My Screenplay

[Jonathan Callan]

So I wanted to be on the boards for a little bit, make friends with all of you, before I started self-promoting. I have a screenplay. It's won a few awards. It's a horror/action kind of thing, about a group of High School misfits who find out their faculty are demonic undead. High concept pitch: it's Evil Dead 2 if it was written by Kevin Smith and Joss Whedon.

It's been pointed out to me there's a recent board obsession with Cthulu, so this should be right up your alley if interested:

http://www.writesafe.com/wscontestwinners27.html

It's the fifth down - "Hellschool High" by Jonathan Callan.

[Mattman]

It's a horror/action kind of thing, about a group of High School misfits who find out their faculty are demonic undead.
So it's The Faculty meets Evil Dead.

Incidentally, without having read it I'd say change the name.

[Thommy Melanson]

Neat.

I co-wrote a screenplay a few years back called Nuclear Alien Sharks From Beyond The Grave.

It was a scathing indictment of the geopolitical impact warring factions have on the recession economy of...

...just kidding, it was about nuclear alien sharks from beyond the grave.

Oh, and boobies.

[Jonathan Callan]

So it's The Faculty meets Evil Dead.

Incidentally, without having read it I'd say change the name.

Urgh... I hadn't seen The Faculty in ten years when I wrote the screenplay. The idea was to give Wilhelm Scream Productions (our Jersey prod. company) something easy and fun to shoot. There is a High School in every town - seemed like a good fit. Other things fell through after that, but the observation that it is similar in pitch to The Faculty has dogged me ever since.

[Mattman]

Urgh... I hadn't seen The Faculty in ten years when I wrote the screenplay. The idea was to give Wilhelm Scream Productions (our Jersey prod. company) something easy and fun to shoot. There is a High School in every town - seemed like a good fit. Other things fell through after that, but the observation that it is similar in pitch to The Faculty has dogged me ever since.
Use it to your advantage. By doing this while pitching it you acknowledge that it's similar to The Faculty while also saying you're taking the concept to another level. It's kind of like the fat dude who's really good at making fat jokes (ala Kevin Smith). Get the joke out yourself before anyone else can. There's nothing wrong with The Faculty comparison. It's a movie that's a decade old and so there's a whole new generation of kids who won't even notice.

[Jonathan Callan]

Use it to your advantage. By doing this while pitching it you acknowledge that it's similar to The Faculty while also saying you're taking the concept to another level. It's kind of like the fat dude who's really good at making fat jokes (ala Kevin Smith). Get the joke out yourself before anyone else can. There's nothing wrong with The Faculty comparison. It's a movie that's a decade old and so there's a whole new generation of kids who won't even notice.

Too true. And producers love it when you describe movies in terms of other movies they've seen. That's "high concept".

[Jonathan Callan]

Bump?