Genre: Thriller
Premise: A teenage girl heads to a remote cabin in the mountains with her father and new stepmother – an experience the father hopes will bond the two ladies. But when a mysterious wounded Park Ranger shows up, family bonding will be the least of their concerns.
About: This spec was sent out to producers last October and to my knowledge never sold, which is shocking to me because it’s so much better than 95% of the specs that go wide. My guess is that the spec market sucked so bad last year that a few gems were passed over. This is obviously one of them. It’s Dead Calm meets Panic Room in the best way possible.
Writer: Sarah A. Conradt
Details: 106 pages – undated (This is an early draft of the script. The situations, characters, and plot may change significantly by the time the film is released. This is not a definitive statement about the project, but rather an analysis of this unique draft as it pertains to the craft of screenwriting).

I know. I know. This isn’t technically a horror script. But I’ll tell you what it is. It’s the best-written script of the week by far. So hold on to your skimobiles people. This is going to be fun.

Beth, Cam and daughter Jo were the perfect family at one point. With Cam being a successful doctor, they had money to spare, which meant perks like a huge beautiful cabin in the snowy wilderness, a place they considered their sanctuary. The best times of their lives were spent there. But unfortunately, so was the worst. Beth got cancer and spent the last moments of her life at the home. Cam and Jo are so devastated by the painful memory that they abandon the house for years.

But eventually, Cam moves on and meets Diane, a school counselor who knows when she’s found something worth hanging onto. Obviously, Jo, now 14, doesn’t feel the same way, and lets it be known. The father realizes he has to do something drastic to get these two on the same page, so he decides to head back up to the house they spent Jo’s youth at.

Unfortunately, this makes Jo even angrier. To bring this woman into the home where her mother died is blasphemy as far as she’s concerned. And you can feel the tension in the car ride up.

Once there, the group settles in for the week, but soon spots a strange man walking towards the house. A bleeding man. When he finally gets to the porch, he’s so exhausted, he passes out. They take him inside, realize he’s a Ranger, and figure out something must have happened to the Ranger station. So Cam jumps in his snowmobile and takes the 40 minute trek down to see what happened.

When he gets there, he sees that an avalanche has practically collapsed the station. But when he goes inside, he finds something much worse. There’s a dead man with a knife in his chest. Turns out our friendly neighborhood Park Ranger might not be a Park Ranger at all. But before Cam can rush out, the structure buckles, and he gets pinned under a log.

Back at the home, our “Park Ranger,” Andy, is coming to. In his 20s, Andy is devilishly handsome, even in his broken down state. He seems like a really nice guy too. He lets them know that he was barely able to survive the avalanche, but that he was the only Park Ranger on duty, and that therefore everything is fine. A big storm has moved in, so he assures them that as soon as it passes, he’ll head out and let the proper authorities know what happened.

Jo is instantly taken with Andy and trusts his every word, whereas Diane isn’t so sure. There’s something fishy about this guy. And this is where things get interesting. We know that Andy is a bad guy. But we see Jo taking his side over the stepmother she despises. Andy quickly figures out the fractured dynamic and takes advantage of it. He tells Jo everything she wants to hear, making her putty in his hands. This allows the both of them to gang up on Diane, and allow Andy to control the situation.

Diane tries desperately to tell Jo that there’s something strange about Andy, but the only thing Jo sees wrong is a woman trying to take her mother’s place. As the script continues, it’s clear that Andy has some sort of plan. But what it is, and what it means for the livelihoods of these two, isn’t clear. However if I were a betting man, I’d say it’s not looking good.

I loved this script from the very first page. And the reason I loved it has a lot to do with things we’ve been discussing over the last few weeks. I’ve been telling you guys that you NEED to add conflict to your scenes. You NEED to look for ways to make your characters clash, for there to be some sort of imbalance in every scene in order to keep things entertaining. This script is the perfect example of this. I wasn’t keeping count, but I’m pretty sure every single scene in the script had conflict. And that’s why it was so exciting.

The important thing to note, though, is WHY every scene had conflict. It’s because the dynamics in the relationships were set up from the outset. For example, we set up that Jo doesn’t trust or like Diane from the very first scene. That means every scene between them is going to have conflict.

But the real power in the script is how Conradt MAXIMIZES this conflict. She wisely starts the movie with Jo’s mother dying. Because we see Jo watch her mother die, because we see how much it hurts her, we *feel* her pain. This allows us to more effectively feel the conflict between her and Diane. Had the dying of the mother merely been mentioned, I’m not sure it would’ve had that much of an effect on us.

The other major source of conflict comes from dramatic irony. We suspect that Andy is bad, but they don’t. Or at least, Jo doesn’t. So every scene between Andy and Jo or Andy and both of them is laced with this tension because we want those characters to find out what we suspect. That means there’s two strong layers of conflict going on at all times. One is between Jo and Diane. The other is between the audience and the characters. Since the majority of scenes take place with these three characters, every scene is good. You have built-in conflict before the scene’s even started. This is what writers mean when they say “the structure needs to be in place first.” If you’ve set up everything ahead of time, you don’t need to pull out your bag of tricks to make the scene work.

Another great thing about Dead Of Winter is that it knows when to reveal information or introduce a plot point to keep the story fresh. For example, for a while the goal is about heading down to a neighbor’s house to use their radio. That lasts for about 15 pages, then the goal shifts to finding out why the father hasn’t come back yet. Then the goal shifts to Diane trying to convince Jo that Andy is bad. Amongst all this, a twist will occasionally pop up, such as Andy’s secret reason for being at the house. Remember that 15 pages is about the threshold for when audiences want something new in the story. And you can see that at play here. Every 15 pages or so a new development or new focus would emerge. This is what keeps a script from feeling repetitive.

And I just loved the way Conradt crafted the relationship between Jo and Andy – the way she uses his looks and sexuality to control and take advantage of her. (Spoiler) When they kiss, it was both terrifying and hypnotizing. And how Andy used that infatuation to encourage Jo’s distrust of Diane. It’s just this constantly evolving dynamic between the three that was perfectly executed.

About the only thing I didn’t go gaga over was the ending. The ending for these scripts is always difficult. And I’m not saying it was bad. It was actually better than average. But something felt off to me about the video phone stuff. It was the only moment in the script where I became aware of the writing, and unfortunately the ending is the most important moment of the script so it has to be seamless. We can’t be aware of the writer’s hand. If Conradt can somehow tweak this, this would be an unstoppable script. But even with that flaw, it’s still damn impressive.

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

What I learned: We’ve probably heard the groan-tastic “I’m pregnant” line 600 gabillion times in movies. It’s almost impossible for it to be uttered without a giant “CLICHÉ” sign flashing underneath. So always look for a visual way to convey “I’m pregnant” if possible. Later in the script, Jo spots a bunch of Diane’s books, and in the middle of them is “What To Expect When You’re Expecting.” She quickly puts two and two together. Sure, it’s a little bit on the nose. But I’d much rather see that than Diane dramatically saying while they’re stuck in a dark room, “I’m pregnant.” Show don’t tell people!

Genre: Period Piece/Adventure
Premise: (from writers) 48 BC. When fanatics burn the Library of Alexandria to cover the theft of advanced technology, a naive engineering apprentice and a handful of displaced scholars must defeat the growing cult using scientific trickery of their own.
About: Every Friday, I review a script from the readers of the site. If you’re interested in submitting 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 that your submission stays near the top of the pile.
Writers: Aaron Greyson and Kate Foster
Details: 112 pages

So a lot of you are probably wondering why I picked this script today. I am not a swords and sandals guy by any means. But I’d read eight straight subpar scripts in a row (I hadn’t yet read The Imitation Game) and I was aching for something good. I knew if I picked the guy with 7 spelling mistakes in his query letter, even though he had a cool premise, it was going to be numero nineo. These two graduated from the UCLA writing program and even worked as readers in the industry. So I figured at the very least, they’d write something competent, and maybe even something great. So it was time to put on my toga and my “I Heart Socrates” shirt and get down to business. Caligula style. Well, maybe not Caligula style.

Alexandria was… different. It’s not bad, but the story takes a hell of a long time to get going, and is so heavily populated with characters that I found that fleshy computer between my ears overheating before I’d even hit the page 30 mark. I know I talk way too much about this, but people keep ignoring me so I’m going to talk about it again. If you include too many characters, the reader will start forgetting them. This goes double if it’s a period piece with a bunch of unfamiliar-sounding names. Ctesibius. Philokatres. Gnaeus. Makeda. Ptolemy. Athanas. You get the picture. I had to take metisibius notes in order to keep track of who was who. There’s always going to be a little work that goes into reading something like this. But the first order of business is still to entertain, so if I feel like the read is more work than play, I’m checking out.

Heron of Alexandria is a 20-year-old apprentice engineer who specializes in creating complex statues and puppeteering stages with lots of moving parts. His master is Philokatres, an imposing man who’s always quick to exert his dominance. They have the typical master and apprentice relationship where Heron believes he deserves more responsibility whereas Philokatres doesn’t think he’s ready.

The city is booming at the moment. Ptolemy XIII, the young pudgy future King, is having a great big birthday party and everybody has turned out to shake their btooty. I’m not sure if the Macarena had been invented yet, but if it had, they were doing it. We bounce around, meeting all the major players, including getting a glimpse of Cleopatra herself, when all of a sudden there’s a big argument.

I wish I could tell you what happened next but I’m not sure. All I know is that two sides were mad at each other – one of those sides taking up with Ptolemy and the other taking up with Cleopatra. This confused me because I thought Cleopatra was the queen and I thought you could never put a ‘t’ after a ‘p.’ So if Ptolemy was the future King, wouldn’t they be on the same side? Unless of course, I’m getting Ptolemy mixed up with somebody else whose name started with a P, which is very possible, and goes back to my problem of having so many characters with impossible to remember names.

Anyway, Heron and the rest of the scholars lock themselves inside the library and watch what started as a tiny skirmish turn into a giant battle. They eventually sneak out and migrate into the countryside to regroup. They do so at Philokatres’ countryside Villa, which is apparently huge, because a whole lot of people are staying there.

On the way there, they’re shocked to see a small army using a giant religious statue to scare towns into joining their cause. But the real surprise is that it’s HERON’S STATUE! He built it. And these guys have modified it to make noises and move a little more convincingly. When the ignorant come upon it, they assume it’s a God, and step in to line quickly. For those who don’t step in line, they’re slaughtered. Man do those Scientologists wish they had that kind of recruiting flexibility.

Back at the Villa, Heron befriends a slave girl and tries to recruit her, along with a bunch of others, to find out who this poser is who stole his statue, and stop him before he’s able to convert the entire continent. Little does he know that the person responsible for this façade is closer to him than he thinks.

First of all, this script was beautifully written. I have a ton of respect for people who are able to write in this genre. I can’t imagine how much you’d have to know about this time and this place and the people and the way they spoke in order to pull off anything even remotely convincing. Just the dialogue alone – I don’t know how you’d research that. I mean I’m pretty sure Cleopatra never texted Ctesibius with a “Yo Ctes. C u in 5?”

But the thing was, this script took soooooooooooooo long to get going. I’m always looking for when the main character’s goal emerges. That, to me, is the official start of the story. It’s when Shrek realizes he has to save the Princess in order to get his swamp back. It’s when Luke realizes he has to deliver the message to Princess Leia’s father. It’s when Alan Turing decides he wants to crack the Enigma Code. Here, I would designate that point as when Heron decides to find out who’s behind the statue and stop them. I don’t remember the exact page when that happened, but I’m pretty sure it was after page 50.

That’s a long time to wait for a story to begin. And I can be patient in the meantime if you build in little mini storylines that are interesting. But I just didn’t see that here. Where it really went South for me was the Villa. Just sending your characters to a Villa in the beautiful countryside alone makes it feel more like we’re on a vacation than in a movie. But then to hang out at that Villa for pages upon pages where nothing is happening just killed the script’s momentum.

And it highlighted a bigger problem. If they would have stayed at the Villa for the rest of the film, nothing bad would’ve happened to them. They would have been fine. Maybe eventually sometime in the future, 20 or 30 years from now, because they didn’t act, this religious cult would’ve swept over the Villa and destroyed it. But I’d hardly call that high stakes. I hardly sense the need to act now in order to save themselves.

If we bring back Shrek as an example. He had to leave because his sanctity was threatened. This is an ogre who lived a life of privacy. Being alone was what was most important to him. So he had to go on this journey or else he’d never have that again. It’s not clear to me why Heron needs to go on this journey other than that he’s curious.

So if I were Aaron and Kate, the first thing I would do is get to the point of this story faster. A lot faster. Identify the problem. Identify the main character’s goal. And then send him off to achieve that goal. In addition to this, create a scenario by which if he doesn’t act, his world will be threatened. Now your main character has to act, and if he doesn’t, he’s fucked.

Ideally, I would place Heron in one of these small towns to start off the story. Then I would have this religious cult with this huge statue come in, kill everybody who didn’t convert, take all the others, and have it so Heron was able to escape. All the people he loved were killed. So he gets together with a group of stragglers, the few others who were able to hide, and they go after these people. It just seems like this story would be so much more focused. As it is now, all of that stuff that goes on in Alexandria is backstory. I don’t think we need it.

Anyway, the writing itself was clean and easy to follow. I just would’ve loved something more streamlined. You’re already bumping up against conventional spec screenplay wisdom when you take on a time period like this. So if you’re going to do it, you want to make the story as audience-friendly and easy to follow as possible.

Having said all that, I did think the ending came together. It was fun that they had to use their minds in order to defeat this huge enemy as opposed to an army. I also liked the twist in the middle of the script when we find out who’s leading the army. It was unexpected and gave the story a jolt right when it needed it. Now if only we can move it along faster. Good luck on the next draft guys.

Script link: Alexandria

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

What I learned: In yesterday’s comments section, a few of you talked about getting into your scene as late as possible and getting out of your scene as early as possible. That exact same principle needs to be applied to your story itself. We need to get into the story as late as we possibly can. In my opinion, all the stuff that happens at Alexandria with the burning of the library and Cleopatra – it’s all backstory. It doesn’t have anything to do with the main story. The only time we ever see Cleopatra again is when we go there to ask her for help, to which she says, “Sorry. You’re on your own.” So why did we need that scene? We can have them be on their own without Cleopatra having to confirm it. The only other plot point I could think of that was set up in those opening pages was Heron’s statue. But do we really need 30 pages of backstory just to set up that one piece of information? I would ask if we even need to know that it’s Heron’s statue in the first place. I don’t think the story changes if it isn’t. It’s not like any knowledge he has of the machine plays into later parts of the screenplay. I suppose the fact that he knows it’s fake plays into it a little bit. But I’m not sure he needs to have created the machine to figure that out. So let’s start this story later – when our characters first encounter this cult. Now we’ve established the problem, and we can begin our character’s journey to stop it.

So last week we talked about adding conflict to scenes. Today, we’re gonna take that one step further and talk about specific ways to improve your scenes. Now the majority of what makes a scene great comes from what you’ve done beforehand. The structure of your story. The development of your characters. How you craft your relationships. You have to set all that stuff up in order to pay it off later. For example, the Jack Rabbit Slims scene in Pulp Fiction doesn’t work if it’s the first scene in the movie. It works because of what’s been set up beforehand. That said, every writer should carry around a bag of tricks for when their scenes aren’t working. Don’t have a bag of tricks? Not to worry. I’m about to give you one. Here are 10 tricks you can use to make your scenes kick ass.

ADD A GOAL TO THE SCENE
Well surprise surprise. Here we have another article and Carson’s harping on about that “goal” thing again. Well hold onto your seat sister, because this might be the most important advice I give you all day. In short, a goal gives a scene focus. Just like a goal gives a movie focus. Say you have two characters at a bar. You need to get in some exposition about how one of them is having troubles at work. Problem is, random conversation gets boring fast. However, if you switch the scene around so that your hero needs a solution (goal) for this work problem before tomorrow morning, now all of a sudden your scene has purpose. Both characters are working towards a common goal. You can still throw in a bunch of funny banter, along with necessary exposition, but since you’ve established that there’s a purpose (a goal) to the scene, we’ll be more interested in what they’re talking about. Adding goals to scenes is one of the easiest ways to make them more interesting.

TURN THE SCENE INTO A SITUATION
I got this one from the billionaire screenwriters over at Wordplayer. Remember, every single scene should be entertaining on some level – even exposition scenes. That means instead of just pushing your plot along, push it along in as entertaining a way as possible. Let’s look at Back To The Future. There’s a scene early on where Marty stumbles into town and must find out where 1950s Doc lives. So he goes into the diner, looks him up in the phone book, and finds the address. Technically, that’s all you need to get Marty to the next scene. So the scene’s over. Right? Well, no. Because it’s boring. There’s no situation there. It’s just a character moving from point A to point B. So Zemeckis and Gale throw on their creative caps and get to work. Marty runs into his father, who’s being bullied by Biff. We get a fun scene where they meet each other for the first time and then Marty has his first confrontation with the movie’s villain. You’ve taken a simple plot-point scene and you’ve turned it into a situation. Now this might seem obvious in retrospect. Of course Marty runs into his dad and Biff. The story can’t work without it. But when you’re staring at a blank page, you don’t see all that stuff yet. You have to find it. So if your scene feels thin or boring, turning it into a situation is definitely going to spice it up. And who knows, you might just find an exciting new plot direction along with it.

ADD A THIRD CHARACTER
This is an old but effective trick. A quick way to make a scene between two people more interesting is to add a third person. A great example of this is in Notting Hill. It’s the scene where William goes to talk to Anna (Julia Roberts) but her press junket is running late. Will is ushered into her room under the assumption that he’s a journalist. Now if you would’ve played this scene with just two characters, the dialogue would’ve been on the nose and boring. “Thanks for coming.” “You’re welcome. What are you up to?” “Nothing. How about you?” Borrrrrrrring. So instead, they keep sending Anna’s handler into the room to check up on them, forcing William to keep up the façade that he’s a journalist. He has to come up with questions. He has to pretend like he’s seen the movie. It adds a ton of flavor to what otherwise would’ve been an average scene. The trick is, you want the third person to agitate matters. They have to complicate things somehow. That’s where you get your entertainment.

UP THE STAKES IN THE SCENE
Hey, this may sound familiar. What are the stakes of your scene? Because if nobody in the scene has anything on the line, there’s a good chance you’ve just sent your characters to Boringsville. How do you know if the stakes are high? Ask yourself: Does my character lose anything significant if he doesn’t get what he wants? Also: Does my character gain anything significant if he gets what he wants? Look at the famous scene in The Princess Bride where the Man In Black swordfights Enigo Montaya. Both characters have an incredible amount at stake. If the Man In Black loses, he won’t be able to save the life of his true love. If Enigo Montaya loses, he’ll never be able to avenge his father’s death. That’s why that swordfight is so exciting. Contrast that with any of the hundreds of swordfights in the Pirates Of The Caribbean franchise where we feel nothing, because either we don’t know what’s at stake or what’s at stake is so murky that we don’t care. Not every scene will have astronomical stakes, but you can always make a scene better by upping the stakes.

DRAMATIC IRONY
This is hands down one of the best ways to juice up a scene. Give the audience knowledge that someone in your scene – or group of people in your scene – don’t know. This is the often referred to “bomb under the table” scenario. If two people are talking at a table, it’s boring. But if two people are talking at a table and we know there’s a bomb underneath about to go off, it’s interesting. Just remember, the bomb can be anything. Let’s say you’re writing a horror movie and your beautiful 20-year-old heroine is coming home after a night out. She comes into her apartment, puts her things away, washes her face, gets ready for bed, and as she opens her closet to throw her clothes in, a man leaps out and tackles her. Hmmm, that’s pretty boring. Let’s go back and do that same scene over again, except this time, before she walks in, show us that the man is inside the house, waiting for her ahead of time. Ohhhhhhh. Okay. Now we have dramatic irony. We know she’s in trouble but she doesn’t. Even the most mundane act – washing her face – becomes interesting. Dramatic irony people. It’s a writer’s best friend.

ADD A TICKING TIME BOMB
Any time you add urgency to a scene, everything about the scene becomes more exciting. That’s because urgency creates pressure. And dialogue and action will always be more interesting under pressure. For example, let’s say you wanted to write a scene where your married couple was discussing their problems. The obvious way to do this would be to throw them at the dinner table and let them go at it. Hmmm. You can obviously make this work. But consider how much more entertaining that conversation might be if you place it during breakfast with one of the characters (or both) late for work. Now they’re rushing around, trying to get ready, while having this intense conversation. Because we know the conversation has to end soon, it’s elevated to a new level. We feel all that emotion and tension at a higher decibel level.

PLACE YOUR CHARACTER SOMEWHERE HE OR SHE DOESN’T WANT TO BE
Remember, if there are too many scenes in your movie where your character is comfortable, there’s a good chance your movie is getting BORRRRRRRRRING. An easy way to add tension to a scene is to put your character in a situation they don’t want to be in. The Deli Scene from The Wrestler that I highlighted the other week is a good example. The last place The RAM wants to be is at that deli. You can see this in a lot of scenes. The Cantina scene in Star Wars. They don’t want to be there. It’s dangerous. Lester Burnham being dragged to his wife’s real estate convention. He doesn’t want to be there. You obviously have to mix in scenes where characters are happy in order to set up those moments, but just remember, you have to keep making your characters uncomfortable or else the situations they’re in become boring.

WANT
Make sure you know what each character wants in your scene. The stronger you can make that want, and the more that “want” conflicts with the other character’s “want,” the more entertaining a scene you’re going to write. So let’s say your main character wants to ask the Starbucks cashier out on a date. That’s his want. So the character gets up to the cashier, and his side of the conversation is very strong, but for some reason, the cashier’s side is boring and lifeless. Why is this? It’s likely because you don’t know what she wants. Maybe she’s at the end of a double shift and all she can think about is getting home. Immediately your scene becomes more interesting. Your hero has been prepping for this moment all week, and she won’t even look at him because she keeps glancing at her watch and that clock up on the wall. Even when she is looking at him, she doesn’t care because her “want” is so strong. Any time you have two strong conflicting wants in a scene, chances are you have an interesting scene.

ELIMINATE THE DIALOGUE
Forcing yourself to come up with a visual solution instead of a spoken solution can do wonders for a scene. How do you accomplish this? Start off by asking yourself, what’s the point of this scene? Then, instead of trying to convey the answer through dialogue, do it visually, through action. Show us. Don’t tell us. For example, say you want to convey that a girl is frustrated with her father. The obvious way to do this would be to have her dad ask her why she’s been quiet lately. She tells him he wasn’t around last week when she needed him most. Things get heated. She eventually storms off saying something to the effect of, “You’re such an asshole.” Instead, why not write a scene where she’s in her bedroom and hears her dad coming. She quickly grabs her headphones, throws them on, and pretends to do homework. He peeks in, sees she’s busy, and leaves. If you really wanted to drive it home, maybe she gives him the finger after he leaves. Now the truth is, in this day and age, you’re not going to have many scenes without dialogue. But you’d be surprised at how much better your scene becomes when you approach it from a “show don’t tell” perspective. You’ll probably end up adding dialogue back in, but the scene will have a more visual flair and therefore be better.

ADD AN OBSTACLE
Something we’re all guilty of in our scenes is having tunnel vision. We know what we want out of the scene, so we write a straightforward version of it. For example, if we’re writing a breakup scene, we simply write our character break up with the other character. The scene does what it’s supposed to do so we’re happy. But in the end, the scene feels flat. A breakup is supposed to be an entertaining moment. Why is ours so boring? It’s likely because the scene is too predictable – too straightforward. You need to add an obstacle, a twist, something unexpected. For example, in Say Anything, Diane is going to break up with Lloyd. But as she’s preparing to do it, Lloyd goes into this big thing about how much he likes her and how they’re going to do all these things together and he tells her about the letter he wrote her. All of a sudden, breaking up isn’t so easy. And it’s all because we added a little obstacle – an unexpected roadblock. I think whenever a scene is too easy, you should be looking to add some sort of obstacle to throw the scene out of balance.

I guarantee that these tools will improve your scenes. It has to be the right fit for the right scene, but the solution to one of your yucky scenes is probably listed above. The only thing left is to figure out tip number 11. I’m gonna leave that one up to you guys. What tricks or methods do you use to improve your scenes? Maybe we can come up with the ultimate list and sell all of our screenplays to Fox by the weekend. Suggestions in the comments section please. :-)

Genre: Comedy
Premise: In 1986, the year Halloween lost its innocence, three junior high best friends try to salvage their last shot at the holiday.
About: There’s not a whole lot of info on this screenplay but it looks to have been commissioned from National Lampoon’s for Robbie Chavitz to write. Robbie has been working for a long time in the business as a writer, director, and actor, though he hasn’t had any huge breakout success yet.
Writer: Robbie Chafitz
Details: 112 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).

I like to find the diamonds in the rough just like any other reader. And since Halloween is coming up, and the premise for this one sounded fun, I thought it was the perfect opportunity to go diamond hunting. Unfortunately, the diamond I found turned out to be a sharp rusty nail, hidden in a mini Snickers bar, which turned the inside of my mouth into a bloody stew of flesh.

I didn’t think you could write a Halloween script that was as average in its execution as Fun Size but The Last Night Of October managed to do so. This one was just devoid of everything. It doesn’t have a single element that sticks out.

October follows three 13-year-olds, Matt, Wayne, and Frankie. As you would expect, all three characters are kind of nerdy, and all the major character tropes are covered. Matt is super average, but un-nerdy enough to be our hero. Wayne is the skinny dork. And Frankie is the sloppy fat kid.

The movie starts off with a school demonstration about how dangerous Halloween has become. An officer warns the kids that there are a lot of bad people out there who are looking to kidnap children and/or stuff their candy with razor blades and anything else that could maim or kill them.

But our un-heroic trio could care less. As 13-year-olds, this is probably their last ever night of trick or treating, so they have to make sure it’s the best trick-or-treat night ever. Wayne has even gone so far as to map out the “Golden” route, where he’s used years of experience to only cover the houses with the best candy.

Oh but wait. Obstacles start happening immediately (if by “immediately” you mean after 30 pages of nothing happening). Fatso Frankie gets grounded by his parents because… well, he’s too fat. Then there’s Matt, whose father so much wants to be the “cool” dad, that he follows his son around like a lost puppy. I think something happens to Wayne as well but it was so inconsequential that I don’t remember it.

After 10,418 pages, the group actually starts their trick-or-treat route, and hijinks ensue. For example, one of them gets stuck inside a Jesus freak’s house who keeps telling him about the importance of God. And then another one – I’m not kidding you – gets stuck in an old woman’s house who wraps him up in yarn. Still another one of the group gets caught with a really nervous man with no treats. I’m sorry but there were moments where I thought the script’s goal was to not be funny.

Eventually the kids find their way inside a high school party with a lot of drinking and the story picks up a bit as they gargle some booze and get a little wasted. I admit that for a brief five pages, when they meet some girls, I believed there was a chance the script would rally.

But alas, all we get is something about all of them going to a haunted house where the family who used to live there is supposedly dead, only to get there, start partying, and find out that the family is still very much alive and back from a night out.

Let’s see. How do I categorize this one? Well I should probably say this. Any screenplay that I read right after The Imitation Game has a tough act to follow. When you read a lot of screenplays, you always encounter stretches of mediocre material. After a while, you begin to think that’s all that’s out there. Then you read a script that’s actually good and you go, “Oh yeah, this is what real writing looks like.”

So when you go back to the average writing, it sticks out like a sore thumb. I mean the opening 10 pages here killed this script. Absolutely nothing happened. We literally got a 10 page scene of a cop talking to a bunch of kids. 10 pages! Of a demonstration. And I’m not saying that you can’t make an opening 10 page scene work, BUT SOMETHING NEEDS TO BE HAPPENING IN THOSE TEN PAGES! If all you’re doing is setting up your characters and spouting out exposition, you’ve lost the battle before it began. I already know I’m in for a long boring ride because if it takes a writer ten pages to get across what should have been conveyed in three, who knows how boring and unfocused it’s going to get for the next 100 pages.

Indeed, this script takes forever to start. I don’t think they actually get on the trick-or-treat route until page 33. Up until that point, all that happens is kids talking to each other. They talk and talk and talk and talk. And I don’t even know what the hell they’re talking about. But boy did they keep talking. This is why I so madly obsess over goals. If you give your characters goals, your characters will be active. They’ll be doing things. They’ll be pushing the story forward. If you don’t, all you have is a bunch of characters in a bunch of rooms talking to each other. Borrrrring.

There’s no GSU here. There’s no conflict here. There’s no exploration of character flaws here. There’s no character development here. As far as I can tell, this is just about three kids who go out on Halloween and trick-or-treat. That could be funny if the obstacles they ran into were interesting or funny in some way. But all of the gags and all of the events were either obvious, predictable, or dumb. A kid who needs to call for help because an old woman has wrapped him up in yarn? I don’t know where to begin with that

The thing is, there was so much potential here. I was a little too young to remember Halloween in 1986, but I remember my parents talking about it. It was the year the holiday died. Up until that point, it was a safe fun exciting experience. I mean what’s better as a kid than walking around from house to house with people handing you candy? It’s like the greatest holiday ever.

But that year, everything changed. Kids were getting abducted. Bad people were stuffing razor blades in candy bars. You couldn’t trust the experience anymore. Parents became paralyzed with fear for their children. And the kids felt that. Even sixth-graders were being escorted around by their guardians.

The thing is, I don’t think I’ve ever read a script where something was discussed as much as this was, and yet I didn’t feel an ounce of it. There are probably two dozen moments in Last Night where people talk about the danger of Halloween, and not once did it resonate. Maybe it was because they were telling and not showing. I don’t know. But it never went beyond the page. Since I didn’t feel that fear, I didn’t care about the story.

And also, of course, the characters were boring as hell. So I didn’t care about them either. If you don’t care about the characters and you don’t care about the story, there isn’t much left in a screenplay to care about. Which is why this was such a disappointing read. This didn’t work for me at all.

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

What I learned: Do not start your movie off with an exposition scene. Don’t do it. Even if it’s funny. It’s too risky. If the reader feels right away like they’re being asked to remember important things and are not being entertained, they’re done with you. And if you ignore this advice – because I’m sure there’s a good movie or two that started out with exposition, for the love of God, make it short. Do not make it 10 pages long.

I guess we should’ve known Nicholl would never allow scripts as weird as Fig Hunt and A Many Splintered Thing to win.  That’s not their M.O.  They tend to highlight those types of scripts in their finalists category, then award the trophy to more serious fare. I haven’t read any of the winning scripts yet, but I’ve heard mixed things on Unicorn (a serial killer script).  Some have called it average, others amazing.  Anyway, here are your winners! Congratulations guys.  Being the top dogs out of 6700 entries ain’t easy!

Chris Bessounian & Tianna Langham, Los Angeles, Calif., “Guns and Saris – They’ve been oppressed and brutalized at the bottom of India’s caste system for 3000 years, but now the “untouchable” women of India have found an unlikely source of hope – and she’s armed.
Dion Cook, Altus, Okla., “Cutter” – After surviving the nightmare of the 1994 Rwandan genocide, Patrice Gasana has made a new life in the United States.  A dedicated Miami trauma physician, Patrice lives the American dream with his loving fiancé and her daughter – until his past returns to imperil everything he holds dear.
John MacInnes, Los Angeles, Calif., “Outside the Wire” – An ex-Marine working in Iraq saves a young, single-mom in US Army from assassination by his powerful employers. Two Americans on the run in the most dangerous place on the planet with hostile insurgents, militiamen, and a private army hot on their tail, in a desperate bid to make it back home.
Matthew Murphy, Culver City, Calif., “Unicorn” – A by-the-book FBI profiler must track down a serial killer with the help of an illiterate 24-year-old psychic.
Abel Vang & Burlee Vang, Fresno, Calif., “The Tiger’s Child” – When his father is suddenly killed after being coerced into the CIA’s Secret Army, twelve-year-old Tou must decide whether or not to follow in the same footsteps in order to provide for Cheng, his five-year-old brother.