Stop Making Unnecessary Sequels!

Dear Reader,

I have just finished watching the 2013 movie The Purge. What a movie. Seriously, I don’t think I’ve watched anything quite like it before. There is certainly something different about it (here’s where you point out that there are many movies just like it) and it didn’t surprise me to learn that they are planning on making a sequel, due to the success of this first one. It was good, but was it really an idea that could spawn a sequel?

It bugs me that they decide to make a sequel to a movie that would be better left alone, particularly when all they do in some is repeat the basic story to the original, rather than continuing and advancing the story. Going back to The Purge, I don’t quite see how they are going to make a sequel off that. It covered quite a bit and we got to see the effect of the idea on society quite well. I  fear they are planning on the sequel featuring a different family and essentially experiencing the same attack, which would for me water down the effect of the first film. It was quite brilliant to show everything from the perspective of inside the house once the family had locked themselves in and really gave a good sense of isolation and claustrophobia. It was pretty darn scary – and effective. I would hate for them to shit all over the first good movie, just so they can earn a bit more money.

But, money is what it’s all about. That must be why we seem to get more book/comic adaptations than we do original movies. Not really a shocking statement, I know. Money over stories. Let’s just keep re-hashing the Twilight idea, let’s keep making Fast and Furious movies – but to be fair, they have at least got The Rock involved so that’s something. It’s the same with TV shows that get taken about a few seasons too far, each repeating the same situations or just making them progressively shitter e.g. Dexter, Prison Break, Lost…to name a few. I’m not even a huge fan of the last season of Buffy and I love that show. But by season 7, it seemed to have lost its Buffyness. A little disappointing.

So many of the screenwriting books say ‘we want the same, but different’ in regards to movies, but it seems to me that looking at  some of the movies that have been churned out recently, they have certainly been taking that a little too literally. It’s like they change just one thing and think we won’t notice what other movie they have just ripped off. I may have mentioned this before, but I hate the way so many people in the movie biz treat their audience like absolute idiots. We do actually notice these things.

Anyway, rant over (as they say). I really enjoyed The Purge and I hope they don’t shit all over the great idea, atmosphere and acting that we were offered.

Thanks for reading

xxx

One Down.

Dear Reader,

Between my last post and this, I have finished a script. It is a wonderful feeling, finally getting to the end of a story like that. It’s so fulfilling and it fills me with confidence that scriptwriting is what I can and should be doing in life.

Currently I am working on a new and fresh idea, partly inspired by the Scream movies – which I absolutely LOVE. Like seriously, I think I would count Scream as certainly being in my top 5 favourite movies. There is certainly a uniqueness to the story and the characters are stereotypes without being stereotypes. Even the sequel is good!

While I previously wrote a post about my dislike of having any sound or music on while I’m writing, I have begun to put some music on in the background. Particularly when I’m writing for a long period of time, it was nice to have something to fill the silence in between the taps on the keyboard or me hammering the ‘d’ key back into the keyboard every time it snaps off. However, I have a particular playlist which will only put me in a what I like to call ‘neutral mood’, so the type of music will not put me into a particular frame of mind and affect the mood of the scene I’m writing. Let’s just say, there is some random shit on that playlist, but it works for me, so that’s fine. What works for you? Do you have a particular artist or album that puts you in the best mood for writing?

If you happen to be reading this post and have a few seconds to spare, could you comment and rate the following movie characters on a scale of 1 – 10 (10 being terrifying) on how scary they are as characters please? I’m not talking about the way they look, more the way they act and speak.

Norman Bates Psycho

Michael Myers Halloween

Dracula Bram Stoker’s Dracula (Starring Gary Oldman, just for clarification)

Ghostface Scream

Jack Torrance The Shining

David McCall Fear

I know that last one is a bit of an ‘odd-one-out’, but just go with it. Thanks if you do take the time to rate them, it would help me out a lot!

Thanks for reading,

xxx