Eijo: So me n’ The Schube recently finished our horror screenplay “Die, Maniacs, Die!” which of course inspired the name for this here blog. What possible story could such a title refer to? Well, here’s our short-pitch, or logline: Amelia, an ambitious young reporter investigating a small-town boogie-man legend blamed for a rash of disappearances in the area, discovers the horrifying truth behind the myth in an abandoned insane asylum.

The title was one of the last things we came up with. It was a bit of a chore because we knew the name needed to reflect the irreverent mix of humor and horror we’d worked so hard to achieve, described best by The Schube as a “Hellbus thrillride campfire story.”

Since just about the whole shebang takes place in a scary old abandoned insane asylum, we knew some variation on the word “crazy” was gonna be necessary. So we brainstormed. We brainstormed our butts off. And we came up with lots of stupid titles, which I am (ahem) now proud to share. You’ll notice that we clapped onto the word “maniac” pretty early on. Something about that word has always struck me as funny and frightening at the same time.

Monster Hospital  (Metric reference! bonus!)

Maniacs Below

Random Crazy

Screaming Freaks

Here Come the Lunatics  (sounds like an awkward variety show)

Underground Maniacs

Out of Their Skulls

Go Apey

Demented Maniacs  (bit redundant really)

Billy Eats Flesh Now  (now that’s just plain confusing since there is no “Billy” in the script)

Deep Fried Brains

Underground Maniacs

Alive & Unsound

Straight-Up Bananas

Oof, sorry about that. Not the prettiest peek into our thought process — the best one here is already the name of a song. But hey, without those titles we never would have come up with the whacky one we liked. Yep, I think we chose the best one. And now Metric’s gonna play me out with “Monster Hospital!”