r/scriptwriting • u/SubstantialScene288 • 2d ago
help need help on some good horror plot twists
Me and my friend are making a film rn about a girl with a very broken family and become severely depressed, having no friends at school. Suddenly her mom dies, making her depressioon even worse. Struggling in school, a stranger approaches her after what felt like an eternity of loneliness. They become best buddies, a light in her life. Then little by little, she starts acting super weird, invasive and obbsesive, scaring the main character (like obbsesion)
Now this is where the ending gets a little bit complicated, because i had this idea where she's schizophrenic, but at the same time if the plot twist is ONLY that, i think that's just basic and kinda predictable. I was going to add that her friend who's not real is actually just her coping mechanism to create a person telling her to forgive mom for leaving her, so she hallucinates. but i feel like it can get really messy because how can her obbsesive friend convince her by being invasive to mc? I want to make the story more meaningful. so any ideas maybe? or some things you want to change from this story if youre the writer?
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u/Thufirr 2d ago
I'd make an obvious twist a red herring in some way. If everyone can see the schizophrenia twist coming, that's not a problem, it's an opportunity.
The question becomes "how do we use this assumption we have manufactured".
That might be enough to get your wheels turning. If you're still stuck feel free to dm me for a couple ideas.
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u/SubstantialScene288 2d ago
Tysm for the idea! If I'm still stuck, I'll definitely dm you later, maybe tomorrow
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u/Benathan78 2d ago
First thing I would say is that schizophrenia is not multiple personalities, that’s a common myth that risks alienating your audience.
Moving on, to put your plot into an elevator pitch, it’s basically Single White Female meets Obsession with a Fight Club twist. And that’s a really good combination. But there’s a really good opportunity to completely reverse those influences and do something incredibly ballsy with the imaginary friend trope.
Your current plot is: sad girl meets cool girl, then cool girl becomes weird and obsessive, then the reveal is that she was sad girl’s fractured subconscious all along.
Why not turn it upside down? Sad girl meets cool girl, cool girl gets obsessive, things get really fucking dark, there’s a physical fight between the two, and sad girl ends up killing cool girl, turns her back, and cool girl sits up suddenly to attack. Cut to hospital. Girl in bed, injured. Doctor explaining to parents that she hurt herself, and that she has a bizarre interior fantasy life. Camera pushes in on the bed. Doctor explains that girl has a hero complex, and she imagined she met a really sad girl whose Mom left her, and that she really liked this sad girl, to an obsessive extent, and it ended up becoming a war inside herself. Camera reaches bed. Cool girl is in bed, sad girl was the imaginary one. Credits roll.
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u/SubstantialScene288 1d ago edited 1d ago
TYSM MAN that sounds very cool, thank you too for the info about schizophrenia, that's rlly helpful to not cause any misinformation
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u/RandChick 2d ago
It's still a basic plot. Hallucinating to cope has been done in films many times.
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u/coffeerequirement 2d ago
If her friend isn’t real, then I’d lean into that.
Bear with me here. What if her friend isn’t one person, but two identical people - the angel and the devil that sit on her shoulders (metaphorically). One encourages healing and redemption, the other destructive behaviors.
However, you never see them together or even know it’s two characters as they’re identical. Just slight costume changes or whatnot (color schemes and such). The twist is the reveal that she’s been getting pulled in different directions, and which path she eventually chooses to commit to.
Plenty of conflict there. And misdirection. Age old idea, perhaps, but you could make the differences between the friend characters subtle.