Have you ever watched a horror film that has an exceptional first act, then an okay second act, until you hit the third, awful act? Of course you have. We all have. Why? Because third acts are hard!

As screenwriters, we’ve all had a spurt of inspiration that led us to a killer premise, that then expanded into a captivating story that streamed from our consciousness to the page. We spend weeks filled with excitement about our great new idea. We share it with friends and family, pining in anticipation for their reaction once we tell them. We sit down (maybe after outlining, maybe not) and it’s off to the races. It’s going well — so well that we’re actually excited to sit down and write, dishes be damned! We round the corner at the end of our second act, then it hits us... We gave all our juice at the top and now we’re out of gas for the third act.

How did this happen? We were doing so well! What went wrong? The answer is structure. Somewhere between a kick-ass premise and punchy scenes, we’ve neglected script structure.  

Here are three tips to avoid the dreaded weak third act in your horror feature.
 

• REMEMBER THIRD ACT STRUCTURE
  There are many screenwriting websites that will outline the third act of feature writing for you, but I like to simply think of it as the protagonist encounters the monster (villain), there’s a big action struggle where our hero almost appears lost, and then they overcome their obstacles in the final moments. In horror, nine times out of ten, there’s a tag that may or may not be a fake-out to the audience that the monster isn’t actually defeated. If it helps, write these three third act steps on a sticky note and place them on your computer so you can remind yourself what you’re writing towards. Remember: This structure is the first step in making sure you stick to the landing of your film. Once you have that locked down, the next step is to—
  
  
• REVISIT YOUR FIRST ACT
  Remember those first fifteen pages of your script that you had so much fun writing? Yeah, it’s time to revisit those and make sure they’re not just full of fluff, but hold a few landmines that you can blow up in your third act. Ninety percent of the time, when a writer comes to me wondering why their third act isn’t connecting, it’s because of something that’s not being threaded through from their first act. A lot of this can be avoided with outlining, as well. Did you map out your story? Most of my writer friends outline, but I know a ton that go straight to page and do just fine, as well. My advice for those straight-to-pagers is to treat your script like plastic surgery. Finish the third act, even if it’s awful, then go back to the first act and begin giving your story the facelift it needs to connect to your ending.
  
  
• DON’T BLOW YOUR ENTIRE LOAD TOO EARLY
  I apologize for the crassness, but there really isn’t a PC way to say this. Stop giving all of your great sequences away in your first two acts! At the same time, continue to raise the stakes right through to the end. Just because the movie is wrapping up, doesn’t mean you have to take your foot off the gas, if anything, you should be flooring it! Continue to drag your protagonist through the mud until the final moments. This is the time for them to gather all the blood, sweat and tears in order for them to survive.
  
  

Once again, third acts are hard. Let's accept that for what it is and move forward. One of my favorite pieces of advice came from an interview I did with Simon Barrett about his latest slasher, Seance. In that interview, Barrett said, “I write my ending first, then I create a bunch of space on my document, that way I can see what I’m working towards. I believe the ending is the most important part of the movie. A mediocre film can be saved by a good ending.”

Between Barrett's tips and my own, the most important tip to take away is that everyone writes differently and whatever way you get there is the way you get there. In the end, the only thing that truly matters is finishing your script!