Pet Sematary's Lindsey Anderson Beer
Plus more horror movie recs!
There are only two slots left for my upcoming Draft Intensive class with Script Anatomy! I really love teaching this class. It’s a fun and practical one in which you’ll go from your existing outline to a solid first draft. It’s highly collaborative, and you’ll receive notes from me and your very smart classmates. Class begins Oct 22 and runs for three sessions, every other Sunday morning.
This is your opportunity to write a spec this year! Buying is going to be fast and furious come January, so don’t wait. Sign up here.
Better Off Dead
In today’s all new Writers Panel episode, Pet Sematary: Bloodlines writer/director Lindsey Anderson Beer discusses the Stephen King prequel, the intense draft process once she came on board, her background in neuroscience and robotics, the magic script that got her in the door, and lots more.
Get the podcast via Apple or Spotify or Acast or your favorite podcast app.
Horror Stories
Working on a proper craft-focused newsletter for you for next week, and this Thursday look for 6 Questions with Jenny Klein (Daisy Jones; The Witcher), who’ll be joining us for Sunday’s live Zoom Q&A, available to attend (or listen to later) only by paid subscribers (and my students; hi students, hope to see you all there!). But in the meantime, please enjoy a few more horror movie recommendations. Previous recs here.
When #Host premiered on Shudder in December 2020, I said on Twitter that it was the first great piece of art to come out of the pandemic lockdown. But #Host’s success isn’t just a case of being first to market. It’s a simple and straightforward premise—friends holding a seance over Zoom—that is executed imaginatively and adeptly. Incredibly strong performances bolster a genuinely terrifying 56 minutes of run-time. I so enjoyed the movie that I asked writer/director Rob Savage and writers Gemma Hurley and Jed Shepherd to come on the Writers Panel to talk about how they did it.
As I mentioned previously, my favorite type of horror is the creature feature. My second favorite is probably survival stories. Sweetheart (2019) is a perfet combination of both. Kiersey Clemons’ Jenn is marooned on an island, and the first part of the movie finds her struggling just to survive. But we soon learn that she isn’t alone on the island. The movie looks great, Clemons is terrific, and the creature design, when it’s finally revealed, presses all the right buttons. Director/co-writer JD Dillard ratches the tension and release perfectly. (Had him on the podcast too, with some other feature writers, which you can hear here.)
I don’t know what I expected from The Wailing (2016) but it wasn’t what I got. It’s a police thriller and a pandemic thriller and more. The whole experience is carried on tone, and it’s the kind of movie that’s best watched from ten to midnight, uninterrupted, when you can just slip inside of its discomfiting mood. I want to say that if you love Zodiac—and why wouldn’t you love Zodiac—then The Wailing is for you. That said, I don’t know that Na Hong-jin’s movie is for anyone necessarily. It just kind of happens to you. And, though never comfortable, you’re glad it did. It’s on Prime.
That’s it for now! I watched some good newer horror movies lately, including the very fun Totally Killer, but I feel like I’ve seen everything at this point! What can you recommend? Overlooked or worth a rewatch?
