James Moran (writer)

James Moran (born 5 March 1972) is a British screenwriter for television and film, who wrote the horror-comedy ''Severance''. He works in the horror, comedy, science-fiction, historical fiction and spy thriller genres.

Early career

Born in York, Moran's first produced work came as the result of a competition run by the Sci Fi Channel. The competition asked for writers to submit short science-fiction themed film scripts. Moran won, and his entry ''Cheap Rate Gravity'' was produced and shown both on the sci-fi channel and in front of full-length movies, including ''Final Destination 2''.

Moran secured an agent at the PFD Literary Agency from the strength of the competition win, a spec film script, and a six-part TV drama entitled ''The School''. He wrote the entire run of ''The School'' on spec, later saying he was unaware that generally only a pilot is written until a production company shows interest. Moran claims the series is still his favourite of his own works.

Film work

Moran scripted the 2005 film ''Severance'', which concerns office workers on a team building trip being stalked by a masked killer. Talking about where the idea for ''Severance'' came from, Moran said "I'd been trying to think of a good horror idea, and one day had a really bad commute home – yuppies in pinstripe suits were everywhere, pushing past me, jumping the queue, and generally being the ignorant scumbags that they are. So, in a flash of temper, I decided to kill off some yuppies in a horror – take them to a cabin, and pick them off one by one. Once I'd calmed down, I thought that was a pretty good idea – take some standard, British office types, and throw them into a cabin-in-the-woods horror, see how they react. And it developed from there."

On 28 April 2009, the BBC
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