Genre: Political Comedy/Satire
Premise: You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.
About: This script sold for 2 million dollars in 1990. Adjusted for inflation that would be 3.3 million today. One of the most famous (infamous) spec scripts in history. Why? The premise of course. For those not in the know, Joe Eszterhas, who wrote Basic Instinct, is the most successful screenwriter in history. There was a time when any piece of paper that even got close to his typewriter would sell for a cool million. He sold Basic Instinct for 3 million, Jade for 2.5 million, Showgirls for 2 million, Reliable Sources (unproduced) for 2 million, Male Pattern Baldness (unproduced) for 2 million. And that’s not including the ridiculous amounts of money he got paid for assignment work.
Writer: Joe Eszterhas
Details: 125 pages (April 1, 1990)

There’s a telling clue that you’re in for a strange ride when you open Sacred Cows. The date on the title page reads “April’s Fool, 1990.” I toiled over this strange detail for hours. Was this merely a fancy way of writing down April 1st? Or did Joe Eszterhas fool Hollywood into one of the biggest April Fool’s pranks in history? Or is the April Fool’s prank on us, years later, who’ve been told this screenplay actually sold for 2 million dollars? I mean, it can’t really have been sold for 2 million dollars, right? Not with this premise. There’s no way.

Sacred Cows is about a presidential election for the ages. Jim Taylor, a sort of young sleazy Republican, pushes the “us” campaign. There are many countries struggling across the world. But Taylor’s tired of the way the U.S. throws money at them. What about our country? Why aren’t we investing these dollars in the good ole U. S. of A? On the flip side is Democrat incumbent Sam Parr, 64, an old codger who’s obsessed with India for some reason. The people there are poor. Their economy is non-existent. India needs help. And it’s the United States who can give it to them.

On the outside, Parr embodies the selfless big-hearted moral human being we all aspire to be. But Sam’s got some demons mixed up with all those organs inside his body, namely that he’s obsessed with fucking women. He’s been doing it ever since he got in this whole political game, and his his woman du jour is a big name foxy reporter who – surprise surprise – will do anything for a story.

A day before the first official debate, Taylor’s team sends Parr’s team a message. They wanna talk. It’s important. So Taylor and Parr meet in a dark room minutes before the debate, and Taylor tells him he wants him to drop out of the race. If he doesn’t, he’ll release to the world Parr’s giant secret. We glean from Parr’s expression that whatever this doozy is, it’s big. The kind of thing that makes fucking a network reporter look like a teleprompter mishap.

The next day Parr’s team receives photographic evidence of this secret: Parr, in a barn, FUCKING A COW. Yes, you read that right. Parr is a cow-fucker. Well, he’s not a serial cow fucker. He used to fuck cows as a boy but he hasn’t fucked a cow in over 50 years. Until now. It just so happened that on a recent trip to his childhood home, he got a little nostalgic and…well…decided to give it to Bessie.

Politics is all about spinning. It’s one of the first things you learn when you run for office. But how in the hell do you spin fucking a cow? Parr’s cabinet improvises, doing the best they can with what they’ve got. Maybe they can spin it as a calculated move. The Muslims hate us, are always committing acts of terrorism against us. By fucking a cow, we piss off the Hindus (who hold cows sacred), and since Muslims hate Hindus, by association the Muslims will now love us. Terrorism over.

Which is fine. But Parr is horrified by what he’s done to the carefully crafted relations he’s built up with the Hindus (remember, that was his whole campaign). The Hindus are, understandably, outraged. You don’t exactly break out the champagne when the man in the most powerful position in the world literally FUCKS the animal you hold most sacred. These things don’t go over well. Or so I’ve heard.

No time to worry about that though because a National Enquirer like paper called “The Snitch,” picks up the story and releases a photo of Parr fucking the cow. Luckily it’s dark and grainy and because it’s The Snitch, there’s reason to doubt its authenticity. But it’s just real-looking enough to get the public stirring. Could it really be true? Where’s the beef? It’s in the cow.

In the meantime, his wife, his son, his daughter, and his mistress are all horrified by the revelation. Each feels that their name has been shamed and that they’ll be laughing stocks for the rest of their lives. That is IF the picture is real – which is still a matter of debate. During this time, all the major papers try to decide what to do with the story. Do they really run a headline painting their president as a cow-fucker?

His wife is so devastated that she runs off. Parr is concerned enough that he jumps in a gardener’s truck and chases after her. The Chief Of Staff as well as the rest of the White House is horrified to learn that they have no idea where the President Of The United States is. An already cataclysmic situation has gone nuclear.

The story kinda shifts gears and gets into Parr and his wife’s relationship. They’ve had an understanding throughout their marriage that Parr is going to chase younger tail (oops, bad choice of words) but he will always come back to her. The arrangement has worked until now but I suppose there’s an unwritten rule that when you fuck a cow, all bets are off. His wife doesn’t know if she can get over this one.

Naturally, Parr’s 28 point lead plummets and it becomes abundantly clear he’s got no shot at re-election. The last thing he can do is fly to India and try to repair his relationship with the Hindus. American flag-burning demonstrations have over-taken the country and the resulting violence has led to hundreds of deaths. The president, who up to this point has not given a definitive answer on whether he did or did not fuck that cow, goes to the heart of Calcutta where he gives an internationally televised speech, admitting his crime, and apologizing for it. India is thankful. They accept his apology, and of course, the heartfelt speech ends up swaying public opinion back in America, and helping Parr win the election at the last second.

Ummm…

Hmmm…

Did I really read what I think I just read? Did this really sell for 2 million dollars? I don’t know where to start here. On the one hand, you can say Sacred Cows represents just how insane the spec market was in the 90s. On the other, it’s a lesson that when you get hot as a writer, you can put just about anything down on paper and the powers that be will beg you for it.

Was the script any good? I mean, I guess it was. I admit that there’s a smooth flow to Esztheras’ writing, like taking one continuous gulp of Guiness while floating in a bubble bath. It’s a 125 page behemoth but it reads 35 pages lighter, no doubt in part to Esztheras hitting the gas whenever he gets into dialogue scenes, refusing to weigh them down with large chunks of supplementary action. He allows you to work out the visuals yourself and that’s fine by me.

Another thing I like about Esztheras’ script is how well he hides the structure beneath his story. This isn’t as plot heavy as say, Back To The Future, but there’s definitely some plot here, and I marveled at how little I noticed the act breaks or the story beats. They’re definitely there, but as I was reading them I didn’t notice, which reminded me a lot of a similar titan’s script, Sorkin’s “The Social Network.” You’re wholly unaware of the writer trying to manipulate you, and in my eyes that’s the last piece, after figuring out how to structure a script and craft great characters, to becoming a great writer.

But in the end it’s all just so bizarre. This script. This story. I do feel like the butt of an April Fools’ joke and I’m still not completely convinced that this sale actually happened. I can see it having been announced in Variety (“Esztheras sells script about President who fucks cow for 2 million!”) on April 1st, only to be recanted the next day as a prank. Yet throughout the years, people forgot about the prank part, and it was passed on as a real event. I don’t know. For those of you around back then, did this really happen?

I’m torn about whether to recommend this because while the writing is something to admire, the idea is just too out there. I guess, as a curiosity, it’s worth checking out.

P.S. How great would this script have been had it come out after Bill Clinton’s presidency? A script about a president who has sex with a cow months after Clinton’s affair with Monica Lewinsky? Ahhh…what could’ve been.

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

What I learned: Esztheras was known throughout Hollywood as a powder keg. He famously clashed with a studio head about recommended changes to his script. And when I say clashed, I mean he PHYSICALLY FOUGHT him. Esztheras’ philosophy was simple. I don’t tell you how to do your job. You don’t tell me how to do mine. He was the one writer who didn’t act as a doormat for the industry, but rather swept people underneath his own. Now as writers, we’re told to shut up and do as told because we’re a dime a dozen. We can be fired and replaced in less time than it takes to say ‘rewrite.’ Yet here we have the most successful screenwriter in history taking the exact opposite approach. Esztheras went fucking bananas when he found out Verhoven wanted to take out all the sex in Basic Instinct. He fought like a bull in heat and eventually Verhoven relented, keeping the sex in, and as a result made one of the best movies of the 90s. So should you stand up for what you believe in or suck it up and do as told? The overwhelming majority of writers recommend that you shut up and do what they tell you to. Yet the most successful screenwriter in history did the exact opposite. So which is right? I guess you have to decide whether you’re as irreplaceable as Joe Esztheras. If you believe you are, then fight on.

Genre: Drama/Independent
Premise: A disturbed man with a good heart is tormented by his talking pets, who convince him to do things he’d rather not do.
About: This is the number 3 script on the 2009 Black List. For those of you scratching your heads and saying the name “Michael R. Perry,” sounds familiar, that’s because it is. We reviewed one of his older scripts here called, “Twenty Billion,” which he wrote with Steven Gaghan and Michael Tolkin. Perry’s been around for awhile, writing and producing for TV shows like Millennium, The Practice, NYPD Blue, and House M.D. Not surprising at all, since this script shows a command of the craft I haven’t seen in a long time.
Writer: Michael R. Perry
Details: 112 pages (January 28, 2009 draft)

The Voices is a gooey and glorious dip into darkness. It bites when you expect it to bark. It bleeds when you expect it to heal. It’s one of those rare experiences where, no matter how many millions of words you’re read in your lifetime, you have no idea what to expect next. The characters are always odd, saying and doing things that don’t quite feel like things normal people say and do. Yet in this universe, it all makes perfect sense. Part Dr. Dolittle, part American Psycho (try using that mash-up as a pitch), I can say with complete confidence that I’ve never read a script like The Voices before, nor do I ever expect to again.

Jerry Hickfang is one of those guys who looks normal at first, but ya get the feeling he has a few loose screws up in the attic. He’s just started working at a massive bathroom fixture factory, sealing up shower molds so people like you and I can stay clean during our day job. Jerry is nice and polite, if a little too eager to bond with his new co-workers.

If you had any doubt that Jerry was strange, that goes away once he gets home (home is an abandoned Bowling Alley attic by the way). It’s there that we meet Jerry’s two pets, Mr. Whiskers the cat and Bosco the dog. Mr. Whiskers gives it to you straight, condemning your life choices at every opportunity and never leaving any doubt that the world is a horrible place, and that you’re likely doing horrible things in it. Bosco is much nicer, constantly supportive of your choices and goals. If Jerry has a nice day, Bosco’s the one to congratulate him. Oh, did I mention I know this because Jerry’s animals talk to him? Yes, ever since Jerry has been a child, dogs, cats, socks, and random inanimate objects talk to him. Jerry hears voices.
But hey, what’s a little harmless conversation about last week’s The Bachelor with your poodle if no one’s getting hurt, right? Things seem to be going just splendid anyway. Jerry’s been invited to the company picnic, where he befriends Katie from accounting, a beautiful invigorating spirit who I couldn’t help but think should be played by that new secretary from The Office. Katie likes Jerry, but not nearly as much as Jerry likes her. When Katie recruits Jerry to help teach the Macarena to everyone, he interprets it as a sign of true love (as crazy people usually do). This, unfortunately, is seriously bad news for Katie. Because when crazy people meet girls in movies, they tend to end up killing them later.

So late one night, when Jerry’s cruising around after the carnival, he runs into Katie, whose car has broken down. Naturally, he takes this as a sign of fate. Katie isn’t nearly as convinced, but she’s game for some fun and the two go on an impromptu date. But when a 5 point buck smashes through their window, the mood goes south pronto, and a freaked out Katie darts into the woods. Jerry races after her, and in a clumsy scuffle to settle her down, he accidentally stabs and kills her. Jerry runs home, where he seeks advice from his talking pets. Bosco thinks he should go to the police right away. And naturally, Mr. Whiskers believes that choice is the stupidest fucking idea on earth. Jerry decides to keep his trap shut.

Back at work, people become suspicious about Katie’s absence, but no one knows the two went out together, so as long as they don’t find the body, Jerry’s fine. Mr. Whiskers picks up on this and encourages Jerry to dispose of the body, so Jerry drives out to the woods and brings it back. He then chops it into pieces for disposal, and throws the severed head in the fridge. This is when things got kinda freaky. Because you hear about this sick shit on the news, yet here, we’re getting an ongoing play by play of exactly how the killer is thinking while he’s doing it. And because there’s a certain amount of sympathy we have towards Jerry, and because we know that Jerry didn’t mean to do it, everything he does makes sense on some level.

The problem for Jerry is that “the voices” stop peddling their candy-coated rhetoric and start getting nasty. If he’s already killed once, they argue, why not kill more? Jerry doesn’t want to hurt anyone, but his pets are his only true friends, and he takes their advice dearly. So Jerry asks a second girl out from work, and we watch hopelessly as this new relationship evolves, knowing full well there’s only one way it can end, despite Jerry’s best intentions. The fallout from that relationship leads to a host of other complications that snowball out of control, until Jerry’s forced to deal with just how fucked up in the head he is – starting with the issue of his cat and his dog carrying on daily conversations with him.

The biggest achievement of The Voices is the aforementioned sympathy you gain for a character who’s, essentially, a serial killer. He continues to kill innocent people, yet his rationalization behind each kill makes sense in the context of his situation. It makes you wonder, “Is this the kind of stuff that goes on in a real serial killer’s head? Do they too hear these voices?” Since we, as human beings, survive by rationalizing our most devious behaviors, is it okay to sympathize with someone for doing something horrible if that person truly believes they’re not being horrible? Jerry never wants to kill anyone. Yet people seem to get killed around Jerry. I guess the point I’m trying to make is, “Why the hell am I rooting for a serial killer???”

Part of it is Perry’s mastery of tone. He molds it and shapes it just like Jerry molds those shower stalls. Because the characters and situations here exist in a slightly sillier/heightened universe, Perry is allowed to get away with more. This is a universe where the Macarena is the movie’s soundtrack, where characters live in bowling alleys, and of course, where dogs, cats, and severed heads speak. This slightly offbeat world helps cushion the impact of some of the more outrageously violent moments, allowing us to enjoy them, instead of the more natural response of being sickened.

It’s hard to find much wrong with The Voices. I guess the deaths were a little repetitive (all the victims seemed to run into the forest – although I guess that could be used for comedic effect). The theme of God comes on strong in the final act, yet its presence is pretty scattershot in the first two. And on a more real-world note, I felt sorry for these poor pets Jerry was obviously neglecting (the healthy happy talking pets he sees are not even close to what the real pets look like). But this was such a fresh unique read, I bandied about whether I should add it to my Top 25. For now I’m going to keep it off. But I might throw it up there in a few weeks, after I’ve had time to let it sink in.

If this sounds like something you’d in any way be interested in, drop what you’re doing and read it now.

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

What I learned: I often talk about “What’s driving your story?” What is the main thrust at any given moment that keeps your reader turning the pages? Most of the time, it’s a character with a strong goal (i.e. Find the Arc, save your daughter, kill the terrorists) or a mystery (The Ring, Sixth Sense, The Hangover) or maybe your character is being chased (i.e. Enemy Of The State, The Bourne movies, Star Wars). But there are also lesser known devices you can use to drive our interest. And one of them is used here. The “train wreck” approach. Basically, it’s providing a scenario we know is going to end badly, so we have to keep watching to see how it ends. Here, we know Jerry is crazy. We know all of this is going to blow up in his face. So we keep watching to find out when and how it happens. It’s no different than the sick anticipation we have creeping up the highway as we wait to see the big car wreck. We have to look. It’s not as popular of a device, but it can definitely be used effectively in the right hands.

A couple weeks back I got the idea for a Reader Top 25 – a sort of definitive word on the best screenplays that hadn’t yet made it to the big screen. Would the choices reflect my own favorites? Would they be completely different? Well obviously, for a lot of you, this is your only source to read screenplays, so your Top 25 consists mainly of scripts I’ve reviewed on the site. However, there are quite a few that made their way onto the list that I haven’t even read, so that was surprising.

Over 400 of you wrote in with your Top 10 favorite reads. The way I scored it was simple. I assigned 10 points to every number 1 choice. 9 points to every number 2. 8 points to every number 3. And all the way down to 1 point for a 10th place choice. I then added up all the numbers, and ranked the scripts by total points. Below you’ll find the script ranking, along with the point total and premise. If there’s a review, I’ll link you to it. Since I’ve already posted scripts 1-25, today I’ll post the ten (or eleven) scripts that *just* missed the cut. If you’d like to see the Top 10 scripts not reviewed on the site, go here. Otherwise, onward…

Before we get to the Top 25, these 11 scripts just barely missed the cut…

35. (155 pts) Seven Psychopaths by Martin McDonagh – Black Comedy – Reviewed by Roger – A writer’s life is violently turned upside down when his friends kidnap a Mafioso’s dog.

34. (160 pts) Nowhere Boy by Julia Baird – Drama – Not Reviewed – A chronicle of John Lennon’s childhood.

33. (162 pts) Tenure by Mike Million – Dramedy – Reviewed by Me – A professor at a small liberal arts college finds his entire future depends on whether he achieves tenure.

32. (169 pts) Will by Demetri Martin – Comedy – Reviewed by Me – Set in a world where people’s lives are written by angels, a guy wakes up one day to find that his heavenly writer has quit, and must go about his life unscripted.

31. (171 pts) Brad Cutter Ruined My Life Again by Joe Nussbaum – Comedy – Reviewed by me – A former high school nerd who’s finally achieved success in the world, finds out that his company is hiring the most popular kid from his old school. Before he knows it, the company turns into its own high school, and once again, he’s the nerd.

30. (174 pts) Prisoners by Aaron Guzikowski – Thriller – Reviewed but taken down – A Boston man kidnaps the person he suspects is behind the disappearance of his young daughter and her best friend.

29. (175 pts) The Only Living Boy In New York by Alan Loeb – Coming-Of-Age – Reviewed by Me – Coming-of-age tale about a young man who falls in love with his father’s mistress.

28. (178 pts) Happy Thank You More Please by Josh Radnor – Coming-Of-Age – Reviewed by Me – This coming-of-age tale follows six lives in modern day New York, highlighted by a 20-something aspiring novelist who accidentally adopts a 6 year old African American child.

27. Tie (183 pts) Dead Loss by Josh Baizer and Marshall Johnson – Thriller – Reviewed by Me – A crew of crab fisherman rescue a drifting castaway with a mysterious cargo.

27. Tie (183 pts) The True Memoirs Of An International Assassin by Jeff Morris – Comedy – Reviewed by Me – After a publisher changes a writer’s debut novel about a deadly assassin from fiction to nonfiction, the author finds himself thrust into the world of his lead character, and must take on the role of his character for his own survival.

26. (186 pts) Passengers by John Spaihts – Sci-Fi – Reviewed by Me – A spacecraft transporting thousands of people to a distant planet has a malfunction in one of its sleep chambers. As a result, a single passenger is awakened 90 years before anyone else. Faced with the prospect of growing old and dying alone, he wakes up a second passenger who he’s fallen in love with. (note: There is a degree of error that should be taken into account between this and the other Passengers, as some people did not clarify which one they were voting for. I tried to get confirmation from as many people as I could, but there are still probably points mixed up between the two).

And now for the Top 25!

25. (189 pts) Nightfall by Michael Stokes – Horror – Reviewed by Tarson Meads – Two US mercenaries become involved in a brazen plot to kidnap a beautiful and seductive socialite. However, they soon realize the girl they’ve snatched is an ancient Vampire queen, and her legion is out to get her back.

24. (213 pts) Aaron and Sara by Chad Gomez Creasy and Dara Resnik Creasy – RomCom – Reviewed by Me – Described as a “High School When Harry Met Sally,” Aaron and Sara is about a nerd and a cheerleader who become best friends during their four years of high school.

23. (218 pts) Fuckbuddies by Liz Meriwether – RomCom – Reviewed by Zack Smith – A guy and a girl struggle to have an exclusively sexual relationship as they both come to realize they want much more.

22. (229 pts) Galahad by Ryan Condal – Historical Adventure – Not reviewed – A revisionist take on the tale of King Arthur, which finds the fabled leader murdered by Queen Guinevere, who in turn framed Sir Galahad for the crime.

21. (234 pts) Famous Last Words by Josh Schwartz – Coming Of Age – Reviewed on Matriarchal Script Paradigm -A teen embarks on a new life at a private school where he experiences love, life, loss, friends, and more.

20. (237 pts) To The White Sea by The Coen Brothers – Historical Drama/Action – Not reviewed – His bomber hit by anti-aircraft fire, an American gunner must parachute into Tokyo days before the great firebomb raid on the city.

19. (245 pts) Going The Distance by Geoff LaTulippe – Comedy – Not reviewed – A comedy about a couple trying to overcome that most difficult of hurdles: the long-distance relationship.

18. (250 pts) Kristy by Anthony Jawinski – Horror/Thriller – Reviewed by Tarson Meads – In the vein of THE STRANGERS. A student trapped on a deserted college campus comes under attack by a malevolent group of intruders.

17. (259 pts) The Ornate Anatomy Of Living Things by Matt Spicer & Max Winkler – Drama – Not Reviewed – A New York bookstore clerk discovers a museum dedicated entirely to his life.

16. (287 pts) Up In The Air by Jason Reitman – Drama – Reviewed by Me – A professional who specializes in “career transition counseling” is on the verge of accumulating 5 million frequent flier miles.

15. (343 pts) Winter’s Discontent by Paul Fruchbom – Comedy – Not Reviewed – A sexually frustrated widower moves into a retirement community with one objective in mind: to get laid.

14. (352 pts) The Beaver by Kyle Killen – Black Comedy – Reviewed by Scott and I – A manic depressive family man finds a beaver puppet in his garbage. When he puts it on, his life takes a dramatic turn for the better. Or does it?

13. (353 pts) The Many Deaths Of Barnaby James by Brian Nathanson – Horror/Dark Fantasy – Reviewed by Roger – A teenage apprentice in a macabre circus for the dead yearns to bring his true love back to life, but not before encountering the many dangerous and gothic characters that stand in his way.

12. (374 pts) I Want To ____ Your Sister by Melissa Stack – Comedy – Not Reviewed – A stock trader’s hot younger sister takes an entry level position at his work. Now he must fight off all the men who desperately want to ____ his sister.

11. (406 pts) Sunflower by Misha Green – Thriller – Reviewed by Me – Two women are held hostage in a prison-like farmhouse.

10. (418 pts) Passengers by G.J. Pruss – Sci-Fi – Reviewed by Me – Microscopic proteins/aliens ride human beings as passengers for their own personal enjoyment.

9. (433 pts) Buried by Chris Sparling – Thriller – Reviewed by Me – A man wakes up in a coffin with no idea how he got there.

8. (476 pts) Everything Must Go by Dan Rush – Black Comedy – Not Reviewed – A recently fired man finds himself locked out of his own house by his estranged wife, his furniture and things left outside. With nowhere to go, he sets up and starts living on his front lawn.

7. (480 pts) Salt by Kurt Wimmer – Action – Reviewed by Me – A CIA agent discovers there’s a Russian spy deep inside the organization.

6. (518 pts) The Brigands Of Rattleborge by Craig S. Zahler – Western – Not Reviewed – Set in the days of the old West, a sheriff and a doctor seek revenge against three ruthless thugs who robbed them and terrorized the town.

5. (525 pts) Killing On Carnival Row by Travis Beacham – Horror – Reviewed by Roger – In the city of The Burgue, a police inspector pursues a serial killer who is targeting fairies.

4. (567 pts) The F Word by Elan Mastai – Comedy – Not Reviewed – A young man and woman try to stay friends after developing intense feelings for one another.

3. (602 pts) The Dogs Of Babel by Jamie Linden – Drama – Reviewed by Me – When a dog is the only witness to a woman’s death, her husband tries to teach the dog how to talk so he can find out what happened to her.

2. (689 pts) The Social Network by Aaron Sorkin – Drama/Bio – Reviewed by Me – A look at the rise of Facebook and the effect it’s had on its founders.

1. (1435 pts) Source Code by Ben Ripley – Sci-Fi – Reviewed by Me – A man wakes up on a train that is being targeted by terrorists, a train that has already blown up hours ago.

My thoughts on The List!
No, that is not a misprint. Source Code received more than twice as many points as the number two script on the list. So pumped to see that because the movie desperately needs to be made. It’s just an awesome script.

Not surprised about The Social Network. An awesome unique script. Not to mention it seems like every writer out there admires Sorkin’s work. A big surprise to me is The F Word. I love that script but figured the concept was a little too simple for some. Glad a lot of people out there liked it as much as I did.

Another surprise for me is The Ornate Anatomy of Living Things. I thought I’d be the lone guy holding the torch on that one. Thought it might be too obscure for others’ tastes. So it was satisfying to see you guys respond to it. Not surprised to see Salt and Buried in the Top 10. Both are edge-of-your-seat thrillers that leave a big impression. Glad to see Everything Must Go in the Top 10. Such an odd story, I thought it would fare worse. Nice to know others dug it.

I Want To ____ Your Sister sorta surprised me. I like the script but I can’t help thinking that if it would’ve been titled something like, “Me and Sis” that it wouldn’t be so high on mine or your lists. Never have I seen a script so dependent on its title. Of the ones I haven’t read, I think I’m going to give “To The White Sea” and “The Many Deaths Of Barnaby James” a read. Neither is up my alley, but you guys seemed so passionate about them that I have no choice but to check them out.

Finally, the biggest shock and the choice that makes me the happiest, is Dogs Of Babel. When I put that script in my Top 25, I thought you guys would think I was crazy. It’s a straight drama. It’s a tearjerker. I figured, “Well, I know I love this script. But is everybody going to think I’m nuts?” So to see that you came out in droves to not only support the choice, but elevate it, makes me ecstatic. I actually talked with the writer, Jamie, recently, and he said to me he doesn’t think it will ever get made. That it’s too weird and not mainstream enough. I told him, “There’s no doubt this will get made. It’s too good of a script.” Now that you guys have proved that there’s an audience for the material, maybe they’ll realize they have something special and get the ball rolling.

This was a great exercise. Discuss the entire list below! :)

Ooooh, let the spookiness begin. Halloween Week is upon us, along with its first entry, the horror-comedy, “Grabbers,” which Roger’s been very eager to review. But can I just say something about Halloween first? Because it’s something that’s really been bothering me. Can we all agree that pumpkins are disgusting? You don’t have to look at a pumpkin long to know that it wasn’t meant to be eaten. Yet when Halloween rolls around, all I see at the grocery store are pumpkin muffins, pumpkin bread, pumpkin spice cookies, pumpkin milk. I don’t mean to sound like a 13 year old girl but…Barf! If we weren’t interested in eating pumpkin-flavored food for the other 11 months of the year? We’re not interested in eating it now. Pumpkins weren’t meant to be eaten! There. Rant over. Take it away, Roger.

Genre: Horror, Comedy, Creature Feature
Premise: When an island off the coast of Ireland is invaded by blood-sucking aliens, the heroes discover that getting drunk is the only way to survive.
About: A 2009 Brit List script that ended up in a tug-of-war between many production companies. It’s now optioned by Tracy Brimm and Kate Myers of Forward Films with John Wright as director. They’re the same team responsible for the slasher-comedy, “Tormented”.
Writer: Kevin Lehane. According to his blog, he created a bunch of specs but had trouble getting them read. When they weren’t ignored, they were rejected. But thanks to Danny Stack, a writer for “EastEnders” (among others) and one of the founders of The Red Planet Prize, Lehane’s luck changed and the same scripts that were initially rejected or ignored were suddenly coming back with strong, positive responses. “Grabbers”, which had sat on his desk for a year, was suddenly in a tug-of-war.

“Tremors” is a movie that has one of my favorite lines of dialogue ever, spoken by mercenary homemaker, Heather Gummer (a fantastic name), played by Reba McEntire. “You didn’t get penetration even with the elephant gun!” Somehow, Reba delivers her line with the requisite mixture of incredulity, innuendo, and cornpone charm.

I’m not sure if there’s a line as good as that one in the Irish version of “Tremors”, called “Grabbers”, but that’s not to say that this Brit List script isn’t a fun ride with its own share of gleeful moments of horror-comedy. Proudly wearing its creature feature, B movie, drive-in pedigree on its Lovecraftian tentacles, “Grabbers” is a breezy, bloody read that had me grinning like a drunken horror aficionado all the way through.

I like the way this script opens. We’re at sea on a lonely fishing tug called The Merry Widow when an arc of light streaks across the sky and crashes into the ocean, catching the attention of the crew. It’s a simple, evocative image that establishes our mysterious alien menace, which, of course, proceeds to pull our trio of fisherman overboard. There’s something eerie about the image of an extraterrestrial threat dwelling in Earth’s own uncharted aquatic deep.

And we’re quickly introduced to our sullen hero, Ciaran O’Shea, a Garda gone to drink on the enchanting Erin Island. My scant knowledge of the Garda is limited to Ken Bruen novels, but in good grace to us readers on the other side of the Atlantic, Mr. Lehane explains that “An Garda Siochana” are the unarmed Irish police force. O’Shea is zombie-shuffling through life and duty in an alcoholic haze, and Erin Island, with all its non-existent crimes and vacationing families, is the perfect environment for a low-achieving, apathetic Garda.

Sergeant Kenifick is skeptical about leaving O’Shea to run administrative duties alone for two weeks, so he’s saddled him with Lisa Nolan, a by-the-books, overachieving workaholic from Dublin who will fill in and keep a watchful eye on O’Shea while the Sarge is on leave. Of course, there’s some friction between the two opposite personalities and, entertainingly, budding sexual tension.

The duo meet up with the resident physician, Dr. Gleeson, and Adam Smith, a marine ecologist, who have discovered a pod of beached whales that bare some distinctive wounds.

It looks like they’ve been whipped with a huge cat-o-nine tails.

O’Shea takes charge and cashes in a favor with a contractor, Declan Cooney, and soon Cooney and his construction crew are tasked with the disposal of the beached whales. In true creature feature fashion, we discover many dark grey eggs deposited in the sand nearby. At this point, something crawls out of the ocean and quite possibly does something horrible to Cooney and his crew.

Meanwhile, a fisherman named Paddy Barrett (quite possibly my favorite character) captures what might be a sea creature in a lobster trap, which he promptly takes home and deposits in his bathtub, with disastrous results. In a horrifying sequence that made me both squirm and laugh maniacally, Paddy fights the spidery, tentacled grabber whilst completely pissed on homemade potcheen (an Irish moonshine).

The little fucker is pancaked to the ceiling of his bathroom and it shoots its barbed tongue at him, and it reminded me of Ripley fighting off a face-hugger in one of the Alien movies. Except this is more Sam Raimi-ish, but maybe not so cartoonish and Three Stooges-like (although in the next scene, there’s a direct reference to the Evil Dead when a corpse is used like a marionette doll). There’s a wicked Irish wit to the humor that I really dig, which is laced throughout the story.

Lehane does a good job setting up Erin Island and introducing all of the important players that inhabit island. It’s an interesting community sketched well, and it’s balanced with some tautly structured scare sequences. In a way, very Stephen King-ish, and I like that.

By the end of the first act, there’s a pretty significant body count for O’Shea and Nolan to tend to and investigate, and when Paddy comes to O’Shea with proof of his ordeal (which he somehow survived), this monster movie is off and running.

I think the true grisly delight of this tale is when it injects a killer concept into the tried and true monster movie form (monster arrives, monster kills people, heroes dissect monster, heroes figure out how to beat monster, heroes prepare for final showdown with monster). It’s a fucking great idea, and maybe its genesis owes fealty to Jackie Chan and “Drunken Master”, but whatever. It’s fantastic and funny and really brings the story to life.

Through an experiment that’s reminiscent of John Carpenter’s “The Thing”, our heroes learn that Paddy only survived his alien encounter because of the blood alcohol level in his bloodstream, which poisoned the vampiric monstrosity.

Basically? If our heroes don’t want to be monster food, they have to maintain a blood alcohol level of Point Two.

Which doesn’t fare will for Miss Nolan, as she doesn’t drink, nor has she ever been drunk in her life. And her character is milked for comedic and dramatic effect, in both her drunken exclamations and actions. She’s really a great counterpoint to O’Shea, and this is somewhat of a redemption story for him. I don’t want to give away his back story, but it’s something that’s only mentioned in a line or two of dialogue and it’s very effective (a true economy of words). It reminded me of this quote, “Strong reasons make for strong actions.” It’s something dramatists learn early on, courtesy of Shakespeare.

Without telling you How or Why, the humungous male grabber sets its sights on O’Shea for wholly amorous and lustful intentions. There’s some nice monster mayhem in the 3rd act, when our heroes barricade themselves and their loved ones in a pub and endure a siege. It’s like something out of a George Grosz nightmare as our heroes drunkenly fight off all the egg hatchlings and the (in heat) Shoggoth-like Big Daddy grabber.

I don’t think “Grabbers” quite transcends its genre roots to gain an impressive rating, but then again, it doesn’t need to. It’ll be a great movie, anyways. For you horror hounds out there, this script just might be the crown jewel of this year’s Brit List.

In all honesty, this is a script I wish I’d written. Not only is the logline comedic horror gold, but I find the script is really growing on me. An inspired, tight, and clever spec that clocks in at under 100 pages. Not only can I wait to see the movie, I can’t wait to own it on Blu-ray right next to my copies of “Shaun of the Dead”, “Tremors”, “The Thing”, and “Evil Dead 2”.

[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[ ] barely kept my interest
[xx] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius

What I learned: That the Irish spell tires “tyres”. And that when it comes to writing monsters, it’s more effective to gently offer the right details than go overboard with a painstaking description. Remember, it’s more powerful to simply suggest what a monster or creature or alien looks like with a few key words or phrases. Let the reader create their own image of what it looks like in their head, because that’s usually what’s going to be scarier, anyways. As Stephen King says, writing is telepathy. Lay down the general gist, let the reader do the heavy lifting.

Let it be known: Roger does not like everything! And he proves that today. I can’t say I know much about this project, but I know that when Jan De Bont is attached to anything, that project is in trouble. Let’s go back a decade shall we? Do you remember The Haunting? A 100 million dollar scary movie that managed to not be scary…in any capacity? Do you remember Speed 2? Jan De Bont actually wrote the sequel to a movie called “Speed” and set it…ON A CRUISE SHIP. Everyone who signed up for that premise deserves what they got, but De Bont’s the one who wrote it. So when I hear his name associated with this project, I’m not surprised it never made it in front of the cameras. De Bont’s last directorial effort was 2003’s Lara Croft sequel, “The Cradle of Life.” Can’t say I saw that one. Maybe it was great.

For those of you curious about the logline contest, I’ll be making the official official announcement next Monday. So warm those loglines up people. I will say that there’s been a major change. You will only be allowed to submit 1 logline. And that must represent a script that’s already been written, as I’d like to speed up the timeframe of the contest considerably. If you’re wondering how to write a logline, here’s a good place to start. But before you go anywhere, read Roger’s review of “Ghost Riders In The Sky.”

Genre: Western, Science Fiction
Premise: As the U.S. military wars against the Apache, two Civil War veterans set out to help a woman find her missing anthropologist father. Everyone gets more than they bargained for when the Apache make contact with a race of creatures that might be from another planet.
About: In 1998, Warner Brothers postponed one of the many iterations of “Superman” and pulled the plug on the Protosevich-scripted and the Arnold Schwarzenegger-leading, “I am Legend”. Over at Fox, they decided to sideline an event pic of their own, an alien western helmed by Jan de Bont called “Ghost Riders in the Sky”. With a budget ballooning over $100 million and purported script concerns, Fox ultimately killed the project. However, everyone knows that the project’s death was directly tied to the disastrous box office of Speed 2, De Bont’s previous effort. Ironically, this was all Fox’s doing, as they were so desperate to set up a summer tentpole project, they announced Speed 2 without even an idea in place. De Bont spitballed a bunch of his ideas with his people, including an idea that would’ve focused on volcano bombing, but ultimately settled on a cruise ship, because he had so much fun D.P.’ing on Hunt For Red October. Keanu saw that idea and bolted. The only reason Bullock signed on was because she owed her career to De Bont. It is said that nobody at De Bont’s company understood what he saw in “Ghost Riders In The Sky,” a script that was plucked out of the slush pile by an intern.
Writer: Draft by W.D. Richter; Rewrite by Mark Protosevich

One of my first movie memories is of my dad showing me “The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension” (another is of him renting “The Adventures of Baron Munchausen”; I have a cool dad), so I have much fondness for the name W.D. Richter. As screenwriters and lovers of movies, how can anyone not have appreciation for a writer whose oeuvre includes John Carpenter’s “Big Trouble in Little China” and Philip Kaufman’s “Invasion of the Body Snatchers”?

Admittedly, the only flick I’ve seen that has Mark Protosevich’s name attached is “The Cell”, which I like. I have not read his scripts for “I am Legend” or “Thor”, and rather than proffer an uninformed opinion, I’ll just say, “I hear good things about them”.

Which brings us to a script, a proposed sci-fi western that has both of these dude’s names on the cover. For some reason, Samuel L. Jackson’s name is on the cover as well (plastered in ominous fat font, no less), yet I’m hard-pressed to guess which character he might have played.

Isn’t “Ghost Riders in the Sky” the name of a legendary country song?

So it is. A scared-straight song about a cowboy who has a haunting vision of The Devil’s herd: red-eyed, steel-hooved cattle thundering across the sky.

In our script there’s a red-eyed motif and a copious use of thunder and lightning (and ice, for that matter), but our beasties ain’t flying cattle. They’re more of the flying serpent variety.

Ever wonder where the inspiration for the Aztec god, Quetzalcoatl, came from? According to this script, it comes from the “chilling, gorgeous images of god-like bird humans” who serve as the eponymous aliens to our scared cowboys.

Who are our cowboys?

That would be Buck and Reb, Gettysburg veterans who abandon the railroad crews to venture to California, with the hope of making it big in the citrus industry.

Easily the best part about this script, Buck and Reb are a Union and Confederate screwball duo who aren’t above robbing trains in inventive fashion. Like when they try to use the corpse of a cow to stop a train, only to find that something else entirely has killed everyone on board and stripped the corpses and the locomotive of metal.

They have a lot of funny dialogue in an otherwise frustrating and messy script.

BARTENDER
Might say so. Betcha fifty cents can’t tell me what this is.

Out from under the bar…set down in front of Reb and Buck. A dark crusty object about a foot in length, sweet potato in shape.

REB
Sorry. Not a gamblin’ man.

BUCK
(however)
You’re on. It’s a yucca root. Been roasted in hot coals for…

REB
Buck…

BUCK
Fifty cents, Reb.
(back at the bartender)
…about five hours I’m guessin’. Makes for damn fine eatin’.

Buck picks it up, to smell it. He’s starved.

BARTENDER
You lose. It’s Luke Smith. Poor bastard was standin’ guard on the rail line last night when the Devil roared through.

This screwball duo becomes a screwball trio when they hook up with Alice Butterworth, the dainty daughter of an English anthropologist who disappeared while researching a mysterious Native American myth (our bird-god Quetzalcoatl thingies, which will later be referred to as ‘Sky Knives’) near the town of Mesa Gulch.

She’s searching for her aforementioned father, possessing one of his last letters sent from the Mesa Gulch post office. In an eyebrow-raising aside, she gets drunk with our clumsy cowboy lotharios after she shoots a man dead when he tries to rape her. The binge-drinking ends the next morning when all three of our players wake up in the same bed.

Yep, a risqué screwball ménage a trois.

What’s the big picture?

Let’s backtrack to the first 10 pages of the script. It’s an interesting break from form, where instead of being introduced to the heroes of the piece, we get an extended action sequence that establishes the historical climate and the alien menace.

A group of thirty Calvary soldiers trap the notorious Indian gunslinger, Wild Gun, and his band of Apaches in a box canyon. The Apache medicine man, Hawk Dreamer, works some of his juju and it’s not long before something sentient swoops out of the sky and comes to their aid.

The Calvary troop is massacred by streaks of gold light and fireballs that descend out of the sky, leaving behind frozen corpses and scorched earth. Trust me, it’s as weird as it sounds.

Anyways, defying the old showbiz adage, the Mesa Gulch Massacre is not good publicity for Philander W. Beckwith, powerful railway magnate obsessed with manifest destiny. This captain of industry is so powerful he even gets into a public screaming match with the President of The United States, Ulysses S. Grant.

For a character that only has one scene, Philander sure has a lot of sway over our nation’s leader. “Well, then do something about reality. Because if you don’t, I will,” he tells The Hero of Appomattox.

Not to worry, the President is already on it. “I have cut loose a force of nature. I have summoned The Eradicator.”

What pray-tell is The Eradicator?

Not what, but whom. The Eradicator is no other than Colonel Harry Loveless Knowland, a scripture-quoting bounty hunter tasked with assassinating Wild Gun and any other Apache he and his mercenary army run across.

Not only is he a hypocrite, dickhead, and cold-hearted killer, he also has his eyes set on the presidency.

Things get dicey when Alice offers Reb and Buck one hundred dollars each to accompany her to Thunder Mesa, where she hopes to find the “Cave of Stars” and her father. Both cowboys (being broke and in love) are tempted by the offer, but ultimately decide they don’t want to get scalped by Apaches.

So they opt to rob the Mesa Gulch bank instead.

Only problem is, The Eradicator shows up for reasons I still don’t understand (perhaps he wants to rob the bank, too) and Reb pisses him off royally by escaping his clutches. Shenanigans ensue as Buck and Alice pretend to be a married couple and are taken under the wing of the Colonel and his men.

And for muddled reasons we’re all rollicking towards Thunder Mesa and the grand finale. There’s a stage-coach chase and another appearance by the Sky Knives, who save our heroes and whisk Alice away to the “Cave of Stars”. Reb surrenders to the Colonel so he can help Buck rescue Alice, as The Eradicator is hell-bent on getting to Thunder Mesa so he can kill Wild Gun.

The ruse is up when Buck helps Reb escape and the third-act showdown begins as The Eradicator receives back-up from the U.S. military to wipe out the Apache stronghold.

There’s a lot of The Weird (but more importantly, Confusion) as Alice discovers what happened to her father and witnesses the awe and wonder of the alien creatures. Which falls flat, because it’s opaque and I couldn’t figure out what the fuck was going on.

But I’ll try. Apparently her father is in some kind of trance, or perhaps he’s just frozen in time within the Cave of Stars, I can’t tell.

But inside the “concave bowl” within a mountain, she discovers that these golden serpent thingies are melting metal and mounds of gold coins and are feeding the molten liquid to their young. There’s also lightning shooting out of a hexagonal hole in the center of this milieu.

Yeah, don’t ask me, I only read the thing.

So, there’s a big battle, which for some reason is written in ALL CAPS, and the Sky Knives make a big show of killing some people but sparing others, and then their space ship flies out of the mountain and they leave planet Earth, presumably to teach The Eradicator (and you, dear reader), that violence is bad.

Hrrmph.

Why the long face, Roger?

This script has all the bizarro ingredients to create a feast that appeals to my oddball palette, but as a whole, it’s a savorless mess that leaves behind a disorderly kitchen with way too many dirty dishes.

It’s a screenplay that’s plagued with unclear storytelling. Just now, as I was trying to recap the plot for you guys, I felt like a mortician trying to make sense of a corpse mangled beyond all recognition.

There are a lot of prose passages in this thing. Which, personally, I don’t mind in a screenplay. I can read something by Walon Green, William Goldman, or hell, even Frank Darabont’s Indy script and feel like I’m rewarded for my patience. Nothing wrong with lots of words as long as they are good words strung coherently together.

But I do mind when the sentences are in ALL CAPS, and instead of periods there are copious amounts of ellipsis and comma splices. I don’t know, maybe that’s just an aesthetic preference, but my eyeballs had a fuck-all time wading through the long blocks of description and action. So much so that at times I lost all sense of narrative spatial awareness. I was constantly back-tracking trying to figure out what was happening on stage (or on the movie screen in my head).

I hate to say it, but there was some sloppy writing and use of language in this script.

Seems like whichever exec made the hard decision to pull the plug on this $100 million dollar turkey was struck by a sobering dose of wisdom and saved Fox some major face.

[x] What the hell did I just read?
[ ] barely kept my interest
[ ] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius

What I learned: Economy of words, people. Economy of words. Are your lines of action/prose passages clunky? Do you trip over them or run out of breath while trying to read them aloud? If the answer is ‘Yes’, then you might want to experiment with brevity. I’m all for dense and compelling lines of action, but I think there’s something to be said for the 3-sentence rule. If anything, if you limit your lines of action and description to 3 sentences, you’ll at least simulate a breezy read.