The Doctor is In: Notes from a Script Doctor

Thrill me, Chill me, Fulfill me…

A Supernatural Thriller

Friday, May 22, 2009

Recently, I worked with a script consulting client who had written a supernatural thriller. The protagonist is a female cop with a horrific past. She’s a straight-shooter, honest, compassionate, out for justice, but she carouses too much, picks up a lot of stray men and is an outcast in her small, rural, bible-belt town. The antagonist is a fanatically religious woman who also happens to be crazy and a mass-murderer. The other villains are all church people – power-hungry, corrupt, hypocritical, morally-bankrupt. They control most of the town. Unwanted pregnancies, abortion, adultery and child-brides are all touched upon.

Overall, the script was well-written, with an attention-grabbing opening, a well-drawn protagonist, a compelling story, good subtext, and a relevant message. It was about 25 pages too long and there were minor structural issues to address. Some dialogue needed rewriting and there was repetition to remove.  I showed the writer several ways he could cut and re-arrange and wind up with a shorter, cleaner, better-paced script. He agreed to most of these.

But there was a far greater problem to tackle. One that isn’t typically addressed in script writing classes or how-to-write-a-screenplay books. 

The writer’s unintentional sexism was hurting the script –in more ways than one. Its unwanted effect was an inconsistent message, which greatly diminished the script’s impact. I’ll explain.

In the first 10 pages:  

1) The protagonist is shown in an extremely humiliating sexual situation. She is introduced to the reader in this scene.

2) The one-night stand shouts an egregiously misogynistic epithet to the main character. She responds with silence.

3) The first murder victim is an unsuspecting woman.

4) When the villain comes to call, the only one in the shower is a teenage girl.            

5) The antagonist murders an entire household. All the victims are clothed, but the teenage girl, who is wrapped in a towel. This comes loose and her naked body is blown around by tornadoes.

Gradually, we learn that the church and its followers are evil. They are also extremely anti-choice. The antagonist thinks she’s cursed because she once had an abortion. The cop was forced to marry at 11, escaped the marriage, the religious community and had an abortion. She tries to help the villain’s daughter (who is 14) escape a similar fate and to obtain a safe abortion. But the cop is conflicted – hence the drinking and carousing. In the writer’s version, everyone dies, including the cop.  Only the pregnant teenager and her baby live.

From a political standpoint, the message is confusing. I wasn’t sure what the writer’s response would be to a political discussion, particularly on such a culturally-charged issue. I didn’t want to put him on the defensive, but I knew I’d be remiss if I let it go. 

I asked where he’d gotten the idea for the project. It turns out, he’d rebelled against an extremely religious parent. I breathed a sigh of relief and dove in.  Since political issues were woven throughout the screenplay, I told him that we must address them in the interest of crafting the best possible story. He was all ears.

We looked at each troublesome component separately and as a complete package. 

The protagonist 

She is damaged, but essentially a good person, whom we are rooting for. Some of the imagery in the beginning (but also scattered throughout the script) hurts the audience’s connection to the hero. 

For example, the main character is introduced in a sex scene with a low-life pick-up. He chokes her; he humiliates her in other more graphic ways. Afterwards, she holds onto a match until it burns her fingers. We immediately understand from the choking and the charred flesh, that this character suffers. Everything else is over-kill.

To identify with the cop and believe that she is capable of rooting out evil and vanquishing the bad guys, not to mention saving the girl, she can’t be too weak and vulnerable from the get-go. Imagine if she were a male hero. Such a portrayal would never fly. 

The naked teenage girl

Gratuitous. The only purpose is pure titillation (no pun intended). But you have to weigh this titillation against the other needs of your audience. Here we have a thriller with a socially conscious message. Thriller audiences tend to be urban and educated with a high percentage of women in attendance. Do you want to risk alienating them for an image that does not add to the picture in any way? Rest assured that the deranged lunatic mass murdering villain provides plenty of gore to satisfy the bloodthirsty among the viewers.

Abortion and the Death of the Protagonist

In this script, church-goers and their values are evil. It stands to reason therefore, that their chief tenet – that abortion is the greatest evil of all—must somehow be wrong. But in the writer’s draft, all the people who have had an abortion, bar none, die in the end. Even the good folks, the people who have left the church and the protagonist. This inconsistency does not serve the premise of the film. The writer doesn’t want to convey that the evil church is right.  

So I asked him, “Why must the protagonist die? She was forced to marry a man three times her age, before she graduated from elementary school. Right-minded people wouldn’t fault a desperate 11 year-old for running from this marriage and having an abortion. Look how far she’s come with her life? She’s a cop, a good one at that. If you kill her off, you alienate a lot of people who have been rooting for her. And you side with the church, the very institution that produced all of the evil.”

The writer was surprisingly amenable. He agreed to rewrite the sexist imagery. He agreed that the way he had handled the abortion issue was hurting the story. When he wrote his subsequent draft, the protagonist lives and the 14 year old who doesn’t have an abortion, dies. But her baby lives and the protagonist, now in her 30’s, with a good job, is the one to bring her up.  He also managed to cut over 25 pages. The result was a much better script, faster-paced, consistent, with a clear message, and a much-improved protagonist. Because he excised the sexism, he got a more marketable script as well. Win-win-win.