Local scriptwriter Ed Lusk sees success in horror genre 

by Charles Cassady

When noting the Oscar nominees this awards season and your eyes drift to “Best Screenplay,” spare a thought for Ed J. Lusk, of Independence.

His unproduced script The Blood Prophet earned “Best Supernatural Feature Length/Horror” recognition at the NE Ohio-based Horror Hotel Weekend film convention scriptwriting contest last year. Maybe not a Motion Picture Academy gold statuette, but proof that Lusk is one of many unsung toilers in film who pursues solitary works in the hopes that a motion-picture production will turn out at the other end. 

And sometimes those dreams do come true. The classic example, said Lusk, is then-unknowns Matt Damon and Ben Affleck, with their collaboration Good Will Hunting. It ended up a multiple-Oscar winner. 

“These two guys with no real experience were able to pull that off,” said Lusk.

Flashback several years before Ben and Matt: “The very first movie I saw was at the Willow Theater,” Lusk said, referring to a Brecksville Road single-screen cinema in the heart of Independence that endured from 1950 to 1976, when it was destroyed in an electrical fire. “It was a Disney film, Swiss Family Robinson,” he said.

Lusk said he enjoyed the celluloid experience “first as an audience member, just going to the movies. Then I became interested in just how movies are made.”

Relocating to a production hub like Los Angeles or New York was not a realistic option for Lusk, a 1979 Independence High School graduate who held jobs in traffic and product management with Gojo and L’Oreal. But he found resources here – including a traveling “2-Day Film School” given by independent producer Dov S-S Simens. With the advent of the digital-filmmaking revolution, Lusk took classes and workshops with a local group called Cleveland Filmmakers.

“And in the 1990s, I was an extra in a movie filmed downtown. I think the final title was Rogue Force. We ended up running in and out of the Old Courthouse building door a lot,” said Lusk.

Witnessing filmmaking in action led Lusk to consider how he could fit into this industry from afar with minimal connections, no agent and no resources. “A light bulb went off in my head: screenwriting. I can do that,” he said. “I’ve had a long history of trying to educate myself, both formally and informally.” 

He jumped into endeavors like the 48-Hour Film Project, a worldwide contest in which teams assemble, get subject material and strive to make a finished short subject in two days. His team’s resulting mini-movie, The Last Donut gave Lusk his Internet Movie Database credit. Lusk also took creative writing classes at Cleveland State University and completed an English literature degree.

“Going to night school took six years, [but] I knocked it out,” he said.

He mastered the particular style, software and format of writing film/TV scripts (one page equals one minute), absorbed online wisdom through ScreenwritingU.com and jumped in.

“They say it takes six or seven scripts to just begin to get good,” said Lusk. “There is no better teacher than experience.”

It was his holiday-themed action-fantasy Henry’s Christmas Adventure that ended up earning him real attention. Ingredients were somewhat similar to last December’s Santa-Claus actioner Red One, said Lusk. “It was fun. I really liked the concept.”

Two years ago, Lusk went to market with Henry’s Christmas Adventure. 

“I sent out query letters to [production company] readers. And I got a few serious responses, but didn’t really hear anything about it,” he said. “And then last October, I got an email that said in the subject line Henry’s Christmas Adventure.”

It seems a producer actually got the script to a major studio. They passed on it – for now – but Lusk said that the response was positive, encouraging and “pretty satisfying.”

The Blood Prophet might sound like a weird evolution from Christmas movies, but Lusk said it was his first try at transforming someone else’s concept into a scenario – in this case, a YouTube series called “The Vatican is Studying Vampires at a Secret Research Facility.” Lusk contacted the creator and said, “Let me take a crack at adapting that.”

The feature was about a Jesuit priest, who is also a virologist, discovering the virus that turns humans into Nosferatus. Lusk submitted the script to a high-profile independent film festival contest in Austin, Texas, known as a hangout for the likes of Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino. The Blood Prophet went as far as the second round of finalists. “Which is not too bad,” said Lusk. 

He said that acing such contests may not lead to the script getting filmed, but provides connections for the writers and offers to work on further projects.

The Horror Hotel Weekend is a long-running event in the Hudson-Cleveland vicinity, a scary-movie-oriented spinoff of the more general Indie Gathering, a convention-festival of DIY filmmakers worldwide.

Lusk said while at the horror convention, “I was on a panel with three other scriptwriters and we talked about the art and craft of writing and talked to filmmakers that had the same creative energy that we do.” As for his next endeavor, Lusk said he is returning to the Christmas-fantasy genre. “It’s a rom-com with a little fantasy,” he said. “It involves an elf who is definitely not on the shelf.” 

Photo caption: Ed Lusk stands with his first-place award for his screenplay The Blood Prophet at the Horror Hotel Film Festival. Photo submitted.