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Horror Script in Miami For Sale
- Thread starter EnglishinMiami
- Start date
Interesting point.
A psychopathic family-man, struggling to keep his murderous impulses in check, begins to fear that his unborn child has become possessed by the vengeful spirit of his latest victim.
Thx - but I feel this description is presumptuous - as in 'psychopathic' and 'latest victim'. Why would that have to be known by the viewer? And perhaps those things are not true.
But there are many kinds of victims?
Yes, there are many crimes one could be a "victim" of. The crime is irrelevant. But as this victim is Daniel's, Daniel must have committed this crime - right?
As I've stated a few times in this thread, I haven't read your script so I have no idea what it's about. My attempt at a log line above wasn't serious, it was just for a bit of fun.
Also, you're not looking for viewers. You don't have a film for them to watch. You want somebody to buy your script. That person is going to read your script, so they'll know every detail of your story. To that end, your going to have to give all your secrets away at some point or another. Still, your log line should be intriguing enough to make a potential buyer want to read it. It shouldn't be confusing.
As I've stated a few times in this thread, I haven't read your script so I have no idea what it's about. My attempt at a log line above wasn't serious, it was just for a bit of fun.
Also, you're not looking for viewers. You don't have a film for them to watch. You want somebody to buy your script. That person is going to read your script, so they'll know every detail of your story. To that end, your going to have to give all your secrets away at some point or another. Still, your log line should be intriguing enough to make a potential buyer want to read it. It shouldn't be confusing.
I think it is a good logline.
It might not fit the story, but the logline is a little story that triggers curiousity.
If you want to sell something you have to hook the client.
A logline that reveals nothing only makes a few people curious, because they think the logline is weird:
Somewhere someone did something that got him into some situation he somehow needs to deal with.
Not much hookiness here...
Yes, but if you don't give them anything intriguing, why should they be intrigued? A 'victim' could be a victim of schoolyard name calling or murder or violent sexual abuse or anything in between. Many of those possibilities contain interesting potential for stories, but without priming, the reader (potential buyer) doesn't know enough to be intrigued.
And if that limited scene-setting/setup is the whole of your story - the sort of thing which might be used in a movie listings guide, for example - then I suspect the script has more problems!
What a bizarre question to ask.
No, of course the viewer is not intrigued enough to find out, there simply wouldn't be enough time in the day to start with but more importantly, consumers of anything (inc., those who purchase screenplays) become largely immune to all the advertising they're almost constantly bombarded with and are therefore generally not in the least bit intrigued.
Are you intrigued enough by loglines to go and watch every film screening at the cinema? And those are loglines created by experienced pros, what about the countless tens of thousands of loglines written by beginners and amateurs every year, are you intrigued about all of them "enough to find out"? What about all the commercials, advertisements and people trying to sell you things, are you intrigued enough to find out about all of them too?
Apart from maybe your close friends and relatives, no one is going to be "intrigued enough to find out" unless, YOU do something exceptional enough to create that intrigue. Do you think your logline is exceptional enough?
G
With a log line you are not trying to intrigue a viewer; you are trying
to convince a very busy development exec, exec producer, producer
or studio head to read your screenplay. You aren't teasing them, you're
SELLING them.
Yes you need to arouse the curiosity, but not of the end user (the viewer)
of the executives who buy scripts. As you can see no one here is intrigued
by your logline. You thread is script for sale; my advice is to sell it. Make me
(a producer) want to read the script. Yes, you may need to give the story
away. Because it's the story you are selling. Don't tease me, sell me.
How About This?
When a lawyer rapes and kills a woman she re-incarnates inside his wife's womb and becomes the child they wanted. After tormenting and ultimately destroying him, at the age of six she starts to kill too.
When a lawyer rapes and kills a woman she re-incarnates inside his wife's womb and becomes the child they wanted. After tormenting and ultimately destroying him, at the age of six she starts to kill too.
Well, it certainly makes a lot more sense than the original. I actually (sort-of) get what your story is now. However, I feel as if you now have too much detail, or that your focus is a little skewed.
The first line seems to imply that the victim is the focus of the story. Almost as if we'd be following her journey through reincarnation, into the wife's womb. Your second line seems to imply that the daughter is the focus. But it's then unclear when your story takes place. Is it when the daughter is 6, after her father is "destroyed" (presumably dead...)? So the story is about her new killing spree. Or is it about the tormenting of her father? I feel like we should know who/why she is killing, after she's already seemingly reaped her vengeance.
Also, the protagonist isn't clear here (not that they always have to be; if this were a slasher, for example, the primary focus of the log line may be the antagonist, whom, to most, is really the anti-hero anyway). It feels like it should be the tormented father, but a rapist/murder isn't often the best choice for a protag!
The first line seems to imply that the victim is the focus of the story. Almost as if we'd be following her journey through reincarnation, into the wife's womb. Your second line seems to imply that the daughter is the focus. But it's then unclear when your story takes place. Is it when the daughter is 6, after her father is "destroyed" (presumably dead...)? So the story is about her new killing spree. Or is it about the tormenting of her father? I feel like we should know who/why she is killing, after she's already seemingly reaped her vengeance.
Also, the protagonist isn't clear here (not that they always have to be; if this were a slasher, for example, the primary focus of the log line may be the antagonist, whom, to most, is really the anti-hero anyway). It feels like it should be the tormented father, but a rapist/murder isn't often the best choice for a protag!
A psychopathic family-man, struggling to keep his murderous impulses in check, begins to fear that his unborn child has become possessed by the vengeful spirit of his latest victim.
Thx MH!
Thx MH. Yes I am having trouble explaining this.
The story is that a woman gets raped and murdered by a lawyer she meets at a bar and when he returns home he has to have sex with his wife because she's ovulating and they want a baby.
The dead woman becomes the baby the wife conceives and she starts to speak to her killer from the womb. This drives him crazy and he eventually gets carted off to an insane asylum and commits suicide. We rejoin the story when the girl is six years old and the housekeeper eggs on her mother to get another man. Any man that comes around her mother then gets destroyed as do a couple of other people. It ends where her mother has lost everyone and has turned to the bottle and the little girl happily looks ahead to her future.
Still thinking...
Quite.
Did you intend to write "the lawyer re-incarnates inside his wife's womb?". English can be painful.
I suspect you're also concentrating on the wrong point.
Is this script is completed? If so, where is the majority of the script? In the conception/rape/sex part, where the lawyer turns mad or in the kid goes Chucky phase?
English sure can be painful sometimes. Like when, as in your quote above, the question mark after “womb” really ought to have been outside of the quotation marks. Or when you add an extra "is" in a place where it's not needed, rendering a sentence completely nonsensical. Or when the question of “where is the majority of the script?” doesn’t really make sense, as the answer would probably have to be “saved on my hard-drive”, which seems completely off topic. However, that’s forgivable, as, in context, most people reading it would be able to understand that the question really being asked is “when is the majority of your script set?”. You probably also need a comma after “mad” in the next sentence. Better still, you could have used a question mark, then asked the latter half of your question as a second, separate question. It would’ve read much nicer! Yep, English sure can be painful.
MiamiLife – To be fair to Sweetie, the first line does read that it is the lawyer who is reincarnated...
Again, not knowing exactly how your story plays out, it’s difficult to give any specific advice. Maz is right though; the structure of the script should dictate your logline. Time spent with each character should allow you to determine who the main characters are, so what should be stated in your log line.
It’s also worth noting that, with a log line, you’re trying to entice a busy reader in to your story. At this point, you want to sell the sizzle, not the steak. In other words, it’s ok to bend the truth (only slightly) in order to present a more compelling log line. For example, regardless of the true nature of this lawyer, describing him as a psychopath (instead of as a lawyer, since, as far as the story is concerned, this is irrelevant) may well tell us everything we need to know about him.
As it sounds like your story takes place in two distinct times, you’re probably going to want two distinct sections to your log line.
Again, I haven’t read your script, so I’m just thinking aloud here, but how about something like:
A narcissistic psychopath commits suicide, having been driven insane by the fear that the vengeful spirit of his latest victim has taken possession of his unborn child. Years later, the child, now six years old, begins to show signs that she may have inherited some unwanted traits from her father…
^^^That’s probably too long, and more than a little sloppy, but perhaps it may give you some ideas.
Thx guys - food for thought. Although I don't understand how it reads like the lawyer re-incarnates? Will work on it.
You name two people, the lawyer and the woman, before stating that "she" reincarnates. As we don't know the sex of the lawyer, so both could be female, "she" could be either. The statement that she reincarnates inside "his wife's womb" does offer some clarification, as we then know that one of the characters is male. Since it can't be the woman, it must be the lawyer. So "she" must be the woman. It all seems clear enough, but it does take some additional thought processing for the reader to come to these conclusions. You need to avoid any confusion, as that will put potential readers off straight away.
By the way, if you want somebody to read your screenplay, I'd be happy to look it over.
Well said. Yes it can be painful
It doesn't read like it, it is it. It's how the English language works in this case. Think of it like the typical math problems that come up 1 + 7 * 2 + 1 + 7 * 5 = ?. Just like math, English has its own set of rules. If you don't understand (or in my case, cannot apply - see above) the rules, you'll come to the wrong answer, or in the case of English force your reader to an understanding you didn't intend.
This is the best logline posted in this thread by a factor of 20. As a bonus, it removes a question to whether we'd care to go on a journey with a murdering rapist. Miami would be wise to hire you to rewrite her material.