To celebrate the latest edition of the WriteMovies Horror Award, we’re looking back at some of our favorite films and TV shows in horror. Find out what scares us the most… and what we’re looking for from a horror script! Here are our thoughts on GET OUT…
Looking at the winners, everything seemed to fit into place. THE SHAPE OF WATER took home Best Director and Best Picture (which we predicted, by the way) as well as two further awards. Gary Oldman won for his excellent, but kinda Oscar-baity, performance as Winston Churchill, and the Pixar film COCO won the “Pixar Award”, also known as “Best Animated Feature”… There weren’t that many shocks at all, if any, but this year was an enjoyable, albeit lengthy, watch.
Special congratulations to our pal Habib Zargarpour who got a mention in the winning speech from the BLADE RUNNER: 2049 crew after they won “Best Visual Effects”. A brilliant visual achievement from everyone involved in that film, and we’re so happy for Habib!
The night as a whole can be summed up wonderfully by the “Best Actress” win for Frances McDormand. Again, not a particularly surprising result, but a stunningly rousing speech. McDormand asked for her fellow female creatives – actors, directors, producers, costume designers, sound mixers, editors, everyone – to stand up and take some much-deserved applause. This summed up the brilliant message of unity, diversity and celebrating “minority” creatives – a message that was a motif of the night and was reflected by the winners themselves.
Sure, Pixar got it usual and expected win, but COCO was a great view on Mexican culture. Guillermo del Toro’s Best Director win was another celebration for Mexico on the night. And, of course, there was a momentous win for GET OUT and Jordan Peele for “Best Original Screenplay”.
Perhaps the most relevant speech for writers came from Peele himself. Peele stated that he stopped writing, and kept going back to, GET OUT about 20 times! He never gave up on his passion project. He always believed that if and when this project got made it would make a difference – that it would mean something. And boy was he right! Take this as some inspiration for your own work, your own passion project. Don’t ever give up on that one story, that one script that you truly love…
So, all in all, a great night with diverse winners, and a nice sharing of awards between the nominees – no film took home more than four awards (THE SHAPE OF WATER won there, too.) And once again, Jimmy Kimmel was a surprisingly good host…
Congrats to all the winners – bring on this year’s films!
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