Write On: 'Suitable Flesh' Writer Dennis Paoli

“I’m not happy with a script unless I can look through it and
find at least five or six pages where there’s no dialogue – where
the story tells itself through imagery,” says horror screenwriter
Dennis Paoli. Feeling strongly that the screenwriter’s job is to
help the director see their vision for the scenes and characters,
he says that instead of writing shot-by-shot, he writes, “Visual
by visual. I try to give the important visuals that are inherent
in that scene that help tell the story.”


Famous for writing the cult-classic body-horror film Re-Animator
from 1985, Paoli has a new film called Suitable Flesh starring
Heather Graham and Barbara Crampton just in time for Halloween.


In Final Draft's Write On podcast we talk about the importance of
a screenwriter embracing visual storytelling on the page and
discuss the challenges of reinterpreting H.P. Lovecraft’s story
The Thing on the Doorstep to create two bewitching female leads.


Listen to the podcast to hear more about Paoli’s long working
partnership with the late Stuart Gordon (director of
Re-Animator), making the “Miskatonic-verse” feel fresh and
modern, and planting Easter eggs in the new movie.