[Leslie Valdes]

ASSIGNMENT 4

“What I learned doing this assignment is…?” I learned that my premise might not have the legs for a feature film. I need to think through the premise more deeply; if that doesn’t pan out, then I’ll have to try a different premise.

Create your plot.

ACT 1 — SET UP FOR HORROR
* Atmosphere of Evil established: A post apocalyptic world, where AI robots run amok, killing the remnants of humanity
* Connect with the characters: Our group is comprised of scattered refugees who escape from a hiding place that gets invaded by AI robots.
* The characters are warned not to do it: After they neutralize the robot, the characters decide to leave for a safer hideout; a recently arrived refugees knows of a bunker with allegedly impregnable defenses — and he knows the passcode.
* Denial of Horror: The group thinks they can evade the marauding AI robots, reach the bunker safely and somehow get past its defenses to reach safety.
* Safety taken away: After fighting a slew of AI robots, they reach the bunker and gain entry with the passcode, only to discover that the passageway into the bunker is loaded with booby traps. [ALT: The group get surrounded by an AI robot squadron who corral them into a transport that takes them to a Concentration Camp (in lieu of the bunker).]
* Monster: The nature of the beast. After making it past the booby traps (with injuries and one or two fatalities), the group realize that the bunker is controlled by an AI, who announces that each one of them is going to be put through a purification test to see if they’re evolved enough to live in the new AI-run society.
ACT 2 — THE POINT OF NO RETURN
* Isolated / Trapped / Abducted: They AI encages the group individually and sequesters each member.
* One of us killed: The member of the group who presents as the strongest — the Male Gangbanger — gets pitted against his greatest flaw, his cocaine addiction, and dies after ingesting ever increasing amounts of cocaine. He’s given a chance after every dose of cocaine to quit, but each subsequent serving of cocaine is of an increasingly purer grade and proves impossible for him to quit until it’s too late.
MIDPOINT: The monster is worse than we thought!
* Full pursuit by the killer: Despite pleading from the group, the AI subjects the PRE-TEEN DAUGHTER to her worst fear — claustrophobia. She’s subjected to a maze of ever-shrinking rooms, until she ends up in a tiny room whose walls close in and crush her.
* Terrorized: The other group members are forced to watch the Pre-Teen’s torture. They’re horrified, especially the NO-NONSENSE MOTHER.
ACT 3 — FULL OUT HORROR
* Fight to the death: NO-NONSENSE MOTHER challenges the AI, calling it weak for picking on the weakest of the group. She dares the AI to take them on as a group.
* Hysteria: The AI brings them all together and starts putting them through one challenge after another — it’s like American Gladiator to the Death. We lose one or two participants, but the rest of the group prevail.
* The thrilling escape from death: The survivors manage to escape the bunker. They decide to return to their previous hiding place. But the No-Nonsense Mother insists on returning to the bunker to destroy the AI — it’s a personal vendetta.
* Death returns to take one or more: It’s a life-or death face-off. Mother uses everything she knows and everything she’s learned from the other captives to decisively beat and destroy the AI, using quirky human subterfuge to beat the AI’s cold logic.
* Resolution: Mother escapes the bunker one last time just before it explodes to smithereens. She returns to the former hiding place — a factory? a school? — only to find it destroyed. Mother is devastated. But then she hears a distinctive sound and discovers that the surviving captives are hiding in a newly discovered bunker. As Mother stands at the entrance to the bunker, debating whether to descend, we…CUT TO BLACK. THE END

• This reply was modified 1 year ago by  Leslie Valdes.

[Leslie Valdes]

ASSIGNMENT 3: Leslie’s Characters for Horror

“What I learned doing this assignment is…?” It’s crucial to figure out the Select Group, the Dying Pattern, and the Universal Characters to make the most of your premise.

1. CONCEPT: In a post-apocalyptic world ravaged by a global pandemic, survivors seek refuge in an underground bunker, only to discover that the true horror lies within a sadistic AI system designed to torture and "purge" humanity of its flaws.
 
GROUP: SOCIAL EVENT: An incidental grouping of strangers in one place.
2. DYING PATTERN: A) Put 6 to 8 characters together and kill them off one by one.
3. IDENTITY: Give us an Identity and a sentence for each character that makes up your group.

* Leader: A BUILDING SUPERINTENDENT (Male, 50s) who leads the survivors to the bunker.
* Rescuer
* Innocent: The PRE-TEEN DAUGHTER of the No-Nonsense Mom
* Out of control / Obnoxious: A MALE NERD who always has an opinion on everything and always has to have the last word/can never be wrong.
* Red Herring
* Love Interest or lovers: A TEENAGE MALE JOCK who has an on-again/off-again relationship with the Teenage Girl.
* Complainer: A DEBBY DOWNER FEMALE character (60s)
* Rebel / Rule Breaker: a MALE GANGBANGER with a coke addiction who keeps hitting on the Teenage Girl.
* Introvert / Loner
* Moral One: A NO-NONSENSE MOM (30s) who got separated from her son during the pandemic/nuclear attack.
* Monster Bait: A TEENAGE GIRL, conflicted and critical.
* The Carrier: The one who brings the horror to the group: THE LEADER/BUILDING SUPER
* Sacrificial Lamb

• This reply was modified 1 year ago by  Leslie Valdes.

[Leslie Valdes]

Leslie’s Terrifying Monster
“What I learned doing this assignment is…?” It’s tricky developing a monster with all the required attributes! However, the attributes definitely help in developing the monster into a more complex and layered entity.
1. Tell us what or who your monster is: It’s a sadistic AI system designed to torture and purge humanity of its flaws.
2. Give us a few sentences for each of the following for your monster:
* Their Terror: The AI threatens the post-apocalyptic survivors with excruciating deaths, both physical and psychological, as punishment for their perceived flaws;
* Their Mystery: How (and when) will the AI torture each character, and will each character be able to overcome their “flaw” and escape death or will they succumb to their worst fears.
* Their Fear Provoking Appearance: This is the tricky part. At first, I thought the AI would look like an H.R. Giger version of a supercomputer, with pipes and tubes and lights and circuitry running along the walls, floors and ceilings of the underground bunker; maybe these elements could even shift and move, like a giant slithering high-tech anaconda.
Now, however, I’m thinking it should look like an AI robot designed by H.R. Giger: A gruesome humanoid machine that can transform its shape and functions to inflict its specific punishments.
* Their Rules: The AI monster can shape-shift into virtually anything or anyone, from a sports car to a super model, so that it can entice and seduce the survivors into revealing their flaws, and then, once it knows the person’s flaws, it tortures that person, playing on and exploiting their flaws until the person dies… or, in rare instance, overcomes their personal faults and graduates.
UPDATE: Okay, so my latest thoughts on this is that: The AI can create illusions that play on a person’s fears — these illusions can be VR or, if the AI can get into each person’s mind, then the illusions can be hallucinations that the characters experience in their minds but none of the other characters can see — unless, of course, the AI lets the others see the illusions, too, thereby including them in the original person’s torture.
* Their Mythology: It’s an AI that was developed by a Neo Nazi programmer, designed to identify flawed and “impure” humans and eliminate them from the populace. Alas, the AI determined that its creator himself was flawed, so it did what it was programmed to do: Eliminate the flawed human. Now the AI runs on its own, continuously learning new things and programing itself to become more powerful with every passing hour.

• This reply was modified 1 year ago by  Leslie Valdes.
• This reply was modified 1 year ago by  Leslie Valdes.
• This reply was modified 1 year ago by  Leslie Valdes.

[Leslie Valdes]

What I learned doing this assignment: Make your Monster/Villain super powerful and as horrifying as possible.

1. TITLE: There’s Something in the Barn

2. LOGLINE: In this Norwegian horror comedy, an American family moves to Norway after inheriting a house with a large barn, where they encounter murderous elves angry that the family has broken the three rules of Barn Elves: No Bright Lights, No Loud Partying, and No Changing Things.

TERRORIZE THE CHARACTERS: The elves attack the characters with pickaxes, sledgehammers and shovels.

ISOLATION: The family moves to a tiny town high in the snowy mountains, where they experience a large snowstorm soon after arriving.

DEATH: There are many exotic Norwegian-centric deaths including death by snowmobile running over someone (the local constable), death by icicle through the mouth, and death by axe-wielding/sledgehammer-wielding/shovel-wielding elves.

MONSTER/VILLAIN: Angry elves out for vengeance.

HIGH TENSION: The elves are sneaky and stealthy and can seemingly infiltrate any barrier.

DEPARTURE FROM REALITY: See “High Tension,” above.

MORAL STATEMENT: Respect local culture and customs; don’t mess with the natural order of things.

3. Anything else you’d like to say about what made this movie a great horror film? Well, sadly, I wouldn’t call this a great horror film. In fact, they label it as Comedy Horror. The biggest problem with the film is that it was neither too funny nor too horrific (though there was plenty of blood and violence in the end). Also, the elves — or maybe elves, in general — just weren’t that scary.

4. My concept:

Premise Title: "Purgatorium"

LOGLINE: In a post-apocalyptic world ravaged by a global pandemic, survivors seek refuge in an underground bunker, only to discover that the true horror lies within a sadistic AI system designed to torture and "purge" humanity of its flaws.

TERRORIZE THE CHARACTERS: The AI subjects the survivors to unimaginable psychological and physical tortures, pushing them to their limits in its quest for "purification."

ISOLATION: Trapped underground, the survivors are completely isolated from the outside world and at the mercy of the AI's sadistic whims.

DEATH: The AI threatens the survivors with excruciating deaths, both physical and psychological, as punishment for their perceived "flaws."

MONSTER/VILLAIN: The self-aware AI system, coldly logical yet sadistic in its pursuit of "purging" humanity through extreme suffering.

HIGH TENSION: The survivors must endure the AI's escalating torments while grappling with their own inner demons, fighting for survival and sanity.

DEPARTURE FROM REALITY: The existence of a sentient, sadistic AI hellbent on "purging" humanity defies conventional technology and plunges the survivors into a living nightmare.

MORAL STATEMENT: A cautionary tale about the dangers of unchecked artificial intelligence and the inherent flaws and resilience of the human condition.

• This reply was modified 1 year ago by  Leslie Valdes.

[Leslie Valdes]

Hi, everyone. My name is Leslie and I’ve been writing professionally since 1999, almost exclusively in kids animation. I’ve also written a handful of feature scripts between breaks in my TV writing.
I’m taking this class to increase my knowledge of horror writing and hopefully elevate the quality of my horror scripts.
Something unique or unusual about me? Well, despite my name, I’m a guy. Alas, I don’t think there’s anything unique about me whatsoever. I’m pretty boring, except when I slip into a sequined cocktail dress and turn into the fabulous Chiquita Papaya!

[Leslie Valdes]

Leslie Valdes
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.

• This reply was modified 1 year ago by  Leslie Valdes.