Hello again, horror aficionados! I’m happy to share ScreenCraft are holding their Horror Screenplay Competition again, and I for one am rather excited this year, because I’m finally putting my internal terror aside and will be submitting something this year!
It may come as a surprise for those who know me, but not so much for those who have read my work, but I’ve always wanted to write screenplays in addition to novels. I absolutely love the format, how you can craft something complex in a relatively simple format, and how you can cut across characters and scenes so much easier than you can with novels. I tend to wrote in a fairly visual way and so when I began playing with screenwriting at uni, it came very naturally to me.
My final project for my screenwriting course was a little 15 min short film called “Eye”, and it got a high 90s score – the highest I’ve ever had in any creative class – and it holds a special place in my heart. It was a small tale of domestic horror, a man watching a horrifying incident in his own future through a live feed, his mind unravelling at the seams from what the experimental Eye satellite is showing him.
Now I face a quandary: do I revisit “Eye” and turn (or attempt to turn) my 15 min screenplay in a full 90min feature length? (Is it even possible??) Or do I write something completely new? I have a ton of story ideas, some of which I’ve discovered may be better suited for screenplay than novel or short story treatment.
Since there’s still a little while on the final dates for the competition, I’ve already begun writing the screenplay for a sci-fi/horror idea that is inspired by Alien (1979), Species, Event Horizon, and HP Lovecraft’s stories. It doesn’t have a name yet, but it is flowing beautifully so far – far better than I anticated, and probably better than if I had tried to write it in novel form.
If I have time… maybe I’ll just submit both, haha.
At worst, I don’t finish in time, but at leats I’ll have something of a draft done. At best, I may have my pick of what I think are two very solid stories that would make great films.
For anyone with a love for horror and/or screenwriting, I encourage you to enter and give it a try! Early submissions, I believe, can also get feedback from acclaimed producers for a small extra charge, which is very, very cool. It’s a rare opportunity to connect with and workshop with people in the biz.
Screencraft and other organisations run a lot of similar competitions for different genres. I encourage you who may be holding back on putting yourself out there, to just give it a go. What have any of us got to lose? Our art, our stories, are important, and they’ll never ever get discovered unless we put out fear aside and just throw it out into the void.
All of Screencraft’s competitons are listed on the Screencraft website, so check them out and see what’s out there 😄
Here’s me taking my own advice!
Happy writing!
Marcus Turner 
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