Murderland - Reference

sonny boo productions

Many of my screenplays come from short stories written in 1985-1986 when I wrote my nightmares into a journal. Murderland is one of these stories. After a few accidental deaths in an amusement park, I had wondered "what if it was intentional ? What if you built an amusement park with the INTENT to kill ?" It just went nuts from there.

I wrote a short story on this when I was 13 years old. Many of my modern script ideas came from these short stories, but they have been updated and modified to be more coherent. I still like the IDEAS and CONCEPTS, but the stories needed improvement.

I then set out recently to make the characters more real and better motivated to do what they do. I wrote the first draft, as I do most of them, in one night, in a single LONG session. For this one, I had gotten in trouble for writing screenplays on company time at the bank where I work, so I had to start at 6:00 PM and go on till 4:30 in the morning.

This was where the epiphany you often here about with writers actually came true for me. I sat down to write this with only the first two rides and the last room already pre conceived. I intended to fill at least 90 pages with rooms and rides, and those three weren't enough. I sat down and then magic occurred. The rides started inventing themselves, the characters started saying their lines. I almost felt incidental to the process. It was like I was in the park for the first time & I didn't know what was around the next corner myself.

I believe the best dialogue I have ever written is in this one, specifically to the character of Matthew, on whom I based it on Matthew Perry on friends. I had the fanciful belief that this might be made on a big budget and named the characters after the big Hollywood stars I wanted to play the parts. I'm not saying they HAVE to play the part, I just think they were in mind. Anyone could play these parts. Unknowns, middle of the road, or T.V. stars, but I have a wild imagination. Bruce is for Bruce Willis, Saundra is for Saundra Bullock.

- Peter John Ross 1998

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