FrankenScript :: Lee Gabel's Screenwriting Journal/Blog

Here’s a low budget film that doesn’t look like it. Every dollar is up on screen and invested in the story. The screenwriter and actor Leigh Whannell (he plays Specs in the film) stated at the Toronto Film Festival that he had a list of horror cliches posted next to his computer so he would [...]

Be warned. This movie is  not for the faint of heart. It is extremely violent and gory, and although the violence portrayed is equally against both men and women, the story thread feels focused more on violence against women. This will be the deal breaker for some. I think the story still would have stood [...]

Damn. As a fan of Stephen King, I wanted to like this film/mini series. A lot. But when I lost count of the number of horror clichés used in the first 15 minutes, I resigned with a heavy heart that this was going to be a long, hard haul. In fact, I only stuck through [...]

This is a remake of the brilliant Norwegian film Let The Right One In (and based on the novel of the same name). I have no idea why this was remade, except maybe for those in North America who can’t or are too lazy to read subtitles. There’s a lot of that going around Hollywood [...]

Everything that made the first two chapters of this trilogy are missing from this weak, paint-by-numbers effort. Every attempt to destroy the Damien Thorne is thwarted effortlessly… but the movie has to end, right? That means the last attempt will succeed. But it’s not so much that he’s so powerful, it’s that I didn’t believe [...]

I was asking myself how can one possibly top John Carpenter’s 1982 classic The Thing, which is a remake of the 1951 film The Thing from Another World? I loved Carpenter’s version. The filmmakers had a tall order to fill with this prequel and I’m pleased to say this film is filled with all the [...]