Well where are we with "Sluaghter"...

So I've been doing research, mainly watching a shitload of horror movies, some I'd seen and some I hadn't. Some of the movies that I've watched of late are "Saw 3", The Masters of Horror episodes "Cigarette Burns" and "Imprint" and "Black Christmas". I liked all of them but one of them for a different reason to the others… and this reason was because it was rubbish and laughable and I can't believe how unimaginative the script is!

Imagination is the key…

An important thing for me and Nay was that "Slaughter" had to be tense, scary, horrible, entertaining and imaginative, we didn't want to just show tired old horror stuff that is simply repeated in movies like "Urban Legends". We wanted new stuff! We want horror fans to watch the movie and be like "yeah that was cool." We want people to be on the edge of their seat saying to themselves "how the hell are they going to survive?" We never wanted "Slaughter" to be predictable, we wanted twists and cool movie sequences that stay in peoples mind. Something that has always stayed with me from watching Cameron and Argento movies is that you got to take the character and the audience to the limit – whether that be sustained action sequences ala "Terminator" or sustained sequences of pure terror ala "Suspiria." As I was watching Miike's "Imprint" I was stunned at one scene in particular, for those who have seen "Imprint" you will know what I'm talking about - the punishment/torture scene of Komono. Now that is what I call sustained terror upon the female form, the scene is incredible, with Komono ending up looking like a work of modern art, a thing of twisted beauty. Indeed the scene is hard to watch and even harder to forget but it's things like that that I like - horror should be horrible, right! Standout sequences like this is what we we're striving for and I remember that when we first met one of the producers in the US, Cheri Wozniak, one of the first things she said to us, when she talked about the script, was "I turned the page and was like what the fuck?!" She was referring to a set piece that myself and Nay always wanted to standout within the audiences mind, like the opening 12 minutes of "Suspiria" or the final showdown with the Terminator. And with Cheri saying that, it sought of validated the script for us because this is our first script that producers have liked!

So yeah "Slaughter", me and Nay have been working on the "Slaughter" re-write based on notes we received from the producers - Goddamn Hollywood!!!! No I'm only joking we were incredibly grateful for the notes we received, as far as we are concerned anything that helped improve the script was a bonus, I mean we want to make the best possible movie here and the script is now a 100% improvement on the script that won the Slamdance competition, whilst still being the same story it now contains a lot more twists, with extra layers of complexity and is no longer just the straightforward horror flick it was before. When we started the re-write we knew that we had to alter the structure as in the original draft it wasn't until page 55 that we had our first scare or death scene and after watching the hugely successful "Saw 3" (over $80m US domenstic gross) I was shocked at the amount of set pieces and gruesome death scenes it throws in, in the first 20 minutes!!! - WOW - it's a lot, three to be precise, opening with the guy breaking his foot to get out of a footcuff...! Cutting to a guy all chained and hooked up (nasty) and then to a police detective in this rib-cage trap thingy with acid (very nasty) It certainly aims to 'gross' out it's audience within minimal time. Personally I thought it was one set piece too many and after taking 20 minutes to introduce the doctor character and even longer to introduce Geoff, I was like 'what the fuck who's my main character!' But then again the "Saw" franchise is built on these elaborate and crazy contraptions that kill people in horrible but 'fun' ways so give the audience what it wants, right... and it does have a pretty standout ending, I mean I want to see "Saw 4".

So back to "Slaughter", we changed, added, took out and just improved the script and hopefully the producers will agree, we haven't heard anything back as of yet, well they only got it yesterday... What we haven't done though, is added gross out scares that feel forced and totally unnecessary, just for the sake of it, indeed we do have some pretty sick and horrible sequences and set pieces but each one drives the story forward not like "Black Christmas" which I only watched because it was a new teen horror/slasher movie and was a remake and man it was lame - this is the movie I loved because of how bad the script was!

Now that's BAD!

"Black Christmas" - I actually don't think that this movie has any redeeming qualities, it was just nasty, devoid of any tension, irony, entertaining set pieces, plot twists or even entertaining death scenes for that matter! And one of the most important things in a horror movie is characters and likeable characters, characters that the audience root for and don't want to see die, like in "Wolf Creek" and countless other great horror movies "Halloween", "Nightmare on Elm Street", "Night of the Living Dead" and so on, but "Black Christmas" had no characters that I cared for, I don't even remember their names and I'm good with characters names, I mean I remember Geoff from "Saw 3"!

Another thing that really puzzled me about "Black Christmas" is that this was a movie set on Christmas Eve surely they could have incorporated some sense of Christmas irony (maybe calling it "Black" Christmas was as ironic as it gets) What about this guys... a Santa Clause costume set piece… Imagine the scene, friendly nieghbour hood guy gets butchered by the psycho, his Santa costume is taken and then the psycho calmly knocks on the soriety girls house's door dressed as Santa, enters, gives out gifts (but these are like no gifts you would ever want – off-course they aren't opened until later in the movie) whilst all the time he's got his nasty blood splattered axe also tucked away in his Santa sack!! The audience knows this but the soriety girls DON'T, even scarier if he asks to use the bathroom and one of the girls shows him where it is, alone... All the time we are waiting for him to strike but like all good horror movie scares and kills they don't happen when you expect them to! Just an idea and having not seen the original, I hope it was a lot better than the remake, it's on my to watch list! Oh and the eyeball gouging was just gratuitous and nasty but not entertaining and isn't that the name of the game - entertainment...