A 10 Year American Pie reunion? How bout a 50 year American Pie Reunion! Winter’s Discontent is American Pie spiked with Viagra.
Genre: Comedy
Premise: (from Black List) When Herb Winter’s wife of fifty years dies, the faithful but sexually frustrated widower moves into a retirement community to start living the swinging single life.
About: For a script that was so well received and for a writer this good, I find it strange that we haven’t heard more from Paul Fruchbom since 2008, when Winter’s Discontent finished #7 on the Black List. He does seem to be developing another property with Columbia, the same studio that bought Winter’s, called “Career Counselors,” but very little is known about it.Winter’s Discontent occasionally pops its head up into my Top 25. I originally read it 3 years ago but this is the first time it’s being reviewed.
Writer: Paul Fruchbom
Details: 105 pages – 2009 draft (This is an early draft of the script. The situations, characters, and plot may change significantly by the time the film is released. This is not a definitive statement about the project, but rather an analysis of this unique draft as it pertains to the craft of screenwriting).
There are so many professional comedy writers who don’t know how to write that when one comes along who actually does, I’m not sure the industry knows what to do with him. When I say “don’t know how to write,” what I mean is, they can obviously construct a joke, but they lack the skills to create a compelling structured story with three dimensional characters.
Winter’s Discontent is one of the few outrageous comedies I’ve read that still has heart and an actual structure to it. I mean just the fact that the writer starts out with an ironic premise should tell you he’s ahead of most of his peers. Senior citizens in an old folks home who only care about getting laid. It’s the exact opposite of what we expect an old folks home to be like (Never forget! The best comedy premises tend to be ironic!).
Anyway, Herb Winters, a 75-year-old retiree, has just lost his wife of 50 years. I think this is the moment where I officially fell in love with Winter’s Discontent. I was expecting some sappy on-the-nose funeral scene. Instead, the service is interrupted by Herb’s voice over as he explains how psyched he is that his wife’s dead. I sat up and took notice. Hmm, I thought, that’s not what I was expecting.
For example, at the wake, we get this gem: “God, I hate this fucking house. Look at that wallpaper. Ellen loved that wallpaper. She must’ve been retarded.” This is followed by someone offering their condolences: “I’m sorry for your loss.” Herb replies, via voice over, “Loss? If you want to talk about loss, let’s talk about that piano. It hasn’t been touched in 30 years. It has a lot in common with my balls.”
And that’s the real issue here. Herb’s wife stopped having sex with him a long time ago. The man has simply forgotten what it’s like to be a sexually active male. And now that his wife is finally dead, he can find out what that feels like again.
So Herb grabs his best friend, Jules (a “Jewish Mr. Rogers.” Talk about a great description!), and the two head off to Spruce Gardens, a popular old folks home. The plan is to have sex with as many women as possible there. And when they arrive, it looks like that’s exactly what’s going to happen. The women outnumber the men 2 to 1 in this place and they’re all raring to go!
But just when things look like heaven, hell shows up. In the form of Mike Miller. He’s tan. He’s good-looking. But worst of all, HE’S IN HIS 60s! That’s like cheating in this place. And boy does Mike take advantage of it. Every single woman here wants the young meat and poor Herb and his buddies become wallflowers as a result.
As if getting laid wasn’t tough enough, Herb starts falling for one of his 50 year old nurses, Kate. Nabbing that kind of prime filet is going to take a lot more than funny jokes. It’s going to take a time machine.
In the meantime, Herb’s friendship with Jules starts to fray over Herb getting over Ellen so quickly. There seems to be something deeper going on here, to the point where the lifelong friends break up. Kate puts the kybosh on him as well once she realizes what he’s up to. And Mike somehow makes every single woman at Spruce Gardens unavailable. Herb’s dream trip to Spruce Gardens has officially become a nightmare!
I think one of the reasons this script brings a smile to our faces is that it faces a scary situation, one nobody likes to talk about, and has fun with it. We’re not used to laughing about death, yet this script makes it easy to do. There’s something refreshing about that. It’s almost like the script itself becomes a sympathetic character.
From a technical perspective, the script is both traditional and non-traditional. The goal is clear – to get laid. But the stakes are dependent on our character’s conviction. Herb doesn’t really lose anything if he fails, but he so intensely wants his goal (your character should always desperately want his goal!!!) that we do feel like he loses something if he doesn’t get it.
However, there really isn’t any urgency here. There’s no time limit on this goal. But here’s why I don’t think it matters. Fruchbom did a great job always keeping his characters focused on an immediate goal. Either they were trying to have sex with one of the women. They were getting sex lesson to update their moves. Herb was teaching Kate piano so he could get closer to her. If you can keep those smaller goals coming one after another, the reader doesn’t have time to notice that there isn’t a ticking time bomb in the story. It’s when there are large gaps between those goals that the reader starts checking the page count.
Also, when you’re writing a comedy, you want the humor to be PREMISE-SPECIFIC. That means all the humor should stem from your premise. This is a movie about old people desperate to have sex. So you have these nice little gems like Mike Miller being able to drive at night (which means he has the advantage of going on night dates with all the women – something unheard of to the rest of the seniors).
Fruchbom also creates a scenario where if a woman dies during sex, the man involved is blacklisted by the rest of the women. So Herb and crew set up this plan to get Mike to have sex with the most frail likely-to-die woman at Spruce Gardens. If he kills her, he’ll get blacklisted, and they’re all back in the game again. The key here is that the humor is *based on the premise*. It wouldn’t be as funny, for example, if they tried to murder Mike to get him out of the picture. Murder is boring. You can find murder in any movie. You can’t find men sacrificing an 80 year old woman so they can get laid again. That’s premise-specific.
I know why, despite how well-written it is, “Winter’s” has had trouble getting laid (oops, I mean “made”). Studios only put out these senior citizen flicks once every blue moon. But of all of the geriatric projects floating out there, this script is clearly the best of the bunch. Personally I think it would be a huge hit, but then again I’m not the one who has to put up the money. I hope this finds its way to production at some point though because I believe Paul Fruchbom needs to be in charge of more comedies in Hollywood.
[ ] Wait for the rewrite
[ ] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[x] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: The success of this script reminded me how important it is to think outside the box with your comedy idea. So many writers focus on that comedy sweet spot of a 30 year old male caught up in some crazy situation. And I understand it. That’s where all the bankable comics are. But if you want to stand out, think outside the box a little. Look for ideas outside the sweet spot. We saw it with the success of this script and we saw it recently on the big screen with the success of Bridesmaids.
Pretty soon I’ll be relaunching the site. We’ll have a few extra things going on once that happens, which means more opportunities for you guys! I’m looking for freelancers in two areas, script consulting and graphic arts. These aren’t salary positions. Those chosen will be featured on Scriptshadow. Any business done through the site will result in a percentage split to be decided upon before the site relaunch. If this sounds like something you’d be interested in, dust off those resumes!
1) Script Consultants – My own consulting rates have really kicked up lately which means I’ve had to turn down a lot of people. Therefore, I’m looking for 4-5 Scriptshadow consultants to offer a wider variety of pricing for writers seeking script notes/coverage. Since I refuse to give clients anything but the best, you guys will have to bring it. Send me your resume and any coverage samples you have. Consultants with previous experience in the industry and current industry contacts will have a leg up. But I want a wide pricing structure to service everybody, so some of the lower tier consultants don’t need to have worked with Spielberg. And of course, if your notes are amazing, you’ll have a great shot.
To submit: Send a resume and sample coverage to Carsonreeves3@gmail.com with the subject header: SCRIPT CONSULT.
2) Graphic Artists – The script game is changing. More and more writers are using concept art and one-sheets to market their material. Therefore, I’m looking for a core group of 4-5 graphic artists who specialize in concept art, one-sheets (posters), and storyboarding to service this emerging market. If you’re interested, send me some samples of your work as well as your resume. The more you can show me, the better. Feel free to include a website sampling as well.
To submit: Send a resume and samples to Carsonreeves3@gmail.com with the subject header: GRAPHIC ART
GOOD LUCK!!!!!!!
He claims his script is better than every script sale out there. He repeatedly trashed Disciple in favor of his own masterpiece. But does writer Jai Brandon deliver on the goods?
Amateur Friday Submission Process: To submit your script for an Amateur Review, send it in PDF form, along with your title, genre, logline, and why I should read your script to Carsonreeves3@gmail.com. Keep in mind your script will be posted in the review (feel free to keep your identity and script title private by providing an alias and fake title). Also, it’s a good idea to resubmit every couple of weeks so your submission stays near the top.
Genre: Thriller/Crime/Serial Killer
Premise: (from writer) The lives of two opposing forces collide, after an argument escalates between a telemarketer and the recipient of his phone call – an active serial killer. Unfortunately for this serial killer, the man that he threatened is no ordinary telemarketer.
About: Jai Brandon has been pushing me to read his scripts for over a year. His constant hyping of The Telemarketer has made him impossible to ignore.
Writer: Jai Brandon
Details: 100 pages
I have experienced my share of confident screenwriters. I, like most of you, lived through Trajent Future (for the time of your life, grab some popcorn and read through the 500 comments of that post). The House That Death Built taught us that the quality of a man’s script is dependent not on one’s bravado, but rather one’s writing. Jai Brandon seems to have ignored this lesson. He places his screenplay up on the highest pedestal, betting that it’s not only better than recent entries such as The Disciple Program, but even some of the classics that have graced our movie theaters for years.
I’d tell Jai that’s a recipe for disaster, but I don’t think he’d listen. However, I’ll give Jai this. At a time where I’ve received more script submissions than any other time in Scriptshadow’s history, this man figured out a way to get me to read his script. True it was done through incessant badgering and enough e-mails to break Gmail’s servers (true story – I opened one of his e-mails and Gmail crashed), but you gotta get your name out there somehow and Jai did it.
Of course, this brings us to the actual script, and I’m not going to lie. I was expecting it to be somewhere between really bad and extremely terrible. My experience has taught me that those who yell the loudest usually have the least to say. The good news for Jai is that the script did not fall inside that category.
But it did fall inside a new category I like to refer to as, “Logic, flow, and tone be damned.” This has to be one of the strangest scripts I’ve read in a while in that Jai actually has a lot of talent, to the point where you occasionally wonder if you’re reading a pro. Unfortunately, that talent is eclipsed by a poor story sense. The script has so many weird combinations going on as to make it almost indecipherable. I’ll get into that in a second but let’s deal with the plot first.
20-something James Walker is a deliveryman. Well, that’s not entirely true. He’s a telemarketer. He’s a telemarketer/deliveryman, working delivery by day and telemarketing by night. Confused? So am I. I guess James doesn’t have to sleep. But neither did Edward Norton in Fight Club so I’m going to let it slide.
Our favorite telemarketer/deliveryman goes to deliver a package at a house only to see three burglars holding a woman hostage inside. Since James is not the kind of person to sit back idly, he sneaks in through the window and systematically kills the men. Add ass-kicker to James’ resume.
Later, a couple of detectives stop by to try and figure out what happened but come to the conclusion that no man could have taken these burglars out the way they did. It would have been impossible.
Off in another home we meet a man known as The Clown Face Killer. This Caucasian fellow likes to dress up in blackface and an afro wig and kill African American women. He also has Alopecia (he’s hairless) which means he never leaves a single trace of DNA evidence wherever he goes. He’s the perfect killer. The perfect CLOWN FACE KILLER.
In the meantime, those “savvy” detectives find a delivery notice on that burglarized lady’s front porch. So they head over to James’ telemarketing job to ask him some questions, namely why the notice is marked with the exact time this burglary took place. But James is as cool as a Kumquat (and as sarcastic as a snapping turtle) and convinces the doofus detectives that he wasn’t involved.
Across town, Mr. Clown-Face Killer continues attacking young unsuspecting African-American women, but during one of these attacks, James calls the house as part of his telemarketing gig. He and Clown Face have a brief conversation and the clown killer decides he’s going to make this personal. He then begins killing everyone in New York named James Walker – our hero’s name!
In the end, the Clown-Face Killer with alopecia gets so worked up that he actually targets James’ own mother. James will have to call on not only his telemarketing and delivery skills to take this man down, but his mercenary skills as well. Wait, what?! Oh yeah, I forgot to mention. James used to be a mercenary too! Will he succeed? I’m not sure. Nothing is certain in…..The Telemarketer.
Okay, so like I said, Jai shows a lot of skill in his writing. Open up this script and read the first scene and you’ll notice the writing is crisp, lean and professional.
The problem is, Jai’s lack of storytelling sense becomes increasingly problematic as the story goes on. What I mean by “storytelling sense” is the combination of structure, tone, understanding of genre, and how to build a story in a believable, compelling and logical way. The Telemarketer builds, but nothing is ever believable. And rarely is the tone of the story consistent. It kind of feels like a pastiche of several different genres slapped together in no particular order.
But let’s back up for a second and start with the title. The reason I resisted reading this in the first place was that the title and the logline didn’t jive. It sounded like a set up for a comedy as opposed to a thriller. A telemarketer taking on a man with alopecia who dresses up in blackface and an Afro wig? I don’t know. That just doesn’t sound like a subject matter you can treat seriously. So that was the first problem I had, and that was before I even opened the script (again – why testing your concept is SO important!).
The next problem I had was the dual jobs. I understand some people work two jobs to make ends meet, but in this case, the two jobs were obviously created for the purpose of instituting key plot points. Jai needed James to be a deliveryman/vigilante killer in order to get the detectives after him. And he needed his hero to be a telemarketer so he could call the woman that would begin Clown Faced’s obsession with him.
My question is, since the deliveryman job has absolutely nothing to do with the story, why not ditch it? Just make him a telemarketer. That’s the name of the movie anyway. By calling a movie “The Telemarketer” and starting off with your hero as a deliveryman, you’ve already confused your audience. In the very first scene! That’s a big problem with the writing here. It just seems to go wherever it wants in order to make the story work for the writer.
In addition to these problems, we just have these really weird scenes that appear out of nowhere. For instance, in addition to being a telemarketer and a deliveryman, it turns out that James also used to be a mercenary. So right in the middle of the script, for no discernible reason, we jump back to James during his mercenary days taking down Somali pirates. To the writer, this may all seem completely logical. “Of course he’s a mercenary. That’s my hero’s backstory!”
But to a reader, it’s utter confusion. We’re adding on to a character who already feels schizophrenic the title of mercenary??? How can an audience take that seriously? It would be like in Silence Of The Lambs if, 60 minutes in, Jodie Foster participated in a local disco competition, won, then went right back to hunting Buffalo Bill. You can’t just do whatever you want in a story. It has to make sense, it has to feel natural, it has to fit within the theme. If it doesn’t, it just feels random.
Another scene that came out of nowhere was James driving his delivery truck and getting stopped by some detectives, but it turns out those detectives were fake and actually robbers! Who rob him! The scene is just some random isolated incident that has NOTHING to do with the plot at all! These moments kept coming in The Telemarketer. Which was a big part of what made the read so frustrating.
The thing is, Jai really does have some talent. And despite his insane bravado, he actually seems like a nice guy. I don’t think he’s going to be telling everybody here (along with myself) that we’re all worthless and don’t know what we’re talking about and he does, a la Trajent Future. But he needs to back up and study storytelling a little more. Storytelling isn’t about throwing a bunch of shit on the page you think is cool. It’s about slowly building up a story where all the pieces fit together in a natural way. There are very few pieces in The Telemarketer that fit together and that’s why, despite the talent, the story doesn’t work.
What did you guys think? Is this better than The Disciple Program, as Jai claims? Or is my review completely off?
Script Link: The Telemarketer
[ ] Wait for the rewrite
[x] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: Be elegant in your plot construction. The more you strain, the more we’ll notice. In other words, never push an improbable or illogical plot point onto your story just because you *really need* something to happen. Here, Jai wanted these detectives to pull his hero, James, into the story. So he created this deliveryman job, which allowed his hero to murder these men, so that the detectives could question him. Keep in mind this job has NOTHING TO DO with the rest of the story. Never once is delivering something ever broached again. So it obviously feels false. You easily could’ve achieved this plot point without adding another job. Why can’t James be the woman’s neighbor? He’s about to go to work and sees something suspicious going on? Or maybe part of the telemarketing gig is delivering flyers about the service. You must be elegant in the way you weave things into your story or you’re going to pull your reader out of that story.
Allan Loeb embodies the dream scenario for any screenwriter. Well, sorta. After having inconsistent success in Hollywood for awhile, he fought through a crippling gambling addiction that nearly sent his life spiraling out of control. He eventually recovered, writing two scripts, The Only Living Boy In New York and Things We Lost In The Fire, that finished Top 4 on the inaugural Black List in 2005. The buzz around those scripts began an insane hot streak for Loeb, who sold six projects in a single year. He’s since went on to write many movies, including 21, Wall Street 2, and Just Go With It. In addition to feature writing, he has moved into TV producing, and is looking to have the same success in that medium.
SS: I originally heard it took you 12 years to finally sell something. Is that accurate? Can you tell us how you fought through that and were able to keep writing?
AL: I actually sold a pitch my fifth year writing, then a script two years later (guild minimum) and another (guild min again) a few years after that. So my career has actually been lived in three stages, five years of total rejection, about six or so of being on the bottom rung as a “baby writer” and finally eight years now of success. I didn’t actually fight through it, I — more or less — avoided the scary real world by doing the only thing I felt comfort in doing… making shit up.
SS: What did you do to pay the rent and what do you suggest other writers do job-wise to pay their rent yet still have time to work on their writing?
AL: I’m reluctant to say how I paid the rent for fear some of your readers may try it. It wasn’t smart and it should’ve ended in disaster. I gambled, day traded, ran through an inheritance and lived off credit cards. I sold my car in 2002 to pay rent and spent two years walking/taking the bus in LA. I sold an X-Box to a UCLA college student in 2005 for $90 and signed at CAA a week later. If I didn’t sign there or sell Only Living Boy shortly after… that $90 would’ve been my net worth.
SS: There seem to be levels for a writer. There’s the “get noticed with a good script” level. There’s the “get an agent level.” There’s the “sell your first script level.” Those are the levels I’m familiar with. What levels come after that? How many are there?
AL: There are so many levels after that. Most people are so consumed with the initial three that they never consider all the rungs in the middle. I’d say after “sell your first script” there’s the “do the rounds around town and get these people to like you” level. Then there’s the “get a job or sell something to them” level.
Then comes the most important level of all… “DELIVER!” This involves making your partners (producer, studio, director, movie star) feel heard and happy without compromising the quality of your work and your voice. It’s extremely delicate and challenging and if you can do it… you’ll work for a long time. It’s my opinion that most writers get spit out of the business at this level by the way.
From there the result in the market place matters. So the levels are “the box office gross level” and the “critical acclaim level” I have failed up at this level many times (but fortunately succeeded a bit too) and it’s extremely painful.
SS: My favorite script of yours is “The Only Living Boy In New York.” What inspired that script for you and when am I finally going to get to see it?
AL: I wanted to write my version of my favorite movie “The Graduate” with kind of a “Manhattan” love-letter to New York flourish to it. I went to New York in 2004, leased a loft for the summer with no air conditioning, cable or internet. The shower was a big sink I had to climb into. I just read everything I could about the city, met some really cool New Yorkers, partied till morning on the Lower East Side and somehow came back to LA with that script.
I’m hoping you’ll see it soon… it has new life to it that may finally get it made. Stay tuned.
SS: “Things We Lost In The Fire” was an independent movie script. But I remember it was very celebrated at the time. Without getting into specifics, can you sell those types of scripts for a lot of money or is every independent script more likely to result in a small sale?
AL: You can sell dramas like Things We Lost but you really need big talent attached. What drove that sale for me was Sam Mendes and his sway at Dreamworks. Sam loved the script and at first wanted to direct it. (He ended up producing it with me)
SS: Can you take us through the specific process that led to Things We Lost In The Fire being found, bought, and ultimately made? It’s always fun to know the details of how these things come about.
AL: I gave it to my agents on Friday. Sam had read it and was attached by Monday. Dreamworks paid me a lot of money for it with-in a week. I’ll give credit where credit is due… CAA.
SS: When you first break out as a screenwriter, you’re the new guy and everybody wants to meet you and know what else you have and if there’s some way you can work together. What can you tell us, from your experience after your break out, as far as what opportunities came up and how future screenwriters should handle that situation should they break in? Should they be taking advantage of every opportunity and trying to sell every pitch they can because they’re hot, or should they just focus on meeting people and developing relationships?
AL: Yes, yes and yes. This is such an important part of the business. It’s as important as the words on the page. Connect with these people you’re meeting on a human level. See what movies they love and where your tastes align. Get their email addresses and follow up and update them to what you’re doing… stay on their radar.
Most of them are smart, most of them are perfectly nice, most of them want to make good movies… they are not the enemy. If they believe in you, if they genuinely like you, if they think you’re going to make a good partner… they will stop at nothing to pay you real money to make shit up on a computer (while drinking coffee in between naps.)
SS: What do you think is the toughest thing about screenwriting?
AL: Handing the shit in.
SS: I’d love to get two pieces of advice from you. First, what’s the most important lesson you learned about the craft of screenwriting? And second, what’s the most important lesson you learned about the business side of screenwriting?
AL: The most important thing about the craft… economy/befriend the reader.
Say it with economy… don’t over describe. They get it. They’re reading quickly. They want to know what happens next. They don’t give a shit about most of the things you think they do… they just want to know what happens next.
The most important thing about the business… fun, enjoyable collaboration/be a pro.
Be open, be collaborative, they’re your partners, this is not poetry or Ibsen… it’s a business and you’re building a product with a team of people. Have fun, don’t freak out and be open to what your partners need or they will find someone else. Now you have to do that without totally killing your voice and particular story and that’s the dance… that’s where the game gets really fragile and difficult. You have to defend what makes this story great and make them happy. You have to play offense and defense… you can’t win by just playing one.
And it’s critical to be a pro. Hit every deadline, be calm, be available, be Kevin Durant at the foul line, don’t be an emotional basket case. You’re their doctor. Be their doctor… don’t be their frantic child.
SS: Now I don’t know this from any personal experience but I’ve heard that once you have a couple of hit movies, people just throw gobs of money at you to write their screenplays. I imagine that presents some dilemmas for you. Like getting offered, say, a million dollars to write something big and marketable yet artistically unfulfilling, and $250,000 to write something smaller and less marketable but very artistically fulfilling. Have you been in that situation before and how do you handle it?
AL: This is an issue for many writers but not for me so much. I’m a lover of movies of all genres and I write in all genres. I’m not precious and I see as much merit in a big rom-com as I do in a Terrence Malick film. There’s something for everybody and people simply get too judgmental when it comes to what stories they believe people should be told. It becomes a personal thing. I’m lucky that I get as excited about a big commercial idea as I do a small character piece… they’re just two different types of food to me. One is not inherently better than the other. I’m just as proud of “Just Go With it” as I am about “Things We Lost” — who’s to say which has more merit? To me… that’s arrogance.
So I can cash a big check and be fulfilled at the same time… I guess that’s called being a hack :)
SS: Having spent that early part of your career struggling for so long, what advice can you give writers from that experience so that they don’t make the same mistakes that you did, and can break out sooner?
AL: Don’t chase the market. Work on your specific voice and not what you think they want. Keep your day job.
Don’t get to the point where you’re selling your X-Box to a UCLA kid because getting lucky from under that stupidity only happens once and I already cashed that chip.
SS: Now I know you do a lot of assignment work. Are you able to still find time to write your own material? Are you still putting your own specs out there? What are you working on now?
AL: It’s a good question. I don’t spec. I’m transitioning a bit into writing a script a year for me and seeing where the chips fall but it’s been hard. I truly love what I do and most of that is incoming work.
I’m currently rewriting an action movie for Universal, finishing up a baseball comedy for Disney and working on a pilot for 20th/NBC.
A former Nicholl-finalist is back in the saddle with a new horror screenplay which combines elements of Pitch Black and The Descent!
Genre: Horror
Premise: When they open up a well that hasn’t been looked at since dinosaurs were around, a group of locals find themselves fighting off a large group of prehistoric flying monsters.
About: Brian Logan finished in the Top 10 in the 2003 Nicholl finals. This is his latest script, which hasn’t yet sold. You can find out more about the Aussie at his website, “ThatActionGuy.com.” To learn more about co-writer David J. Sakmyster, head over to his website here.
Writers: Brian M. Logan & David J. Sakmyster
Details: 99 pages (This is an early draft of the script. The situations, characters, and plot may change significantly by the time the film is released. This is not a definitive statement about the project, but rather an analysis of this unique draft as it pertains to the craft of screenwriting).
Pitch Black meets The Descent? Uhh, yeah, I’m in. Those are two damn good movies. But could this script live up to those lofty cult classics?
We start out in a full-blown desert town appropriately called “Desert Springs.” In this small town, water is in short supply, which means the local water plant is going to have to open up a new well. It just so happens that 37-year-old Jake Mitchell, a former Marine and our hero, works as a security guard at the plant and is dealing with some of the headaches that come along with opening up this fifth well.
To make matter worse, he’s tasked with showing around local TV personality Emma Flynn, a 30-year-old ambitious newscaster will who will do anything to get the story and nothing for you. Why she’s coming to this boring middle-of-nowhere town to do a story on a water plant is anyone’s guess, but we need ourselves a movie so come she does!
Jake and Emma are oil and water from the start and when a couple of kids start lighting firecrackers near the wells, she gets her camera rolling to check out what Jake does every night. When he gets there, he learns that one of the kids who ran away, the Mayor’s grandson, fell into the NEW FIFTH WELL. Uh oh. That can’t be good.
The kid seems fine at first but a local scientist finds a strange leaf attached to him that turns out to be over 250,000 years old. It appears that this well dates back quite a ways and since this is the first time it’s been opened up, there are some nice treats hidden inside, and this leaf is just the first of them.
Next thing you know, a pterodactyl’ish creature shoots out of the well and starts treating people like cheesecake (Peoplecake?). Pterodactyl 1 is quickly followed by Pterodactyls 2-50 and pretty soon these paleolythic party-crashers are munching and mangling their way to a human buffet. Jake and Emma must run around and save the few humans who are left, as well as figure out a way to destroy these disastrous dinos, all while struggling with their escalating feelings for one another!
You know I was talking to Tyler the other day, who’s been keeping me updated on all the meetings he’s been taking, and one of the things he says he keeps hearing about his script is that it isn’t just that the writing’s good, it’s that he wrote a *movie*.
I loved Origin Of A Species. I thought it was an awesome script. But would I touch it as a producer? Not unless I had Sam Mendes directing and Christian Bale starring. And that’s the thing you have to remember when you’re writing. Producers are looking for MOVE-IES. They’re looking for stuff that they can actually put up onscreen that will bring people to the theater. So if you write a movie like The Disciple Program or you write a movie like Desert Demons, you’re way up the ladder as far as getting Hollywood to notice you. To that end, I liked the script’s approach. It’s the kind of thing I could see a producer wanting to make.
Having said that, there was something that never quite made it past the Ice Age with Desert Demons. I think one of the big pitfalls with this kind of script is that it can very easily turn into a bunch of people running around in circles. If the writer isn’t ON IT as far as keeping every character goal-oriented, keeping every character motivated, keeping the story objective crystal clear to the audience, then things start to unravel. And that’s sort of how I felt. I just wasn’t really clear what was happening after awhile other than chaos.
That’s what I loved about Aliens so much and why I think it’s the best script in this genre. That group always had a plan. It might have been as simple as boarding up all of the entryways so the aliens couldn’t get in. It might have been rescuing Newt. It might’ve been sending Bishop out to the remote post to get the ship to send them down another plane.
In Desert Demons, I started to lose track of what the characters were after and what was going on. It seemed like we were just running back and forth between points A, B, and C. Since our characters began to drift, so did my concentration. And I think that’s a hugely important lesson. Characters drift = we drift. If Brian and Dave were to make their objectives bigger, clearer, with higher stakes and more focused directives, I think this script would be a lot more exciting. I was just never able to lock onto any clear goal while jumping between the two teams of characters.
The story is also missing a kick-ass hero. While I admit protagonists are not as important in horror movies as some other genres, I still think you need to give us someone awesome. I was disappointed by the cliché background of Jake being involved in a military accident. I feel like that’s the easiest backstory to go with. There was a little bit of intrigue with his superior, Danny, and what happened to them back in the war. But overall nothing stood out about it, or stood out about that relationship in general.
Another thing I would’ve loved was a monster that was more original. Now I know it’s difficult to create an original-looking monster on the page. Usually that stuff is done in pre-production. But just from a writing perspective, in my head these things looked exactly like the things in Pitch Black. They were flying. They were monsters. So it just felt way too familiar.
When you combine characters who start wandering with a protagonist who’s not very original with a monster we’ve already seen before… it’s hard to get me invested, especially because this isn’t my go-to genre to begin with.
What I’m curious to see, however, is how others who LOVE this genre respond. I remember saying a lot of these same things about Attack The Block, which a lot of people loved. So I’m wondering if horror fans are going to dig this for what it is – a fun little creature feature. I mean, look, watching monsters kill people is fun. I need a little more going on than that personally but I have a feeling that this script might have satisfied the hard core genre fans. I’ll be reading the comments closely to see if that’s the case.
I know you can request a copy of Desert Demons from Brian Logan at his site. You just need to include your name, position, company and email address.
[ ] Wait for the rewrite
[x] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: Maybe it’s because Pitch Black was brought up in the pitching of the script and that’s one of my favorite sci-fi scripts ever, but the big thing Desert Demons reminded me of was how important a memorable main character is. As it stands, “Demons” didn’t have that one big character that brought the story to the next level. That’s why I liked Pitch Black so much – because of Riddick. It didn’t matter if that script would’ve happened on an alien planet or on the beaches of Hawaii, we would’ve remembered that character! It’s been about 5 days since I read Desert Demons and I barely remember anyone. That CANNOT happen. You need to have that character that’s IMPOSSIBLE TO FORGET in your story, preferably your hero. This script could’ve benefited immensely from that.
