Dead End Job
captaindooleyLogliner
A haunted young man must decide whether he?s mentally ill or really seeing ghosts when his recently deceased best friend asks for help solving his murder.
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And if the story is about solving the murder, tell us more about the friend and the world of his that the protag will explore.
A plot is about doing not about deciding what to do.
“When his best friends ghost asks him to solve his murder, a (Spunky architect? A naive student? An arrogant boy band member?) Must…” (Then tell us what he must do)
As Ckharper has pointed out, the actual goal should be to solve the murder. Making a decision is something that happens inside a character’s head and, visually, is not very interesting for an audience. Those decisions have to be represented on screen in a different way. In my head the decision as to whether or not to pursue this mystery is the Act I to II transition – this is him entering the upside down. I would also consider changing the genre to mystery rather than thriller. Up to you but currently this logline reads as a mystery to me – the genre must be apparent in the logline.
I had a very similar premise – “When a stranger?s corpse tells her he?s an unsolved murder victim, an impetuous journalist must follow his clues and unmask the killer for the story of her career.” – Check out the feedback for that one as it may help with this in some way…. https://loglines.org/logline/when-a-strangers-corpse-appears-in-her-bedroom-and-reveals-he-was-murdered-an-impetuous-movie-critic-must-piece-together-the-clues-and-unmask-the-killer-so-she-can-rest-in-piece/
With your protagonist, you describe his as “haunted” and “young”… Ckharper’s point about being “haunted” is spot on and the youth side of things holds no bearing on the story. Can you give us another characteristic and character word that will give us more information about who this guy is. The characteristic usually goes some way to hinting at the character’s arc through the film – if he’s cynical, he becomes “believing” or “optimistic” perhaps. For the reader to fully understand the story, we need to understand the character.
What are the stakes? What happens if he doesn’t do this? Are there any other antagonistic forces working against him? other than the obvious obviously.
I would rework this to fit the conventional format suggested in the Our formula tab and focus more on the visual goal rather than the internal one e.g. “When the ghost of his deceased best friend asks him for help solving his murder, a lazy shop assistant must follow the clues and solve the mystery so his friend can rest in peace”.
To me the title you’ve suggested “Dead End Job” works nicely with him being a lowly shop assistant or something unaspirational. I do feel this is definitely the title for a comedy film though, not a thriller.?
Hope this helps.
This is an intriguing premise and a movie I?d watch.
On the Logline, can you describe the man with another adjective? If he?s ?haunted? then don?t we know he is in fact seeing ghosts?
And would his goal be to actually solve the murder? Does he figure out the question of seeing ghosts vs mental illness pretty early on and then start solving the murder?