CHERRY FALLS script review

 

Just finished reading the screenplay for one of my favorite horror films: Cherry Falls.

This is a film I saw in college (fall of my junior year) when it premiered on the USA network.

Later I bought it on a barebones double-feature DVD with a John Ritter movie called Terror Tract. That was the only way you could buy it at the time. I lived with that DVD from 2001 to 2016, when I found out that Scream Factory released it on special edition Blu-ray.

Anyhow, now I try to show that movie to anyone who is willing to watch it.

I think it by far the best of the 90’s-00’s post-modern slasher “revival”.

At any rate, the script is not very good.

I realize that it was written in 1998 and that the film didn’t even get released until late 2000 (and who knows when it was filmed), but there are just lots of sloppy, careless mistakes in it.

 

For instances…

 

Misspellings and missing words:

JODY

You going to drag me out and me in my room until I go to college?

 

Telling, not showing (especially when it relates to characters’ interior thoughts and feelings… all of which should be visually or verbally expressed in some way on screen… not on the page for only the actors and crew to read):

Brent feels terribly guilty about what he did to Lisa Sherman, but also terribly relieved that he'll never have to face her. It's been a long time since he's confronted his hidden past. He puts his gun away.

 

 

 

 

And improperly formatted scenes:

 

Here the person talking on the phone (on the other line; the person in the phone conversation who is unseen) should have “(O.S.)”, “off screen”, beside their name in the script to indicate that they are heard, but not seen).

 

BRENT

IT'S LISA SHERMAN. But she still looks like we're eighteen.

 

 

TOM

(on phone)

That's impossible.

 

 

Here is an improperly formatted montage:

 

INT. HOUSE

 

A kid raided his parent's liquor cabinet, pouring five different types of liquor into a pickle jar.

 

ANOTHER HOUSE

 

Another kid raids his parents stash, grabbing a handful of buds.

 

A THIRD HOUSE

 

A third kid raided his parents medicine cabinet. Lots of barbiturates in this house.

 

MONTAGE - OTHER HOUSES

 

Kids are climbing out their windows, climbing down trees and sheet ropes, trying to get out, sometimes being chased and caught by their parents. One kid is locked in his room, another driven far from town. everyone's grounded but everyone's going to the party any way.

 

 

 

I don’t know.

 

Another thing: there are scenes in the script that were cut from the film (thankfully, as they are very cheesy and detract from the ingenuity, wit and social/cultural commentary of the film), there are scenes that are different in the film (Jody’s confrontation with her mother about her father’s past takes place outside the library instead of at their kitchen table) and whole characters (Jody’s gay male friend who works for the school paper) are missing.

 

There are many differences.

 

But I guess what troubles me is that this writer (Ken Selden, who, according to IMDB, has only written three things that have been produced) used this script to garner interest in this project. Despite this script being fairly cheesy (more on that in a moment) and having so many typos and mistakes, and despite this script breaking so many of the established screenwriter rules, it still managed to catch the eye of producers and get made.

 

Astounding.

 

And, much like the fourth draft of Michael Miner and Eduard Neumeier’s RoboCop script, it really feels like this idea (Cherry Falls) was not fully formed when this script was written. It feels like the ideas (and scenes… and dialog… and characters… and action) was not fully realized to its most stylish and layered potential until the script underwent a few more drafts and probably a very talented director and producer made the script what it could have been, not necessarily what was on the page at that time.

 

My brother once (in a rare showing of support and kinship) commented that his and my first drafts were probably better than most people’s third or fourth drafts.

I think now that I agree.

 

After I got done writing my script Flatdog back in 2008, I immediately went back and edited it and smoothed out the kinks that I ignored when writing it (in a feverish haze over spring break of 2008). Not to sound arrogant, but that script was closer to perfect (or, at least, more polished) than a lot of produced scripts I have read.