Forgive Me

We all love slasher movies. But what happens after the credits? How do the survivors cope with the trauma they witnessed? Do they move on or do they live the rest of their lives in hell? These are questions I want to answer in my script, Forgive Me. In it, the sole survivor of a slasher murder spree lives alone. One day she receives numerous expensive gifts in the mail with "I'm sorry" and "Forgive me" scribbled inside from the killer. That night he shows up at her house and begs her for forgiveness. He says that he’s found God and that he needs her forgiveness to “cleanse my soul” and avoid damnation, and he is not taking no for an answer. This is the plot of Forgive Me, my horror, drama short script about, hatred, revenge, and mental terrorism.
This short script is actually a proof of concept. I want it to do well so that I can get a feature film produced, exploring these concepts. When I wrote this script. I didn’t want a typical horror movie. I wanted to do something original. So, I created a story where the protagonist wasn’t in any physical danger. Instead, she is forced to endure a psychologically draining battle of attrition with a mad man. Instead of attacking people’s lives, I wanted to attack their memories and beliefs. I also wanted to explore ideas on revenge and our capacity for violence.
Forgive Me, at its core, is about people trying and failing to move on from trauma. The theme of the story is that people recover from trauma at their own pace and forcing people to move on before they’re ready will only lead to tragedy. I allude to this in the opening when Nick explains that a marshmallow that is steadily headed by the fire turns out better than the burnt one that gets shoved into the flames. Emma was recovering from the loss of her lover, Nick. She was slowly moving on. But Hector forced her back into the fire of her guilt. She gets burned and kills Hector in a horribly brutal way. I also used fire as a motif to symbolize hell. Hector sees fire as hell calling for him while Emma’s hell is in her mind.
I always believed that the fear of death is one of the most cliché core fears for the genre to exploit. I find it boring. People are afraid of so many other interesting creative things. I want the core fear of Forgive Me to be the lack of freedom one really has for their thoughts as well as the fear of becoming the one thing you hate. Hector is terrifying because he won’t let Emma believe what she wants. He wants Emma to believe and say something absolutely horrid, and he won’t take no for an answer. The horror also comes from Hector’s unpredictable nature.
I really hope that this script does well. As I am looking for funding to produce it into a feature-length movie. This is why a lot of the theming and subtext is a little complex for a short film. I hope you like my unique take on the slasher genre.