Presumed dead, a vengeful old man uses his grandson as a vessel to help the police bust the cult that has destroyed his own life in order to save the human race.
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Presumed dead, a vengeful old man uses his grandson as a vessel to help the police bust the cult that has destroyed his own life in order to save the human race.
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As the others have said.
I think the logline should focus on, be framed in terms of the character who is most in jeopardy, who has to take the greater risks.? In which case, it? seems the grandson should be cast as the protagonist, not the grandfather.
Also, for the old man to want revenge — okay,? that’s understandable.? But to? say that the fate of the human race is at stake seems over the top in terms of the stakes. Exactly how does the?cult pose a threat to the survival of all humanity?? What makes the cult so horrible?
And why would the grandson consent to be used as pawn by the grandfather?? What’s his motivation for putting his life in jeopardy?
Some great comments by Richiev and giannisggeorgiou.
Why not make the Grandson the protagonist and he’s avenging his grandfather’s death? The best thing about doing it this way is the audience is then following a protagonist who knows as little as they do. This would likely reduce the amount of exposition required in the first act as the information would be discovered along the way. The grandfather could have left clues for the grandson making it a really creepy detective-type film.
The protagonist needs to be the one who busts this cult. No police. In fact, if anything, the police are involved with the cult. Make this as tough as possible for the protagonist, he has nowhere to turn – except to the B-story – best friend, love interest, his grandfather’s 86 year old girlfriend? Horror works best when someone is isolated in as many ways as possible. I also think he shouldn’t just be busting them… he should be destroying them. Similar to the end of ‘Get Out’ (no spoilers but watch the movie and you’ll understand).
The biggest problem currently is the ambiguity mentioned by Richiev. I don’t really want to add my comments regarding that until there’s been clarification.
Hope this helps.
After reading giannis’s?critique, I can now see that the logline can be read two different ways.
1: “…to help the police bust the cult?(That destroyed his own life) in order to save the human race.” — in this version, the police must bust the cult in order to save the human race.
2: “…to help the police bust the cult?(That destroyed his own life in order to save the human race.”) — In this version, the cult that the police must bust, was trying to save the human race by destroying the lead character’s life.
It is a very big problem when a logline is written in such a way that it can be misread by the reader, and the logline should be re-written in such a way that clarifies this issue.
So, let’s take things one at a time:
Also, I think I got confused by the word “vengeful,” which (at least for me) usually has a negative connotation and I initially thought that the Old Man is the villain of the story and its protagonist.
In Kill Bill, the protagonist is vengeful, but this is not the first adjective that I would put in the logline. You are probably looking for something along the lines of “a wronged old man…,” although I don’t even know if that’s a word…
Now, let’s get to the story. I will agree with Richiev, here; the story’s action feels very indirect:
Give the protagonist an action that he can perform directly. It will actually help you come up with a stronger concept.
So the lead character, uses his grandson, to help the police, bust the cult… Usually, it is the lead character who takes action.
Also, the whole saving the world thing seems to come out of nowhere even though saving the entire human race seems like it would be the most important thing.