Thursday, September 24, 2009

Holiday Horror Films

Or... Conversation with a Mindless Development Executive: Part One

"So, John. Loved the script. Loved, loved, loved it. So scary. So smart."

"Thank you."

"We definitely want to find something for you. I have a couple of short stories, and a comic book that we're looking for a writer on, but you seem like you have such a unique voice, maybe we can hire you to write an original for us."

"That would be great."

"Great. Okay then, let me tell you what our mandate is as far as thrillers go. We want to do Holiday Horror. Horror films that are centered around holidays, because there's already so much pre-awareness built in. The marketing practically handles itself. You know, like Halloween, Black Christmas, Mother's Day."

"Thanksgiving."

"Was there a Thanksgiving horror movie?"

"Not really. It was a joke. Eli Roth made a fake trailer for a movie called Thanksgiving that was between Death Proof and Planet Terror."

"I didn't see Grindhouse. Like the rest of the country."

"Well, there were a bunch of trailers between the movies, and Eli did one of them. It was for a movie called Thanksgiving. Actually pretty funny."

"It's a good idea for a movie. I wonder if he'd be willing to flesh it out as a feature." (yells at assistant) "Put Eli Roth on my call sheet!"

A moment of uncomfortable silence.

"But so you get it. Holiday Horror. Like Thanksgiving. I was thinking you could do a fun one centered around Graduation Day. You know, all the High School Kids with the caps and gowns, and somebody's like killing them because they picked on him when he was a kid or whatever."

"The Principal says some kid's name to come get his diploma and the kid drops from the ceiling with a noose around his neck?"

"Exactly! You totally get it! So, like, Graduation Day. Or St. Patrick's Day. Like the killer gets you if you don't wear green or something. Stuff like that. Do you think there's one to be done for Easter? If you made the psycho wear a really creepy Easter Bunny suit. Like Donnie Darko?"

"You've definitely got my wheels turning. Let me go home and think about it, see if I can sketch something out for you."

"Great! Great! Thanks so much for coming in, John. So good to meet a horror writer that actually GETS it."

I drive home.
I contemplate various means of suicide.
I turn on the computer.
I start to write a treatment for "Yom Kippur"

J. R. Hax

1 comments:

starvinggods said...

Ha! Hope they didn't drain your dregs. I wonder what's happened since 2011

 
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