Obeast by Rod Thompson and Tim Westland - Horror - A pitch perfect homage to those 80's Horror flicks you loved as a teenager.  After a terrible accident causes a morbidly obese girl's fat to explode from her body, the town residents who tormented her for being fat must face their fate when the disembodied fat takes on a life of its own and begins to exact a horrific yet hilarious revenge. 91 pages - pdf, format 8)

Well, I loved the 80s but that logline needs some trimming (like most of the 80s hairdos).  Remember it's the first thing we see, so make sure it is tidy and to the point.  If you need suggestions, feel free to ask.

Thanks, Jeremiah. The first half of the 'logline' was not part of the logline, of course. It's for this crowd to entice them to read. I figured I have a little more leeway here. If I was wrong with that, my apologies.

Here it is, without the preamble.

After a terrible accident causes a morbidly obese girl's fat to explode from her body, the town residents who tormented her will face their own fate when the disembodied fat takes on a life of its own to exact a horrific yet hilarious revenge.

UPDATE: OBeast made Screencraft Horror Semi-finals yesterday! Finger's crossed that it goes the distance!

I just finished reading it all. I loved it. I thought it was creative. Funny dialogue. Gross, but hilarious deaths. Great lead characters. It felt like Carrie 1976 meets The Blob 1988. I'd really like to see this become a real movie.

Quoted from TimWestland Thanks, Jeremiah. The first half of the 'logline' was not part of the logline, of course. It's for this crowd to entice them to read. I figured I have a little more leeway here. If I was wrong with that, my apologies. Here it is, without the preamble. After a terrible accident causes a morbidly obese girl's fat to explode from her body, the town residents who tormented her will face their own fate when the disembodied fat takes on a life of its own to exact a horrific yet hilarious revenge. UPDATE: OBeast made Screencraft Horror Semi-finals yesterday! Finger's crossed that it goes the distance!

Well congrats on the contest and good luck advancing!  I'll crack this open this weekend.  Still think the logline should be trimmed but will wait until after I read the script.

Hi Jason,

Thank you so much for the read and I'm super glad you enjoyed it.

Your description, the Blob meets Carrie, is exactly how we describe it, too!

My favorite death is the one with the Camaro. Talk about a movie moment, eh? Hahaha

Let me know if you need a read!

Tim

Hey Jeremiah,

Thanks in advance for the read. I hope you enjoy it.

And as for loglines... all suggestions welcomed. :-)

Best,

Tim

Update:

Just received a READ request from one of Hollywood's biggest Horror ProdCos. Beyond happy.

Yes, it's just a pinky toe in the door... but it's a pinky toe in the door !!!

Congrats.

Which one?

Quoted from TimWestland Update: Just received a READ request from one of Hollywood's biggest Horror ProdCos. Beyond happy. Yes, it's just a pinky toe in the door... but it's a pinky toe in the door !!!

Bingo! Great news for you & that stinky pinky toe. You and Rod are killer.

Awesome!!! Fingers, toes and eyes crossed!  8)

Quoted from Warren Congrats. Which one?

Hey there... this is gonna sound really stupid, but I don't know if it's OK to put that info out there. Doesn't that sound stupid? Shows my naivete, I suppose.

But you've seen the movies and TV shows this company has made.

It's certainly a long shot. That's the way these things go. But OBeast is doing well in Screencraft and the ProdCo liked the concept and pitch... so... we're keeping our fingers crossed until they break.

Johnny and Angry Bear... and Warren, of course... Thanks!!!

Quoted from TimWestland Hey there... this is gonna sound really stupid, but I don't know if it's OK to put that info out there. Doesn't that sound stupid? Shows my naivete, I suppose.

I wouldn't disclose it, Tim.

And as you know, the only stupid question you can ever ask in Hollywood is "so, what's your budget?"  :P

Yeah, keep it under your hat...and good luck.

Thanks Johnny and Scar. The last thing I want to do is fuck this one up.

Hey Tim,

Were you still wanting reads on this?  Since this is in the hands of pros, not sure if you still wanted any thoughts.  Congrats on getting this into the gatekeepers and good luck with it.

Hey Jeremiah,

Thanks for the congrats, but it's only in their hands... no deals are in the offing yet.

I'm always looking for feedback and appreciate it sincerely.

I hope it doesn't disappoint.

Best,
Tim

Update: That big horror prodco... absolutely hated the 20 pages they read.

At the same time, this script is a Screencraft Horror Semi-finalist (top 50 out of over 1,000 scripts)

What lesson is there to be learned? (in Forrest Gump voice) You never know what you're gonna get!

Based on the brief notes from the prodco, the person reading was not the person who read the pitch and asked for the script. How do I know? Because the pitch is very clear that this script is an 80's camp horror flick. It describes the premise, communicates the tone and the theme. The notes indicated that they didn't know what the story was about when they started reading.

Can't overcome that.

What this story suffers from (in my opinion) is what I call Shallow Hal syndrome. Those of you who have seen that movie likely understand that the goal of it was to show that judging people by outward appearance is wrong.  But there were (are) some people who just see it as only making fun of fat people.

In OBeast, the bad guys are the ones who torment the protagonist and cause all of the problems. So we had to write these 80s assholes as 80s assholes. And they all die deliciously.

But the reader was essentially offended by the language and scored every aspect of the script as "1's".

Do his comments anger me or dishearten me? Not at all. That's part of this whole write and submit thing.

Would I recommend you do what we did and submit to Stage32 Happy Writers pitch sessions? Yes, I would.

And if you get poor ratings, think about the script, see if you can improve it, and allow yourself to grow a thicker skin so that you'll be able to accept more critique.

Good luck folks!

Thoughts while I read:

Your descriptions of Monica and her girth are hilarious.

A girl named Sheraton? Odd name. Maybe a more 80’s typical name like Shelly or Jenny?

p.10 Is pig pussy pork? Weird line of dialogue. There must be a better way to write that.

There are a lot of pop culture references in this but it’s starting to reach the level of Naked Gun/Airplane type spoof. You’re going for a comedic tone, obviously, but I don’t think outright parody is what you’re going for. Might want to dial it back.

p.24 “all of the fat in her head protected her like a flabby helmet”, I laughed out loud.

p.34, Paul breaks the fourth wall to talk to the audience. Again, not sure how far into spoof category you want to go. I’m of the opinion you should dial it back… or go full board Naked Gun. Right now, you’re kind of in the middle.

p.72, Bye Randy. This isn’t proper screenwriting but I love it. It makes the script entertaining for the reader. Don’t change your style.

p.80 Bryan should be Groper

p.82 lose the weight line, excellent!

Fun ending.

You’ve got a fun little throwback to the monster movies of the 50’s with the tone of horror films from the 80’s. It would make a fun movie that I would enjoy watching. The biggest problems are two-fold. I’ve already mentioned the tone. Go full Naked Gun or not at all. Watch the Wedding Singer to see what I mean. They are able to weave 80’s references more naturally into their story. You’ve got multiple TV and movie and music references on every page. Dial it back.

The other problem is the overall message about fat people and body acceptance/shaming. Some ultra liberal types are gonna hate this. I’m not sure how you can change that without ruining the whole thing but be prepared for some producers to chuck this in the trash and block your phone number.

I enjoyed it, but I’m not sure everybody will.

I read your post about the poor review from the Production Company after I posted my review. Seems I was onto something. People are either going to love this or hate this. There will be no middle ground.

Even if the subject matter offended them, I don't understand how anybody could lower your score for dialogue, characters, format, pacing etc. Those are pretty much perfect. Sounds like you had someone reading with a stick up their butt.

You'll get them next time. Congrats on the semi-finalist in that contest!

Angelus,

Thank you for the read, the comments, the critique, the suggestion and the compliments. All very much appreciated.

In the end, we all have to write the story that is trying to come out of us. This story is what we wanted it to be. We might make changes (you offered some good ones!), but the tone and style and story will remain as is.

It will find a home or it won't.

On that note... some updates!

OBeast made Top 10 in the Screencraft 2016 Horror contest !!!!

So is it good? Industry pros who were the judges thought so.
Will it get optioned or made? Who knows? We'll try (are actively trying). But how many scripts that are written ever get optioned... and of those... produced. If we lived by the percentages, none of us would write anything.

We write because it is in us to write... and we hope (work towards) success. My favorite example is Little Miss Sunshine. The writer shopped that script and was turned down for 10 YEARS before he found an interested person. He didn't give up. Neither shall we.

We've submitted OBeast to several Stage32 Happy Screenwriter producers. Two more have replied. One loved it and rated it very well, but it didn't fit his slate. Another thought it was silly and could be a cult classic, but he rated it quite low on the score card.

Lesson: Write. Network. Try.

After that... it's up to the imaginary gods...

Best of luck everyone.

Hey this is kind of a random comment..

I opened up the script and I noticed that the TEXT in your script was kind of on the light side.

Like it's a little faded, not quite as dark as normal. Is this some kind of glitch in my web browser, or do you guys notice that the font looks a little light and not dark enough?

What program did you use to create the pdf?

Hey Greg,

That was output from Final draft 9. I don't think you can control the output, so I think it might be your display or PDF viewer.

I'll give it a look anyway.

Thanks in advance for the read.

Tim