Horror Screenplay Structure vs Drama by Jeffrey Reddick

Film Courage: Does horror screenplay structure differ from drama?
Jeffrey Reddick, Screenwriter: I don’t necessarily think so. I mean I think all screenplays kind of follow the basic three act kind of Save The Cat [Author Blake Snyder] kind of structure.
I think the biggest taboo with horror is they do want kills pretty frequently so the standard rule is every 10 pages they want to have either a really scary scene or a kill.
“Usually the joke in horror is…What is this character’s motivation? It’s like…To get away from the guy with the knife.”
In drama it’s not like you have to have a super dramatic moment every 10 minutes. You could build the drama and you can still do that in horror as well but a lot of times the formula…I can’t tell you how many projects I’ve been on where they’re like Yeah, it’s been awhile since somebody died. Nobody has died here in awhile. You may want to throw another death in there. Then you have to add in a character to kill off.
I think comedies are very close to horror because it’s always building up to a joke and horror you are building up to a kill but with comedies it’s a lot more jokes. With horror again you have more pacing with your kills. They do all follow the same general structure. Usually the joke in horror is well What is this character’s motivation? It’s like To get away from the guy with the knife. That is pretty much it with a lot of horror.
Film Courage: It seems like FRIDAY THE 13TH there are more kills but if you look at CARRIE (which I know you brought that up) she doesn’t get her revenge until the very end which it would have been nicer to see her do it sooner. With the EXORCIST…
Jeffrey: It took a long time. And the OMEN was pretty…that’s the thing movies (and they blame it kind of on Attention Deficit Disorder now) everyone is so overtly overloaded with information that they can’t concentrate so they act like the quiet movies don’t work but then you see something like GET OUT which…(Watch the video interview on Youtube here).
