Customer Reviews

Screamplays

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The previous reviewers perhaps bought this volume by mistake, possibly not realizing that screenplays are a different sort of reading experience than regular fiction. I found the screenplays in this volume to be entertaining and quite professional. All of the authors are experienced writers, many with multiple produced screenplay credits.

Not one of these stories was the least bit frightening. Some of them are so jaw-droppingly bad I can't believe the authors actually allowed them to be published without using pen names. Many of these screenplays bear all the marks of first-time screenwriters: boring protagonists, antagonists acting without any apparent motivation, page after page of dull padding... I can't list even the obvious problems in the 1000 words I'm allowed here. The writing styles range from Stephen King's "creative asides" which attempt to educate the reader in the art of screenwriting by telling us what to write instead of showing us, to Ed Gorman's rip-off of William Goldman's style (next time he should rip off a decent story, too). In all, the book includes four feature-length scripts, two shorts, and one 50 pager. In the title for this review I said "Six awful screenplays;" the seventh is a short by Harlan Ellison which isn't exactly horror, but it's a cute little murder story with a surprising yet inevitable ending. That and Dean Koontz's introduction are the high points of this book.

I bought this book, but sent it back immediately. Unless you're a screenplay-writing-student, this book is of little value to you. It literally goes like this:

Man screams: AARGH! Woman cries: What are you doing? Couple leaves room.

All in all: think carefully if this is what you need. Don't buy it just for the scary cover!