One of the most common e-mails I get is: “Hey Carson. I just saw that Deadline/Variety/Hollywood Reporter article about [Movie X]. Do you have the script? I’m writing a similar script and I want to make sure I’m not f&*%$.” I’ve gotten three of those e-mails just this week! Then I see a trailer for this movie called, “Sweetheart” and lookie what we have here. A woman gets stranded on an island with a monster. Does that sound familiar? Yeah, Bad Robot was developing the same exact film, titled, “Beast,” which I reviewed in my newsletter and was very much looking forward to.

This leads us to today’s question. What if you find out that the script you’ve been working on for the past five months is strikingly similar to another project? Should you give up? Most writers do. But I have news for you. Finding out there’s a project out there that’s similar to yours is a common occurrence in the industry. In fact, seasoned writers expect there to be similar projects announced while they’re writing scripts. The reason being, we’re not all as original as we think. Three years ago, I remember seeing five separate thriller scripts about hotel owner peeping toms who witness a murder.

So you discover there’s a project out there like yours. What do you do? First of all, you need to gather as much information as you can. Ideally, like the writers e-mailing me, you want to read the script. The more you know about their story, the more you can make sure your story is different. But often times, their script is nothing like yours. It’s actually rare that two people are executing a story in a similar way. But even if it has some similar story beats, don’t fret. The script actually isn’t the most important thing.

You need to find out how much juice is behind the project. Are they putting a RELEASE DATE behind this? Are they saying things like, “Production starts in two months?” Are they announcing cast members outside of the one or two leads? If it sounds like the studio is fast-tracking the project in any way, that’s trouble for you. Cause it means the movie is probably getting made.

However, if this is just something that a big director has attached themselves to. Or even a big director and a big actor, that doesn’t necessarily mean anything. Spielberg attached himself to Roboapocalypse. I’m still waiting for that one to come out. James Cameron and Guillermo Del Toro attached themselves to Mountains of Madness. That wasn’t playing at the Arclight last time I went there.

Back in the day, I’m talking early 2000s, I had this script that took place in the future and involved motorcycles. Then I read a big splashy Variety article about how they were making a live-action Akira, a movie that also took place in the future and revolved around motorcycles. Aww, man, I thought, I can’t write that script anymore and threw the idea in the trash. Well, 20 screenwriters and a dozen directors later, Warner Brothers still hasn’t made Akira.

What you have to remember about Hollywood is that it’s more likely that something doesn’t get made than gets made. So even if you hear about a similar project, you shouldn’t worry. Most projects get stuck in development. Development is a process whereby producers work with a writer to bring the script to a level that can attract talent and financing. Those things are hard to attract. And scripts are hard to write. So what usually happens is that the writer writes something “professional” that checks all the boxes, but is missing that je ne sais quoi.

Think about that for second. The writers and producers spent 6-9 months working meticulously on the script, hammering out all the issues, out only to find out, when it was all over, that it wasn’t any good. This is a momentum-destroyer and what often happens is whoever was attached to the movie moves on to another more exciting project, or puts this one on the back burner. The project gets placed into stasis until they decide to revive it and put some money towards hiring another writer and trying again. This process rinses and repeats and usually ends in failure. Which is kind of depressing when you’re thinking about it from the development side. But it’s good news if the project is similar to yours. Because it means you don’t have to worry about it.

This is why I tell amateur writers who find out another amateur writer has the same idea as them, “Dude, that is the last person you need to worry about.” The chances of an amateur script getting purchased and produced is small. So that’s not the writer you need to concern yourself with. If you learn that David Koepp is writing a similar idea, then yeah, you might need to put your worry boots on. But don’t worry about other amateur writers.

The only time you should worry about something is if they’ve already shot the film or it’s being fast-tracked by a major studio. I wouldn’t even be scared if you find a similar idea from an independent production company that’s already been produced. The industry has so much content right now that anything that doesn’t get a wide release or an Oscar push isn’t well-known. An A24 movie might make 1.5 million dollars at the box office. So if you have a similar idea to that film that’s larger in scope and therefore doesn’t cross over into that audience, you should be fine.

You want to know what matters most? It’s going to sound cliche but it’s true. Write a great script. Write complex scene-chewing characters. Come up with a plot that zigs and zags in ways the reader never expected. Focus on creating an emotional connection between your characters and the audience. Create two AMAZING scenes that nobody will be able to stop talking about.

Because even if you write something that’s too similar to another project, you’ll still have a script that demonstrates your talent. And this industry is more about interviewing for the next job than trying to sell your next screenplay. I know some writers who have used a single writing sample for going on ten years to get work. So focus on writing that great script and not panicking every two weeks when you hear that someone else has the same idea as you. Cause chances are, that’s the last thing that will get in the way of your script’s success.

Want proof? I know a recent script that had FOUR other similar concepts in various stages of development and production to compete against. And that script still sold. What script am I talking about? I can’t tell you yet. But hopefully I’ll be able to soon. :)

Yo, do you have a logline that isn’t working? Are those queries going out unanswered? Try out my logline service. It’s 25 bucks for a 1-10 rating, 150 word analysis, and a logline rewrite. I also have a deluxe service for 40 dollars that allows for unlimited e-mails back and forth where we tweak the logline until you’re satisfied. I consult on everything screenwriting related (first page, first ten pages, first act, outlines, and of course, full scripts). So if you’re interested in getting some quality feedback, e-mail me at carsonreeves1@gmail.com with the subject line: “CONSULTATION” and I’ll get back to you right away!

Genre: Horror
Premise: Two outcast teenagers have their world turned upside-down when they start receiving mysterious DVDs with horrifying imagery on them.
About: Today’s writer, Adam d’Alba, sold his spec pilot, “The Pierce Signal,” to Starz in 2015 (which may be a companion piece to this – I haven’t been able to confirm that). He then sold this script to Paramount in 2017, with spec-friendly 21 Laps producing. D’Alba graduated from Brown University and then worked in the ICM mail room. The Infinity Reel finished with 29 votes on the 2017 Hit List.
Writer: Adam D’Alba
Details: 105 pages

October is right around the corner and you know what that means. SCARRRRY TIIIIIME! Let’s get things started with an early bag of Halloween candy – an ode to The Ring…. but with DVDs!

30 year-old documentary filmmaker Jude Pierce is chilling in his apartment when his wife, Caroline, comes home holding a yellow envelope. While he works, she goes into the other room, opens the envelope, and finds a DVD. She plays the DVD, the contents of which we don’t see, takes the DVD out, then casually walks outside and throws herself over the railing, sending her to her death (the DVD, of course, breaks in the process).

Three months later, a haunted Jude is on a mission to find out what happened to his wife. There was a tragic story of a couple of high school kids he wants to look into. We’re not told exactly what happened to these kids, but we know they both received DVDs in the mail, just like Jude’s wife.

So Jude speaks to Nora, the mother of 18 year old Nick, and Ted and Sheryl, the parents of 18 year old Sarah. Nick is your classic goth type with no friends. And Sarah is an obsessive geek, determined to get into a top college, mostly at the behest of her parents. After Nick and Sarah both receive ominous DVDs, each with their own unique imagery, they meet and discuss what the DVDs could possibly mean.

We cut back and forth between Jude’s interviews with the parents and the growing relationship between Nick and Sarah, which we know has a horrible conclusion. We just don’t know what that conclusion is! Soon, new DVDs are showing up, and they’re not just showing terrifying imagery. They include footage of Nick and Sarah hanging out together. Whoever is doing this has been watching them.

But it gets oh so much worse. In one DVD, Nick and Sarah watch as they’re taped having sex. There’s only one problem. THEY HAVEN’T HAD SEX YET! This convinces Nick and Sarah that the DVDs are from the future, taping things that are yet to happen to them. But then it gets even CRAZIER! In one DVD they watch at school, they see an image of them, live, watching the DVD. But that’s impossible! This is a DVD. It’s already recorded.

But it gets even CRAZIER! One of the DVDs never ends. It just keeps going. For hours, days. But that’s impossible! A DVD can only hold a finite amount of information. Then things really take a turn for the worse, as Nick becomes possessed by the magic of the evil DVDs. One night when they’re alone, Nick takes out a gun, shoots Sarah, then shoots himself. The End.

Huh.

Well, okay. How should we dissect this one?

Look, one of the most important things to get right when you’re inventing a new mythology is the rules. The rules need to accomplish two things. They need to be clear. And they need to make sense. Which is why the mythologies that work best tend to be simple. That way, there isn’t a lot of room to mess up.

“It Follows” had a simple mythology. You pass on the curse through sex. And only the person cursed can see the person following them.

I can’t stress this enough. One of the fastest ways to lose a reader is to start throwing everything at the wall and hoping some of it sticks. Which is exactly how the rules in The Infinity Reel feel. At first you get a DVD and it makes you want to kill yourself right away. But then when our high schoolers get their DVDs, it’s different. They don’t want to kill themselves right away. Already the rules have changed and we’re not even out of the first act.

Then things get completely out of control. The DVD images go from random to including shots of the people watching the DVDs. Then it starts including things the characters haven’t done yet. So now we’re thinking the DVDs are from the future. Okay. But then, later, they realize that they might have been in a trance during their actions, and therefore the imagery is actually of stuff they’ve done in the past but forgotten. Then, the DVDs start including images that weren’t available at the time the DVD was recorded. So they’ve become magical DVDs, able to record after the fact. And then, to increase their magical ability, they contain never-ending video.

So here’s what goes on in my head when I read something like this: Writer is making up story as he goes along. He has no idea how he’s going to explain it in the end. But chances are he’s going to do what every writer who writes one of these scripts does once they’ve painted themselves into a corner – say that the characters were “going crazy” and so it was all in their heads. Which is pretty much what happens.

Look, there are a couple of ways you can go when you’re writing a mystery like this. Direction 1 is to make everything up as you go along and figure out the end when you get there. Direction 2 is to figure out the end first and then all of your story choices will be in service to that ending. Both directions have their advantages.

With the former, you can let your imagination go. Any wild idea you come up with, you can include it. When you do it this way, you end up finding exciting story avenues that you otherwise would’ve been afraid to try. With the latter, you’re going to have an incredibly focused story since every choice you make has to sync up with that ending you’ve already written.

But here’s the thing if you go with Direction 1. Once you come up with your ending, you’re going to have to go back and rewrite the s%&t out of your screenplay. Cause what’s going to happen is that most of those “out there” ideas you came up with no longer apply. And it’s probably going to take you 3-6 drafts of work before you get rid of all that junk and have something cohesive.

I didn’t see that here. Infinity Reel reads like Direction 1, but the writer only spent one quick draft cleaning up all the setups. Because nothing makes sense. How is the DVD able to go on forever? I know ideas sound great when it’s 3 am and you’re on your 17th Diet Coke and the juices of the caffeine are coalescing with early morning exhaustion and every wild idea that passes through your fingertips “feels right.” But it’s the duty of your next day self to bring some sanity to the situation and edit out all the nonsense. The nonsense never got edited out here which is why this script didn’t work.

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

What I learned: Orient your reader when something big is going to happen later in a scene. This movie opens with a man on a computer, his wife coming home, watching a video, then going outside, then jumping to her death. There was only one problem. I had no idea they lived in a tall building. The writer didn’t tell me. So the moment she jumped was the first moment I knew they were up high. All the writer needed to do was to tell us this was a “High Rise Apartment Building,” as opposed to “an apartment,” and I would’ve had the visual necessary to make the scene work. — Screenwriters, never forget this advice: We don’t know unless you tell us!

Genre: Sports Drama
Premise: A former high school hoops star turned alcoholic is called upon to coach his former school’s basement-dwelling basketball team.
About: When all of “The Batman” controversy was going on (would Affleck still be the Batman? Did he want to be the Batman?), this is the movie Affleck decided to sign onto instead. It comes from long time spec shaman, Brad Ingelsby, who’s sold as many spec scripts as any writer this past decade.
Writer: Brad Ingelsby
Details: 124 pages

Well look at that. Just days after I pronounced the sports drama an express trip to Ignore E-mail Query Alley, I’m reviewing a sports drama that got Ben Affleck attached. What’s going on here? Well, for starters, it’s not so much a sports drama as it as a “Down-On-His-Luck Dude Coaches Kids” drama. If a formula has won over Hollywood before, it can do so again. At least that’s the industry mentality. Also, Ingelsby’s a writer with several produced credits and a reputation for writing some of the best spec scripts in town. In other words, there are extenuating circumstances.

Reading Affleck projects is always an inadvertent trip into his psyche. We know he has drinking problems. Today’s character has drinking problems. We know he loves sports. This is about sports. We know he loves that East Coast blue collar vibe, as that’s how he got famous (Good Will Hunting). I don’t know if all this was calculated by Ingelsby, but in retrospect it would’ve been more of a surprise had Affleck NOT signed on.

Just outside Philly, 30-something Jack Cunningham works construction, lives alone, and drinks on the daily. We get a good idea of what this man’s life is like when he strolls into a bar after work… on Thanksgiving. Problem with booze? Check.

But that’s not the only problem Jack’s got. He’s got a pushy sister who’s always nagging him about isolating himself and an ex-wife he still loves who’s just found herself a rich boyfriend. He’s also got another issue which we’ll find out about later.

One night Jack gets a call from Father Tierney at Bishop Hayes High School, where Jack used to go to school. Back then, Jack was one of the best high school basketball players in the nation. But that was a long time ago. Father Tierney tells Jack that the head coach position is vacant and he wants him to take it. Jack mulls it over and finally decides, why not?

On the first day of practice he realizes he’s got a pretty good team. They’re just not well-disciplined. When Jack starts instituting that secret ingredient, the team gets better. Unfortunately, Jack is slipping into the locker room every chance he gets to down a few beers. He just can’t get away from that sweet sweet Coor’s Light.

And then we learn why Jack’s an alcoholic and no longer with his wife. DEAD KID BACKSTORY. Yup, that rascally favored trope of overwrought dramas is back again. Jack’s son died when he was nine and it destroyed his life. So in addition to trying to get this team in order, Jack has to come to terms with the loss of his son and repair his broken relationship with his ex-wife. Who knows, maybe they’ll even get back together again.

Yes indeed. As you can tell from the sarcastic manner in which I summarized Dead Kid Backstory, I’m not a fan. In fact, when I sensed that we’d learn why Jack lost his wife and became an alcoholic, I kept repeating to myself, “Please don’t let it be a Dead Kid Backstory. Please don’t let it be a Dead Kid Backstory.”

Why do I hate Dead Kid Backstory so much? Because it’s the default go-to for bleak dramas about adults. I see it ALL THE TIME. And the only time it works is when there’s a genuine depth to it, when you know the person writing about it has a personal connection to the experience. And if it runs that deep, it’s usually too depressing. Nobody wins if your only choices are Too Cliche or Too Depressing. But I’m not going to harp on that. I’ve already rambled about DCB enough on the site.

Despite DCB, Ingelsby remains one of the best character writers in town. And you can see that from his character descriptions….

His older sister, BETH, 37, a feisty, stubborn homemaker. Annoyed at the moment that her younger brother is holding up the dinner she spent the entire day slaving over.

Their son, RYAN, 8, a shy, sensitive boy. The only thing Ryan loves more than basketball is his Uncle Jack.

He’s one of the few writers where I know exactly who his characters are just from their descriptions alone. And it’s not only that. He’s great at showing character instead of telling character. For example, one of the first things Jack does after construction work is get in his car, reach into a back seat cooler, and pour himself a beer.

One of my favorite “show don’t tell” moments in the script was when Jack had to look nice for his first game. So he goes to the back of his closet to find a suit, takes it out, puts it on, then feels something in the suit pocket. Brings it out. Movie tickets to “Meet the Parents.” In that moment we know exactly when the last time was Jack wore this suit. Seems like a small thing, but so much better than the lame “tell” version, which I read all the time. “When’s the last time you wore that suit, Jack? The Clinton era?” Show is always better than tell.

If only we didn’t feel like we’ve seen it all before. There’s a storyline where the father of the best kid on the team doesn’t want him playing in college, so Jack has to convince him to let him follow his dreams. Hasn’t that been done a thousand times already? With that said, you like everyone here enough that you care what happens to them. That’s Ingelsby’s talent. He knows how to construct a character.

What this script needed was a clear conflict at the center of the coaching storyline. Something we could latch onto. In Hoosiers, a big inspiration for this script, it was about a town that was used to doing things one way. And a coach came in and wanted to do them the opposite way. That was the conflict. We understood that whenever a big scene came around, that conflict would be at the center of it.

What’s the conflict here? I have no idea. There was a moment in the middle of the script where Jack gets mad at the team and curses them out. Afterwards, the assistant coach conveys his discomfort with that outburst and I thought, that could’ve been your conflict right there. This is a Catholic religious school. Yet we never lean into that. In fact, the players are just as foul-mouthed as Jack is. Had the school been by-the-book and highly religious, then Jack comes in as this atheist has-been alcoholic, now you’ve got a clear conflict that needs to be resolved. But we don’t get anything close to that.

Usually when a script has problems, it’s on the character end. With Has Been, it’s the plotting. It’s all too obvious. Again, if feels like several movies we’ve already seen. When the biggest surprise in your script is DCB, you need to get back in there and come up with something better. Ingelsby is lucky he’s so good at crafting characters we like, cause normally, the issues in this script would’ve sunk it.

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

What I learned: If you’re going to use DCB, you need to tie the child’s death into the plot in a creative way. Here, Jack’s son was 9 when he died. It’s random. It would’ve worked better if his son was in his teens. Why? Because Jack is coaching teenagers. Coming to work every day would be like facing his biggest fear. These kids would remind him of his own kid. Instead, we get generic DCB, which is always a let-down.

Genre: Science-Fiction
Premise: In the near future, a series of mysterious electrical surges threaten earth, forcing the planet’s best astronaut to travel to the farthest regions of the solar system to stop them.
About: The zig-zagging flight that was Ad Astra’s path to the box office finally landed this weekend, netting the film a respectable 20 million bucks. It wasn’t enough to beat Downton Abbey, though, which somehow inhaled 30+ million dollars to top the weekend. I knew something special was going on when I saw a line of people at the Arclight dressed in 1920s clothes to see a showing. Your fanbase has to be pretty hardcore to pull that off.
Writers: James Gray and Ethan Gross
Details: 2 hours and 2 minutes

I was going to review Between Two Ferns today because it’s a really funny movie. The problem was there was zero to learn from it. I mean, seriously, what is there to learn from that project? Um, if someone comes to you with an idea that was never meant to be a movie but Netflix is paying the creator 20 million dollars to turn it into one, and they’re like, ‘sure, why not,’ make sure you’re ready to adapt it? I guess that’s the lesson? Whereas with Ad Astra, there are several million screenwriting topics to discuss.

Like there’s a scene late in the film where Pitt’s character, Roy McBride, is on Mars, and he has to sneak onto a rocket that’s going to Neptune. You could see the screenwriting challenges Gray was dealing with. The first is that a rocket traveling from Mars to Neptune is such a rarity, that the launch process would be airtight. If any little thing was off, they would postpone the flight. So Gray has to get McBride on the outside of the rocket just as it’s counting down. If he gets him there before that, they would’ve stopped the launch.

This leads to an unbelievable situation whereby McBride opens one of the rocket doors as the ship is launching. But again, it was the only screenwriting way to do it. Then, after he got in, I realized, Gray has to get rid of all these astronauts somehow. Cause McBride has to get to his father alone. That’s the only way the movie works. So I’m thinking, “How is he going to do that?” No sooner than 30 seconds later, the captain orders the crew to attack McBride. This allows for McBride to kill the entire crew under the guise of “protecting himself,” and now we get what the writer needs, which is for McBride to be alone on his trip to Neptune.

This might be boring to you but this kind of stuff is fascinating to me. Each script you write is an endless well of problems that you have to solve. And the writers who are able to solve the problems in the most creative and invisible way are the ones who get all the accolades.

If you know nothing about this movie, it’s got a pretty cool plot. There’s something called “The Surge” emanating from deep space and it keeps knocking earth’s electric grid offline. They think that if these surges continue, it could spell the end of us. So they enlist astronaut, Roy McBride, to go on a top secret mission. They explain to him that his famous father, who disappeared 15 years ago searching for E.T. on something called “The Lima Project,” is actually still alive. And they think he’s connected to the Surge somehow. Roy’s job is to travel to Mars so they can send a “secure transmission” to his dad, which they hope will give them some answers.

Back to screenwriting problems. Another issue Gray was dealing with was that this was a script about Roy getting to his father. However, for some reason, Gray didn’t want that to be the initial goal. So he has to come with this intermediary goal, which is the whole “secure message” plotline. Roy must get to Mars because that’s the only way to send a “secure message.” Except that makes zero sense. Why couldn’t they have Roy record a message then have someone else take the message to Mars? Having Roy himself go was a very inefficient way to achieve the goal. Of course, it was all smoke and mirrors – a way to get Roy to Mars so that we could continue with him to Neptune. Or, in simpler terms, if Roy doesn’t go on a mission, there’s no movie.

What’s different between the original draft and this one? Not much. One medium change and one big one. In the script there was a planet between Mars and Neptune they went to. I liked that because that was the whole idea behind the movie. That he gets further and further away from earth. Each planet he went to had a smaller and smaller outpost, which was a great visual representation for how far away he was.

They replaced that other planet with a “mayday” scene where they boarded a remote space station only to find that the astronauts had been eaten by their crazed lab monkeys. I’m going to go ahead and chalk this up to a studio note. I can see a studio saying, “There’s not enough going on here. He just goes from planet to planet and looks depressed. Can we have one fun sequence at least?” And so they put that in. And I have to admit it was a pretty good scene. Like a contained horror movie.

The other big change they made was to the ending. In the script, the ending was that Roy’s father was trying to replicate the Big Bang. That’s what the surge was – reactions from those attempts. The reason he was doing this was because all his messages sent out to E.T. came back with nothing. There is no other life out there. And so in his dad’s logic, he wanted to “try again,” basically. Create another universe so that we could get it right this time – have life in multiple solar systems.

I’m guessing that Disney found that ending a tad bleak and made them reshoot it. Which is why the ending now is so nonsensical. He sees his dad. Dad tells Roy that he doesn’t care about him. Then Roy tries to take him home but his dad jumps off the ship to his death. You’re not really sure what you were supposed to take from the ending. And the reason is that the whole plot of the original script was built up for that original ending. So if you add any other ending, it’s not going to work. You’d have to go back and rewrite every setup in the movie, since every setup was set up for a different ending.

Another thing about this ending, which I want to turn into a broader discussion about screenwriting – I read lots of scripts where son/daughter looks for dad/mom. And the whole point of the movie is the ending scene when they finally confront their parent.

Here’s the problem. It never works.

And here’s why. If the parent apologizes and says I love you, a) it’s too easy, b) it’s cliche, and c) it doesn’t make sense. If they loved you that much they wouldn’t have left you. So some writers, like Gray, take it in the opposite direction. The parent says I don’t love you. I’m not interested in a relationship. Which results in the audience saying, “So then what was the point of the movie?” There isn’t a lot of wiggle room between those two options, so the ending is always unsatisfying.

And the more the parent talks, the worse it gets. If the parent goes on a big monologue, it’s NEVER SATISFYING. Because think about it. What could the parent possibly say that would explain leaving their kid for 20 years?

Despite all this, I really liked this movie. That might be confusing to you since I trashed the script. But the rare times when a bad script turns into a good movie occur when the writer is the director. That’s because they’re not writing to win a reader over. They’re writing from a technical place. They want to make sure the blueprint is laid down for them to shoot. They know stuff the pure screenwriter does not, like where they can build up the score to drive a moment home. The screenwriter doesn’t control that. The director does.

Ditto how they direct the actor. A good director knows how to convey an intense emotional beat just by getting the right close-up of the actor and giving him solid direction. I remember a specific moment where that happened in this movie. The government takes Roy aside and tells him that his father is still alive. This is a guy who thought his dad died 15 years ago. Gray stays close on Pitt and we see him internalize this monumental realization. No screenwriter, no matter how good they are, can write that on the page.

And that was the difference for me from script to screen. I cared about Roy McBride a lot more when Pitt inhabited him. You could tell Pitt gave everything to this role. There was something deeper in him than I usually see. And like I always say, if you can get the audience to connect with your protagonist on an emotional level, the rest of your script doesn’t need to be perfect. Because we’ll now go anywhere with that character. We just want to see him okay. I wanted to see Roy find fulfillment.

So this was a really pleasant surprise for me because I expected Ad Astra to be a rough ride.

[ ] What the hell did I just watch?
[ ] wasn’t for me
[xx] worth the price of admission
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius

What I learned: If you’re writing a “Find Daddy” script, you have to find a clever way to do the final scene where they meet. Because if you’re only relying on, “Sorry, I screwed up, but I love you. I watched you from afar and kept track of your life and blah blah blah,” that ain’t gonna work. You know a movie that handled this in a really clever way? Field of Dreams. Because when the dad finally arrives, he’s a ghost. So he doesn’t know Ray Kinsella is his son. This allows for their conversation to be all sub-text as opposed to on-the-nose apology-I-love-you nonsense. So get creative on these endings guys!

Genre: Psychological Horror / History
Premise: Ten years after the vicious atrocities of the Partition, a Pakistani woman attempts to make peace with the brutal murder of her family when a vengeful spirit returns to haunt her.
Why You Should Read: This is a setting and historical event that has never been depicted in Indian film, let alone Hollywood and is one of the most overlooked humanitarian crises of the 20th century as it came in the immediate aftermath of World War 2. Up to 2 million people died as a result of this mass migration, and the trauma and violence that occurred has formed the rigid backbone of the Pakistan-India conflicts we see today. By taking a supernatural angle, I’ve attempted to manifest the inner turmoil felt by the survivors as well as present a moral conflict for the reader to constantly have in mind throughout. As a Pakistani, this is an extremely important topic to my cultural history, and after hearing some of the absolute horror stories my direct ancestors faced just 70 years ago shook me to my core. This is an event that had a direct impact on every single Pakistani and Indian, and fearlessly showcasing the terror of it all will be something I’ll forever strive to accomplish.
Writers: Raza Rizvi
Details: 88 pages (updated draft from the one that competed in Amateur Showdown last Friday)

Not gonna lie.

As I can see the golden shades of the weekend shining just over the Hollywood hills, and all the happiness that comes with them, I was a mite under-prepared for the brutality of this subject matter. With that said, I’ve always been curious about this region of the world. And I was excited to read something from one of the site’s most active contributors. I admire how dedicated Raza is to the craft and how active he’s been in grabbing fate by the horns. He’s really going for it, which is the best way to make it in this business. Let’s take a look at this very personal project of his…

The Well starts off with a preface explaining that in 1947, the British separated India and Pakistan into two separate countries in order to solve the region’s complex religious disparity. For those people who needed to travel to the opposite country, many of them were slaughtered and raped. This story takes place 10 years later in Pakistan and follows Fatima, a 30-something nurse who canes herself every night for unknown reasons. She lives with her husband, Hussein, who works in the mines.

The only light in Fatima’s life is Aisha, her dog, who she found on the day her train to Pakistan was attacked and derailed. Quickly after we meet Fatima and Hussein, an evil spirit in a 17-year-old girl’s body, Jinn, appears in a lake and stumbles into their house. They clean her and clothe her and decide they’ll figure out what to do with her tomorrow.

The next day, Hussien goes off to work in the mines while Fatima does her nursing rounds in the village. While they’re away, Jinn spirit-attacks the dog, leaving it near death. When Fatima returns, she’s furious, convinced Jinn did something to the dog, and takes Aisha out to her friend, who she hopes can save the canine. Meanwhile, Jinn starts walking around the village, sending bad voodoo in every direction. This causes several explosions in the mine which obliterates many of the children who work in its deepest caverns.

We flashback to Fatima’s past where we learn that she once had a daughter. And one day, while getting water from the well, a group of bad men rode up, wanting to hurt and possibly rape them. Fatima and her daughter run to their house and hide, but when it’s clear it will be only a matter of time before the men find and rape her daughter, Fatima repeatedly stabs her daughter in the heart to kill her. It is here where we realize that Jinn is a recreation of who her daughter would be if she were still alive today. And she’s still angry about being murdered by mommy. To drive her point home, she spends the rest of the day laying carnage to the village and everyone in it.

This movie includes a train ride of beaten down souls who then have their train blown up in an attack and the survivors slaughtered by groups of men with swords. For those who survive the attack, they are riddled with bullets. This movie includes a dog that suffers for an excruciatingly long time before he’s finally put out of his misery. It includes 5 year old children pushed into tiny passages in a mine to do their jobs… who then die in a horrifying mine fire. We literally watch them scream as they burn to death. It includes a woman and her daughter who run from a group of evil men. When the men get close enough, the woman stabs and kills her daughter so that she won’t be raped. And that’s just a fraction of how much violence and suffering goes on in this story.

Before I say what I’m about to say, I have to be clear. I’m not a fan of sadness packed on top of sadness. I need balance in my movies. And I need my movies to provide an overall sense of hope. When it comes to horror, I think the formula that works best is when evil disrupts joy, happiness, contentedness. It is the sour added to the sweet that creates a juxtaposition that makes horror work. When you interrupt a terrible situation with an even worse situation, it creates such a sense of despair that the events become uncomfortable to watch.

I’m not sure I know anyone who wants to see a 5-year-old boy who’s been forced to work 16 hours a day in a tiny mine tunnel die as fire melts his skin off in real time. To me, that’s a huge miscalculation in the understanding of what audiences are comfortable with. And also a weakness in understanding how to balance the positive with the negative to keep the viewer engaged. Balancing those opposite ends of the spectrum is often what defines the best storytellers. They know when you’re too down to see another scene of suffering. They know when you’re too comfortable and happy and therefore the perfect moment to throw a death at you. To hit the audience over the head with misery after misery after misery… I don’t know of any successful movies that do this. Even Schindler’s List had its fair share of happy moments. And that was about the Holocaust.

If I could only convey one lesson to Raza in today’s review, it would be to study tone. Understanding tone is natural to some but unnatural to others. And what’s so frustrating is that when it’s unnatural to you, you can’t see the mistake you’re making. To you, it’s obvious you would take a 5-year-old boy who was living a life of suffering and burn him alive in a long torturous death scene. To everybody else, it’s obvious that you would never do something like that in a movie. So what Raza has to do is watch all his favorite movies and take stock of the lowest moments to understand what audiences can handle. Also, take stock of the ratio of positive to negative scenes and how many positive scenes writers will write before they hit them with a negative scene, and vice versa.

Cause the truth is, this story is flawed at the concept level. Like I said, you don’t want to interrupt misery with even worse misery. I don’t think audiences find that compelling. That would be my advice here. With that said, I’m interested in hearing from you cinephiles with a darker palette. Are there movies out there like this that have done well? I openly confess I’m not as knowledgeable about these types of films cause they’re not my cup of tea.

Script link: The Well (new draft)

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

What I learned: Suffering can be used to create sympathy for a character. But there’s a threshold for what the audience can take. Once suffering goes past a certain level, the audience checks out. It becomes too much. And that’s what happened here. Everything was too much.