James Gunn - Writing Horror Hybrids

Writer/director James Gunn (Slither, Dawn of the Dead) likes his horror with a side of comedy.

Gunn enjoys hybrids because, “It’s fun to create my own animal.

“When I’m combining genres, I am just writing something that I want to write,” Gunn explains. “When I wrote Slither, I knew that I was writing a horror film. And I knew that I was making myself laugh while I was writing the screenplay. I never set out to write a horror comedy. I was writing a horror film that made me laugh.

“I wrote a novel called The Toy Collector. It came out … and people called it a black comedy.

“I didn’t think of it as being comedic the whole time I was writing it simply because it’s very natural for me to make myself laugh and write things that are funny. That’s how I know to be entertaining, so that’s what I naturally do."

Gunn believes horror and comedy are very aligned.

“They are provoking a physical reaction from the audience. With comedy you are provoking laughter. And with horror, you are provoking fear, which results in screaming and jumping.”

In Gunn's writing, paramount are structure, creativity, and just having fun.

“When you are writing horror, it needs to be extremely well-crafted,” he explains. “You need to understand the craft of screenwriting and how a screenplay translates into film to be a good screenwriter."

“Sometimes if you are a good writer, you can write a novel. And if you’re inspired, it can come out great. Maybe that could happen with a screenplay, but that hardly ever happens. Usually you have to understand what you are dealing with. And I think that is even more true with horror films. To be able to scare somebody, it is partially a science, as well as an art."

Gunn practiced his “art” by watching thousands of films.

“When I decided to be a filmmaker, and even before, I would watch 2 or 3 movies a day. And I would break those down and take apart the scenes, see how they were shot, what they did, how they got a response from the audience, how the scenes work together, how the shots work together, how the angles work together, how they cut the performances together to create what we think of as a horror film—and every other genre.”

Since October is traditionally a month of horror, it’s only fitting that Gunn has several current projects—projects with a twist.

In VH-1 reality show Scream Queens, premiering October 12, Gunn and co-judges actress Shawnee Smith and acting coach John Hom search for the woman who could be America’s next horror movie sensation. The winner will be cast in Lionsgate movie Saw VI.

Also airing this fall are comedy pilots by horror directors made exclusively for Xbox LIVE, a concept conceived by Gunn and producer Peter Safran (Scary Movie, Meet the Spartans). Gunn’s pilot for Xbox, in which he directs and stars, is called Humanzee! It’s a sitcom about his human-chimp hybrid son, played by Gunn’s brother, Sean Gunn, from Gilmore Girls.

And then there’s Spike.com’s shortform series PG Porn, which brings together primetime TV stars and leading porn actresses for comic (and platonic) vignettes. Gunn directed Porn, and also wrote it with his brothers Brian and Sean.

“It was an idea my brothers and I had years ago,” he explains. “We would constantly for our own enjoyment come up with these PG Porn scenarios. Pornography for people who love porn but who are offended by the sex. There was no application for it.

Since there wasn’t a lot to be done with a series of short films back in 2001, they held onto the idea. When Gunn started working on webisodes for Xbox, PG Porn was reborn.

“It just seemed perfectly made for short-form comedy in new media.”

The webisodes are two to three minutes apiece.

“We shot five so far, and we have a whole slate of other ones set up to shoot,” he adds.

“[Of the current projects] I do have a favorite,” he admits, “but I feel like I’ll make the other projects feel bad if I [say so]. I can say that [Scream Queens] is the most fun to do, because it’s very low-stress. I just show up and make jokes and be myself and kick girls off TV. That one is the most fun, but it would never be my favorite. I love PG Porn, because it’s a just real blast. But Humanzee! is in many ways my favorite, because I think it’s the best thing I have done.”