Screenwriting: A Lost Art

The Girl and I enjoy scary movies. At one point in time, you used to be able to see a movie that was actually suspenseful. Session 9 is one film that comes to mind. But, it seems recently that when a movie touts itself to be some sort of horror/thriller/suspense movie, it invariably turns out to be a dumb/contrived/shitty movie.

The problem, however, doesn't seem to be that these are bad ideas. Most of these sort of movies actually start out pretty good. They have a good setup, they develop ideas in a decent manner, and then comes the resolution, which is the part that blows. They get to a certain point in the story and don't know how to end it. It's like they go, "Well, shit, how 'bout we...fuck, have it rain frogs or something?" Bad endings kill movies (witness Unbreakable), and they seem to love to kill 'em.

Let's take three recent examples. In White Noise, you have a man who learns how to communicate with his dead wife, and she begins to tell him about people who are going to die. In The Forgotten, you have a grieving mother who fights to remember her dead son, while all evidence of his existence slowly disappears. In Hide and Seek, you have a man who moves his daughter to upstate New York after his wife commits suicide, only to have the daughter create a homicidal imaginary friend. Now, these are all good setups, and I'm sure there are good movies in there somewhere. What we end up with are movies that have us screaming, "Oh, come the fuck on!" during the resolution. The Forgotten would have been much better if they had made Julianne Moore's character actually be dillusional, instead of coming up with the real reason for her son's disappearance. While watching White Noise, once I figured out where the movie was going, I concocted an ending in my head that seemed to logically and formulaically follow the storyline. I was surprised when the movie didn't actually end this way, but, unfortunately, the ending I came up with was better. And Hide and Seek had a plot so similar to another movie (who's name I won't reveal to protect the ending) that I'm surprised it wasn't called Secret Window 2 (WHOOPS!!).

Is screenwriting actually a lost art? Have writers actually lost the ability to make a decent film? No, I don't think so. I think it's got a lot to do with the people who actually watch the movies. Ya see, the filmgoing public, in general, is too stupid to wrap their heads around some ideas. It's confusing and disturbing for people to imagine that a little girl would be so troubled that she would act out the homicidal impulses of her imaginary friend; it's much safer to just have dad have a psychotic break and do it for her. People go to the movies to be entertained, not to think. It's much easier and more profitable to just throw some shit up on the screen that people might enjoy, than it is to come up with something thought-provoking or maybe a little scary. Now, maybe I'm coming off as a little snobbish, like I've got everything figured out, or that I'm some sort of movie genius ("Where's your screenplay, asshole?"). But there are movies that have me scratching my head in bafflement from time to time (watch Polanski's Chinatown, and see how many IQ points you lose trying to figure that out). But that's what I want: movies that make me think, so that I have something to discuss with other people when they talk about the film, rather than just say, "Wow, that was gay."

So, Screenwriters of America: stop bitching out your stories. Go for the hard ending, the one that might hurt some feelings. It may piss 95% of filmgoers off, but it sure would make me happy.