Taking a break from Amateur Week because it’s HALLLOOOOWEEEEEEN and that means Scriptshadow must be spoooooooooky for 24 hours and that means a horror script review but since I don’t have any good horror scripts, I’m reviewing a script that is ABOUT a horror film.  Sound fun?  I hope so cause I ain’t giving you another choice here.

Genre: Biopic’ish
Premise: The struggles behind the making of Psycho, the project that would become director Alfred Hitchcock’s most famous film.
About:  Anthony Hopkins will star as Alfred Hitchcock.  Helen Mirren will star as his wife, Alma.  Scarlett Johansen will star as Janet Leigh.  Sacha Gervachi will direct.  I believe this is Sacha’s first feature film as a director (he’s made a documentary).  He’s best known as the writer of Steven Spielberg’s wackadoozy film, “The Terminal.”  John J. McLaughlin adapted the book into a screenplay.  You probably recognize him as the writer of Black Swan.
Writer: John J. McLaughlin (based on the book “Alfred Hitchcock and The Making Of Psycho” by Stephen Rebello.
Details: 104 pages, fourth revision, Oct. 19, 2011 draft

First of all, WTF!!!???

Disney bought Lucasfilm yesterday.  Disney just BOUGHT Lucas.  Lucas doesn’t get bought.  He buys other people!  And now we’re getting another Star Wars trilogy.  And you know what I say to that?  WOOOO-HOOOO!  I love it.  I’ve been dying to get Star Wars into real writers’ hands forever now, and it’s finally going to happen!

How does this tie into today?  Well, George Lucas was a bit of a pudgy filmmaker.  And so was Alfred Hitchock!  Actually, to be serious, I was not looking forward to this script.  I don’t like when entities try and mine a famous event when there isn’t a story there.  Like, oooh, it’s Psycho!  Let’s make a movie about the making of it!  Err, but the making of the movie wasn’t any different from the making of any other  movie.  So what, let’s do it anyway!

I hoped I was wrong.  That there was some fascinating story behind the making of Psycho that I’d never heard about.  But something told me this wasn’t the making of Citizen Kane.

So here’s the story.  Hitchcock is coming off of North By Northwest, which is a monster hit.  But he’s bored.  Everyone wants him to make another North By Northwest but Hitchcock, like his movies, wants to do the unexpected.  Something unlike anything he’s done before.  And when he reads Pyscho, he knows that’s it.  That’s his next movie.

But this is a strange move.  Hitchcock doesn’t do horror.  Only schlocky talentless directors do horror in 1960.  On top of that, it’s not something the studios are interested in.  They think this flick is dead before the end of opening weekend.  But Hitchcock has plans to do something a little different with it. He particularly sets his sights on a shower scene, which he believes he can immortalize.  You see, there wasn’t much nudity in films those days, and definitely not from movie stars.  Yet Hitchock had a plan to imply a ton of nudity without actually showing any.  It was going to be unprecedented.

If only the studios agreed.  They tell Hitchcock there’s a reason everyone in town passed on Psycho and they’re not funding it.  I have to admit, I was a little unclear about this.  Hitchcock makes mega-hit North By Northwest and the studio won’t fund his next movie, which he’s doing for 800,000 bucks?  But whatever.  The movie business was different back then so I’m probably missing something.  Anyway, Hitchcock pulls a Passion Of The Christ and funds the movie himself.

In the meantime, Hitchcock starts fighting all sorts of battles.  He’s the master of suspense, but he’s 60 years old, and the establishment wants to know when he’s going to retire.  Hitch doesn’t like getting old, and he feels that this movie is going to make him young again.  Then there’s his weight problem.  The dude cannot stop eating.  And he hates himself for it.  He sees a monster whenever he looks in the mirror, and that kills him.  But the biggest battle of all is his wife, who becomes the almost-star of the movie.

Alma was Hitch’s right-hand woman throughout his career and, if you believe this script, someone he wouldn’t have been nearly as successful without.  But Alma’s getting sick of Hitch’s lack of attention so starts paying attention to a dashing but not very talented writer named Whitfield Cook.  They start writing a script together while Hitchcock films Psycho and it starts to weigh on Hitch, who realizes that if he doesn’t rekindle his relationship with Alma, she might run off with the hack and Psycho will turn out a disaster.

So what do I think about “Alfred Hitchcock and The Making Of Psycho?”  Well, it’s a good enough script.  It includes some interesting tidbits about the making of.  But after I read it, I found myself asking, “Why did this movie need to be made?”  “What new does it bring to the table?”  I suppose the story of Alma is entertaining, but the script chooses to focus on Hitchcock as the main character even though her story is probably more interesting (mainly because it’s less known).

At times, the writer seems just as unsure as we are about the point of the story.  I mean, we start with two tightly focused scenes regarding Hitchcock’s age.  So naturally, Hitchcock’s inner conflict will be his inability to accept getting older.  However, after those scenes, the age thing is never brought up again.

Instead, we seem to focus on Hitchcock’s food obsession (in particular his foie gras craving), which is unfortunately quite thin.  When things don’t go right, he eats.  There’s really nothing deeper to it than that.

Finally, we move to Hitchcock’s issues with his wife.  He rarely pays attention to her, despite all she’s done for him.  This is what leads her on this quasi emotional affair (one which she never physically acts on) and while I guess it’s kind of interesting, it’s also kinda not.  Nothing really scandalous happens.  It’s just a bunch of stares and devilish thoughts, leaving the storyline without a satisfying climax.  And that summarizes my feelings about the script.  It just kind of stands there with little to say.

What saves it are the few behind-the-scenes looks at Psycho’s famous scenes and stars.  A heavy emphasis is put on the shower scene, which had never been done before in Hollywood.  The most interesting thing about that storyline was the Censors Board.  I guess before you even shot your movie back then, you had to go to a “Censors Board” and get approval from this dreadful stickler who decided whether everything was okay to shoot or not.  For example, toilets weren’t shot back then. So you couldn’t shoot a toilet!  Wtf???

And with the shower scene, every freaking angle had to be approved of.  And it wasn’t.  They wanted Hitch to shoot Janet Leigh from the neck up.  How boring would that have been?  So Hitchcock ignores the censors and shoots the scene the way he wants it, because he knew that scene was going to be the one everyone talked about.

I have to admit, there is something cool about being behind the scenes of one of the most famous films of all time, and it is enough for me to give this script a pass.  But I’m left with the very same question I had at the beginning of this review.  Is there a compelling enough story here to build a movie around?    I’d probably say no.

What I learned: This is mentioned in the script as one of Hitchcocks’ staples and a scene that always works – A character needs to get someplace but is held up by someone who wants to chat (Marion Crane just wants to buy that car but the salesman keeps talking to her).  Write this scene into your script.  It always works!  

Amateur Friday Submission Process: To submit your script for an Amateur Review, send in a PDF of your script, a PDF of the first ten pages of your script, your title, genre, logline, and finally, why I should read your script. Use my submission address please: Carsonreeves3@gmail.com. Your script and “first ten” will be posted. If you’re nervous about the effect of a bad review, feel free to use an alias name and/or title. It’s a good idea to resubmit every couple of weeks so your submission stays near the top.

Genre: Family/Action-Adventure
Premise: (from writer) A ten-year-old girl finds a dragon egg in the desert behind her New Mexico home. The egg hatches and the girl befriends the creature. After discovering a way to return the dragon to its natural world, the duo embarks on a cross country journey, flying at night, with government agents on their tail.
Writer: Troy Warren
Details: 99 pages.

I know I don’t review many family scripts on the site, but a producer was telling me the other day that the two genres that have been the most dependable throughout the years – dating back as long as the movie business has been around – are Action and Family.  Those movies make a ton of bucks and they make a ton of bucks all over the world.  Now I know most family films are developed internally, and the total historic box office is swayed by the ridiculous grosses of all those Disney animation classics, but the comment did open my eyes and is what persuaded me to go with Luna this week.

I’m also really curious because I received two early reactions regarding the script.  One called it charming, cute, and essentially perfect.  The other said it was the worst thing she’d read all year.  Hmmm, which one was right?

10 year old Luna Cruz lives in that magical desert land known as New Mexico.  She resides in one of those adobe houses that sits amongst dust, tumbleweeds, and roadkill, without a hint of civilization in any direction.  In other words, 10 year old Lana lives in a pretty boring town.  But that doesn’t mean her life’s boring.  She has a brother who thinks he’s a young John Travolta, a grandmother who wears a house arrest bracelet, and a little brother who finds pooping his pants to be an almost zen-like experience.

But none of these characters are as wacky as the one who’s about to enter her life.  During an Easter egg hunt, Luna’s pooping little brother finds himself a giant easter egg that quickly hatches.  But it’s no bird that comes a chirpin’ out.  It’s a baby….lizard maybe??  Oh, she wishes.  It’s only when the little ball of scales starts burping out fire that Luna realizes – Holy Baloney – she’s found herself a real live DRAGON!

Meanwhile, over in Los Alamos, Californigh-yay, some government types get all uppity about a strange energy blast that occurred down in New Mexico.  The implication is that something other-worldly went on, and they wanna get their hands on this other-worldliness.  So they send agent Sophia Bailey down to get to the bottom of it.

Back in New Mexico, our little dragon friend, who Luna’s decided to name “Gordo,” is growing faster than Rosie O’Donnel at an Old Country Buffet.  Since Luna realizes she’s in over her head, she tells her grandmother about Gordo, and after doing a few Google searches, realizes that Gordo probably got here via some time vortex from the past.  They find a bunch of Ivy League nerds who know all about these vortexes and decide to travel to New York to meet them.

With Sophia, and soon the military, hot on their trail, they make it to New York where the Vortex Nerd Patrol uses a mathematical equation to determine where the next vortex is going to appear, the one that can get Gordo back to mama.  It turns out it’s in Nevada (Area 51 to be precise) and they only have 44 hours to get there. If Luna and Gordo miss that window, there’s a good chance our little dragon buddy is going to live the rest of his life as a lab subject, something Luna will do anything to prevent!

So who was right?  The extremely negative reviewer or the extremely positive reviewer?  To be honest, I’m not sure either of them were right.  My issue with Luna is that the story is too average.  Those who read the site know I can’t stand when I’m 40-50 pages ahead of the writer.  And that’s the problem I ran into with Luna.  I always knew exactly what was going to happen 50 pages ahead of time.  And it’s hard for me to be entertained when that’s the case.

Now I had a discussion with another reader about this and they pointed out, “Yeah but you have to realize, Carson – this is a kid’s movie.  To kids, it IS going to be surprising and new because they haven’t seen thousands of movies and read thousands of scripts like you.”  It was a good point and something I’ve thought about before.  Is the bar just WAY LOWER for the general audiences out there?  Specifically children?

On the one hand I’d say, yes, it is.  But on the other, I still think it’s a problem.  Whenever you write a script, it has to get past the bullshit detectors.  Whether those detectors are readers who have read hundreds of scripts or producers who have made dozens of movies.  These guys are the line of defense your script must make it past to be both bought and made.  And their bar is just as high as mine.  They’re looking for a freshness, a new take on familiar stories, an unpredictability to the characters and structure, just like me.

I look at a movie like Up or Wall-E, popular children’s movies, and there’s definitely an unpredictability to those stories.  I mean, one of them has no talking for 45 minutes and the other has a house that flies around the world via hundreds of helium balloons.  Those are both things I haven’t seen before.  And I feel like you need those elements, even when you’re playing to a super-young audience.

So moving forward, I believe Troy needs to dig deeper here.  I think the story needs to be more complex and less familiar.  A couple extra subplots could help, just to make the story less linear.  And I think we need to do more with the characters.  Where’s the fatal flaw in the main character, Luna, for example?  Luna was a blank sheet of paper to me.  She was cute.  But because there wasn’t anything complicated or difficult going on in her life (other than her schoolmates making fun of her) I never felt more than one-dimension with her.  And your main character needs more than one dimension!

Take her family.  Clearly, something’s happened to Luna’s family.  It appears that her mom and dad are absent?  There’s some interesting backstory there which we’re not privy too.  Then you have this dragon, who’s been ripped away from his mother.  Why not make a connection there?  Why not explore that?  The effects of a child who grows up alone?  Who doesn’t have that mother/father figure in their life.  If Luna can get Gordo back to her mother, it’s almost like she’s able to get herself back to her own mom.

You don’t have to go that way, obviously.  But that’s the way you need to approach it in order to add depth to your story, in order for it to be more than just names on a page.  You want to make audiences and readers think and this was too simple of a plot, too obvious of a direction, to get us thinking.  Both from a standpoint of depth and choices, there wasn’t enough meat on the bone.  Look at Bailey, who had the potential to be much deeper, not unlike Tommy Lee Jones’ character from The Fugitive.  Start her off emotionless.  Then, as she gets to know this kid and what she’s going through, she starts to turn, and by the end, she’s trying to save Luna.  Maybe you tie in that theme of being alone and Bailey herself grew up without that all-importnat mother figure.  There’s SOME OF THAT here now, but not nearly enough.

I also think more could’ve been done with the ending.  And this goes back to many of the choices here being too simple.  As it stands, (Spoiler) Luna has to get the dragon to the Vortex without getting shot down by the military.  So what happens?  Luna gets the dragon through the Vortex without getting shot down by the military.  It goes EXACTLY the way it’s supposed to go.  That’s not interesting. That’s not drama!

What if we establish in the past that the mama dragon is looking for her baby, and when that Vortex opens up, she surprisingly comes bursting through to get her baby back.  So now we’re not dealing with one dragon, but two, with the military forced to make a tough decision.  Do they start shooting?  Do they take down the bigger threat?  Every part of the plan is thrown off because the mother dragon has arrived.  And now you have a finale that could go in a million different directions (maybe the mother is killed.  Maybe the mother is injured. Maybe Gordo is injured and the mother has to save him).  That’s the way you want to write your stories, by throwing things in there that open up a bunch of fresh options, not just stay on that obvious straightforward path.

I realize I’m being a little harsh here.  Luna is actually one of the better written Amateur Friday scripts I’ve read, but I think that’s why I’m so passionate about its flaws.  I know Troy can do better.  He has the writing chops.  But like a lot of writers out there, he has to challenge himself more.  Your protagonist’s journey should feel troubled, impossible and unpredictable.  There were a few speed bumps here, but none of them felt that difficult to me.  I always knew Luna and the dragon were going to be okay.  Do you remember when E.T. died??  Yeah, E.T. DIED!!!!!  How devastating was that????  That’s something I DIDN’T EXPECT.  I wanted stuff like that here.  I know Troy can do it, but he’s gotta push himself.  And so do the rest of you.  Always PUSH YOURSELVES when writing scripts.  If it’s too easy, you’re probably not working hard enough.

Script link: Luna Found A Dragon

What I learned: I have a rule.  If you feel like you’ve seen it before, erase it and write something else.  That goes for lines of dialogues, scenes, action sequences, characters, whatever.  If you feel like “I’ve seen this in another movie,” pound that delete button.  Add a little twist to it, go in a different direction, or completely rewrite it.  Do anything BUT write what’s already been done.  I specifically kept thinking of E.T. while reading “Luna.”  The secret pet aspect.  The military aspect.  Getting the dragon home aspect.  Let’s go back, erase all those references, and replace them with something new and fresh.  This should not feel like an E.T. update.  It should feel like its own individual movie.

Today’s post is going back to that age old nightmare – loglines.  When I look through the amateur submissions to see what I’m going to review every Friday, I often find myself saying, “How in the world did this writer think this was a good idea??”  I know that’s harsh but spending months (or even years) on a bad idea is one of the worst mistakes you can make as a screenwriter.  So I try to be harsh.   Because I don’t want you, the aspiring screenwriter, wasting hours your life on something that nobody’s going to read.

On top of this, I continue to get loglines that don’t make sense, that are grammatically incorrect, or that are loaded with spelling mistakes.  It’s one thing to mistake a bad idea for a good one, but it’s another to screw up the one sentence you’re using to sell your screenplay.  I mean it’s only one sentence!!!  And you spelled a word wrong?  Or worded it in a funny way?  Why haven’t you gone over this line hundreds of times?  Why haven’t you sent it out to all your friends and have them proofread it for you??  This is your shot to get read.  Don’t give anyone a reason to say no.

Having said that, there are logline-unfriendly scripts.  American Beauty is a logline unfriendly script.  The Help is a logline-unfriendly script.  The Kids Are All Right is a logline-unfriendly script.  As are Milk, Babel, There Will Be Blood, and Atonement.  Not every script is going to have that “I have to read it now” logline.  But what I will say is that unless you’re a known entity who has worked in this business for awhile, rarely will anyone read your logline-unfriendly script.  They just won’t.  They can see from the logline that it’s going to be a hard sell.  History’s also taught them that scripts from unknowns usually suck.  So why would they waste their time on a script that’s probably going to suck and even if it turns out good is going to be impossible to sell?

But Scriptshadow to the rescue!  I’m going to offer up the loglines that you, the readers, have submitted, and let you, the readers, decide whether they’re review worthy or not – irregardless of any of those funky industry standards.  I’m going to post the first 10 pages for you as well so that even logline-unfriendly scripts get a shot to pull you in.  Whichever scripts are getting the most heat in the comments section, those are the ones I’ll review for next week.  And hey, hopefully we’ll find something great!

Now while you’re looking through these, I want you to be aware of the “But I’m different” bias.  This is a common problem us writers have where we believe that even though our logline isn’t very good, we’re different  because we’ve been writing longer or we’re a better writer or we have a cool third act twist.  As you look through these, imagine your own logline in there.  Does it sound as uninteresting as the majority of these?  Try to be totally objective.  Would you pick up your script off your logline if it was sent to you amongst a sea of other submissions?

As a reminder, most managers, agents, and producers gravitate towards three types of loglines.  Loglines with some sort of conflict – note, these are not full loglines, just synopses – (A small beach town must battle with an influx of shark attacks), some sort of high concept (A cyborg is sent back in time to prevent the birth of the man who will one day lead the resistance against his kind), or some sort of irony (A genius MIT janitor is recruited by the university’s top mathematician).  The only exception to this is personal preference.  If you’re covering subject matter that the receiving party is partial to, they might take a chance on your script even if the logline stinks.  So if you send your otherwise unexciting tennis concept to a tennis nut, they might still read it.  But, as you can guess, that avenue is completely dependent on luck.

So, now that you’ve ingested all that, here are 30 loglines to choose from, including the first 10 pages of each.  If any of these loglines or First Tens excite you, make sure to talk about them in the comments section, which I’ll be watching closely.  Whatever gets the most reaction/interest is what I’ll review.  And don’t bring in your friends to tip the scales in your favor.  I always get suspicious when a bunch of random new commenters love an idea, that something fishy’s going on.  Otherwise, just give us your opinion on these loglines (or pages).  Oh, and I DID NOT filter these ideas.  They’re all randomly submitted loglines for my Amateur Friday slot.

The Steps 
Suspense/Thriller/Paranormal 
After moving to a quiet town, a young family’s new neighbor; with a disturbing past, becomes instantly infatuated with the wife and young daughter. When his sexual advances are rebuffed, his warped psyche spins frighteningly out of control.

Would I read? – This has some nice conflict built into the logline.  A contained and easy to imagine scenario.  Can see the poster.  Could be good if the writing’s good.  I might check this one out.

Against Time
Action/Sci-Fi
To stop terrorists from destroying New York City, a rookie bodyguard must take an experimental drug that reverses time.

Would I read? – Very high concept.  A little confused why they’d send a bodyguard back in time, but this is another idea I can see the poster for.  I’d give it a shot.

The Legend Of Spring Heeled Jack
Horror
An aristocratic woman born for marriage disguises herself as a man in order to join the London metropolitan police force and catch the infamous serial killer known as Spring Heeled Jack.

Would I read? – Hmm, not sure why we’re including that this woman is born for marriage.  What does that have to do with the concept?  Also, “metropolitan” seems extraneous.  Makes me think the writing is going to be extraneous.  With that said, serial killer movies sell, so if this were good, you never know what might come of it.  I MIGHT give this a shot.

Zombie Resurrection
Horror/Comedy
When an experimental male-enhancement drug turns all the men in town into sex-crazed zombies, it’s up to a rag-tag band of women to survive the assault and stop the epidemic from spreading.

Would I read? – I don’t know.  This sounds a little too goofy to me.  It is a zombie take I haven’t seen before, so I’ll give it that.  But otherwise, it’s just too broad for my taste.

Time and Time Again
Sci-fi
Only one man can help fiery-tempered Louis save multiple universes from destruction and rescue his kidnapped wife… her lover.

Would I read? – We do have a high-ish sounding concept here, but some things worry me.  What does being “fiery-tempered” have to do with this story that it’s so important it be included in the logline?  It just feels random.  Plus, the ending confuses me.  Who’s “her lover?” Is that Louis’ lover?  Isn’t Louis a man??  I never want to read the script for any logline that confuses me.  

Snallygaster
Horror
While investigating the disappearance of her best friend, a college coed and group of Amish teens on ‘rumspringa’ encounter a monster out of Penn Dutch folklore that preys on wayward kids.

Would I read? – There’s nothing exactly wrong with this logline, so maybe it’s just not a genre I’m interested in?  A monster that preys on wayward kids seems kinda random so I probably wouldn’t open it up.

Gideon
Drama
A mysterious boy brings together a racially charged small town before the Mayor’s son kills him.

Would I read? – I’m not sure this logline was very well thought-through.  It’s almost as if it was thrown together right before it was sent.  A logline should tell a story.  But this one just tells us a boy does something good and then he dies.  There is some conflict implied (racially charged town and a clearly unhappy Mayor’s son) but it’s thrown together so haphazardly that it makes me question if the script itself will follow the same sloppy formula.  Wouldn’t pick it up.

Collosal
Horror
An alcoholic mother living in a desolate town must protect her teenage daughter when a man she tormented as a child shows up looking for blood.

Would I read? – The logline implies a sort of “History of Violence” vibe, which could be cool.  There’s a clear line of conflict here.  But there’s something a bit plain about it.  I might pick this up if I’d just read 15 bad loglines in a row and was tired of looking for something to read, but it doesn’t have that ‘wow’ factor that makes me want to read it RIGHT NOW.

Dark Side Of The Moon
Dark Fantasy
A depressed young writer, spiraling down to a suicide attempt, discovers he may only be a character in a movie – the worst reviewed movie of the year.

Would I read? – First think I notice is how depressing this sounds.  The “may be a character in a movie” thing is kind of interesting, even if it’s been done many times before.  What concerns me is the end, which states, “the worst reviewed movie of the year,” which places us in comedy territory, something that’s not included in the genre.  That worries me.  Probably wouldn’t pick this up.

Judgement Date
Contained Thriller/Suspense
A poker pro on death row gets a chance at freedom on the live comeback TV show of a cruel, disgraced Idol judge

Would I read? – This is what I call a “too many disjointed elements” logline.  A poker pro.  Death row. Chance at freedom via a reality show.  By a disgraced Idol judge (American Idol?).  What does an American Idol judge have to do with poker reality shows?  Why would a poker pro be on death row?  This logline is all over the place – too unfocused – which tells me the script will be the same.  Wouldn’t pick this up.

Facade
Drama/Noir
A detective delves into an investigation following the murder of a teenage boy in the quintessential 1950’s American suburbs, unaware of the secrets buried behind the veneer of this picture perfect society. (*Note: intended to imitate the style of classic ’40s-’50s film noir)

Would I read? – Put simply, this isn’t my thing.  So I wouldn’t pick it up for that reason alone.  The investigation of a murdered boy gives the story some structure, but I’m not sure the murder of a boy in the 50s is unique enough to warrant a read, even if I was a big noir fan.  This idea needs something extra.

The Lasso Man
Genre not given
The protag: Andy, a London kid. Whose passion with the lariat accompanies him through many escapades: Some hilarious,some compassionate and moving, life affirming, life changing and life saving. As the war clouds gather in the late 1930’s. his sister forges his birth certificate at age 17 so he can join the R.A.F and become a fighter pilot.

Would I read? – Whoa, lots wrong here.  Starting your logline with “The Protag:” already screams amateur.  Then you have a period after “kid” when there should be a comma.  That’s two punctuation mistakes and an odd sentence beginning all within the first seven words.  Writer needs to go back to basics – study punctuation, grammar and sentence structure before submitting anything.

Recovery
Drama
When a man involved in a fatal hit-and-run accident learns the victim is his brother’s wife, he must decide whether coming clean and appeasing his conscience is worth the risk of shattering his family.

Would I read? – An intriguing situation.  Some implied dramatic irony.  There’s definitely a story here.  Is it big enough?  Can the writer create a compelling enough second act to keep us interested long enough to get to the end?  That’s to be determined but I might give this one a shot.

The Gentleman’s Prestige
Comedy
An insecure homeless man puts everything on the line when he enters a male beauty pageant in hopes of proving to his talented family that he’s not a loser.

Would I read? – I’m confused by writers who keep placing these trivial adjectives in their loglines to describe their protagonists. What does being “insecure” have to do with this idea?  Had the writer said, “unbearably ugly,” that would’ve had more relevance, since he’s entering a beauty pageant.  Regardless, there’s something about this idea that feels off.  Homeless man in a beauty pageant.  I can imagine a couple of funny scenes that might come out of that, but not an entire movie.  Probably wouldn’t read this.

I, Henchman
Action/Comedy
A henchman for a terrorist group sees a chance at redemption when he’s inspired to write a story. But before he can develop his newfound talent, he not only has to flee the group, but also confront his worst fear: the hero hell-bent on eliminating the terrorists, including him.

Would I read? – Hmm, this logline feels unbalanced and confused.  A henchman who decides to write a story doesn’t sound very cinematic or interesting.  Main characters who are writers are rarely interesting since writing is (as I’m sure you guys know) pretty boring to watch!  Also, why do terrorist groups need henchmen?  Aren’t they, almost by definition, henchmen?  When I have too many confused questions, I’m not picking up the script.

Deux
Action/Thriller
A twenty something signs up as a weapons tester in a high-tech duel to wipe his debt, but to get his pay he must defeat his next opponent–an adversary he can’t seem to kill.

Would I read? – This logline suffers from being too vague.  A “twenty something?”  Can we come up with a protagonist we can actually visualize?  How about “A genius computer hacker?” Also, the ending kills this logline: “An adversary he can’t seem to kill.”  Way way waaaay too general.  You need to be more specific.

Geek and Destroy
Comedy
Two sexy female spies turn the world’s largest video game convention upside down when they are hired to steal a hard-drive containing millions of dollars worth of online weapons.

Would I read? – Clever title.  Very important since if a writer can make me laugh at the title of his script, there’s a good chance he’ll be able to make me laugh in the script.  I’ve read these comic-con-type heist scripts before, so that’s a strike against the writer, but this is the comedy with the most promise so far.  I might read the first ten pages.

Manic Pixie Dream Girl
“High School” Horror
When indecisive high school student, Charlie, falls for a beautiful, enigmatic older woman she turns out to be a homicidal maniac.

Would I read? – Hmmm, something’s not adding up here.  What does a pixie dream girl have to do with an older woman?  Is she the pixie dream girl?  How does that work?  Are we dealing with a “woman” or a “girl?”  Also, there’s a comma missing after “woman,” which may only be a comma, but there are only 21 words in this logline.  It shouldn’t be hard to get all the commas where they need to be.  Finally, the “homicidal maniac” portion of the logline seems to come out of nowhere and therefore feels random.

Bond Of Blood
Drama/Faith
Contemporary telling of the parable of the Prodigal Son, set in modern day South Africa.

Would I read? – This is a very general synopsis of the story, not a logline. There’s no conflict or irony implied anywhere. There’s not even a main character.  On top of that, it feels really heavy, and therefore boring.  I would rewrite this sucker with a focus on trying to make the story sound as exciting as possible, because it very well might be.  I’d just never know after reading this logline.

Forbidden Fruit
Creature Feature
After a horrifying vision, the town drunk finds a purpose in protecting the locals of a sleepy southern community from a mysterious tree and its fruit that addicts all who taste of it. His resolve is challenged when it appears something more insidious may be using the fruit as a vessel from their world into ours, and the people as the final gateway.

Would I read? – I don’t know.  There’s something here.  But the ending of this logline really kills it.  It just dissolves into general muckery.  “…the fruit as a vessel from their world into ours, and the people as the final gateway.”  Plus, this is pitched as a creature feature and yet I don’t see the creature in the logline!  Wouldn’t pick it up.

Pocket Dial
Romantic Comedy
With temperamental technology thwarting them at every turn, three brothers get tangled up in love, lust and infidelity.

Would I read? – This is one of the most confusing loglines of the 30.  I’m not sure I have any idea what this script is about.  What’s “temperamental technology?”  That seems to be the hook of the concept yet I don’t know what it means.  And what does “Pocket Dialing” have to do with what’s stated in the logline?  Then the three brothers getting tangled up in problems is way too general.  Wouldn’t pick this one up.

Seventy-Three
Sports/Heist
A washed up major league pitcher is blackmailed into a scheme to steal one of baseball’s most coveted pieces of memorabilia, Barry Bond’s 73rd home run ball, the very same ball he threw to Bond’s that fateful night.

Would I read? – There appears to be some irony in that the pitcher who pitched to Bonds must now steal the home run ball he hit off him, but there’s something very low-stakes about it.  I start thinking about things like, “Is this ball really that important anymore?”  Hasn’t the whole steroids thing destroyed the value of memorabilia like this?  Feels like we need to go deeper into history here – a home run ball hit by Maris or Gherig.  In the writer’s defense, my reaction to this feels personal, not so much a judgement of the logline itself.

The Power Of Max
Sci Fi/Rom-Com
Max wants to be with Emma, but first he has to get past Ricardo…and survive an alien invasion.

Would I read? – This is one of those loglines that really doesn’t tell us much, but then hits us with the shocking wild ending.  Whether that ending inspires you to pick up the script is up to the individual.   Unfortunately, this sounds a little too random to me.  Why does he have to get past “Ricardo?”  Who’s Ricardo?  That information seems important.  And I’d personally like a little more set-up as to why there’s an alien invasion.  Wouldn’t pick this one up.

The Suicide Theory
Crime/Thriller
A disgraced former New York cop must track down the man who shot the Mayor in order to uncover the truth about an identical case that led to his own downfall three years earlier.

Would I read? – This is not my thing but I do like the idea of a man hunting down a criminal who ruined his life to clear his name.  That personal journey tells me the main character would probably be pretty interesting.  This would have to be written well, but I’d read the first 10 pages.

Like Father, Like Daughter
Sci-Fi
The hunter for extraterrestrial animals has to take his teenage daughter with him in search for traces of an alien civilization. The adventures they experience together give them an opportunity to fix their family relationships.

Would I read? – Some grammar mistakes in this one.  Not “The hunter” but “A hunter.”  Not “relationships” but “relationship.”  Some of these elements have potential, like extraterrestrial animals and alien civilizations, but they don’t really come together in a cohesive natural way in this logline, so I probably wouldn’t open it.

Chase The Night
Crime/Thriller
On his 25th birthday, a troubled orphan receives information about his estranged mother, sending him into a world of corruption as he investigates the circumstances behind her life and death.

Would I read? – It’s not “must read now” material, but I like the idea of orphans having to come face to face with the lives of their real parents, and this story seems to take that to the extreme.  This is something I’d probably read the first ten pages for mainly because the last 15 options have been so lackluster.  

Breakup Rehab
Dramedy
A broken-hearted young woman is told by a psychic that she’ll never find true love if she doesn’t get over her ex-boyfriend by her 25th birthday…which is one month away.

Would I read? – The premise feels a little forced, but then these romantic comedy ideas usually do.  I like the ticking time bomb here, which creates a lot of urgency.  If we love the main character and really want her to find true love, this might work.  But if she’s just an amalgam of all the other romantic comedy protagonists we’ve come to know throughout the years, Breakup Rehab could find itself dumped.  I might open this.

Fascination 127
Thriller
A group of men are hired by a mysterious client to remove Jim Morrison’s casket, give it to him for 24 hours and then return the casket into the ground before it is publicly exhumed to be moved to the United States.

Would I read? – Personally, I’m not a Jim Morrison fan, which pretty much takes me out of the running for reading this.  Also, I’m not sure the general mystery of someone wanting to exhume his casket for 24 hours gets me very excited.  Maybe if something was added like, “…to see if his body was really inside,” that would at least provide a more specific storyline.  Will be curious to see if Jim Morrison fans think this sounds interesting but it’s not my thing.

U.S.S. NIKOLA TESLA
Sci-Fi/Thriller
The American Navy’s latest destroyer, the USS Nikola Tesla, disappears without trace. Two years later she reappears with no sign of her crew. But no one realises this ship holds a dark secret that dates back to World War Two and a horrifying experiment.

Would I read? – Hmmm.  I’ve seen the whole “ship disappears and then reappears years later” idea before.  I mean, we’ve seen it as early Close Encounters Of The Third Kind.  So I’m wondering if there’s anything new here to mine.  I might thumb through the first few pages to see if the writing was strong, but despite this being high concept, the familiar-factor would probably keep me from picking it up.

Maneater
Horror/Comedy
A bottomed-out actor takes a Vision Quest to reasses his life – one week in the wild without women or booze – and is targeted by a sexy forest ranger with exotic, uh, tastes.

Would I read? – Why does the main character need to be an actor?  Wouldn’t it be more ironic if he was a businessman who’s never left the city?  That would make him more of a fish out of water.  I’m also not sure what a “Vision Quest” is.  Isn’t that a video game?  Is the “one week in the wild without women or booze” the definition of a “Vision Quest?”  If so, why is it not placed right after “Vision Quest?”  The elements don’t quite come together naturally here so I probably wouldn’t open this.

And that’s it folks.  Read what you can and discuss your thoughts in the comments section!

Genre: Period/Crime
Premise: In post World War II Japan, an American former prisoner-of-war rises in the yakuza.
About: “The Outsider” finished 4th on last year’s Black List.  Writer Andrew Baldwin hasn’t done any major work that I’ve heard of up until “Outsider,” but he did script a draft of the in-development remake of “Logan’s Run.”  The last rumor had “Safe House” helmer Daniel Espinosa directing “Outsider” with a dream-casted Michael Fassbender starring as Nick.
Writer: Andrew Baldwin
Details: 125 pages, June 2011 draft

 

I must confess, I don’t know much about the Yakuza other than that they have a really cool name: THE YAKUZA!  I like it so much, in fact, I’m thinking of naming my first kid after it.  “Yakuza!”  It has such a nice ring to it, don’t you think?

But here’s the reason this Yakuza script has been sitting near the top of last year’s Black List and 10 months later I still haven’t reviewed it: I don’t connect with the crime genre.  When a bunch of tough guys are trying to out-tough each other with toughness – when that’s the focus – I can’t get into it.  I need some heart.  I need something to relate to in the characters.  And the crime genre is more about honor and codes and stuff that really doesn’t interest me.  Every once in awhile, if a writer can come at the genre from a unique angle, I can be entertained for a couple of hours, but that’s about as much as I can hope for.  I’m never going to think of one of these scripts as amazing.

With that said, The Outsider is one of the few crime scripts that does come at the genre from a different angle.  We’re not dealing with the 15 hundredth movie about the Italian mafia.  We’re dealing with the first movie about a guy rising up through the Yakuza in 1954.  Was it a little too familiar?  Ehhhhh, probably.  There were times where you could’ve laid in scenes from Goodfellas, Casino, Carlito’s Way, etc., and no one would’ve noticed.  But there were also moments where I genuinely felt like I was learning about the unique culture that is the Yakuza.

The Outsider begins on a train in 1954 Osaka, Japan (hey, just like yesterday’s script!).  The car we focus on is filled with prisoners being transported to their new prison.  One of those prisoners stands out, as he is the only Caucasion in the bunch.  His name is Nick.  He’s 30 years old.  And what’s spooky about the dude is that he actually seems okay with where he’s at.

There’s a reason for that.  Nick has gone AWOL since the war after murdering his commander who did something terrible (you’ll have to take Baldwin’s word for it since we never find out what the commander did).  But the American military sees it differently.  They see Nick as the bad guy, and they want to try him.  Which is why Nick’s fled and is now hiding out in Japan.  In a prison.  In a Very. Bad. Prison.

It’s at this prison where Nick gets all Mike Tyson on some big Japanese oaf who dares test him in front of the other prisoners.  Nick gouges his eyes out, blinding the man, and just like that he has the respect of everyone in prison.  But it’s Nick’s cell mate, Kiyoshi, who pays the incident the most mind.  You see, Kiyoshi is part of one of the biggest crime families around, the Matsuoka Family, and he decides it wouldn’t hurt to have a crazy-ass motherfucker like Nick around to do some dirty work.

So when Nick’s released, Kiyoshi snatches him up, and pretty soon Nick’s hitting up the locals for the Matsuokas, unafraid to beat them into a pulp to get his point across.  He soon becomes feared in the real world as well, and as a result becomes one of the rare Americans accepted into a Yakuza family.

It would be nice to celebrate such a feat, but the nature of living in this reality is that your’e never safe.  And the Matsuoka’s much bigger and badder rivals, the Seizus, start getting a little testy when Nick begins throwing his weight around town.  They blame Akihiro, the leader of the family, and pretty soon, the two sides find themselves on the eve of war.

As if inadvertently leading your new employers into a war they didn’t want wasn’t bad enough, Nick also ends up falling in love with a beautiful but dangerous woman named Miyu, who happens to be the sister of Kiyoshi, Nick’s biggest ally.  Kiyoshi only had one rule when he brought Nick into his world: Don’t fuck my sister.  So a big fat “oops” on that count.  This means Nick will not only have to figure out a diplomatic way to end this war, but if he doesn’t, he’ll need to protect Miyu from the Seizus, protect himself from Kiyoshi, and protect the Matsuokas from his big ass mistake.   I’m not going to give anything away here, but the nature of this genre is that things end badly, and I’m guessing The Outsider is no exception.

I’m glad this one popped into my reading pile because it takes a storytelling angle I didn’t talk about in my “Storytelling vs. Writing” article.  If you remember, I said that most stories are run by either two engines: character goals or mysteries.  If you aren’t using one of those, your story probably isn’t very interesting.

The “Rise Up/Crime” genre is one of the exceptions to this rule.  There’s rarely a concrete goal in these scripts.  And there’s rarely a mystery either.  It’s more about watching a protagonist rise up through the ranks of an organization.  Goodfellas is another example.  Or Scarface.  There’s something about watching someone rise to power that’s exciting.  I can’t exactly explain why – maybe it’s because we know that sooner or later they have to fall – but it definitely works.

Except you know me.  I need those goals and those mysteries to keep me going.  I need more of a story than “guy rises up” to get my juices flowing.  And The Outsider didn’t have that.  It had a unique backdrop.  It had authenticity.  And I guess there was a little mystery as far as our main character’s past.  But other than that it was pretty straightforward.  Guy rises up in Yakuza.  No twists.  No turns.  That was it.

To Baldwin’s credit, however, he did infuse his script with TONS of conflict – essential for this kind of movie.  Remember, you’re always looking to make things tough for your hero (have them encountering conflict).  If you’re not doing that, then you’re not entertaining us.  We had the Seizu, the rival family pushing up against Nick.  We had Nick’s past (his court martial) pushing up against him.  We had Orochi, a brash young member of the Matsuoka family who doesn’t like Nick.  And we had Miyu, the girl he falls in love with who he can’t fall in love with because he’ll betray his only friend in the family.  Conflict leads to drama.  Drama leads to entertainment.  So The Outsider was strong in that respect.

But yeah, where The Outsider fell apart for me was the third act.  And it’s not surprising.  When you don’t have a goal or a mystery, you don’t have a clear-cut finale.  Think about it.  If your protagonist isn’t going after something (i.e. the Ark in Raiders) then you don’t have anything for him to do in the third act.  Or if there isn’t some big mystery we want answers to, then there’s nothing to reveal in the third act (what the Ark does).

This is what really hurt The Outsider.  Its characters are basically reacting – waiting for the other crime family to make a move.  And making reactive characters interesting is a lot harder to do than making active characters interesting.  Don’t get me wrong, it can be done.  I think this is similar to how Goodfellas ends, but it’s just not my thing.  I like characters who are active, who are going after things (goals) and there just wasn’t enough of that here.  For that reason, despite recognizing this as a very well-written script, I couldn’t personally get into it.

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

What I learned: The power of the Underdog in this genre.  Without a goal or a mystery,  you’re stacking the storytelling odds against you.  However, if you can give us a protagonist we love, we won’t mind as much that there aren’t any goals or mysteries.  Why?  Because we’ll follow a likable hero through anything.  And what’s the easiest way to make a likable character?  Make them an underdog!  Audiences LOVE underdogs.  Nick is as big of an underdog as they get.  An American prisoner in a Japanese prison – someone everyone hates, despises, wants nothing to do with.  You’ll see this underdog quality in all of these types of movies, from Goodfellas to Scarface to The Godfather.   If you’re going to write one of these “rise up” movies, make your lead an underdog.  I promise you it will pay off.

Genre: Erotic Thriller
Premise: After a sexually adventuresome couple moves into an upscale neighborhood, the woman accidentally murders her new neighbor while defending herself against rape. When the couple chooses to dump the body instead of confessing to the police, things take a turn for the worse.
About: According to Variety (June 2011), the script sold to Sidney Kimmel Entertainment. David
Writer: David Schickler
Details: 90 pages, Mar. 10, 2011 draft

In full disclosure, I knew nothing about this script before I’d read it, other than that it was “Hitchcock-ian.” But for me, the word has always been something of an invitation, so with a touch more curiosity than “nothing” should warrant, I dove right into this baby, this script called “Borrowing Girls.” Gee, I wonder what I’m supposed to be thinking about this title…

It all starts with a young couple moving into an idyllic neighborhood called the Pinnacle Estates. Gretchen and Daryl Gift are that perfect unit that maybe we’d all like to be. She’s 27 and gorgeous, a former actress now selling makeup at an upscale department store. He’s 30-something and confident, having recently scored a major contract as an architect. Daryl and Gretchen’s new home isn’t the biggest on the block, but still, in Daryl’s words, “they made it.”

Oh, and they share a very healthy sex life, too. (More on this later.)

They soon befriend their neighbors Samantha and Todd. Samantha, as one local puts it, is the queen bee of “the Pin,” while Todd, it turns out, is persona non grata for having lost a ton of money for people in the town with business deals that all went south – paying for it in the bedroom, even, being routinely rejected for sex.

One night, Gretchen and Daryl have them over for dinner and afterwards, the guys split off from the girls into the basement (where a lot of the fun of this movie takes place). Drunk and bonding, Todd presses Daryl for his “secret,” how he gets Gretchen to be so hot for him all the time — code for, “I noticed your wife is quite hot and I would very much like to boink her.” But whether Daryl gets the subtext or not, his answer to Todd’s question will prove to be most consequential. Be warned, the next little bit is going to get complicated, so just bear with me. For a movie like this, it kinda goes with the territory…

The thing about Gretchen and Daryl’s sex life is that it’s wrapped around a pretty unique fetish (or maybe it isn’t unique? And I’m just too tame?). They do this thing where Gretchen dresses up like various women in their lives, people like the realtor, the nanny, the Denny’s waitress, etc., and then has sex with Daryl – in character.

Schickler, a novelist and screenwriter, previously adapted his own novel “Sweet and Vicious.”

They videotape these sessions and keep a whole library of DVD’s, one for every woman, or character, I should say, played by Gretchen.

To answer Todd’s question, Daryl decides to SHOW him these DVD’s (which they keep in the basement) of Gretchen getting screwed while disguised as various women from around the Pin. But because Gretchen is such a good actor, Todd is in total awe of Daryl – thinking that Daryl is actually having sex with all these women! At first, Daryl tries to correct him, but Todd is so impressed that Daryl can’t help but let it ride. Daryl adds to it, however, with a lie – that Gretchen allows him to sleep with other women, and that the two of them regularly watch these DVD’s together.

Todd becomes so jealous and curious that he steals one of these discs on his way out. He becomes instantly addicted, so much so that he sneaks into the Gifts’ house the next day to steal another one. When he returns home to watch the second DVD, however, he’s stunned to find Daryl having sex with his wife Samantha! Todd rushes over to the Gifts’ to confront Daryl about it, but Daryl’s out. Gretchen’s home alone. Tearing at the seams from pent up rage and sexual frustration, Todd ends up trying to RAPE Gretchen, who, after struggling to fight him off, manages to bury a fire poker into his skull. Yup. Todd drops dead, and later, when Daryl comes home to discover the bloody scene, he immediately tries to call the cops…

But Gretchen won’t let him.

And while thus far, the movie had me thinking Adrian Lyne or David Cronenberg, this is where the term “Hitchcockian” finally comes into play…

From here on out, the movie’s about whether or not the two will get away with it, of course, tracking Gretchen’s evolution (or devolution?) from a seemingly nice girl with a sexual kick to a full-on femme fatale as she convinces her husband to dump the body into the river. Enter Detective Corry Donner, a cop who’s not even in the right department for the case but is handpicked by Samantha for the fact that they share a personal history. Corry does manage to make things difficult for Gretchen and Daryl, who do their best to survive his meddling, but in the end, it’s Gretchen’s unrelenting commitment to getting away that causes the greatest strife for all.

But let’s just stop here for a second. While the rest of the script does play out as a taut little suspense piece, more or less, there was one question that I just couldn’t get out of my head during the entire read: Why didn’t Daryl just tell Todd the truth?! I just didn’t get it. And I’ll get this out of the way really quick – I personally can’t stand it when a major plot point is forced into being by way of inebriated characters. Like, anything that doesn’t make sense can happen just so long as the character’s had a few beers or a couple of tokes. Wrong. Drugs and alcohol help characters do what they secretly want to do but can’t under the inhibitions that society forces on us. Drugs and alcohol do NOT make nonsensical plot points suddenly make sense.

I say this because I reread this scene several times in search of a better motivation. The only other contender was that maybe being new to the neighborhood, and wanting to prove to Gretchen that they do, in fact, belong in the Pin, Daryl was overly eager to ingratiate himself with his new neighbor. But still, it’s overkill because all this occurs after Todd offers to sponsor Daryl’s application to the country club. I didn’t feel Daryl needed to go that far.

The other problematic aspect to this issue is one of logic, I suppose, that the story Daryl gave Todd was less impressive than the actual story, which is that Gretchen’s figured out a way for him to have sex with other women – without having sex with other women! I know, at a glance, the notion of having sex with lots of different women is far more impressive to most men, but for a movie such as this, it’s more interesting and appropriate for a character to be psychologically and emotionally capable and desirous of sexual experimentation. While Todd can barely get Samantha to have vanilla sex with him, here Daryl has a wife who does this sh*t voluntarily. Awesome! That, to me, seems like a better answer to, “How do you two keep things hot?”

But logic aside, the basic issue still remains – I didn’t buy that Daryl had to let Todd think he had sex with all those women. I mean, yeah, there was no way for Daryl to know that such a lie would ever lead to such a crazy chain of events, but still, there were so many other reasons to stick to the truth. If Daryl was, in fact, having sex with all the women in town, is that something he should advertise to someone he hardly even knows? I think not. The problem is, everything that Gretchen and Daryl endure after that point seems so… unnecessary. And this unfortunate thought popped into my head every ten or so pages, sometimes prompted by something on the page, sometimes just because.

But this might just be me. Another reader might be fine with it. But even so, there’s another issue that they’re likely to run into, which is that the main characters disappear for too much of the remaining plot and their reactions to major events are all but buried, barely even thought of! One clear cut example of this is when, after they dump the body, Gretchen and Daryl attempt to sneak into Samantha’s house to retrieve the stolen DVD in order to clear the path of evidence. This is totally in line with their overall goal, which is to get away with the murder. But then, this DVD retrieval objective takes a backseat for an entire sequence of the film (too long, in my opinion), such that by the time the plan resurfaces, it feels like the movie should have moved on to something else.

The added problem to this is that the lack of a more consistent effort toward the goal also undermines the urgency. It’s rare that characters are less motivated to pursue their goals than the audience is in seeing them do it. For a movie like this, where the stakes are clear enough – and high – it’s not only a momentum killer but a failure to deliver on the genre. Don’t deflate the tension by allowing, or worse, making your main characters lay off the primary objective!

Another form of this “presence” issue came up in the lack of reactions to certain key events, one obvious example being the discovery of Todd’s dead body. Shouldn’t this be the event that comes about, say, at around the midpoint to raise the stakes and danger for our protagonists? Why do we not even get a moment where they react to being invited to the funeral? Why do we never see the two freaking out but then regrouping and adapting to a new course of action? Yes, you do need scenes with Samantha getting the investigation going, and fine, I’ll even deal with the expository business with Samantha’s history with Corry (more on this in a moment), but if your main characters are, for a while, going to be in the backseat as far as pushing the narrative is concerned, then you have to at least track their reactions to and attitudes about all that’s going on in the meantime.

But regarding Corry and Samantha’s backstory, although I appreciated that the cop role in this film had a more personal involvement in all the goings-on, it felt at times like it was either too much or too little. Either keep him as just the cop, or go all the way and resolve whatever issue it is that’s still bugging Samantha. And make it RELEVANT somehow. And not coy or deliberately vague. Yes, they have a brief moment in the end that’ supposed to imply resolution, but I’m not exactly thinking about their subplot at that point because it occurs right after the most violent scene in the movie. And ultimately, even in hindsight, it was too little, too late.

Finally, I wondered about the movie’s theme. What was it? I’m not sure. I hate to come off all post-feminist or whatever, because I’m anything but (as my girlfriend is happy to point out when I demonstrate this fact myself), but what does it mean to have a woman who accidentally murders someone out of self-defense against rape go on to become the monster of the movie? Is it saying that anyone with a gamier sexual appetite is inherently immoral? Is the movie simply saying not to lie? To keep your perversions to yourself? Without any clear answers, I was left with a touch of “meh” and a dash of “So what?”

To be fair, the script does several things well, one of which is that it earns the prefix to its thriller genre. Boy, is this film erotic when it has to be. Whether it’s something as small as flirtatious banter or as extreme as having sex simply to deceive, the sexual content of the film is quite effective. It arouses. It smolders on the page. And it leaves you wanting more – even though you get plenty enough. And the whole thing of getting dressed up other women, I don’t think I’ve ever seen that in a movie before. I personally thought it was an interesting enough to be the novelty of the movie. That, along with the fact that Gretchen is a compelling character with so many sides, ultimately makes for an easy if not enjoyable read. It’s a script that I hope undergoes the necessary improvements because with them, the movie will do what it promises.

[ ] what the hell did I just read?

What I learned: Sometimes, there is such a thing as being too short. While Borrowing Girls’ 90 pages were a breeze to get through, in the end, the story you’re left with is missing a good amount of material that needs to be there in order for the story to be fully satisfying.