For various reasons, I thought it might be worth it to occasionally host one of my old scripts on here. Lately I’ve been talking about genre films a lot, especially the superhero genre. With the seemingly neverending stream of movies and TV shows about the X Men, and the Avengers, and the Justice League, and on and on and on, “superheroes” almost aren’t a genre anymore. There are comedic superhero films, dramatic superhero films, superhero roadtrip films, superhero coming-of-age films. The “superhero” device is now so prevalent that it’s transcended a single genre.

But that wasn’t always the case. Once, superhero movies and shows had a very specific set of conventions they (mostly) all followed.So for a particular class in film school, I put together a weird little genre film about an inept superhero. I wanted to see how far I could stretch the conventions of the genre and still have a recognizable “superhero movie.” I’m not sure I succeeded, but it was a fun exercise. It was met with varying reactions in my writing class; some people loved it, some were lukewarm, but only the instructor hated it. I have a theory that he just didn’t like genre films in general, which I think most of my classmates would agree with. But that’s neither here nor there. The short that I wrote, which I might revive someday, was called The Vermilion Mosquito.