Seven and 8mm

by Andrew Kevin Walker

In these powerful screenplays, Andrew Kevin Walker provides two compelling stories of dark deeds and dark motives, in which the forces of good are pitted against the many forms of evil. Seven, which... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0571200982
• ISBN13: 9780571200986
• Release Date: January 1999
• Publisher: Faber & Faber
• Length: 256 Pages
• Weight: 0.85 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.0" x 7.8"

Customer Reviews

"This Is Not Going To Have A Happy Ending"; Indeed

Here is Andrew Kevin Walker's justly acclaimed screenplay for "Seven", plus his first draft script for the Joel Schumacher fiasco "8mm." The first script is pretty much intact in David Fincher's brilliant film. The result was the best scary movie of its genre of the 1990's; in my opinion, even better than "The Silence of the Lambs" because of "Seven"'s deeper, darker moral (even theological) vision. Fincher omitted a prologue and epilogue featuring Somerset (Morgan Freeman) and discarded some lines of dialogue, but essentially everything was used. "8mm" is a very different case. As Walker explains in an interview that prefaces the book, director Joel Schumacher dumbed down his script, injecting spurious, lumbering melodrama and blunting the thematic amiguities so the result was a stupid revenge fantasy. (The Nicolas Cage character is given explicit permission to do the things he does in the final act in Schumacher's movie.) To be fair, Walker's original version is so incredibly dark that no Hollywood studio would ever want to film it. It should have been an independent film. In the introductory interview Walker also discusses how he wrote the scripts and how he got an agent to place "Seven" with the studios. He seems like a smart guy who is self-aware enough to keep a check on pretentiousness in his work. I would now like to read his original screenplay for "Sleepy Hollow" and his adaptation of Somerset Maugham's "Of Human Bondage", two other works he mentions in this book.

Seven

This is tragic but amazing story. In this story Mill`s wife does very important role. She hates cities, and she doesn`t want to have a baby in the city. Through the story the auther uses the contraction between city and country. To be honest he doesn`t like cities. The people in the cities have many sins, for exampled,greed,gluttony,wrath,envy,sloth,pride and lust.he tries to show that to live in cities means to commit sins. The auther wants to make people reflect their life. For example the man who is described as the symbol as 'gluttony' is, I think normal man or the man who is everywhere. However the auther tries to describe him as the man who is really sinful man. To be fat or gluttony is absolutely sinful. However, to be honest, I cannot understand the ending. What did Doe want to do? If he kills six or seven men, is it connected to something? I think his crimes is for only his sitisfaction, so it never has influence. From the begining to the ending, only Doe knows everything and only he knows what would happen next. Without doubt this crime is only understood by Doe, but this story is expressing America.

Brilliant Screenwriting

Andrew Kevin Walker is a favorite of mine. Most people wouldn't recognize his name on the screen credits, but for guys like me, we know what to expect. His brilliant talent for weaving a textured plot together is, I believe, unparalleled. This book preserves the two scripts that made him a sought-after A-list writer. I can remember when his first film was released, Brainscan. Not as dense or textured as his new stuff but still not bad. Later on he helped pen the adaptation of the Dean Koontz novel, Hideaway and did an uncredited rewrite for Event Horizon and The Game. If you are serious into screenwriting or just appreciate the mechanics of a good film, buy this book right now. It's a good bet.

a must-have for film writers and film-lovers

Two outstanding, cool screenplays in one book. I was a big fanof SEVEN when it came out and was happy to read it in scriptform. It's still really powerful. I was also surprised to see how amazing the script for 8MM was-the movie directed by Joel Schumacher s**ked. I am a screenwriter myself, and found this book really inspiring.

Sick and twisted

Andrew Kevin Walker has the ability to weave a good, mysterious storyline around the atrocities that are seen every day in the newspaper or on TV. In "Seven" the story centers around a serial killer murdering in a mosaic around the seven deadly sins and in "8MM" a private detective is on the case of a missing runaway involved in the porn/snuff film industry. Walker creates dark and bleak situations and screen villains that are menacing and actually frightening. The protagonistic struggles laid into the story, involving personal choices and morals, are always juicy. Walker's next project, Tim Burton's "Sleepy Hollow", is supposed to be one of the scariest movies of the decade. From Walker, I would expect it.