Patrick Melton Marcus Dunstan

Patrick Melton and Marcus Dunstan grew up 250 miles apart in Illinois – Patrick in Evanston, Marcus in Macomb – but didn’t meet until both were attending film school at the University of Iowa. They soon became writing partners, based on a shared interest in genre filmmaking.

Upon graduation, Patrick moved to Los Angeles, where he received his MFA in Screenwriting from Loyola Marymount University.  During this time he worked for various film companies, including Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer before becoming a story analyst for the talent agency, ICM. 

Dunstan, meanwhile, had also moved to Los Angeles, continuing his own encyclopedic genre education as a video store clerk - while continuing his collaboration with Melton.  In 2004, the partners won the filmmaking contest Project Greenlight, produced by Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, Chris Moore, and Wes Craven for their original horror screenplay Feast.

Since then, Patrick and Marcus have penned two sequels to Feast as well as being hired to put their unique stamp on the Saw series, writing back-to-back Halloween hits Saw IV and Saw V - in addition to Saw VI, which is due to theaters this year.  They’ve also performed uncredited rewrites on My Bloody Valentine 3-D, Piranha 3-D and Clive Barker’s Hellraiser..  The writing duo is currently working on Saw VII, as well as an original TV series with horror legend Clive Barker titled Clive Barker’s Hotel.