Film Courage: Can you explain the three elements of creating a horror movie?
Brooks Elms, Screenwriter/Writing Mentor: It’s a great question. That comes from Blake Snyder’s [Author of Save The Cat] idea about the monster in the house because Blake has this really wonderful, elegant way of thinking about genre that’s different than what most people think about genre. When most people think about genre they think of sci-fi or western or horror or this or that or the other and Blake was like Well that doesn’t really help you write a screenplay. What’s a way of thinking about genre, a way of unified elements that’s gonna keep you focused on what matters for you to create a screenplay with core elements that has the tuning fork that sounds like wonderful expression of that genre? One of my favorites is that monster in the house genre and that requires a monster of some sort, right? But it need not be supernatural, could even be like a psychopath or something terrible and then a house that’s confined the protagonist so that they can’t get away…(Watch the video interview on Youtube here).
Film Courage - Empowering Creatives 