''Screamplay'' is a 1985 American

horror film Horror is a film genre that seeks to elicit fear or disgust in its audience for entertainment purposes. Horror films often explore dark subject matter and may deal with transgressive topics or themes. Broad elements include monsters, apoca ...

directed by Rufus Butler Seder.

Plot

Aspiring screenwriter Edgar Allen (Rufus B. Seder) arrives in Hollywood carrying his most valuable possessions: a battered suitcase and a typewriter. Edgar Allen's best attribute is his wild imagination. He imagines scenes so vividly for the murder mystery he is writing that they seem to come to life...and they do! As mysterious gruesome murders pile up, Edgar Allen must confront aging actresses, rock stars and the police in a bleak setting of broken dreams and hideously broken bodies in Hollywood. As the line between reality and imagination becomes more blurred, Edgar Allen, convinced the only way to be a real writer is to suffer, is driven slowly mad.

Cast

* Rufus Butler Seder as Edgar Allan *

George Kuchar George Kuchar (August 31, 1942 – September 6, 2011) was an American underground film director and video artist, known for his "low-fi" aesthetic. Early life and career Kuchar trained as a commercial artist at the School of Industrial Art, now kn ...

as Martin * Katy Bolger as Holly * Basil J. Bova as Tony Cassano * Ed Callahan as Keven Kleindorf * George Cordeiro as Sgt. Joe Blatz * M. Lynda Robinson (credited as "Linda Robinson") as Nina Ray * Eugene Seder as Al Weiner * Bob White as Lot *

James M. Connor James Michael Connor (born June 16, 1960, in Omaha, Nebraska) is an American actor who, making his film debut as a supporting character in the 1976 science fiction film ''Futureworld'', has played recurring characters on several television serie ...

as Nicky Blair

Release

After a theatrical and video release, Troma released the film on

DVD The DVD (common abbreviation for Digital Video Disc or Digital Versatile Disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any kin ...

in 2005. This release is currently

out of print __NOTOC__ An out-of-print (OOP) or out-of-commerce item or work is something that is no longer being published. The term applies to all types of printed matter, visual media, sound recordings, and video recordings. An out-of-print book is a book ...

Reception

The film is currently distributed by

Troma Entertainment Troma Entertainment is an American independent film production and distribution company founded by Lloyd Kaufman and Michael Herz in 1974. The company produces low-budget independent films, primarily of the horror comedy genre. Many of them pla ...

. Many Troma fans cite ''Screamplay'' as one of the company's better films in terms of quality: the film is very well received by film fans for its writing and heavy

German Expressionism German Expressionism () consisted of several related creative movements in Germany before the First World War that reached a peak in Berlin during the 1920s. These developments were part of a larger Expressionist movement in north and central ...

influence, lacking the gratuitous gore, nudity, and/or cheap gags present in most Troma films.

Legacy

The director of the film, Rufus Butler Seder, would later be most famous for his

Scanimation Barrier-grid animation or picket-fence animation is an animation effect created by moving a striped transparent overlay across an interlaced image. The barrier-grid technique originated in the late 1890s, overlapping with the development of p ...

children’s books.

References

External links

* 1985 films 1985 horror films American independent films Troma Entertainment films 1980s English-language films 1980s American films {{1980s-horror-film-stub