Trying to pick a scary movie to watch tonight? How about pulling some inspiration from Rauner's script collection? We have a few great ones from RKO Pictures. For something really classic, take a look at our screenplay for the 1933 King Kong, which is still spawning sequels and spin-offs today.If you want something a little more off the beaten path, how about one of the films produced by Val Lewton? Lewton was hired by RKO in 1942 to make successful horror movies on shoestring budgets, particularly useful to the faltering studio after the financial failures of Citizen Kane and The Magnificent Ambersons. He would be given a sensational title, a small budget, and the task of making something that could emulate the monstrous successes of Universal Studios. Instead, Lewton tended to make quiet, unsettling psychological pictures with a deeply nihilistic edge. They were successful enough at the time, and some are now considered classics. We have the scripts for two big ones: Cat People (1942) and I Walked With a Zombie (1943). The latter, a very loose adaptation of Jane Eyre with the addition of a Haitian Vodou element, has a subtitle reading "Based on Scientific Information from Articles by Inez Wallace." It also bears a handwritten note reading "Mr. Breen." We can't say for sure, but perhaps this copy passed through the hands of Joseph Breen, who enforced the Hays Production Code from the 1930s to 1950s. We'd be curious to hear what he thought of this particular picture, but we suspect it wasn't his thing.
To take a look at the these spooky screenplays, check out Scripts 2206 (King Kong), Scripts 537 (Cat People), and Scripts 1064 (I Walked With a Zombie).
