Can You Wirte A Christmas Horror Short Screenplay? Podcast with Bob Schultz

Chris: So welcome to this podcast with me, Chris Jones, about twisted 50, our horror anthology writing opportunity for new writers. The idea is write a short story under 2000 words in the horror genre, modern horror, and we’ll take the best 50, make a book out of it, put it on Amazon. We’re going to have a big launch at Halloween. 

It’s the third, it’s the trilogy in the trilogies. I already hear rumours that even though it was the final chapter, Twisted is dead. After the third book, there’s gonna be a fourth back from the dead. So of course there is. In the great tradition of horror, there is no killing the zombies. We’re gonna have a conversation today about what to do beyond Twisted 50, volume three. If you wanna continue writing with me is Bob, Bob Schultz, who runs the festival with me. We all know Bob. Bob. Hey, how you doing?

Bob: All right. How you doing, Chris?

Chris: I’m fantastic. I’m thrilled that Twisted is coming to a conclusion. It’s been a real roller coaster, and I’ve enjoyed putting all these. These stories on the site and reading them and creating the artwork for them. And it’s, you know, I’m very proud of the whole website. Part of me always wanted to be a publisher, and I suppose it’s a bit like a hobby, I suppose, in some ways. And I’m just really loving the way that the site looks and feels and the community we’ve built around it. So very, very pleased about that.

Bob: Twisted is such a great format for a project. People can really experience the joy of writing and see their words published and everything. I think that. I’m thrilled to hear you say that there will be a fourth and fifth and perhaps 6th book in the trilogy, because I just think that it’s great for audiences and readers, but I think it’s great for writers, too, and people just trying to write. I’ve always been a huge fan and supporter of it, so I’m thrilled to hear about that.

Chris: Yeah, I remember I sat in a seminar years ago with one of the marketing experts from. He was from LA, and he’d been handling the. The marketing for the next episode of a nightmare on Elm street. And they were like, how can we make this a must see? And they titled it Nightmare in Elm street, freddy’s dead, and the final chapter, it wasn’t, of course. So we’re taking a leaf out of that book, although I hadn’t anticipated that, but here we go. But we’re here to talk about your project today, which is a screenwriting and filmmaking project. Why don’t you just dive in and share all about it. Because as I said, twisted 50. As it comes to a conclusion, next month, maybe they could write a short horror story for you.

Bob: Yeah, sure. So I am putting together a Christmas horror anthology short film series called Advent. The notion being we are going to release short Christmas horror stories, films, short films, one per day, starting December 1, 2025, and all the way through to Christmas day. So 25 of them. Like a haunted advent calendar, essentially. So I am currently looking for short Christmas horror film scripts of approximately, let’s say ten minutes in length. 

So say between eight and twelve pages. Those are really the only restrictions on content insofar as I want it to be very sort of creative and take a kind of wide opinion of what horror actually is, because it is going to be distributed over the course of 25 days. I’m hoping to build a worldwide audience. So if you as writer, if any writers, have an insight into Christmas traditions from around the world or something very unusual, that is sort of an unusual Christmas take, that would be great. As for what horror is, look, I am looking to steer clear of just like straight up Gore for Gore’s sake, what we’re calling torture porn. But beyond that, I have some horror comedies that have already been submitted. I have some ironic horrors that have been submitted. I’m actually writing one which, well, I’m not writing it, I’m transcribing one that an eight year old just told me, a Christmas horror story. 

And word for word, it is going to be turned into a short film. So if you can think of a story that in the way that an eight year old tells it, it’s going to be people acting very seriously and taking everything directly as it’s supposed to come. Except for they speak like an eight year old. So, you know, look out, mister, I’m going to come at you with the giant french toast. Except for done in a very serious way. So there’s nothing that is off limits other than the fact that we already have a bunch of stories submitted. So it’s quite likely that whatever your first idea is, has already been submitted. We already have something cooking on that. We have a haunted Christmas tree, we have a snow globe that captures people’s souls, this kind of thing. So get inventive, get thoughtful, and recognise that since it’s going to be released over 25 days, setting it on Christmas Day might not be your best strategy. 

Think about what happens on December 13 or December 3 or whatever. Grocery shopping, dressing up in a father Christmas costume, traffic problems, all this kind of thing that you can sort of turn into a Christmas adjacent kind of storytelling idea would probably all be met with quite a bit of enthusiasm from me, of course.

Chris: In the UK, we have a massive tradition of horror at Christmas, partly because of the BBC putting out a series of ghostly shows for years at Christmas. So much so, it inspired a Christmas twisted book which was, I think we called it ghosts of Christmas Past, which we did, I think, in 2021 during the pandemic. So, yeah, let’s leverage that. I think ghostly goings on is where the UK is at when it comes to Christmas horror. Very, very inflected with melancholy and gothic victorian ideas of spooky. Spooky.

Bob: I mean, who doesn’t love? I mean, what would, I mean, the first ever Christmas horror story, I would say, would probably be, you know, Christmas carol. And that’s british Christmas horror going all the way back to, you know, way back in the day. So channel that or get inventive. And this is not only for british writers. Anybody, anywhere you are in the world, whatever your thought processes are, go ahead and sort of express yourself. 

I want this. Remember, we’re going to release this one per day, over 25 days. But eventually people are going to be watching it in sort of binge style. So if they’re all very samey, I think that is going to be a negative sort of feel to it toward the project. So the more you can sort of express yourself and really inject your creativity into it so that people get something fresh with each short, I think the better for the project as a whole and the more fun writers can have by really expressing themselves.

Chris: Yeah. And so tell me how people can, I assume they should pitch an idea to you first before, you know, going headlong into a twelve page screenplay.

Bob: Yes, please, if you could just email me as many loglines as you like within the Christmas horror area to bob at north seven co dot UK. That’s the word. North, the number seven co dot UK. Submit as many loglines as you like and I will request one or some. And we can, and we can take it from there.

Chris: Brilliant. And why have you decided on this model as opposed to say, you know, making an anthology horror film, feature film?

Bob: Well, it’s funny, every year, a couple times a year, I go and teach screenwriting at a film school in Sweden High Story Academy. And one of the things I teach there is pitching. And they go, and I had someone pitch me something there. One of the students pitched me something and it was. And so she stood up and she said, you know, I’d like to pitch to you this Christmas. Oh, no, I’m forgetting what it was called then. But it’s. But it’s a. But basically they have a tradition in Sweden where they, every year at Christmas, they have a feature that they release in 25 small bite sized morsels on television and, like, chapters in a book and people. Carousel. Christmas. Carousel. And people look forward to watching each chapter. 

Then they go into school or work the next day and talk about, oh, do you think the prince is going to marry the princess? Whatever. It’s a tradition that people really look forward to in the same way that british people around Christmas tend to look forward to the John Lewis advert. The John Lewis Christmas ad. Like, it’s just people build their whole lives around it. And I thought, what a fantastic idea. What a great method for telling a story. But also, I don’t have contacts in the swedish television industry. I don’t know anyone in Britain television, british television well enough to sort of pitch this idea to them. So I thought, well, I can still make it anyway, do a Christmas carousel here. But instead of doing it in this, like, heartfelt, warm Christmas story, since I’m sort of driving the whole thing myself, I can make Christmas horror, which is a genre that I’m a huge fan of. I loved Krampus. 

I loved silent night, deadly night. I loved, what was it just a couple years ago? Violent nighthouse. I think Christmas horror is, as you pointed out, Chris, a long tradition here and have in a bit of a resurgence. And I just think that. And I think that producing a project that people can watch on their phone for ten minutes a day is a space that is not super occupied right now, but which is going to grow as the way people consume stories has grown and changed.

Chris: Right, okay, so we know what to do. Get pitching ideas around the Christmas theme in the horror genre, I guess. Do as many as you can and send them off to Bob at. What was that email address? Bob?

Bob: Bob. Seven dot co dot Uk.

Chris: And when do you think things are going to be announced? I know it’s a long way away, but people always want to know kind of what the schedule is.

Bob: I suspect that we’re going to get a lot of submissions while people are sort of in the Christmas mindset. So that’ll be through December. So hopefully in that week between Christmas and new year, I’ll be able to. I’ll be able. I’ll have scripts in hand to read. So the sooner you submit, the sooner I’ll be able to make requests you’ll be able to write. So I’m hoping to announce the films that are going to be made February 15 or so, middle of February, and then get underway producing them so that we have them ready to go December 1.

Chris: Right. What’s interesting there is you allude to something that I wouldn’t say we struggled with, but definitely it’s an element of, one of the challenges with twisted is saying to people, hey, write a dark horror story. At the same time. It’s June 28 and the sunshine is bright and it’s warm, and we’re not quite in sync with the vibe of that. But again, that’s one of the distinctions of somebody who’s taking it very seriously, is they will do it anyway. 

They will find a way to write dark horror movies in the summer. It’s like those people who make Christmas movies in August and they put snow on the ground in the summer. We just got to be that professional because the timing, if we want to have our book released at Halloween, we have to write it in the spring and the summer. If we want to have our film released at Christmas, it means making it, not at Christmas.

Bob: That’s one of the many, many skills, I think, that writers, creative people in general, need to develop super duper fast, aside from actually creating stuff if you want to be a professional, I mean, the Hallmark Christmas movies that Hallmark makes, they have one city street set, one little small town set that they just produce all their Christmas movies in. And so when you get your window, you have two weeks on the set, you go, you know, and that’s it, whether it is January or whether it is April. Same thing with television. 

I mean, I was listening to the rest is entertainment, Richard Osmond’s podcast not too long ago. And they were talking about in April, they were talking about how, oh, I just finished shooting the Christmas week of House of games in April, because they shoot it, they have it ready to go, and then at Christmas they just run it. So all those celebrities, the writers on the staff, the people, the set decoration people all had to make it Christmas in April, you know, and then when they show up, it’s like, happy Christmas. 

And it was like, happy Christmas to you because they just know, because they’re professionals and they know that the industry is distribution oriented more than it’s creation oriented. And if you want to distribute in December, it has to be ready to go in November, which means all the pre production, everything else has to be before that. So it’s, and then it comes out to booking people and so on and so forth. 

So when you are looking to produce a short or if you’re looking to write something and outside it is warm and sunny and you’re going on summer holidays, the excuse of, well, I’m not in the vibe yet, isn’t going to carry you very far if you want to be a professional in the industry. Yeah.

Chris: Brilliant. Okay, so we know what to do with your project. Bob, just a reminder, twisted 50 is still open till the middle of September, so unleash that dark side. Get writing. Anything else you want to add?

Bob: No, just I’m looking forward to reading the twisted 50 book again. And I hope that anyone who has thought about submitting to that still does and then also uses some of their other ideas to pitch me some loglines. I think that we can really do some fun, wonderful, amazing things with our writing and our filmmaking in the next year or two.

Chris: Brilliant. Thanks, Bob. And we’ll see you at the launch party for Twisted 50 at Halloween this year.

Bob: Cannot wait. See you there.