THE MAKING OF A WRAP AROUND STORY;

THE HORROR SEASONS: ANGELICA

BY WILLIAM PATTISON

Writing this wrap around story was an unexpected event for me. It began around February 13th when I got an email from Greg Tiderington telling me that he and Shawn Buffington, the director, had dropped their original wrap around story for their horror anthology film, THE HORROR SEASONS, and were planning to try and alter my story THE DARKEST SECRET to use as the new wrap around story.

I must say I was appalled by the idea. I'd written THE DARKEST SECRET to be exactly what it was an individual short story. I knew it would work fine as part of an anthology, but in no way would it even come close to the type of story you'd use as a wrap around story.

About a week later I got another email from Shawn asking me if I could send him some notes on the damned spirit characters from THE DARKEST SECRET because he thought he could somehow use these characters as links for the stories.

I told Shawn about my reservations about his and Greg's plan and told him that I'd come up with an appropriate wrap around story so that they wouldn't have to butcher my story. Shawn agreed, but told me that he would need a script really fast because he required that all the remaining scripts be ready and submitted in less than a month.

Now, I've watched nearly every horror anthology film ever made, from the original TALES FROM THE CRYPT film(1968 English) to the most recent (and dreadful) CAMPFIRE TALES. After viewing all these films I've learned something about the rules by which these kinds of films operate.

Though there have been anthologies that have no wrap around story at all,anthologies that reflect a particular theme, like THE HORROR SEASONS, need a wrap around story to present a framework for the individual stories to work from. In the case of THE HORROR SEASONS what I realized we needed was a wrap around story that would put across the idea that these were stories in which the particular season the story takes place has an affect on the story itself. Therefore, what I needed was a story that would allow me to introduce these stories as well as establishing the seasonal theme.

Originally, I came up with the idea of four people, each a representative one of the four stories, leaving their class reunion and heading to get some coffee when they come across a house with a sign outside that reads, MADAM MORGANA: FORTUNE TELLER. The four people enter and are told their futures (the stories) by the mysterious Madam Morgana, who in the end turns to actually be the Mama Alice character from THE DARKEST SECRET, and all four people end up being dead and in hell.

This idea didn't end up working for me because it failed to establish the seasonal nature of the stories. So I had to start from the drawing board, reminded of the fact that Shawn had told me I had a limited time to pull this off.

So what I did was I went through my notes and information from other projects I had scattered around in my room. My first real piece of luck came when I found the notes I had for an anthology of my own titled STREET TERROR.

In this anthology I had a story titled THE BLOOD AND THE ROSE. This story was about a burnt out prostitute who spends the night of her life on the town with a mysterious John who turns out to be a vampire and who in the end turns her into one. This story was supposed to be an introduction to a character (Professor Terrance Vance) I was planning to use in a novel/screenplay titled THE NIGHT PEOPLE. In THE NIGHT PEOPLE the character was a college professor who was a vampire and was preying on his students. In the end I realized I had found the character that would be the driving force for my wrap around story, or you could say he found me.

Anyway, I dug out my notes for THE NIGHT PEOPLE and had another inspiration.THE NIGHT PEOPLE opens up with the discovery of the body of a student named Angelica Price. Something in my notes struck me and I knew that the events leading up to Angelica Price's death would be the perfect wrap around story. I'd put in my notes that Angelica had been a bit of a book worm and that she was a big fan of Professor Vance's writing. In my mind I imagined Professor Vance catering to this girl's fan worship and drawing her into his trap like any experienced predator would.

The rest came easily. In my original story Professor Vance was teaching a class in classic fiction. I knew it would be just as reasonable that he could also teach a workshop on creative writing, specifically one dealing with seasonal horror stories. And, why couldn't I have four of the main characters from the stories attend the class as well as Angelica. Thus, I could use Professor Vance to introduce the stories.

With this in mind I quickly, in about an hour, wrote up a treatment for the wrap around story which I titled ANGELICA after, of course, the main female character in it. Then I sent it to Shawn to see what he thought of the idea and to see if he gave his ok to continue and write the screenplay.

A couple days later I got an email from Shawn saying that he'd shown the treatment to the producer, Samantha Seltenrich, and that they both liked the idea. So the next day I after I got home from work I immediately started to write the script.

The first thing I came up with as I started to write was that we really needed to get to know Angelica so that when she is murdered the audience has a real reaction. Thus I added in Angelica's friend Janice. It is through Janice we learn that Angelica is a bit of a book worm and has had very little experience getting close to men. To be exact the only “men” Angelica has dated are total geeks. It is also through Janice that we learn that Angelica has a “sort of” crush on Professor Vance. And, most importantly it is through Janice that we learn of murders of the six girls and the danger that Angelica will be putting herself in by acting on her crush and attending Professor Vance's creative writing workshop.

The character of the stutterer Derrick amazingly came out of thin air. It came while I was writing the back and forth between Janice and Angelica about going to the workshop. I realized Angelica would need a male friend to escort her, simply because I knew the character of Janice would never even consider letting her friend endanger herself without one. So the name Derrick popped into my mind. But it was an instance when a character takes on a life of it's own that really brought Derrick to life. It was the moment when the Janice character calls him 'DDDerrick'. I didn't consciously come up with that, it just came out, and thus Derrick came stuttering into life.

Then came the policeman. I originally put him in because I really needed to show that there was a police presence on the college campus. Later, I realized I could use the policeman to establish the reason why the police hadn't been able to catch Professor Vance. Thus, I added the return of the policeman and Professor Vance using his will power on him.

Thus, I come to Professor Vance. I had absolutely no problem writing him. This character had been in my life off and on for the last five years. I have never in all that time actually shelved the idea of doing THE NIGHT PEOPLE as/or a novel/screenplay. The same can also be said of THE BLOOD AND THE ROSE. I've constantly been thinking of this character, coming up with little historical tidbits, ideas on his background, appearance,and, of course, his personality. To put it simply I know this character like he was family. If anything actually seeing him relating to other characters on the page was the major thrill of this endeavor.

Then, of course, came bringing in and introducing the characters from the stories.In regard to the first introduction I had little trouble since I wrote THE DARKEST SECRET and knew who to bring in(Gareth) and how to write his character. I instinctually brought in the reverend character from SATAN CLAWS because he seemed to be the most vocal character from what I read of the synopsis of story. The way I played the character on the page actually came from how Professor Vance, as a vampire, played off him. In regard to the character from the fourth story I was lucky in that the main character in that story was clearly the son. In regard to how I wrote him it was all touch and feel, since the synopsis didn't really give me any clues as to his personality. What I ended up doing was to use one word (confidence) and having that define the character and how he acted. It was the character from the fourth story that was really the problem child for the project.

You see, what Shawn gave me for material to use to write the character and introduction was simply this:

The fourth story is a sort of Romeo and Juliet story with (Michael) as Romeo and Juliet (Esther) an abused wife.

Not much to go on at all.So I went to Greg Tiderington's “Official” THE HORROR SEASONS website to see if his site could give me anything to go on. His site had that the story was about a woman trying to find out who her stalker was. Now, I was really confused. I decided to use the Esther character, even though I wasn't really sure she was the main character in the story. I wrote some minor scenes, but it became blatantly clear I'd need to know more about the story to even have a hope of writing any kind of introduction. So I sent Shawn an email explaining my problem and asking for information.

As I waited for information I wrote around the Esther character and managed to finish the end of the screenplay. Then finally, two days later I got the information from Shawn and managed to write in the introduction to the fourth story as well as add more details to the Esther character. Amazingly, this only took me twenty minutes.

Thus, having the script finally finished (it took me five days)I emailed it to Shawn.

The next day Shawn sent me an email telling me he like the script. I was thrilled.

Thus, you have the story of how I wrote this wrap around story. I hope you've found it interesting and enlightening.....

T.T.F.N.

William Pattison

San Mateo, Ca, USA

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