When an obsessive archaeologist accidentally releases a near-omnipotent demon, he must impersonate its boisterous, evil overlord to con it back into captivity.
JessieSamurai
When an obsessive archaeologist accidentally releases a near-omnipotent demon, he must impersonate its boisterous, evil overlord to con it back into captivity.
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The only problem I see is how does he plan to impersonate his evil overlord
Wouldn’t he need the VFX department for that, lol
Apart from that I am kinda hooked…
Logline edit: Made the overlord a bit harder (and funnier) to copy.
Is this a short film? The ACTION the character takes — conning a demon into believing he is essentially its boss — doesn’t feel like it has enough legs to support a feature length narrative?
Also — impersonating a demon’s boss (the devil?) is not something people are familiar with, so they kind of can’t picture what kind of narrative this would follow? In terms of selling the screenplay, this would mean that at a glance, people wouldn’t know the scale of production this story is likely to require, and in terms of enticing people to want to read / watch the narrative, it’s hard to know what kind of movie they’re likely to be getting involved with, and most audiences don’t like that level of ambiguity.
Also … what is at stake?
The ironic hook at the centre of the logline; an obsessive archeologist having to use his knowledge of archeology to outsmart a demon, doesn’t really land. By that, I mean, his obsession would likely make him uniquely equipped to deal with this situation, so you’re missing an opportunity for irony there. But also, if ‘overcoming obsession / learning to let go & care about other things in life’ is the central thesis and the flaw that the protagonist needs to overcome, it’s not really clear how this outer journey is going to take this character to that place of enlightenment? If anything, it feels like having to go REALLY deep into his obsession might be the only way to convince a demon that he’s its boss … so I struggle to see how he’s going to learn to be less obsessed, if that’s the way he’s able to resolve the situation?
If you’re going with the omnipotent angle, may as well drop the “…near…” description – either he is omnipotent or he isn’t. Though, I wouldn’t make him omnipotent seeing as it would make the MC’s goal almost impossible.
The logic at the base of the concept is a very hard sell. Could the archeologist perhaps have found a mystical artifact that gives him powers? Otherwise, it doesn’t make much sense that a mortal can match up to a demi-god.
If not an artifact and sp[ecifal powers, what if the demon accidentally possesses the archeologist’s partner’s body and the archeologist has to pretend that he is the demon’s boss and has possessed the archeologist’s body? At least then you have a fairly even playing field in terms of looks – for every crazy demonic outburst the real possessed person does the archeologist has to match and top it if he’s to keep up the facade.
Basically, the kind of situation I?m going for (and this may be yet another script lol) is:
Imagine, the most powerful, AI-controlled bomb, set to blow up the planet thinks you?re it?s mommy. It still is set to explode and suggesting otherwise would blow your cover, but you can suggest inconspicuous actions, that include delays, thereby buying your buddies the time to defuse it.
Very basic. There?s more to it, but yeah.