Loglines & Screenplays by Lee Matthias

GENRES: Science Fiction, Horror

In a near-future world shattered by an alien invasion, a lone Special Ops soldier, unaware that he's the key to victory, stumbles on a group of disabled war vets holding their abandoned VA Hospital as the invaders lay siege. (ALIENS meets ASSAULT ON PRECINCT 13 with one arm tied behind its back)

GENRES: Thriller / Suspense, Horror

After a man comes to a psychiatrist claiming to be pursued by a demon, unable to penetrate the man’s psychosis, the psychiatrist ignores his professional ethics, begins to investigate, and realizes his patient may, in fact, be telling the truth. (THE SIXTH SENSE meets Polanski's THE TENANT)

GENRES: Period Piece, Horror

After his bride disappears on their European honeymoon, Richard Renfield traces her to a castle ruin in the Carpathian mountains, and confronts its undead inhabitants, determined to restore her to life and bring her home. (A prequel to Bram Stoker's story, DRACULA)

GENRES: Thriller / Suspense, Mystery

A “boy-wonder” film executive scams his studio for millions with a dummy script that the whole town believes is genius, sends it straight to “Development Hell” so he can walk away with the cash, only to find he’s not the only “shark in the tank”. (THE PLAYER meets THE STING - Based on an actual case and a literary agent's experiences)

GENRES: Horror

A family, hunted by killers, hiding in a small town, re-opens an old movie palace, and as their fear awakens something worse lurking within the theater itself, the hunters and the hunted find their survival depends on them alone. (THE SHINING meets CAPE FEAR... in a theater)

GENRES: Not selected

As the Soviet Union collapses in the early 1990s, a Hollywood stuntman’s nephew and a Washington reporter uncover a KGB secret hidden in a movie and, pursued by the motliest crew of former KGB agents, take off cross-country to stop the Russian plan before it’s too late. 

GENRES: Science Fiction, Thriller / Suspense

An ultra-rich businessman running a successful private space program recruits a disaffected former CIA Field Agent to “fake” a UFO crash in order to penetrate an ultra-secret Government UFO program once known as Majestic 12. (CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND meets THE PARALLAX VIEW)

GENRES: Science Fiction, Comedy

When a government agent investigates a strange town on the loneliest road in America, he encounters the oddest collection of weirdos and a secret beyond belief, proving that in some places in the Universe, you can go home again. (NORTHERN EXPOSURE meets E.T.)

GENRES: Period Piece, Thriller / Suspense

In 1902 London, famed American Magician, Harry Houdini enlists Sherlock Holmes and his colleague Dr. John H. Watson, in a case that rocks the British Empire to its core. (A Sherlock Holmes pastiche in the spirit of THE SEVEN-PER-CENT SOLUTION)

GENRES: Science Fiction

I know: "How dare I?"

GENRES: Documentary

Intended for adaptation as a one-hour documentary, this treatise gathers all the disparate approaches to screenplay structure extant, analyzes their strengths, weaknesses, and limitations, and puts forth an approach that finally does what none before it could: explain story structure in a simple, easily understood way, across the length and breadth of narrative film. In so doing, it enables writers to analyze their story ideas, plan their development, and write them into efficiently-told, entertaining and satisfying motion pictures.