Categories: Public
The Executioner
There are some mistery, some suspense, some red herrings, and a switch of course.
Yes, of course they had. 1888-1889 were the years when Scotland Yard was hunting down Jack the Ripper (I corrected the concept).
Even funnier if they didn't.
Did they even have police back then?
I love this as a comedy! An unemployed executioner must stay one step ahead of the idiot police chief to continue his passionate work as a killer. I am just using my imagination and can see this being really funny!
When capital punishment is abolished, a now unemployed state executioner begins a new career as a hit man.
or
When capital punishment is abolished depriving a state executioner of the only legitimate channel for his pathological compulsion to kill, he turns to serial murder.
Granted, the premise, particularly the 2nd one, is similar to the premise of the American cable TV Series "Dexter". Do you want your protagonist to sublimate his pathology by killing murderers who got away with their crimes -- like Dexter -- or act it out his homicidal compulsion in random acts of non-kindness?
Whatever, I think this has the makings of a high concept story. Which is to say, you don't have to explicitly spell out all the details of a protagonist, antagonist, objective goal, stakes. A high concept not has an obvious hook, in a few words it implies all the yada-yada or stimulates the imagination as to the dramatic possibilities. Well, it does in my mind. I am highly interested in the premise.
And I can't speak for the French market, but I think this would have franchise potential in the U.S as a series of feature films or as a cable series.
When capital punishment is abolished, a now unemployed state executioner begins a new career as a hit man.
or
When capital punishment is abolished depriving a state executioner of the only legitimate channel for his pathological compulsion to kill, he turns to serial murder.
Granted, the premise, particularly the 2nd one, is similar to the premise of the American cable TV Series "Dexter". Do you want your protagonist to sublimate his pathology by killing murderers who got away with their crimes -- like Dexter -- or act it out his homicidal compulsion in random acts of non-kindness?
Whatever, I think this has the makings of a high concept story. Which is to say, you don't have to explicitly spell out all the details of a protagonist, antagonist, objective goal, stakes. A high concept not has an obvious hook, in a few words it implies all the yada-yada or stimulates the imagination as to the dramatic possibilities. Well, it does in my mind. I am highly interested in the premise.
And I can't speak for the French market, but I think this would have franchise potential in the U.S as a series of feature films or as a cable series.
WGAW # 1732491
Genres: Black comedy, crime, Mystery-suspense.
Time and Place: 1889, a fictional kingdom of the old Central Europe.
Concept: The misfortunes of the Police Chief, some other people and the last state executioner, when unable to transform himself, the later seems having no choice but becoming a hitman or a serial killer when capital punishment is abolished in his little country. But things are never what they seem to be, obviously.
In the vein of: From Hell, Arsenic And Old Lace, Delicatessen
