Mike Breiburg Reviews: Hack/Slash
Almost two weeks ago, I read a brief review of the HACK/SLASH script over at Shock Till You Drop’s Twitterfeed:
@STYDNews:
Read the HACK/SLASH screenplay. True to the spirit of slasher films and the comic.
Which pretty much made it a must read for me. Slasher films? Comics? I had to check it out. The title alone was enough of a hook. A slasher film with the word slash in its title, it could be as post-modern as the title promises it to be. Plus, I’m all about creative punctuation in titles, something I was hoping we’d see more of after “FACE/OFF.”
Up for review is the 7.11.08 dated draft of HACK/SLASH – by Martin Schenk & Todd Lincoln, based on the comic by Tim Seeley and Stefano Caselli. 7.15.07 draft revisions by Ben Magid, 9.21.07 draft revisions by Todd Lincoln, 7.11.08 draft revisions by Justin Marks.
LOGLINE: When slasher hunter Cassie Hack realizes the very first slasher she ever took on is about to come back for the one year anniversary of the Lunch Lady Massacre, she needs to go back and take down the Lunch Lady once and for all.
We open up on a keg party in the woods. Teens, 70’s rock music, skinny dipping, right off the bat we know that if this is a slasher film, we’re in the pre-title “first kill” sequence. And we would be right. The “first girl,” the polar opposite of the slasher movie staple, the “final girl,” lives up to her title as the terrifying Slasher, who looks like he’s straight out of The Burning, stalks her and her friends in the woods. Among the teens running for their lives is CASSIE HACK, 18. Having already cast her investigative glance towards the woods before the massacre commenced and showing reservation in going skinny dipping with the others, Cassie clearly casts herself as the “Final Girl,” even though we’re still pretty early into the story. The Slasher ends up chasing her through the woods where she ends up seeking shelter in a log cabin. And well, here, take a look…
INT. LOG CABIN – NIGHT
He runs in after her, ready for a feast, when-
THE DOOR SLAMS BEHIND HIM.
The slasher looks back to see SEVERAL IRON LATCHES slamming down in succession over the door frame, rigged by some kind of homemade contraption. And more amazing yet...
...the room is filled with HACK-ASSEMBLED WEAPONS...
Crossbows, cleavers, anything you could buy at a pawn shop to kill a slasher, it’s all here.
Cassie stands in the center, holding-
A BASEBALL BAT
With the word “KISS IT” burned into the side. Nails and barbed wire protrude from the top.
Upon entering the cabin, not only is the slasher met with a wide assortment of traps and weapons at Cassie’s disposal, but he ends up becoming the true “first kill,” falling victim to the structure of the slasher sub-genre himself in this pre-title sequence. Cassie uses these weapons to torture, mutilate and dismember him with such a fierce level of expertise, this establishes a very different kind of movie. What would normally constitute a fairly well written climax in a standard slasher film doesn’t even make up the whole first act of this one, but only the pre-title sequence. It’s clear this isn’t the first time she’s done this. Turning the tables on her slasher, it becomes clear that Cassie is the ultimate Final Girl and this is the Final Girl’s movie. Buffy, the Slasher Slayer.
The opening sequence offers some very descriptive kills, sure to satisfy the film’s horror audience and despite the post-modern take on slasher films, it’s shaping up to still fit into the sub-genre that it’s commenting on, at least in terms of genre and structure. Just like Kevin Williamson’s self-aware “Scream” was a post-modern slasher film, so is this, not so much in its self-awareness but more in terms of its respect for the slasher structure and it’s new take on the sub-genre.
It’s visual as hell, too. As I read through the script, I couldn’t help but think what an awesome video game it would make, what with the various weapons Cassie uses and the slashers themselves, each slasher virtually the boss of his or her own level in the potential video game. Needless to say, the writing is very visual. Lots of white space on the page yet lots of story and action, all in a tight 97 pages. It’s a quick read, a real page-scroller.
After the pre-title sequence, Cassie meets up with Vlad, 40s, and gets in their van. He’s scarred, dons an industrial fllter mask and speaks with a thick Eastern European accent. He could very well be a slasher himself, perhaps from the Hostel franchise and actually was mistaken for one in the backstory, but in this film, he’s Cassie’s partner and protector. As Cassie and Vlad stake out the morgue where their most recent victim was taken, they wait around for his obligatory revival…
VLAD
Some slashers are different. Some take longer, some take shorter.
CASSIE
None of these honeys have ever taken longer than three hours to bounce back and you know it. Maybe he wasn’t a slasher after all?
The script then takes an unusual turn as the dark backstory that haunts the heroine throughout the film is fully shown in flashback. It’s pretty cool too and makes for a good origin story, but compressed into its own sequence in act I. Normally such a backstory would be alluded too but we get to see all of it here. It’s practically a slasher film on it’s own squeezed into a couple of pages and features the Lunch Lady of the Lunch Lady Massacre, the first slasher Cassie ever dealt with and a pretty intimate villain. We get to see Cassie make the leap from ordinary girl to Final Girl to the Super Final Girl that she is in this film. Although told in flashback, as a dream sequence nonetheless, it’s too interesting an origin to leave out so it works well here, despite its questionable placement. In essence, we get an origin story and its sequel all rolled into one.
This ”opening sequence then backstory” structure of the first act is actually very reminisenct of Iron Man’s first act where we start out with an action sequence that sets up the hero’s problem, followed up with a flashback spelling out his entire backstory up until the present. It may not be sloppy writing at all but done out of necessity, to begin a film with a running start and then take a time out to establish a couple of things.
Within the backstory-dream sequence, we see Cassie as she lived before she became a slasher hunter. Just another high school kid that gets ridiculed under embarrassing circumstances. We get to meet her friends and frienemies:
- MEGAN, 18, bff
- DARREN, 17, nerd
- PATRICK, 17, Cassie’s crush
- KYLE, 18, bully
- LUCY, 16, bitch
Throughout the script, as Cassie and Vlad talk shop, we get a sense of this world and its rules. It seems to be a composite of all the slasher universes. Imagine that Halloween, Friday the 13th, A Nightmare on Elm Street and dozens of other slasher films all took place in the same reality…and I suppose Friday and Elm Street actually did thanks to the cross over “Freddy Vs. Jason.” In fact, the film alludes to a Jason like slasher if not Jason himself when Cassie pawns a few slasher mementos for money…
The clerk incredulously pulls out-
A FRACTURED HOCKEY MASK. Blood stains around the edges.
HEAVYSET CLERK (CONT’D)
Is this...
CASSIE
How bad do you want it?
The clerk looks on eagerly.
Despite its knowingly post-modern take on the sub-genre, the script sometimes does fall victim to cliché. For instance, you know that cliché where one character refers to another by their full name only for the sake of the audience learning their names, but under the guise of creative speech patterns?
VLAD
Yes. Much better than the basement for me.
(pauses)
Good night, Cassie Hack.
Vlad closes his eyes to sleep.
As Cassie and Vlad move on to the next slasher, they check out the crime blotters and run across a suspicious death that reeks of the work of a slasher. It’s almost the one year anniversary of the Lunch Lady Massacre and one of it’s original survivors, Darren, has been killed. This may be the return of the Lunch Lady.
Act II.
This next slasher isn’t just an ordinary slasher, not just another notch on Cassie’s baseball bat, it’s possibly the first slasher she ever dealt with, the Lunch Lady. Cassie and Vlad head back to her hometown, but not before seeking out Megan, who now lives in the city. Visiting Megan, they both get stalked by a new slasher, RAZOR, with thousands of scars on his body and razor blades melded in to his fingers. He could very well be the one responsible for the Lunch Lady Massacre anniversary murders.
Back in her hometown of Chippewa Falls, Cassie catches up with the remaining survivors to warn them about the anniversary and its consequences. As the exposition rolls out, we learn more and more about this reality that further seems to encapsulate all the slasher film staples into one…
CASSIE
They’re called slashers. They’re a type of undead. Like a vampire or a zombie. But pissed off. And relentless. And nearly impossible to bring down. We’re still working out all the rules.
PATRICK
That’s what you’ve been doing for the past year?
VLAD
We’re slasher hunters.
Not only do we re-learn the rules of the genre, we get some knowing commentary on it as well…
CASSIE
Sure, I’ve seen it a thousand times. A bunch of jokes tease the unpopular girl until she falls out a window. Camp counselors go drinking during free swim and some kid drowns. The prom queen runs over a homeless guy and hides the body before anyone can find out. But when the poor dead guy comes back with an axe and a fucked up sense of justice, nobody seems to know it was coming.
It’s the slasher film commentary that elevates this script to the level of Scream. This time, the slasher victim clichés don’t really get made fun of as much as they get excused…
CASSIE
These people are always so carefree. Not a worry in the world. How do they do it, day in and day out?
VLAD
They’re ordinary.
This speaks to the theme. Vlad doesn’t dismiss them as ordinary, he points out that Cassie is anything but, something she struggles with throughout the script. The story keeps unfolding until we’re at the final battle as Cassie and Vlad fight off the Lunch Lady and Razor, her co-slasher. It is in this battle that we learn that Vlad is a serious force to be reckoned with, one hell of a partner Cassie is very fortunate to have. Hopefully we’ll see some of his backstory explored in a sequel, although it does get a few brief mentions here.
My rating?
[ ] PASS
[ ] CONSIDER
[X] RECOMMEND
This was the July ’08 draft of HACK/SLASH when Rogue, the production company, owned this property. In January, Relativity Media acquired Rogue from Universal and since then, writer Stephen Susco has been hired to rewrite it.
Note: Due to the production status of this film, the screenplay is currently unavailable here.
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Where can I download the script?
Where can I download the script?