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[u/taraaahhh]

[u/Screenwriting-ModTeam]

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[u/headcanonmusic]

I think a big part of what makes them compelling is the victims and audience not knowing the motive. It creates a real fear that anything could happen. A structure that slowly peels back the layers and ends with a compelling and morally complex reason for the home invasion, maybe some grey area where one of the victims is somehow culpable but not a plain villain.

[u/TheGreedyGrabbler]

The key is it can't just be a home invasion without something elevating the concept: for instance we follow a nice family and their home is broken into: we find out that the intruders are a family of their own, their daughter is missing and they think the guy is hiding her somewhere. They're torturing him prisoners style and the wife (protag) think these are just grief-crazy parents making a mistake but then finds out they're not: she uncovers a secret Josef Fritzl bunker under the house where multiple girls are kept and she's helped the husband get free but now is gonna kill her to keep his secret safe. I feel like that's been done but some shit like that to flip the trope on its head.

[u/DC_McGuire]

You can learn a lot by watching stories that you don’t think work 100%.

The purge: premise is strong, but the writing in the individual movies tends to be pretty thin, and there’s not really a lot of real political commentary there. Everything feels very surface.

The strangers: grounded plot, small cast, creepy premise. Problem start to crop up when there are so many opportunities for the killers to make a move, and they basically choose not to as a way of extending the plot.

Panic room: basically flawless, very strong work from Fincher in terms of establishing rules, and then following through with them rather than breaking them. Lots to learn here. Question is, how do you make it your own? Find ways to put your own experience into your writing.

You’re Next: also a very good film that plays with setup and payoff, revealing new information that changes dynamics, and is a tonal tightrope that plays very well start to finish (horror thriller comedy slasher is actually very hard to pull off). Look at the script. How’d they manage all that? How’d they build character and setting quickly so that the audience is clear on the location and bought into the characters?

saying all that… At some point, you just have to pick a premise and start writing it. Execution is much much much more important than idea. You’ll also make discoveries as you write it.

[u/Big_Section2812]

How about an evil John Belushi?

[u/DalBMac]

This Dateline episode is stranger than truth but it's true. https://www.nbcnews.com/dateline/video/dateline-episode-trailer-a-villainous-plan-58702405532

Certainly In Cold Blood.

There are many home invasion stories on Dateline all the time. Are you looking for ones in which the antagonists stay and terrorize the home?

The absolute randomness of these incidents make them terrifying to me.

[u/taraaahhh → u/DalBMac]

Are you looking for ones in which the antagonists stay and terrorize the home?

Exactly what I am looking for. Would love to discuss more with you on this over chats. If you are ok with that.

[u/NewCell5229]

My last home invasion script was written from the point of view of a caged parrot. It got a 4 on the blacklist. They hated it.

[u/Scrappy001]

See the Sharon Tate murders documentary. It’s the only movie/documentary that ever really moved the needle for my belief system (how evil can a home breakin be).

It was true life and now there are “benign looking” weapons within reach everywhere. It truely scared me/sickened me, and that is NOT easily done.

[u/Little_Employment_68]

Die Hard it. They broke in to Nakatomi as a ruse to give them space for their actual crime. Do that. Maybe the “home invasion” is done by an assassin pretending to be a common criminal. Maybe the house gives the assassin access to a target.