11 horror scripts landed on The 2016 Black List

Last Updated on July 31, 2021

The Golden Globe nominations were announced today, and while I usually have a little write-up of horror projects that landed on that prestigious list, our genre has been snubbed pretty hard this year. Luckily, The Black List 2016 is here to pick up the slack. Detailing the best unproduced scripts floating around Hollywood, it's a good barometer of the creative flow of Hollywood we'll be seeing in the next couple years.

Out of the 73 scripts listed, 11 were for horror movies, or at least sci-fi/thriller genre fare that is interesting enough to land on this site! And two – count 'em, two! – are for biopics about master of horror Stephen King! Other than what looks like half a million scripts about George Harrison, he's the most common topic on this year's list, which is hilarious and incredible.

Here's the deets on those screenplays:

O2 by Christie LeBlanc:

Waking up inside a cryogenic chamber with no memory of how she got there, Charlie must somehow escape the chamber before her air runs out.

FREE GUY by Matt Lieberman:

A bank teller stuck in his routine discovers he’s a background character in a realistic, open world action-adventure video game and he is the only one capable of saving the city.

THE KINGS OF MAINE by Kathy Charles:

Living with his wife and child in a trailer while working as a janitor, Stephen King struggles with alcoholism and his own dark history as he attempts to complete Carrie.

MAXIMUM KING! by Shay Hatten:

An outlandish, surreal imagining of how in 1985 Stephen King wrote and directed his horror classic Maximum Overdrive.

I THINK WE’RE ALONE NOW by Mike Makowsky:

The apocalypse proves a blessing in disguise for one lucky recluse — until a second survivor arrives with the threat of companionship.

MAN ALIVE by Joe Greenberg:

After an alien invasion takes over the minds of humankind, one survivor known as “Man” must make peace with the alien force to fight a greater evil.

MOTHER by Michael Lloyd Green:

A teenage girl is raised underground by a robot “Mother” – designed to repopulate the earth’s surface following an extinction-level event. But their unique bond is threatened when an inexplicable stranger arrives with alarming news.

VILLAINS by Dan Berk and Robert Olsen:

Two small time robbers become prisoners when they break into a house and discover a ten year old girl chained up in the basement.

RUGGED by April Prosser:

Four dysfunctional female coworkers get lost in the wilderness during a team-building trip and must work together in order to survive.

TURNED ON by Charlie Kesslering:

When a socially awkward engineer creates an android to fill in for her, things go awry when it becomes self actualized.

ORB by Steve Desmond, Michael Sherman

Inspired by actual events from a phenomenon that occurred in 1974, a young married couple discover a mysterious metallic orb in the woods near their house following a meteor shower. While the unusual object dazzles the couple by exhibiting some awe-inspiring properties, its true purposes are revealed to be far more sinister than they could ever imagine.

Plus, one that's not horror at all but looks amazing anyway:

SAVING CHARLIE CHAPLIN by Justin Shady:

With Nazi agents attempting to stop the production of a film that is poking fun at Hitler, an FBI agent and an LAPD detective must team up to protect a drunk and angry Charlie Chaplin from being kidnapped.