Tuesday 2 April 2019

BLACK LIST 2018 - COBWEBS

Cobwebs landed at #7 on the 2018 blacklist. I really can't tell why it landed so high. This screenplay is a really, really mediocre horror. 

It's almost as though the writer wasn't even trying. There's a lot wrong with this script. Let's look at what elements are done well and what elements are lacking in their execution so we can learn to write better screenplays. 

PLOT SUMMARY (Spoilers) 

Peter, an eight-year-old boy lives in a scary house on top of a scary hill with his mother and father. He hears sounds in his wall at home. 

At school, he gets so annoyed with a bully he pushes him down stairs and puts him in hospital.

He's expelled from school. His mother teaches him at home. While at home he discovers that his mother and father keep his sister in the wall. No explanation given.

Peter kills his parents, gets the keys and frees his sister, only to find out that she is a killer herself. 

Yup, that's about it. 

There's no clever twist here, there's no clever character development. 

CONCEPT

I'm not even sure what the concept is? - A young boy with abusive parents becomes a killer and ultimately a victim of his sibling? 

I'd defy anyone to write a decent logline about this story that was actually true to the plot. 

CONCEPT RATING 1/10

CONCEPT TIP

I don't think this story actually has a concept. Every other script that I've reviewed in the past week has had a clearly identifiable concept. 

This script read like a series of jump scares. I love horror films, but I find jump scares cheap. It's ok to use them as a device, but to have an entire script based on one jump scare after another is pretty weak. 

When horror works well it is because it gets into your psyche - it gets into your head. When there's no real plot it's hard to get involved in the story. 

Try to make sure you have a clearly defined concept. When you have trouble writing a clear and concise concept for your script then you know from the outset that your story needs more development. 

GOAL

This is a huge problem for this script. There is no goal. Peter isn't really trying to do anything. Now, when he first hears tapping in his wall, you'd think the story goal would be to find out what's causing the tapping. But other than being scared by the tapping, Peter doesn't really investigate. Life continues as normal as he tries to convince himself the tapping isn't there. 

He doesn't realize there is someone in the wall until much later on in the script. When he realizes it's his sister in the wall, he has a goal - to get her out - but here's one of the really annoying things about the writing here - just when he's about to set her free he has a change of heart. No reason, just like that he decides, nah, I'm not gonna set her free. Which, really, is just stupid. 

A huge lack of a clearly defined goal here meant this script is not focused.

GOAL RATING 2/10

GOAL TIP
The goal of the story feeds into the structure of the story. You know when your first act ends and your second act starts by the GOAL. When your goal is established and your hero has set about achieving that goal - that's when act 1 ends and act 2 begins. It's a very clear structure signifier. 

Make sure you have a clearly defined goal set by page 25. 

LOGIC

This is something that was a problem for yesterday's script as well. There were logic errors. Now, it's fine that this script is a weird horror. The realism of your screenplay comes down to how you create the world of your story. So I bought into the parents being weird, sadistic folk, and I bought into the really minimal world created here. But what I didn't buy into was the execution of the central premise. 

Peter's sister is locked in the wall of their house because she has been 'naughty' and it is her punishment. 

That's fine. It's weird, but I'm on board with this as it's part of this freaky horror. 

But what isn't logical is - she's been in there how long? Years? I'm guessing, from what I can deduce from the story. Peter' sister has been locked in the wall for years and only now is she gently tapping on the wall at night.

Why is it only now that Peter is hearing her? 

Why is the sister only tapping gently?

If you'd just been trapped in a wall, wouldn't you kick and scream and try to get out?

If the parents don't want Peter to find out about the sister in the wall why did they put her in the wall of Peter's bedroom? A place in the house where he is MOST likely to hear her.

Later on in the script, the sister starts talking with Peter and yelling to be let out. 

Why did this happen later on in the script and not at the start of the script? 

There's no logic to all these decisions other than they made for a more suspenseful opening to the story. 

And that's the mistake. It doesn't matter how weird and whacky your story is, it still needs to make sense and be logical within the parameters you've created. 

LOGIC RATING - 1/10

LOGIC TIP

Make sure that your story is logical within the confines of the world that you create. Don't write a beat in your story just because it's kinda cool. It needs to be kinda cool AND make sense. 

FORM

This script comes in at 98 pages. great page length. No worries there. The writing is very sparse. The writer puts an entire space between each line. That's fine if the writing is so well done that every small sentence is filled with action and description. 

While I like screenplays that are sparsely written, I feel this script is too sparse. If it were condensed it would be a 60-page script. 

There's not a lot of meat to this story. 

There are a handful of spelling mistakes. There's no excuse to have ANY spelling mistakes in your script. While spelling mistakes aren't a death card to a script, they certainly detract from the perceived ability of the writer. 

FORM RATING 7/10

FORM TIP

There is a very fine line between a verbose script and an under-written one. The best way to find that Goldilocks zone is to read as many screenplays as you can. The more you read, the more you will see what works best.

Word count is a good way to decide if your script is over or underwritten.

Take a dozen scripts you felt that were really well written and look at their word count. Then look at the word count of scripts that felt too heavily written and the same for underwritten scripts. You will soon find a happy medium that works for you. 

STRUCTURE

There really isn't any discernible structure here. 

There's no real goal. 

There's no real sense of a ticking clock.

And while the stakes are life and death, it doesn't feel like this is enough to make the story feel like it's constantly moving forward. 

The structure here is way off as Peter doesn't have a flaw. He's scared of a noise in the wall and he is abused by his parents, but that's all OUTTER journey stuff. There is no inner flaw holding Peter back. There's no inner detrimental personality trait that he needs to overcome before he can overcome the outer journey problems he faces. 

STRUCTURE RATING 2/10

STRUCTURE TIP

To have a clear structure you need a clear flaw and a clear goal. When your script lacks both, your script's structure will be waaaaay off. 

VOICE

The voice here is so-so. The writing is ok, and it is a fast read. The opening hook works, it draws you into the story, but after that opening 20 pages, there's not much substance to the story. 

There is a definite eerie tone to the whole script, which I'm guessing is one of the reasons it made it so high on the Black List. 

The story is very dark, and while it does have a lot of cool moments that could be genuinely scary, it's main fault is a huge lack of structure. When you don't have a clear structure to your story, it simply feels like it is a series of scenes playing together that are loosely connected. 

This detracts from the story in general and it also weakens the perception of your 'voice'.

POV

Another huge mistake this film makes is the constantly changing point of view. The story is mostly told from Peter's POV. But we often switch POV to one of his parents or his teacher's POV. 

In the grand finale of the film we stop following Peter and stay with his teacher for about 5 pages - that's a huge amount of time to be away from our hero. 

POV RATING 3/10

POV TIP

For your script to be a successful FEATURE FILM - write your entire story from your hero's POV. It's ok to cut away to your SHADOW's POV occasionally, just to see what they're up to, you can get away with that, but when you start changing your POV to the smaller characters you lose the vicarious connection you've been creating between your audience and your hero. 

CHARACTERS AND DIALOGUE

Characters were all quite tropey, and the dialogue was really simplistic. 

I don't mind minimal dialogue, but when you're choosing to write minimal dialogue, try to make it as impactful as you can. 

DIALOGUE TIP

If your audience knows something has just happened, don't write the next scene where a character tells another character what just happened. You're wasting the audiences time.


PRODUCTION

If you made this current version of the script for under $1m then you could maybe make money. If you got a really good director and some halfway decent actors I can see it finding a die-hard horror audience. 

But if you want this script to be successful on a grander scale - this script will need to do what The Ring did and actually have an emotional story at its heart. It will need for the hero to have a flaw and for all the ancillary characters to be much better written. 

Oh, and a goal wouldn't go astray either. 

As a producer, I wouldn't put money into this film in its current form. 

In fact, I wouldn't even put an option down and get a re-write done, this is a solid pass for me. 

TITLE

A good title should suggest the tone of the film and intrigue the reader. 

This film is called COBWEB.

I'll leave this one up to you to decide. Does the title suggest the tone of this film and does it inspire you to know more about it?


SUMMARY

I don't know what's going on with the blacklist for 2018. So far, from what I've reviewed, over 50% are woefully executed. Some had great ideas poorly done, while others, such as today's entry has a weak concept, also poorly done.

I'm starting to wonder about the quality of the blacklist if this is what is making it to the upper rungs.







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