Next Friday I’ll be reviewing the amateur winner from a couple of weeks ago, “Small Slices.” A weird but intriguing little script. You can download it back on the Offerings page here. In the meantime, we have a tasty smorgasbord of script treats today, including a script from one of the top leaders at DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency). This gentleman was in charge of a half a billion dollars worth of projects every year! How awesome is that??!! Of course,he could be lying and he’s actually the leader of CARPA, the national carpet registry of America. I’ll leave it up to you to decide. As always, read as much of each script as you can, offer constructive criticism to the writers, including why you stopped reading when you did, and PROMINENTLY VOTE for the script you want me to review. Let’s find something good here!
Title: Gravity Kills
Genre: Sci-fi/suspense
Logline: A man awakens without memory in the nightmarish world of history’s largest super-prison. As he fights for his freedom, he develops visions of a past he cannot recall, causing him to lose grip on the present — leaving only a matter of time before his past & present collide.
Why you should read: It’s the Bourne trilogy meets Oldboy. — You once gave some advice on how to generate a good starting point for your script. Basically, you had it down to: confined space, central hero, a mystery to solve, and keep them moving. I really took that into consideration when starting Gravity Kills. I love The Twilight Zone. I love that the best stories involve basic human fears, and then build and twist them into simple, confusing, haunting stories. And I had a great idea: a regular guy (or is he..?) wakes up in a super-prison without any memory of how he got there. He’s innocent as far as he knows. It involves fears we all share: the innocent man accused, held against our will, losing our mind – really frightening shit. So that’s what Gravity Kills is…hopefully.
Title: Doppelgänger
Genre: Supernatural thriller
Logline: A detective with the power of bilocation must catch a serial killer who posseses the same power.
Why you should read: Because it’s GHOST meets SILENCE OF THE LAMBS.
Title: The Apocalypse Chronicles
Genre: Horror Anthology
Logline: Trapped in a nightmarish hellscape, a wounded drifter struggles to remember his true identity as he’s forced to play a sinister game of chance against three mysterious madmen fixated on telling him tales of the supernatural, the macabre and the downright unholy.
Why you should read: I’ve been a lurker on here for a while now, never a commenter. Just watching, reading, observing. I thought I’d take the plunge and see if our script is up to snuff. Both myself and my writing partner love dark horror that doesn’t pussyfoot around the idea of death in a cosmic sense and goes right for the throat. We wanted to come up with an anthology format where the wraparound story was just as compelling as the individual stories, not simply an excuse for getting from one tale to the next. I know anthologies are a hard sell (both literally and figuratively) unless a couple horror maestros are attached to it right off the bat, but we had a lot of fun writing it and I think you’ll enjoy reading it.
Title: Guise of the Devil
Genre: Horror /Thriller
Logline: The leader of a California commune investigating a rash of murders must deal with disturbing hallucinations, sinister conspiracies, and a mysterious woman visitor who may be connected to the occult, all while questioning his own grip on reality.
Why you should read: I believe with its layered plot and narrative twists, “Guise of the Devil” will be an intriguing, elevated thriller/horror film in the rein of films such as “Identity” and classic films such as “Angel Heart.”
Title: Emergency Exit
Genre: Science Fiction
Logline: A geeky astrophysicist, a Native American anthropologist and a Scottish geneticist dig up the past and find their future.
Why you should read: I imagine it’s unlikely that you’ve gotten a spec script from a former leader at DARPA – who was charged with spending $500M per year inventing the future? During my tenure at DARPA I created the 100 Year Star Ship Study and challenged Hollywood to shoulder the burden of inspiring new generations of geeks. In 2011 I had the privilege of speaking to a packed room at CAA on my DARPA view that “Life Imitates Art” and told them they had the responsibility to shepherd the future. It had an impact on at least one. This spring I was contacted by Julia Enescu (Production Asst. for Scwhentke) to chat at length with Jim Madigan and Alec Hammond – and in July had the opportunity to visit with Robert Schwentke to discuss the role of science fiction. So why read my submission? Science for science’s sake in science fiction doesn’t entertain (but you know that). But it does need to be accurate and believable. I think it can be and I mean to prove it.
