Genre: Action/Thriller
Premise: Two young women are kidnapped, brought deep into the woods, given a head start, and then hunted down by their sadistic captor all for the pleasure of the online fans of “The Nowhere Game.”
About: This script finished with 9 votes on last year’s Black List, by far the writer’s, Alex Pototsky, biggest achievement. Pototsky commutes between Dublin, Ireland and Los Angeles, California. He’s been at this for over a decade. In 2013, at 19, he wrote a musical about Steve Jobs.
Writer: Alex Pototsky
Details: 89 pages
It is a spec script conundrum we all face. Give the reader the fastest read possible but still create enough depth and plot that we care about what’s going on. Can today’s script achieve that? I want to believe!
Note: This is one of those scripts you probably want to read before you read my review because in order to speak about pivotal parts of the script, I have to reveal major spoilers (someone will probably have the script in the comments).
Allie and Carin, both 20, on their way to explore the great white north together, end up getting kidnapped by a man we will only know as The Hunter. The Hunter drives them waaaaaaaay further up than either of them planned on going into the northernmost part of the United States, presumably Alaska (although we’re never told exactly where they are).
When they wake up, they’re in a cabin. The Hunter casually explains to them that they’re about to start a game and that the game will be streamed on the black net. The good news is, he’ll give them 6 hours to get as far away as possible. The bad news is, they’re in the middle of nowhere. So, chances are high that it’s only a matter of time before he hunts them down.
Of the two, Carin is the tough one. She’s the hiker outdoorsy type. Allie is the one who likes to stay in, screw around on the internet, and do nothing. So, naturally, Carin is the leader. And her first order is KEEP MOVING. They quickly get to a maze-like area where there are six directions to go and each is marked with a roman numeral. In other words, this is a very thought-out game.
They hurry off in the direction that seems most promising and soon start coming across notes from some girl named Becca, one of the previous contestants. Becca left these notes in hidden places to help other girls. So they use Becca as their guide. This ultimately takes them to a river but The Hunter catches up to them and is able to shoot and kill Carin. Allie is able to jump in the river before she’s killed, and that river gets her very far away from The Hunter.
But she knows The Hunter is coming. So she has to prepare. She eventually comes upon the corpse of Becca who, it turns out, escaped The Hunter. But she died out here of starvation. The fact that Becca didn’t get murdered infuses Allie with a newfound confidence. She then gets a crazy idea. She’s going to team up with Becca to take The Hunter down for good.
This script surprised me! The logline was so simplistic that I didn’t think it had legs.
But the script does all the basics well (Goal, stakes, urgency, conflict, likable protagonists, hated villain) and it has a few tricks up its sleeve that elevate it to a double worth the read.
But let’s start with the choice to go with two girls instead of one. That’s a big creative choice you’re making right there. Because, if you go with one girl, which I’ve seen plenty of writers do in the past, you don’t have any dialogue. That’s a dangerous direction to go in because readers need dialogue. If they don’t have it, they don’t have any “breathers” in the script – where they can cover 2 pages in 20 seconds. Readers like those breathers.
On the flip side, two people makes the reader feel safer than one. So you lose a little bit of the fear you would’ve gotten by placing a girl out here alone. Personally, I think the writer made the right choice.
I also liked the way he explored it. He starts with Carin as the tough one and Allie as the weak one. And then, late in the second act, Carin’s killed and Allie must become tougher to win. So we get this really nice character transformation. Every reader (and audience member) loves a good protagonist transformation.
I also noted something interesting about Carin’s death and how it affected the story. Once Carin dies, Allie instantly becomes a much deeper character. Why? Because she’s experienced the death of her best friend. These are the kinds of things that a lot of writers are forced to do via backstory.
For example, in a lesser version of this screenplay, Allie would’ve been kidnapped alone and then we would’ve found out, throughout the story, that she recently lost her best friend. The writer would’ve tried to add depth to Allie’s character through that backstory.
But when we get to see that death with our own eyes, it hits a thousand times harder. And now we’re REALLY rooting for Allie because we feel her past. I know it’s weird to think of it this way but, essentially, if you started this story with Allie waking up after her best friend was killed out here in the forest, Carin’s death is technically backstory.
But what really elevated this script for me was Becca. I’m always looking for ways to create unique characters. Cause how many different ways can you portray a person? Not that many. That’s why it’s so hard to create fresh characters that pop off the page. But clever writers can do it. And this one did it by making a dead character the third biggest character in the movie.
Because all Becca is doing is leaving notes. Leaving trails to follow. Leaving hope. And we even see her, at the end – her body at least. I don’t know if this is going to become a trend but Dead Becca plays a huge role in the climax (we just saw a dead character play a major part in a battle in Deadpool and Wolverine). She’s almost as big of a character as Carin is. That’s really something. To create somebody so memorable who’s not technically in the story.
That triple combo: Losing Carin, Allie’s character transformation, and teaming up with Dead Becca to take down The Hunter, were what elevated this script above your average action-thriller spec.
Something else I liked about this script is that the writer deftly avoided some of the yuckiness that could’ve been attributed to it. You read this logline and it reads like a 2004 logline, 12 years before the #metoo movement where hunting girls in scripts was commonplace. So I was wondering if that would make it feel dated.
But, oddly enough, The Hunter is barely in the story. He’s there at the beginning. He’s there at the end. Very briefly in the second act he shows up. But that’s it. The rest of the script focuses on the girls moving through the forest. We hear him sometimes in the distance. But we never jump back to him. Which had an interesting effect. I think I felt more fear from NOT seeing him. Because, like the girls, I often didn’t know how close he was. So all I cared about was getting further away. It added a ton of intensity to the story.
I’m really happy that I came across this script because it’s a wonderful reminder that if you can tell a simple story well, you’re a screenwriter.
Honestly, I almost gave this an “impressive.” The only reason I didn’t is because it wasn’t making a bigger statement about the world. It was more about survival. And I think the ceiling for that formula is a double worth the read. But it’s definitely worth checking out, especially if you’re studying how to write a kick ass spec-script.
[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[ ] wasn’t for me
[xx] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: Learn how to tell a simple story well, like The Nowhere Game, and you’ve set the bedrock for your career as a screenwriter. Cause there’s nowhere to hide in a simple story. You have to be good with plotting and character. Once you’ve proven you can do that, you’ve graduated to being able to tackle more complex stories.
