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Genre: Sci-fi
Premise: (from writer) A team of scientists at an Antarctic research facility unleashes a deadly prehistoric creature from two miles beneath the ice.
Why you should read: (from writer) “The script was a ‘Featured Submission’ on Triggerstreet and top three in Zoetrope’s monthly competition, so I believe it’s on the right track. A solid script that could make a solid film if paired with the right filmmaker.”
Writer: Richard McMahon
Details: 103 pages
Except for Tuesday, this week has been all about the drama. Heck, there’s been more drama than a season of Housewives of New Jersey. Prisoners, Captain Phillips, Promised Land. And I’ll tell ya, it’s gotten me all drama’d out. That’s the thing with drama – it sucks all the energy out of you. So I was excited, today, to read something that actually had some “movie” in it. I wrote about PDA a few weeks ago, and without reading a single page of Volstok, I can tell you it already has the P and the D.
But just picking a marketable idea doesn’t get you to the front of the line. You’re still going to have to go through security like everyone else. And that’s where you’re going to find out whether you forgot to put your wallet and your cell phone in the x-ray trays. Okay, that wasn’t the best analogy, but give me a break — it’s the end of the week and I’m tired and Miss SS is making me go see Don Jon, which I’m convinced will be a one-note script that probably would’ve been relevant when porn first hit the internet in, say… 1999? When you eagerly waited for those GIFS to slowly load, vertical chunk by vertical chunk until that entire wonderful NSFW picture laid before you? It didn’t matter if the woman was 300 pounds and had a tumor growing out of her neck. Just the fact that you were downloading a naked picture on the internet was sooooo coooool. Yup, definitely the end of the week. Let’s get to Vostok!
We’re out in the middle of Antarctica, a place where heat stroke and sunscreen aren’t in the vocabulary. The Vostok Research Facility has been working diligently towards drilling 3700 meters down to the last giant unknown lake in the world. It’s such a big deal that all the media outlets are sending their people in for the big break-through. Well, that was the plan anyway, until a major Antarctic storm (since just BEING in Antarctica is a storm, I can only imagine what a real storm there would be like) ruins their plans. Oh well, they’ll have to wait another six months until the media can grace them with their presence again.
Not so fast says our hero Gus Downey, a 50 year old marine biologist. What if they just drilled into the lake anyway! Bad idea, says the rest of the crew, including Abby, Gus’s lover. They could get in a lot of trouble for that. In fact, one of the facility’s crew members jumps up and reveals he’s been secretly sent here to make sure Gus doesn’t try any such tricks. Except Gus doesn’t care. “Go ahead and try and stop me,” he says, and starts the drilling.
They drill through the final round of ice and after accidentally contaminating the lake (a big no-no in the science community I guess), everything seems to be okay. They then start studying microbes from the lake. Unfortunately, while this is happening, crew members start dying one by one, including the nice French guy (Richard must have been inspired by my French Week). Eventually they learn that some giant lizard-like piranha creature has fused with one of their crew members and is now… well… EATING everybody.
This becomes personal when Piranha Thing eats Boris, the Russian father of crew-member Victor. Victor takes this very seriously and does his best Arnold Schwarzenegger impression, going out to hunt the thing. The rest of the crew-members would rather just wait it out, but when the creature knocks out the power, they have no choice but to go outside – where the creature lurks – to turn on the backup generators. I don’t think I have to tell you that this probably isn’t going to end well.
The contained thriller monster pic is one of the oldest and most dependable genres in the book. You’ve got The Thing. You’ve got Alien. Descent. Jurassic Park. The list goes on. Here’s the thing with this genre, though: It’s so formulaic that if you don’t do something unique with it – if you don’t try to set your movie apart from all the other contained monster thrillers – it’ll get stuck in Samesville, a script purgatory of sorts where many scripts go to disappear. And unfortunately, I believe that’s what’s happened with Volstok.
I think it’s good to wear your influences on your sleeve. But there’s a difference between being influenced and rewriting your favorite movie. Volstok is way too similar to The Thing and Alien. We’re out in the middle of Antarctica. Strange monsters are infesting human bodies, using them to grow into vicious hybrids. The big danger in that is not only are you not giving your reader something original. But you’re asking him to compare your script to one of the best movies of all time. And EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. Your movie will lose. Those movies are the best for a reason. Cause they’re awesome! That’s why I advocate being original so much. Because that way nobody can compare your script to something else. I mean, all I kept thinking here was, “The Thing was better because they had that element of ‘any one of them can be the monster.’” Volstok didn’t have that layer, giving it a “not-as-complex” tag.
The thing is, the writing itself here, while it doesn’t set the world on fire, is pretty darn good. Richard’s clearly written a number of scripts and knows how to work with in the screenwriting medium. The paragraphs are sparse and to the point. The story moves quickly (except for one part – which I’ll get to in a sec). He’s created something that can be marketed and sold.
I’m afraid he’s only put about 60% of himself into Vostok though. It feels like something that was thrown together quickly. I don’t get a sense of depth with this world, especially when it comes to the characters. Nobody has any deep-set problems or flaws or issues. The problems only come AFTER the creatures arrive. Yeah, Gus is an alcoholic but it feels tacked on. I didn’t even know he was an alcoholic until one of the characters told me. That’s the kiss of death, when a character has to tell you something. It should’ve been clearly SHOWN. When a supply crew shows up, have him take the guy around back and give him an extra $200, where we see the supply guy secretly give him a big stash of whiskey.
I think that’s something that hurt the script as well. There weren’t really any surprises. Everything kind of went by the book for this kind of script and that’s a killer because, again, you’re writing in a genre that EVERYBODY writes in. So you have to work the story more. I mean just last night in my newsletter I reviewed a script called Flower about a messed up teenage girl who starts a weird relationship with her step-brother. That was just a basic character piece and there were ALL SORTS of weird twists and turns in the script. If writers are throwing twists, turns, reversals, surprises, and secrets into character-pieces, you better bet that you need them in something like Volstok, which is strictly plot-driven.
I guess, to summarize, this script was too simple. It didn’t go beyond the call of duty. I didn’t get the impression that the writer shed any blood, sweat, or tears while writing this. You have to push yourself to come up with an original take on an old idea, then continue to push yourself to come up with original variations of the formula itself. Look at The Descent. Nobody had done a deep cave monster-in-a-box thriller before. That’s why that movie stood out. If I were Richard, I’d start with writing down 10 ideas to make Volstok unlike any of these films we’ve seen before. Just by doing that simple exercise, I guarantee you the script will start to separate itself from the pack.
Script link: Vostok
[ ] what the hell did I just read?
[x] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: Beware the “pausing” phenomenon. “Pausing” is when you’re trying to follow specific page number beats (i.e., the inciting incident on page 12, the first act turn on page 25 or 27) and you don’t have enough material to get to those beats, so you “pause,” writing in a bunch of filler until you get to those page numbers. That happened here in my opinion. The first act turn, Gus and crew deciding to drill into the lake, happens around page 29. But in my opinion, it was a total pause. The previous 10-15 pages were all filler and we could’ve gotten to this moment way sooner. Don’t be a slave to your page number beats. If the script feels like it’s reaching a point faster than it should, go with it and come up with other options for the following story beats, because readers can tell when you’re writing filler. Beware the pause!
