Movie Genre Alchemy
Check out this upcoming free webinar hosted screenwriter Tom Benedek.
Check out this upcoming free webinar hosted screenwriter Tom Benedek.
Genre is not a pigeon hole. Every script fits into one or more genres. If your draft is unclassifiable, it’s avant garde, art film or indie. Horror movies have the most clearly designated sub-genres: slasher, psychological horror, splatter, found footage, etc.. Subjecting your script project to genre scrutiny can be a clarifying experience.
You may not realize you are writing within a specific genre or straddling two or three. By identifying and considering those niches, you may find a better balance of tones as well as some random inspiration.
It’s not about diminishing originality. It may mean calibrating to the expectations the script sets forth in the first pages. Audiences make conscious and unconscious assumptions once they realize what kind of film they are in for.
Get Out blends genres masterfully — Both a psychological horror film and a film of social commentary with doses of humor. Within the familiar horror genre framework, Jordan Peele offers a profound commentary on the Black experience.
Get Out opens with a teaser featuring some paranoia from a black character lost in suburbia, some light sexual banter, a mysterious kidnapper.
The story of Andre and all elements of the teaser are called back and explained later in the film.
The teaser insinuates what is to follow. Familiar “defenseless person/hostage trapped in house by bad/crazy people” story elements unfold. These genre mechanics are meshed with evocative expression of black social discomfort, white racism, unconscionable cultural appropriation.
But it’s still a horror flick:
The hot girlfriend.
Scary jolts.
Funny, somewhat nerdy sidekick.
The protagonist’s dog.
An insane and horrific pack of antagonists.
Hypnotism.
Some gore.
Things spinning out of control.
Mayhem in Act III.
And a laugh as the credits role.
All signaled in the first pages.
We’ll be expanding upon this further in my Free Online Class this Saturday at noon Pacific
ALCHEMIZING THE CROSS GENRE SCRIPT- CASE STUDY- GET OUT
It should be fun. Do join us. Or sign up to get the replay and watch it when you have time.
And check out my one-week online class — Craft: The First 15 Pages