Where is Zendaya’s movie on this list??
It is time for the official RE-RANKING of the Black List. As we all know, at this point, the Black List ranking system is all over the place. It’s being manipulated by managers and agents. It’s promoting agendas that don’t include the quality of the script. It ignores scripts from seasoned writers with no clear delineation about who’s allowed and who’s not allowed to be on the list. We all have major reservations at this point. That’s not to say I think the list is irrelevant. There are still good scripts on it. They’re just not ranked correctly. Which is why you have me! I’ve read the scripts so I can tell you what’s good and what’s nowhere close to good. You can see the original rankings here.
There are twelve scripts on this list I haven’t read yet (Operation Milk and Cookies, Believe Me, Shania, Hello Universe, A Hufflepuff Story, St. Mary’s Catholic School Presents The Vagina Monologues, Lift, Sleep Solution, Thicker Than Ice, The Unbound, The Way You Remember Me, Ways to Hinder Winter). Eight of them I would rather lower myself into a boiling pot of water and die slowly inside, than read, so it’s safe to say they’d probably be non-factors on this list. But I will review a few more and, if anything is good, I’ll retroactively add it to this list. I’m excited to see what the true Top 10 looks like! We’re going from worst to best, here. Let’s get started!
59. Candlewood by Jason Benjamin and Jessica Granger
Logline: In 1992 a seaplane crash in a lakefront community sparks a relationship between three young sisters and the mysterious, injured female pilot.
Votes: 11
Original Rank: 27 (Tie)
Thoughts: This was one of the most baffling entries on the list. The story is so light and airy and devoid of conflict it’s almost as if it doesn’t exist. Everything from the random choice in time (set in 1992???) to the lesbian subplot that feels more like a ploy to get on the list than a genuine story choice, it’s one of those scripts you see on the list and just shrug your shoulders cause you have no idea why it got there above many more deserving screenplays.
58. Lady Krylon by Brandon Constantine
Logline: Two rival graffiti artists engage in a series of street battles, culminating in an otherworldy duel after the art starts bleeding into th ereal world.
Votes: 12
Original Rank: 22 (Tie)
Thoughts: To use an apt analogy, this script was like quickly scribbled graffiti art. It was so messy, I didn’t know what the artist was trying to paint. At the end of this script, the writer is making up mythology on the spot. Nothing is set up. It’s all random. I don’t now how this made the list.
57. Fiendish by Edgar Castillo
Logline: While meeting her boyfriend’s dysfunctional family at their ancestral manor, a young woman finds herself entangled in a bizarre and terrifying mystery when the family’s patriarch claims to have been cursed by a demon.
Votes: 9
Original Rank: 39 (Tie)
Thoughts: A horror script without enough original scares and without enough scares period.
56. Whittier by Filipe Coutinho and Ben Mehlman
Logline: While looking into a client’s murder, a Los Angeles social worker stumbles on a political conspiracy in the wake of the 1987 Whittier earthquake.
Votes: 15
Original Rank: 12 (Tie)
Thoughts: I remember reading this logline and thinking, “This is either going to be a huge miss or great.” Cause it wasn’t your typical setup for a movie. I liked that. But whenever I see these loglines with pieces that don’t organically connect, it almost always bleeds into the screenplay itself. And that’s what happened. It had a “Chinatown written by a first-time screenwriter” vibe to it.
55. Loud by Whit Brayton
Logline: A famed experimental musician finds himself embroiled in the race to solve Earth’s primary existential threat: A deafening sound that never stops, forcing all of humanity to survive in silence.
Votes: 13
Original Rank: 16 (Tie)
Thoughts: Nooooooo! I was so looking forward to this script. It had one of those newish high concept ideas I’m always looking for. The big critique I had for this one was that it was unsophisticated. And it’s trying sooooo hard to be the opposite. So every time it tries, it shines an even brighter light on how it’s failing. It didn’t feel like the writer had enough life experience to know what he was writing about.
54. It Was You by William Yu
Logline: With the future of Manhattan’s Chinatown at stake, a stubborn store clerk battles against an innovative CEO’s expansion plan, while both are unaware they’ve been falling in love with each other on a new, anonymous dating app.
Vote: 9
Original Rank: 39 (tie)
Thoughts: The Shop Around The Corner or You’ve Got Mail but not nearly as good. Wonky rule-set that doesn’t really make sense.
53. Skeleton Tree by Paul Barry
Logline: When an accident sinks their boat, two teenaged boys must learn how to survive the wilds of the remote Alaskan coastline, endure one another, and to come to terms with a long-held life-altering secret.
Votes: 10
Original Rank: 32 (Tie)
Thoughts: If the central relationship in your story isn’t working, nothing will work. And the central relationship between these two boys didn’t work. With that said, if you liked “Mud,” you might want to check this out.
52. The Dark by Chad Handley
Logline: When stranded on the far end of Manhattan by a mysterious city-wide blackout, a group of inner-city middle schoolers must fight through seemingly supernatural forces to make their way back to their parents in the Bronx.
Votes: 7
Original Rank: 57 (Tie)
Thoughts: A lot of you rightly pointed out that this was, basically, Attack the Block. Writers make this mistake all the time (especially young ones). They inadvertently rewrite their favorite movie. They’re so blind to it that they can’t see it. But we all do.
51. Killers and Diplomats by John Tyler McClain and Michael Nourse
Logline: The true story of the murder of four American churchwomen in El Salvador in 1980 and the low-level American diplomat who teamed with his most dangerous informant to smoke out their killers. Based on Raymond Bonner’s work for The Atlantic.
Votes: 7
Original Rank: 57 (Tie)
Thoughts: This script was just a big fat bummer. It never felt like a story that needed to be told. I’m not going to say, “who cares” about these women. But what’s the point of telling this story in 2022?
50. Indigo by Ola Shokunbi
Logline: An art thief who takes priceless objects from museums and private collections and redistributes them to their original countries of ownership is tracked by a dogged FBI Agent across the globe.
Votes: 11
Original Rank: 27 (Tie)
Thoughts: A James Bond wannabe with an art thief as its protagonist. Not the worst idea but this was a 747 plane that never got off the ground due to its faulty premise logic about stealing paintings from one museum and giving them to another. It’s like that script you write when you’re 22 and know nothing about how the real world works. You make up your own world rules which is fun as heck until you start sending the script around and people look at you cross-eyed. Although I guess this did get 11 votes.
49. Cauliflower by Daniel Jackson
Logline: Under the cruel guidance of a mysterious coach, an ambitious high school wrestler struggles to become a state champion while battling a bizarre infection in his ear that both makes him dominant in his sport and threatens his sanity.
Votes: 32
Original Rank: 1
Thoughts: The only thing I remember about this script was how messy it was. Just a year earlier, there was a great script on the Black List called Magazine Dreams that covered a lot of the same territory. And Magazine Dreams was smart, specific, sophisticated, and had a strong voice. It showed how these scripts *should* be written. We didn’t get anything close to that with Cauliflower, which felt like the low-rent version of Magazine Dreams.
48. Cruel Summer by Leigh Cesiro and Erica Matlin
Logline: During the summer of 1998, five camp counselors accidentally kill a stranger in the woods.
Votes: 10
Original Rank: 32 (Tie)
Thoughts: A way too thin script with way too few laughs.
47. Carriage Hill by Emi Mochizuki and Carrie Wilson
Logline: A pregnant couple hoping to start their family in the suburbs find themselves embroiled in a decades long mystery which threatens to shatter their American dream.
Votes: 7
Original Rank: 57 (Tie)
Thoughts: I love movies where people move into mysterious new communities and weird things start happening so I was kinda into this. But eventually things just stopped being believable.
46. Rabbit Season by Shanrah Wakefield
Logline: Supernatural horror about a woman stalked through a dark city park by the most monstrous manifestation of manhood during her walk home from her high school reunion.
Votes: 13
Original Rank: 16 (Tie)
Thoughts: I barely remember this one. But from what I do remember, it felt unrealistic that the main character was stuck in the park the whole movie. If you’re going to set up a movie dependent on its rules, those rules need to be rock solid. These were not.
45. The Devil Herself by Colin Bannon
Logline: When an elite assassin is sent to the haunted Harz Mountains in Germany on an extraction job she intends to be her last, she quickly learns that the local legends about witchcraft are true and must face a sinister supernatural threat.
Votes: 8
Original Rank: 46 (Tie)
Thoughts: Annnnnnd…. ACTION! And more action. And more action. And more action. The Devil Herself never slows down. And, ultimately, we can’t keep up with it.
44. Wheels Come Off by Kryzz Gautier
Logline: In the year 2065, a fiery teenager with a wild imagination, her paraplegic mom, and their clueless robot struggle to navigate the post-apocalypse; but when the mother’s wheelchair breaks, the trio must venture out into the dangerous “outside” for a chance to survive.
Votes: 11
Original Rank: 27 (Tie)
Thoughts: If this logline were a piece of jewelry, it would be one of the shinier ones on this list. Zany “out-there” concepts are fun to write. They really are. But I often feel they’re more fun for the writer than the reader. And that’s probably how I’d categorize this one. Kudos for giving us something different. But it’s ultimately too weird.
43. Sandpiper by Lindsay Michel
Logline: Still reeling in the wake of her husband’s death, master thief Viola Crier signs on to a risky, last-minute job set to take place inside a man-made time loop, but as the number of loops increases, the job begins to spiral out of control
Votes: 10
Original Rank: 32 (Tie)
Thoughts: As I helped develop a time loop script once, I can confirm they are some of the hardest concepts to pull off. There’s a lot of rule-setting that needs to happen and this script didn’t do its homework. I just remember this being big and cumbersome and confusing. It didn’t work for me.
42. Killer Instinct by Lillian Yu
Logline: After a Hollywood assistant is publicly fired for admitting while on a conference call that he’d love to kill his boss, he finds his boss dead in the office the next morning and goes on the lam to figure out the real culprit, all while being hunted by his boss’s assassin.
Votes: 23
Original Rank: 4
Thoughts: It’s never a good sign when I have to go back to the review to remember what happened. But after skimming the review, I immediately remembered my big problem with this script, which was that the writer wasn’t following the right protagonist. That is Screenwriting 101 so that failure meant this script didn’t do well with me.
41. The Masked Singer by Mike Jones and Nicholas Sherman
Logline: Mickey Rourke loses his mind after he’s forced to take a gig on television’s highest rated show: The Masked Singer
Votes: 12
Original Rank: 22 (Tie)
Thoughts: What I remember most about this script is that I thought it was going to be funnier. This happens a lot with comedy. You’ve got these really funny loglines. Which means you gotta deliver the funny in the actual script! This was still not bad, though.
40. Go Dark by Josh Marentette and Spencer Marentette (newsletter review – e-mail carsonreeves1@gmail.com to join!)
Logline: A team of black-ops soldiers use an experimental technology to travel into the afterlife and rescue their dead teammate.
Votes: 8
Original Rank: 46 (Tie)
Thoughts: Oh how I was looking forward to this one. I saved it. Savoring that I had it in my back pocket for a tough day. This is a movie premise and then some! But this felt like a first draft. It was like Inception with all its cool imagery. But that imagery hadn’t been carefully woven together yet. In my estimation it’s at least 10 drafts from nailing its execution. Not a quick fix by any means.
39. Four Assassins (And a Funeral) by Ryan Hooper
Logline: The Adoptive daughter of a legendary assassin returns home for his funeral… and finds herself in the crosshairs of her four highly trained, highly dangerous siblings.
Votes: 8
Original Rank: 46 (Tie)
Thoughts: One of the better titles on the list leads to a fairly decent script. I always admire writers who can tell you exactly what their move is in the title, and this does that.
38. Michael Bay: The Explosive Biopic by Sean Tidwell
Logline: Packed with enough C4 to split an asteroid in two, this tell-all Michael Bay origin story reveals the explosions that defined him, the fire that ignited his little heart, and the fate that sealed his Hollywood destiny.
Votes: 12
Original Rank: 22 (Tie)
Thoughts: In retrospect, this script had a tough task. It’s doing a biopic as a comedy. The comedy was definitely the focus, though, and it wasn’t up to par. There were some LOL moments. But, when it comes to successful comedy scripts, the reader should be laughing out loud 30-40 times. I laughed out loud maybe five times here? Needs more laughs!
37. Worst. Dinner. Ever. By Jack Waz
Logline: An estranged father and son have to survive terrorists, explosions, and, most terrifying of all, dinner with each other.
Votes: 16
Original Rank: 10 (Tie)
Thoughts: If we were ranking these scripts on which are most likely to become movies, Worst Dinner Ever would probably be in the top 3. It’s a really fun premise. I just felt that the execution was predictable and the comedy wasn’t very funny. I still think this will get made. It’s a good enough premise that you hire a name screenwriter to rewrite it.
36. Idol by Tricia Lee
Logline: The true story of American Idol viral sensation, William Hung.
Vote: 9
Original Rank: 39 (Tie)
Thoughts: In retrospect, I was probably too harsh on this script. I detest biopics so much that just seeing that genre denomination can cloud my judgement. At least the writer came up with an unexpected subject in William Hung. And she does treat him like a real person and not like a joke. If I had to do it over again, I probably would’ve given this one a little more love.
35. See How They Run by Lily Hollander
Logline: A blind mother moves into a remote farmhouse with her young daughter, but the mystery of the home’s previous inhabitants intrudes upon her attempts to repair their relationship.
Votes: 30
Original Rank: 2
Thoughts: I barely remember this script. It’s got a pretty good concept, which I suspect is why it made the list. And with horror, as we just saw with “Smile,” you don’t need a whole lot to win over an audience. But I still felt like the writer didn’t do anything special with the premise. I was hoping for more.
34. Mimi by Scarlett Bermingham
Logline: A successful illustrator finds herself friendless after her best friend gets engaged, forcing her to embark on an epic quest to “date” for new girlfriends — as an adult.
Votes: 10
Original Rank: 32 (Tie)
Thoughts: A bit try-hard with the illustration component rearing its head into the story. It’s something I’ve seen before. And the best part of the premise, the “dating for friends” stuff, wasn’t as good as it could’ve been. Rallies late but doesn’t ultimately live up to its promise.
33. Divorce Party by Rebecca Webb
Logline: Patricia Ford feels pretty good about trading her South Boston roots for a “perfect” life on New York’s Upper East Side, until everything falls to shit and her raucous girlfriends throw her a Divorce Party at the home she’s about to lose. As the night goes from wild to totally insane, Patricia takes back control of her life.
Votes: 25
Original Rank: 3
Thoughts: What I’ll say about this script is that when I read the logline, I remembered the story. What you have to keep in mind with readers is that most scripts are forgettable. You literally forget 99% of what happened within 72 hours. Because there just wasn’t anything in them that stood out. So this script had to have had something about it if I remembered the whole thing. I suppose its success will depend on how they cast it. But it definitely has “the female version of The Hangover” vibes.
32. Bella by Chris Grillot
Logline: A young college student is forced to confront her family’s dark past when a mysterious stalker appears, derailing her life and sending her spiraling into a web of anxiety and paranoia.
Votes: 7
Original Rank: 57 (Tie)
Thoughts: This script feels current, sort of like a cousin episode to Euphoria. Like, “What if we followed Maddy into her own movie?” If you liked Black Swan, you’ll love this.
31. Hard to Get by Dan Schoffer
Logline: After Amanda is seemingly ghosted by the man of her dreams, she’s delighted to discover he’s actually been kidnapped — and takes it upon herself to be his rescuer, going on an adventure of epic proportions along the way.
Votes: 9
Original Rank: 39 (Tie)
Thoughts: I always smile when I read this logline so that’s a good sign. And I could see this script fetching an A-list actress, which may make it look more desirable. But I just thought the same thing that I think for a lot of scripts I read, which is that the writer didn’t go to enough lengths to give us a fresh experience. I felt like I’d been here before.
30. Chicago For One by Madeleine Paul
Logline: Based on Robbie Chernow’s hilarious viral solo adventure, a newly heart-broken groomsman takes Chicago by storm celebrating a solo Bachelor Party Weekend after the rest of the party — including the groom — get stuck over 700 miles away
Votes: 9
Original Rank: 39 (Tie)
Thoughts: This is a cute idea. It’s a cute screenplay. But this reminds me of the movie “Tag.” They had a viral story that didn’t quite work as a movie but they made it a movie anyway. That feels like what they’re doing here. It’s an okay script but don’t go looking for anything more than that.
29. Max and Tony’s Epic One Night Stand by Thomas Kivney
Logline: A disastrous Grindr hookup goes from bad to worse when a meteor unleashes a horde of aliens on New York and the two ill-matched men must depend on each other to make it through the night alive.
Votes: 7
Original Rank: 57 (Tie)
Thoughts: I commend the writer for coming up with a non-obvious LBGTQ story. I would watch this movie a million times over before I watched Bros.
28. Dennis Rodman’s 48 Hours In Vegas
Logline: Before game 7 of the NBA finals, Dennis Rodman tells Phil Jackson he needs 48 hours in Vegas. What follows is a surreal adventure with his skittish assistant GM that involves a bull rodeo, parachuting out of a Ferrari and building a friendship that neither one of them ever thought was possible but will end up solving both of their problems.
Votes: 7
Original Rank: 57 (Tie)
Thoughts: This was a big spec sale! Of the comedies on the list, it’s probably one of the better ones. If you’re unaware of Dennis Rodman, it’s a pretty sweet ride. Cause he basically did a lot of this stuff for real. Okay, maybe he didn’t drive a Ferrari off a cliff and jump out in a parachute.
27. Ultra by Colin Bannon
Logline: When an ultramarathoner earns he is one of the ten contestants chosen to take part in a secret race known as “the hardest race on earth,” he is forced to confront his past when he realizes there are deadly consequences for breaking the rules.
Votes: 19
Original Rank: 6
Thoughts: Ohhhhhh! This one started off so good! And I loved the big concept. The mythology gets dicey at the end, though. When you’re building that mythology into your script, stay away from “absolutely batsh#t insane.” It sounds good in theory but it’s just going to leave your audience scratching their heads. This should be a good movie though.
26. The College Dropout by Thomas Aguilar and Michael Ballin
Logline: A young Kanye West’s intimate journey to create his seminal first album that reinvented hip hop music.
Votes: 13
Original Rank: 16 (Tie)
Thoughts: A testament to the writers that I didn’t hate this script. Probably because Kanye West is one of the most complex people on the planet. He’s such an oddball and he’s got mental issues and he’s a musical genius. I do think it’s kinda cheap to write a biopic about him because anyone can do that and get on the Black List. But this was pretty good.
25. Jellyfish Days by Matthew Kic and Mike Sorce
Logline: A young woman and her devoted boyfriend’s lives are dramatically altered by a medical procedure that could potentially quadruple their lifespans.
Votes: 11
Original Rank: 27 (Tie)
Thoughts: One of the more frustrating scripts on the list. It has some good moments, including a surprising twist around the page 30 mark. But its a heavy script that doesn’t give you enough to justify all the work you have to do ploughing through those heavy parts. If they could get another screenwriter on this to clean it up, it could be good. Right now it’s teetering between okay and good.
24. Barron’s Cove by Evan Ari Kelman
Logline: When his young son is viciously murdered by a classmate, a grieving father with a history of violence kidnaps the child responsible, igniting a frenzied manhunt fueled by a powerful politician — the father of the kidnapped boy.
Votes: 8
Original Rank: 46 (Tie)
Thoughts: I remember this script for having one great jarring chase scene. Also, for successfully tackling a difficult setup. It’s good enough to check out.
23. The Fire Outside by Yumiko Fujiwara
Logline: Peter, a seventeen-year-old painter, lives with his controlling mother in a lonely house in the wilderness. When he meets a mysterious stranger, he begins to question the reality he was raised to believe, gathers the courage to leave his mother, and unveils the sinister truth behind his upbringing.
Votes: 8
Original Rank: 46 (Tie)
Thoughts: It should be noted that I remember the details of this script intimately. Which is strange because I didn’t exactly like it. But if I’m remembering details this many months after reading a script, there must be something to it. Sure, we guess the twist fairly early on. But the way that twist is executed still contains enough uncertainty to keep us hooked.
22. *Weird by Augustus Schiff
Logline: An autistic kid tries to do normal college things — making friends, figuring out if girls like him, getting over his mom’s death — while seeing life in his own “musical” way.
Votes: 14
Original Rank: 15
Thoughts: This one caught me by surprise. I thought it was quite good and did a good job of taking us into the mind of someone with autism. I’ve read a lot of younger characters with autism. I’d never experienced an autistic protagonist in college though.
21. Homecoming by Murder Ink
Logline: Ten years after graduation, one of New York’s most eligible bachelors and his eccentric wanderlust wingman try to pull their recently divorced friend out of his rut by taking him back to Howard University’s legendary Homecoming for the best weekend of their lives.
Votes: 15
Original Rank: 12 (Tie)
Thoughts: The big thing I remember about this script was that it was super-fun. When you’ve got a simple premise, like coming back to your school for Homecoming Weekend, you need to be able to create good characters and write strong dialogue because the plot isn’t doing anything for you. So it’s up to the characters and the dialogue to do that work. Which this did.
20. Mr. Benihana by Chris Wu (newsletter review – e-mail carsonreeves1@gmail.com to get on!)
Logline: When a short Japanese kid from post-war Tokyo decides to make it big in the US of A, he discovers a winning recipe of exploiting his heritage with good old-fashioned American entertainment, to the great shame of his traditionalist father. This is the larger-than-life immigrant story of the OG daredevil playboy tycoon: the one-and-only Rocky Aoki
Votes: 16
Original Rank: 10 (Tie)
Thoughts: Look, I may not like biopics. And you may not like the fact that I constantly remind you that I don’t like biopics. But if your biopic is written well, I will respect it. And this was written well. It wasn’t mind-blowing but it has a unique character and I found it to be entertaining.
19. The Villain by Andrew Ferguson
Logline: The completely outrageous and completely true story of “pharma bro” Martin Shkreli — from his meteoric rise as wunderkind hedge fund manager and pharmaceutical executive to his devastating fall involving crime, corruption and the Wu-Tang Clan — which exposed the rotten core of the American healthcare system.
Votes 21
Original Rank: 5
Thoughts: Hey, have I told you I don’t like biopics? Luckily, this dude is a pretty interesting guy. I definitely think it’s braver to chronicle a villain in a biopic because it’s harder to make us care. So the writer gets points taking that challenge on. And the script does exhibit some voice. Not bad at all.
18. Apex by Jeremy Robbins
Logline: When an adrenaline junkie sets out to conquer a menacing river, she discovers that nature isn’t the only thing out for blood.
Votes: 7
Original Rank: 57 (Tie)
Thoughts: This script keeps changing things up at just the right times in the story, keeping you interested from start to finish. It isn’t blazing any trails. But it travels the already-traveled trails quite well.
17. The Family Plan by David Coggeshall
Logline: A former top assassin living incognito as a suburban dad must take his unsuspecting family on the run when his past catches up to him.
Votes: 7
Original Rank: 57 (Tie)
Thoughts: This is a great example of how to write a comedy spec. It’s all in the concept. If you get the concept down, it will do a lot of the work for you. Your uncle is a retired John Wick? I can imagine 10 comedic scenarios in a couple of minutes from that premise alone. So I wasn’t surprised at all, after I reviewed this, when it came together as a film, which will star Mark Wahlberg.
16. Abbi and the Eighth Wonder by Matt Roller
Logline: When a misogynist explorer meets his sudden (and violent) end, his long-overlooked understudy seizes the moment and embarks on an adventure that will earn her a place in the annals of history.
Votes: 10
Original Rank: 32 (Tie)
Thoughts: Very funny main character. Also some great supporting characters. This script takes on questions of feminism and misogyny in a lighthearted way. I feel like Black List scripts these days are designed to trigger you. This was the opposite. Which is probably why I liked it so much.
15. Follow by Michael Kujak
Logline: When a social media influencer meets a fan at a meet-and-greet, she’s so taken with her cleverness and vulnerability that she invites the fan to intern with her for the summer. At first, they’re an unstoppable team, but soon, the influencer is forced to wonder who she has let into her life.
Votes: 10
Original Rank: 32 (Tie)
Thoughts: This one was great. It really got the stalker-friend dynamic right. These scripts are all about building that central friendship that the reader knows is going to explode at some point. And it wasn’t a disappointment when the explosion came.
14. Blackpill by Alexandra Serio
Logline: Awkward and lonely, Jared is only able to find a community online — until the day he realizes that his favorite Youtuber lives nearby. Desperate for a connection, he becomes determined to find a way into her life… whether she wants it or not.
Votes: 7
Original Rank: 57 (Tie)
Thoughts: A fun little stalker script that doesn’t quite go how you expect it to. Had the potential to be even better, though, if it went deeper into its main character’s desire for fame.
13. Hot Girl Summer by Michelle Askew
Logline: After witnessing a drug deal gone wrong, thirteen-year-old (and exceptionally awkward) Beatrice accidentally finds herself in the middle of an underground drug ring…and on the perfect route to having a proper hot girl summer
Votes: 13
Original Rank: 16 (Tie)
Thoughts: An unexpectedly fun fish-out-of-water script. Does a good job of going right up the line but never crossing it. I described it in my review as Little Miss Sunshine meets Euphoria. I don’t know if that’s totally apt, but it does seem to exist somewhere between those two universes. And it’s funny!
12. Hotel Hotel Hotel Hotel by Michael Shanks
Logline: A man wakes up trapped in a mysterious hotel room. All alone in a mind-bending prison, his only chance for escape is teamwork: with himself.
Votes: 13
Original Rank: 16 (Tie)
Thoughts: Easily the hardest of all the executions to pull off on this list. So Michael Shanks gets credit just for making us care the whole way through. This is the ultimate trippy low-budget production that has a big enough concept to potentially break out. There are some really clever moments in here. This one surprised me.
11. Wait List by Carly J. Hallman
Logline: A troubled millennial from small-town Texas will do anything to get into her top-choice law school, including murder.
Votes: 19
Original Rank: 7
Thoughts: This was a good script! It reminded me a lot of Promising Young Woman, which I loved. It’s not as well written but it shares a common theme of making you think this is going to be some “all women are amazing and all men are terrible” scripts, but then making its female protagonist do more and more questionable things. It engaged with the gray area when all anyone wants to do today is live in the black and white. This was a good one.
10. From Little Acorns Grow by Laura Kosann
Logline: After a woman becomes one of the first female presidents of a 1950s publishing house in New York, she draws a former college classmate into her orbit, who soon finds her literary empire is not what it appears to be.
Votes: 8
Original Rank: 46 (Tie)
Thoughts: This is one of a handful of scripts on the list that I thought I may have been too harsh on with my review. It’s basically one of those “chess match” scripts, where two people are playing each other. And the script does a good job of exploring that. It is slow in its second act, but its big third act makes up for it.
9. False Truth by Thomas Berry, Isaac Gabaeff, and Nathan Gabaeff
Logline: The life of a cynical San Francisco criminal lawyer at the top of his career unravels when he agrees to represent a father accused of killing his infant son in an extraordinary case that challenges widely accepted medical beliefs, a biased justice system, and his own personal worldview. Based on true events.
Votes: 7
Original Rank: 57 (Tie)
Thoughts: Easily the biggest surprise of the list. If you would’ve told me ahead of time that I would’ve been riveted by a true story about “shaken baby syndrome” I would’ve told you you were bananas. But it looks like I’m the banana here cause this was actually good!
8. Yasuke by Stuart C. Paul
Logline: The true story of the first and only African Samurai in feudal Japan who rose from being a slave for the Jesuits to fighting as a Samurai in the unification of Japan.
Votes: 11
Original Rank: 27 (Tie)
Thoughts: Ava Duvernay, who used to get sent every African-American project town, once said, frustratedly, “Not every story about the first black person in a situation is worth telling.” And that went through my mind when I saw this logline. But I was happy to be proven wrong. This is not only a good story, it’s a script where the writer clearly cares about the subject matter. There’s a ton of specificity here that draws us into this world. A very strong Black List entry.
7. Symphony of Survival by Daniel Persitz
Logline: The incredible true story of Russian composer Dmitri Shostakovich writing an epic symphony during the deadly World War II siege of Leningrad — a work of art so powerful it would save him and his family, all while helping to unite his people with the Allies.
Votes: 12
Original Rank: 22 (Tie)
Thoughts: I went back to this review recently and, after thinking about it, I probably gave it more praise than it deserved. If I remember correctly, I hadn’t read a good script in a long time so I was just happy to read anything that was good. In retrospect, the script probably needs more depth. But it’s still a really good story. When they’re stuck behind enemy lines with no way out and they’re starving… I felt it. I felt that pressure and that fear. So this is definitely worthy of being a top 10 Black List script.
6. In the End by Brian T. Arnold
Logline: In the near future, terminal patients are given the opportunity to go out with a bang with personalized VR “perfect endings.” But when the best Transition Specialist gets far too close to a patient, he finds himself questioning everything in his life.
Votes: 17
Original Rank: 9
Thoughts: I was surprised when I re-read this review and saw that I gave In The End an “impressive.” I remember liking it, but it’s hard to get an “impressive” from me these days. Maybe I was bowled over by the fact that someone finally mixed the oil and water genres (drama and sci-fi) together and it worked. Definitely one of the better scripts on the list.
5. Grizz by Connor Barry
Logline: A car accident strands a young paramedic in the rugged Pacific Northwest where she is hunted by a ravenous grizzly bear.
Votes: 15
Original Rank: 12 (Tie)
Thoughts: I love simple stories told well and this is the perfect example of that. There isn’t a ton of plot going on here. But the tension stays high throughout and we’re invested all the way til the last page.
4. Ballast by Justin Piasecki
Logline: A naval engineer and her crew find themselves trapped in a deadly game on a shipping vessel in the middle of the Atlantic when they learn a series of car bombs are hidden amongst the thousands of vehicles on board.
Votes: 8
Original Rank: 46 (Tie)
Thoughts: Easily one of the coolest concepts on the list. While I get what some people are saying about it being too serious and cerebral and not enough fun, I thought the writer did an ace job with the execution. Yeah, it does’t play like a Die Hard movie but that’s what I liked about it. One of the few scripts on this list that I was looking forward to and, which, also delivered!
3. Challengers by Justin Kuritzkes
Logline: Framed around a single tennis match at a low-level pro tournament, three players who knew each other when they were teenagers — a world-famous grand slam winner, his ambitious wife/coach, and their old friend who’s now a burnout ranked 201 in the world — reignite old rivalries on and off the court.
Votes: 9
Original Rank: 39 (Tie)
Thoughts: As a tennis guy, it took me a while to be able to imagine Zendaya as a tennis pro. The girl doesn’t have a single muscle in her body. And she looks clumsy as all getup. Tennis is a graceful sport. But, once I got past that, I really liked this. So much so that it grew on me in the weeks since. And I’m thinking we might actually get the first great tennis movie ever (and no, King Richard is not a great tennis movie).
2. Air Jordan by Alex Convery (newsletter review)
Logline: The wild true story of how an upstart shoe company named Nike landed the most influential endorsement in sports history: Michael Jordan
Votes: 13
Original Rank: 16 (Tie)
Actual Rank:
Thoughts: One of the most effortless reads on the list. Maybe any Black List. Damon and Affleck have been trying to make their Jerry Maguire for years. They finally have it in this script. A really fun main character. I expect this to be a great movie.
1. Mercury by Stefan Jaworski
Logline: When a first date takes a dangerous turn, down-on-his-luck Michael risks everything to save his newfound love from her past. Little does he know, the night — and his date — are not what they seem. Michael soon finds himself on a high-octane cat-and-mouse race across the city to save himself and uncover the truth, armed with nothing but his wit, his driving skills, and a 1969 Ford Mercury.
Votes: 18
Original Rank: 8
Thoughts: Whatever the current trend in town is, readers will always hate it. Because every time they open a script, they’re reading another script in that trend. This gives writers an opportunity, though. Whatever the trend is, write something different. That reader will be so happy to finally be reading something fresh for once. This was just a really fun smartly-written enjoyable read. It felt like a movie from the very first page. This is why I continue to love reading screenplays. Because, every once in a while, you run into a “Mercury.”
Get a logline consultation from the guy who’s seen over 25,000+ loglines! What better way to see if yours stacks up. They’re just $25 and include a 150-200 word analysis and a logline rewrite! E-mail me at carsonreeves1@gmail.com if you have any questions. I also offer full screenplay consultations!
Genre: Horror
Premise: An aging rocker with a hankering for death-themed items purchases an old suit online that is said to be haunted, as it comes with the ghost of the man it belonged to.
About: This is an early adaptation of one of Joe Hill’s books. With the recent success of Black Phone, there’s a good chance the book will be thrust back onto the Hollywood deal table. Joe Hill’s title was pulled from Nirvana’s song, “Heart-shaped Box.” Neil Jordan, who adapts today’s script, has won an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay (The Crying Game).
Writer: Neil Jordan (based on the book by Joe Hill)
Details: 129 pages – 2007 draft
Keanu for Judas?
This might be the weirdest adaptation choice ever.
Neil “Crying Game” Jordan adapting Joe “Black Phone” Hill?
This feels like something Shay Hatten should be adapting. Isn’t he the Stephen King nut? (Joe Hill is King’s son, for those who don’t know)
I don’t know if I’d say that Neil Jordan feels “too good” for this, cause he hasn’t exactly been lighting up the movie marquee lately. But he definitely feels like an out-of-left-field choice. I’m not sure what to expect. But maybe that’s a good thing! Let’s find out.
Judas Coyne used to be a big time rocker in a “Megadeth” type band. These days, however, in his 50s, he’s spending a lot more time at home than on the road. It’s at his large mansion that he hangs out with his former-stripper girlfriend, Georgia. He calls her Georgia cause that’s where they met.
Judas loves to collect things like torture devices and skulls – anything that has to do with death. So when his assistant, Danny, spots a “haunted suit” online, Judas tells him to buy it. Several days later, the suit shows up (in a heart-shaped box), and Judas doesn’t even get to sleep that night before seeing James Craddock, the ghost of the man who owned the suit.
Judas soon learns that Craddock is here to kill him. More specifically, he’s going to make Judas commit a murder-suicide with Georgia. Freaked out, Judas and Georgia try and burn the suit. But that doesn’t do baloney. Craddock keeps showing up and taunting them.
Judas eventually learns that Craddock is the father of a groupie he once dated. When Judas ended the relationship, the groupie killed herself. Craddock is here for revenge. The only solution Judas can come up with is jumping in the car with Georgia, driving to Florida, and confronting the dead groupie’s sister, who tricked Judas into buying the suit.
Along the way, they stop at Georgia’s aunt’s place. Her aunt is a medium and, during a Ouija session, the dead groupie possesses Georgia. What we learn is that the cause of the suicide is a lot more complicated than originally thought. The sister may have been involved in it. So off Judas and Georgia go, this time with more purpose, to confront the sister, and get Craddock off their back for good.
I’m going to be honest – when I first saw Jordan’s name on this project, a little voice in the back of my head said, “Looks like someone needed to pay off the mortgage.” This had all the makings of a paycheck job.
And for a good 20-30 pages there, I felt like those fears were confirmed. You see, one of the biggest traps in horror is the “wait around for scares to happen” approach. This is where you put your hero in a house or a building or a barn or wherever, and they just wait for scary things to happen for 90 minutes. There is no activity. Only re-activity.
That approach doesn’t work unless your hero happens to be stuck in the location. The Shining, for example. The main character has to work here at this hotel for the off-season. He doesn’t have a choice. And they’re in the middle of nowhere, as well, so he couldn’t go anywhere even if he wanted to.
This setup wasn’t like that. The main character, Judas, lives at this house. But he can leave whenever he wants. Now, the writers try to stave off that arrangement with the old “latch-on curse” rule. Even if Judas leaves, the ghost can follow him. But I’ve found that that doesn’t work. It still feels to the reader like we’re sitting around a house waiting for scary stuff to happen.
Luckily, Judas finally says, enough is enough, grabs Georgia, and says we’re going to Florida to tell this beeyatch (sorry, that’s just how we talk in the clink) to take her curse off him so Mr. Stanky Suit can be decommissioned.
It’s amazing what purpose and goals do for a story. Cause, within a matter of seconds, we went from a “waiting around” horror story to one with actual momentum and activity. The engine driving the story revved to life, as if it had been begging to do so the entire time. And now we’ve got ourselves a movie.
From there, it’s a surprisingly thoughtful character piece. Jordan and Hill cleverly weave this concept of Georgia being a stand-in for Florida (the suicide girl). Judas has had so many women throughout his life that they’re all sort of the same. So Jordan and Hill are making this interesting statement that all the women are basically Florida. They’re interchangeable. So Judas isn’t just making peace with this girl who killed herself because of him. He’s making peace with all the girls he heartlessly disposed of.
At first, I thought Jordan was a bad choice for this. Through those first 30 pages, we get major “serious writer guy” vibes. Horror requires an undertone of fun. We don’t go to horror movies to be miserable. We go to feel fear and then anxiety and thrills and scares. But ultimately, we have to feel like we had a good time. I wasn’t getting that movie early on.
However, the further along we got, the clearer it became that Jordan was trying to do something real. And that realness eventually won me over. That’s not say there weren’t scares. Craddock was a scary dude all on his own. But I was definitely more invested in Judas’s personal journey than I thought I’d be.
After I finished this, I couldn’t help but be reminded how tough a place Hollywood is. I know this was written in 2007 when Joe Hill wasn’t as big. But it was also written a lot closer to when Neil Jordan was big. So you still had an author selling hundreds of thousands of copies of his books, and an Oscar-winning screenwriter – and even WITH THAT PACKAGE, this movie still didn’t get made.
That’s why when you hear me say, “Your script has to be great,” I’m not kidding around. Because you’re not Joe Hill. You’re not an Oscar-winning screenwriter. So if they’re getting passed up, imagine how easy it is to pass you up, an unknown writer without any credits.
The only way to overcome that enormous wall is to write something so un-put-downable that people will climb that wall for you to get it to the other side. Make sure your bar is high with you concepts and make sure it’s even higher with your execution. Cause those are the two things you can control. Everything else is up to the screenplay gods.
In the end, whether this was a paycheck job or a passion project for Neil Jordan, he’s such a good writer, that he made it work. It’s definitely worth checking out. And I’ve included the script so you can do just that!
Screenplay link: Heart-Shaped Box
[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[ ] wasn’t for me
[x] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: When it comes to character development in a horror script, you want to make decisions on a script-by-script basis. If you’re writing something with a more dramatic slant, like today’s script, you probably want to have some character development. If you’re writing something with more of a comedic slant, like An American Werewolf in London, you don’t need as much character development. Ultimately, it’s up to you. Deadstream was comedic yet still had character development. Just make sure you avoid FORCED CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT. If it feels like you’re adding character development to keep people like me happy, it’ll show in the finished product. If it doesn’t feel natural and organic to the character, you probably shouldn’t be doing it.
Today we get a pilot script from Hollywood’s newest golden child screenwriter
Genre: TV Pilot – 1 hour – Horror/Slasher/Sci-Fi
Premise: Set 15-20 years in the future, a group of high school kids ensconced in future technology are shocked when one of their friends is murdered, seeing as murder rarely happens anymore.
About: Today’s pilot comes from Hollywood’s screenwriting wunderkind, Shay Hatten, he who has basically taken over writing all the John Wick movies. He wrote this pilot in 2018 for the SyFy channel. They cast the show and shot a pilot but it was apparently so bad they didn’t go to series with it. Hatten was on my list of Top 10 future great screenwriters in Hollywood.
Writer: Shay Hatten
Details: 54 pages
We’ve got ourselves a Shay Hatten script today.
Hatten is known for his big energetic writing voice, which he definitely brings to today’s pilot. Hatten, who is not shy about his desire to emulate his hero, Shane Black, gives us all sorts of 4th-wall breaking action to digest in (Future) Cult Classic.
“If this scene doesn’t make every single person watching it vomit, I quit. Andy’s Dad’s guts have been, like, forking splorked all over the Goddamn place.”
Since I know some of you hate that writing style, tread carefully going forward.
The year is 2025 or 2030 — somewhere in that range – and 17 year old cool rebellious girl, Bree, is heading to her best friend, Andy’s, place so they can go to the first day of school together. The two are besties times a thousand, although you kind of get the impression Andy loves Bree.
Needless to say, he’s not happy that Super Cool Guy, Henry, has lowered himself from his cool guy pedestal to date Bree. We know this wasn’t easy because the social credit app the teens use has lowered Henry’s popularity out of the top 1%. Meanwhile, Bree and Andy are the two lowest-ranked students on the app, on purpose. They do bad things to stay at the bottom.
After a few oddly injected “Trump is evil” remarks that didn’t have anything to do with the story, all the students put on their virtual reality goggles, where they’re then transferred into a virtual environment, where their principal makes several announcements about the coming school year.
After this VR excursion ends, the principal tells everyone to meet him in the auditorium as he just received some devastating news (I can’t emphasize how clumsy this is – after the principal greets them in the VR world, he then says he wants to greet them in the real world, creating two scenes in what easily could’ve been one!). The principal then announces that one of the students (who we met earlier at a party) has been killed.
What we eventually learn is that some masked killer is running around killing people. It’ll be up to Bree and her friends to figure out who it is. Of course, they’ll also be hoping it isn’t one of them.
I’ve seen some bad ideas before. But this is up there.
A horror slasher story set in the future with the unofficial tone inspiration being Back to The Future 2. Who needs a regular horror show when you can integrate virtual reality, social credit apps, and hoverboards?
I’m sorry but horror and the future don’t mix.
Let’s not forget the last horror movie that tried to be futuristic. Demonic? Remember that masterpiece? There were a confirmed 13 deaths from the 100 people who went to see that movie in theaters. Cause of death? Boredom.
Horror is the one genre that gets better the further back in time you go. If you go back just 30 years, we couldn’t call anybody when we were in trouble. We just had to deal with it. That alone makes for horror situations that are a thousand times scarier.
I just watched Silence of the Lambs again (yes, for my dialogue book, in case you were wondering) and I was thinking that great scene where Clarice accidentally visits Buffalo Bill’s house couldn’t have been written today. Her boss would’ve called her to warn her. And, if she didn’t answer, he would’ve texted, which she would’ve checked.
But things get really scary if you go back 50 years, 100 years, 150 years. In those days, not only was everything spookier, but you were really on your own if you were stuck in a bad situation.
The badness of this pilot didn’t stop there, though.
It’s set 15 years in the future and we would occasionally flash back eight years to when Bree was a kid. So now we’re flashing back despite the fact that this show’s flashback is still our present’s flash-forward. It’s just weird. It twists your mind in all the wrong ways. You’re thinking about things that have nothing to do with the story itself, which means the suspension of disbelief is constantly being broken.
Shay was probably frustrated because he was trying something different here. And isn’t that what we’re told to do as writers? Be unique. Show a new voice. Find a different angle. Be subversive.
Then we do all those things and everyone’s like, ‘well that was dumb’ so we shrivel up into a ball and spend three weeks eating 5 dollar donuts from Slider’s even though they make your tummy hurt cause all the yeast is natural and therefore expands way further than all that fake yeast and you promise yourself you will never ever try something original or eat donuts again. You’re going to play by the rules from now on.
Look, I’m not telling you to play it safe.
But “different” is a dicier path. It has a much higher failure rate. That’s because if something hasn’t been tried already, it’s not because you’re the one genius who came up with the idea. It’s more likely because it’s been tried before and failed badly, so everyone forgot about it.
This begs the question, how does a writer recognize that they have a bad idea?
Well, the best way to find out is to poll the idea with people who have no connection to you. Put your idea here in the comments and see what commenters say. Don’t listen to the commenters who are your friends as they will likely be nice to you. Look at the people who you have no connection to. They’re going to be the most honest.
If the ratio of dislike to like is around 5 to 1, you’ve got a bad idea on your hands. Anything worse, you’ve got a really bad idea on your hands. You want to be closer to the 4 likes for every 1 dislike ratio.
But let’s say you’re private about your ideas and don’t want to post them on the internet. What then? If you truly want to figure it out privately, you need to be extremely honest with yourself. Start by asking, is writing this script like pulling teeth? Does every scene and moment feel forced? Do you dread writing the script because it’s always difficult to come up with pages?
Deep down, do you have this constant feeling that the story doesn’t work?
If so, you probably have a bad idea. I’m not going to go so far as to say this is true all the time. Some genius works are hard to write. But I think we all know, deep down inside, if something is working or not. And if you’re unsure, you always have me. You can get a consultation and I’ll tell you straight up, if you genuinely want to know, whether the idea works or not. You can even get a logline consult done BEFORE you write the script to potentially save yourself a lot of time.
Also keep in mind that you can pivot. You don’t have to completely abandon a script if you love the idea. Sometimes it’s a matter of changing the main character POV. Sometimes it’s about changing genres (from a slasher to a mystery, or a drama to a horror). Sometimes you haven’t unlocked the best angle to tell the story from yet.
When it comes to today’s story, it does start to come together a teensy bit towards the back end of the pilot. Once we start looking into Emily’s murder, there is a slightly fresh perspective we’re exploring this genre from – this idea that a murder has been committed in a world where murder has basically been eradicated.
But, again, the tone is so off here. The comedy and the horror don’t mix organically. You throw in the “Back to the Future 2” future speculation stuff (“Zoinks! There’s one of them hoverboarders!”) and it gets even jankier. The story just doesn’t know what it is.
And I could totally see this playing out when they tried to shoot the thing. I could see five actors playing five different tones. That’s how poorly constructed this mushy mythology is.
I struggled through this one from the get-go. I’m surprised I was able to make it through the whole thing, to be honest. It was that bad.
Script link: (Future) Cult Classic
[x] What the hell did I just read?
[ ] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: When it comes to comedy-horror, the comedy has to be organically built into the story. That’s why yesterday’s comedy-horror film, Deadstream, was so good. The main character was an annoying Youtuber. So that’s where all the comedy came from – him being one of those annoying Youtube personalities. When you’re just trying to add comedy to add it, cause you want to, you get today’s pilot. Everything feels forced.
OFFICER KIPPER
Peyton, the boyfriend. It’s his SnapStream feed.
MOSCOVITZ
Is that like SnapChat?
Kipper stifles a laugh. Moscovitz glares at him.
OFFICER KIPPER
Sorry, just– SnapChat was over ten years ago. This is totally different.
Ooph. This is what passes for humor in this script. Forced humor is the worst humor.
What I learned 2: Unless you have an amazing horror idea that needs to be set in the present, I highly suggest you set you horror script at some point in the past.
Genre: Horror/Comedy
Premise: A Youtuber who’s recently come back from being cancelled livestreams an all-night excursion in a haunted house.
About: Pitched as “a found-footage horror movie for people who hate found-footage horror movies,” Deadstream made its debut at SXSW to lots of audience love. The movie was written and directed by husband-wife team Vanessa and Joseph Winter. Joseph also stars. The movie was purchased by the Shudder horror streaming service and came out this weekend.
Writers: Vanessa and Joseph WinterDetails: about 90 minutes long
I heard, “This generation’s Blair Witch” and saw a 90-plus percent Rotten Tomatoes score and I thought, “Hmm, this sounds like it could be good!”
I also thought the found footage genre died off too soon. In an attempt to pillage the genre, a lot of idiots who didn’t respect found footage made films that didn’t even attempt to be good. You need to love and respect the rules of a genre to make it work.
Their biggest screw-up was having zero reason for the character to keep recording. Which constantly broke the suspension of disbelief. Hearing all the high praise, I have high expectations that this will not be the case with Deadstream.
Our main character, Shawn, is one of those really annoying Youtubers. Think a nerdier version of Jake Paul. He does stunts like sneaking across the country’s border in a car trunk. Dumb nonsense that gets him millions of views. Which has emboldened him to become even more annoying.
Shawn recently got canceled for something we’re not fully privy to. All we know is that Shawn has just been reinstated by his streaming service, which allows him to come back with a bang. He’s going to livestream a trip into a remote haunted house in the woods.
Shawn has made some rules for himself. For starters, to ensure that things stay entertaining, he must check out any noise he hears or he will concede all monetization of the video. Next, he’s bringing a “Wheel of Stupid Things To Do,” (it has stuff on it like, “Seance,” and, “Play Ouija”) that he’ll occasionally spin.
He also rips out his car’s spark plugs and hurls them into the forest to prevent himself from chickening out. And once he’s inside the house, he uses a master lock to lock himself inside, then throws away the key. This man is committed to staying here!
After he sets all his cameras up, Shawn starts hearing things. When he goes to check out what’s going on, he runs into “Chrissy,” a super-fan who came here to hang with her favorite streamer. When his followers vote to let Chrissy stay, Shawn reluctantly does. But the more he gets to know Chrissy, the sketchier she seems to be. And, at a certain point, it becomes clear that he not only needs to get out of this house, but get as far away from Chrissy as possible.
The first thing that came up as I was watching this was… this is not original. I will bet that there have been several dozen low-budget horror movies made just like this over the past five years. Livestream in a haunted house. It’s the ultimate low-budget horror setup.
So why is it that Deadstream is getting celebrated while nobody’s ever heard of those other films?
The writing.
These two understand screenwriting. And I’m going to guess that everyone else who made one of these films just showed up at the haunted house and figured out the story on the fly.
It was clear while watching this that the writers extensively rewrote this until it was great.
Let me explain how I know this.
A movie like this is deceptively hard to write because while it can easily be a 20 minute movie, it’s nearly impossible to make it a 90 minute movie. There’s just not enough stuff you can do in one location with 1-2 characters for 90 minutes. You really have to structure the script out to fill up the length.
After meeting Shawn with a brilliant introduction that shows us a lot of his previous videos, Shawn arrives at the haunted house. Now I want you to think for a second, if you were writing this movie, you’re in, about, minute 8 of the movie. You still need at least 15 more minutes to get to the end of Act 1. So what do you do? How do you structure that out?
Think about it right now. Cause I want you to compare what you would’ve done to what these guys did.
Okay, so here’s what they did. Sean has to set up all his cameras in the house. There are six main rooms. He’s got his backpack full off gear. And he has to go into each room to set up the camera, which will be connected to his iPad, so he has video monitoring of every room.
As he takes us into each room, he gives us a little history lesson. For example, he’ll say, “This bedroom is the room where the most deaths happened in this house due to a, b, and c.” In other words, it’s all very structured. We have a goal (set up all the cameras) and they’re slyly slipping in exposition (which is the good kind of exposition, by the way, since it’s interesting) that takes us all the way up to the end of the first act.
Not long after, we meet Chrissy. Chrissy then becomes Shawn’s partner in crime (spoilers follow) for a while. The second character adds a different feel from the first act, which is important in movies like this, which get boring quickly due to monotony.
Then the midpoint twist happens. Chrissy attacks Shawn and Shawn kills her in self-defense. Now Shawn has physically killed a person. You may be asking, “And the livestream people are just okay with this?” That’s part of the fun here. The livestreamers are commenting things like, “Fake!” And “Your Special FX are awesome!” There’s this plausible deniability hanging over the livestream the whole time.
From there, Shawn gets out of the house, but, as we remember, he destroyed his car engine. So how is he going to get away? After that, he hides in his car from a few ghosts. And, in the end, he realizes (getting a little help from his followers) that if he’s going to get out of here, he has to go back in and destroy the soul of this house. And that becomes our final act.
The structure is impeccable. It really is. And it demonstrates just how important screenwriting is and why so many indie films – especially indie horror films – are so bad. The directors put barely any effort into the script and you just get a bunch of random nonsense.
Also, they did a nice job with the character development. Shawn isn’t just some guy doing a livestream. He’s a guy who did something terrible that got him canceled and he’s trying to revive his channel. The writers slow-play the reveal of what he did, which creates some mystery. And then when we finally learn what he did, we get some genuine character development, as this becomes about more than just surviving. It’s about growing and learning from your past mistakes.
They even do a great job tying Shawn’s profession to Mildred’s (Mildred is the house ghost who posed as Chrissy). Mildred was a poet desperate to get published. So Shawn realizes, at a certain point, that she was trying to gain an audience (followers) just like him. And this insight into her ultimate goal is what helps him finally destroy her.
And yes! They set up rules that made it make sense why Sean kept filming the whole time. At no point did you say, “Okay, he wouldn’t be filming here.” They even built in reasons for him to do stupid stuff, like go check out scary noises, because he knew it would make the livestream more entertaining so he made a financial promise to his followers to do so. That was clever.
I don’t really have many criticisms, except for the main character’s acting when Chrissy was around. When Shawn is talking to the camera, he’s great. He’s perfect at being “Annoying Youtube Personality.” But when the actor has to do genuine acting with Chrissy’s character, it just felt like acting. The naturalism was gone.
The thing I love about horror is that you can make really good movies for very little money. These two proved that. Definitely check this out if you have Shudder!
[ ] What the hell did I just watch?
[ ] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the stream
[x] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: “’I think the whole time we were just terrified that we were making a movie with a camera on one guy’s face.” This quote from the writer-directors struck me because I think with every script you write, you become obsessed with that one component about your script that makes you think it’s not going to work. Jordan Peele famously talked about this issue with Get Out. He couldn’t reconcile the fact that he was trying to make something genuinely frightening and poignant but also make it kind of funny. He was convinced that that tonal balance couldn’t work. It’s important that we, as writers, understand that this is a natural part of the process. You need to be okay with that thing about your story you’re convinced doesn’t work because if you let it get the best of you, you’re going to give up.
It’s always fun to see Scriptshadow veterans have success. Kevin Bachar is a former Amateur Showdown winner. He credits the win and the subsequent review as a big learning experience for him. Since then, he’s gone on to write a script, The Inhabitant, a modern take on serial killer Lizzie Borden, that he got optioned and eventually made. The movie is out right now (!!!), both in theaters and on VOD. Kevin is a documentary filmmaker who grew up in Queens and attended Brooklyn College.
SS: How many scripts did you write before something happened with this one?
KB: The first script I wrote was a horror film entitled – The Peak of Fear – which I submitted to Amateur Showdown, way back in 2014. Although it won, it didn’t get the coveted “worth the read” Script Shadow seal of approval. But it was a great exercise in getting notes and applying the ones I thought worked and discarding those that didn’t. The Inhabitant, which was originally titled – Blood Relative – was my third script. It was also a conscious decision on my part to write something easy to produce and relatively low budget. I know we’re told all the time not to chase after genres and we should write what you “love”, but the truth is no studio or producer is really reading scripts from unknown writers for big budget pics. The best way into the industry is through horror/thriller with a hook or twist. Mine was the attachment of the Lizzie Borden myth set in modern times.
SS: I know you are a big reader of the site. Can you point to anything you learned on the site in particular that helped you with this particular script?
KB: I’m an avid reader, and have been since I started screenwriting. I remember one bit of advice you gave in regard to plot, where you used the metaphor of blowing up a balloon. The script should be continually blowing up that balloon until it keeps getting bigger and bigger until you know it’s going to explode, but you keep blowing, getting it to the absolute stretching point, and then you’re wondering how many more puffs can it take until you bellow out one more breath and then – BOOM.
SS: When did you finish the script?
KB: I finished the script in 2015 and placed it up on the BlackList website. It ended up getting a number of the coveted 8s and was eventually highlighted as a featured script on the site. Just to be clear, this is the BlackList website, not the annual list that comes out and you review scripts from.
SS: How did you get your manager (or agent, or both)? And did that happen with this script or a previous one? If a previous one, how many scripts ago and what was the script about?
KB: The manager that first helped get The Inhabitant (Blood Relative) rolling, found me via the BlackList website. They read a number of my loglines for scripts I had on the site and they thought they were very producible. I think it hits something you mention all the time about the importantance of loglines and is your idea a movie. Not to be a downer but too many times I’m reading loglines or ideas mentioned on Script Shadow and they are too naval-gazing inward dramas or high-flying space operas that aren’t going to get serious attention from any manager/agent.
SS: Why do you think it was this particular script that got made (as opposed to your previous scripts)?
KB: My previous script, the aforementioned – Peak of Fear, was horror, but was not what you’d consider low budget. It wasn’t in any means a high-budget but it wasn’t going to be less than 2 million. The Inhabitant was not special efx heavy and could be done at a lower price point. It also had a teenage lead which is one of the key selling points for horror – since that’s the biggest audience for the genre.
SS: When was the script purchased/optioned?
KB: The script was eventually optioned in 2019. So, I wrote it in 2015 but it didn’t get optioned until 4 years later. I can’t stress enough that you have to be willing to play the long game in screenwriting.
SS: When and how did the money come through?
KB: The option money came through when the option was signed and then the payment for the full script came in when we began principal photography. I know everyone wants to know numbers but that’s not going to happen, sorry but as they say – That’s personal. And to be honest it has no bearing on breaking in and what you might get paid for your work. It all depends on the budget, studio, producers and where you shoot it.
SS: A lot of scripts get written. Rarely does a script get made. What would you say was the most important factor in this script getting made? Who, involved in the process, was the most important person in getting the movie made?
KB: I think there are a few key players who helped get The Inhabitant made. The manager I mentioned earlier also managed a director who loved the script. I worked with the director and created mood boards and a proof-of-concept trailer or a rip-o-matic (see the one Rian Johnson did for Looper.) The director eventually dropped out, but it helped make the project real. The producer of The Inhabitant, Leone Marucci, was the next huge driving force, as any producer is to get a film made. It’s kind of obvious, but the film doesn’t get made without Leone pushing it forward because he believed in it. He actually contacted me about another script which was under option and I told him about The Inhabitant, and that it was available. He read it and loved it. Which brings me to the final most important factor/person to get the film made – the screenwriter. I was always pushing it forward and committed to spending time and money to get it made. On my own dime I flew out to Los Angeles to take meetings with the director and Leone (pre-covid 2019) which showed that I was serious about the film. I also spent time and money creating and cutting the proof-of-concept and mood boards which were really helpful in getting people to understand what the film could be.
SS: I believe this started as an independent project right? Can you explain to me how it ended up at Lionsgate?
KB: It was an independent production, but when the film was finished it was then taken to various studios – big to mid – and both Lionsgate and Gravitas Ventures partnered in the release.
SS: I noticed you’ve had a long and successful career as a documentary filmmaker. I suspect some writers might think you had an advantage being in the industry already. Possibly gaining industry contacts from that world. Did your career in the documentary world help you succeed in screenwriting at all?
KB: The truth is my doc career meant nothing to the fiction/movie world. It gave me an interesting story at meetings but not one of my documentary connections at Discovery, Nat Geo, etc intersected with the feature world. I let people know this all the time because they want to put up these invisible fake walls and in the end it comes down to their writing. My doc work didn’t help me win the Page Awards, twice semi at Austin, win Final Draft Big Break for romcom and win Screencraft’s Action/Thriller contest which had Steve de Souza, the writer of Die Hard, as one of the judges. If you write a great script and get it out there through Script Shadow or contests or queries then it will get read and that’s the truth. Sorry if I’m ranting, it’s just I’m so tired of hearing the same old “woe is me” lines. Just write, and write great scripts.
SS: With everything you’ve learned, what would be the biggest advice you’d give to writers on how to write a script and get it made into a movie?
KB: I think you need to read what is getting made and ask yourself a simple question – “Is my writing this great?”. Go read Taylor Sheridan’s Wind River – does your script sound like that? Move like that? Draw you through the page and onto the next? Read any movie that got made over the last 20 or so years and compare your writing to theirs. I know when I started my writing was nowhere near what was being produced. But I’m a perfect example that you can get better, much better.
SS: I tell writers to do this as well but I’ve found that, often times, writers just aren’t able to see how professional writing is better than theirs. Most writers I encounter, actually, think their writing is better than the movies getting made. So is there a more specific way to judge your writing against professional writing?
KB: To be a writer, a writer who will sell that novel, short story or screenplay, you have to be able to be 100% subjective on your own writing. I think this might be one thing that can’t be taught. You see it a lot of times on Script Shadow when people start endlessly defending their script when people start to give criticisms. They’re never going to improve. I also think, having a real objective sounding board is key. Having your friends or family read it means nothing and really offers you no real feedback. Even a friend who’s a reader or producer, because in the end they’ll never give you their real reaction if the script isn’t good. Also, I know it’s controversial but screenwriting competitions/fellowships can offer you a real benchmark for your script. The Inhabitant – as mentioned, received numerous 8s on the BlackList, it was semi-finalist at Austin, a top %15 at Nicholls amongst other placements. Also, winning Amateur Showdown on Script Shadow years previous told me that I had some talent as a writer. Too many writers never get their work out there to see if it in fact is professional level.
Now go and watch The Inhabitant!
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