Horror fans, has this concept been filmed or written before?

No, and for good reason, it’s about as lame as you can get. Almost as lame as this. I gagged a little when I saw the “twist”. Most ridiculous thing I’ve ever seen.

By lame you mean no way it can be scary @flip86 -?

Or lame because it’s about souls, faith in a god-?

Yes, the faith part is what makes it lame. Sorry, but it’s true.

Ok, I thought there’s no chance it can be scary. : )

It probably has not been done before, because such a set up is usually only devised by hardcore religionists, and they do not typically make horror movies.
The questions I have are,
What makes that idea scarier than any 0815 Poltergeist?
Where are you going with it? What is the underlying message that you want the story to have? When you choose such a premise, greater scrutiny in that regard is guaranteed.
Will they be terrorised into finding their “faith” again? That would bring up obious issues with it, such as forcing someone at gun point to become religious, or faith corrupting your soul so much that it turns it into demons once you lose your faith, mirroring the reaction of many religionists to their kids not having the same religion as them.
Will the souls finally be conquered or appeased? Again, this would depict faith in a negative light, and both scenarios might repel a lot of your audience, christians and atheists alike.

@ragingloli No, revealing that a soul is an atheist’s demonic spirit is just one jumping point to the horror. There will be no unified conclusion they are indeed the characters’ souls. Which will leave it open ended. Now that will be bad so I have to come up with an alternative possible explanation. Thanks for your insightful answer. : )

As @ragingloli points out, I think such a concept would alienate both atheists and theists, so it would end up being very unpopular and thus un-marketable.

But why would demons go after atheists? They are already lost. They need to be going after the believers. I think Satan might get a little pissed off at these demonic slackers when there is so much work to do. The whole thing is about one god stealing the souls from the other god, right? And the god with the most souls in the end wins. That’s the way I interpret our mythology, anyway.

It could be a comedy about a bunch of old, tired demons who are just a bit sick of the whole thing, no union and all, and have found a way to appear to be working when they really aren’t. Until the Prince of Darkness finds out…

I doubt this exact conceit has been used, unless by some really underground filmmaker, but the basic idea is just a riff on the old Hollywood atheist trope.

You go @mazingerz88! Don’t listen to them. Make your film!

As a mass consumer of horror movies, I’ll pretty much watch anything. The truth is 95% of horror movies are not scary or unique and stories are flimsy and horribly written

I see no obvious reasons that your premise is bad, but if it will be a good movie is a whole other question. My first criticism: why does atheism have to be involved? Plenty of people who call themselves religious or spiritual or godly are not. A mixed bag of people would be much more interesting and less obvious than stating that everyone is an atheist. I can see a lot of ways the plot can twist.

I’d probably watch it.

I feel like a gore- and sex-free version of this film must have been made for the Christian set by now. You should probably do some research for “clean” versions before getting sued for turning this into a horror movie of your own, lest you be sued. :P

I’m not really a fan of horror movies, and I’m utterly ignorant of religion, so I’m not going to discuss theist/atheist things in details with you. But I think your premiere is a bit not-so-original. I mean, the idea of a movie crew being terrorized by supernatural beings is pretty much used. We have Grave Encounters, Skeleton Crew, Diary of the Dead and even Sweet Home. So it may not attract the audience at first sign.

I know you have it planned in mind, but I don’t really get something in your plot: why do demons only appear when the movie crew is filming? I mean, they are atheists, so they have lost their faith (forgive me for this statement), so the demons must have been terrorizing them for a long time, ever since they became atheists. Why do they just wait until the movie crew start filming then terrorize? Are you suggesting that the movie crew used to be theists, then became atheists shortly before they shoot the movie?

The theist/atheist thing is making the plot complicated, as many have stated above. I think it would be better if the plot goes like this (sorry, suggestion of a detective fan): some people (or all) of the movie crew have done something wrong some time before the movie shooting (maybe together) and the movie accidentally has a lot in common with that incident. The demons are actually the spirits of the dead (if the movie crew murdered someone), and/or their conscience tormenting them.

The Abrahamic religions do not believe that human souls are demons. Demons are angels who followed Lucifer after the Fall. Thus, you lose the educated-about-religion audience both believers and nonbelievers.

You’d have to establish a reason that these people’s own souls are able to interact with them while they still appear to be alive, because biblically, as long as someone is breathing they are a “living soul”, and the soul isn’t “lost” until the person is dead.

^^ I don’t think a lot of biblical scholars are going to be watching this movie. Haha. :)

You’d be surprised how many horror fans are well-versed in biblical lore, or at least Christian traditions. It kind of comes with the territory.

The “faith” itself should be frightening enough. The bible itself is a great collection of “horror stories”.

I agree with @tinyfaery about this. Unless you have some expectational idea on how to make the horror and plot work with the premise to make something which has not been seen in possession movies before, it probably doesn’t matter very much. As long as the movie itself is well made.
I know that you usually have very out of the box ideas for your scripts though…do you have any more details?
To actually answer the question, there actually are a few movies that deal with the supernatural and unbelievers as protagonists. The result is usually that after going through all this shit, the unbeliever is, now, a believer, for better or for worse. One example is a movie called The Reaping, in which a woman is witnessing ’‘miracles’’ that The Bible speaks of, centering around Moses performing miracles. Locust plagues, frog rain…the woman does not believe at first that science cannot explain this…well I won’t say anymore. ;) But it does revolve around science VS supernatural.

^ That one wasn’t too bad, actually.

Then there was this one with a nonbelieving preacher practicing fake exorcisms – until he does a real one.

Oh yeah haha, I saw that. Isn’t there a sequel…?

I think so, but I refuse to see “The Last Exorcism Part II” out of sheer exasperation.

Ooh, ooh, this one was good, too. It had the good-looking dude from that first season of Grey’s Anatomy. I don’t know his name… anyway, yeah. Good one.

I have a fantastic idea for a horror movie, Westboro Baptist Church
That’s it, endless scenarios/plots are possible, each more terrifying than the last.
A horde of gay zombies rape the still twitching corpse of Fred Phelps, while the rest of his family look on dressed in military attire, masturbating furiously.

I’ve seen that. XD

Haha, glad you came out the other side :)

Wow thaaaanks jellies-! Fluther rocks truly-!

Would respond to some posts in time but gonna do @Mimishu1995 first. Yup, needed that info on movies with terrorized film crews. Seen Grave Encounters and don’t want to end up doing the same. I can still take out that film crew part or modify the approach. But I have to watch those other movies first.

I would like to stick with the “malevolent spirits” as lost souls of humans who may or may not have it-? LOL

This angle feels unique to me. I must admit, I’m merely able to focus on what could be horrifying and disturbing but nothing on the material’s marketability. As some jellies made me realize. Sweeeeet-! : )