First of all... "Final Draft" is not really a horror movie even the burnt creepy clown on the cover and in the trailer might suggest that. If you are in for some classic Clown-Horror kills this might be way wrong for you. The movie is really slow paced and basically just taking place in about 3-5 locations. It deals with a writer named Paul who dreams of an idea for a horror movie script which a friend of him rushes him to finish on a tight deadline of 18 days to get a movie deal for it on a meeting he arranged. The main actor played by Dawsons Creeks James van der Beek is a rather introvert guy and I think James captures his psychological dilemma very well. To deal with his writers block and finish the script without distractions he lets his friend lock him in his apartment for the 2 weeks. From here everything plays in a large, dark and rather empty apartment in a creepy industrial building where Paul hacks on his keyboard desperately trying to finish his story. When he mixes in too much of his personal experiences reality and his story begin to meld together. Beside the main actor I really liked the editing and little use of music which made the movie interesting. Its often hard to grasp whats real and whats imagination since the editing is strongly jumping in time, inter-cutting other sequences and lagging in sound. I think there are some real cool ideas in the script in how the characters Paul puts in his script to be killed by the clown for how they made his life harder start appearing in his apartment and talking to him typing their demise on his keyboard.While Punchy the clown rather acts on the sidelines he delivers his punches in a raw and untypical fashion. Final Draft could really be a great movie if it didn't stretch so much. Its really way to slow and could have been way tighter. There are so many fresh ideas in the script and editing its a shame that the suspense wears off after a while. If you like psychological Movies with horror and drama elements you sure should give this a try even if the movie has its flaws... especially the sound mixing which is way too low in the dialog and the unexplained cuts to events outside the apartment and not related to Pauls script or history put me off a bit.

Don't be fooled by the cover i originally thought yes this looks like a horror movie similar to stephen kings IT the killer clown, It couldn't be any further away from it. Starts off with the main character(a writer) having strange dreams about a clown.He then decides that he must write a new book about a clown who burns to death during one of his acts and the audience laughing instead of helping , this clown then exacts revenge on the audience who laughed at him. In helping with him build his characters for this script he imagines that the victims are former friends or people he knew previously, as the only friend he seems to have now is his actor friend David. It's obviously done on a shoestring budget and how they manage to stretch it out for the 90 mins is beyond me, i would be falling asleep actually filming this never mind watching the movie finished, its just not eventful enough you don't get to know the characters enough, i wouldn't recommend this to anyone and i certainly don't think i could sit through it again...

James van der Beek plays the part well - drifting gently away from his role in Dawson's Creek. Though this sort of film has been done before, the isolation in 'Final Draft' provides a much more difficult part for the lead, which James plays with the candour of an experienced actor. Definitely worth a watch, I would select this title over numerous others in the genre; especially Stephen King's 'It' which is far less frightening. It is also refreshing to see a new film approach horror in a traditional manner - not one of the commonplace gore-fests that are dime-a-dozen in the box office recently. For an indy film, it is definitely a good foothold for all involved; being the director's second film and a first for the writer, who also stars. There were few parts and it might have been refreshing to see some higher calibre actors play the supporting roles, though the parts were all played well. A foot in the door for James van der Beek, who with any luck will land a part in a film with a bigger budget sometime soon.

I saw a trailer for this movie and was looking forward to seeing it.I really liked James Van Der Beek in the movie called "the plague". Final draft starts off with his character having a weird nightmare and then starts off pretty normal from there until he starts to encounter strange people.There are not many characters in this film but it was still well acted.James plays Paul, a lonely writer who seems to only have 1 friend and a past that we see clips of through his home videos.He is determined to write a screenplay and locks himself in his apartment to write a story from his childhood about a clown who gets set on fire and dies on stage during a performance as some kids are laughing at him as he perishes in the flames.The clown then comes back from the dead to get revenge on the now grown up kids.Paul and his brother were at the show as kids.It has troubled him ever since and he is haunted by thoughts of the kids laughing at him dying being the last thing the clown saw before he died.He is seeing spooky visions of the clown and the people around him are being terrorized mysteriously.Cabin fever sets in and he is living bad dreams.It is hard to distinguish between reality and fiction in this movie, and is a little confusing because there were so many flashbacks in his head happening all at once without much detail or explanation.The characters were a bit undeveloped but it was still a decent movie that makes you think.