Crighton Smythe could see how everyone was going to die – except himself. A social outcast who relied on his mother to keep him, Crighton had to use his ‘knack’ to his advantage when Mrs Smythe took ill and financial pressures began to mount. But as his visions started to increase in intensity, and his hatred of the city around him began pushing him to his limit, he found himself wondering how much more he could take.
Then he died.
In his own words, let Crighton Smythe tell you the story of how he perished. Where is he now?
Discover for yourself.
‘it’s the journey, not the destination,’ and Gardiner takes us on a short but crazy journey into a troubled mind, giving us a glorious glimpse into the disturbing world of Crighton Smythe. Join us, if you dare! But bring your own butter.
Under the Mountain of Anubis lies a dark evil. Mortals disturb it at their peril. When the anxious son of an archaeologist confronts utter terror, will he end up trapped and buried alive?
Originally published on Mark Walker Screenwriting and Stargazing on 24th November 2020
A trip down memory lane and the fun and games we had putting together a book of bedtime stories for Christmas in a matter of days! Some of the links have been removed as they are no longer active but, if you like the sound of the book, it is still available as we head into the Christmas Season at Amazon.
Originally posted on Mark Walker Screenwriting and Stargazing on 14th July 2016.
A number of old links to other archived posts have been removed as they no longer work. They mostly related to posts about the Pixar Rules of Story which I may well re-post over the coming months.
It’s just another day on a busy highway until everything comes to a screeching halt. The jam tails back forever. But there’s no cause for concern, no reason to panic. It’s a traffic jam, that’s all. Everything will get back to normal soon enough.
Released, sadly, after O’Bannon’s death in 2009, his Guide to Screenplay Structure was a book I was keen to read, coming from the mind of the man who had been instrumental in the development of some classic screen stories, such as ALIEN, DARK STAR and TOTAL RECALL. Regardless of the stories behind bringing ALIEN to the screen, I was intrigued to get inside the mind of O’Bannon and I wasn’t disappointed.
O’Bannon’s style is fairly relaxed and friendly and I enjoyed reading the book for that reason. I found it a lot less stuffy than some of the more “formal” screenwriting tomes I had waded through prior to this. Although he presents this book as an alternative to other screenwriting formulas, and is very open that this is his interpretation of how to write a screenplay, there are similarities between many of O’Bannon’s approaches and these other formulas. Indeed, in one chapter, where he gives his impression of other writers’ approaches, from Aristotle to Field and McKee, he is wise to acknowledge that there are links between all the different approaches and formula used in the screenwriting process.
A number of classic scripts, including Citizen Kane, Casablanca and Some Like it Hot, are also analysed, breaking each down into its component parts and exploring different aspects of the different approaches.
The book is full of exercises designed for the reader to explore some of the concepts and systems that O’Bannon discusses in each chapter.
Essentially, at the heart of the book, and O’Bannon’s writing, is conflict. He describes a screenplay as a fight and I liked his way of looking at it. Drama creates conflict and conflict should be at the heart of every story. When you boil your screenplay down, if it isn’t about conflict, then O’Bannon is not convinced it is even a story. And, while he talks about this a lot throughout the book, he also touches on classic aspects of screenwriting such as the 3-ACT Structure, exposition and screenplay length.
The one thing that really stuck with me after reading this book though was O’Bannon’s use of the Hedonic Adaptation Effect.
Put simply, this is about the way people react to extreme change or a prolonged situation (good or bad) through a dulling-down of the situation’s effects, allowing people to adapt to that change and the new world they are taken into. Within a film, this is closely linked to plot twists and turns and Horror is probably a good example of how this can be used to raise the stakes throughout the development of the plot.
Early on, a writer may introduce their monster via a shocking scene, jolting their character(s) out of a status quo, shaking up their complacency (very much like an inciting incident). As they adapt to this change, the writer may use this time to deliver some exposition and allow the audience to come to terms with what just happened and what is going on in the onscreen world. As soon as the characters and the audience have adjusted and become accustomed to this new, elevated reality, you can hit them with another twist/shock that bumps them up another level of awareness. And you keep doing this, ideally with more regular frequency, as you speed towards the story close, to keep raising the stakes, increasing the tension and delivering conflict through a series of revelatory shocks. You are, effectively, repeatedly lulling your audience into a false sense of security after a shock, before shaking things up in bigger and better ways.
To be honest, this is probably something that many screenwriters do already, but O’Bannon explains it all in a simple and informal way that, like the rest of his book, makes you feel he is telling YOU personally about his process. If you have been writing for years and read all “the other” books, then O’Bannon’s may not be a great revelation of “anything new” but it is a well written, easy to read exploration of some of the key aspects of screenwriting from the perspective of someone who knows how to write a screenplay. And it’s fun to read.
I’ve been thinking it was time to revisit some classics that I loved as a kid but which I haven’t watched for a while. These are the films that had a real impact on me when I saw them and influenced my love of horror. But are they as good today as they were back then?
Only one way to find out!
And where better to start than with Theatre of Blood, a film that was released the year I was born, for which I have a real soft spot and fond memories of watching many times as a youngster. I can’t remember how long it has been since I watched it, but I think of it often, and it was clearly overdue for a rewatch.
I am not sure how old I was the first time I saw it, but I don’t think I could have been much older than 11 or 12, randomly stumbling across it during a late night illicit TV session. My abiding memories are of the opening and Michael Horden being brutally stabbed to death by a load of drunks and Robert Morley’s unpleasant dinner – two scenes that have stuck with me for over 30 years.
But would they have the same impact now? Would I feel the same watching it nearly 4 decades later?
The short answer is yes, most definitely yes. While many of the scenes turn out to be a lot less graphic than my young mind remembers, they are still pretty horrific in their own way. Where they haven’t changed is in the gleeful black comedy that runs throughout the film.
Theatre of Blood is a wonderfully over the top, gaudy classic that is even better than I remembered it as a kid. Back then, I suspect my main driver for watching it was the opportunity to illicitly watch a horror film and it mattered little whether it was actually any good! Watching it now, with a wiser (I hope) head on my shoulders, I can appreciate it more deeply and fall in love with it all over again.
Vincent Price chews scenery as the bitter Shakesperean Actor, Edward Lionheart (great name) seeking pay-back on the circle of critics who beat him down until he tried to take his own life by jumping from the balcony of their riverside offices. He is saved by the local drunks who come to worship him as he plots his revenge via a number of gruesome deaths inspired by the plays of William Shakespeare. I know the film is old, but I won’t go into detail on these as they are inventive and wildly fun, (despite the dark subject matter) and I don’t want to spoil that enjoyment if you haven’t seen the film. This is the very core of Theatre of Blood; it is gruesome, bloody fun infused with an alarmingly wicked sense of humour as well an amazing all star cast, something I didn’t fully appreciate as a kid.
Alongside Vincent Price we have Diana Rigg, Ian Hendry, Harry Andrews, Carol Browne, Robert Coote, Jack Hawkins, Michael Horden, Arthur Lowe, Dennis Price, Milo OShea, Eric Sykes and Madeline Smith. Diana Dors even turns up for a very brief stint as a critics’ wife and Miss Marple herself (Joan Hickson) even gets in on the action. These are all great actors of that era and they all just seem to be having fun. The dark humour that runs through Theatre of Blood is evident as the critics get bumped off but also in the supporting characters. Eric Sykes plays Seargent Dogge whose departure from the film is both disturbing and funny and the most salacious of the critics, played by Harry Andrews is aptly named, Trevor Dickman! The brilliance of Theatre of Blood is the way that it gets you sympathising with Lionheart, rather than the critics, who really are an unpleasant group of arrogant arseholes!
Some of the humour may be a bit dated and Price’s hairdresser, Butch, or Morley’s portrayal of the gay Merridew are very much of their time and probably a bit out of touch for modern audiences. However, the jokes and humour are never spiteful or vicious and it is all at the expense of the deserving critics. Any film that involves a fencing duel across two trampolines, or credits the ‘Choreographer of meth drinkers,’ gets the thumbs up from me. Theatre of Blood knows that it is melodrama of the highest order, and it wrings every drop of fun out of that self-knowing awareness.
It is also chock full of great ideas, and has been a great influence on many film-makers and writers; it’s DNA can be seen coursing through the veins of films like Seven, for instance, where the Seven Deadly Sins replace Shakespeare’s plays to horrific effect. The Blu Ray commentary is delivered by the League of Gentlemen who love the film and have all been influenced by it. Part of me also wants to believe it influenced something like Cannibal Holocaust, although that may just be me enjoying the idea of Deodato watching the gently scored opening of Theatre of Blood and deciding to steal the idea for his film! Both films use gentle, orchestral music which belies the horror that follows, although Theatre of Blood’s grainy black and white stage deaths do foreshadow events a little more than the rainforests at the start of Holocaust.
Theatre of Blood is one of those films you discover as a kid and think you are the only one who knows about it – it is your little secret but, as you get older, and learn more about film and television, you appreciate just how wonderful it is, how influential it has been, and just how many people are in the same boat as you, adoring a classic that was made with such love and care and is truly a classic of the genre.
I will hear no harsh words against it.
I will fight you over it… on a trampoline if I have to!
It’s always going to be a 5/5 for me, possibly boosted by nostalgia, but it is a film I don’t think I would ever get tired of watching.
Amazon UK ISBN-10: 0857301179 ISBN-13: 978-0857301178
This is the first in a number of posts that I will drag up from the “archives” of my old website. Reviews and thoughts that I think are still useful or interesting. Some of the references might be a bit out of date, but the messages are the same. Enjoy!
Originally published on Mark Walker Screenwriting (and Stargazing) 18th August 2018
Well, it’s been while (again) since I posted so, as I have just finished Lucy’s book on writing diverse characters, I thought it was a good opportunity to get a post up on the old page.
Despite recent (slow) changes with films like Wonderwoman (2017),Get Out (2017) and A Wrinkle in Time (2018), the majority of mainstream media product is designed around white, middle-class males who are also most likely able-bodied and most definitely not gay. As Lucy opines in her introduction, this is frustrating, and inaccurate, when you consider a world where the majority of the population are not white, where up to 10% identify with the LGBT community, 51% are women and nearly 20% of people are living with a disability.
Changes are coming, but progress is slow. Writers and creatives have a responsibility to tell stories that are truthful (whether they are pure fiction, fact, fantasy or reality) and that can’t happen if the image of the white, middle-class, able-bodied, hetero, male hero persists. He will always have a place, hell, who doesn’t love a good Tom Cruise actioner or a bit of Bourne? But the world is a huge, mixed-bag of people, all waiting for THEIR story to be told; and audiences want to see themselves reflected on screen or in the pages of a novel. And this is what Lucy’s book is about; thinking about diversity (whether you like that word or not – read the book, you’ll see what I (Lucy) is getting at) and how we can all write better characters and stories by thinking about the norm and how we can shake it up. It’s like the process of subverting tropes – so much of the stuff we write has been done before (white male leads) but how can we shake things up and put a fresh coat of paint on it by simply thinking more about diversity?
The book itself is split into 6 sections, with the majority of the “good stuff” in the central 4 chapters (not that the rest of it is bad or anything):
Foreword
What is Diversity?
Heroes, Sheroes and Vile Villains: The Protagonist and Antagonist
Secondaries, Sidekicks and Subordinates
Peripheral Pointers
Resources
And, as you can see, the structure is all about exploring what diversity means and then looking at how that can be applied across your characters . This is not just about a token effort to make your lead diverse; it is not called a “range” of characters for the fun of it!
The advice within works equally well if you are working on a novel, or a screenplay (or any kind of writing that requires character development) and explores the current “white standard” characters that we are all very familiar with, promoting consideration of how those characters can be traded up to embrace more diversity, or, if you like, more reality, when considering the make-up of the world around us.
However, this book is not just a primer for discussing diversity, although it does a very good job at that. It is, actually, a great introduction to the art of writing in itself. It may not go into the detail of structure and concept like Vogler, Field or McKee (all men!) do, but it does provide a good grounding in what is definitely one of (if not the) most important components of a good story – Character. If you have never read a screenwriting book before, this wouldn’t be a bad place to start. While understanding structure is vital, understanding your audience and how your characters affect story and create sympathy and empathy with your audience is just as important, and Lucy gives you a crash course in how to do this in her book.
Lucy V. Hay is a novelist, script editor and blogger who helps writers via her Bang2write consultancy, as well as her writing workshops and courses.
Bang2write has read 20K+ spec screenplays, unpublished novels and pitch material over the last 17 years as a script reader and script editor.
Well, it was Halloween last Sunday and The Thing is probably in my top 10 movies of all time! There is no denying that it’s a classic and I was excited to get my hands on a copy of the new 4K UHD remaster. I treated myself to the collector’s edition which includes the 4K UHD, the Blu Ray, The Thing (2011) Blu Ray and the Soundtrack CD alongside art cards, a poster and a booklet containing storyboards, photos, and a script excerpt. It’s a nice package and Monkey was very happy to model it.
I am not going to review the movie, that has been done a thousand times before and we all know this is a belter. It currently sits at 8.1 on IMDB which is a damn good score for a horror film! I just wanted to talk about the experience of watching the 4K release and about sharing one of my favourite horrors with the kids! I saved the first viewing of the new disc until Halloween so I could share it with them, and all enjoy it together. They both sat silently through it, glued to the screen, so they either loved it, were terrified into silence or, hopefully, a little bit of both!
The odd minor spoiler may appear from here on in but, as we are talking about a 40-year-old movie, hopefully you won’t hold it against me!
We all know the premise. A bunch of guys holed up at an Antarctic Research Station fall foul of an alien being that has the power to move between and replicate hosts, so no one is ever quite sure who is still human. As they fight back the bodies inevitably pile up in some of the most amazing and memorable set-pieces ever in a horror movie. The blood test scene is still a favourite and the tension that builds is amazing, even for someone who has seen it countless times. I can safely say that my wife nearly went through the roof with that pay-off which was worth the price of the disc in itself!
So how does the film stack up after all these years? Has it buffed up well on 4k UHD? For someone who has had it on multiple formats, including VHS, DVD, BLU RAY and now 4K I can safely say that yes, yes it does. It has never looked this good. The Arrow Blu Ray that I bought most recently already looks great; the picture is a big step up from the DVD and has a great soundtrack, but the 4K disc just pushes things a step further.
4K isn’t just about increased resolution, however. Although that helps tease out details that you have never noticed before, it is the remastering and HDR image/colour presentation that can make so much difference as well. I won’t pretend to know about all the different formats and differences between them, but the HRD 10 presentation on the UHD disc was an eyeopener on The Thing.
I am a bit sad and enjoy watching videos like the one below that compares various formats of films to show how things have changed over the years. The differences are subtle, but you can see how the 4K images just feel warmer and clearer, despite sometimes appearing to be slightly darker. Even so, there is an increase in clarity and detail that can only be appreciated by watching it on a 4k display. The video below won’t do full justice to the image, but they do give you an idea.
A lot of it will, of course, be down to personal preference, but the detail in the image and the HDR presentation certainly made The Thing even more of a joy to watch than usual. There were a couple of scenes which looked a little soft and the image retains much of the grain that was in previous versions, but these do not detract from the film as a whole, and many scenes look just as fresh as the day they were originally shot, even if the technology in the film is looking a little dated!
I have found some of the monster scenes, such as with the dogs at the start of the film and in the climactic scenes, to be a little dark in previous versions, making it harder to make out what is going on, but the UHD version improves on this immensely. I am convinced I was seeing new details in many scenes. If anyone is still wondering about whether Childs is breathing in the final moments of the film, the 4K presentation will clear up any confusion!
The proof of the step-up in quality was tested a few minutes before the end of the film when the UHD disc decided it was going to be corrupted and we lost image stability and sound. I had to switch over to the Blu Ray and, while the image was still good, the step back in quality was marked. The images of the monster in the tunnels under the research station were lost in darkness and the detail disappeared in the aggressive shadow.
Amazingly, I put in a return request to Amazon and a new disc arrived the next day, which is great service… and I have been able to check out the last few minutes in 4K! And they don’t disappoint.
So it looks great, but how does it sound? Again, in short, it sounds fantastic. While the Blu Ray has an excellent DTS Master Audio soundtrack, the UHD includes a DTS X soundtrack which I pushed through the amp into a 7.1 arrangement. The sound of the Norwegian chopper is handled very well at the start of the film and the gunshots and grenade explosions were suitably punchy and spatially distinctive. It was just as effective in the quieter scenes and the Ennio Morricone theme sounds fantastic whenever it comes on. Obviously, you won’t get the full advantage of this without the additional speakers, but if you do have them, use them, you won’t be disappointed. The aforementioned blood test scene switches effortlessly from tense quiet to a cacophony of yelling and shouting as the alien’s blood is discovered, and the great sound design is what helped almost give my wife a coronary at the same time! Interestingly the kids were unfazed. Although my youngest jumped a little at the blood test scene, I think she was mostly shocked by her mother’s reaction.
One of the most impressive things about The Thing are the effects from Rob Bottin. For a 40-year-old film full of practical effects, it holds up extremely well. Some of the stop-motion effects look a little dated but, as a fan of Harryhausen films growing up, I love that sort of thing and, most importantly, the kids didn’t bat an eyelid at them. A few other older films we have watched recently, don’t hold up so well and, while I see them as classics, the kids tend to laugh at them when the poor effects get shown up by HD/4K remasters. The Thing has no such trouble, and the effects are still wonderfully visceral, shocking, and gory; Norris’ head sliding off the table is still an amazing set-piece.
The Thing is an incredible film, and I don’t think I will ever get tired of watching it. If you have a UHD display and player, then it is a no brainer to own a copy and a “normal” version is available if you don’t want the full-on collector’s edition. There are a lot of special collector’s editions arriving as new films are remastered in 4K and they can be a bit expensive. However, at £40 this package is decent value as you do also get The Thing (2011), the soundtrack CD and the other visual treats, so a good package all round and worth buying the film for the umpteenth time. The normal version is around £20
If you have never seen The Thing, I can’t recommend it enough and it is a treat whatever format you watch it on, so go out and get a copy or stream it now and experience the ultimate in alien terror.
Dark Mark Writing 