Genre: Fairy-tale Mash-up
Premise: Snow White teams up with a local hunter to take down her evil step-mother, Ravenna.
About: This is the spec script that sold for 1.5 million last week. Evan Daugherty was working as an intern a couple of years ago. He won the Script Pimp contest in 2008 with his script, “Shrapnel,” which John McTiernan later committed to direct. Something tells me that one’s going to be in development for at least another year. Shrapnel led to him doing a rewrite on He-Man, which eventually led to this huge sale. If there is such a thing as the moment every screenwriter dreams of, this would be it. 
Writer: Evan Daugherty (inspired by the Brothers Grimm’s “Little Snow White.”)
Details: 110 pages – undated (This is an early draft of the script. The situations, characters, and plot may change significantly by the time the film is released. This is not a definitive statement about the project, but rather an analysis of this unique draft as it pertains to the craft of screenwriting).

When this sale happened, my first thought was, “I couldn’t write a script like that in a million years.” This subject matter is so far out of my field of expertise (whatever that is) I felt a little like a member of the Cannes jury having just been told the plot to Star Wars Episode 1, The Phantom Menace. i.e. Confused.

So there’s…Snow White? And she…teams up with a huntsman? But isn’t Snow White dead? Doesn’t she live with dwarves? I was definitely the grandma someone was trying to explain the internet to.

Yet these reimagining fairy tale/historical mash-ups are plugging their way through the Hollywood pipeline and everyone’s banking on them becoming the next big thing (costing no money for rights cause they’re in the public domain certainly doesn’t hurt).

Snow White and The Huntsman follows Miss White’s life as a princess, which for all intents and purposes is pretty sweet. She’s got a strapping young prince doting over her. She loves her family. And paparazzi won’t be invented for another 300 years.

But then her mother, the queen, dies, and because pops can’t keep it in his pants, he marries some hot young trophy wife, the evil Ravenna. Ravenna’s got all sorts of issues, but her biggest one is her desperate desire to look prettier than everyone else in the land.

So obsessed is she with this desire that she hires a local huntsman to seek out the hottest women he can find, capture them, and bring them back to her. She then puts them through the hot girl juicer, a machine that sucks the youth out of these poor women, turning it into juice, which Ravenna then drinks so she can stay young and hot.

Well word on the street is that Snow White is eerily close to becoming the fairest woman in the land, so it’s time for that bitch to get juiced too. But Snow White doesn’t wanna get juiced, and runs into the forest, where she eventually teams up with The Hunstman, who reluctantly helps her escape to freedom.

Of course, in a nod to films like Romancing The Stone and The Princess Bride, these two simply don’t like each other, so there’s a lot of arguing, a lot of not understanding the other’s way, and a lot of repressed desiring.

Eventually Snow White realizes that if she’s going to survive in the wild, she’ll need the particular skillset of the huntsman, and so she forces Hunty to teach her the way of the land. Now I know the question all of you are dying to have me answer so I’ll confirm it right here: YES, our seven dwarfs make an appearance.  In fact, our seven dwarfs are pretty badass, and become a key component later in defeating the queen.  

I’m always amazed by the imagination of these worlds. First of all, let’s face it, fairy tales are fucked up to begin with. Who thinks up a story where a dead woman sleeps in a coffin with a bunch of gnomes?  Since when do wolves have super-human blowing powers and blow down houses…with PIGS in them???  And isn’t there a fairy tale where a bunch of people live in a giant shoe?  They must have smoked a lot of dope back in the 1600s, I’ll tell you that.  So to then take an already freaky premise and further freak it into something weirder has to be considered a unique talent.  So I give credit to Daugherty there.

From a structural perspective, I was also impressed. Snow White having to escape off into the woods was a solid first act break. But more importantly, Daugherty knows how to build through that second act, realizing that if he just gave us Snow White and The Huntsman arguing for 60 pages we’d be bored out of our minds. So he adds plenty of complications (the seven dwarves, an old boyfriend, some bounty hunters, Ravenna’s impending second marriage) to keep us on our toes. It all builds to a solid third act, where the forces of good and evil engage in a final smackdown, and while it doesn’t reinvent the wheel, it definitely works.

Now I’ve been reading quite a few of these mash-up scripts on the amateur front and the reason Snow White is better is that everything’s been thought through here. The amateur scripts always feel like a bunch of wacky ideas haphazardly spilled onto the page. It’s like the writers just want credit for being weird and different.  Form, structure, character, really aren’t that important to them.

But this script pays attention to the details.  Take the character of The Huntsman for example. This isn’t just a wise-cracking rogue who’s winking at the audience. His wife was killed years ago by a wolf, and he’s been hunting that wolf ever since. There’s a sadness to this man, a void in him that gives his character weight, that makes him a real person.

I really felt like all the edges of this house were inspected before they put it on the market.  I can’t say the same for the amateur scripts I read, where 60-75% effort is the norm.

I guess the big question I have about Snow White and The Huntsman is, who is it being marketed to? Snow White is very much a little girl’s fairy tale, so that’s your built in demographic right there. Yet this is an edgy grown-up reimagining of the character. So who goes to see it? Will 14 year old boy’s flock to see a Snow White film? I don’t know. And what about adults? Isn’t this too kiddie for them? It’s one of those weird films that seems to be targeted to everyone and yet to no one. Okay, I’m starting to sound like Matrix Reloaded dialogue now, so I’ll move on.

This was a hard script to judge. As a piece of screenwriting, there’s a lot of good stuff in here. But if I’m being honest there isn’t a single aspect of this subject matter that interests me. I felt like I was reading two stories, the one I was admiring as a screenplay and the one about a fairy tale I could care less about. In the end, there’s too much good here not to recommend, but you definitely won’t be catching me at the premiere.

[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[ ] wasn’t for me
[x] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius

What I learned: If I were a studio executive and this landed on my desk, I would’ve passed. My response? “Wasn’t my thing.” Does that mean it didn’t deserve to be bought? Of course not. One of the sucky things about this business is that many times when someone passes on a script of yours, you have no idea why. Talking with managers and agents and producers, one of the things I’ve realized is that sometimes people pass simply because it “wasn’t their thing.” It could be expertly written. It could be a great concept. It could have a killer main character. But that particular producer has no interest in that kind of movie. This can actually empower you when you think about it. If someone passes on your script, don’t let it get you down. Simply assume that it wasn’t their thing and move on to the next guy. Cause that next guy might end up paying you 1.5 million dollars for it.

Genre: Drama
Premise: An upper middle class suburban man who loses his 15 year old daughter to a car crash befriends another 15 year old girl eight years later.
About: Welcome To The Rileys came out of Sundance with a lot of buzz. It has an interesting cast with James Gandolfini and Kristin Stewart playing the leads. Ken Hixon, the writer, is probably best known for writing City By The Sea, the Robert De Niro starrer from 2002, and Inventing The Abbots, from 1997. Rileys hits theaters at the end of October.
Writer: Ken Hixon
Details: 123 pages – undated (This is an early draft of the script. The situations, characters, and plot may change significantly by the time the film is released. This is not a definitive statement about the project, but rather an analysis of this unique draft as it pertains to the craft of screenwriting).

Welcome To The Rileys is another one of these early Oscar contenders. “Early Oscar Contender,” of course, is synonymous with  “Indie movie which desperately needs Oscar buzz to make money.”  Which is fine.  James Gandolfini gotta eat.  But you always gotta be leary of these movies with Oscar buzz in September. 

Actually, I have to come clean on something. I’ve really soured on independent film. A lot of that world has become a breeding ground for directors and actors to play around and experiment with things that the studios would never allow them to do but the scripts themselves have been lacking.  Oftentimes they’re too self-important (Rachel Getting Married) or too heavy (Frozen River).  It’s rare that we get one that really rocks like the Alfonso Cuaron masterpiece, Children Of Men (btw, it sounds like Natalie Portman will be starring in Gravity). 

I can remember the moment I first started questioning independent film. I’d heard about this movie called “Maria Full Of Grace” that was, according to all the critics, phenomenal. I raced over to the Santa Monica theater on 2nd street for the 11:15 A.M. Friday opening day show and proceeded to watch…the – most – average – movie – ever! It was the big budget equivalent of watching “The International,” just an average plot with average execution that you forget one second after you leave the theater.  Up until that point, the indie marketing strong hand had convinced me that every one of their movies was a secret stash of gold that only cinephiles knew about.  After that, I had a whole new perspective.

In fact, I would argue that out of the roughly ten bonafied “good” movies that come out every year, studios are either even with the independent circuit or a little better.  

But low and behold, today’s script might have found it’s way into that Top 10 spot.  I don’t know how well Welcome To The Riley’s the film panned out (I’m personally a little worried about the casting), but as a script, it’s good stuff. 

Rileys starts off with a car crash on a dark lonely intersection eight years ago. We don’t know why this crash is important yet, but we will soon. Jump to eight years later where we meet Doug Riley, the 56 year old president of a plumbing firm, and a man who’s clearly drifting through life. Doug lives in upper-middle-class suburbia with his wife Lois, who’s developed a severe case of agoraphobia, refusing to ever leave the house.

We find out the reason these two have essentially given up on life is because their 15 year old daughter was killed in that car crash we saw at the beginning of the film.

When Doug’s mistress, the only person keeping him sane, dies unexpectedly, he decides to go down to a plumbing convention in Savannah, if only to clear his mind for the weekend. On his first night out, he spots some men from the convention coming his way and in order to avoid talking to them, he ducks into a strip club. He immediately spots a clumsy young dancer dancing on one of the side stages.  Mallory is a dead ringer for his dead daughter. 

Doug finds himself ordering a private dance in order to talk to her, but Mallory is far from the refined middle class daughter he once knew. All she talks about is sex, all she asks for is money, and she seems genuinely baffled that Doug doesn’t want to have sex with her.

Their conversation leads them back to Mallory’s place, a dump in the icky part of Savannah, and within a couple of days, Doug is doing her laundry and cleaning her place, essentially becoming a surrogate father to this part time underage stripper/hooker. 

Back in Indianopolis, when Lois hears that Doug isn’t coming home anytime soon, she does the unthinkable, forcing herself out of the house and into their car, beginning a blind drive from Indiana to Savannah. Since she hasn’t engaged in society in over eight years, her experience is not unlike an alien’s on a new planet. She doesn’t know what to do, how to act, who to talk to. When the car starts chatting with her, for instance, she almost has a heart attack.  She’s never heard of On Star before. 

As you’d expect, Doug and Mallory’s situation is akin to that trailer for the new Denzel Washington movie about a train full of chemicals barreling towards the heart of the city (Yes, the rumors are true, Denzel only does movies about trains now).  We know it’s going to crash and burn unless she commits to his lifestyle or he commits to hers.  If they keep living in this dope den, nothing good is going to come of it. 

I admit that Welcome To The Rileys is a movie I usually give the Heisman to. In fact, some might argue that it’s the exact type of film I was referencing above, a laborious indie ride with no plot. But Welcome To The Rileys has more going on for it than you think, namely really interesting characters, and lots of conflict.

Take Doug for example. He’s unable to communicate with his wife on any level since she’s withdrawn from society, so there’s conflict between them. Doug doesn’t want Mallory doing what she’s doing, so there’s conflict between them. Doug still refuses to accept his daughter’s death. So there’s conflict inside of him. His business associate and friend doesn’t want him to sell the company because it will put him out of a job, so there’s conflict (pressure) pushing on him there. Each character here is experiencing conflict on several different levels, which really makes up for the film’s lack of plot. 

Here’s what you have to remember. If you don’t have a plot, you have to have memorable, original, interesting characters steeped in conflict. This conflict is essentially the car that’s driving your story, so it really has to be thought through. As soon as that conflict runs out of gas, you better find the nearest Conflict Station because you ain’t going nowhere without it.

If Welcome To The Rileys runs into any trouble, it’s in that it’s dark and depressing, to the point where it will turn people off. This isn’t shiny happy REM people here so if you’re not in the mood for a rough ride, you’re not going to like it. Indeed I wanted more humorous moments like Mallory and Doug trying to find common ground, as these two were possibly the most opposite human beings on the planet.  But these moments are pretty sparse, and I’m not sure I would’ve responded if I weren’t in the mood for something so bleak (why I was in the mood for bleak, I have no idea!).  I think that’s why I loved American Beauty so much. It nailed that perfect balance between humor and drama, bringing a smile to your face just as often as it brought tears. Having said that, Rileys does have a little bit of American Beauty in it, in that it explores the facade of the perfect happy family unit in suburbia (and in a totally unique way!)

If you’re in the mood for a dark piece with some good writing, I’d recommend you check this out. It’s quite good.

[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[ ] wasn’t for me
[xx] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius

What I learned: Try to get those three elements of conflict into your script if possible. Conflict inside your character (internal conflict), conflict between your characters (intra conflict) and conflict pushing on your characters (external conflict). You want to do this no matter what kind of story you’re telling, but pay extra attention to it if you’re writing a character piece with little to no plot, such as Welcome To The Rileys.

How did anyone survive without Scriptshadow on Monday? I think one guy wrote in from Germany saying he was going to kill himself cause I didn’t post a review. Or maybe he said he was going to kill me. Either way, I’m sorry but I really needed a break. I’ll try to make it up to you this week with a script from a very high profile comedy writing team and another script from an Oscar winner. Requests for the latter script have been flooding my inbox for weeks. I’m tempted to tell you how it went right now but what fun would that be? Heh heh heh. Roger Balfour isn’t going to make you wait though. Here he is with a review of Fright Night.

Genre: Horror
Premise: When a teenager learns that his next door neighbor is a vampire, no one will believe him.
About: Craig Gillespie is helming this modern retelling of this 1985 horror theater classic, that was written and directed by Tom Holland and starred Chris Sarandon, William Ragsdale and Roddy McDowall. Marti Noxon (Buffy, Angel, Grey’s Anatomy, Mad Men) has retweaked the story for a new generation. Leading the cast is Colin Farrell, Anton Yelchin, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Toni Collette and David Tennant.
Writer: Marti Noxon

I remember watching repeats of the original Fright Night on the local tv station, which is probably the perfect way to watch a vampire movie that plays as a sort of paean to the genre with its Horror Movie-obsessed protagonist and his Horror TV Host mentor. I re-watch it every October, as it’s perfect for Halloween not just because it’s a scary movie, but because it’s nostalgic. There’s a spirit in the story and performances that harkens back to Dark Shadows, Drive-In Creature Features and Christopher Lee Hammer Horror flicks. Just the perfect movie to watch on a cold autumn night when the neighborhood is decorated with jack-o-lanterns, skeletons and fake cobwebs.

What I learned: Teaser prologue. If you’re writing a horror story, whether it be a monster movie or a ghost story, it’s usually wise to kick things off with a quick teaser that hints at the menace your story will be about. In Fright Night, there’s a three page sequence that’s about a teenager trying to survive a deadly and mysterious attack on his suburban family by an unseen threat. We see glimpses of something tearing apart bodies. We see glimpses of something…not human. Your first act will be all about establishing your setting, characters, world and story. These things usually are a slow-build up, so it’s smart to kick things off with a short sequence that shows your monsters or ghosts without showing your monsters or ghosts. Build a tense scene showing something horrible happening at the hands (or fangs) of your menace, but don’t give it all away. Create mystery, move along to your story, then when it’s right, show your creature, monster or ghost in all their creepy glory.

This is going to be a good week at Scriptshadow. We don’t have a single script that receives less than a “worth the read.” One of those scripts is shockingly good exorcism story, one a comedy, and one a script that wasn’t very good but has an insane approach to it that, combined with the “universally loved by all geeks” director, is going to make it a must read. Finally, we’ll finish off with a new Top 25 script, a crime drama that blew me away. And I don’t even like crime drama, so you know it’s good. Right now Roger’s going to review a genre and a screenwriter he knows well. Let’s give him our full attention.

Genre: Old Fashioned Ghost Story, Gothic Horror
Premise: When Arthur Kipps, a young widower and solicitor, leaves his son in London to settle the legal affairs of the recently deceased Alice Drablow, proprietor of the Eel Marsh House in Crythin Gifford, he finds himself in a life and death struggle with a specter whom is killing all of the town’s children.
About: Based on a 1983 novel by English author, Susan Hill, “The Woman in Black” was adapted into a stage play (which still runs today in the UK), a couple of radio plays and a TV Movie for Britain’s ITV. Under the newly resurrected Hammer Film Productions, the script was written by Jane Goldman (Kick-Ass, Stardust, The Debt, X-Men: First Class) and is set to star post-Harry Potter Daniel Radcliffe with James Watkins (Eden Lake) as director. Presumably this is the first script coming out of Goldman’s recent signing with William Morris Endeavor.
Writers: Jane Goldman, inspired by Susan Hill’s 1983 novel.
Details: 2^nd Draft. Dated August 3, 2010.

This is how it’s done.

Let’s forget the pedigree for a moment. Let’s forget this was a novel written by Susan Hill, a lady inspired by English ghost story masters M.R. James and Daphne du Maurier, a lady who understood setting, suspense and atmosphere. Let’s forget that said novel was creepily satisfying enough to be adapted into a stage play, a radio play and a TV movie in Britian. And, let’s forget that newly resurrected Hammer Horror returns to the cinemas swinging, not only with Let Me In and The Resident, but with this deliciously Gothic ghost story written by the foxy Jane Goldman (a former paranormal tv show host) and helmed by Eden Lake (have you seen this flick?!) director James Watkins.

Doing something a little different today. Roger is reviewing a script from a professional reader. Does he have what it takes to write a great script? While reading a ton of scripts helps your own screenwriting, I’ll be the first to admit it doesn’t ensure success. Each script has its own unique challenges and there’s no guarantee, regardless of whether you’re an amateur, professional or semi-professional, that you’ll be able to overcome them. I look back at shitty scripts of mine all the time and think “This sucks. There’s no way it can be salvaged.” What I love is that Dan was like, “Have at it. Grade it just as hard as you grade everything else. Grade it harder.” One thing I love about readers – they know the value of straightforward criticism cause nobody tells you the truth in this town. I know Dan offers notes, as do I (feel free to e-mail me for prices: carsonreeves1@gmail.com) so if you’re interested, drop me an e-mail.

The rest of the week is Odd Fever. I tackle a straight action script, a moody spooky period piece that a certain star has been trying to get made forever, and at the end of the week, for Amateur Friday, I review…a zombie script?? What the hell is going on?? Anyway, it promises to be a different week at Scriptshadow. Hope you enjoy it!

Genre: Supernatural Thriller, Horror, Drama
Premise: An orphaned teen returns un-aged from a mysterious 10-year journey to battle a powerful minister for control over a gateway to hell.
About: Dan Calvisi was a Senior Story Analyst for Miramax Films for over five years and now runs the script consultation service, Act Four Screenplays. As a professional reader, he worked for Fox 2000, New Line Cinema and Jonathan Demme’s former production company, Clinica Estetico.
Writer: Daniel P. Calvisi

“Donnington” has the type of logline I eat up.

Not only does it mention a gateway to hell, but it has the phrase, “un-aged from a mysterious 10-year journey”. It’s such a bizarre detail (Why is the character un-aged? Where did he go? What happened to him? Again, why didn’t he age?) that captured my imagination and made me want to read the script.

Weaned on horror movies, Ghostbusters and Buffy: The Vampire Slayer, I am always very interested in gateways to hell. All of my favorite myths involve characters like Orpheus or Hercules entering such gateways to rescue or retrieve loved ones or creatures from the shadowy, fiery underworld.

And, I’m here to report, this script is about a boy who disappears into such a doorway to claim a mythic mantle and returns to the ordinary world (yep, un-aged and ten years later) with a supernatural boon that may bring death to every other person he encounters in the natural world.

Cool. Who’s the boy?

Seventeen year-old Ben Danvers officially becomes an orphan when his father dies in jail. We meet our protagonist at his father’s funeral, where we also learn that the townspeople hate his father. Donnington is a town devastated by a horrible mine explosion that killed thirty-three people in the early 80s (in fact, the script begins with a creepy cool prologue that captures events in the mine just before the cave-in, which involves a miner fleeing into a red light with a baby in his arms).

Ben’s caseworker has enrolled the pagan teenager (during the funeral, he spouts his knowledge of Greek and Roman mythology to the minister) at a top-notch school, a prestigious private institution called the “Donnington Lamb of God Evangelical School for Christian Leadership and Development”. So, not only do the townspeople express resentment for Ben because of his paternal pedigree, but he’s being placed in an educational environment that violently clashes with his own personal beliefs.

It’s at the evangelical school that we meet Cassie Harken, a goth-y gal who is immediately attracted to Ben, especially when he announces that his topic for his senior term paper will be disproving the existence of Hell. Her own topic for Senior Themes? Vampirism in the bible. This is a match made in the bowels of a heavily religious and right-wing environment, the common denominator being that both characters have a mutual disdain for authority figures.

They bond when they visit the cemetery and start to make myths, or make-up stories about the people behind the names on the headstones of the graves.

At this school, not only do we get to meet Ben’s reluctant teacher, Mr. Grabash, we also witness the school’s painful version of required chapel, which is the daily assembly led by the school’s figurehead, Brother Gabriel.

What’s the story behind Brother Gabriel?

Brother Gabriel is known for dressing all in black and delivering not so much a fire and brimstone sermon to the young sheep at his school, but for pontificating about a place he calls “Outer Darkness”. I suppose the place is related to the Cormac McCarthy novel in that both are about the concept of Hell, although Brother Gabriel also refers to it as a physical, geographical place while McCarthy seems to only be concerned with the moral and emotional metaphor.

Basically, Gabriel makes kids weep by talking about the complete solitude of Hell and paints word scenarios where they must imagine being trapped there, and that it’s too late to call on Jesus for help. It’s important to know that Gabriel and his school rose to power because he’s the only known survivor of the Golgoth mine cave-in of 82. He reminds the kids and the townspeople that not only is survival a miracle, but that his purpose on earth is to save the youth from Hell.

Ben gets in dire straits with Brother Gabriel while trying to interview him for his term paper. Not only does Gabriel dislike Ben, but he doesn’t appreciate him challenging his authority. To complicate the situation, Ben also learns that Gabriel is also possibly molesting Cassie.

Does supernatural stuff start to happen?

Yeah. One day, at the Jesuit house Ben lives in (where his caseworker finds him lodging) he receives a mysterious letter that has strange symbols and glyphs on it. There’s a phrase that says, “Return back. Mine.” So, accordingly, Ben is drawn to the Golgoth mine, but the townspeople warn him that it’s condemned because of mercury poisoning. Undeterred, he explores the hillside and encounters the Charon-like Duey, the old punch-in clerk from the prologue who now wanders the hills as a sort of guardian. In their first encounter, he demands to inspect Ben’s tongue.

The first act turn approaches when Ben learns about Cassie and Gabriel and when the strange birthmark he has on his body starts morphing into a map on his body. He lines it up with another map and it all leads to a particular entrance of the mine called Raven Hill. Under the cover of night, Ben goes to the mine and encounters three men (perhaps the mysterious authority trio Gabriel answers to at the school) in hazmat suits are inspecting creek water. He’s chased into the mine…

…where he disappears for, apparently, a really long time. Now, for me, this was the most intriguing part of the script. We’re treated to a time-lapse of the outside of the mine, and although we’re not sure how much time is passing, we suspect that whatever is happening must be supernatural. Sure enough, Ben emerges from the mine with a beard and his face is weathered by the elements.

And, he’s holding a lacquered wooden strongbox with iron latches.

It reminds us of the circular, mossy door he fled into in the mine.

What’s in the box?

That’s part of the mystery. No matter what Ben does, he can’t seem to open it. And no matter where he leaves it, it seems to magically reappear wherever he’s at. Yep, it’s an inanimate object that follows him around. There’s also a scene where the villains are searching for the box, and although it’s in plain view, they’re unable to see it. Ben spends the rest of the script carrying the box around with him.

So, ten years passed while Ben was in the mine?

Yep. Ben returns to Donnington to find that the town is eclipsed by the gigantic new mini-mega church that spires up into the sky. He meets Mr. Grabash, who is now a drunken hobo that wanders the streets, and Cassie, who is ten years older while Ben isn’t. She’s super confused, and tells a tale where she thought he disappeared for good.

We discover that Brother Gabriel is now calling himself Prophet Gabriel, and that he’s built an institution that seats fifteen thousand people. Parents from all over the state enroll their kids at the school. Gabriel seems to employ most of the town. Gabriel isn’t too happy to discover that Ben has returned, and the mysterious three men are on alert to snatch him and interrogate him about his experience in the mine.

Which he has no memory of.

He gets mysterious flashes of what happened to him down there, and well, they’re not always pretty.

And, now, Ben is plagued with more strange events. While he tries to discover who Gabriel really is and what he’s up to, he becomes aware of phenomena with the box. Disconcertingly, everyone in contact with him seems to die soon after. There’s a cool detail when he interrogates a photographer and we learn that, in the photos of himself, he seems to have a dark smudge-like tail following him around.

Does Ben learn about the mysterious men that employ Gabriel?

Yep. We learn that they’re part of a consortium called The Alchemy Group, and that they’ve been interested in the mine for a very long time. And they’re very intrigued by Ben and his bloodline.

It all culminates into a bloody finale (one that actually made me sick to my stomach) where Ben may or may not become a popular mythical figure. Pay attention to the clues: references to the Valkyrie, gargoyles, Tartarus and a certain scythe-wielding icon.

Does it work?

It’s a very intriguing mystery. In a good way, it reminded me of “Donnie Darko”. The tone and the element of mystery is both its strength and weakness.

There’s some character and plot stuff that can get confusing at times. Just lots of goals that seem to get lost in the 2^nd act shuffle: Ben is trying to clear his father’s name, but he’s also trying to expose Gabriel, and he’s also trying to solve the mystery of not only the mine, but the Alchemy Group, and his true nature. It can feel convoluted.

I also felt that, at times, the author was grinding an axe rather than simply telling a story.

All in all, it’s a cool puzzle narrative that reminded me of “Carnivale” and stuff by Stephen King. It also has a really cool concept at its heart: It’s about a boy whose inheritance is related to the Grim Reaper. And for that, it’s definitely worth reading.

Please contact Dan at dan@actfourscreenplays.com for the script.

[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[ ] wasn’t for me
[x] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius

What I learned: There’s a quote by Richard Kelly that I’m pretty fond of, “For me, for fantasy to truly work, there has to be an undercurrent of absolute realism.” When you have birth marks morphing into maps, a character disappearing into the underworld for ten years and returning with no memory of the experience, an ornate box that you can’t open but follows you around no matter where you leave it, and encounters with a supernatural realm that culminates into a boy becoming a scythe-wielding mythical figure, it’s important to ground everything in a realistic setting with characters that feel like real people. I think Donnington could benefit by not only making its setting, the town, more realistic, but by depicting the town in such a way that makes it feel like an actual character. From “It’s a Wonderful Life” to Faulkner’s “A Rose for Emily” to the more modern “Lars and the Real Girl”, there’s something to be said for giving a community, a collective of people, a character arc. Donnington is a town that has suffered a great tragedy and has turned belly-up, but the setting never quite felt realistic. I think it could benefit from being fleshed out more. How do you do this? You depict more characters from the community who have different backgrounds. For example, I’ll point to Karl Gajdusek’s “Pandora”, which portrayed multiple characters who inhabited a town. They were all different ages and from different social stratas with different jobs. All together, the varying perspectives felt like a tapestry of characters that gave weight and soul to the setting. I’m not advocating turning this script into an ensemble piece, but if “Donnie Darko” can make a town feel like a character, so can “Donnington”. At one point, a character says, “God left this town long ago.” It’s a literal Ichabod (the departure of God’s glory). For the audience to believe that a setting is truly cursed, first they have to truly believe the setting.

note: Okay, comments seem fixed.