Genre: Thriller
Winning Logline: When her estranged son returns and takes her grandson in the night, a veteran park ranger sets out to rescue him from the clutches of a mysterious cult deep in the Oregon woods.
About: This is the winner of the August Logline Showdown! If you missed it, you can check out all the contestants here.
Writer: Megan Carroll (story by Martin Hilligoss and Megan Carroll)
Details: 99 pages
Sigourney Weaver for Vick?
Remember that I’m announcing next month’s surprise showdown in the September newsletter, which is coming out tonight (Friday). If you want to know what the mysterious showdown is going to be (it’s not loglines) make sure to e-mail me and get on the newsletter list (carsonreeves1@gmail.com).
Onto the review!
People always ask me, “Carson, why do we have to write loglines?” The answer is that, in addition to making it quick and easy to understand if your script is something people might want to read, a well-written logline is a reliable indication that the writer has been around for a while and knows how to write.
That’s because writing loglines is hard. As in, it takes YEARS to learn how to write them well. It takes that long because you only practice writing loglines once every six months, after you’ve finished writing your most recent screenplay. Therefore, if you’ve figured out how to write a good logline, chances are you’ve been around long enough to learn how to write a good screenplay.
This logline felt professional to me from the jump so I’m not surprised it won.
Let’s see if it, indeed, indicates the writer can write!
60-something Vick lives in a small Oregon town with 8 year-old Jordy, her grandson. Jordy’s parents, Lee and Shaina, were drug addicts, and therefore had to give Vick custody to their son years ago. They’ve since disappeared.
That is until today, when Lee shows up at Vick’s door, three years since the last time he saw her or Jordy. Lee is unshaven and dressed in dirty clothes. He lives deep in the Oregon forest in a community called “Paradise” with his wife (Jordy’s mom), Shaina. Paradise is run by a woman named Cousin.
Vick senses there’s still good in her son and invites him to stay the night. Mistake. When she wakes up the next morning, Lee and Jordy are gone.
Due to a complicated history with the local cops, Vick decides to go into the woods and get her grandson back on her own. As a woman of a certain age, it isn’t easy hiking through the dense Oregon forest. But she meets a few helpful people along the way before spotting a couple of Paradise residents.
She follows them and when they discover her, she pretends to be a “Paradise” convert, eager to join the community. They bring her back where she meets Cousin, who seems to like her until Lee and Jordy spot her. Jordy leaps up and runs to his grandma, leaving everyone unsure of how Cousin is going to handle this.
Cousin is, strangely, calm, and invites Vick to stick around for the ‘big event’ tomorrow. What big event is that? Well, let’s do some math here. Crazy cult leader lady. Middle of forest. Bunch of followers who walk around like zombies. Yeah, I think we’re in ‘sacrifice’ territory here. But who’s going to get sacrificed? And will there be an opportunity to rescue Jordy before this sacrifice occurs?
So, when I had the Last Great Screenwriting Contest, one of the scripts that came out of that contest was a cult script. It was about a couple who were in a cult with a really scary leader. It was very well-written. But when I started sending it around town, I kept getting the same feedback, which was that these cult scripts are everywhere. A lot of writers write them and they all kind of feel the same, like a low-budget mumblecore indie version of something that would play at a second-tier film festival.
So, if you’re going to write one of these, you have to find an angle that doesn’t put it squarely in the above box.
I don’t think Wayward Son quite got out of the box. But it came close.
The thriller elements – the stakes, the urgency – definitely gave this a different feel than the cult script I read for The Last Great Screenwriting Contest. But there’s something about these cult scripts that always feels like they’re pulling punches. There’s horror right around the corner. But it’s never in your face.
And I get it. These scripts are often building towards some shocking ending. True to form, Wayward Son’s best moments occur during its third act. But in screenwriting, it’s not just about nailing the ending. You have to get the reader there in the first place. If they think they’re reading something that’s too tame, they’ll check out. And Wayward Son constantly flirts with being too tame.
Let’s talk about the opening sequence. Because I think the writer missed an opportunity there to capitalize on a gut punch, something that would’ve really pulled the reader in. When Lee first shows up to Vick’s, he’s calm and he’s nice, if a little awkward. They talk, they have pizza, they go to sleep, and then the next morning Lee and Jordy are gone.
What I think the writer should’ve done is have Lee show up, he’s nice and calm, they chat for a while, they talk about Jordy, she invites Lee to stay the night, and then, in the blink of an eye, he should’ve pulled a knife and slashed Vick’s throat, then taken Jordy.
You may say, “But then who looks for Jordy?” A cop! Have a cop look. Or, if you want to keep it in the family, maybe it’s Lee’s sister (Jordy’s aunt) who looks. Or maybe Vick and her husband are divorced. He’s a retired cop so he goes after Jordy.
You would’ve gotten that “Holy sh*t” moment in there to hook the reader. And then they’re in the palm of your hand for the next 90 minutes.
Another issue here is that the second act is the worst act. This is the act where Vick is traveling through the forest trying to find Paradise. I couldn’t figure out what the angle was here. Was it about how an old woman was doing something she wasn’t physically able to do anymore? It all just seemed rather tame. She’d meet some woman, they’d chat, she’d keep walking. She’d meet a man, they’d chat, she’d keep walking. Where are the teeth in this story? Why aren’t things getting gnarly?? At least ONE THING. Grab us by the throat. Give us a reason to continue to give you our undivided attention.
Carroll misses an opportunity in that second act when Machete and Kindling, the two Paradise residents who catch Vick following them, interrogate her. Vick lays a sympathy story on them about looking for meaning in life, which results in them taking her to Paradise.
30 pages earlier, we had the weakest scene in the script. Vick runs across a woman who’s clearly homeless and down on her luck and is in the beginning stages of trying to survive in the forest. Vick kind of feels bad for her situation but has more pressing problems to solve. So she leaves her. It’s, essentially, a pointless scene.
However, if that woman would’ve given Vick a specific story about how her life fell apart and a specific story about learning to find meaning by living off the land, now we could’ve used this scene as a setup to that Machete and Kindling interrogation. “Why are you in the forest? What are you doing here?” Vick could’ve then used, verbatim, what the homeless woman had said to her, and since it was so authentic, it would’ve been convincing to Machete and Kindling, who are moved by her story and take her in. That would’ve made Vick look sooooooooo clever. Plus, that seemingly boring scene becomes retroactively awesome.
Despite these criticisms, this script is very well-written. It moves fast. And best of all, it has some really strong character work in it. The complicated relationship Vick has with her son leads to a rescue story that is more layered than we’re used to. And, of course, you’re always going to get me on board when you build key character moments around Star Wars movies, which this does successfully.
When you put it all together, this is DEFINITELY one of the better amateur scripts I’ve reviewed on the site. If we ever do make a Top 25 Amateur Script List here on Scriptshadow, this will be on it. It’s worth reading.
Script Link: Wayward Son
[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[ ] wasn’t for me
[xx] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: Think three-dimensionally to solve screenplay problems. Let’s go back to my earlier suggestion of Lee killing Vick in the opening scene. I could see Carroll coming back and saying, “I get it. I like the idea of a huge shock in the opening scene. But I want a 60-plus year-old woman in the lead role. So I can’t kill her.” End of discussion, right? No. If you’re the screenwriter, you’re God. Think three-dimensionally and shuffle the variables around so you can have what you want as well as what you need. Invent a sister character – Abby. Abby, Vick’s daughter and Lee’s sister, is now the legal guardian of Jordy in this draft. You then write the same opening scene. Lee comes. Abby trusts him. But this time, Lee kills her and takes Jordy. The news is then given to Vick, now a Ranger who’s nearly retired. Vick then goes after Jordy. Exact same movie but now we get that big shocking opening that pulls the reader in.
