Congratulations to Michael Harper and his script “Hellpig,” which received a “WORTH THE READ” yesterday, no small feat for an amateur script. We’ve been getting lots of good scripts lately. And that’s all you guys. The writers writing these scripts and the diligent Scriptshadow readers who are reading and voting for them. This doesn’t happen anywhere else on the internet so it’s a cool process to see. You all deserve a giant thank you.
Okay, enough ass-kissing. It’s time for a new batch of scripts. Here’s how to play: Read as many of this weekend’s scripts as you can and VOTE for your favorite in the comments section. Winner gets a review next Friday.
If you’d like to submit your own script to compete on Amateur Offerings, send a PDF of your script to carsonreeves3@gmail.com with the title, genre, logline, and why you think your script should get a shot. Good luck!
Title: Invasion
Genre: Sci-Fi, Drama
Logline: Presumed dead, a man returns home claiming to have been abducted by aliens, and warns that they are planning a large scale attack. Deemed insane, he decides to start a survivalist camp dedicated to fighting the impending invasion.
Why You Should Read: I’ve always wanted to write a movie about aliens, but I wanted to find a unique way to make it stand out from all the rest. I believe I’ve achieved that. A reader compared “Invasion” to the critically acclaimed “Stranger Things”, being that both manage to operate as a higher scale sci-fi piece and a family drama. At its heart, this is a love story about the lengths we will go to protect those we love, no matter how insurmountable those odds may be.
Title: Dead Star
Genre: Horror
Logline: When a Polar expedition awakens a sleeping god and unleashes doom upon the world, its only survivor is stalked by wolves across a snowy wasteland as he struggles to make it back to his ship alive.
Why You Should Read: Dead Star is GAME OF THRONES meets THE THING. In the spirit of a confined horror, the rich mythology of a foreign world unfurls as you accompany an anti-hero who believes only in science and what he can see with his own eyes. And as the paradigm of his world collapses, and he finds himself slowly but surely believing in the impossible, we experience right along with him his fearful descent into madness as he tries to outwit a god-like villain unlike any you’ve ever seen before.
Title: Let’s Be Famous
Genre: Adventure comedy
Logline: After two fame-seeking Millennials are outed for their plans to fake a sailing adventure blog, no one believes it when they really are ship-wrecked and lost at sea.
Why You Should Read: The first half of the story pokes fun at our obsession with fame and lampoons our dependence on smart phones. In the back half I play with what might happen when you take away the phones. Do we remain tethered to societal whims and expectations? Or do we gain clarity about who we are and what we really want?
I took some chances with the back half. Yes, indeedy. Curious if it works.
Thanks ahead of time to all who check it out!
Title: Quiet Storm
Genre: Crime Drama, Coming of Age
Logline: After discovering a stash of drugs during a carjacking a deaf teen delinquent finds himself pursued by crooked cops as Hurricane Katrina approaches.
Why You Should Read: I’ve received some high marks recently on this– including an overall eight (as well as six sevens) from the Blacklist– and earlier drafts have placed in various contest including all the biggies: Nicholl, Scriptpipline, American Zoetrope, Page, etc. So now I’m hoping to use this as a writing sample to land a rep.
Title: A Heart Built on the Sand
Genre: Urban Drama
Logline: The ideal life being striven for by a sexually charged woman in her 40s gets put to the test by the men that she loves and the demands of her job.
Why Carson should review this script? He owes me this. Back when he had a guantlet challenge I sent this script to him to challenge Allan Ball’s “American Beauty” (1999: directed by Sam Mendes) — and my challenge got discarded by him. But now I just wanna get this script in the hands of Niccole Kidman so I can be the scribe who helps her win an Oscar for best actress. Original idea for this script was a woman undone while the song “Tall Cool One” by Robert Plant plays.
One last thing. If you didn’t open a script because of what you read on one of the first pages above, take a moment and tell the writer why you chose not to open their script. Be truthful but polite about it. Remember, most writers go through life having no idea what people really think about their stuff. So they don’t know what to fix. Help these writers become better! :)
