Strange Brew
CraigDGriffithsUberwriter
A backyard drug cook tests a new formula on her willing friends. It produces hallucination turning them into murderous, sadistic adversaries. She must survive their attacks as they slip deeper into madness.
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Hello, I think you can do it in one sentence,
like:
“when a backyard drug cook tests a new formula on her friends, they become hallucinanting murderers and she must survive their attack”.
Agree with the above. I don’t know if it’d make it too clunky, but could try including a why they test it on the friends, E.G. In an attempt to fend off competition a backyard drug cook secretly tests a new drug on his friends, but must survive their attacks when it turns them all into zombie like savages.
Like I said that isn’t perfect, but I think testing it on unwilling or unknowing people means they’ll be more desperate to save them as they never knew what they were getting into.
Hope that makes sense and helps. Overall I like the idea, as the hallucinations could be played up to kelp you guessing if they have taken or has. The protagonist and he is huntin them.
The idea of having a bunch of friends turn on each other due to a hallucinogenic drug can be fun but in this instance I find the MC repulsive.
She is a drug dealer and she drugged her friends with an experimental un tested drug and now she is in danger of having their drug induced violence harm her… good riddance I say!
The MC has no reason for me to empathize with and her predicament seams fitting to her crime and with the only dramatic drive being her survival I think audience interest in such a story will be little.
Also the goal was hinted at “…they slip deeper into madness.” but not specified. Better to actual mention that she must find a cure or fight her friends to survive etc..
“A backyard drug cook tests a new formula on her willing friends. It produces hallucination…” – is too much without a plot point in a logline.
Structurally she does what she always does makes drugs and then gives these drugs to people, friends or not willing or not this is the norm for her. The only thing that happened out of the norm is these people turned into psychotic killers making this the inciting incident. I suggest getting to this crucial plot point sooner in the logline and creating a scenario in which she is not such a horrible person. Conceivably this would aid the story in being more appealing and interesting as a whole.
Hope this helps.
Thanks Nir, I write so many unlikeable protagonist (probably says a lot about me). Her friends sell her drugs for her and love the free samples. In her coherent (dumb ass teens) she is a legend.
She is trying to stop them from killer her and each other without drawing attention to herself or them. A few die, and it all goes to crap. I have a very Tropy opening scene in mind. The young girl being interviewed by police as if she is a victim. Then we go to flashback and find it is all her fault.
I am thinking they not just trip, but she is dumb enough to start playing a dangerous game freaking them out. Which they murderously finish.
I am thinking she is a little like the Kevin Spacey character in “Usual Suspects”.
What would sell the concept for me is not the story line, but the character, the portrait of an unapologetically amoral, irresistibly charming, intuitively manipulative and brazenly deceitful young female shapeshifter who has already mastered the art of wrapping other people (particularly men) around her little finger. IOW: she is not likeable, but she is compelling.
Exactly. I think females can make better dark characters. Mostly they are written as insane and dark. I think they be “bad” without being mad.
Thanks for the help.
The big difference being that the Kevin Spacey character – Keyser Soze was reviled as such only at the very end. Up to that point as far as the audience is concerned he was a loveable small time criminal that dealt in petty crime without harming anyone in particular.
This female MC would have to follow on the same vain of mystery and scope for most of the film before reviling she in fact induced the psychosis.
In The Usual Suspects Kevin Spacey’s character was legendary world wide as the devil incarnate this revelation in the end gave his character a great enough of an impact for a moving conclusion. In this story the MC is loved by her group of friends for the drugs she gives/sells them. If this is going to be reviled at the end of the story in the same way as with The Usual Suspects it won’t have a significant enough impact to be as moving.
If you are modelling this after The Usual Suspects then perhaps best to devise a character who’s story cold have a greater scope.
Could she secretly be the head of the largest drug cartel in the world?