I need an ending...

[nouou]

Any idea you can think of will be of help here. My horror screenplay is about a writer who goes to his friends cabin to write his novel. While at his stay here he begins to see things out of paranoia and begins to think someone else is in this cabin with him. One of the scenes I have written down is that he is sitting on the toilet and sees shadows at the bottom of the door like someone is walking past. Throughout the story he goes crazier and crazier. Why doesn't he leave? I don't know, this idea is very new still so I'm working on that.

So yeah, based off that, what do you think would be a good ending? The only ending I've thought of, that I don't know would work or not until I write it, would be this. He develops this insanity that drives him to try and hang himself (again, why doesn't he leave the cabin, working on this). He lays a noose around his neck and kicks the stool from under his feet. While hanging there, approaching death, he sees someone or something, standing a few feet in front of him, staring right at him. After this I would show another scene but that's all you need to know.

So yeah, if you can pitch any ending at all, reply or PM. Gracias.

 

[Yeddi]

Why has he gone to the cabin in the first place? Perhaps something that has some more conflict than just for solitude, then this could also be why he doesn't leave. Something along the lines of marriage break-up, death of a child, or if he is already a famous author perhaps he has gone there to escape a stalker.

As for the one scene you have written, it hasn't exactly grabbed me. I'm not a prude, but does he have to be sitting on a toilet??? Quite frankly, as an audience member, I wouldn't want to be seeing that. Brad Pitt, Johnny Deep, it doesn't matter how hot they are, I still wouldn't want to see them on the crapper. But if the actor was a bit of all right, a bath scene could work, both for story and audience viewing pleasure.

 

[nouou]

Why has he gone to the cabin in the first place? Perhaps something that has some more conflict than just for solitude, then this could also be why he doesn't leave. Something along the lines of marriage break-up, death of a child, or if he is already a famous author perhaps he has gone there to escape a stalker.

As for the one scene you have written, it hasn't exactly grabbed me. I'm not a prude, but does he have to be sitting on a toilet??? Quite frankly, as an audience member, I wouldn't want to be seeing that. Brad Pitt, Johnny Deep, it doesn't matter how hot they are, I still wouldn't want to see them on the crapper. But if the actor was a bit of all right, a bath scene could work, both for story and audience viewing pleasure.

I have to develop those ideas yeah.

I came up with the scene I described because of the location I plan on shooting this at, the door is positioned directly in front of the toilet. This is also one of the earlier scenes before he starts going insane, which is why it is a very subtle scene. I thought of having him there not reading anything, just spacing out and staring at the ground with his head on his fists, which is where he sees these shadows like someone is walking around on the otherside of the door. I understand the feeling of not wanting to watch some random actor take a poop, but the way I would shoot it wouldn't really show anything but his upper body, but you'd know what was going on.

I'm looking for ideas for an ending, not feedback. Thanks though.

 

[ProfessorU]

It seems "Secret Window"-y.

Doesn't the twist have to be that he's being stalked by himself? Like Fight Club? Or that he's already dead, like The 6th Sense? Or that what he's writing is becoming reality?

I think he should be housesitting. It's his friend's father's cabin. The father just died and the friend is out of the country, so he asked the writer to take care of it until he could come back. Living in a dead guy's house is a creepy premise and forces him to stay there. Plus, if you add in young neighbor punks who might vandalize the property, you can motivate him staying there and also use them to add suspense.

 

[thesammyshow]

i have an idea, as the guy gets crazier and crazier and he goes to write more in his novel he always notices that there is more written to his story even though he cant remember writing it, and when he is at his craziest he finds himself buried into the pillows on the bed trying to shut everything out of his head and his life, trying not to kill himself then. (he went to the cabin to get away from the world because his family died in an accident, and he plans on commiting suicide at the cabin and he is writing the novel to leave something for the world to remember him by) when he wakes up again and goes to his novel to finish it, he sees that its already been written and he doesnt understand how it ended the way it did (when he reads the ending he sees that the main character who was supposed to be a hero was murdered). After all of that, he is then murdered by something that has been in the house all along, the one who was writing the rest of the story when the guy was putting himself to sleep driving himself crazy.

might be confusing

 

[clang]

He previously sold a bestselling horror novel, he's had writers block and is now past his deadline for delivering his next novel and hasn't admitted to anyone that he hasn't written a single word of it yet. He goes off to the cabiin, telling people he's giving his manuscript its final polish, but really giving himself a last chance to write without distractions (the cabin has no TV or cellphone reception etc), he knows he really can write well under pressure (perhaps his previous novel was actually written in a mad three week rush, which he's never told anyone?).

The 'haunting' starts, he thinks it's just locals or some ordinary explanation, nevertheless it scares him and he starts writing his novel based on a horror fictionalised version (i.e. different setting and characters) of what has happened to him so far, he reads it and knows it's the best thing he's ever written.

The haunting continues, getting nastier and nastier, it's scaring him shitless BUT simultaneously it's absolute gold when he writes it down, he slowly falls into a co-dependent relationship with his haunter, emotionally unable to run away until the novel (which continues to get better and better) is complete, simultaneously terrified that he will be killed first. Possibly he's also trying to plan out the novel in advance, working out what might happen next both in an attempt to protect himself and what will work well on the page. (A big blackboard/whiteboard might be a good prop here, if you can justify the cabin having one or him bringing one, so he can visually be scribbling ideas).

By this time the haunter is clearly trying to kill him, but he's gone mad by then so it now makes sense that he won't run away, he's now having trouble distinguishing his novel from reality, e.g. has mad conversations with his novel's characters.

The ending should somehow tie into that, i.e. he really does finish the novel (with the 'help' of his characters) and defeat the haunter, or the haunter wins and the film ends with his corpse slumped in front of the typewriter, halfway through typing the final page.