Historical Story: MURDER CASTLE

Artists’ Statement

(Note: Hopefully this GoogleDoc is public and works correctly. If not, shoot an email to hunterphillips@gmail.com and I’ll get it fixed. Thanks!)

During the conception period for this initial pitch, it was exciting to think of the possibilities for H.H. Holmes’ infamous “Murder Castle” during the Chicago World’s Fair. However, upon actually putting words to a page, it became much more difficult than anticipated to tell a compelling story about this dark period in American history.

For those who don’t know, Holmes was America’s first serial killer, a doctor who built a massive hotel around his Chicago pharmacy. The hotel was actually a series of death traps with gas chambers, doors to nowhere, and an enormous furnace in the basement. He used his medical practice as a guise for cadaver work, and kept his ruse going through the 1890s. This story is just one hypothetical scenario of how his murderous enterprise functioned. Consider it a vignette of sorts about this monster’s world.

Originally, we intended for our protagonist, Mary Lou, to survive her ordeal in the murder castle and escape. However, as we worked through the story, we realized it would not be as satisfying for her to get a deus ex machina that allowed her freedom, and the grim truth of the scenario would be much truer to the history. This being a historical story at its core, we decided to make it a situation that actually could have taken place during Holmes’ time in Chicago.

Ultimately, we’re pleased with the way this story turned out, and much of that is thanks to the collaborative process. We each came up with ideas that bounced off the other extremely well, and this came in handy particularly during the dialogue-writing process. We researched the vernacular of the 1890s (at some points completely rewriting expressions that wouldn’t have existed yet), as well as Chicago culture, to insert references and lines that would have been commonplace then. We believe that none of this ended up too on-the-nose, and are ultimately pretty proud.

This was a project about history, and in taking a genuine historical story like that of Holmes, we had to condense a huge mythology into one six-page microstory. We think we accomplished something that’s a lot of fun, and ultimately does justice to its historical context.


https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B1cMK7KG6d-zSlc2amlmX3dPSFk