How to write a horror short screenplay
Writing a horror script is like writing any good story. You want to have strong characters, engaging dialogue, and a sense of realism. Even if characters are in an extraordinary situation you want their responses to that situation or threat to be real. One of the big problems I’ve noticed in many horror films is that when given the evidence, characters don’t recognize that they are in a horror movie. They wonder why corpses are showing up with two marks on their neck and no blood. They wonder why the dead have risen and mindlessly want to consume flesh. The problem is that the audience is quickly ahead of the characters.
Who is your protagonist?
You want to start the story as late as possible. You want your protagonist on the verge of a change. Your audience will be horrified if they can see the world through the protagonist’s eyes.
What is the source of horror?
This will become the major challenge for the protagonist. It could be a malevolent spirt. It could be a boogeyman. It could be a car. If you’re interested in a particular sub-genre of horror (paranormal, zombie, vampires, etc.) the choice of horror will be pretty self-evident.
Over the past year I experimented with a number of sources of horror — the spirit of a lost one, a boogeyman, the cosmic, and I even wrote a horror short about an evil snack.
I started brainstorming titles for horror short films. The title often implied or spelled out the source of the horror. While these titles wouldn’t mean much to anyone else, they would give me ideas for what the short movies would be about. I also kept a list of character names for these scripts (I always have a hard time coming up with character names so this helps me a lot). I would see characters or creatures when I started brainstorming.
The Set up
If your horror film is going to be twelve minutes, you have only 2–3 pages (or screen time minutes) to set up the premise of the movie. You need to introduce the main character and their crisis within those two to three minutes. The protagonist’s goals and desires are shown early in the film and then the source of horror makes its first introduction after the audience understands that character.
No Exposition
Exposition is when a character gives a piece of dialogue which explains what is happening in the story. In Night of the Living Dead, after the audience sees zombies roaming the graveyard and a few other scenes, there is a news report about corpses rising from the dead and desiring human flesh. This bit of exposition is palatable because of the way it’s delivered and when it’s delivered in the film. But if the exposition wasn’t there, the audience likely wouldn’t miss it. We have already seen the living dead eat people.
In a horror short screen time should be focused on showing the source of horror or at least hinting at it. If you have one character explain to another character what is happening, the audience becomes more removed from what is happening.
What is more interesting to watch as an audience member — ritual chanting, mysterious symbols on a cave wall, and a demon lurking in the shadows OR one character explaining to another character in a library that there is an ancient cult trying to resurrect a demon?
Leaving out exposition leads to uncertainty. It leaves a portion of the story in the audience’s hands. It’s one of the oldest rules of writing — Show Don’t Tell.
Visuals
Filmmaking is a visual medium and as I wrote my horror shorts I imagined what would happen on screen. I pictured what my boogeyman would look like, how he would act, and how he would talk. Before writing I would often take long walks thinking over the idea for the short film script and the source of horror.
Outline
While I was on my walks I would think through the different scenes of the short film. I would write a loose outline of how I saw the script playing out on screen. Because I was writing short films the scenes would be described in a sentence or sentence fragment. When you’re writing a script that’s 8 to 12 pages it doesn’t make sense to have an exhaustive outline. Sometimes my outline would just be a list of scenes written on the back of an envelope.
Write it
When I had my sub-genre or my source of horror and my loose outline, I would start writing. I usually had a first draft in two or three writing sessions. As you write your script think of opportunities to build tension. When it comes to horror filmmaking there are many tools to help build tension (lighting, sound design, camera moves, etc.). While you don’t want to dictate camera moves, you can give the impression of how you see a scene playing out. Does the audience see the entire room or scene or do they see one detail when the film begins? You can describe what a room looks like or what a location looks like if you think the story should open with a wide shot, or you can describe the look on someone’s face or some small detail if you think getting closer to some detail is more important to the story.
In my boogeyman script I described the dark under a bed and a pair of glowing eyes. I described the chittering sounds the boogeyman made along with scratching sounds under the bed.
I used as many of the horror filmmaking tools I could in describing the scenes to build suspense.
Re-writes
It all comes down to the rewrites. I scrapped one horror script I wrote a couple years ago and wrote a whole new script based on the same general ideas. With the scripts I wrote more recently, I would take a day to go over a script and I would make edits as needed. Based on the feedback I received for one script, I wrote new scenes and conceived of a new ending.
Table reading and feedback
After I had my horror shorts and I took them through a few drafts, I put together a table reading for four of the short film scripts. I reached out to actors and colleagues and held the reading via zoom. I will go into more detail on how to put a table reading together in a future article.
I also sent my scripts to a few readers for feedback. I have half a dozen colleagues who I trust to provide valuable feedback. I am very lucky to know them.
Between the table reading and the feedback from friends, I gained some valuable insights to the scripts I wrote. Those notes led to more rewrites and hopefully, stronger scripts.
I wrote these scripts with a plan to direct at least one of them and for me holding a table reading is an important step prior to putting a film into production.
Conclusion
If you have experience with screenwriting and you can hold an audience’s attention, you are in a good place to try writing in the horror genre. Some of the basics are ignored in horror filmmaking to the detriment of the finished movie. The rules of good screenwriting apply to horror filmmaking. You can’t make a good movie without a great script. What frightens you? What’s a nightmare you had recently? What’s a creature or phantom you’re interested in writing about?
Final Thoughts
Last year I wrote two horror feature film screenplays. I would like to direct one of those scripts later this year. In preparation for directing horror, I wrote over a half dozen short film scripts (8–12 minutes) and a number of micro short film scripts (2–4 minutes). I plan on making one micro short, one short film, and one horror feature film this year. As I continue on this journey I plan on sharing my experiences. And to make these films, I need your help. If you would like to support this horror slate, please connect: lance@hungeranddread.com
Next week I will talk about How to Organize a Table Reading for your Horror Short Screenplays
Check out last week’s blog post: Co-Screenwriting a Feature Film
