David M Hinds
Author and Screenwriter
David in situ on Dartmoor National Park, England at the setting of Tasered, his new darkly comedic psychosexual thriller.
David M Hinds’ 2023 spec screenplay
Tasered
A stress management therapist and influencer known as THE HAPPINESS ANGEL is tasered at the scene of a young man’s mysterious death. She develops a lethal compulsion to attack her lovers mid-act, and her life becomes entwined in a kiss-or-die relationship with his widow.
The Happiness Angel
… is the identical twin sister of Tasered under an alternative title inspired by the protagonist’s millions of YouTube followers.

The Happiness Angel, Candy Towne, vents her frustration with the screenwriter David M Hinds





















International Film Festival Screenplay Awards
SCREENPLAY AWARDS OUTRIGHT WINS FOR TASERED
Oniros Film Awards New York December 2021 | WINNER – BEST THRILLER SCRIPT |
WorldFest Houston 2022 | PLATINUM WINNER – BEST THRILLER |
Golden Sparrow Awards May 2022 | WINNER – BEST FEATURE SCRIPT/SCREENPLAY |
Košice International Film Festival May 2022 | WINNER – BEST THRILLER SCREENPLAY |
Prague International Film Awards Spring 2022 | WINNER – BEST ACTION SCREENPLAY |
Stanley Film Awards June 2022 | WINNER – BEST FEATURE SCRIPT |
Best Script Award – London Summer 2022 | WINNER – BEST PSYCHOLOGICAL SCREENPLAY |
International Manhattan Film Awards 2022 | WINNER – BEST COMEDY |
Hamburg Indie Fest 2022 | WINNER – BEST FEATURE SCRIPT |
European Cinematography Awards 2021 - 2022 | WINNER – BEST SCREENPLAY |
Oxford Script Awards February 2023 | WINNER – BEST PSYCHOLOGICAL SCREENPLAY |

David and his wife Tatiana at the Paris Art and Movie Awards, Summer 2022.
SCREENPLAY AWARDS OUTRIGHT WINS FOR TASERED’S ALTERNATE TITLE “THE HAPPINESS ANGEL”
WorldFest Houston 2022 | SILVER WINNER – BEST COMEDY |
Oniros Film Awards New York April 2022 | WINNER – BEST ORIGINAL SCRIPT |
Oniros Film Awards New York April 2022 | WINNER – BEST THRILLER SCRIPT |
Oniros Film Awards New York April 2022 | WINNER – BEST 1ST TIME SCREENWRITER – FEATURE |
Golden Eagle Film Festival May 2022 | WINNER - BEST FEATURE SCRIPT / SCREENPLAY |
8 & HalFilm Fellini Festival Italy June 2022 | WINNER - BEST INTERNATIONAL FEATURE SCRIPT |
Sweet Democracy Film Awards June 2022 | WINNER – BEST FEATURE SCRIPT |
Florence Film Awards June 2022 | SILVER WINNER - BEST FEATURE SCRIPT |
New York Movie Awards June 2022 | WINNER – BEST FEATURE SCRIPT |
World Webfest Mania August 2022 | WINNER - BEST FEATURE SCREENPLAY |
Venus Community Awards August 2022 | WINNER - BEST SCREENPLAY AWARD |
Hamburg Indie Fest Summer 2022 | WINNER – BEST UNPRODUCED FEATURE SCRIPT |
Paris Art & Movie Awards Summer 2022 | WINNER - BEST FEATURE SCRIPT |
Page Turner Screenplays December 2022 | WINNER – THE 100 |
Golden Draft Awards January 2023 | WINNER – FEATURE SCREENPLAY AWARD |
New York Screenwriting awards March 2023 | EUROPEAN WINNER – BEST FEATURE SCREENPLAY |
LSC London International Screen Competition March 2023 | WINNER – FIRST TEN PAGES SCRIPT AWARD |
Oxford Script Awards May 2023 | WINNER – BEST COMEDY SCREENPLAY |
The Happiness Angel wins best feature script at the Paris Art and Movie Awards, summer 2022
Hollywood Latest
Ashley Scott Meyers SYS Screenplay Assessment: THE HAPPINESS ANGEL
This is is an extract from the latest Hollywood assessment dated 07/03/2023.
Title: THE HAPPINESS ANGEL
Overall Grade*: recommend
This script has everything a neo-noir psychosexual thriller should have: great dialogue, visceral sadistic sex scenes, lots of explosive action and witty dialogue, and much, much more. The main characters have great arcs and the writer does a masterful job of writing exceptionally detailed sex/fight scenes that are easy to visualize. This script ROCKS!!
The reader graded your screenplay in 6 categories:
- Concept: recommend
- Characters: recommend
- Structure: recommend
- Marketability: recommend
- Tone: recommend
- Craft: recommend
A note about our grading system: The 'pass, consider, recommend' grading system is very typical in Hollywood, which is why we adopted it for the contest. You can look at the grades like this:
Pass means the reader thought the screenplay needs quite a bit of work.
Consider means the reader thought there were some interesting/well executed things about the screenplay, but it still needs some work before it is ready for production.
Recommend means the reader thought the screenplay is well written and needs little work, if any, to be ready for production.
Thanks,
Ashley Scott Meyers
info@sellingyourscreenplay.com
Thank you so much for resubmitting your script to the 2023 Blue Cat Screenplay Competition.
You can find your resubmission feedback below. All resubmissions, including your original script, remain in contention in the competition. Thank you so much for trusting us with your work!
Best, Gordy Hoffmanwww.bluecatscreenplay.com
Archive # 13455 The Happiness Angel
Reader # 9450
What did you like about this script?
The opening sequence for this script is really breath-taking and sets the tone for the rest of the film well while establishing the main character through brief moments leading up to the traumatizing event. As a viewer, we are totally on board with Candy chasing down this evil man, and feel somewhat satisfied when she does, only to discover they were playing a sex game. This perfectly maintains Candy’s perspective and forces the audience into her psychology. With such a captivating start, there is going to be a high level of engagement from the audience in the rest of the introductory aspects of the first act.
The intense tone with which this script approaches the taser industry is really funny in a lot of ways but also serves to represent pretty much any large industry that exists in the world. This makes for a really accessible story about real life, without turning people off by going after the more talked-about industries.
Around the midpoint, Candy splits into the good and bad sides of her psyche, as you put it, and almost kills Scarlett until the Priest shows up to snap her out of her trance and bring her mind back under control. This is an excellent conflict to put at the midpoint because it demonstrates to us that the overall conflict in the story is largely internal. In the beginning, it feels as if the conflict will stem from Candy’s life being upended by the forces on her tail following the accident. But the real struggle comes from the way her brain has been impacted by the taser. The trial is more centred in the second act structure, but this moment feels bigger in terms of the overall structure of the film, especially considering its impact on the low point of the film.
At the second act break, when Jason establishes that he is not going to back down from Zalika’s bullying, is a really great moment for the story and structure. In what is most likely the low point of the film, Candy is shown footage of her murderous rage and sees no way to fight back anymore for fear of her freedom is on the line once again. Jason does not provide an easy answer for her problems, but knowing that he has her back gives a lot of momentum to the third act, in which we learn, on a more nuanced level, what happened to Candy’s brain when she got tasered. The ending is tragic but accurately shows us how serious the condition is and why this is actually a legitimate issue.
What do you think needs work?
While the conversations between the characters are most compelling, there are a few times, particularly in act one, in which the talk distracts from the story. For example, when Scarlett and Candy are talking after Candy strangled her, likely due to the voltage from the taser, they discuss Jekyll and Hyde along with the idea that they are perfect for each other if Candy acts like this during sex. This is a compelling conversation, but most of what they say can be understood by the audience simply by watching the story play out up to this point. Decreasing the amount of discussion surrounding events like this will only heighten the intrigue of the audience while maintaining a good pace for the film.
Tasered Synopsis

Inspired by true events, TASERED (together with its alternate title THE HAPPINESS ANGEL) are Best Thriller and Best Comedy Screenplay Award winners at WorldFest Houston – established 55 years ago, in addition to 22 other film festival outright wins during development between 2021-2023.
In my darkly comedic, character driven, psychological thriller set in the UK, A 50,000-volt hit from a police taser electrifies the love life of stress management therapist and influencer Candy Towne, known to her millions of followers as The Happiness Angel. She becomes a dangerous Jekyll and Hyde-type character with a lethal compulsion to attack her lovers mid-act.
TASERED fires into high-stakes conflict through a captivating opening scene in the Dartmoor National Park: Candy, acting as a good Samaritan and triggered by past trauma, mistakes a young married couple participating in a kidnap/hostage sex romp for the real deal. Layers of deceit and mystery are at play in this inciting incident. The ambiguity, twists and turns set the tone for the misinterpretation and espionage to come. Determined to rescue the ‘hostage’, Candy gives chase in her car. There’s a confrontation and a crash! The husband – referred to as the ‘kidnapper’ – is killed and Candy’s key contradiction is exposed: she’s reckless, yet selfless!
The widow, Scarlett Snow, reveals herself to be a super-fun villain who pops up in all kinds of strange situations. She has a web of relationships with other cast members, allowing for interesting betrayals and truly malicious behaviour. When the police show up on Dartmoor, Scarlett accuses Candy of murder, but soon falls in love with her.
There’s an intricate push-pull between them. Scarlett is a stunning Gothic hedonist, able to tempt and blackmail Candy, whilst Candy is fiercely determined to understand and defeat her new psychological condition and violent sexual loss of control, which drives the plot forward. Her mental instability is a fascinating juxtaposition to her success as a wellness influencer. Her sharp wit sustains a darkly comedic tone and her volatility, rooted in a traumatic backstory, is revealed through flashbacks.
Before turning to writing after suffering two major strokes, I was an award-winning (Daily Express Award for Innovation, 1993) stress management consultant specializing in problems of the subconscious mind. My first in a series of non-fiction books – and still in print today – After Stroke, published in February 2000 by Thorsons (UK), and later by HarperCollins (USA), featured in an episode of BBC TV’s Cornish Chronicles, on ITV’s This Morning show with Richard Madeley, and on Channel 5 TV News.
The heart of this screenplay lies in the psychosexual powerplays between its main cast. In Hollywood speak, Candy is a tough-as-nails Erin Brockovich denouncing the taser industry with Basic Instinct's Sharon Stone lurking inside her. She’s a 25-year-old high-profile dame with an embarrassing problem, regular clients and a weekly vlog to post. Her performance is sharp and sexy with a temperament and a tongue quicker than her brain. See her in action now @ www.davidmhinds.com
I’ll fucking make you love me if it kills me, screams Candy, by the French windows, preparing to leap, to her emotionally unavailable beloved Jason Wood, in an early scene… By FADE OUT she does and it does.
Candy, deeply troubled even before the taser proves the catalyst for unsettling her psyche, struggles to regain her sanity, beat a murder rap and manage her love life as she wages a one-woman David and Goliath war against taser industry mogul Zalika Rose. The intense tone with which Candy approaches the taser industry is really funny in a lot of ways. This makes for an accessible story about modern life.
Zalika, herself, is a force to reckon with. She’s a steely-eyed black goddess in her early 50s. Power radiates from the sway of her sylph-like body in a black silk dress the same shade of her complexion that could only have been designed by Versace with gold coins that chime with her every movement. She moves with animal grace on killer heels and she’s not going to let Candy and her inconvenient vlogs jeopardize her company’s merger with a weapons giant!
At the midpoint in this classic 3-act structure, Candy splits into the good and bad sides of her psyche. This innovation is accomplished in a visually stunning manner to depict Candy’s Jekyll and Hyde psychological struggle and internal conflict. During a sex scene that follows a callous moment of dark comedy when Candy and Scarlett dance on her late husband’s grave, Candy almost kills Scarlett until the Priest shows up at the graveyard. His arrival snaps Candy out of her trance and shocks her mind back under control.
At the second act break, Zalika shows Candy footage of her murderous rage in the graveyard and sees no way to fight back anymore for fear of her freedom is on the line once again. Jason, also under attack from Zalika by association with Candy, does not provide an easy answer for Candy, but he does facilitate her immediate admission to a mental health sanctuary in Devon in the care of Professor, Sir David Bones.
It is at the sanctuary where we learn, on a more nuanced level, what happened to Candy’s brain when she was tasered. Real-life references to Dr. Zian Tseng’s research, the killing of Robert Dziekanski in Canada, and the 2013 Taser Fireball tragedy that happened in the screenwriter’s home town of Plymouth mean this script is strong in its political and commercial critique of the taser industry.
Visually, the high-voltage London settings and the vast moorlands of Dartmoor provide rich contrasts that will heighten suspense on screen. Jason’s extravagant Fitzrovia penthouse is a particularly fun setting. It is here that Candy’s problems approach resolution. She finally achieves the love from Jason that we know she has sought since her livestream in the opening scene.
Candy and Jason’s relationship is well developed to unveil vulnerabilities and crucial stakes. He is her mentor, franchisor, and crucially, her former therapist at a time when she was a traumatized, broken woman from a murder attempt by her former partner.
In a reversal of roles, during a tender conversation with Candy, Jason recalls his late lover, Helen, before a visceral depiction of her smashing into the rear of his car and dying under it. In a tangled web of characters’ trauma, suffering and loves lost, this is an echo of Candy’s car killing the ‘kidnapper’. Jason has a very satisfying character arc; he is introduced in an emotionless sex scene with strangers and eventually reclaims the ability to love.
Back in London, in the penultimate scene, Jason – shackled to his iron bed – is at the mercy of Candy’s lethal compulsion. Pleasure, and then agony grip the couple as the two of them make love for the first and last time. Together, they seem on the brink of overcoming Candy’s psychological struggle. But the real battle comes from the way her brain has been impacted by the taser.
Internal and physical conflict explodes in a pulse-racing climactic ending. Candy seems unstoppable when, in the pivotal moment of winning over her lethal compulsion, a police helicopter appears alongside Jason’s penthouse master bedroom’s French windows. A police marksman aboard the aircraft shoots Candy in a Zalika-inspired set-up as she rushes to the window to draw the blinds.
Glass shatters and cascades. Candy recoils from the bullet to her chest. Her legs slam back against the bed. She catapults, face down, back into Jason’s outstretched and tethered arms...
He groans as she crash-lands on top of him. A poignant lament escapes her lips, “Love you. Sorry.”
Candy’s death feels surprising and tragic yet inevitable. The ending accurately shows us how serious the real-life taser-related condition EXCITED DELIRIUM can be and why this is actually a legitimate issue.
My lifetime of mental health expertise is invested in TASERED. With mental health problems at an all-time high, the unique premise and dynamic characters in this high concept thriller should connect and appeal to both young and older adults in today’s interconnected digital world. I know for certain its theme of mental instability and the determination to recover will touch, entertain, and inspire many.
Biography - David M Hinds
David is a Stress Management Consultant by profession and the subconscious mind is his area of expertise. In 1987 David turned his pilot stress management practice into an award-winning nationwide franchise. By 1994 the enterprise had grown to 92 consultancies, and David had made his first million pounds.
But then he did something that no stress manager should ever do...
He suffered a stroke that paralysed one side of his body from mouth to foot while still in the prime of life. Three days later, in hospital, he had another stroke; this one was serious.
He lost everything: his business, his house, the jet-set lifestyle, the fast cars and the fast women, but he was not prepared to settle for life in a wheelchair. Adopting stress management techniques that he had once used to help his clients to overcome their psychological problems, he made a full recovery over a four-year period while convalescing in the Cornish fishing village of Polperro.
After recovering from the two major strokes and a sub-clavian bypass operation, David wrote the non-fiction self-help book After Stroke, which was first published in the UK in February 2000 by Thorsons, in the USA by HarperCollins, and in Japan by Sun Choh with sales of 20,000 copies in the UK alone.
After Stroke was also picked up by the media, and David’s story was a full-page feature in the Sunday Express Colour Magazine. He was also interviewed on BBC TV, Channel 5 News, and ITV’s THIS MORNING programme with Richard and Judy. Richard Madeley, live on TV, described the book as “excellent”.
Eoin Redahan of The UK Stroke Association described the book as “A warm and motivating read.”
Sir Peter J Morris, FRCS, FRS, Nuffield Professor of Surgery, University of Oxford, who wrote the foreword, stated that After Stroke was “Invaluable not only for people who have had a stroke but also for their carers.”
David is the author of a series of professional stress management training manuals for industry, Countdown to Love, and The Little Book of Recovery, as well as Beat Depression, published by Hodder and Stoughton, with an Arabic edition by Jarir. He lives with his wife, Tatiana, a mathematician and teacher, in Plymouth, Devon.
In 2023 - after 7 years perfecting his latest screenplay through 12 major re-writes - David will commence marketing TASERED (THE HAPPINESS ANGEL) to the film industry.

Available to order from all good bookshops including Waterstones.
Direct from the publisher:
https://bluepoppypublishing.co.uk/product/after-stroke-by-david-m-hinds/
Waterstones online: https://www.waterstones.com/bo...
Amazon paperback: https://mybook.to/afterstroke
Ebook
Amazon Kindle and Apple Books: https://mybook.to/afterstroke
Ebook everybody else: https://books2read.com/u/bz1QRZ

The author and his wife at the Paris Art & Movie Awards

Available to order from all good bookshops including Waterstones.
Direct from the publisher:
https://bluepoppypublishing.co.uk/product/beat-depression-david-m-hinds/
Waterstones online: https://www.waterstones.com/bo...
Amazon paperback: https://mybook.to/beatdepression
Ebook
Amazon Kindle and Apple Books: https://mybook.to/Beat-depression
Ebook everybody else: https://books2read.com/u/bPgWBd
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