I Walk Away Like a Movie Star, Who Gets Burned in a Three Way Script

Raced to Dayton after work, and flattered to sign my name 100 times on the Special Edition Blu-Ray/DVD Combo of ALONE IN THE GHOST HOUSE, a found footage movie I wrote a few years ago getting a second life.  You can order it right here.  I promise more interesting people than me also signed it.

From the Brim to the Dregs

This blog post first appeared, in a slightly different form, in my e-newsletter I WAS BIGFOOT'S SHEMP, which you can subscribe to in my sidebar.

My day life is keeping my night life at bay, so I have not had much to report from the screenwriting world.  A movie I wrote, ALONE IN THE GHOST HOUSE, is now loose in the world and available on various platforms.  It is a "found footage" movie I sometimes forget I worked on because it came together so quickly, and because I wrote more of a long outline for it than a full-formed script.  I think it will surprise people because the spine is tighter than a lot of found footage films and when the dominoes start falling it hangs together pretty nicely.  But watch it and let me know what you think.

I had my 50th birthday two weeks ago, which I took off from work this year to contemplate my mortality.  I went to see SUICIDE SQUAD in the middle of a Tuesday afternoon and was the youngest person at the multiplex and the only one at the screening, a weird feeling.  As a guy who owned a signed copy of John Ostrander's SUICIDE SQUAD #1 (that he signed for me at a Muncie Indiana comic book shop in the 80s) I didn't hate the movie like a lot of hardcore fans but didn't like it much either, with my invisible keyboard in my head righting all of the mistakes.

Regrets at 50?  One is that I sold that signed SUICIDE SQUAD #1 when I was broke.  Otherwise, a lot to think about but more good than bad.  Only about two years ago neither of my kids were married, I had no grandkids, I did not live on five acres in the country, and I did not know I had Type II Diabetes and thus was 65 pounds heavier.  Adding and subtracting everything, the sum total was all good.

For many years I have used my birthday to think about whether I want to keep screenwriting another year.  My brother thinks this is a foolish exercise but I think it is as good a time as any to measure the barometer of my work.  A lot of good has happened this year in meeting people and making connections--including a possible appearance at the Chicago Horror Society later this year, after dropping in on Henrique Couto's BABYSITTER MASSACRE screening a month ago--but a lot of projects have bottomed out.  I have turned down some work lately, including the sequel to a movie I wrote some years ago, but several other projects I thought were sure things haven't taken off.  I got booted off a project not that long ago, which has rarely ever happened (one memorable time I found out when my name disappeared off the IMDB listing) and since then I have had to do a lot more rewrites than I am used to.

I don't think it's about regaining my mojo, it's more about finding the projects that need the mojo I have.  I'm about 15 years down the road from my first screenplay sale, have a dozen movies out and have sold more than 30 screenplays (I need to actually stop and count this more carefully) which is a good track record by any standard in the industry.  So I can be selective about what I want to do next and in what form that might take.

In the meantime, my August pick for my book club is NINEFOX GAMBIT by Yoon Ha Lee.  Basically this is about a soldier tasked with the suicidal mission of re-taking an impenetrable fortress overrrun by heretics--all while psychically linked to the ghost of a genocidal general--but the world-building is so dense and baroque it took me at least thirty or forty pages before I understood a sentence of what was going on.  But when I got into its strange rhythms I found it to be a really good military-flavored sci fi novel.

I've fallen into a bit of a show hole for television, but did enjoy FORTITUDE until it kind of unraveled at the end; by and large, about a murder that Stanley Tucci investigates at a very remote Arctic town.  Waiting for new seasons to start, IRL and on TV.

Talk again soon.

When My Eyes Beheld An Eerie Sight

A version of this post first appeared on my email newsletter, I WAS BIGFOOT'S SHEMP, which you can subscribe to here.


ALONE IN THE GHOST HOUSE, a found footage movie I wrote and keep forgetting I ever worked on, is streeting this summer.  Some news about that, including a trailer, is here.

This is a big-assed posted for the movie, parked at Cinema Wasteland last weekend:

Look how big my name is!

I have always wanted to go to Wasteland, one of the big shows in our world, but little things keep getting in the way, like I have to pack up my entire life and move in the next 30 days or so.  But shows like Wasteland is how I got started in the b-movie world; going out and meeting people and showing them I was a relatively normal, functioning person that could be reasoned with, and playing the long, long game on building relationships and trust.  Surrounding yourself with people you can trust is how it works in this world and plenty of others.  And everyone hopes that when somebody catches the rocket, they will pull everyone else along for the ride.

It has been fun seeing on the interwebs that people bought ALONE IN THE GHOST HOUSE and have been watching it.  If you have it, I hope you enjoy it.

There's A Red House Over Yonder

A found footage movie I wrote, "Alone in the Ghost House," will be debuting Friday June 5 at 10 p.m. at the Englewood Cinema in Englewood, Ohio.  I wrote it so quickly, and it was produced so quickly, I keep forgetting that I worked on it.  And now here it is.  I didn't write a script per se as I did about a 30-page extended treatment with some dialogue and situations and a lot of plotting and character breakdowns.  Astoundingly, it is pretty much all in there, thanks to some good acting and improv work (and some hella editing).  Plenty of chills, even though I pretty much knew what was going to happen.  I think it's a cool entry in the found footage subgenre, but check it out for yourself.

Our House is a Very Very Very Fine House

I seem to be lucky with movies that have "House" in the title in 2014.  Here's a trailer for "Alone in the Ghost House," a found footage movie I did with Henrique Couto.  I think it was a bit of an experiment for both of us.  I really wrote more of an extended outline--maybe 30 pages--with the spine of a story and bits of dialogue and characterization.  Henrique worked with a close group of actors and extrapolated it out from there.  I'm not sure if anyone knew how it would turn out, but the cut I saw of it is pretty dangalang scary.  Remember, it's called a "found footage" movie, not a "one guy survives and brings the tapes back" movie.

My return from exile has been pretty fruitful, in my opinion, with "Meateaters," "Haunted House on Sorority Row" and "Scarewaves" all coming out, and "Alone in the Ghose House" and "Amityville Death House" on the books for 2015 release.  A crazy time.

Until later you can catch me at johnoakdalton@hotmail.com.