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hihello8484Logliner
When his devout daughter is possessed by the spirits of two revengeful children in order to exact revenge on their remorseless nurse, an accused and suspended priest must pull himself together and exorcise her before she kills the nurse- who happens to be his wife.
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So the priest must exorcise the spirits from his daughter before she, in her possessed state, kills her own mother? Is that right?
What did the nurse/mother/wife do to these children? If it’s something truly despicable then surely we want her to be punished?
Can devout people be possessed? I am not familiar with exorcisms (thankfully) but my cinematic knowledge tells me that evil spirits couldn’t inhabit someone deeply religious. I could be wrong though, so apologies if I am.
At 45 words, it’s a little long and I think could easily be trimmed. It’s a little difficult to follow too. If it doesn’t make sense on the first read through (second if you’re lucky) there’s a strong chance it will go no further.
Why 2 children? Why not just 1? To steal a line from The Exorcist… “There is only one”. Surely only one can talk at any one time or control her? I do like the idea of two distinct personalities though… visually I’m thinking Smeagol and Gollum type scenes. We need to understand why there must be two.
What has the priest been accused and suspended for?
I would try to trim it to under 35 words and make it easier to follow. Consider things visually too… “must pull himself together” – how does this look on screen? It could be done in several seconds, minutes, hours, days, months, etc. Give him a specific thing to do that shows the audience that he’s pulled himself together. Also, I think if he’s not currently ready to exorcise his daughter because of whatever his personal issue is, keeping in mind that his daughter’s and wife’s lives are on the line, why would he not just get someone else to do it? Why MUST it be him? Easy answer, the spirits lock the house down. He has no choice.
Hope this helps in some way.
Thanks so much. Your questions are on point. I?ll answer them ?hopefully by tomorrow.Its 9:33 pm here. And ?I?ll take your suggestions too into consideration .
“When two vengeful spirits threaten his wife, a former priest must exorcise the spirits from the children they possess in order to save her.”
I like this concept and think I have seen either the movie that provoked it or one similar.? There are areas of easy trimming, and differing tangents to take, but one such take might be the following, which leaves the priest’s battle less articulated since it appears only a tangent to the central theme. It *could* be far more involved but that would be a differing script.
If this were mine, I would tie the priest’s wayward state to his inner struggle with the unacknowledged awareness of his wife’s true nature, but.. that is complicated.
“A wayward priest’s daughter is possessed by the spirits of two children who seek to kill their evil nurse, forcing him to seek redemption in time to exorcise his daughter, only to discover the evil nurse is also his wife.”
Agreed with most of the above – the loglie is too wordy and the narrative it describes is slightly confusing.
What do you mean with “…an accused and suspended priest…” accused of what? Child molesting? Murder? Fraud? Has he just been accused or has he been convicted?
To a large extent, this would form the image of the character in the audience’s mind as either a victim or aggressor. Therefore, you’d need to clarify this in the logline.
I’m honestly not getting much intrigue out of your explanation about why the children are angry.? I think the priest being “suspended” in some way is interesting.? And him trying to expunge the spirits from his daughter before they kill his wife is interesting.? I think this would make for a very clean logline too:
A disgraced priest must exorcise vengeful spirits from his daughter before she kills his wife.
Definitely see if others agree and disagree with me, however, before taking my advice.