly turns into countryside.

INT. CAR – DAY

In the car, Bruno complains about this being a fucking gas guzzler. There’s no way we’ll be able to get to the cabin without running out of gas. They are in a pretty remote area already, but there is a big house that he spots and pulls over.

EXT. COUNTRYSIDE – DAY

Bruno gets out and walks over towards a house where the owner is watering the lawn. He is a really dodgy-looking guy, the opposite of a city slicker. The guy nods at him and Bruno asks if he might have some gas going spare. The guy says are you serious? He points to the huge gasoline truck parked next to his house. Cool!

They all get out of the car to stretch their legs. Shania and Brittany go to find a spot to pee and Celine climbs into the very back seat and settles down to sleep.

Justin and Aubrey join Bruno and the man and they all chat as the guy fills the car’s tank with gas. He asks them where they’re heading and they tell him – Victorville Lake. Let me give you some extra to take – you don’t want to run out of gas if you’re heading that way. Whatever you do, don’t leave the main road. And don’t go west, up by the pines. Stay away from the pines. Why? Strange things happen out there. Papa Carter went up there just a few weeks ago to do some oil painting in the woods. Came back. He shakes his head sadly. Brun is intrigued – what happened? No paint brushes. They’d just disappeared. And he had no face. What? Well, no that last bit’s not true, but he couldn’t see properly no more. What? Yeah, he lost his reading glasses. Now he can’t fuckin read – can you imagine that? Not being able to read? Horrible. And Ma Hardesty went out there to go fishing. Never seen again. Well, not without a sunburn, anyway. And it was a really bad sunburn. It stung for days, she said. Just stay away. Nothing good happens up there. Shania tells Bruno to listen to the man – he seems to be very wise.

They all get back in the car

INT. CAR – DAY

They carry on with Justin now riding shotgun next to Bruno, Celine is trying to sleep in the far back next to a reluctant Aubrey who asks her to let Shania sit there. Celine refuses, saying she needs to sleep and the middle’s not comfortable enough. He says, Whatever makes you happy, princess.

I’m a fucking princess? You’re the one who brought a juicer on a camping trip.

The cabin’s kitchen is woefully ill-equipped, I’m not eating burnt burgers all weekend.

Woefully ill-equipped? Who even talks like that?

Someone with an education.

You arrogant fuck.

You joyless harridan. I don’t know what that means, but I know it’s not good. Justin shouts back telling them to shut up. Go to sleep, Celine. She opens her mouth to retort, thinks twice about it and mutters damn right I’ll go to sleep. I want to go to sleep. Not cos you told me to.

Justin also falls asleep, as does Aubrey. Shania and Brittany chat quietly among themselves. Shania tells her she is thinking of starting in-vitro. Brittany suggests she just finds a guy with better sperm…

EXT. MAIN ROAD – DAY

Bruno ignores the warning and, without telling the rest of them, leaves the main road. He trundles along a pretty crappy road, but comes across a large diversion sign. Shit, He turns onto an even crappier dirt road, gets exasperated and starts driving really fast. The GPS on his phone has stopped working, he’s driving blind.

Justin wakes up and they have a big argument about him leaving the main road – where the fuck are we? I don’t know, but who cares? We’ll get to somewhere! Justin tells him to slow down, as do the others, but instead he speeds up, yelling out loud. Bruno, for once go against type says Aubrey. Justin loses it and tells him to stop the car, this is bullshit: Bruno smiles and takes his hands off the wheel – you wanna drive? You drive, buddy!

Justin grabs the wheel but, just as he does the tires all suddenly burst, Justin loses control, the car careers off the road and slams into a tree trunk at such a speed that the car rears up on its hood and falls onto its roof.

As it does, it lands on a large, spiked tree stump that crashes through the windscreen and impales itself into Justin’s face. There is silence, all the passengers are knocked unconscious except Justin, who is very dead. We hear footsteps and the passenger door opens. We hear the same sniggering as in the opening scene.

EXT. DESOLATE COUNTRYSIDE – DAY

The survivors slowly start to wake up one by one but there is no Justin. There is however, a lot of blood. Brittany and Celine are really worried – Shania says he just went for help, that’s typical of Justin – he’s seen us all unconscious and decided to find help. He’ll be back soon with a tow truck and an ambulance. And some breakfast burritos! But Bruno says that is a lot of blood.

Aubrey says Justin’s a fucking animal, he’s gone for help. That’s the only explanation. Initially Brittany is in tears, desperately scared for Justin’s life. But she asks the fuck is going on? Where’s the blood trail? There is no way he went for help – has he been taken? Celine is also scared for Justin and beats up on Bruno, laying the blame squarely on him. “If Justin is dead because of you, I will slice your balls off. And not in a good way.”

Now Justin has gone, she no longer pretends to care about these people. She also blames Brittany – if she hadn’t stolen Justin from her they wouldn’t have come on this trip with you losers, it would have just been the two of us and shit for brains here wouldn’t have been driving and we wouldn’t have crashed and he wouldn’t be…she can’t say the word and breaks down.

Brittany tries to get her shit together, realizing this situation got very real very quickly. Bruno says they must have hit a rock. Brittany checks out the tires, seeing that they were sliced by something sharp – this was no rock, they must have driven over some spikes or something. There is nothing in the road, though, no spikes, no rock either… Brittany says why would someone lay a trap like that?

Aubrey’s cocky self-assuredness is gone, and he laments that the only person who knows what the fuck they’re doing out here in the sticks is gone. Brittany takes charge, but Bruno teases her, we’re not your students, miss.

Aubrey goes for a piss (I have an enlarged prostate, OK, I can’t help it. Man, you’ve got an enlarged sense of your own worth, that’s what you’ve got, says Bruno. Shania begs him not to go, just go behind that bush, he whispers that he needs a number two and says, what’s the worst that can happen?

EXT. CLEARING – DAY

Aubrey walks into a clearing away from the others, to find a suitable dumping place, but almost gets killed in a fiendish trap. He steps on the trap mechanism, which makes a clicking noise that makes Aubrey move to one side, just in time, as a spear flies out of the ground and just grazes his knee. He cries out in shock and pain and the others quickly come to investigate.

They all take close look at the trap – Brittany takes the lead. She says this isn’t a regular hunter’s trap. It is very well made and fiendishly clever – none of them has seen a trap like this before. It looks designed to kill people, not animals. Bruno laughs it off – he’s not ready to believe this.

EXT. CAMP – DAY

They go back to their camp: While Aubrey escaped with just a minor flesh wound, this makes him even more of a whining annoyance. Brittany, Celine and Aubrey think that they are being hunted, except Shania, who still won’t accept it. We’re not in Texas! This isn’t a massacre, it’s just hunting season and we got unlucky, that’s all. We got into an accident because someone was driving too fast, and Aubrey walked into a hunter’s trap. It will all be fine once Justin gets back.

Celine rips into her: Justin lost like a gallon of blood and then just disappeared without leaving a blood trail – do you think he somehow patched himself off before setting off to find help? Yes, I do, Justin’s a real outdoors guy – he’ll have used his first aid kit to cover his wound and… Brittany shows her the first aid kit. It hasn’t been touched. Get real – he’s not coming back!

ACT 2 — THE POINT OF NO RETURN

Bruno decides to be all macho and go off in search of food. He has a speargun and some spears and sets off looking to hunt for “a deer or something”. Brittany knows this is a bad idea but wants to keep an eye on him and recce the area “It would be good to get a lay of the land”. Celine also goes with them, Shania stays with Aubrey, who has no intention of going anywhere or doing anything. “Did you bring snacks, baby?” “Of course I did, sweetie.”

EXT. WILDERNESS _ DAY

Brittany and Celine are arguing behind Bruno, Celine now convinced that Justin is dead.

Bruno turns around, annoyed with all this bickering and asks them to shut up – how the hell are we supposed to kill a deer with you making all this noise? And anyway, I thought you were over Justin? As Bruno turns his head around to talk to them, he walks backwards. He trips a wire and as he turns around, an axe swings down from the tree above him and splits his head in two.

As he falls backwards to the ground, he fires the speargun into the air. The two women stare at Bruno for a moment, stunned, not believing what they’ve just seen. Suddenly, the spear comes back to earth, landing in Bruno’s chest. They both scream fuuuuuuuck! Now it is undeniable: these traps have been laid to kill them – they are being hunted and the killer is nowhere to be seen.

The two women leave Bruno there and head back to the camp, after picking up his speargun and wrenching the harpoon out of him. They are both horrified, and Celine blames Brittany for everything, she just won’t stop bickering.

MIDPOINT: The monster is worse than we thought!

EXT. WILDERNESS TRAIL – DAY

Brittany walks into a wire, which sets off another trap, but she trips and falls just in time. Five arrows all whistle over her, all coming from different directions, missing her by inches. That was close. But there is a scream behind her – Celine has been hit by an arrow – clean through her breast. Brittany finds one of the crossbows that fired one of the arrows – this is a really intricate trap. Someone really wants us dead. They head back to the camp, Celine refusing Brittany’s help – I got shot in my boob, not my leg, I can walk just fine!

EXT. CAMP – DAY

They get back to the camp and tell Shania and Aubrey about what happened. Aubrey is freaked out and is also devastated at losing his other best friend. When Shania tries to convince them these are probably just some animal traps set by hunters, Celine points to her breast arrow and asks if this looks like the work of a hunter. Aubrey explodes sarcastically, and Shania says fuck you and walks away. Brittany convinces Shania that these are no hunters’ traps, there’s a maniac out there, the sooner you accept that, the better the chance we have of surviving. Brittany snaps the arrow and takes it out of Celine’s boob and helps her to patch it up.

ACT 3 — FULL OUT HORROR

EXT. CAMP – DAY (Cont.)

Brittany gets them all to start looting the car for anything that might protect them, then regroup: – we need to be able to fight this fucker. They regroup and show their weapons. Aubrey has a BB gun, shows it off, Celine asks if that’s a BB gun? Yes, yes it is. God help us. “This could take someone’s eye out.” Celine has a pair of tweezers, (“You’re gonna pluck his eyebrows to death? asks Aubrey. “Shut up BB boy. These are fucking sharp tweezers”). Brittany has the speargun and a large hunting knife she found in Justin’s bag (she offers this to Celine who refuses, saying she is just fine with her tweezers, thank you very much). Shania says, I’ve got Lucy. Lucy? She pulls out a .44 Magnum. WTF?

She tells them of when she was younger, she got attacked by two men who tried to drag her into an alleyway. Thankfully, unbeknown to Shania, her mum was psychopathically over-protective and she used to follow her when she went out at night. Her mom shot them both in the ass, then taught me how to shoot. I’ve been packin’ ever since. They rest up for the night in their makeshift camp. Aubrey: you think you know somebody…

EXT. CAMP – NIGHT

As the four survivors sleep, a figure lurks in the camp: it could easily kill them but doesn’t. We only see its shadow. As it walks away, it snaps a twig. Quick as a flash, Shania sits up and fires a few shots into the dark. There seem to be two cries of pain. “I got the bastard!” and the others wake up really quickly. Aubrey limps back to the camp, “Don’t shoot!” a bullet having grazed his leg. He had gone behind a bush for a pee. But he did see a shadowy figure get shot. He didn’t go down, but he took a bullet.

Brittany says we’ll go after him in the morning. Celine wants to go now, Brittany says off you go, chasing off after a psycho killer who’s been laying traps for us, in the dark. Fair point. Bitch. One of us has to stay awake, I’ll take first turn, holding the speargun. She won’t take the gun, scared she’ll kill someone with it. That’s kinda the point. Aubrey finally tries to be macho, there’s no way I’ll be able to sleep now, I’ll take first watch.

EXT. CAMP – EARLY MORNING

Brittany wakes up and sees that Aubrey is indeed asleep, cradling the gun in his arms. Pissed off, she wakes him and the others up, let’s eat then let’s take the fight to this bastard. They all start eating from the food coolers they brought with them.

EXT. WILDERNESS TRAIL – DAY

Armed as well as they can be, they follow the blood trail left by the killer. Brittany beats a path with a very long stick. The trail dries up, but they see smoke and come to a very dilapidated house.

EXT. DILAPIDATED HOUSE – DAY

Three small, ragged-looking children play in the yard with a gun. One of them waves it around and accidentally shoots it, closely missing one of the other kids, who only has one ear. “If you go shooting my other ear off, Annie,” she cries. “Vickie will kill you!”

The survivors can’t believe that this could be the killer’s home – there are children here! At the sound of the gunshot, a young woman, VICKIE, comes out of the house, angry and afraid, and shouts at the kids, What have I told you about playing with guns on a Sunday? She stops when she sees the strangers. They ask if she has seen someone come by with a wound – they tell her they are being hunted. She shakes her head but says there are a lot of hunters out these parts, but I ain’t seen nobody for weeks.

They ask her for help but she says she ain’t got no phone and don’t want to get involved. If there are hunters out there, she has to think of the kids. Shania asks if they can stay with her – the woman looks scared – no, I don’t know you, I can’t have strangers coming into my house. I’m sorry. Y’all gotta leave. Aubrey: anyone else getting a hills have eyes vibe? No? just me? Fuck. They leave.

INT. HOUSE – DAY

Vickie comes inside the ramshackle house and talks to her brother, EARL. He heard the conversation. She thinks Lonnie has been killing people. Trapping them. Last night’s dinner wasn’t no carrion. Earl is furious. He’s killing again. I’ll go find him.

EXT. WILDERNESS TRAIL – DAY

On the way back to the camp, Brittany and Celine set off traps: Shania prevents Celine from being killed, though Celine is maimed (again) and Brittany miraculously survives, although her leg is snapped in two. She doesn’t care, she just straps a piece of wood to it with a couple of belts, but she is horribly wounded.

Aubrey says fuck this, come on, Shania, she says no, we’ve got to help them, he says fuck that, come ON. Shania shouts at him, don’t be such a fucking coward! Wanting to live does not make me a coward. See you back at the camp. She shouts after after him, incensed, he wavers, but then turns and runs, falling into a pit of snakes. Lying there, he is winded and doesn’t realize he is surrounded by very angry serpents.

Shania’s initial reaction is to jump into the pit to help Aubrey, but Celine of all people stops her. Shania struggles to hold her shit together, she is terrified for Aubrey. Aubrey sweetie, are you OK? He stirs a little, still stunned. He is about to sit up but she quickly calls out, don’t move! He replies brusquely “Don’t tell me what to do, I’m fine to move. You’re always telling me what to do…” As he moves to get up, several of the snakes bite him. He screams as other snakes attack and soon he falls silent. Shania struggles in Celine’s arms then breaks down, not quite able to believe what she’s just seen. She holds her belly.

EXT. CAMP – DAY

Back at the camp, Celine roots around in her bag, then takes hold of Shania and pops a pill in her mouth – swallow. Brittany says, come on sweetie, we need you. We have to fight this fucker.

Brittany says she has a plan.

EXT. WILDERNESS TRAIL – EVENING

Lonnie comes along the track where they all got trapped and finds Aubrey still in the pit, his face contorted in a complaining expression. We see Lonnie’s silhouette; he is dressed like a ragged pianist, with top hat and tails but no shoes. He walks in a very menacing fashion, confident and dangerous, carrying a vicious-looking long hook with a rope attached to it, which he aims to use to pull Aubrey out of the pit, and another metal hook hangs from his belt.

As he starts to pull Aubrey’s body out of the pit, he is shot by a bullet and then by a harpoon. Shania comes out of hiding with her gun firing. As Lonnie’s face lifts and we finally see it – a hideous, deformed child-like in-bred face. He manages to get away but is bleeding badly. Shania shoots again and he takes one in the shoulder.

EXT. WOODED AREA – EVENING

He leads them into some covered woods and Brittany almost falls into a trap, but teeters on the edge, trying not to fall in. Celine pushes her in. Shania screams, Celine! And shoots Celine, in the other breast, and Celine runs away, cursing her. Shania helps Brittany out of the trap: she is, unbelievably, still alive, but this time with her arm snapped in two. She shrugs it off.

EXT. WILDERNESS CLEARING – EVENING

Lonnie has caught up with Celine and they are fighting, but with both of them very injured it is hard for each of them to deal a final blow. He is hideous – he looks like an in-bred child in the face, but with a man’s body comically and hideously deformed.

Lonnie is badly shot up, with one arm useless, while Celine is bleeding from both breasts. He draws back his hook to kill her, but Celine stabs him in the eye with her tweezers. He screams, drops the hook and slowly pulls out the tweezers, which pops his eyeball out. He looks at the eye for a second, pulls it off the tweezers and stuffs it back in his eye socket. He turns back to Celine, who has been watching this with morbid curiosity. He then proceeds to stab Celine in the chest with the tweezers.

He stops when Celine appears to be dead and looks up in time to see Brittany and Shania hobbling towards him (Shania helping Brittany to walk). Lonnie goes after them, very slowly, brandishing his hook in one hand and the tweezers in the other.

Brittany can’t do much, but Shania shoots him twice before running out of bullets. Lonnie keeps coming and hits Shania, knocking her to the ground. Brittany is also on the floor now, unable to get up with her snapped leg, but she screams at him, come on you bastard, I’ll bite your legs off. I’ll rip your fucking heart out with my teeth!

Lonnie stands over Brittany, raises his hook and is about to deliver the final blow… She summons up all her strength and kicks him in the balls with her one good leg. She is an amazing example of the sheer willpower to live. Lonnie falls to the floor, she kneels on her good leg, lifts up the hook with her good arm and is about to plunge it into him when a gunshot goes off. It is Lonnie’s brother and sister, with crazy feral kids in tow. Earl has shot into the air and now points the rifle at Brittany. Just leave him now, he won’t bother you no more, we’ll make sure of that. We’re not bad people. Lonnie just likes to bend the rules a little. Vickie helps Lonnie up and takes him away. Earl says come with me, I’ll help you get home. The two women look at each other, unwilling to trust him. “I’m not like my brother, I’m no killer. And if I wanted you dead, you’d be dead.”

EXT. CLEARING – EVENING

Earl leads them to a trail and points to a wheelbarrow. I’ve got some transportation you can borrow. Brittany climbs in and Earl points to the trail. Follow that trail for a couple of miles, you’ll come to a road. Cars come along there once in a while. They set off, silently.

EXT. DIRT ROAD – EVENING

Shania, her head covered in blood, and Brittany, hardly conscious, slowly make their way to the end of the trail, which brings them to a road. They finally manage to flag down a car. As they tell the driver what happened, a beaten-up pickup truck slowly drives in the other direction. They see the three siblings in the front, and the feral kids and a very large freezer on the back.

[James Burns Burns]

What I learned was how to flesh out the characters themselves and give them far more depth, as well as build out their personal story, no matter how short it might be.

Justin

What is their Character Profile?

Role: leader and supposed hero of the film

Traits: he knows and loves the outdoors (he’s the only one who does)

Fears: Celine – she is bonkers

Wants/Needs : Wants Celine out of his life. Needs a calmer woman, like Brittany

Likability / Rooting factors: He is decent and is set up as the hero.

How they react under stress: He is calm, but never discovers the horror to come

Relationship with other characters: Loves Brittany, can’t stand Celine, is good friends with Bruno and Aubrey and has known Shania for years and likes her a lot.

What is their Character Journey for this story?

Character Intro: he is so enthusiastic about the trip when he and Brittany are shagging. And he is clearly a very capable guy.

Denial: Can’t believe Bruno has taken them the wrong way.

Their reaction at first horror: Death!

Relation to group after first horror: Disappeared.

How they fight back: He doesn’t.

End Point: First one to die.

What insight do their deaths or survival bring to the others/audience? It seems to have been no accident, but is an omen of what is to come.

Brittany

What is their Character Profile?

Role: Rescuer.

Traits: She is one tough woman. Never stops, even when she snaps her arm and leg in half.

Fears: Celine, the outdoors, she HATES camping (it’s a cabin not a tent!). Seriously not going to come until Celine turns up and Justin begs her to come to protect him from her.

Wants/Needs: wants Justin so much, needs to get the hell out of this godforsaken place

Likability / Rooting factors: Very much so, she is ballsy and team-spirited

How they react under stress: Very well, she is a school teacher, so she is used to herding cats, she takes control naturally.

Relationship with other characters: HATES Celine and the feeling is mutual. Loves Justin, puts up with Bruno, likes Shania a lot but thinks she’s too good for Aubrey.

What is their Character Journey for this story?

Character Intro: She is shagging Justin and telling him she has decided not to go. The tiger jumps out at her and she doesn’t flinch. I love tigers.

Denial: Very little – Justin has gone for fuck’s sake, and there is too much blood for him to have gotten away by himself. She is the one who inspects the tires to find that they have been sliced apart (Bruno says they must have hit a rock, this was no rock).

Their reaction at first horror: Grief, real horror and suffering.

Relation to group after first horror: she takes over. Even though Bruno tries to be the new leader, she follows him to keep an eye on him.

How they fight back: With everything she can find – the harpoon gun, a large hunting knife. She never stops fighting, even when crippled, come on you bastard, I’ll tear your heart out with my fucking teeth!

End Point: She survives, just, with broken bones and by being wheeled to safety in a wheelbarrow.

What insight do their deaths or survival bring to the others/audience? The sheer bloody minded willpower and instinct we have to survive.

Bruno

What is their Character Profile?

Role: rule-breaker and also the carrier (he drives them into this mess and ignores the warning)

Traits: Reckless and feckless (irresponsible)

Fears: Nothing, which is a problem for everyone else

Wants/Needs: wants to get laid, needs to be admired, though this never happens

Likability / Rooting factors: He’s not a horrible person but he is a bit of a dick.

How they react under stress: Becomes even more macho, tries to come across as in control and in charge, but he is just winging it and bluffing his way through it.

Relationship with other characters: Affable and friendly with everyone. He knows Celine is using him and doesn’t care. Quite positive to the point of being stupidly so.

What is their Character Journey for this story?

Character Intro: Shagging Celine, doesn’t care that she’s not into him, just likes shagging her. Clearly an easy-going guy with little else going on.

Denial: Doesn’t want to believe Justin could be dead, that’s for sure – he’s his best friend.

Their reaction at first horror: he tries to take charge but doesn’t have a plan. Just wants to do something to be seen to be taking the lead, but he’s not up to the task.

Relation to group after first horror: Tries to become the leader. But fails due to denial and stupidity.

How they fight back: Doesn’t really get the chance to – he is the first one to be killed in front of others.

End Point: His head is split in two by a swinging axe/pendulum.

What insight do their deaths or survival bring to the others/audience? This is real – someone is definitely out to get them. That was no hunter’s trap.

Celine

What is their Character Profile?

Role: Out of control/obnoxious

Traits: jealous and somewhat unhinged.

Fears: Not much. Too self-obsessed.

Wants/Needs: Justin back. Needs to escape somehow, but is not friends with anyone and makes it harder for herself by hating on Brittany.

Likability / Rooting factors: NO! She tries to kill Brittany and is more concerned with bitching to and about Brittany for stealing Justin than actually helping everyone survive.

How they react under stress: Not bad, she is a stone cold-hearted woman, so she keeps her shit together and doesn’t fear the killer. And when she faces off against him she almost takes him down with a pair of tweezers.

Relationship with other characters: Not good. She hates Brittany, puts up with Bruno while he’s useful then drops him like a hot potato after Justin dies. She loves Justin but is like a creepy stalker now. Shania and Aubrey might as well not exist as far as she is concerned.

What is their Character Journey for this story?

Character Intro: She is having sex with Bruno, disinterested in him but pleased to have burnt 67 calories. Not a complete waste of time then (Oh babe, you say the nicest things!).

Denial: She does not want to believe that Justin is dead for sure, but isn’t as much in denial as Shania. After Bruno dies she knows they are up against it.

Their reaction at first horror: True grief – she really loved Justin, even if it was a very obsessive love. Bruno is not too impressed by such a show of love for someone other than him, but she tells him to shove it.

Relation to group after first horror: It goes totally downhill. Before Justin died she at least tried to have a pretense of getting along with them for the sake of getting back into Justin’s good books, but once he is gone, she shows that she doesn’t give a shit about any of them.

How they fight back: She is tough and feels like a pair of tweezers are all she needs. And she’s almost right.

End Point: After stabbing Lonnie in the eye with the tweezers, he pops them out of his eye and stabs her to death with her own tweezers.

What insight do their deaths or survival bring to the others/audience? She sets it up so that Brittany and Shania have a better chance of killing Lonnie, by stabbing him in the eye.

Shania

What is their Character Profile?

Role: Innocent:

Traits: she is a really good person – she is very empathetic, tries to see everyone’s point of view, to the point of ignoring her own. Always looks for the good in people, including the maniac trying to kill them.

Fears: Losing Aubrey. He is far from perfect but he does love her in his own selfish way and is nice to her on the whole. She is deeply insecure and can’t imagine losing him.

Wants/Needs: She wants to enjoy being with Aubrey. She needs to toughen up and get real if she is going to survive.

Likability / Rooting factors: She is sweet and kind, so we do like her. She is a bit pathetic, but we pity her rather than get annoyed with her. She does grow as the film progresses, the extremity of their situation makes her toughen up.

How they react under stress: Initially she is in complete denial, but she eventually toughens up and fights back hard (it turns out she is the only one who is armed).

Relationship with other characters: She is nice to everyone. Would do anything for Aubrey (Brittany has to stop her from jumping into the snake pit to save Aubrey) and saves Celine’s life, even though Celine has been horrible to her. She also wheels Brittany to safety in a squeaky wheelbarrow.

What is their Character Journey for this story?

Character Intro: She is having sex with Aubrey, but it is very vanilla – they have been together a long time, clearly. When he comes she seems happy it’s over.

Denial: Simply cannot believe this is happening, it is way beyond the realm of her experience and imagination.

Their reaction at first horror: Total denial. She won’t even accept it’s happening after Bruno dies, instead preferring to believe these are just hunters’ traps.

Relation to group after first horror: She grows in stature, starts to take less shit from Celine, especially after Aubrey dies. She toughens up a lot – everyone loves her except for Celine who begrudgingly respects her after Shania saves her life.

How they fight back: She takes her very large handgun out of her bag along with ammo. She clearly knows how to use it. Way back when she was a teenager some men tried to rape her. Her mom came along just in time to save her by shooting two of them in the ass. Then she taught Shania how to shoot and she’s been packin’ ever since.

End Point: She survives, along with Brittany, She does get knocked out by Lonnie briefly, but she is able to wheelbarrow Brittany to safety.

What insight do their deaths or survival bring to the others/audience? Good does triumph over evil.

Aubrey

What is their Character Profile?

Role: The complainer

Traits: A princess. Not good in a crisis at all, not a leader, too smug and prissy to be of help to anyone. Narcissistic.

Fears: The outdoors

Wants/Needs: he wants to go home/never leave home. He needs to get his shit together if he is to survive and also be less selfish/self-centred.

Likability / Rooting factors: None whatsoever – we cheer when he dies.

How they react under stress: Badly, given that everything brings him stress. He is a liability, not a help.

Relationship with other characters: He is pleasant with Shania, on the whole, but tends to put himself before her (though he does love her in his own way). He is buddies with Justin and Bruno, not great with women other than Shania, and a bit of a moaning asshole to everyone.

What is their Character Journey for this story?

Character Intro: He is having bland sex with Shania, she doesn’t come and he doesn’t even notice.

Denial: He doesn’t want to believe any of this is happening, it is all so inconvenient. He just wants to go home, is that too much to ask? And did he mention that he fucking hates the outdoors?

Their reaction at first horror: It is an irritation, though he is really freaked out that Justin has disappeared, he does love him. He doesn’t really believe that Justin has gone for help, there is WAY too much blood.

Relation to group after first horror: He becomes increasingly irritating and complaining, especially after he gets injured.

How they fight back: Very half-heartedly. He wants others to sort this out, this is all way beyond him. His weapon of choice is a BB gun for crying out loud.

End Point: His death is poetic. He is a coward and runs away when the others are attacked, then when Shania desperately tries to save his life by telling him not to move, he becomes an arrogant asshole and won’t be told by her what to do, not realizing he is surrounded by snakes. He deserves it.

What insight do their deaths or survival bring to the others/audience? He frees the women up to get on with it. We are just glad to see the back of him.

[James Burns Burns]

What I learned was how to flesh out the monster’s abilities and MO and plot out the ways in which the monster is slowly revealed to the audience.

Who or what is the monster and what is its terror?

A cannibalistic hillbilly with a warped moral code whereby he can’t kill people and can only eat carrion. However, he causes their deaths by laying traps.

What are its powers? The ability to make and set very elaborate and deadly traps. He also knows the terrain like the back of his hand, so he is able to stay hidden for most of the film.

What are its limitations? His family’s code dictates that he does not kill people, so when he is attacked, he can only run. At first.

What are its weaknesses? He is human, not supernatural, so he can be shot and he does bleed. It’s hard to kill him but not impossible.

What is its Plan/Purpose/Appetite? To cause the characters to set his traps and thereby kill themselves so he can take them for food.

1 Demand – who is making the noise behind the hiker?

Monster reveal: when the hiker investigates, he walks into a double bear trap and is decapitated.

2 Demand: how did the car’s tires burst, leading it to career off the road?

Monster reveal: although there is nothing in the road now, the tires show that they were sliced open by something very sharp. Something was laid on the road and covered, which they ran over. Justin has disappeared, even though there is a LOT of blood on the car seat, so how could he have just gone for help when he was clearly really injured: there are no blood trails outside of the car either. Was he taken?

3 Demand: has Aubrey walked into a regular hunter’s trap?

Monster reveal: they take close look at it – it is very well made and fiendishly clever – none of them has seen a trap like this before. It looks designed to kill people, not animals.

4 Demand: what killed Bruno?

Monster reveal: Now it is undeniable: these traps have been laid to kill them – they are being hunted and the killer is nowhere to be seen.

5 Demand Are there more traps?

Monster reveal: Celine is hit by an arrow after Brittany sets off a trap but falls over, escaping death.

6 Demand: Why does the monster not kill them when he has the chance?

Monster reveal: The monster is human: Shania sees a shadow and shoots (also shooting Aubrey) and there is a trail of blood.

7 Demand: who is living in this ramshackle house?

Monster reveal: when the survivors find the house, we discover that the killer may be Lonnie, the brother of the two hillbillies living in this dilapidated and extremely religious house. The survivors don’t know this, the sister only talks to her older brother about Lonnie killing people. We now know the monster’s name, Lonnie and the fact that he is clearly an in-bred hillbilly with a weird Christ fixation and warped moral code (we learn that the family only eats carrion – so they are cannibals, but supposedly not murderers).

8 Demand: the survivors decide to turn the tables on their pursuer

Monster reveal: We finally see Lonnie, though it is dark, and we see only his shadow, which is extremely creepy. He is dressed like a ragged pianist, with top hat and tails and no shoes. He walks in a very menacing fashion, confident and dangerous, dragging a long hook, which he aims to use to pull Aubrey out of the pit.

9 Demand: We get to see the monster

Monster reveal: Lonnie has caught up with Celine and they are fighting, with both of them very injured it is hard for each of them to deal a final blow. The two other survivors finally see him, and he is hideous – he looks like an in-bred child in the face, but with a man’s body comically and hideously deformed.

10 Demand: the final confrontation

Monster reveal: Shania and Brittany face off against Lonnie, and Brittany is about to kill him when we discover that he is the brother of the people who live in the ramshackle house. They take him away and the women are allowed to escape.

[James Burns Burns]

What I learned is how to plot the various character deaths, making them different in substantial ways while still following a pattern that makes sense with the rest of the plot.

Character death 1: Extreme hiker in the prologue

Why: To set the scene of what the main characters are about to walk into.

How: He walks into a double bear trap: the first almost cuts him in two, the second decapitates him.

Character death 2: Justin, the leader and supposed hero of the film

Why: To throw the other characters into a sense of disorganization – he had organized the trip, he is the only one with any outdoors skills and he is the group’s natural leader.

How: When the car crashes (thanks to the monster) it flips over and when it lands, a large tree stump smashes through the window and impales itself into Justin’s face.

Character death 3: Bruno, the out-of-control character, whose fault it is that they are in this mess.

Why: Because it’s all his fault and he is also the only other fit man who knows a little bit of what he is doing (the third guy, Aubrey, is useless).

How: He trips a wire and as he turns around, an axe swings down from the tree above him and splits his head in two.

Character death 4: Aubrey, the complainer.

Why: Because he’s a coward and falls into the trap while he’s trying to save his own skin. He’s too busy complaining and being annoyed at Shania telling what to do that he does the exact opposite, and this gets him killed.

How: He falls into a snake pit, doesn’t realize it’s a snake pit, gets angry when Shania tells him to stay very still, angrily gets up to spite her and gets bitten by all of the snakes. He dies a quick but excruciating death.

Character death 5: Celine

Why: She just tried to kill Brittany by pushing her into one of the monster’s traps and is then attacked by the monster, so she deserves what’s coming to her.

How: She fights the monster who is himself badly beaten up and shot from the previous fight. He seems to get the better of her and draws back his machete, about to kill her, but Celine stabs him in the eye with her tweezers. Character death: He screams, pulls out the tweezers, which pop his eye out, then he proceeds to stab Celine in the chest with the tweezers until she is lifeless.

[James Burns Burns]

What I learned was to pepper the outline with horror situations and reactions, to make sure there were plenty included.

ACT 1 — SET UP FOR HORROR

Atmosphere of Evil established

An extreme hiker walks through a very secluded area. He stops, looks up at the setting sun and sets up a camera on a tripod. He is clearly an extreme hiking vlogger and gives a report on his trip out here, literally hundreds of miles from the nearest living soul. He hears a noise that sounds like someone sniggering behind him.

Horror situation: spooky, an unseen person is laughing at him

Reaction: denial – It freaks him out a bit, but he tries to look macho in front of the camera. Maybe I’m not alone! he says, trying to laugh it off. He walks towards the noise, after taking out a fairly large pocket knife. He steps onto something, which makes a slight clicking noise, then

Horror situation: walking into a trap: suddenly and swiftly, a huge mousetrap-style device whips onto him, pinning his body to the floor and decapitating him.

Reaction: His screams are cut off, he doesn’t have time to react, it all happens too quickly. After a few seconds, the body is dragged away by someone unseen.

Connect with the characters

We meet each set of couples one at a time, with jump scares in each scene. Celine and Bruno are first, they are having fairly raucous sex, but Bruno is the one who is into it, Celine is more interestedin her smart watch, monitoring her own heart beat and calorie burning. Wow, I just burned 76 calories. Awesome.

Horror situation: What’s that noise? She pushes him off and opens the bathroom door. A cat leaps out on top of her

Reaction: escape, she jumps out of the cat’s way, she hates cats.

Time to go.

The next couple is Shania and Aubrey. They are also having sex, but it is quite dull. They have clearly been together for some time. Aubrey is complaining about the trip, he really doesn’t want to go. He tells her he is about to come and she says OK, let’s get it over with.

Horror situation: She hears a noise. She goes to the closet and opens it and a large dog leaps out, knocking her over.

Reaction: escape, she falls over, she hates dogs.There is a car horn and they both scramble up. I can’t believe Bruno is actually on time. They go down to the car and are both shocked to see Celine. Bruno jokes around, isn’t it great? Celine was able to come! Shania says that’s more than I can manage.

The last couple is Justin and Brittany. They are also having sex which is extremely amusing. They are both really into it.

Horror situation: there’s a noise. She is freaked out and goes to open the bedroom door and a huge tiger roars and knocks her over.

Reaction: escape, she gets out of the way. She hates fucking tigers.

We’d better get going. Don’t worry, Bruno’s always late. They hear the car horn. Seriously? He looks out of the window and sees Celine. Shit. Neither are happy about this. Justin has a chat with Bruno, Bruno calms him down, it will be great. She’s over you man. She’s just using you to get to me, you know that right? With that body she can use me to get to anybody.

The characters are warned not to do it.

On the way to the remote cabin, they start to get very low on gas. Bruno pulls over to a house where a guy is watering his lawn. The guy nods at them and Bruno asks if he might have some gas going spare. The guy says are you serious? He points to the huge gasoline truck parked next to his house. Cool! They chat as he fills some gas into a barrel. Asks them where they’re heading. Let me give you some extra to take – you don’t want to run out of gas if you’re heading that way. Whatever you do, don’t leave the main road. And don’t go west, up by the pines. Stay away from the pines. Why? Strange things happen out there. Johnny Rivers went there just a few weeks ago. Lost his reading glasses. Daisy Johnson headed out there to do some oil painting. Got a sunburn. Just stay away.

Denial of Horror

Bruno ignores the warning and, without telling the rest of them, leaves the main road (Celine is sleeping, the others are chatting and not paying attention). He trundles along a pretty crappy road, but there is a large diversion sign. He takes the car onto really crappy dirt road and gets exasperated and starts driving really fast. The GPS on his phone has stopped working, he’s driving blind. Celine wakes up and tells him to slow down, as do the others, but instead he speeds up, yelling out loud.

Horror situation: Attacked: The tires all suddenly burst, Bruno loses control and the car careers off the road and slams into a tree. Bruno, who wasn’t wearing a seat belt, smashes through the windscreen. The others are knocked unconscious.

Reaction: Denial: The others wake up one by one but there is no Bruno. There is however, a lot of blood. Justin is really worried – Shania says he probably just went for help, but Justin says that is a lot of blood. Justin takes a look at the tires and sees that they seem to have been punctured by something really sharp. But when they look for what might have caused it, there’s nothing there. Why would anyone do that? It must have just been an accident. Most of them know this is not the case but they are in some denial all the same – the alternative is too horrific to accept. Their denials are ridiculous.

Safety taken away

The car is a write-off and there is no cell phone service at all. They are completely lost and with no means of returning to civilization.

Monster: The nature of the beast

Horror situation: walking into a trap: When Aubrey goes hunting for water, he almost gets killed in a fiendish trap.

Reaction: escape: He escapes with just a minor flesh wound, which makes him even more of a whining annoyance. The friends realize that they are being hunted, though Shania still won’t accept it.

Reaction: Hide and stay close to each other.

ACT 2 — THE POINT OF NO RETURN

Isolated/Trapped/Abducted

Justin, the erstwhile leader, decides to be all macho and go off in search of food. He has a harpoon gun and sets off looking for “a deer or something”. Brittany and Celine go with him, Shania stays with Aubrey.

One of us killed

Horror situation: internal conflict: Brittany and Celine are arguing behind Justin, Celine insinuating that Brittany stole Justin from her.

Reaction: denial: Justin turns around, annoyed with all this bickering and asks them to shut up.

Horror situation: attacked/see another killed: As Justin turns his head around to talk to them, he walks backwards, trips a wire and as he turns around, an axe swings down from the tree above him and splits his head in two. As he falls back, he fires the harpoon into the air. The two women stare at Justin for a moment, stunned, not believing what they’ve just seen. Suddenly, the harpoon comes back to earth, landing in Justin’s chest. The two women scream.

MIDPOINT: The monster is worse than we thought!

Full pursuit by the killer

Reaction: escape: The two women decide to leave Justin there and head back to the camp, after picking up his harpoon gun and wrenching the harpoon out of him. They are both horrified and Celine blames Brittany for everything, she just won’t stop bickering.

Horror situation: walking into trap: Brittany brushes past a bush which sets off another trap but trips and falls just in time. Five arrows all whistle over her, all coming from different directions, missing her by inches. That was close. There is a scream behind her – Celine has been hit by an arrow – clean through her breast.

Reaction: escape: They run back to the camp

Terrorized

They get back to the camp and tell Shania and Aubrey about what happened.

Reaction: denial: There is general panic, especially from Aubrey, while Shania tries to convince them these are probably just some animal traps set by hunters. Celine points to her breast arrow and asks if this looks like the work of a hunter.

ACT 3 — FULL OUT HORROR

Fight to the death

They pull out Celine’s arrow and patch her up. They loot the car for anything that might protect them. Aubrey has a BB gun, Celine has a pair of tweezers, (“you’re gonna tweezer him to death?”) Brittany has the harpoon gun and a large hunting knife she found in Justin’s bag. Shania has a colt .45. They rest up for the night.

Horror situation: friends in danger: A figure lurks in the camp, it could easily kill them but doesn’t. We only see its shadow. As it walks away, it snaps a twig.

Reaction: fight: Quick as a flash, Shania sits up and fires a few shots into the dark. There seem to be two cries of pain. “I got the bastard!” the others wake up really quickly. Aubrey limps back to the camp, “Don’t shot!” having taken a bullet in the leg. He had gone behind a bush for a pee. But he did see a shadowy figure get shot. He didn’t go down, but he took a bullet.

Hysteria

In the morning, the campers decide to take the fight to this bastard. Armed as well as they can be, they follow the blood trail left by the killer. They trail dries up, but they see smoke and come to a very dilapidated house.

Horror situation: lured into danger: Three small, ragged-looking children play in the yard with a gun. One of them waves it around and accidentally misses one of the other kids. “Don’t go shooting my other ear off, Annie!” she cries.

Reaction: try to solve it. They all can’t believe that this could be the killer’s home – there are children here! At the sound of the gunshot, a young woman comes out of the house, angry and afraid, shouts at the kids to stop playing with guns. She stops when she sees the strangers. They ask if she has seen someone come by with a wound – they tell her they are being hunted. She shakes her head, but says there are a lot of hunters out these parts, but I ain’t seen nobody for weeks. They ask her for help but she says she ain’t got no phone and don’t want to get involved. leave.

She goes inside where Lonnie is lying on the couch, while his brother sews up his arm. The sister, Vickie, is furious and talks to her brother, Earl. She thinks Lonnie has been killing people. Trapping them. Last night’s dinner wasn’t no carrion. Earl is furious. I’ll go find him.

The thrilling escape from death

Horror situation: attacked/injured/wounded: On the way back to the camp, Brittany and Celine fall into traps:

Reaction: escape: Shania prevents Celine from being killed, though she is maimed (again) and Brittany miraculously survives although her leg is snapped in two.

Death returns to take one or more.

Aubrey says fuck this and runs away.

Horror situation: attacked/see another killed: He runs straight into another trap and instant death.

Resolution

Reaction: fight.

Brittany has a plan.

Horror situation: monster approaching. Later that evening, Lonnie comes along the track where they all got trapped and finds Aubrey still stuck in the trap, his face contorted in a bloody, comical mess.

Reaction: fight: As he tries to drag Aubrey’s body away, he is shot by a bullet and the harpoon by the women who are all in hiding. He manages to get away but is bleeding badly.

Horror situation: lured into danger/someone turns evil: He leads them into some covered woods and Brittany almost falls into a trap, but teeters on the edge, trying not to fall in. Celine pushes her in.

Reaction: fight: Shania shoots Celine, in the other breast, and she runs away. Shania helps Brittany out of the trap, who is unbelievably still alive, but this time with her arm snapped in two.

Horror situation: face to face with the monster: They come across Celine and Lonnie fighting.

Reaction: fight: Lonnie is badly shot up with one arm useless, while Celine is bleeding from both breasts. He draws back his machete to kill her, but Celine stabs him in the eye with her tweezers. He screams, pulls out the tweezers, which pop his eye out, then he proceeds to stab Celine in the chest with the tweezers.

Horror situation: face to face with the monster: Lonnie sees the other two women approaching and goes after them, brandishing his machete.

Reaction: fight: Brittany can’t do much but Shania shoots him twice before running out of bullets. Lonnie keeps coming and hits Shania, knocking her to the ground. Brittany is also on the floor now, unable to get up with her snapped leg.

Horror situation: threatened: Lonnie stands over Brittany, raises his machete and is about to deliver the final blow…

Reaction: fight: She summons up all her strength and kicks him in the balls. He falls to the floor, she kneels on her good leg, lifts up the machete and is about to plunge it into him when a gunshot goes off. It is Lonnie’s brother and sister, with crazy feral kids in tow. Earl has shot into the air and now points the rifle at Brittany. He won’t bother you no more, we’ll make sure of that. We’re not bad people. Lonnie just likes to bend the rules a little.

He tells them to follow a trail that will lead them to a main road and lets Shania use a wheelbarrow to wheel Brittany in. Shania, her head covered in blood and Brittany, hardly conscious, slowly make their way to the road and finally manage to flag down a car. As they tell the driver what happened, a beaten-up pickup truck slowly drives in the other direction. They see the three siblings in the front and a very large freezer on the back.

[James Burns Burns]

What I learned: How to put together a fairly detailed outline that allows for plenty of scares and deaths along the way. It helped me to flesh out the plot substantially.

Act 1 set up for horror

Atmosphere of Evil established

An extreme hiker walks through a very secluded area. He stops, looks up at the setting sun and sets up a camera on a tripod. He is clearly an extreme hiking vlogger and gives a report on his trip out here, literally hundreds of miles from the nearest living soul. He hears a noise that sounds like someone sniggering behind him. It freaks him out a bit, but he tries to look macho in front of the camera. Maybe I’m not alone! he says, trying to laugh it off. He walks towards the noise, after taking out a fairly large pocket knife. He steps onto something, which makes a slight clicking noise, then suddenly and swiftly, a huge mousetrap-style device whips onto him, pinning his body to the floor and decapitating him. His screams are cut off. After a few seconds, the body is dragged away by someone unseen.

Connect with the characters

We meet each set of couples one at a time, with jump scares in each scene. Celine and Bruno are first, they are having fairly raucous sex, but Bruno is the one who is into it, Celine is otherwise distracted. Time to go.

The next couple is Shania and Aubrey. They are also having sex, but it is quite dull. They have clearly been together for some time. Aubrey is complaining about the trip, he really doesn’t want to go. He tells her he is about to come and she says OK, let’s get it over with. There is a car horn and they both scramble up. I can’t believe Bruno is actually on time. They go down to the car and are both shocked to see Celine. Bruno jokes around, isn’t it great? Celine was able to come! Shania says that’s more than I can manage.

The last couple is Justin and Brittany. They are also having sex which is extremely amusing. They are both really into it. We’d better get going. Don’t worry, Bruno’s always late. They hear the car horn. Seriously? He looks out of the window and sees Celine. Shit. Neither are happy about this. Justin has a chat with Bruno, Bruno calms him down, it will be great. She’s over you man. She’s just using you to get to me, you know that right? With that body she can use me to get to anybody.

The characters are warned not to do it.

On the way to the remote cabin, they start to get very low on gas. Bruno pulls over to a house where a guy is watering his lawn. The guy nods at them and Bruno asks if he might have some gas going spare. The guy says are you serious? He points to the huge gasoline truck parked next to his house. Cool! They chat as he fills some gas into a barrel. Asks them where they’re heading. Let me give you some extra to take – you don’t want to run out of gas if you’re heading that way. Whatever you do, don’t leave the man road. And don’t go west. Why? People have disappeared out there. Strange things happen. One guy went there just a few weeks ago. Lost his reading glasses. Daisy Johnson headed out there to do some oil painting. Got a sunburn. Just stay away.

Denial of Horror

After the car crashes and Bruno disappears, the survivors hope that he’s just gone for help. But Justin takes a look at the tires and sees that they seem to be punctured. But when they look for what might have caused it, there’s nothing. Why would anyone do that? It must have just been an accident. Most of them know this is not the case but they are in some denial all the same – the alternative is too horrific to accept. Their denials are ridiculous.

Safety taken away

The car is a write-off and there is no cell phone service at all. They are completely lost and with no means of returning to civilization.

Monster: The nature of the beast

When Aubrey goes hunting for water, he almost gets killed in a fiendish trap. He excaspes with just a minor flesh wound, which makes him even more of a whining annoyance. The friends realize that they are being hunted, though Shania still won’t accept it.

ACT 2 — THE POINT OF NO RETURN

Isolated / Trapped / Abducted

Justin, the erstwhile leader, decides to be all macho and go off in search of food. He has a harpoon gun and sets off looking for “a deer or something”. Brittany and Celine go with him, Shania stays with Aubrey.

One of us killed

Brittany and Celine are arguing behind Justin, Celine insinuating that Brittany stole Justin from her. Justin turns around, annoyed with all this bickering and asks them to shut up. As he turns around, he walks backwards, trips a wire and as he turns around, an axe swings down from the tree above him and splits his head in two. As he falls back, he fires the harpoon into the air. The two women stare at Justin for a moment, stunned, not believing what they’ve just seen. Suddenly, the harpoon comes back to earth, landing in Justin’s chest. The two women scream.

MIDPOINT: The monster is worse than we thought!

Full pursuit by the killer

The two women decide to leave Justin there and head back to the camp, after picking up his harpoon gun and wrenching the harpoon out of him. They are both horrified and Celine blames Brittany for everything, she just won’t stop bickering. Brittany brushes past a bush which sets off another trap but trips and falls just in time. Five arrows all whistle over her, all coming from different directions, missing her by inches. That was close. There is a scream behind her – Celine has been hit by an arrow – clean through her breast.

Terrorized

They get back to the camp and tell Shania and Aubrey about what happened. There is general panic, especially from Aubrey, while Shania tries to convince them these are probably just some animal traps set by hunters. Celine points to her breast arrow and asks if this looks like the work of a hunter.

ACT 3 — FULL OUT HORROR

Fight to the death

They pull out Celine’s arrow and patch her up. They loot the car for anything that might protect them. Aubrey has a BB gun, Celine has a pair of tweezers, Brittany has the harpoon gun and a large hunting knife she found in Justin’s bag. Shania has a colt .45. They rest up for the night. A figure lurks in the camp, it could easily kill them but doesn’t. We only see its shadow. As it walks away, it snaps a twig. Quick as a flash, Brittany sits up and fires a few shots into the dark. There seem to be two cries of pain. “I got the bastard!” the others wake up really quickly. Aubrey limps back to the camp, having taken a bullet in the leg. He had gone behind a bush for a pee. But he did see a shadowy figure get shot. He didn’t go down, but he took a bullet.

Hysteria

In the morning, the campers decide to take the fight to this bastard. Armed as well as they can be, they follow the blood trail left by the killer. They trail dries up, but they see smoke and come to a very dilapidated house. Three small, ragged-looking children play in the yard with a gun. One of them waves it around and accidentally misses one of the other kids. “Don’t go shooting my other ear off, Annie!” she cries. At the sound of the gunshot, a young woman comes out of the house, angry and afraid, shouts at the kids to stop playing with guns. She stops when she sees the strangers. They ask if she has seen someone come by with a wound – they tell her they are being hunted. She shakes her head, but says there are a lot of hunters out these parts, but I ain’t seen nobody for weeks. They leave.

She goes inside where Lonnie is lying on the couch, while his brother sews up his arm. The sister, Vickie, is furious and accuses Lonnie of killing people. He claims they was carrion, honest. If they happen on my bear traps, then that’s not my fault. They have a big argument and Earl the older brother makes him swear he will stay away from them.

The thrilling escape from death

On the way back to the camp, two of the women fall into traps: Brittany and Celine. Shania prevents Celine from being killed, though she is maimed (again) and Brittany miraculously survives although her leg is snapped in two.

Death returns to take one or more.

Aubrey says fuck this and runs away, straight into another trap and instant death.

Resolution

Brittany has a plan. Later that evening, Lonnie comes along the track where they all got trapped and finds Aubrey still stuck in the trap, his face contorted in a bloody, comical mess. As he tries to drag Aubrey’s body away, he is shot by a bullet and the harpoon by the women who are all in hiding. He manages to get away, but is bleeding badly.

He leads them into some covered woods and Brittany almost falls into a trap, but teeters on the edge, trying not to fall in. Celine pushes her in. Shania shoots Celine, in the other breast, and she runs away. Shania helps Brittany out of the trap, who is unbelievably still alive, but this time with her arm snapped in two.

They come across Celine and Lonnie fighting. Lonnie is badly shot up with one arm useless, while Celine is bleeding from both breasts. Lonnie pulls out his machete and guts Celine.

He sees the other two women and comes after them. Brittany can’t do much but Shania shoots him twice before running out of bullets. Lonnie keeps coming and hits Shania, knocking her to the ground. He stands over her, raises his machete, about to deliver the final blow when she summons all her strength and kicks him in the balls. He falls to the floor, she kneels on her god leg, lifts up the machete and is about to plunge it into him when a gunshot goes off. It is Lonnie’s brother and sister, with crazy feral kids in tow. He won’t bother you no more, we’ll make sure of that. We’re not bad people. Lonnie just likes to bend the rules a little.

He tells them to follow a trail that will lead them to a main road. Shania, her head covered in blood and Brittany, limping on one good leg, slowly make their way to the road and finally manage to flag down a car. As they tell the driver what happened, a beaten-up pickup truck slowly drives in the other direction. They see the three siblings in the front and a very large freezer on the back.

[James Burns Burns]

What I learned doing this assignment is how to build up character types that will be the victims. The challenge is to do this without any of the characters appearing to be cliched or stereotypical.

Concept: Tourists get lost and crash their car in the middle of nowhere. An in-bred hillbilly caused their car to crash and for one of them to die. He takes away the body and he and his family feasts on it. His brother and sister warn him not to kill any of the others, but he says he’ll just keep an eye on them – a couple of them look fit to drop, so he’ll just pick ‘em up when they do. However, he tries to have them die in traps he has laid for him. His family has a twisted moral code whereby they can’t kill people, but if someone dies, they can eat them – so long as they are carrion. In Lonnie’s mind, if they die in one of his traps, it’s their fault, not his. Fair game.

Group: social group – this is a group of mostly friends, three couples, on their way to a remote cabin for a week’s vacation. They decide to take the scenic route, but this becomes far more scenic and remote when the main road is closed and they have to follow a detour. While Shania and Aubrey have been together for years, the other two couples are newer into their relationship: Justin and Brittany started dating a month ago (though they’ve been friends for years) and Bruno and Celine started dating a week ago – Celine used to date Justin and still loves him. She blames Brittany for their break-up and is using Bruno to get close to Justin.

Killing Pattern: Put six characters together and kill them off one by one (but two survive).

Character identities:

Leader: Justin, thoughtful, intense guy, likes to think he is an intellectual. Not remotely suited to the extreme situation they all end up in but is a cerebral alpha leader. When the shit hits the fan, he loses his nerve, and Cindy takes over.

Rescuer: Brittany, Justin’s girlfriend. She has been in love with him for years, but they only recently got together when he broke it off with Celine because she was too jealous and controlling. When Justin loses his shit, Brittany takes over as leader. She is tough as old nails, and even though she gets caught in a number of traps and becomes hideously deformed, she keeps on going.

Out of control/Obnoxious: Celine is Bruno’s supposed girlfriend, but she is just using him (he’s Justin’s close friend) to be close to Justin. She loves Justin still and wants to get back with him, by any means possible.

Rebel/Rule Breaker, also the Carrier: Bruno is a likeable idiot, doesn’t care that Celine is using him to be close to Justin. He’s happy to be shagging her (she is very attractive) even if she treats him like an idiot. Bruno is responsible for bringing the horror to the group by deciding to take the scenic route and driving recklessly. He is driving too fast when the car’s tires burst and they drive into a tree.

Innocent: Shania (and Aubrey, her boyfriend) are the outsiders of this twisted love quadrangle. Shania is a really good person – she is very empathetic, tries to see everyone’s point of view, to the point of ignoring her own. Always looks for the good in people, including the maniac trying to kill them.

Complainer: Aubrey is Shania’s uptight princess of a boyfriend. He didn’t want to come on this trip, he hates the outdoors, hates roughing it and hates maniacal killers. And lets everyone know it. When the shit hits the fan, he tries to shirk all responsibility, blaming everyone else for their predicament. When he dies, the entire audience cheers.

[James Burns Burns]

What I learned from this lesson was all of the horror film conventions and how to apply them to my concept.

Chosen film: Krampus

Terrorize the characters: An evil Santa-type figure visits a family at Christmas and picks them off, one by one, after the youngest son decides he no longer believes in Santa.

Isolation: there has been a huge snowstorm and they are unable to escape – and all of their neighbours have disappeared

Death: Characters are either taken or killed by Krampus himself or his evil acolytes.

Monster/Villain: Krampus is the main monster, but his evil toys are also monstrous.

High Tension: The family are holed up in their home with Krampus and his toys coming to get them. They also try to escape but end up going around in circles until being attacked by an underground monster.

Departure from Reality: Monsters, monstrous toys, a storm that cuts them off from the rest of the world

Moral Statement: Don’t dis Santa!

What I loved about this film: it has great acting, lots of interesting, different monsters, as well as Krampus, and plenty of tension. The ending is also brilliant and extremely downbeat!

My film: Sugar Sweet Revenge

Concept:

Monster: The spirit of a dead woman murdered by one of the victims. She can take over the mind and body of any woman and then commit murder.

Terror: Each of the group of friends is being murdered one by one. No one knows who is doing it, no one unknown is seen at the scene of the crime. There are no suspects.

Environment: They can be got at anywhere at any time – the spirit is able to channel any female that they are close to – friend, girlfriend, mom, sister.

Victims: Eight male friends who covered up the crime of rape and murder of a woman, which one of them committed. There are different levels of guilt, but all of them could have stopped it from happening.

Conventions:

Terrorize the characters: As they discover they are being targeted as a group, they realize that there is no escape. Eventually the surviving friends work out that the spirit of the dead woman is doing this, using innocent women as her conduit.

Isolation: The surviving friends have to isolate themselves to feel even remotely safe. They work out that the woman’s spirit is killing them through girlfriends and women they meet, so they stay away from any women they think could be possessed.

Death: The first three victims were killed in horrible ways: each one had their genitalia ripped out and shoved up their own ass, pre-mortem. Some of them were the first to find the victims and are traumatized by what they see, and terrified by the thought that this could happen to them.

Monster/villain: While the actual monster is the spirit of the dead woman, the killer could be any woman that the men meet or already know and trust.

High tension: They know that sleeping with a woman puts them at risk.

Departure from reality: the monster is the spirit of a dead woman whose death is on them and she is able to possess the body of any woman and act through it to kill and maim them.

Moral statement: The people who stand by as others kill or harm people are just as guilty as the ones committing the act.

[James Burns Burns]

James Burns

I agree to the terms of this release form.

GROUP RELEASE FORM

As a member of this group, I agree to the following:

1. That I will keep the processes, strategies, teleconferences, communications, lessons, and models of the class confidential, and that I will NOT share any of this program either privately, with a group, posting online, writing articles, through video or computer programming, or in any other way that would make those processes, teleconferences, communications, lessons, and models of the class available to anyone who is not a member of this class.

2. That each writer’s work here is copyrighted and that writer is the sole owner of that work. That includes this program which is copyrighted by Hal Croasmun. I acknowledge that submission of an idea to this group constitutes a claim of and the recognition of ownership of that idea.

I will keep the other writer’s ideas and writing confidential and will not share this information with anyone without the express written permission of the writer/owner. I will not market or even discuss this information with anyone outside this group.

3. I also understand that many stories and ideas are similar and/or have common themes and from time to time, two or more people can independently and simultaneously generate the same concept or movie idea.

4. If I have an idea that is the same as or very similar to another group member’s idea, I’ll immediately contact Hal and present proof that I had this idea prior to the beginning of the class. If Hal deems them to be the same idea or close enough to cause harm to either party, he’ll request both parties to present another concept for the class.

5. If you don’t present proof to Hal that you have the same idea as another person, you agree that all ideas presented to this group are the sole ownership of the person who presented them and you will not write or market another group member’s ideas.

6. Finally, I agree not to bring suit against anyone in this group for any reason, unless they use a substantial portion of my copyrighted work in a manner that is public and/or that prevents me from marketing my script by shopping it to production companies, agents, managers, actors, networks, studios or any other entertainment industry organizations or people.

This completes the Group Release Form for the class.

[James Burns Burns]

HI everyone, I’m James Burns from Toronto in snowy Canada. I’ve written a few scripts and a few books (a couple published). I also used to write for a TV comedy show. I want to really get into the nuts and bolts of what makes a good horror film, with the view to writing more of them. I love the comedy crossover genres, so Shaun of the Dead and Dead Snow are two examples of the level of horror film I am trying to write.

[James Burns Burns]

Thanks Ed!

[James Burns Burns]

Hi Ed, here’s my feedback – good luck with the second draft!

The plane almost crashing and the guide falling into the ravine seem to be linked to the upcoming events, but it is not made clear how. Later it is insinuated that James was involved in the guide’s death, but there are no details given. Are these just portents of doom or are they linked to Krampus? If they are linked, maybe develop this idea some more.

Having characters called Mike and Michael can make it difficult for an audience, unless this is a running gag?

Sc 1: Great horror situation, lots going on. Would killing the manager be enough to take over the hotel? Would they not have to massacre the whole staff? Maybe consider having Krampus bring in his own “staff” to take over the hotel? This could really add to the creepiness factor… When we meet Tina in Sc 10, it’s hard to believe that she would accept Krampus as the new boss.

Sc. 3: The plane scare is a good horror situation, but how does it relate to the later action?

Sc. 4: Is Krampus targeting Reverend Gene? It seems like a huge coincidence that a pagan expert would happen to be on vacation there, but maybe he is close to exposing Krampus? Is that why he is targeted, and the others are collateral damage?

Sc. 5: the guide falling off the bus should be a horror situation with some dramatic build-up. We don’t yet know what the significance is of this, it needs a bit more development.

Sc. 11: One of the guests has a terrible secret – do we ever find out what this is? Or why Krampus targets these people? This could do with having more horror elements added to it. Why do the guests believe them? Until Tina is attacked, there is nothing here to suggest they should believe these crazy old guys, so maybe some menacing actions in the build-up? Again, did James push the guide off the bus? And if so, why? It isn’t THE secret, so what is its significance?

Sc. 13: Lots of good horror elements in this scene. But, when Tina shoots Krampus and St. Nicholas, there is no effect, but later St. Nicholas is killed by an arrow. Is he impervious to bullets but not arrows? Maybe fill in the folklore here or just have Tina shoot at Krampus without effect, but she does wound St. Nicholas, to set up the notion that St. Nicholas is killable.

Sc. 14: Are we setting up Michael as the one having the dark secret?

Sc. 15: Linda’s denial is good, in that she believes they can reason with these people. The social media prank is questionable – presumably Tina’s death is very real, so they would already be convinced that these are indeed psychos.

Sc. 19: We hear about the air plane incident again – what is the significance? Also, why does Ava think she is to blame for all of this?

Sc. 20: Good horror elements here. But is Krampus really OK with St. Nicholas being killed by Mike? Is there no retribution?

Sc. 28: More good horror elements here and a plausible escape route.

Sc. 30-33 A lot of action scenes and some horror, but the suspense could be ramped up. It now starts to feel a little more like an action film rather than horror.

Sc. 35 needs some explanation – why do James and Michael have to feed Susie into the gears of the lift? Most of the characters are now rebelling against Krampus, why aren’t Michael and James doing the same?

Sc. 38 Why does Michael suddenly change his mind and go after James?

Sc. 40-44 good suspense as they close in on James And Ava.

Sc. 46 Why and how does Michael go to Paris with Krampus? This doesn’t make sense to me.

The overall reasons for Krampus choosing that hotel and those victims needs to be fleshed out – is it all about Michael? Or Reverend Gene? What did either of them do to deserve this? What did the others do to deserve their fates? The folklore of Krampus could also be fleshed out a little more, to explain his motives.

Lots of good gore and suspense in the last act.

[James Burns Burns]

Hi Ed, we are the early birds! Let me know if you’d like to exchange feedback.

[James Burns Burns]

Hey Kevin, do you work on a Mac? I do and I had the same issue. To get around it, I copied and pasted the text into an email, sent it to myself (at another email address), then copied and pasted the text from the email I received. And it worked! No idea why or how, but it might work for you too – good luck!