TYPE:  SP

TITLE: -----------

WRITER: ----------

LENGTH: 108 pages

DATE: ----------

ANALYST: Scott Parisien

Logline:  A reality game show on a deserted island turns deadly when the cast members start to die off one by one by what they are lead to believe is a killer virus.

Brief:  This is a campy horror thriller set in an isolated location, with plenty of conflicting characters and creative situations.  Although the script started out with a great visual kick to suck us into this created world, it quickly borderlines on satire and disbelief.  The premise is a strong one, and the script could be great, if given the right treatment in its chosen genre.


OVERALL: 

This is a script with great potential.  The basics are there as the plot has definite strong points and the characters are interesting to us, but the main issue I had was that I didn't know it was a horror/thriller until almost half way through the script.  I think tone is the most important starting point here as it needs to be established off the bat.  Of course, GREED is the underlying theme, and Reena states on the last page that people won't do anything for money, but it's the tone that will keep your story grounded to your theme.  It starts off as an interesting drama with a glimpse of mystery, but once the bodies start to pile up and get more graphic as they drop, I find myself in a darker world than I was prepared to embark upon after the first ten pages.

As the script turned into its horror edge, the excitement and pacing really picked up, but until then it was mainly dialogue driven, which in this type of genre, doesn't play well.  The main heroin of Reena is a fitting choice, and is strong and should remain as the driver of your script.  But if she does, she needs to be driving most of this action, instead of the action mainly driving her.

I will point out specific areas where I see improvement making the script stronger and better paced.  Feel free to disagree, but I will make note of my thoughts and suggestions as I go.


CHARACTERS: 

This is a script with many characters and they are all introduced in the same way at the same time, so it makes it hard to really know who is who.  But you do a great job of giving each one a distinct personality and way of speaking and acting that it is easy to quickly know these people and what drives them, once the location and goal is clear.  Basically it's Survivor with a new edge.  Familiar to everyone, and everyone has fantasies of different ways Survivor could go. 

Reena is our lead hero and rightly so.  But as I said above, as we get to know her and see what is happening, the action drives her and she mainly reacts.  It is not until the latter part of the script that she actually becomes the one to drive the action and take control.  Almost too late.

Matt is a great "bad guy" who turns out to not be that bad of a guy.  He is well drawn and we get a sense of misdirection off the bat with this character and it works quite well.  Patsy in the end, but he makes us look twice.

The other characters are a mish mash of personalities and they clash well and add color.  As for Amy, I didn't really get a grasp of her character except that she was a bit of a bitch, so when she was revealed as the killer and mastermind, it didn't have the push and effect it should, because we barely knew her.  Perhaps you can make her more apparent in the early scenes and second act.  The one scene I do remember is her upset when Morgan died.  Great misdirection as well, and she would have killed her anyway, and it gives her heart as well.  But other than that I don't recall her.  On these types of reality shows there is always a member who stands out, who has real morals and ethics that won't be swayed, something that draws us all to them, even though we know they will most likely stab their new best friend in the back.  Think of Richard in Surivor 1, or Johnny "I lied about my gramma dying" in Survivor 6.  Or octor Will in Big Brother.  Characters that stick out and make an impression.  I know you hit all the different areas with Doc and Dag and Peter, and thay all do their job, as they will die sooner rather than later, but we need to remember and have some kind of feeling about Amy if she will be the one behind the horror.

The relationship between Ed and Reena is great and keeps her grounded and gives her stakes, and it's a great section of the script.  Some of their conversations are a little on the nose and tend to be talky, but a quick trim down will really fill those scenes with feeling and emotion on both sides and really fuel them to stand out even more.

Manley the bad tv producer.  It's nice how you paint him as the bad guy, great misdirection again, and when we think he's come to finish his job, he gets finished himself.

STRUCTURE:

This is one section that needs some work.  As for format, it's great, you hit the points well, and you know what you're doing.  You set it up quite visually and the opening pages flow, the nice reveal that we are in a reality show, nice misdirection, and the hook and initial plot point putting Reena into the show.  All good.  But at this point we don't know it's a slasher-type, dead body story.  So when it changes it confuses and doesn't sit right.  This can be easily fixed by setting up more moments of tension and darkness in the initial act of the script.  Yes we see Manley is a bad guy and a dark knight behind the scenes, but it may be nice to set forth a little more mystery, some sickness, darkness, scares to get us into the correct tone of the latter part of the script.

As for your midpoint, I feel it needs to be the moment when they are quarantined.  As of now you have that happening after page 70.  It shifts direction too late.  If you trim down the second act hijinks a bit and take a look at your dialogue and trim what doesn't really need to be said, you can move this back to about the 55 region and give yourself that much more to work with once quarantined.  I think this moment is when the real tension and conflict and horror starts.  There is so much here to play with and you just need to dig deep and think of all the wonderful gags and scares you can throw as us to really get us invested into this story and Reena's life.  This will also give you more time to reveal the character of our cast that are still alive.  I think Peter's journey and story line may be one of the most interesting - the Japanese treasure.  You should play that up, make it look like Peter is the bad guy, always sneaking off, skulking around, so when we see he has found a treasure, it makes sense to us as to why.

Horror/thrillers are all about misdirection, the mystery, the edge of our seat aspect.  And I have to say while you do a great job on the misdirection, you could easily add a bunch more mystery to it.  Think of LOST and how they make us want to know more, try to figure it out, keep us guessing.  The one thing I was missing as I read it, was the edge of my seat aspect.  And I think it may have been because I was not invested enough in the characters.  In these types of scripts, there are always a couple characters you get upset about when they die, but I was lacking that here.  And it may be because I never really got to know them enough.  So some more character development and windows into who these people are would be a great tool in drawing us in deeper.


STAKES:

The stakes of your story are set form the beginning.  5 million bucks to the one who lasts the longest.  The cream, as you say.  This is obviously going to make for some good drama, as on real television.  Now when it comes to the "real" character stakes, there lives are then at risk.  Great stakes, they need to find out what is going on, who is doing it, who will die next, how they will survive, all of that.

As Reena is our hero, it may do well to raise her stakes even more.  With Ed back off the island, and her not really bonding or attaching with anyone there, it doesn't really have her moving through any stakes.  Maybe she can get close to someone more, like Morgan, take some pages from the talky scenes of Reena and Ed or of Manley and Marylin and put in some real muscle, some meat into a personal stakes character for Reena.  So when she does lose her it hits harder.  Of course, once Ed is on the island her stakes hit the roof as she needs to save him, etc.  Maybe he can come to the island sooner.  Maybe he sneaks onto a cargo drop or something and gets his way there himself.  This gives Reena more stakes while in the juicy part of the script.

In this type of a script you need the hero's stakes to rise higher and higher and build and build until the climax.  Dead bodies piling up isn't enough here, and we never really feel Reena is in personal danger, or emotional danger, until the end.

CONFLICT:

Conflict is something that should always be in every scene.  You do a great job of putting it in every scene and every situation.  You have people at odds and even when they're not the conflict is more than apparent in different areas of the scenes.

BELIEVABILITY:

This is the area where I think you lost me.  The island survival game show is easy enough to grasp.  I think what stopped me in my tracks was the fact that not only one, but two people who made the final cut, but only as alternates, also got hired as the camera people for the show?  It seemed a little too coincidental.  One, okay, but two?  Maybe Matt can just be an employee for Manley, someone he trusts.  Not an alternate ready for the show, but someone who he decides to throw in.  Because you can only do the coincidental thing once in a script for it to be pulled off. 

I also felt that after one death, this show would be completely shut down.  Police needed in, etc.  It seemed far fetched that it would continue on, even after three dead bodies.  Making it a quarantine was the touch that brought me back and made sense as to why they all had to stay, and that is another reason I suggested it be brought up earlier in the script.

DIALOGUE:

Your dialogue is strong for the most part.  But there are some scenes where everyone in it just talks to talk.  A good exercise I recommend is to think about the scene and the point that needs to be made, because every scene needs that point.  Then think of exactly what you need your characters to say.  Then think of interesting ways to have them "not" say it.  This is a great way to avoid subtext, make the dialogue more interesting, and only say what needs to be said.  As you read back your dialogue, think, "Okay, would I say that to my friend/wife/etc in that manner or need to say those words?"

I am not saying your dialogue is bad, because it isn't, it works and is smooth in parts, but look again at the Renna/Ed scenes and the Manley/Marylin scenes to see if you get what I am pointing at.  Too on the nose - when someone says exactly what they're thnking - and that doesn-t tend to be what people actually say.

A script like this, in this genre, needs to viually driven.  You can do much visually, rather than by dialogue and it can paint a wonderful intense picture.

BUDGET:

Mid level.  Significant animal/CGI work, exotic location, numerous cast and special/make-up effects, as well as aerial work.

FINAL COMMENTS:

SOME PAGE MISTAKES TO LOOK AT:

Pg 10 - ...drift wood to make a for Doc's leg   word missing

Pg 15 - MARGO dialogue is in the middle of someone else's

Pg 18 - Manley has a dialogue sitting inside his own in a cont's

Pg 30 - PETER Now where we are -- check wording location

Pg 32 - ... kaws clamped on large bird (add an a)

Pg 34 - Then let the viewers can choose between us - wording

Pg 38 - One of Matt-s dialogue - look, you owe me! - Add Capital L / Also confusing as Matt speaks, then matt speaks, unsure who is supposed to be speaking what as the names are incorrect

Pg 40 - A copuple of instances where there is no space after a period ending a sentence / Also Reena says - know what I ream about? - missing the d

Pg 44 - ... advances to grab then the outstretched... - wording

Pg 63 - Even if your'er not the last man...

Pg 72 - I Can't trust these people.  Lose the Cap C

Pg 98 - ED's dialogue is in an action line

Pg 101 - ... he's changed it a around some...

Pg 102 - She has once conscious thought...

Pg 103 - You have reena climbing to safety with Ed, than she appears to see Amy stomp out the fuse, then we see her again escaped and up top with Ed.  Check that out

Thank you for the chance to read your script, and I would be happy to go over anything, answer any questions and read a second draft of this.  I feel at this stage, the script sits as a first draft, due to the page mistakes and tweaking it would need to continue on.

Again, if anything I have noted is something you disagree with, it is your script and you need to trust your gut.  This is just my reaction, and my suggestions to possibly make the script better.

TYPE:  SP

TITLE: ---------

WRITER: ----------

LENGTH: 96 pages

DATE: ----------

ANALYST: Scott Parisien

Logline:  On the night of a vicious storm, a young, misunderstood town drunk must find the hero deep within himself after a madman sets out on a murderous rampage as penance for the townspeople causing the suicide of his disgraced father.

Brief:  This limited location suspense thriller keeps the adrenaline pumping from the get go.  The tone is nice and dark and the suspense hits you hard from around every corner.  This is definitely a script that with the right tweaks and attention to details will be a project worth scooping up.     

OVERALL: 

From page one, the talent of the writing is evident.  The pages flow and when I got to the end of page one; I couldn't believe how quickly it moved and how much happened.  The descriptions of the characters and what is happening around them is bang on.  As soon as time moves on and Richard shoots his mother, the intensity and tension is strong and moves us along at a break neck speed.  The read was fast and there wasn't really anything that slowed me down or took me out of the script.

The only thing that kind of pulled at me in the wrong way was that the script almost felt like one long act, rather than having concrete act breaks that sent me into the next section.  I found, I guess, that I never really had a chance to catch my breath and really get into Willie's journey, as there was so much going on around him and at such a speed that I couldn't get into his inner journey.  It would have been much better to get a real sense of this kid and what he feels inside, rather than just what decisions he makes as he takes the steps ahead of him.

CHARACTERS: 

This is where the script could use some help.  The characters are all drawn quite well, and the background and secondary characters are all colorful and strong and interesting enough, but when it comes to settling down on whose journey this is, there is a little bit of a gray area that interrupts the flow.

To me, I know Willie is supposed to be the protagonist, our hero that we care about and pull for.  He starts off as a good kid we smile with and like, and then when we meet him again he is a drunk, his life is flushing away, and he is obviously screwed up because of losing his father.  He is likeable and we wish he was going along a different path.  But then what happens is Mike tends to take over as our hero when the storm hits and all hell breaks loose.  I started to be pulled between the two characters, as to which one I wanted to really succeed, whose journey I was following, and who was going to be the one to save the day.  Of course, after Mike got shot and was immobile, it was apparent that Willie would again take center circle.  Which he did and he rose above his self-image and became the man everyone needed him to be, which was great.  But there is a problem because of Mike taking over the story.  You may want to pull Mike back a bit and concentrate more on Willie and how he tries to push the responsibility onto Mike, or doesn't like the fact that everyone always counts on Mike, something in that route of things.  Perhaps while Willie is stuck in the bank and nobody trusts him, he can lose it and freak out on everyone, pissed off at how they all think he's nothing, and then he storms off.  Maybe he can find Mike after he is shot, be the one who helps drag Mike to the school, becoming the one who finally is the dominant and strong one in the sibling relationship.  Either way, it should be pulled back to Willie when it starts to lean on Mike as our strong hero.

The children are drawn wonderfully and they react as children would.  Helena is a strong character and her vulnerability shows well.  The "almost kiss" between Mike and Helena, and the idea that they have something going on works well and is a nice touch, as it makes us see Mike in a different light than the Mr. Perfect that everyone else sees him as.  And the fact that Willie sees this is a strong beat as well.

STRUCTURE:

As I mentioned in the beginning, the one problem with the read was that there was no definite act breaks.  At the beginning, after the attempted rescue of the kids in the boat, the moment where Willie finds Mike at the dock the morning after could be more pronounced.  I didn't "get it" that the Dad never came back in and died, until later.  That may be what you were trying to do, but for me it was a bit anti-climactic that we weren't old the dad died trying to find them, or even if it is alluded to in a better way.

The pace kicks in after the Richard/Mom scene, and it's a clear inciting incident.  I did find it difficult to feel where the initial act break is.  It seemed to be when Richard first shoots the townspeople and the Sheriff, but this happens on page 30, and in a short 96 page script, it happens too late.  Perhaps if the initial back-story sailing scene was shortened a few pages, this event could hit at around page 26 and 27.  The second act flies along and is quite strong, but again, the midpoint turn seems to be Mike getting shot, unless I am wrong, but that seems to be the logical point where things change significantly.  Again, this happens on page 50, too close to the initial act break.  And the turning point into the third act is the most apparent as it follows Willie's inner journey of what he has to do, the man he truly is inside, and how he can be the one to redeem himself for what he and Richard did to his dad years before.  But being that it happens on page 83, only thirteen pages fill the final act.

This story is strong and has such potential for so much more, and deeper, character development.  And if the structure fits closer to the development and arcs of the characters, the page length could move about 5-10 pages, and really open it up.  By adding more scenes of character revealing moments and relationship building, it would bring this story to a stronger arc and point than just a shotgun blasting thriller.  It has enough to pull itself through, but it could become truly great if it goes deeper that what is currently on the surface.

STAKES:

The stakes are great in this script.  The lives of everyone are at risk and the relationships are on edge and crisis always pull us together, ends differences and solves unspoken problems.  Richard with a shotgun planning on shooting anyone who crosses his path keeps the stakes high and constant.  Willie's personal stakes are more than apparent, but could be a little more on point.  We know he has personal stakes, but he is so torn up inside and so screwed up with things he hasn't dealt with, it would be great if we could see some of that.  But overall the stakes are strong and high and wonderfully written.

CONFLICT:

Again, conflict is hot and fast and on the sleeve in this script.  There is not only conflict in the physical action, but in all of the relationships.  I felt nervous and on the edge the entire time.  This is good, but I would have appreciated a chance to take a breath and release some of the tension that has been built up inside.  A few short scenes showing the development and that change in characters would give the reader that chance to not only breathe, but release tension and grow towards the characters.  A few nice vulnerable moments to bring it all together, especially in Willie.

BELIEVABILITY:

The only point that caused a bit of unbelievability is the storm itself and the sounds heard during it.  The storm is described as one hell of a kicker, loud and windy and pelting horizontal rain.  This works, but certain times like when Willie hears a shotgun cocked behind him in the street, make me take pause as I don't think in that howling wind and rain that would be heard.  Even some of the conversations outside, from people far away from each other, seem unrealistic.  On the boat at the end it works as they are shouting and still close to one another, but you may want to look at that type of situation and see what can be changed.

DIALOGUE:

Dialogue is the strongest point of the script and doesn't really need any tweaking or changing.  Everyone's voice is strong and clear and is spoken well.  The only portion of the dialogue to be looked at are A COUPLE of scenes where things are a little too on the nose.  Too much back-story being spoken out loud to explain the past and the choices being made.

1)    Richard talks to himself way too much in the reveal scene of shooting his mother.  It reads talky and spoken-back-story and not real and visceral enough considering the reveal that he's blown his mother's head off.  Only a few lines can be spoken, and the rest will be explained, as it is, throughout the script, about his father's suicide and the rape and the downfall, so it is not really needed here.

2)    The scene on the boat before the storm, between Mike and Willie, is too on the nose.  A few lines can be taken out, leave it more to sub text and the words they don't say and it will become a much more powerful scene.  This is a great opportunity to really show the conflict and the differences between them, without blatantly telling us.  Play with it a bit and see how it works.

Also, instead of Helena speaking out who she is calling and where, when she starts to call the parents, a simple descriptive showing Melanie's number makes more sense.  Check this one out.

BUDGET:

Low to Mid.  Limited location, but still many buildings and movement among exterior.  The storm and constant wind and rain could cause a rise in productions costs as well.

FINAL COMMENTS:

Great script, needs a little tweaking, but it has what it takes to hit production levels.  A few page notes below of things that caught me as mistakes.

Pg 8 - you refer to the water as the sea and the ocean in the same description.  They are different things, choose one.

Pg 21 - AS Mike and Willie... lose the AS in caps

Pg 71 - among the FLIES, should be files

A FEW LINES OR DESCRIPTIONS THAT MAY BE OF "ENGLISH" TERMINOLOGY, CAUSE CONFUSION ON THIS SIDE OF THE POND, YOU MAY WANT TO LOOK AT THESE... That doesn't sound too clever, didn't think I that drunk, sort it out, it looks a bad one, BLASTS a windscreen (windshield?), paedo, Helena rolls up a jumper, kids munch on crisps.....