The Thriller: Scripting Seat-Gripping Suspense

THE THRILLER

SCRIPTING SEAT-GRIPPING SUSPENSE

Copyright © 2006 by Gregory G. Sarno

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Contents

INTRODUCTION

Part One

SEAT-GRIPPING SUSPENSE

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

Part Two

MYSTERY THRILLER

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

Part Three

POLICE THRILLER

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 9

Part Four

SUPERNATURAL THRILLER

CHAPTER 10

CHAPTER 11

CHAPTER 12

AFTERWORD

APPENDIX

FILMOGRAPHY

BIBLIOGRAPHY

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

INTRODUCTION

Dead of night. Legs pound pavement. Trench coat flaps on naked torso. WOMAN sprints all-out. Headlights bathe her as she lurches to a halt. She whips her head around as a car streaks past. She breaks forward. Bare feet straddle a broken lane divider. Woman waves to O.S. vehicle. She pulls up short. Blazing light envelops her as vehicle shoots closer. Whirling, she flags frantically. Vehicle roars by. She breaks forward anew. Soles slap asphalt. O.S. sight stops her cold. She peers ahead, eyes dilating, chest heaving. Two beams materialize. They zoom nearer. Woman bursts toward camera. Twin beams take dead aim. Brakes squeal. Eyes shut, Woman cringes in teeth of oncoming headlights. Medium shot of MIKE HAMMER grimacing as he jerks the wheel to his right. Long shot of sporty convertible raising a cloud of dust as it skids onto the shoulder. You almost wrecked my car, barks Hammer. Woman hovers door-side, panting convulsively. Get in, Hammer snaps. Engine kicks over. Voice-Over of NAT KING COLE crooning on car radio. Woman twists around and spots headlights to the rear. She tells Hammer to drop her off at the next bus stop. Do you always go around with no clothes on? he sneers. Before she can respond, a roadblock looms. Hammer hits the brakes. O.S. VOICE declares that a dame, draped in trench coat, fled from a mental asylum. Woman grasps Hammer’s hand, shoots him a plaintive look. TWO COPS bear down. Hammer hasn’t seen a soul, he swears, and his wife has been fast asleep. Cops wave him along.

HAMMER

So. You’re a fugitive

from the laughing house.

They forced her to go there, avows Woman, then stripped her feathers to forestall flight. Who? demands Hammer. She’s not saying, for fear of his safety. Her concern proves prophetic as they are soon forced from the road, dealt unconscious, then launched off a clifftop.

So opens the classic thriller Kiss Me Deadly. The opening achieves a helluva lot in vivid, cost-effective fashion. It sets genre and tone, introduces hero and heavies, and lays foundation for a storyline suffused with nape-prickling suspense.

Thriller. A fluid umbrella term that embraces a host of subgenres. Rarely does a screenwriter set out to draft a generic thriller. Rather, the writer typically conceives of a premise that promises to fulfil, broaden, or defy the genre expectations of an action thriller, crime thriller, erotic thriller, and suchlike—or, more ambitiously, that blends aspects of more than one genera. The following films, fodder for the present text, exemplify the range of subgenres. English-language entries precede foreign fare; a parenthetical date indicates that two or more films have screened under the same title.

Action: The Bourne Supremacy; Executive Decision; Point of No Return (1993); Speed (1994); The Transporter; Vanishing Point (1971); La

Femme Nikita [Nikita]; Nid de Guêpes [The Nest].

Action-Fantasy: Lola Rennt [Run, Lola, Run].

Crime: Carlito’s Way; Dial M for Murder; The Italian Job (2003); Jackie Brown; A Perfect Murder; Shallow Grave (1994); The Talented Mr. Ripley; Veronica Guerin; Asfalto [Asphalt]; Bangkok Dangerous; Brat [Brother]; Kaosu [Chaos]; La Mentale [The Code]; M (1931); Oligarkh

AKA

Un Nouveau Russe [Tycoon: A New Russian]; Plein Soleil [Purple Noon].

Eco: Karisuma [Charisma].

Ensemble: Crash (2005); Pulp Fiction; J’ai Pas Sommeil [I Can’t Sleep]; Was Tun, Wenn’s Brennt? [What to Do in Case of Fire?]; Winterschläfer [Winter Sleepers].

Erotic: Basic Instinct; Body Heat; Fatal Attraction; Sea of Love; Unfaithful (2002); Belle de Jour aka Bella di Giorno; Los Debutantes [The Debutants].

Espionage: The Lady Vanishes (1938); North by Northwest; Notorious (1946); The Recruit; Sabotage (1936); ¿De Qué Lado Estás? aka Auf Welcher Seite Stehst Du? [Francisca]; Demonlover; La Sentinelle [The Sentinel].

Existential: Suna No Onna [Woman in the Dunes].

Fugitive: The Bourne Identity (2002); Dark Passage; Double Jeopardy (1999); The Fugitive (1993); The Night of the Hunter; The 39 Steps (1935); Three Days of the Condor; Betty Fisher et Autres Histoires [Alias Betty]; La Corsa dell’Innocente [Flight of the Innocent]; Sin Dejar Huella [Without a Trace].

Hostage: The Boys Club; Cellular; Collateral; The Desperate Hours (1955); Die Hard; Don’t Say a Word; Firewall; Hostage (2005); Key Largo ; Lady in a Cage; The Man Who Knew Too Much (1955); The Negotiator; Panic Room; Phone Booth; Ransom (1996); Wait Until Dark; Funny Games; Io Non Ho Paura [I’m Not Scared].

Legal: The Client; The Firm (1993); The Juror; The Pelican Brief, Primal Fear; A Time to Kill (1996).

Medical: Dirty Pretty Things; Anatomie [Anatomy]; Anatomie 2 [Anatomy 2]; Qui a Tué Bambi? [ Who Killed Bambi?].

Missing Person: The Forgotten (2004); Frantic; Klute; Lantana; Feux Rouges [Red Lights]; Spoorloos [The Vanishing].

Mystery: Blood Work; Blue Velvet; Hollywoodland; Kiss Me Deadly; The List of Adrian Messenger; Murder, My Sweet; Mystic River; Rear Window (1954); Sorry, Wrong Number (1948); The Spanish Prisoner; The Third Man; True Crime (1999); Caché [Hidden]; Les Diaboliques [Diabolique].

Paranormal: Carrie (1976); Cat People (1942); Don’t Look Now; Unbreakable; Intacto [Intact]; Sobrenatural [All of Them Witches]; Yogen [Premonition].

Police: The Bone Collector; The Corruptor; Dirty Harry; The French Connection; Heat (1995); Insomnia (1997); L.A. Confidential; Out of Time (2003); Running Scared (2006); Seven (1995); The Silence of the Lambs; Thunderheart; Training Day; Witness (1985).

Political: Absolute Power; Arlington Road; Clear and Present Danger; Conspiracy Theory; The Constant Gardener; The Day of the Jackal [Chacal]; Fail-Safe (1964); In the Line of Fire; The Interpreter; The Manchurian Candidate (1962); The Manchurian Candidate (2004); Munich; The Parallax View; The Quiet American (2002); Al-Jenna-An [Paradise Now]; Días Contados [Running Out of Time]; LaLehet Al HaMayim [Walk on Water]; Mission Kashmir; O Que É Isso, Companhiero? [Four Days in September]; Theeviravaathi [The Terrorist];Z.

Psychological: The Deep End; Gaslight (1944); Hide and Seek (2005); Marathon Man; Psycho (1960); Repulsion; Rope; Single White Female; Strangers on a Train; Swimming Pool; Abre los Ojos [Open Your Eyes]; Das Experiment [The Experiment]; Kontroll [Control]; Le Salaire de la Peur [The Wages of Fear]; Solo Mia [Mine Alone].

Revenge: Cape Fear (1962); The Crow; Death Wish; Get Carter (2000); The Hand That Rocks the Cradle; Kill Bill: Vol. 2; Memento (2000); Patriot Games; The Professional [Léon]; De Zaak Alzheimer [The Memory of a Killer]; Freeze Me; La Caja 507 [Box 507]; La Mariée Était en Noir [The Bride Wore Black].

Romantic: Blood Simple; The Crying Game; A Kiss Before Dying (1991); The Lady from Shanghai; Play Misty for Me; Vertigo ; Amantes [Lovers]; Celos [Jealousy]; Diva; Sur Mes Levres [Read My Lips].

Supernatural: The Crow; Ghost (1990); The Haunting (1999); The Others (2001); The Ring (2002); The Ring Two; Rosemary’s Baby; The Sixth Sense; What Lies Beneath; White Noise; El Arte de Morir [The Art of Dying]; El Espinazo del Diablo [The Devil’s Backbone]; L’Empire de la Passion aka Ai No Borei [In the Realm of Passion]; Jian Gui [The Eye]; Ju-On [ The Grudge]; Ringu [ The Ring]*

Does this roster embody the All-Time Top 100 Thrillers? Moot question. The best any critic, filmgoer, author can do is, These are my personal favorites. Certainly, the slate features a slew of nail-biters and heart-pounders. Yet it also holds a bomb or two. And why not? A flop at the box can be worth its tonnage in platinum as a heuristic device. Nothing like a snoozer to demonstrate how not to write a thriller.

A word on classification. The boundaries aren’t etched in granite. Labels are assigned from the protagonist’s perspective. The Bourne Identity, for one, screens action galore: gunplay; pyrotechnics; fisticuffs; high-octane pursuit through promenades of Paris. It earns fugitive status on strength of memory-challenged Jason Bourne’s being on the run from his CIA handlers. Action heats up in The Bourne Supremacy, with the fugitive element receding in significance. In like vein, while Patriot Games blends action, espionage, and politics, both protagonist and antagonist are driven by lust for vengeance. Revenge and supernatural are inextricably interwoven in The Crow, earning the movie dual classification. In Suna No Onna, a bachelor spends most of the film as guest of a winsome young widow, but the existential crisis he faces trumps his hostage status.

No matter which subgenre(s) the screenwriter works with, a key ingredient is spine-tingling suspense, the focus of Part One. Drawing

upon thrillers and non-thrillers alike, Chapter 1 covers suspense and kindred spirits: planting and payoff; foreshadowing and reversal; surprise. Analyzing the nine-score films cited above, Chapter 2 develops various factors that generate suspense: riveting hook; vulnerability; extreme jeopardy; close calls; time lock; night-day ratio; aural diegetic cues; POV shots. Chapter 3 considers the interplay of elements that infuse suspense in another classic thriller, North by Northwest.

Caveat. No checklist of factors can compensate for lack of the most crucial component of a thriller: a premise that stokes your imagination, that enflames your passion, that propels you from Fade In through Fade Out, thereby enabling you to communicate your unique vision to readers and viewers. By no means does screenwriting entail a connecting-the-dots, painting-by-digits process. Far from it. Formulas, however apt algebraically, drain the lifeblood of creativity and inevitably spawn a ho-hum product. That said, the factors discussed in Chapters 2 and 3 constitute useful tools for sowing suspense, fleshing out the premise, pumping up the storyline.

Perhaps the best groundwork for a thriller is infiltrating the ATF/FBI/IRA, or a brigade of arms-/drug-running mercenaries. Short of that, watching films and reading scripts will work wonders. In the latter spirit, The Thriller: Scripting Seat-Gripping Suspense offers three feature-film scripts for critical scrutiny. Part Two debuts a mystery thriller, Stateline; Part Three, a police thriller, Cashing Out; Part Four, the supernatural thriller Birthmarks. Script premises follow by way of preview.

Stateline: Red herrings and white lies hamstring rival detectives probing Tahoe arson-homicide linked to casino gambling scam. All bets are off when apparent victim resurrects on Grand Cayman.

Cashing Out: Married cop hires hit man sight-unseen—for himself—following diagnosis of inoperable tumor. Cop tries to kill deal after learning about mix-up in MRI’s, but hit man isn’t buying.

Birthmarks: Trio struggles to avert déjà-vu recurrence of lethal end to lovers’ triangle decades earlier. Vengeance-seeking brother of slain serial killer intrudes with deadly designs of his own.

Notes following each script should help a screenwriter to critique his or her own thriller with the objectivity and ruthlessness required for an effective rewrite.

Part One

SEAT-GRIPPING SUSPENSE

CHAPTER 1

ASPECTS OF ANTICIPATION

Scenes that bespeak the future enhance audience involvement, by inviting viewers to imagine what lurks round the bend. Drawing upon thrillers and non-thrillers alike, this chapter covers suspense and kindred spirits: planting and payoff; foreshadowing and reversal; surprise. The appendix considers a more subtle form of anticipation: relationship between filmic time and the proverbial happily ever after.

PLANTING & PAYOFF

A cliché of slasher flicks is a close-up of a hand dicing a blood-red tomato with a butcher’s cleaver. The audience expects a homicidal maniac to wreak havoc with the cleaver—and she’d better do so, or viewers will feel cheated by the dead-end plant and its unmet expectations. A plant is a line of dialogue, character’s mannerism, or prop such as Colt .45 or chunk of C-4. Ideally, a plant debuts early, reappears at intervals to keep it alive in the viewer’s imagination, then pays off later, often at the climax or resolution when it assumes new or deeper significance.

Aside from the clichéd use of cleavers, planting and payoff is a handy device in the screenwriter’s toolbox.

•   Security guard’s illicit flask pays off when museum thieves place it on pedestal in lieu of worthless million-dollar sculpture. (How to Steal a Million.)

•   Hitler Youth knife, plundered from battlefield, pays off when G.I. yields it to German soldier. (Saving Private Ryan.)

•   Tutor’s good luck Lao-Tzu vase, lent to student for success on Chinese exam, pays off when tutor drops vase at murder scene. (Il Mostro [TheMonster].)

•   Trini’s passionate avowal—I love you very much, Paco. More than life—pays off at climax when she presents him with straight razor. (Amantes [Lovers].)

•   Parisian headline—SOVIET PREMIER AT OPERA TONIGHT—pays off when Mozart orchestrates inmate’s release by phoning in fake bomb scare. (Attention Bandits.)

In The Sin of Madelon Claudet, a Dear John planted on the heels of Fade In pays off in a tearful embrace just before Fade Out. In The Caine Mutiny, Captain Queeg’s predilection under stress for shuffling metallic balls pays off at a court-martial when defense counsel torpedoes him on the witness stand, eliciting a response equal parts Pavlovian and paranoid. In This Gun for Hire, a murderer’s maimed wrist pays off, initially, when two youths I.D. him from a newspaper account. A more profound payoff occurs later when, hemmed in by police, he confides in a hostage the childhood maiming that bred his seeming cold-bloodedness:

RAVEN

One day [Auntie] caught me

reaching for a piece of

chocolate. She was saving it

for a cake—a crummy piece

of chocolate. She hit me

with a red-hot flat iron-

smashed my wrist with it.

The script in Ghost pays off twice on a verbal plant. In Act I, Molly wonders why Sam can’t bring himself to utter the three magic words.

MOLLY

You say ditto. It’s not

the same.

SAM

People say I love you

all the time. It doesn’t

mean anything.

MOLLY

Sometimes you need to hear it.

In Act II, Sam, slain in the meantime, consults a spirit medium in hopes of contacting the incredulous Molly.

ODA MAE

He says he loves you…

so much.

MOLLY

shaking her head)

No. He would never say that.

SAM

(his eyes brightening)

Ditto. Tell her ditto.

ODA MAE

Ditto? What’s that mean,

ditto?

Ditto, hitting home, yanks the rug from beneath Molly’s incredulity. Late in Act III, Sam materializes as a luminous form. He and Molly embrace. Fading fast, Sam bids farewell with I love you. Molly brings the verbal plant full circle.

MOLLY

Ditto.

In tacitly promising eventual payoff, a plant such as Ditto harbors shades of foreshadowing.

FORESHADOWING

Foreshadowing, another device that fosters unity while encouraging audience participation, involves a hint of some future experience.

•   Allusion to waning star’s penchant for suicide attempts foreshadows her slitting her wrists when kept-screenwriter asserts vestiges of his freedom. (Sunset Boulevard.)

•   Malloy’s lauding of freedom enjoyed by homing pigeons augurs his liberating himself from gang of thugs by becoming stool pigeon. (On the Waterfront.)

•   Bateman’s I think my mask of sanity is about to slip anticipates that very event. (American Psycho.)

•   Ophelia’s fantasy of drowning in swimming pool presages her demise in fountain pool. (Michael Almereyda’s Hamlet.)

•   Esteban’s close brush with death as he enters theater foreshadows fatal accident upon exiting. (Todo Sobre Mi Madre [All About My Mother].)

In Sommarnattens Leende [Smiles of a Summer Night], Anne’s fervent plea—Henrik! Don’t do yourself harm!—anticipates Henrik’s attempt to hang himself. In Le Salaire de la Peur [The Wages of Fear], Bimba’s banter while shaving in the cab of an explosives truck—If I’ve got to be a corpse, I want to be presentable—augurs a fatal nitroglycerin explosion. In Kagemusha [The Shadow Warrior], a double’s being thrown from a horse, while impersonating a deceased warlord, presages the unraveling of the masquerade when, back at the clan’s fortress, the double tries to mount the warlord’s rambunctious steed.

In Ba Wang Bie Ji [Farewell, My Concubine], an itinerant artisan cries, Bring your knives for sharpening! Sharpen your knives! The screen cuts inside an opera troupe’s boarding school. The headmaster rejects a six-fingered applicant: Think of it…he’d scare the audience. Cut back outside as the artisan reprises, Sharpen your knives! Inside again, as the boy’s mother pleads for admission. Headmaster remains adamant. The intercutting of scenes heralds the mother’s imminent action in lofting a butcher’s cleaver and lopping off her son’s extra finger.

The script in They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? augments standard foreshadowing (e.g., Gloria’s Maybe I’ll buy some good rat poison) with eight flashforwards. Each of these sneak peeks into the future anticipates the penultimate scene. Robert confesses having shot Gloria because she begged him to. An officer asks whether that was the only reason. Apparently not.

ROBERT

They shoot horses, don’t they?

Description augurs action in screenwriter-director Christopher Hampton’s published script Nostromo, as the snapshot of General Montero portends:

… a sinister, overbearing figure with a harsh Aztec profile, whose uniform is a fantasia in olive green, encrusted with gilt embroidery, plus cumbersome ceremonial sword and a great cocked hat with ostrich plumes.

With this vivid portrait in mind’s eye, it comes as scant surprise when Montero stages a coup d’état.

If plot developments lead us to expect abc, yet the action turns out to be xyz, we encounter the flip side of foreshadowing: reversal.

REVERSAL

A reversal is a plot twist that runs counter to expectation, typically leaving the protagonist worse off than before. In Chinatown, one Mrs. Mulwray hires Jake Gittes to investigate her husband’s alleged affair;

when a public scandal breaks, the real Mrs. Mulwray sues Gittes for libel. In Witness, police detective John Book informs Captain Schaeffer that an eyewitness has fingered Lt. McFee as the killer; alerted by Schaeffer, McFee tries to gun down Book. In Harry Hook’s Lord of the Flies, boys stranded on a tropical isle build a mountaintop bonfire to lure potential rescuers; a double reversal occurs when the fire rages out of control, only to exhaust itself and extinguish altogether.

In Europa Europa aka Hitlerjunge Salomon, a Jewish youth posing as German soldier fakes a toothache to avoid being examined by a Third Reich physician; a dentist unwittingly calls Solomon’s bluff by extracting a perfectly good tooth—sans Novocain. In Le Retour de Martin Guerre [The Return of Martin Guerre], a priest performs medieval rites for sake of a fertile conjugal bed; the priest’s efforts go for naught, as a spell prevents the groom from consummating the union. In La Ciociara aka Paysanne aux Pieds Nus [Two Women], the Sophia Loren character wanders into an Italian village in quest of wartime rations. A villager relates what happened when she refused food to German troops. Baring a breast, she offers liquid fare.

VILLAGER

You can have its milk if you

like. I don’t need it anymore.

Loren gains access to a well-stocked pantry. An air raid ensues, forcing her to flee. She and her daughter seek sanctuary in a bombed-out cathedral. A horde of vermin invades, ravishing mother and child.

Reversals may impact characters other than the protagonist. In Raiders of the Lost Ark, Indiana Jones finds Marion bound and gagged in her abductors’ desert tent. He tears off the gag. They share an ardent embrace, an even more ardent kiss. Then Indy stuffs the gag back in and darts off on more pressing business.

Each of these reversals involves a turn for the worse. Favorable reversals may occur, as well. In Three Kings, an Iraqi soldier fires a rocket at an oil tanker, prompting G.I.’s to dive for cover—a gross overreaction, as becomes apparent when thousands of liters of milk spill onto the sand. In Viridiana, the title character falls unconscious courtesy of a love potion; she is spared a planned outrage when Don Jaime suffers an attack of scruples. In Europa Europa, a Nazi official threatens to contact a Russian orphanage to confirm Solomon’s avowed German ancestry. Solomon exits Nazi headquarters.

SOLOMON (V.O.)

Only a miracle could save me now.

An airplane fades in overhead. A bomb plummets. Headquarters is history.

As these examples suggest, reversal generally embodies an element of surprise.

SUSPENSE VS. SURPRISE

Picture a pianist blundering from a concert hall after dark. A serial killer creeps off-screen in soft-sole footwear. When knife-hand lunges, pianist and audience are equally shocked. Imagine, instead, that moccasins yield to steel-tipped combat boots, quickening the pianist’s heartbeat—and our own—as the O.S. sound of clack-clacking on flagstones draws a furtive backward glance. Or visualize an ill-lit screen as camera cuts between stalker, fist gripping blade as eyes dilate with bloodlust, and prospective victim, whistling a ditty while waltzing along in blissful ignorance. Faint-of-heart viewers, exhorting Vic to bolt, clutch their chests with bated breath in anticipation of the coming carnage.

While surprise occupies a rightful place in the screenwriter’s arsenal, suspense is a more dramatic tool. Alfred Hitchcock explained his preference for suspense by contrasting two scenes with hidden explosives. Say that our heroine enters her hotel suite and flops onto a queen beneath which ticks a bomb. Say that we aren’t privy to the bomb. When it goes KABOOM, we’re caught off guard. The jolt, however great, wears off quickly. Then again, if we stand in a privileged position vis-à-vis hero-ine—i.e., if we see villain plant bomb—we grip our armrests in thrall of hope and fear: hope that heroine will detect the device in time; fear that discovery will come too late or not at all.

Suspense infuses all quality films to some degree. In Ladri di Biciclette [The Bicycle Thief], a job offer promises to end Papa Ricci’s bout of unemployment. Job hinges on having a bicycle. Ricci redeems his bike from a pawnshop. Next day, Ricci straddles a ladder as he applies a Rita Hayworth poster to a stucco wall. Bike rests by foot of ladder. Three suspicious-looking men skulk along the pavement. We wonder: what mischief lies afoot? Are bike and job at risk? Not exactly nail-biting suspense, but suspense nonetheless.

Suspense in a thriller assumes more visceral dimensions, as in U-571. An early shot of a crate labeled danger-explosives suggests that fireworks are in store. Indeed. At one point, Lt. Tyler’s commandos have sixty seconds to repair the commandeered German sub, or be boarded by a destroyer crew. Precious seconds tick. Neither eventuality transpires. Instead, Tyler orders gunners to demolish the destroyer’s radio tower. Germans retaliate with an endless supply of depth charges. Tyler orders descent. Sub creaks and leaks as it enters the danger zone on a depth gauge. Will water pressure implode the sub? we wonder as it overshoots the red zone, causing plugs to pop, glass to shatter, water to gush in. The chief halts the plummet, but at a cost: the ballast tank malfunctions, causing the sub to climb out of control. Again, the commandos face a sixty-second deadline: can they repair the lone remaining torpedo before sub resurfaces in plain sight of destroyer?

Granting the audience superior knowledge withheld from the protagonist creates suspense, as in Hombres Armados [Men with Guns] where Dr. Fuentes’s mistaken belief that a revolver is empty emboldens him to dare an army deserter to pull the trigger; having seen the deserter acquire three black-market bullets, we dread the sound of