Toby Watts
Forum Replies Created
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Toby Watts’ Monster Reveal Track
What I learned doing this assignment is that it’s helpful to know what to reveal and when about your monster, and that it’s important to create demand for reveals and clues about the monster.
Concept for BELOW GROUND: A super wealthy family retreat into their half-built underground bunker after a surprise vigilante attack on them in the night, only to find they have no way back out again and worse: someone — or something — is down there already.
MY MONSTER
Powers: Incredibly strong, good at fighting, brutal warrior, uses nearby heat to power itself.
Limitations: Is only active when a nearby human heat source so can only engage in close physical combat with an enemy or must fight in groups of two or more, otherwise is unconscious and vulnerable.
Weaknesses: Can be killed when unconscious, and can be bargained with.
Plan/Purpose/Appetite: To kill the family.
Who or what the monster is: A trio of ex-marine killer assassins, bio-engineered by someone skeptical of the father’s biotech invention and who wants the father to see what his technology can do in the wrong hands.
ACT 1 – SETUP FOR HORROR
Atmosphere of evil established: The sleeping family are mobbed by vigilantes trying to break in in the middle of the night. Flaming torches, bricks through windows, angry people in face masks threaten them outside the house.
Horror Situation: Family terrorised by vigilantes trying to break in.
Reaction: Father tells them all to escape into bunker.
Connect with the characters: The father runs around the house waking everyone up and we meet his family. Their reactions reveal something about who they are as they all rush towards the underground bunker for safety.
Horror Situation: Family are pursued by vigilantes through their house.
Demand: What is going on? Who are these people?
Monster Reveal 1: Three assassins fight in close proximity to one another and can only separate when they have another person to hold onto. They take out the family’s security guard as the family rush down to the bunker. CREATES INTRIGUE and reveals the brutal power and menace of the monster.
Reaction: Son tries to fight one of them, but father has to rescue him.
Death #1: The security guard is taken out by these highly trained assassins with unusual tactical plays.
The characters are warned not to do it: Just before they lock the door to the bunker, the father and mother argue about whether to do this. There are barely any supplies down there, it’s unfinished, they could be trapped for days, weeks. But they decide to do it.
Horror Situation: They realise they don’t have enough supplies down there to live very long and there’s a chance it’s not secure.
Reaction: Parents hide their fear and carry on.
Denial of horror: Once inside, the family begin to relax and think they’ll be okay. They’re safe. The father has done well to create this bunker to protect them.
Safety taken away: A disfigured stranger collapses through a vent into their bunker, terrifying them all. This strange unconscious man is trapped in there with them!
Monster Reveal 2: Stranger bursts through hole in ceiling but is comatose until they go near/touch him. CREATES INTRIGUE and a DEMAND to understand this. The family assumes the man is messing with them.
Horror Situation: A disfigured stranger (looks as though he’s been surgically altered) crashes onto their dinner table.
Reaction: Family freak out and hide, discuss what to do.
Monster: the nature of the beast: The stranger animates to life and attacks them when they get within a metre of him. It’s a close call with some grappling and struggling, but they’re all okay…
Horror situation: Father finally approaches the monster but it animates to life as he gets too close.
Reaction: Father tries to fight it off, family join in and it’s a huge struggle to free the father, who gets hurt in the process.
ACT 2 — THE POINT OF NO RETURN
Isolated / Trapped / Abducted: Except the daughter is not okay. She starts having an asthma attack caused by all the struggle and shock, and her only inhaler is back above ground in the house. They plan to force the maid to go and get it, but the son finally decides to bravely go in her place.
Horror Situation: The daughter is struggling to breathe and could lose consciousness within minutes.
Reaction: Her brother volunteers to go and get her inhaler.
Horror Situation: They have to get past the body of the stranger.
Reaction: Devise a plan to get around it and keep watch until the son returns.
Reveal 3: The son bravely ventures into the house but is tricked and one of the two remaining killers is still holding onto the security guard, who is barely alive. Son gets taken out. CREATES DEMAND to know what this is about — why do they need to be in contact with someone like this.
One of us killed/Death #2: The son returns with the inhaler but gets captured and beaten — possibly killed — just outside the bunker door. The family inside the bunker watch him get dragged away, covered in his own blood.
Horror Situation: The son narrowly manages to grab the inhaler, but gets caught on his way back by the vigilantes.
Reaction: Family fight back.
Horror situation: Family have to decide whether to shut the door on the son or not.
Reaction: They shut the door (escape).
MIDPOINT: The monster is worse than we thought!
Full pursuit by the killer: They try to move the stranger’s body but keep waking him up by coming too close to him and he nearly kills one of them.
Monster Reveal 4: Family can awaken the stranger by having controlled close contact. It talks and appears to work for someone the father has heard of. Is it to do with the father somehow? INTRIGUE.
Horror Situation: The stranger kidnaps the daughter and locks himself and her in a room together.
Reaction: The family try to solve how to open the door.
Horror situation: the daughter must tell the truth or she’ll die.
Reaction: She tries to solve the situation by telling the truth. But when she doesn’t know the answer, she gets hurt and the family become hysterical.
Terrorized: They unwittingly chain him to a radiator where he absorbs the heat, which brings him to life (due to a human-machine hybrid modification), and he gains strength, breaks away and chases them all down, trying to get to the father.
Horror Situation: The father bursts into the room and sees his daughter collapse, but he can’t attack the stranger because it will give him energy to wake up.
Reaction: The father screams and rants.
ACT 3 — FULL OUT HORROR
Fight to the death: The father grapples and fights with the stranger, until eventually he remains up close to him, keeping the stranger alive long enough to talk with the father. He explains he is like this because of the father’s heat exchange technology that has been put in him. He wants the father to fix him so he doesn’t work like this.
Horror Situation: The father realises this stranger exists because of his life’s work.
Reaction: Denial.
Horror Situation: The vigilantes begin to pump gas into the bunker.
Reaction: The family find a limited number of gas masks and try to hide.
Reveal 5: The stranger can absorb a family member’s oxygen to survive a gas attack in the bunker. ESCALATES TERROR.
Horror Situation: The maid tries to make a run for it to save her family before she dies.
Reaction: The family watch on the monitors as she’s savagely attacked and killed by the vigilantes.
Death #3: The maid is killed by the assassin vigilantes.
Horror Situation: The Daughter thinks the police have arrived, blue flashing lights, policemen in uniform. She makes a break for it and hugs one of the officers in the corridor.
Reaction: Her family watch in terror on the monitors as she gets double crossed and policemen turn out to be vigilantes in costume — they slash her up with a huge sword and she dies. The family are sick with horror.
Horror Situation: the family are pursued by the stranger in the smoky bunker.
Reaction: Hiding, running.
Hysteria: The family see the son tied up outside the bunker door. The vigilantes are beginning to torture him until they open the door. The father changes the stranger’s code via a terminal in the back of his head, and the stranger can live without the heat from humans or elsewhere now. In return the stranger vows to help save the father’s son. The vigilantes begin to break in via the vent above the bunker too.
Horror Situation: The family see the son tied up outside the door.
Reaction: Hysteria, try to fight. But the father holds the mother back.
Horror situation: they have to approach the stranger for his help.
Reaction: It works! The father changes the stranger’s code.
Monster Reveal 6: Monster has its own will and can be reprogrammed to survive on its own. Setups DEMAND to know how it will use this to defeat the other assassins.
The thrilling escape from death: The stranger kills all the vigilantes in the corridor outside the bunker and rescues the son. The family fight off the vigilantes in the bunker. It looks like they’ll all escape safely.
Horror Situation: The doors from their bunker to their house are going to be opened.
Reaction: The stranger takes out the vigilantes one by one and saves the son.
Death returns to take one or more: But the father closes the door on the stranger, who thought the father would let him back in to reprogram him. The father turns the cameras off so he can’t see what’s happening anymore. The stranger begins to realise what’s happening to him, and comes back for revenge on the father once more, with the family all trapped in the bunker. After a tense cat and mouse game in the bunker, the son finally shoots the stranger and kills him.
Horror situation: The father has double crossed the stranger and now it wants revenge. A noise rumbles in the vent.
Reaction: The family hide in the bunker, but the father decides to shoot whatever is coming through the vent. He shoots up into the dark space, not knowing what he’s shooting at. BANG BANG BANG!
Monster Reveal 7: The monster is more clever than we realise, setting up the father to kill his own son.
Horror Situation: It turns out, he’s shot his own son! His son crashes onto the table.
Resolution: The family emerge into their trashed house. Somehow, they’re all still alive — just — and in one piece. But is the stranger lurking around to take revenge or not?
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Toby Watts’ Character Death Track
What I learned doing this assignment is that coming up with interesting deaths and being clear about who lives and who dies really helps to clarify the story and generate intriguing plot points that advance the story.
Character Death 1: Teenage Son
Why — because he’s the bravest and most beloved. It raises the stakes of the horror the family will be facing.
How: He attempts to save his sister by running back into the house to get her inhaler, but he gets captured by the vigilantes and beaten badly and dragged away, with his family watching on CCTV from the bunker. Later in the film, he’s dragged out on camera again, giving the family hope, but then he is tortured and dragged away again. Finally the boy’s father shoots what he thinks is an intruder in the vent but the boy’s body crashes down and the father realises he’s killed him after all.
Character Death 2: Maid
Why: She panics and thinks she has no choice but to try and escape. She serves as a lab rat to test whether the vigilantes have gone.
How: She’s easily fooled by the blue flashing lights and thinks the police have arrived, so she breaks out of the bunker and runs for help — but it’s just the vigilantes setting a trap. The so-called policeman hugs her then pulls out a sword and slashes her right across the back.
Character Death 3, 4, 5: Vigilantes
Why: The disfigured stranger in the bunker with them makes a pact to help them by taking out all the vigilantes.
How: Brute strength, odd tactics and fighting power. They all wait in the corridor with weapons for the stranger to approach, but he collapses and confuses them. They approach his body on the floor. He waits until they get close and then uses them to charge himself, so he has to kill them all at close range otherwise he starts to pass out. It’s a really strange and interesting fight!
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Toby Watts’ Horror Plot
What I learned doing this assignment is that there are very useful structural beats to hit in an intelligent high concept horror screenplay and that there very high stakes and levels of terror throughout.
Concept for BELOW GROUND: A wealthy family retreat into their half-built underground bunker after a surprise vigilante attack on them in the night, only to find they have no way back out again and worse: someone — or something — is down there already.
ACT 1 – SETUP FOR HORROR
Atmosphere of evil established: The sleeping family are mobbed by vigilantes trying to break in in the middle of the night. Flaming torches, bricks through windows, angry people in face masks threaten them outside the house.
Connect with the characters: The father runs around the house waking everyone up and we meet his family. Their reactions reveal something about who they are as they all rush towards the underground bunker for safety.
The characters are warned not to do it: Just before they lock the door to the bunker, the father and mother argue about whether to do this. There are barely any supplies down there, it’s unfinished, they could be trapped for days, weeks. But they decide to do it.
Denial of horror: Once inside, the family begin to relax and think they’ll be okay. They’re safe. The father has done well to create this bunker to protect them.
Safety taken away: A disfigured stranger collapses through a vent into their bunker, terrifying them all. This strange unconscious man is trapped in there with them!
Monster: the nature of the beast: The stranger animates to life and attacks them when they get within a metre of him. It’s a close call with some grappling and struggling, but they’re all okay…
ACT 2 — THE POINT OF NO RETURN
Isolated / Trapped / Abducted: Except the daughter is not okay. She starts having an asthma attack caused by all the struggle and shock, and her only inhaler is back above ground in the house. They plan to force the maid to go and get it, but the son finally decides to bravely go in her place.
One of us killed: The son returns with the inhaler but gets captured and beaten — possibly killed — just outside the bunker door. The family inside the bunker watch him get dragged away, covered in his own blood.
MIDPOINT: The monster is worse than we thought!
Full pursuit by the killer: They try to move the stranger’s body but keep waking him up by coming too close to him and he nearly kills one of them.
Terrorized: They unwittingly chain him to a radiator where he absorbs the heat, which brings him to life (due to a human-machine hybrid modification), and he gains strength, breaks away and chases them all down, trying to get to the father.
ACT 3 — FULL OUT HORROR
Fight to the death: The father grapples and fights with the stranger, until eventually he remains up close to him, keeping the stranger alive long enough to talk with the father. He explains he is like this because of the father’s heat exchange technology that has been put in him. He wants the father to fix him so he doesn’t work like this.
Hysteria: The family see the son tied up outside the bunker door. The vigilantes are beginning to torture him until they open the door. The father changes the stranger’s code via a terminal in the back of his head, and the stranger can live without the heat from humans or elsewhere now. In return the stranger vows to help save the father’s son. The vigilantes begin to break in via the vent above the bunker too.
The thrilling escape from death: The stranger kills all the vigilantes in the corridor outside the bunker and rescues the son. The family fight off the vigilantes in the bunker. It looks like they’ll all escape safely.
Death returns to take one or more: But the father secretly programmed the stranger to melt down again, not knowing he’d save his son. The stranger begins to realise what’s happening to him, and comes back for revenge on the father once more, with the family all trapped in the bunker. After a tense cat and mouse game in the bunker, the son finally shoots the stranger and kills him.
Resolution: The family emerge into their trashed house. Somehow, they’re all still alive and in one piece. But there’s a banging on the bunker door. Is the stranger still alive??
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Toby Watts’ Characters for Horror
What I learned doing this assignment is that understanding your group, their roles and the way they die really help to clarify the vision for your story, how it unfolds and how to build the scenes, scares and tension. Having archetypal roles really helps to see how the dynamics and interactions between characters could play out, and even suggests sub-plots to develop.
Concept for BELOW GROUND: A wealthy family retreat into their half-built underground bunker after a surprise vigilante attack on them in the night, only to find they have no way back out again and worse — someone is down there already.
Group — A family and their maid.
Dying Pattern — The characters experience the terror and survive together, but one or two die
Identities
Leader and Carrier: The father of the family is the rich entrepreneur and the one who built the bunker for an emergency like this. He tries to stay calm and keep everyone focussed on staying alive and getting out, acting as though he’s in control, else his family will blame him for everything.
Rescuer: The mother has a duty to protect her teenage children at all costs, and makes life difficult for her husband when they lose their son to the vigilantes after a botched escape attempt.
Red Herring: The character of the maid is a red herring, making us suspicious of the outsider in the family and wondering whether there is some secret love relationship with the father, causing tension in the group.
Moral One and Sacrificial Lamb: The son offers to try and get his sister’s medication, risking his life, and gets murdered on the way back to the bunker.
Innocent: The sister begins her journey in shock and unsure what to do, but grows into a problem solver as time runs out.
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Toby Watts’ Terrifying Monster
What I learned doing this assignment is that having original rules about your monster really makes the film feel unique and helps to drive the terror and create puzzles and tension on screen as characters try to get around the rules.
‘BELOW GROUND’ (title)
Who or what is my monster?<div>An unexpected, comatose, disfigured man that suddenly crashes into the underground bunker where a wealthy family are hiding from vigilantes.
2. Parts of the Monster
Terror — it inflicts disgust through its distorted appearance, and abject paranoia to the point of hysteria because no one knows whether it will wake up at any point and what it might do to them in this contained space. When it does wake up, they realise what a threat it is and how impossible it will be to overcome it.
Mystery — whilst he’s unconscious, no one knows if he is a threat at all or how he could even be a threat. There’s a mystery about whether he will wake up at all, and also about how to get rid of him without the other characters losing their humanity and killing him.
Fear provoking appearance — the man’s face is unsettlingly disfigured, something just not quite right or human about him.
Rules — Don’t go near him! If you go near him he animates to life. You have about 1m clearance and he will stay ‘dead’. All you have to do is leave him alone. Easy enough, right? Not when he’s in the same room as you, where you sleep and eat…
Mythology — The billionaire father who owns this bunker created a technology that allows tiny amounts of heat exchange to efficiently power large electrical devices. The father’s business enemy put this technology in this freak of a man who can now only survive in close proximity to heat sources i.e. humans, and then he dumped this man in the bunker to teach the billionaire a moral lesson about the misuse of his technology.
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What I learned doing this assignment is how important these horror conventions are in successful horror movies that really deliver what the audience is looking for. It also helped me see the difference between truly scary horror movies and movies that play out more like dramas with some horror elements.
CANDYMAN (1988) Horror Conventions
TITLE/CONCEPT
Already this is a terrifying concept — a brutally murderous villain with a supernatural power to appear and disappear when you say his name in the mirror. It’s almost like a game for the audience to be invited in on. Surely everyone went home after seeing it and said his name five times in a mirror — or not? There’s intrigue and the reward of violent, horrifying deaths for naive and weak people thinking they’re strong and brave enough to play the game. We love watching stupid people getting what they deserve! The poster/villain image is a tall and imposing figure of a man with a bloody hook for a hand. This is gruesome and suggests gore and pain, and that there is some form of sadistic pleasure in his killings.
TERRORISE THE CHARACTERS
Helen says Candyman in the mirror five times then immediately a jump scare is setup with her husband crashing onto her bed in the middle of the night. Sets up that she will need to be on edge, on the lookout for trouble now. Helen gets put in real jeopardy when she goes to the toilet in Cabrini Green then gets attacked by a man with a hook. The first really terrifying scene is right after when Candyman first appears to her 43minutes into the film. He tells her to come with him and be his victim, then Helen goes into a trance and wakes up covered in blood in Anne Marie’s bathroom in Cabrini Green. A heartbeat pounds on the sound track as Helen walks through and discovers a dog’s head and a hysterical Anne Marie screaming out for her baby. She gets attacked and Helen’s head is bashed against the floor, forcing her to lash out with the butcher’s knife and cut Anne Marie, spurting blood out. Anne Marie goes wild as the police come in and thrashes around. The whole traumatising scene is underscored with the wild screaming of Anne Marie, making us afraid, terrified.
Helen is forced to undress at the police station, covered in dried blood. It’s humiliating and gruesome. At 55 minutes, Helen is on her own in her apartment and then Candyman’s hook bursts through her mirror and appears in the corridor. He entrances her, cuts her neck and abducts her from her apartment. Whilst Helen is helpless on the floor, Candyman appears to Helen’s friend who arrives and gruesomely attacks her with his hook. We don’t see what he does but we hear the cutting and then see the gory aftermath in the next scene. The doctor tries to convince her she’s insane. He shows her footage of her claiming Candyman is under her bed. She trembles when she sees no one is there. She wonders, did she do it after all?
Candyman kills the doctor in a frighteningly gory way, cutting him in two from behind. Blood splatters everywhere. When Helen realises her husband has moved on with someone else, Helen is at her lowest ebb. Candyman kisses bees into Helen on the altar in his lair, and he reveals his exposed and decaying ribcage to her. It’s like some strange sexual ritual she can’t escape, like a marriage from hell. Helen finally sets on fire and crawls away burning, carrying the baby. Even when her husband Trevor regrets abandoning Helen, he calls out to her but she appears and brutally slashes him up, leaving him to decay in the bathtub and Trevor’s new girlfriend to presumably be framed for it. Candyman is unstoppable!
ISOLATION
Before the terror begins for Helen, she does a few things ‘alone’: she’s the only one who says Candyman’s name in the mirror five times; she’s the only one who goes into Candyman’s apartment alone. It’s like she’s gradually inviting the trouble upon herself. It’s a slow burn into real isolation. Helen goes to the toilet on her own and gets attacked. At the first encounter of Candyman in the car park building, Helen is left alone by her friend who drives off. She beeps and Helen waves to her as she drives away. Helen wakes up and then gets framed for Anne Marie’s baby’s kidnapping — she’s alone at the police station, undressing, traumatised, crying, covered in blood. She gets yelled at and intimidated at the police station. Her husband doesn’t pick up the phone, we suspect he’s up to no good. Why isn’t he at home? Helen is totally on her own in the jail cell. Candyman appears to Helen when she’s on her own in the apartment and kills her friend. All her allies are pushed away and she really looks like a criminally insane person now. Helen is totally on her own when she discovers her husband has given up on her. She has no home.
DEATH
In the opening short prologue we see a young babysitter getting savagely attacked by Candyman for saying his name in the mirror. Blood pours through the ceiling, promising more grizzly deaths later in the film. We understand how the legend works almost straight away, and we understand the kind of people who get attacked. The naive, the young (and sexually active), adventurous, those who like taking risks and who enjoy the rush — i.e. all horror fans! Anne Marie’s dog’s head is cut off, covering the apartment in blood, and baby Anthony is nowhere to be seen. Is he dead? What’s happened? Is any of the blood his? Helen’s friend is killed in a gory and horrifying way by Candyman. The doctor is slaughtered from behind with Candyman’s hook right in front of Helen, and blood goes everywhere. Helen crawls right into a trap with Candyman, a burning pyre surrounded by angry residents. She faces a terrible, painful death. Helen burns in the pyre as she tries to escape.
MONSTER
The film opens with a voiceover setting up his intentions — to split people from groin to gullet. Swarms of bees over the city skyline suggest his power over nature, and everyone fears bee stings too. We get a glimpse behind the babysitter in the prologue but not long enough to really see him and register him. We find razor blades in chocolates when Helen looks in the abandoned apartment. Candyman’s hypnotic voice and appearance in the car park entrance us, adding a new dimension to his character. He’s not just a deadly psychopath, he’s almost romantic, he has a new agenda to be believed in, like he’s some kind of God, like he needs followers, a congregation. This makes him really interesting. And then straight after we see what Candyman has done — cut off a dog’s head, stolen or killed a baby and ruined a mother’s life, as well as Helen’s, in the most traumatic and gruesome way. Candyman is clearly unstoppable the way he just appears to Helen i her apartment through the mirror, hypnotises her and then brutally kills her friend.
There’s another intriguing dimension to Candyman — he looks after baby Anthony in his lair, and even lets him suckle his finger. Candyman’s voice calls out to her when she’s on her own after escaping the hospital. ‘They will all abandon you — all you have left is my desire for you.’ Candyman sheds a tear and then dances with Helen in his cathedral. He carries her like a bride to the altar at the other end. Candyman explodes into flames and bees rush out. Is it. the end of him?
HIGH TENSION
The Projects in Cabrini Green are setup to be hostile and dangerous. On edge as we follow them through the buildings. Constant glimpses of Candyman in graffiti, folk tales, reports from neighbours in the Projects. Keep raising the stakes and the likelihood that Candyman is real. There are subliminal flashes of Candyman’s graffitied face at various points when Helen takes a photograph; bees in the toilet. The heartbeat running through the scene of Helen waking up covered in blood in Anne Marie’s apartment builds great tension as we discover the scene simultaneously with Helen as she explores it. The screams lift the anxiety to the next level! Helen descends even lower as she’s arrested and put in a psychiatric hospital for the murder of her friend. Helen appears to be totally trapped, strapped to a chair in the hospital whilst she talks with the doctor. Helen, on the verge of accepting insanity, calls out to Candyman in the mirror. The doctor awaits what’s next. Nothing happens. And then He appears and murders the doctor in a the most gory way yet, ripping him in two from behind with his hook, blood goes everywhere. Helen escapes from the hospital and it looks like this is her chance to get out of this terrible situation. She then appears to become the maniac as she walks in on Trevor and his new girlfriend. Helen is really on edge. Helen tries to crawl out of the burning pyre even through she’s on fire. Will she make it?
DEPARTURE FROM REALITY
The premise takes us out of our reality because we know this isn’t possible in our world, and yet feels like it could be, like somehow it’s close to home. Candyman entrances Helen and makes her black out. The next thing she knows she wakes up covered in someone’s blood and is framed for murder. This is inconceivably cunning by the Candyman. Candyman floats down on top of Helen in the hospital — he has preternatural abilities.
There’s a mythic-like quality to Candyman’s lair. All the artwork, graffiti, blood, broken glass, the mural’s depicting Candyman’s life. A Cathedral of despair. It takes us outside of our own experience. Candyman is asleep on the altar. He takes Helen to the other altar and hikes up her skirt with his hook, it’s like a wedding night ritual.
MORAL STATEMENT
Helen’s husband realises he’s made a mistake. He’s terribly sad about what he’s done, abandoning Helen. He calls out to her in the mirror. But he gets his comeuppance — Helen comes back and slaughters him, traumatising his new adulterous girlfriend as well. Helen, as the truly innocent protagonist, is finally vindicated too, and Candyman is burned in the fire.
WHY ELSE IS CANDYMAN SO GREAT A MOVIE?
There’s a poetry to it; Candyman’s dialogue, his hypnotic voice, the way Helen becomes entranced all the time. It’s almost like a love story. A most gruesome villain who is also a romantic. Amazing! What an intriguing character! There’s also a satisfying and somewhat uplifting resolution in that Helen is vindicated in her death — all the residents turn up at her graveside to pay respects. They know she was saving the baby from Candyman and that she wasn’t the killer after all.
MY PROJECT “BELOW GROUND” HORROR CONVENTIONS
CONCEPT
A billionaire family retreat into their half-built underground emergency bunker below their house after a surprise vigilante attack on them in the night, only to find they have no way back out again and worse — someone else may be down there already.
TERRORISE THE CHARACTERS
Once safely in the bunker, the parents’ teenage daughter begins to suffer without her medication so they have to risk leaving the bunker for a moment to get it. However, their brave teenage son gets brutally trapped and beaten to death on the way back to the bunker through the house, whilst the family make the awful choice to keep the door locked else they all die. Suddenly whilst eating together in the bunker the body of a man falls through a trapdoor above them and they have no idea who he is or how he got there. This keeps them on edge in case he wakes up and means them harm. The family become hysterical when they realise their oxygen is running out and their water supply has been cut off. They argue about whether to kill (or even eat?) the stranger in there with them, but then he wakes up…
ISOLATION
The family are completely trapped. Their son is dead on the other side of the door. They all keep falling out and find it hard to agree what to do next before they die of starvation or oxygen or threat from the stranger.
DEATH
Their teenage son is viciously attacked and killed as they watch on the camera. They know how evil their attackers are. The stranger wakes up in the night and the family fight to restrain him.
MONSTER
The attackers outside, but also all of their dark human natures coming out… Facing the threat of a slow and agonising death, they begin to realise it’s every man for himself.
HIGH TENSION
They keep forming plans and then they get thwarted e.g. the son dashing for his sister’s medication before facing his death as he returns to the bunker. A stranger crashes through the roof and no one knows who he is or why he’s there. The stranger wakes up but can he be trusted? What does he want?
DEPARTURE FROM REALITY
It’s such an extreme situation — shortage of food, space, air, water, in an ill equipped bunker. Plus the presence of a stranger who begins behaving oddly — could the stranger have some kind of extraordinary gift or threat about him?
MORAL
Ultimately it’s about the mother and father’s underhand actions to become so wealthy… you live by the sword, you die by the sword, and those you love may pay the price too.
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Toby Watts
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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.