Tag: Walter Hill

Writer and director

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Trailer: AMC/AMC+: The Walking Dead: Dead City (2023- )

I really hope this new mini-series is as good as the trailer promises. I like the noir bleakness of the staging that is, dare I say, a cinematic reflection of the brutal tensions between Maggie (Lauren Cohan) and Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan). Blood will be spilled I’m sure.

I’ve loved The Walking Dead (2010-2022) since it started. It might be the only show I’ve watched as it was broadcast, week after week. That said, I found the final season a little uneven. Actually, for me, the show started getting patchy following the disappearance of Rick Grimes. The Walking Dead was always Rick’s story. He was the baseline, the moral centre, through which all the other characters flowed. Seen through that prism, and the coming attractions from TWD universe, it could’ve been a case of too many chiefs.

First thing that struck me when I saw the trailer, and the accompanying poster, for Dead City was the obvious references to the seminal Escape from New York (1981). It’s hard to miss. Apparently it’s deliberate. Showrunner Eli Jomé told Slash Films “these are more, I would say, contemporary horror references, but a little further down the line”. As well John Carpenter, Jomé also invokes Walter Hill’s equally iconic The Warriors (1979). For me both of these films are foundational, and made a massive impression on me as a youth. It’ll be interesting to see how deep Dead City’s homage goes.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt18546730/

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How they write a script: Walter Hill

A must read for anyone interested in screenwriting.

Go Into The Story

I tried to write in an extremely spare, almost haiku style, both stage directions and dialogue. Some of it was a bit pretentious — but at other times I thought it worked pretty well.

When I’m working alone, the old hard way. Longhand. Fountain pen. Legal pad. Thesaurus at my side.

This last item, I’m not ashamed to say, is quite helpful — when you write screenplays, you don’t have a lot of room, and the stage directions can become onerously repetitive if you don’t work at fresh descriptions. 

Walter Hill
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Alien by Walter Hill and David Gile

There’s a real pace and intensity to the writing. It comes from short staccato sentences that read down the page quickly. It really is a lesson in economic writing. It’s the essence of the story distilled into as few words as possible.

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Tomboy (2016)

The legendary Walter Hill directs one of the most unlikely revenge stories you’re ever likely to come across, involving a hitmen, a rogue doctor, and gender reassignment surgery.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5034474/