A young family experience supernatural happenings in their new home. After the family pet is butchered and the children have been attacked in their beds a non believer must play devils advocate to the deadly unseen evil by taking a life in order to save his families.
tonybillLogliner
A young family experience supernatural happenings in their new home. After the family pet is butchered and the children have been attacked in their beds a non believer must play devils advocate to the deadly unseen evil by taking a life in order to save his families.
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Now the obvious question… does the story begin with the lead character having to take a life to appease the evil spirit, and the rest of the movie is about that decision, or does that come later in the script? Because it will affect how the logline should be written.
The good thing, The lead being ordered by the evil spirit to take a life is the ‘hook’ (although a dark one) and it’s good you added it to the logline because it wasn’t coming through in your previous attempts.
The murder is part of the climax. The story is about how the entity influences the guy to kill at the end
>>The murder is part of the climax
Then you make it like tons other out there..
sin–>denial–>power play between the forces of light and dark
But making “murder” an inciting Incident,
allows the question (why the paranormal demands human sacrifice) suspend through the plot
and
a suspended question = suspense
If
“The lead being ordered by the evil spirit to take a life” is your hook (suggested by Richiev)
Then
“What happens when he doesn’t comply with his instruction to kill”–becomes your filmplay
“how he escapes his command”–becomes your plot
“how your Act 2 drags a disbeliever into the world of paranormal”–becomes your premise
I’d say make “his first kill-order” an Inciting Incident..
I don’t (yet) get a sense of a? thematic thread that ties it all the plot elements together.? What’s the point of your story?? What is the theme you wish to dramatize?
A man realizes the only way to save his family is to sacrifice his own humanity by killing an innocent.
It sounds like you’re trying to dramatise the concept of doing the wrong thing for the right reason – we’ve had many loglines for concepts trying to do the same posted in the last few months. Seems to be a trend with a few premise variations in each case, but one thing that does repeat itself is the lack of believable stakes to motivate the character to take extreme action. In your case, he must kill and the question is asked why not just move away? In order to force someone to kill, you’de have to devise a scenario that absolutely leaves him no choice, like in the War of the Worlds re make when Tom Cruze kills the crazy guy in the basement to save his daughter. And as Rivhiev mentioned, is the whole film going to be about him deliberating whether or not to kill? Or will it be about him planning the murder? Or will it be about him covering up post kill? The plot is simply not clear.
First and foremost this is too long, you have to reduce the word count for the logline to work. In doing so, you’ll find that many of the descriptions are not needed, for example: the words “…young…”. and “…new…” can be cut from the first sentence and the words “…experience supernatural happenings…” can be replaced with ‘haunted’.
Other than that, you don’t need to detail the way in which the spirit terrorizes them, just describe a threat to their lives and the subsequent action the father must take. More importantly, though, you need to describe the main character sooner in the logline and using clearer terms – is he the eldest son, father or grandfather.
Agree substantially with Nir Shelter.
I like stories that pose genuine dilemmas for protagonists.? But I’m not sure that is the case here.? As Nir Shelter said, he seems to have the option? of vacating the premises, move his family out.? End of dramatic problem, end of dilemma, nobody has to die, right?? If the protagonist cannot take that option, there has to be credible reason why and I don’t see what it could be.
Yes, moving out means financial disaster, the loss of every penny he’s sunk into? the property, and the mortgage he is still obligated to pay off.? I can see where that delays him, but ultimately it comes to a choice between between life? (move out) and death (stay).? It’s a no brainer choice, so it’s not a true ethical dilemma.
Thanks Nir. I get what you mean.
DPG, the theme is “A man realises the only way to save his family is to sacrifice his humanity by killing an innocent.” the movie leads up to the murder as part of the climax chronicling the incidents that drive him to this course of action.
A father must save his family from a haunting in their home linked to a massacre that occurred years before. With one of the original victims surviving (INCITING INCIDENT?), the father, a non-believer, down on his luck and unable to afford to move away, must play devil?s advocate to the deadly unseen evil in order to? deliver the original life and save his family.