Fright Tomes: Andrew Kevin Walker Knows What’s in the Box
By T.J. Tranchell
Previous ⬅ Fright Tomes: The Legend of Richard Matheson
When we think of writers, we tend to lean toward those producing books or short pieces: novelists, short story writers, journalists, and poets. These are not the only writers worth recognizing. Many screenwriters go unheralded, and their names never reach the tongues of the masses. Sometimes, however, the written component of a film and the person or persons behind it get to shine just a bit brighter.
This is, as you know, a place in which we habitually shine the light on slices of darkness and one of the darkest screenplays of all time is Se7en written by Andrew Kevin Walker. Released in 1995, Walker’s script was nominated for several awards and won a few of them. And it all starts and ends with what’s in the box.
There are trivia posts about how Walker wrote the infamous “maybe it’s a head in the box” ending, scrapped it for something less disturbing, but had it brought back when director David Fincher read a draft with the original ending intact. Whatever the real story is, honestly, it doesn’t matter. It’s interesting in the way Hollywood development stories sometimes have more drama associated with a certain film, but we the viewers — and those willing to track down scripts — are left with what is on screen and on the pages if available. Without Walker putting that final scene on paper first, this movie doesn’t get made.
Se7en, even with the numeral in the middle, is not a film one lightly walks into or back out of. I wanted to see it that winter of its release. I wanted to see it even more after my sister and cousin came home white-faced after watching it on a Sunday. I tried to get in, but the Utah theater I went to carded me, and my 16-year-old self was turned away. The film is masterfully plotted in its final draft. Certain drafts have more of the characters such as Gwyneth Paltrow’s Tracy and more scenes with John Doe, but when it’s honed down; we get attached to Sommerset (Morgan Freeman) and Mills (Brad Pitt) for the vast majority of the film. That all stems from a key aspect of screenwriting: keep it tight and keep it focused.
Walker’s next produced screenplay might be darker than Se7en, but it was his name attached to the film that brought me to see 8mm. The Nicholas-Cage-investigates-a-snuff-film story is deeply depressing and in no way forms anything like a series or any other connection despite the consecutive numbering of the two films. What is consistent is Walker’s ability to go into the worst places of the human psyche and draw out horrible things about even the noblest characters. Then he still lets them be heroes. While these two films put him in front of more mainstream audiences, he had gone into the darkness before with the scripts for Brainscan (1994) and the Dean Koontz adaptation Hideaway (1995). The Cage movie did not burn up the box office as much as Se7en, but at this point, Walker was someone Hollywood turned to for a certain style of misdirection and strange comeuppance. So, it shouldn’t surprise anyone that the tag line of one of his biggest box office hits was “Heads Will Roll.”
I’m still surprised that no one keyed in on the connection between the one decapitated head in Se7en and the Tim Burton-helmed Sleepy Hollow (1999), a film that begins and ends with characters having their heads lopped off and features America’s most famous headless character, the Horseman.
It’s a masterstroke of career trajectory, in my opinion. Yet the call of commercialism didn’t best serve Walker. It would be 11 years before a major production featured his byline and, unfortunately, that film also did not ring the box office bells as much as was hoped for. Walker’s script for The Wolfman (2010) had its hits and misses and I think he was blamed for more of the misses. A screenwriter, after all, can’t complete the work of turning a man into a wolf on screen, they can only describe what it might look like.
But that is the treacherous ground trod by screenwriters. They must keep detail to a minimum in many ways, allowing the casts and crews, and the directors and producers, put their stamp on a thing that sprang from the mind of one or two people. Like a silver bullet, the failure of The Wolfman basically killed the once promising career of Andrew Kevin Walker.
This is horror, however, and just as our favorite monsters rise from the grave for new installments, so do certain writers. Walker is credited with an episode of Love, Death, & Robots (2022) and the film The Killer (2023), both that reteamed him with director David Fincher. Stuck in between those credits is something somewhat more interesting. Another dip into darkness and brutality. Walker wrote the story for Metalocalypse: Army of the Doomstar (2023). Things don’t get much darker than the animated world of the greatest metal band ever, Dethklok.
I might be kidding about that last part. What isn’t a joke is Walker’s talent and ability to write fundamentally flawed characters and then show us who to get behind and who to root against, even when the good guys do unimaginably horrifying things. 🩸
About
T.J. Tranchell was born on Halloween and grew up in Utah. He has published has published six books, including The Blackhawk Cycle, a hardcover omnibus. In October 2020, The New York Times called Cry Down Dark the scariest book set in Utah. He holds a Master’s degree in Literature from Central Washington University and is pursuing an MFA through the UCR-Palm Desert Low Residency program. Tranchell has also published work in Fangoria. He currently lives in Washington State with his wife and son and teaches at a community college.
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