University of Iowa alumni Patrick Melton and Marcus Dunstan make their living scaring people.

The horror filmmakers wrote the three most recent installments of the Saw series, the most profitable horror franchise in history, including Saw VI, which is set for release just before Halloween. They wrote and Dunstan directed The Collector, released in July. Now they are developing the pilot for an ABC series called Clive Barker’s Hotel.

Melton (BA ’97) and Dunstan (BA ’98) shared the gory details of their careers with Spectator@IOWA.

How did you meet at the University?

Patrick Melton: One of the first times I met Marcus, he was filming a short called The World’s Slowest Zombie Chase. He had an assignment to shoot a chase scene, and rather than doing a fast one like everyone else, he filmed an old man being chased by a zombie. The man escaped by hooking his cane onto a car passing by. So Marcus dressed up as an old man and tied a bumper to his hip. When I saw him, he was being dragged down the street with sparks flying behind him.

Marcus Dunstan: We had a lot in common. We’re both from Illinois, we belonged to the same fraternity, we both served as Herky, and we both worked at movie theaters in Iowa City.

You also both studied film in the Department of Communication Studies in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. How did you launch your careers after graduating from Iowa?

Melton: We didn’t know anyone when we moved to Hollywood. We just had ideas and the will to work hard. In 2004, we wrote our first script together, Feast, for Project Greenlight, a film contest established by Matt Damon and Ben Affleck. It was a web-based contest and the selection process was the topic of a reality show that started on HBO and moved over to Bravo. Wes Craven was the mentor for Season three, and we won for screenwriting.

Dunstan: Feast was released in 2006 by Dimension Films, a genre company within Miramax. That was our big break. It led to the writing gigs for the Saw series.

What’s the general story of the Saw series?

Melton: The story centers around a mastermind killer named Jigsaw who punishes people when they take their lives for granted. He puts them in bizarre traps and they have a set amount of time to escape, or die. It’s supposed to be a moral lesson because they learn to appreciate life.

Was it hard to start writing Saw scripts partway through the series?  

Dunstan: Most of the characters and the structure were already established, so that was helpful. But a lot of themes had already been covered. And we started writing at a difficult point in the series. The original writer killed off Jigsaw and his apprentice Amanda at the end of Saw III, intending to end the franchise there. We had to jump in and start writing with both villains dead.
 
Melton: We were able to do it because the series has a broken timeline. This gave us a lot of freedom to do flashbacks. We could go back to full scenes with Jigsaw.

Tell us a little about The Collector.

Dunstan: It’s about a handyman who befriends families and then burglarizes their homes when they go out of town. While breaking into a mansion, the thief realizes the family is being tortured in the basement. He faces a choice: be a hero and save the family, or get the heck out of there.