Growing up in Fort St. John, movies were such a huge part of Meg Turner’s life that they decided to pursue a career as a screenwriter. Now a film they wrote is playing in select theatres across the U.S. and about to be released on Paramount+ this May.
The now Vancouver-based screenwriter wrote the horror film Organ Trail, which tells the story of a young Abigale Archer who is alone in the Montana winter during the 1870s who must fight for her survival as she tries to retrieve her one earthly possession, a family horse, from a gang of bloodthirsty bandits.
“It was inspired by a typo of all things. I was googling the original 1985 video game and forgot the e in Oregon. So, in my usual scatterbrained manner, I laughed that it would be a great title for a horror movie, wrote it down, and ideas started flowing,” explained Turner.
“All I could imagine was, what if Quentin Tarantino wrote ‘The Little House On the Prairie?’ and here we are.”
Turner said the most bizarre part of this is how they sold the script.
“I tweeted about it in April 2021, and Michael Patrick Jann (director of “Drop Dead Gorgeous” and “Reno: 911”) randomly saw it and asked to read it,” said Turner.
He optioned it in May, sold it to Paramount Pictures in October, and filmed it in February 2022.
“It rarely happens this quickly, so I’ve been spoiled from the get-go.”
Turner explained that once Paramount Pictures purchased the script, that’s where their direct involvement ended.
“It was filmed in Montana in February 2022 when the state was a COVID-19 red zone, so I wasn’t able to visit the sets. I lived vicariously through the cast and crew’s posts on social media,” said Turner.
However, they did have the opportunity to watch the film with the cast and crew on the Paramount Studios Lot in Los Angeles.
“It’s hard to describe how it feels to watch something I’ve written come to life. It’s a surreal experience,” said Turner.
“My parents attended the screening with me, and they were beaming with pride the entire time. I did have to warn Mom about the gory/scary parts though.”
Turner is a prolific writer that has written two features and two shorts which have been produced, but in terms of their catalogue of unproduced work they’ve written more than 15 features and eight shorts.
“I can’t pinpoint an exact moment when it started but I remember seeing Shane Black’s name as the writer of several different films and realizing that I could pursue screenwriting as a career,” said Turner.
“It was a light bulb moment.”
They said they begin a script by free association writing, knowing the beginning, middle and end of an intended story but letting the characters guide them through it.
In terms of genre, Turner said horror movies are their passion and doesn’t think they will ever stop writing them.
“Horror movies are a controllable fear,” said Turner. “It’s fun to scare and be scared in a safe environment, and with all the nonsense in the news, it’s an escape to a reality where the nightmare can be stopped with the push of a button. As for writing horror stories, it’s cheaper than going to therapy.”
Organ Trail will be released for streaming on Paramount+ on May 12.
Turner said they have a few other projects on the back burner but can’t talk about them just yet.
