He Listens He Waits by James (GreenGecko) - Horror - Four college students are kidnapped by a deranged teenage boy, but released with one rule: "don't tell anyone or die." For justice, answers, and peace of mind, a man-hating slut has trouble turning to her friends for help from her kidnapper turned stalker. 77 pages - pdf, format 8)

This logline is horribad. I can't open this..

I could open it and read the first few pages despite the logline. You have one piece of VO at the beginning but to me it's not really enough to set the tone. Also, we get a lot of dialogue between the three girls,but I still don't get a sense of who they are by the dialogue. If you are going to stay with that first VO block you need to really make it better...give us some mystery...it sounds horrific but I think it needs some work. I may try to read more this week at work. Wow on finishing a feature length. Hard stuff....writing.

Yeah you're right. It's a pretty bad log.

I'll try to revise: In fear of being attacked again, a frightened college girl must convince her absurd friend to call the police after being kidnapped and released by a strange man. Her absurd friend promised they wouldn't call the police and will do anything to stop her.

Okay, that's not a whole lot better. I'll think about it. In the end, the idea probably isn't feature-worthy, and "frightened" isn't really a character trait.

Either way, here's a google link for those that don't like scribd:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B6tIEdgKGhKXS0tFYXhSUndYaWs

I haven't read the script but by what has been said maybe something like this would work:

Logline: Three girls are released from captivity on the condition they tell no one about what has happened. Tension brews when one decides to break her promise.

Yeah that's pretty good. Thanks Demento.

I thought I'd rework your logline a little.  I read the first scene to get the gist of your story and found these were first two girls that go in to find a 3rd girl so didn't know how to work her in.

Here's mine --

Two friends go for a hike in the woods, not knowing their lives will change forever.  Will they keep what happened a secret as instructed or risk the deadly consequences?

That was pretty nice of him to let them go! But I get that's the rest of the story.  Kind of like I Know What You Did Last Summer...do we tell, don't we?

I will try to check out the rest to see what happens.

Nancy

Ok, I can open it now.

To boot, this is film, so how much more effective and terrifying would the opening be if you showed snipits (that a word?) of this tortuous image? You can keep the V.O. and just show flashes of each stage of torture.

Kee and Polly? Interesting names.

Tara lights a joint(s)  Super toker.

Pg.3 sounds like 2 guys talking and not girls.

This was interesting, including to the point when axe man let the girls go. I didn't see that coming. Then it slowed down with a lot of dialog. Took me out of the story.

Around pg 30 is where I got lost from the heavy dialog. I like the paranoia.

Stopeed when they started ordering a pizza. Got me hungry.

Tony

Thanks Tony and Nancy.

I've never really talked to a girl, so I just made them talk about boys and penises and thought it could slide through. I'll work on it.

Admittedly there's a lot of dialogue that I've been trying to cut so it doesn't get too technical. I'm glad you saw the paranoia, because originally I never wanted the Axe-Man to come back, and rather the girls turn on each other over the mystery. It's about how some things you'll never know and how it can drive you crazy. And some other stuff about male dominance over females, but I don't know if any of that got across.

Quoted from GreenGecko I've never really talked to a girl, so I just made them talk about boys and penises and thought it could slide through. I'll work on it.

Ummmm...you've never talked to a girl?  What does that mean?

Maybe you're very young, but even then, I'm sure you must have talked with girls before in school?  Family?  Friends of family?

If not, that's definitely a problem when writing about girls and how they speak.

If not, I recommend you speak with Stevie from Australia.  He's just like a girl, and you could learn alot how the fairer sex converses.   ;D ;D ;D

Keep it that way, Gecko...it will save you a lot of trouble. ;)

Hey, Gecko, congrats on shelling out a feature, no easy task. Is this your first draft? It’s all about editing and rewrites, also no easy task.

I think you got a good premise here, a group girls debating over the right course of action, which really all story are about. However, horrors, usually lack that aspect of something going on other than being chased and killed, some other piece of drama to create plot. This is all my opinion, but I’m going to go with it, haha. That’s all I can do. Anyway, I think the launch is decent the idea is there. I have agree with another reviewer that it begins to stumble after about page 30. The reason could be that your already hitting that beat of police/no police, which is you’re bread and butter, maybe letting it sit there rather than you character harping on it so much.

I don’t have an issue with dialogue heavy stories as long as the characters are discussing something and better still debating something. Again, peaks and valleys. I’m about half way through at page 44.

BLB

Quoted from GreenGecko ...so I just made them talk about boys and penises...

Sounds about right to me.

Thanks BLB. To be honest this draft is a mess and I tried to do too much and ended with some pretentious schlock, especially towards the end. I agree that I hit the same topic over and over, and it's tiring. I like the premise, but I think I need to restart and find a better way to go at it. I've been so preoccupied with creating an "anti-horror," but I'm starting to think more and more that it could benefit from some conventional running and screaming.

Hi everyone. I completely rewrote this one. Title change, second half takes a different turn, more characters, etc. I wasn't sure if I should submit it as a different entry or just post it here. The beginning is the same, just written different. Reading the old one again, I'm not sure if I improved it (which is a weird thing because you expect to improve as a writer).


HE LISTENS HE WAITS
Logline: Four college students are kidnapped by a deranged teenage boy, but released with one rule: "don't tell anyone or die." For justice, answers, and peace of mind, a man-hating slut has trouble turning to her friends for help from her kidnapper turned stalker. https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B6tIEdgKGhKXNk5aVW9JU1Q3clk

Green,

I think you're still struggling with this log:


'After being kidnapped and released, an independent college girl is forced by her anxious friend **to not tell anyone**, for she fears deadly consequences.
'

So basically, if she "just doesn't tell anyone," everything is hunky-dory, right? That's hardly a stake.

An "independent college girl?" Thats's supposed to generate interest? I haven't met too many college students who you could actually classify as "independent." Let alone one that's survived a kidnapping experience.

I'm reading this re-write, will get back to ya.

Tony.

Tony, I'm impressed that you can essentially dissect the entire problem with the script just from the logline. You're absolutely right. They are never in any physical danger. And that's not scary or thrilling.
I guess I was going for something else, but still not sure how to make it work. It's like I want it to be a horror film without it being a horror film.

Hi Gecko, I read the whole thing before the re-write, I'm quite impressed with the story, halfway through the discussions about call/not call the police went on a bit too much but I got really intrigued by Kee, wondering why she's so stubborn about police not getting involved.  Nice twists towards the end, especially when Polly finds the mask, but the end was a bit of a mess, I didn't quite understand the conclusion.

Just a few things that I noticed as I read:

In the first scene Polly's wearing 'Short shorts', which reads awkward.
The parents would surely be looking for the girls, they were missing all night, right? I understand Kee's parents are on a trip to Kahoe, but what about the other parents?
Typo on page 33 - replace 'there mother' with 'their mother'
Typo on page 34 - a statue of Jesus 'hands' , i guess you meant 'hangs'
page 34 'A hit to the jugularkills you in less than a minute' shouldn't it be something like 'slashing the jugular kills you...

I liked the dialogues between the girls, I guess now it's time to read your new version!

Thank you so much for taking the time to get through the whole thing, Marcela. You liked the things I liked in the script, so I appreciate that. You're totally right that it goes on too long and the ending is bullshit. Hopefully I worked on that in the rewrite, but it may be that I did the same thing.