Wesleyville writer signs on with Warner Brothers to write horror screenplays

When he was five, Chris Lewis Carter watched the film Child’s Play for the first time. 
His babysitter had a couple of friends over to watch the movie. Lewis wanted to be a part of it. 
Child’s Play is considered a classic in the horror movie genre. He thought he could watch the movie about a toy doll – Chucky – that becomes possessed by the soul of a serial killer and goes on a killing spree. 
As with many five-year-olds, Carter believed he was mature enough to handle the movie. 
He was wrong.
A short time in, Carter was impacted by what was playing out on the screen. It traumatized him for a decade. When he was 15, he decided to watch Child’s Play again, to see if it was as bad as he remembered. 
“I was ready to watch this terrifying movie and it wasn’t,” said Carter. “I find it fascinating that it had such a power over me.” 
Two decades later, Carter's initial fear of the horror genre has become a main influence, as the 34-year-old pushes toward a career as a screenwriter. 
Recently, he reached a milestone, as one of his screenplays was scooped up by entertainment giant Warner Brothers. He can’t get into specifics, but it relates to a video game that goes viral and some of its users take things a bit too far. 
“I’ve dabbled in other areas, but I always go back to horror,” said Carter. “It lets you explore things.” 
He points to recent works by Jordan Peele, who used the horror premise to put across his social message in films like Get Out and Us. 
Carter has been writing for as long as he can remember. He’s had short stories featured in various collections and is constantly brainstorming ideas.
One will come to him and he takes it down on his cellular phone, intending to flesh it out later. There are times he will be driving and have to pull over to get it down or he’ll ask his wife to make notes for him. 
Before technology helped him keep everything in one place, Carter would come home with scraps of paper, story ideas scribbled on them. He’d pull them from his pockets and piece them together. 
He calls himself the prototypical Newfoundlander. He doesn’t want to leave his home for employment. 
Being a screenwriter, he can work from anywhere and conduct all his business over the Internet. 
Carter believes there is a sort of symmetry to his screenplay getting picked up when it is.
In 2019 – as he secures his place in the genre – a new version of Child’s Play is ready to hit theatres. 
“It is all still very surreal,” said Carter.