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Ah... a six pager, thank you. Agree with the others on the Narrator at the beginning, especially if he doesn't appear again later.
If they had run out of food weeks ago, they'd already be dead. You can only last maybe one week without food, then your body starts shutting down. So maybe you say they ran out of food days ago.
I understand your ending but i don't agree with it. First all, it assumes she killed Jack, and if she was willing to kill Jack in order to survive, why would she now kill herself when she knows she's going to survive? Doesn't make sense to me.
Otherwise, the writing is good and the dialogue not too bad. I would still rework that ending.
My ratings (out of 5): Concept: 3.5 Story: 3.5 Character: 4 Dialogue: 4 Writing: 4 Overall: 3.8
Best, Gary
Some of my scripts:
Bounty (TV Pilot) -- Top 1% of discoverable screenplays on Coverfly I'll Be Seeing You (short) - OWC winner The Gambler (short) - OWC winner Skip (short) - filmed Country Road 12 (short) - filmed The Family Man (short) - filmed The Journeyers (feature) - optioned
I'm interested in reading animation, horror, sci fy, suspense, fantasy, and anything that is good. I enjoy writing the same. Looking to team with anyone!
I like the premise. Solid stuff, with lots of ways to go. I DO think that it would be a good idea to get a little more crazy with the conflict. To agreeing to the game and deal... and MAYBE, PERHAPS MAYBE, change the ending in this way... what IF..... Sarah lost, and then pulled a gun because she wanted to live, even if it costs Jack his life (to keep her from being unsympathetic, maybe she has a family and he doesn't? Photos, etc?) Then - he's injured and alive when the call comes in. And that's when she loses it and commits suicide. I'm not saying you have to change it that way. Just riffing on ideas to give it more twists and flavor.
A few quick generic notes:
p. 1 Official designation T-27 (period) p. 1 Jack, male (is that necessary? Jack’s pretty much a male name…) Same issue with Sarah, female. p. 3 Are we (question mark) p. 3 Pause (period) p. 4 I dunno – seems like Sarah and Jack are agreeing to this a bit too casually…
This has a twilight zone or horror element. It works as far as it goes. These two face a conundrum, but it doesn't have to be death.
You might consider a slightly different ending. Cut away after the cards are cut and to the resupply shit arriving 45 days later. When they arrive they find both alive, simply missing some limbs. Horrific but plausible. Of course, if one of them is missing a tongue...
Honestly, I read these isolation plots pretty often, but I like your execution here.
I think the narrator gives an ironic touch to it, and I believe you definitely need that 4 seconds CGI ice planet establishing shot to bring it to life, it makes everything more believable and not so "cheap" as the other stories I mention above in general look like; a good choice of you imo.
Only thing you need to realize is that the plot never will have a lot of meaning or message. So, the focus must be to maximize humor and gore. Her cooking in a bloody apron and the suicide were great in case of the later. The humor could need more harmony, perhaps one big punch line if possible.
I would have been out at page 4, saw that it is only 6 pages and continued.
Code
She opens a drawer, takes out a pistol, puts the muzzle to
her head, pulls the trigger. She falls to the floor dead.
Huh? Makes no sense whatsoever. So she's prepared to eat the guy, yet when she finds out he died for nothing, she kills herself? Also, I didn't buy into the whole card game thing. Their undying love first needs to be strengthened in the narrative. It reminds me a lot of one of my own stories, Christmas in Leningrad.
I didn't really buy this story. I think you can rewrite it though and make it work really well. My issues were the character's ages for starters. 20s, I think is a bit young to be a volunteer researcher on a distant celestial body.
I also think that they would agree to die together rather than play cards about who should eat who. Why not have them agree to die together, but then they reach a point where hunger and survival instincts become so strong they both plot how to kill the other one.
It also seemed to me that the supply ship that would take 45 days and was suddenly changed to 6 hours was a bit unbelievable.
IMO, fix a few of the believability issues and work the drama and tension into something stronger and the script will work really well.
I recommend Symbios by J.A Konrath. Awesome short story I once wanted to write into a script and had the writer's permission too, but there was a squabble between my agent and his so the deal fell through. Too bad, but check the story out. It's great!
Not bad. Drew me in to keep reading but the ending was a tad overboard. Anther rush job perhaps?
Writer knew his stuff but the mishmash of ideas and genres ( veered into comedy for a bit and I honestly expected Sarah to be cracking jokes and stuff at the end as she ate Jack, a la the Monty Python survivor boat sketch lol)
Well...p, there goes another one I thought Stevie wrote.
The concept was intriguing.
The opening narration, which is basically the logline, reads like a movie trailer:
THIS SUMMER, Game Night gets a WHOLE NEW MEANING.
Nah, I'd strip it and save it for the trailer.
They ran out of food weeks ago, and yet they just now ran out of Corn Flakes?
Pop Eye? The Sailor Man or Popeye's Chicken?
There's not enough of the game. It's there for maybe two seconds and then it's gone. It's incidental and not really important to the story; it could be Monopoly or Operation and it wouldn't change the story.