20 Miles Till Death by Zack M. Akers - Short - A couple traveling the back roads encounter a murderous police officer.  11 pages - rtf, format

Hey Zack,

!!!SPOILERS!!!

This was a pretty good and certainly well paced script. A kind of a your worst nightmare situation and a bit reminiscent of Spielberg's Duel and SK's Desperation. For a short, I think you build the two main characters up nicely, you told us just enough about them to make them interesting. But I thought that Lance was a little too fast to catch on that something wasn't right with the cop.

Motives are so overrated

Actually they're not, but a story can work without one. Take the aforementioned Duel and a movie like The Hitcher, they both work well without the bad guy having an obvious motive. But I think you took a short cut here, at least Zed and Maynard in Pulp Fiction wanted to bang their victims. These guys just kills them and that comes off a bit too much out of the blue.

I have a suggestion, I think it would make Brody a bit more scary if he didn't have a name.

Twenty miles, eh? Twenty miles till death.

That line need to go, it doesn't work.

Nice work - keep it up

Cheers
Rob

SPOILERS

I like your ideas Zack, it is as if you only write something that is fairly original which i respect.

First of all i am going to mention your format although it has nothing to do with the story, but which will annoy the heck out of people who know the right format. There are a few incidents where you write for example:

INT - CAR - MOMENTS LATER

DON'T DO THIS. If Lance is getting his head smashed in by the cop and this continues outside the car then we know it is basically the same scene. Instead of MOMENTS LATER you should do this.

INT - CAR

No signal of how long after is needed as long as it is fairly obvious.

Your dialogue is fine, nothing much to fault there. I will agree with Sniper when he says Lance was too quick to catch on. He is on the nose with that one, Lance was too quick to catch on.

Characterisation. Lance is a pussy. As i was reading i had to double check who was saying it because Lance was whining like a woman. If you were to switched some of Lance's dialogue with Nicole's that would actually work. Because Lance was constantly whining and adopting a woman's persona, i was glad that he got his head smashed in.

I don't think you should have named the police officer either. What is the point? Yeah he is quite twisted for pulling them over and making their lives hell but no name would be freakier.

Story was good and i fairly enjoyed the read. Just drop the moments later and some other minor aspects and your script will be spot on. Also, the whole motives thing is important because the reader or audiece want to know why "Brody" stopping random people and making their lives hell.

You have a thing where your scripts have scope for bigger projects, maybe features. Maybe if you come up with a unique original idea for a feature and eventually write it i will give it a thorough review.

                                                   Robert

thanks guys, glad you enjoyed this one! I actuall intended for Brody to have a motive, however I tried to imply that he had no intentions on revealing them. I was very iffy about the "20 miles till death" line, but I decided to throw it in. I plan on a follow up, but that depends on the reviews I get for this one. Keep the replies coming!

i'm not sure i liked this one Zack... it's too fast... and a bit run-of-the mill... which can be fine but its needs better execution. you have a lot of potential here.

here are my thoughts

i think you rushed this one a bit.
i was waiting for a twist at the end and you delivered...sort of
the dialogue was fine.
spelling and grammar seemed fine for the most part.
i still dont like your format. (i know its a tired complaint)
the reviewers above pointed out Lance was too quick to catch on.. and i agree - i think there needs to be something else in there to further provoke that "this isnt right..." feeling for the audience... Lance catches on faster then i do...too fast
the descriptions of the Mustang roaring down the road at the beginning, along with Lance "pressing harder on the gas" leave me to believe HIS IS SPEEDING to start off with...
i would have liked a little more background on who Lance and Nicole are. maybe give them a few more moments together before they are pulled over.
not sure i like the whole "motives are overrated" thing
i was left wanting to know who Brody is... i think he needs more

this script could benefit by being a little longer. you need to build up to the kill a little more.

Have Brody mess with them a little bit.

maybe have him pull them over another time.... and toy with them. have him playing with his gun in front of them, or just asking really bizarre questions about their relationship. or about nicole. have him hit on her. Lance and Nicole are having this whole argument about nicole getting hit on at the beginning. so, give us a pay off....

have the cop come on to her. freak Lance out even more.

maybe before he kills lance have him stalking their car for a few miles... tailgaiting them.  making them nervous.

make us squirm zack!!!!

I took a more staight foward appraoch with this one, and I figured I would get mixed reviews. I do plan on adding a new begining (showing the gas station and Ralphs character) to stretch this out a bit. Anyways, Thanks for the read SwapJack.

This one didn't make a whole lot of sense and felt rushed big time. Lance behaves as if he knows he's in a horror movie. How does he know "something's wrong." Cops park out of site and watch for speeding cars all the time. I don't see how this situation is any different. How does he know to check the taillight? All this feels like Lance's sole purpose in the story is to push the plot forward. That shouldn't be the case. There are other ways to do it. It just takes some time and time is something you should take advantage of.

Things escalate too fast to build any suspense, not to mention develop characters. All there is to know about these two is where they're going, where they've been, and that Lance sounds like the jealous type. That's about it. You need more than that if anyone's going to care what happens to your characters.

Further more, why does Brody let the couple go only to pull them over minutes later? He could just as well have taken them out on the spot. That seems to be his goal anyway. On the other hand, "motives are overrated?" Not really. That's not the mindset a screenwriter should be in. Motives are important and this guy needs one, even if his motive is just that he feels like killing people (I wouldn't suggest using that one BTW). As you said, maybe he doesn't feel like revealing his motive to a guy he's about to pop in the head but he seems to be in cohoots with this Ralph character. That's an opportune moment to reveal a motive (either side will do).

I thought this script felt really incomplete. The concept is fine but there're far too many unanswered questions IMO. You need to address them before you can call this a solid script.

Thanks for the read James. I tried my best to smash a feature script into 10 pages, with mixed results. I plan on eventually adding about 7 more pages of content to this. However I am currently focused on Spook House. Who knows, maybe I'll put that on hold to fix this one up. Thanks again for the read and keep the replies coming! I appreciate them.  

Quoted from Splatter Boy Thanks for the read James. I tried my best to smash a feature script into 10 pages, with mixed results. I plan on eventually adding about 7 more pages of content to this. However I am currently focused on Spook House. Who knows, maybe I'll put that on hold to fix this one up. Thanks again for the read and keep the replies coming! I appreciate them.

this one has some potential..my suggestion is tidy this one up first... instead of zooming through one script to the next as fast as you can

Glad to hear you might be adding a new beginning because right now all you have is part of a middle and an unforfilling ending.

The characters are unlikeable and not very fleshed out.  When Brody pulls them over, I don't care.  And the descriptions "looks worried" "looks interested" "looks upset" are meaningless.  When upset does Nicole play with hair? Chew gum loudly? Does she ramble on and on about why Lance is a wimp? When using "interested" you need dialogue to show this interest.  Have him ask a few questions.  I know description needs to be tight in a script, but vague is vague and I cannot picture these characters in my head without a bit more.

As for the end, never say motives are overrated.  You can think that, fine.  But as a reader or as a watcher when we're told this we feel like we wasted our time.  People like motives, we'll invent our own if you don't stick one in.  But if you tell us explicitly no, none, don't even bother inventing your own, we get a bit peeved.

Dethan  

This isn't a feel good script. This is a horror tale about a young couples plunge into hell.The thought of a motiveless killer is very disturbing to me, but Brody has a motive. He just has no intentions on revealing them to a worthless victom. If I do a follow up, the motive will revealed.

Hey guys, my newest draft is up. I hope I've fixed the problems all you posters complained about.

Hey Zack,

Yeah, this draft absolutely worked better than the first. I liked that you rewrote the beginning and gave us a look at what happened at the gas station, that helped the story.

I still think you should reconsider about the motive, though.

Cheers
Rob

Thanks for the read Sniper, I thought you'd like the new opening. I plan on revealing the motive in the sequel.

i liked it zack how u gace me information about lance and nicole and also why they were going to cleremont. it was also everyones nightmare to have a police trying to kill you the ending gave the script a little spook of how nicole was going 20 miles to death.
thanks for the good read zack