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Help with a horror story

C

chilidogg

I want to create a horror film, in the near future. I'm planning to write the script myself, but I'm sort of lacking ideas at the moment. The few ideas I have seem don't seem very original, but I'm not sure what else I could do within the horror genre.

#1: A group of teenagers, that will be played by myself and a few friends, are going out to the country to camp. They get out to their campsite and everything is going well. Then they learn a lot of teenage boys have been disappearing in that area, they don't really think anything of it until one of them goes missing...

#2: A few friends are hanging out at home, then the power goes out. When they try to go out to the garage to check the fuse box, they discover they are locked inside the house. They try to call the police, but the phones are missing. The group is then terrorized by a crazy killer.

Those are the only ideas I have right now and like I said, they don't feel very original to me. Which scenario seems best to you guys, and what do you think I could do to make it better? If you don't like either of those ideas, do you have any ideas of your own I might be able to use? You would get credit, if it ever becomes a reality.
 
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Chili,

In my opinion, I can see you can tell a story, but what seems to be missing (and I could be dead wrong) is zeroing in on a concept. If you know this sorry, if not, then sorry I was born with an inability to keep things short.

Look at the poster from the movie Twister. It shows a town with a monster tornado over it.
Look at the poster from Jaws. A girl swimming as a shark comes up from beneath her.
One glance at these posters and what each film is conceptually about is communicated.

Listen to the title “Back to the future. It tells you it’s concept.

Get out some paper or open whatever you write in and start kicking around things associated with elements of your story. Camping – Missing – Friends - Boys.

Look for a common thread that runs or could run through or somehow links the elements of your story.
This common thread could become a title, or poster idea, or scene, or whole other project idea.

Write down the stuff that comes to you: “The Blood Shed” - “Camp Joeys Gone” - “GP S.O.S ” - “The Outhouse” - “Blood Path”

Throw the motor of “What if” into gear and start talking yourself down a road of nonsense:

“Uhhh, what if some Boy Scout outcast commie freak crew commit rite of passage murder? What if among a group of friends out camping is one of those scouts looking to earn his– Merit Badge?”

Start telling yourself what your film is about:

“While camping a teen confesses to friends he once murdered a fellow boy scout in the very same woods, and then made it look like an accident.–Unbury the Hatchet”

If this process makes sense to you, then give it a whirl.
Like I said, I could be wrong, but my two cents is it’s what I sense missing.

-Thanks-
 
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MY teacher always said

"Every story is an old story. The thing which matters and creates difference is not what you are presenting but the way you are presenting" !
 
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I like the camping one better (plus if you do it in the daytime, you'll have less worries about lighting with the outdoor idea rather than the indoor one). I also think you could get slightly more original with the idea, although I agree with ad2478 in that there is no such thing as an original story. I think reading shakespeare or greek mythology is a great cheat-sheet for coming up with more character-developement parts of the story.
Just a small idea I had to add to your camping one: maybe the 'killer' could be a monster (i'm picturing like a minotaur that you only see the silhouette of) or maybe he doesn't actually end up killing them but kidnapping them and keeps them all in a comatose state in some cave where he feeds off them (you still NEVER really get a good look at the creature) until they turn into old people and he releases them back into the world with amnesia and people just assume they are senile and lock them up....
Just bouncing it around my head, I hope you like some of my ideas, feel free to use them or not.
Happy New Year!
 
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The problem I think is that you haven't fully fleshed out either story idea.

How do these stories end?

For the camping story, is the missing boy found? How did he go missing? What has to happen during the time he's missing?

The second idea, while still not complete, sounds like it might be a little more complete in your head.

What I like about the second story is that it's confined within a house, the claustrophobic nature of that could help ratchet up the tension. What if one of the characters has claustrophobia and can't take being stuck inside the whole time?

You really need to flesh these out more to get a better idea of where you're going with them though. As it stands currently you're not really asking people for help in making these ideas better but rather asking for someone to essentially write your story for you.
 
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Alright let me fill out my ideas a little more, I've made a few changes

Story #1: The boys are out camping and they come across some type of satanic shrine while walking through the woods. They return to their campsite not really thinking anything of it. Later that night, one of the boys heads off into the woods to use the bathroom, and doesn't come back. The group heads out to search for him without luck. When they return to the camp, they find another shrine and their missing friend dead in their tent. They have no cell service and their truck won't start. They decide to try and walk back to the road and get help. Another friend goes missing and only two are left. They're torn trying to decide to look for their friend or go for help. They decide to go back and search for their friend. They slowly learn exactly what's happening; there's a small group of satanic worshippers living in the woods that terrorize the boys. Thats all I have for now, it will probably end with all the boys dead. I personally find horror stories scarier without happy endings.

Story #2: This one I'm having a bit more trouble with. After the group of friends discover they're locked in they don't know what to do. Then one of them ends up dead, then I guess the killer could somehow turn the friends against each-other. Eventually one snaps (maybe the claustrophobic one?) , blames the group for their friends death and kills one of them. The rest of the group restrains him and locks him in a closet. From there I don't really know where to go, maybe the killer turns out to be one of the friends after all? I'm not really sure, this could be scary because the killer turns out to be a long time friend that nobody expects to be the killer. Whatever I decide on, I want the killer to end up getting away, like i said, I think its scarier when the killer gets away.

With either story, I think lighting might be a problem. Both would probably be shot at night, and I was thinking of shooting the film from inside the story, like in Blair Witch Project, I'm not sure how well that would work though.

Thoughts? Suggestions?
 
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Chili,

To me, the reason your story sounds like 10 other movies is because it’s not your movie, it’s ten other stories.

When you put the cart of When, Where, Who and How story, before the horse of What and Why concept, it’s possible to get nowhere fast.


Try these 3 steps:


1. Focus story into 1 or 2 sentences:

“51 people on Earth know about the subterranean city beneath the great lakes..”


2. Give it a twist:

“51 people on Earth know about the subterranean city beneath the great lakes, only 50 are supposed to.”


3. Give it a title:

“51 people on Earth know about the subterranean city beneath the great lakes, only 50 are supposed to.” –SURFACE



-Thanks-
 
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I just took a course with a horror screenwriter (he wrote "From Beyond" which you can see in full here: http://www.imdb.com/video/hulu/vi2109670425/), and there's a few things to keep in mind when writing horror scripts. One is dramatic irony, which is when the audience knows something the characters do not. That's a good way to keep the tension.

The other thing to keep in mind is the difference between terror and horror, as defined by Gothic writer Anne Radcliffe back in the 18th century. Terror involves the imagination and is a very heightened response (sublimity) to what is unseen, and unknown. So, something can be very scary when it's mysterious - we are terrified by what might be behind that door more than if we knew what was behind it. Horror is what we experience when we actually see what's behind that door - a monster, a corpse, whatever. We are horrified by the actual confrontation with an evil act, a heinous crime, gore, what man is capable of, or the depths of evil, etc. But that's a totally different feeling than terror. There's something exciting, even seductive, about terror. It's best to keep the audience in suspense as much as possible, so they are terrified more than horrified, only revealing the source of the horror as needed.

Beyond all that, you still need a beginning, middle, and end to your story, with obstacles and a climax, no matter what the genre, so make sure you have a solid backbone and then add some meat to it.
 
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I think the days of blood and gore are long gone, that stuff doesn't scare people anymore. It's the suggestoin of things that scare them more. Stuff like Paranormal Activity works in parts because of that creepy element. Look at Devils Rejects and House of a 1000 Corpses........I used to be a big horror fan then bored of it....the two Rob Zombie films were superbly done.....it had that 'creepy' element to it

you need a twist in your story......how about all these kids are dying at the camp site but it turns out one of the friends is actually killing them off..........flash backs work at the end, it sparks in the viewers mind 'argh so that is what happened'

As you said the killer gets away......you need to possibly create an alibi that works.....at the end the Police show and he's staged a last fight but he over powers the killer but all along he's the killer.

after all this his motif for killing them is because he was always the outsider or something like that.......this could be answered with the last friend, the one he really dislikes coughing blood about to pass and asking why?

why are you doing this?

and it all comes out etc

You were the one everyone liked, you were the one every wanted around..........now you'll be known as the one who flipped out and killed all his friends at a campsite, except me.........I'll be the Hero.....I stopped you!

Film could end with people saying man good job that kids stopped him when he did........there is a family camped up the hill they could have been next......and the kid smirking wrapped in a blanket being put into an ambulance

maybe play around with this........
 
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