ScreenCraft Horror Competition
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About
ScreenCraft’s annual Horror Screenplay Competition is the industry’s #1 talent-discovery program for emerging horror screenwriters. Featuring an industry jury of horror filmmakers, executives, and literary managers, this competition is open to film, TV and short screenplays from English-language writers worldwide.
Horror allows us to experience our fears in safety. Whether it’s supernatural, psychological, apocalyptic or comedic. As one of the industry’s proven genres for breaking in new talent, this competition is especially effective for new screenwriters with great scripts. If you’re writing a great horror script, we’d love to read it.
ScreenCraft’s past winners have gone on to sell their scripts to major studios and have been hired by companies like Universal, Netflix, Amazon, Millennium, CBS and many more. ScreenCraft’s winners are also highly sought after by literary managers and agents who are open to signing to new writer clients. Over 100 ScreenCraft writers have signed with top management companies and agencies like 3 Arts, Anonymous Content, CAA, WME, UTA, Paradigm, Lit Entertainment, and many more.
Benefits
The first place winner will receive a cash prize of $ 1,000, introductory phone calls with top Hollywood managers and/or agents, and introduction of winning project to top studio development executives and producers – starting with this year’s judges! The 2nd place winner will receive $500 cash prize and industry introductions. See ScreenCraft's many success stories here.
This year's judges include:
Ryan Turek -- VP of Development at Blumhouse Productions (company credits include PARANORMAL ACTIVITY, INSIDIOUS, SINISTER, OCULUS, THE PURGE, OUIJA, THE GREEN INFERNO, Academy-award nominee WHIPLASH and UNFRIENDED).
Brittany Klesic -- Creative Executive at Monkeypaw Productions, Jordan Peele’s production company behind such iconic horror titles as GET OUT and US, and Co-Producer on their new feature CANDYMAN.
Crystal Holt -- Director of Scripted Programming at AMC Networks, the cable television network behind the iconic horror franchise THE WALKING DEAD and its spin off FEAR THE WALKING DEAD, as well as BREAKING BAD and MAD MEN.
C Robert Cargill -- Screenwriter, novelist, and podcaster best known as the writer of DOCTOR STRANGE, SINISTER, and SINISTER 2, as well as executive producer of horror series INTO THE DARK.
Sarah Christine -- Development Executive at Goal Post Pictures, an Australian-based production company whose feature film THE INVISIBLE MAN, is the highest grossing horror film of 2020.
Writer Success
2025 Winners on Coverfly
Announcements
Rules
At the program's request, Coverfly will automatically remove your title page for you if you include one when submitting to this program.
- Submissions are accepted via electronic submission only, between April 1, 2020 and June 30, 2020.
- Entry fee for each screenplay is $49 until the early deadline on April 30, 2020, then $69 until the regular deadline on May 31, 2020, and then $79 until the final deadline on June 30, 2020.
- Optional feedback from a professional reader may be requested at the time of entry. Requests for feedback after an entry is submitted will not be accepted.
- Feature screenplays must be a minimum of 75 pages and a maximum of 150 pages. TV pilots must be between 25 and 75 pages. Any feature submission longer than 120 pages will incur a $1 per page overage fee for each page over 120.
- There is no limit to the number of projects you may submit.
- Entries must be received on or before the deadline dates by 11:59PM Pacific Time, and submission fee payment must be made in full at time of the submission. All entry fees are non-refundable.
- All submitted material must be original, and all rights must be wholly owned by the writer(s).
- Material must be submitted by the writer. Material written by writing teams must be submitted by one of the writers, with consent of the other(s). All writers must be credited on title page.
- If a writing team is chosen as a winner, prizes will be given to the person who submits the project. Each team is responsible for dividing or sharing the prize money.
- Substitutions of either corrected pages or new drafts of the entered material will be allowed for a limited time with a $5 reentry fee through Coverfly. Please proofread your script carefully before submitting.
- It is recommended that original material be registered with the WGA or The Library of Congress before submitting to any competition, however we do not require registration.
- Contact info may be included on the cover page of the screenplay, however it is not required.
- All ownership and rights to the scripts submitted to this contest remains with the original rights holders.