Free Template

What's your favorite scary movie?

A horror screenplay template for Google Docs. Properly formatted. Ready for your nightmare.

Opens in Google Docs. Make a copy and start writing.

Why this template?

Horror is structure.

The best scary movies aren't random. They're machines designed to build dread, release tension, then build it again.

This template gives you the bones. Scene headings, action blocks, dialogue: all formatted to industry standard. You focus on the scares. The margins are already correct.

What's inside

Everything You Need

Industry-standard format

Courier 12pt, correct margins

Pre-built scene structure

Adapt or delete as needed

Character and dialogue formatting

Ready to go

Works with Screenplay Editor

One-click auto-formatting

The film behind the template

Scream (1996)

This template contains the opening scene of Scream (1996), the film that reinvented the slasher genre.

The opening works as both a standalone horror short and an exceptional opening scene. Twelve minutes. One location. One character. A phone call that becomes a trap. It has its own beginning, middle, and end. It sets the rules, breaks them, and leaves you terrified before the title card even appears. That's the power of tight, self-contained horror structure.

Kevin Williamson wrote the script in three days, selling it for $400,000. It became a cultural phenomenon: $173 million worldwide, four sequels, and a complete revival of horror in the late '90s.

What made it work? Self-awareness without losing the stakes. Characters who knew the rules of horror movies. And died anyway. A whodunit structure layered over slasher mechanics.

That's the structure that works. That's what this template gives you.