The Grieving Spell (13 pages in pdf format) by Bill Sarre

A grieving man uses a special magic to relieve the pain he feels following the death of his wife.

It’s a paradox – so many really good stories revolve around a character’s bad decisions. This is definitely one of them.

Written by screenwriter Bill Sarre, The Grieving Spell tells the eerie tale of a man’s crumbling emotions after the loss of his wife Helen in a car crash… and his relentless quest to find relief from the pain chipping away at his psyche. So he makes a bad decision.

He turns to witchcraft.

Inspired by his departed wife’s interest in Wicca, Lawrence pays a visit to Astrid Dove – the High Priestess of the New Dawn Centre. “I need your magic to take the pain away – allow me to heal on the inside,” he tells her. Though he swears he’s not looking for an easy fix, Astrid has reservations. “I’m not sure this is the right approach for you.”

Talk about an understatement.

The bereaved widower persists: he desperately needs to move on. But what Astrid doesn’t know is that there’s more to Lawrence’s emotional crisis than loss and grief. There’s jealousy. And rage. And more than a touch of guilt.

A reluctant Astrid gives him a “grieving spell”, to be performed around a large fire. The priestess counsels as she writes it down: “Magic’s a subtle art. It’s not easy to predict.”

Understatement (and bad decision) part two.

As Lawrence performs the spell on a beach one starry night, a hazy figure emerges from the embers. Lawrence’s bad decisions have come back to haunt him. And finally set things right…

The Grand Prize Winner of the London Film Awards, The Grieving Spell is classic Monkey’s Paw horror. Watch out what you wish for… unless it’s a script like this, of course!

Budget: A few locations (car, beach, diner and office.) Four main characters… and some minor FX that can easily be done in post.

About the writer: An award winning writer, Bill Sarre has had scripts place both finalist and quarter finalist with Page and Bluecat. Bill can be reached at Bill.sarre (a) gmail

About the reviewers: Scott & Paula Merrow are a husband and wife screenwriting team. Since 2006, they’ve written over 50 short screenplays, several of which have been produced. They tend toward family-friendly scripts, but they’ve written a little bit of everything: horror, fantasy, sci-fi, comedy – the whole nine yards. They’re reachable at scott-paula (a) comcast.net

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This screenplay may not be used or reproduced for any purpose including educational purposes without the expressed written permission of the author.