When I was a kid, my parents joined a church for a few years (we moved around a lot). One of the stipulations for membership was that you weren’t allowed to go to movies. This period, between The Empire Strikes Back and The Karate Kid Part 2, is known as the Lost Years. Towards the end of that dry spell, home video became a thing. And we as a family decided movies were just too good to maintain such a heavy moratorium.
To this day, I find it ironic that my first foray into this thing called the Writing Adventure began in screenwriting. I can look back and see the appeal – screenplays are storytelling at its most basic, with rules that should not be broken. Once I got the hang of it, I had a lot of fun. Of course, I sometimes wonder if, even in my comfortable middle age, I’m trying to rebel against that church and its crazy rules. I’m pretty certain that’s not the case. Like, 76%.
Recently Receased
(For image attributions, please go the Recently Receased blog.)
This script was a Second Rounder in the 2016 Austin Film Festival, and probably my favorite script to date. Zombie comedies are everywhere now, and some are quite good. I’ve never seen one as a mockumentary, though. Evan Fitzevan is a zombie who believes he’s normal, and must prove it to the government, or else be deported to Miami, the site of the nation’s only zombie preserve. The zombie apocalypse, you see, was kind of a non-event.