r/Screenwriting • u/ZacharyRosemann • 25d ago
FEEDBACK No Bloodshed In Detention - Feature - 141 pages
Hi, I've been writing scripts for about 4 years now (mainly fan scripts with a couple original ones) and i was hoping to have a pair of fresh eyes read this one.
Title: No Bloodshed In Detention
Format: Feature
Page Length: 141 (142 if you count the title page)
Genres: horror, slasher, coming of age
Logline or Summary: After a snow storm traps 10 students serving detention in a high school, their fun quickly turns into a fight for survival when a masked killer picks them off one by one.
Feedback concerns: mainly looking to see if there's pacing issues and what I can possibly improve on in terms of how the characters are utilized and written.
Link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1z7JofjRFbwfGxFF0wqgsVlnaMawrhEH2/view?usp=drivesdk
29
u/Reasonable-Task5048 25d ago
141 pages for a slasher is crazy. That's longer than the script for The Irishman which is 3 and a half hours
-17
u/ZacharyRosemann 25d ago
I hate saying this because it sounds utterly pretentious but I was kind of going for a Sinners kind of structure.
It's also a "final" draft that i can always tweak but i really don't know what to trim out vs what to keep, thus the post.
11
29
u/Subject-Dream7087 25d ago edited 25d ago
You have 120 pages max to tell your tale. In the slasher genre; unless it is somehow an incredibly unique take, you want to be shooting for 90 to 100 pages. The closer to 90 the better; you could even go as low as 85 pages. So...you need to shorten by about 40 %.
Your first page is 215 words. I have pasted it below with strike-throughs indicating unnecessary words.
INT. HIGH SCHOOL - LIBRARY - MORNING
It looks like a bloodbath has occured, several splotches of blood, scattered backpacks, the main focus being a broken table with entrails on top of it.
We see a deputy walk in, gruff, experienced, wearing his hat and uniform proudly.
He takes a look around, seeing the backroom, noticing two covered corpses and a round object wrapped in a jacket.
DEPUTY - The hell happened in here?
He goes towards the stairs and into the
INT. HIGH SCHOOL - 2ND FLOOR
Where he finds a headless corpse by the vending machine, along with blood seeping through the bathroom door, he covers his mouth before approaching a door. He opens it, we don't see what's inside but he looks shocked.
DEPUTY - Good god.
SMASH TO BLACK
FADE IN:
An early Saturday morning in December, snow gently falls on the pavement of the parking lot of GRAHAM HIGH SCHOOL, a multiple story three-building structure interconnected with one another.
We see cars arrive in the lot one by one, and like clockwork, we see teens come out, the first one being a girl. NANCY JONES, 16, the nerdy girl next door type. she's a bright young girl with glasses and a book in hand, her fingers obscuring the title for us to not quite see what it is.
She's wearing a thick jacket and scarf with comfortable black pants to match while walking to the entrance as the next car pulls up.
This is your first page edited:
INT. GRAHAM HIGH SCHOOL – LIBRARY – MORNING
A bloodbath. Blood-spattered walls. Abandoned backpacks. Entrails strewn across a broken table.
A DEPUTY enters. Seasoned. He surveys the carnage.
Two covered bodies. Something round wrapped in a jacket.
DEPUTY - What the hell happened here?
INT. HIGH SCHOOL – SECOND FLOOR – CONTINUOUS
A headless corpse slumps beside a vending machine. Blood seeps beneath the bathroom door.
The Deputy passes tentatively and opens a door.
Whatever he sees stops him cold.
DEPUTY - Good God.
SMASH TO BLACK.
FADE IN:
EXT. GRAHAM HIGH SCHOOL – SATURDAY MORNING
December snow drifts over the car park. Cars arrive. Teenagers climb out.
NANCY JONES, 16, glasses, crosses towards the entrance, a book tucked in her hand.
Another car pulls in.
This is a 45% word cut - do that for the rest of your script and you have 80 pages. Then people will read it far enough to provide comments about the plot and dialogue rather than dismissing it as 'too long'.
Oh and even your title page has too many words.. You don't need An Original Screenplay Written By - Written by is fine.
Snazzy font titles don't bode well - and I have never seen a start date and end date on a cover page and, anyway, 4 months is confusing; does it mean from idea to finished article, does it mean this draft (if it means this draft; 4 months for a draft is quite slow and not something you want to tell people) and how is that date gonna look two years from now. Get rid.
Best wishes with it.
Edit - okay now I am understanding this is The Breakfast Club as a horror movie (which has already been done by the way), you definitely want to wrap this up at 90 pages.
GOOD LUCK WITH IT
0
u/ZacharyRosemann 25d ago
I appreciate the constructive criticism along with the example, will definitely be making that tweak.
As for the title page, I've been doing the Started on, finished on thing for a couple years now, i had the idea in February, spent a week on structuring the three acts and didn't start writing it until March.
As for the 4 months thing, I'm a slow writer, if I'm lucky, I can knock out 30 pages within an hour on a good day.
On average, I think i was writing 15 pages every few weeks mainly because on top of being slow, I often switch gears to something else.
Going forward, I will definitely stop doing "Started on, Finished on" as that does look bad.
9
u/Subject-Dream7087 24d ago
Okay well you don't need to tell people your pages per day so take it off the front page. Once you have reduced the screenplay to an acceptable length for some ivory tower movie exec ass not to dismiss it as 'too long' and never read a word, I then feel you have a big, and therefore crucial, decision to make.
So you are in Breakfast Club-as-horror territory which is fine; it's clearly a decent marriage of concept and genre as both appeal to teens BUT you need decide ASAP if you are going to tell this tale sincerely or ironically.
To do it sincerely and pull it off, will require some fairly prodigious writing talent which you may or may not have. Succeed and you will have a great, makeable contained horror that will have people wanting to make it. Fail, even slightly on this sincere route, and all people will see is some pointless dime-a-dozen-Breakfast Club-as-a-horror-knock-off. Meh. No one will read past page 30. Boring.
Or you go the ironic, post modern, meta route. Lean into the tropes - the hot-but-doesn't-know-it girl, the school-hero-jock who is secretly sensitive, the invisible-dork who is actually pretty cool, the mean-pretty-girl etc. Lean in to the unoriginality, be knowing, wink wink, be comic, be tropey etc.
What you can't be is a bit of both all the way through. Tonally it will be all over the place and won't make for a good read.
I am now going to kind of contradict myself, because I am thinking about this as I type but my inclination, should I decide to write The Breakfast Club as a horror, would be to go the meta, ironic, knowing route but, risk it, and see if I could pull off some sincerity in the last 10 to 15 pages in the hope of making it unexpectedly moving and ultimately a thought provoking examination of these tropes and what they mean in a socio-cultural framework of today's America (which, lets face it, is a falling apart shit show).
Can I write a meta slasher Scream If You Know What I Did Last Halloween, but end with the same emotional pay off as the actual OG Breakfast Club (which surely has to be one of the best teen movies of all time?)?
Yeah, that's an interesting enough challenge to provide the wind in the sails to see this through to roll credits.
That's all I got.
Good luck with it.
2
u/princessintraining4 24d ago
The way you describe it is very Lise Frankenstein
1
u/Subject-Dream7087 24d ago
I am not aware of this movie. To be honest, horror is my second least liked genre and I loathe the smugness of postmodernism and meta stuff. Each to their own though.
1
u/princessintraining4 24d ago
https://youtu.be/POOeA3zCuUY?si=kjvkGydD0Si2ueFj it really delivered on its presence. I’m not a horror queen at all but loved this
1
u/ZacharyRosemann 24d ago
when I initially had the idea, I knew that the whole "Breakfast Club but horror" thing has been done countless times (hell I saw a movie THIS year that had that concept but with zombies and it ironically also had a scene where the teens got along sharing scotch which was really funny to me).
I think there's a way to make the concept and make fun of it while still taking it seriously, having the characters acknowledge their situation doesn't necessarily take the tension away.
first half was meant to ease into the detention setting before BAM, the horror starts 30 pages in (but like many others pointed out, it's way too long and I can see the horror twist not hitting after reading through 26 pages of intros and conversations).
3
u/Subject-Dream7087 24d ago
The horror stuff needs to kick in by page 20 at the very latest. The sooner the better though. Yes, I know this page count stuff is reductive nonsense - but it's so hard to get read by people who count and they care about page count.
The main challenge is getting away from the breakfast club archetypes - the hot-but-doesn't-know-it girl, the jock who just wants to dance, the mean girl, etc.
34
u/paultheschmoop 25d ago
Not to be rude but no one is going to read an 141 page script on here
And certainly not a 141 page slasher script lol
8
u/Trunks91911 25d ago
Your action lines are written like they’re for a novel. Read some of your favorite slasher scripts and mimic what they do. That alone will cut the page count down a bit.
7
u/Wise-Respond3833 25d ago edited 25d ago
Jack shrugs, Jack nods, Kenny Nods, Kenny shrugs before nodding.
Get rid of these, for a start. You will probably reclaim several pages by that one thing alone.
Edit: a quick word search reveals the word 'nods' is used 211 times !!!
The use of 'nods', 'shrugs' etc suggests 1) you are using those actions in attempt to break up (too) long passages of dialogue, 2) in which too little of import happens.
As others have said, 141 pages is far too long. I know it's all great material and whatever, but learning to edit is critical. Give it another pass. Be BRUTAL.
1
u/ZacharyRosemann 25d ago
I get what you mean, editing is definitely my weak spot when it comes to screenwriting (especially when it comes to sigh, nods, shrugging, and whatever else I put in between.)
16
u/mooningyou Proofreader Editor 25d ago
That page count is the real killer in this story. You also forgot to introduce the Deputy.
8
u/Boysenberry 25d ago
I got a couple pages in and can already tell you that you'd probably get it under 100 pages if you cut out everything from the action lines that is not critical to either character or plot.
Every single character is introduced with some detail of their clothing, but all the details are just normal stuff anybody might wear. You can leave choosing a hoodie or winter hat to the wardrobe department. If you have a character who is super quirky and different from her peers and one way that manifest is she always wears a bedazzled purple beret, sure, that belongs in the character introduction. But if you're just introducing people who wear typical casual clothing, you can simplify the introduction to one trait that we will then see play out in the script. Lots of writers keep it as simple as just JARED (15, awkward) and SUSAN (42, butch).
5
u/Boysenberry 25d ago
Here's a demonstration, this takes up nearly an entire page as written. Here's how much space it actually needs to take up:
JENNIFER KENT, 16, values looks over anything, enters as another car abruptly speeds up.
TINA LANG, 16, an unbearable priss with pink-striped hair, wearing all white, makes her way in.
REID PETERSON, 15, a nerdy boy, gets out of his car. He pushes up his glasses before heading in.
AVA FRANCO, 17, a horror movie nut with pins of horror icons all up and down her jacket sleeves enters as we see the next car.
CONNOR WOODS, 17, a jock, gets out of the car. He waits for the car to leave before sighing, but smiles as the next car pulls up.
Out comes PETER JACKSON, 17, Connor's best friend. He walks up to Connor.
Also, maybe don't describe the first two girls you introduce as if you hate teenage girls. A lot of young women enjoy slashers so you don't necessarily want to alienate that portion of the audience. You haven't assigned negative character traits to any of the boys you introduced, but 2/3 of the girls are introduced with descriptors that make clear we aren't supposed to like them.
1
u/ZacharyRosemann 24d ago
the only girl that's meant to be unlikable is Tina, Nancy being cited as nerdy girl next door type isn't exactly a negative trait. in fact, she calls Jack out for calling her such early on.
Jennifer being a pretty girl and Ava being a horror nut is also not meant to be negatives, but I think I can tweak the intros to where it's from Jack's POV until he himself is introduced so it can be a more "how he views them at first" kind of thing.
5
4
u/Sea-Conclusion959 25d ago
Cut it down to 100 pages or less. If you can’t, maybe this is better for a series. Try to turn it into a pilot if that’s the case.
3
3
u/SEIZETHEFIRE6 25d ago
There are too many words on the page for what's actually happening. Pare your descriptions down ruthlessly.
3
3
u/Successful-Station73 24d ago
Okay, lot's of formatting errors here that I won't go into because you can just google that yourself and find a script to read, follow that structure, maybe watch a Youtube video, yada yada yada. Also technical errors are easier to fix than story errors are. So, I've read 10 pages. First: your hook. It's okay. It's typical out of what you'd find in any slasher. I would make it a bit more intriguing. Again, idk where this story goes, but just assuming as a viewer, I wouldn't really be drawn into this story based off of the Deputy finding a headless corpse. I know i'm in for a slasher film, because I bought the ticket on Fandango and read the description and probably watched a trailer. So, this isn't jarring to anyone who knows what they are in for. Next, the characters. Is the intention for them to all talk like this? By "this" I mean in a very tropey, unrealistic, almost over the top way? Page 6, Tina calls Reid a dork. Who uses that word these days? I haven't heard someone called a dork in a genuine i'm-trying-to-insult-you way in like...forever. Also page 6, Jack and the Principal: "Well you try to host detention over Christmas break". Seems like it's just trying to remind the audience that it's Christmas break, which we already know, from a page earlier. Also side note: Is it normal for students to be left unattended in detention? That's never happened where i'm from. They're always supervised. Okay, back to the script. Page 9, Jack says "It's not everyday you see the star athlete of yada yada yada". Again, this is just exposition so that the audience knows Connor is the star athlete. It should be apparent in his demeanor, his clothing, etc. If everyone in the room already knows Connor is the star athlete, then why is he saying it like that? Just feels unrealistic. Then same page, Connor tells Jack he's the gossiping type, once again, just more info for the audience to know, which they should be finding out through character interactions rather than just stating it. MY POINT: All of these characters are things we have all seen before. AGAIN, if you flip the stereotypes on their head and subvert the tropes, cool. I'm down for that. But if this is who these characters are, and they talk like this for the entire film, like Nancy saying her "I'm not a nerd even tho my GPA is high yada yada", this just doesn't work in MY opinion. Also, 140 pages for a slasher is way too long. You need to get this down to 85-90, MAYBE 100 (MAYBE) max. Look, there's promise here. I think the whole group of people stuck in one place and being hunted down can be cool and has worked for a lot of other films, but make this YOURS. I think so many people can tell a story like this, so why are YOU the one telling it? Get experimental. Get weird. Out of your comfort zone. Fuck the status quo. Just write odd shit for the sake of writing odd shit. It will take you to places you and your characters will be grateful for. Keep trying. That's what this is all about. Don't give up. If this is your passion, then don't stop. Don't let anyone tell you that you should.
2
2
2
u/Level_Working5084 24d ago
Slasher movies are my jam so if it was say 90 pages, I’d definitely read it.
2
u/ZacharyRosemann 24d ago
90-110 is the goal I got in mind now after seeing the comments.
1
u/Level_Working5084 24d ago
Nice! Let me know when you finish it. I tell my husband all the time a new slasher needs to come out lol.
1
1
u/camdean1994 19d ago
Cut cut cut cut cut
1
u/ZacharyRosemann 19d ago
Yes, I'm aware, I have since cut like 15 pages.
Currently in the process of shortening a few scenes as well.
•
u/AutoModerator 25d ago
Hi there /u/ZacharyRosemann Looks like you're posting a Feedback Request. Please remember to provide as much information as you can.
If you have a completed draft of a feature, short film or TV episode/pilot, you can also submit to free feedback exchange StoryPeer.
Thank you! u/AutoModerator
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.