Category Archives: scriptwriting

VRYKOLAX folk-horror script wins Special Prize at Tallinn

My folk-horror screenplay VRYKOLAX was selected for development by the European Genre Forum. After workshops in Zagreb, Amsterdam and Tallinn, it was pitched at the Black Nights Film Festival in Tallinn, where it won the Special Mention Prize. It’s now being pitched further afield.

VRYKOLAX tells the story of a troubled British artist who tries to find the truth about his family on a remote Mediterranean island, where the locals are in fear of a Vrykolax, a revenant from Greek folklore which returns from the dead to wreak havoc on its relatives. The Vrykolax or Vrykolakis is in some ways similar to the more familiar vampire, although reports predate the Slavic vampire by several centuries.

The script is co-written with the film’s director, Achilleas Gatsopoulos. The producers are Minos Nikolakakis and Vassilis Economou.

If you are a potential investor and would like to know more, a pitchdeck is available. Please get in touch here.

In which the Writer adapts a bestseller for the screen – and can’t tell anyone.

You may sometimes stumble across descriptions of movie projects that state “story kept under wraps”. They may even just call the project “Untitled”. I’ve always found such posts annoying.

And now I’m doing that very thing myself. Ah, irony. Right now I’m under contract to adapt a bestselling novel for a producer in the UK. A producer who can walk the project into a major US production company. A production company that has links to two major directors.

Which is why I can’t say anything other than “story kept under wraps” and the project is “Untitled”. All I can say is, it’s a wonderful, epic story, and working on it has been a pleasure.

Will the project get greenlit? Who knows? But I’d really, really like to see this get to the screen: audiences will be wowed.

In which the Writer gets a showreel

My first showreel of completed, in-development and available projects has been hatched. Check it out here.

If you’d like to know more about the available screenplays are here, or there’s one of those contact forms here.

 

Many thanks to Magnus Wake of Encaptivate! for the edit.

Further thanks to the copyright holders for permission to use their material.

In which the Writer attends the Berlin Film Festival

The Berlinale (Berlin Film Festival) and the associated European Film Market are collectively the most important European film business event after Cannes. I’ll be there this year, jointly pitching some horror and sci-fi projects with several producers from the UK, Canada and Italy, and also looking to make contacts for my own genre spec scripts. If you’re attending the EFM 2018 and want to meet up, send me a message via the contact page or LinkedIn.

In which the writer becomes a Screenwriter in Production…

The supernatural thriller feature I was hired to rewrite, FIRST AND ONLY, has started filming in Edinburgh. Psychics! Serial killers! MI5!

This means I am officially a screenwriter in production.

screenwriter, film production

Announcement on First and Only Facebook page

You can follow the progress of the production at https://www.facebook.com/firstonlymovie/?pnref=story

In which my horror script THE DEVIL’S ANSWER is optioned…

Very pleased to report that my contained supernatural horror THE DEVIL’S ANSWER has been optioned by Two Tribes, a production company based in Los Angeles.

The logline: In a remote, snowbound prison run by a totalitarian regime, a dedicated torturer starts to believe that his mysterious, single prisoner is the Devil himself.

The Devil's Answer

The script was found on InkTip. Two Tribes are a new production company, and are now raising finance for a slate of three films including THE DEVIL’S ANSWER.

This is my second option this year for a low-budget horror screenplay.

To Hollywood and beyond!