All Reviews

Wow, what a good screenplay! I'm going to mirror the first reviewer and say once I started reading I was hooked and ended up reading to the end in one sitting (not a common feat for me when reading these Amazon Studios scripts). This draft has really been edited well; it's fast, focused, and packs a punch. The characters are well written with fantastic dialogue, scene descriptions are clear, and the subplots cleverly weave together to make a few scenes climax strongly.

And yet, after all is said and done, the movie doesn't really STAND out, if you know what I mean. Thus, only 4 stars instead of 5. In my mind, this would be the sort of movie you watch in theaters, then a month later it drops off from the box office and everyone forgets about it. It'd just be remembered as that summer movie with "those crazy dogs."

So, your script right now isn't by any means bad, it's actually quite good (as deservedly awarded by AS), but to make this film GREAT you need to heighten the drama, up the ante, create some truly compelling and twisted characters that come head to head reflecting your underlying theme of Religion vs. Evolution, Order vs. Chaos.

A perfect example of a character that could be more compelling is Bonnie. She is the central antagonist here, not the dogs, which are merely the embodiment or result of her "evil" nature. Bonnie represents the dark or negative aspect of our wild and sexual nature, she is at the base of the evolutionary tree (fantastic scene by the way!), and her motives seem to be based solely on her selfish desires, not on the outcomes of her actions which affect others. This is a solid villain, but in my mind, she comes off as too nonchalant; it’s as if her motives are simply “to fool around” and see what happens.

I’d like to see a more active, calculating, and twisted villain than one who is passive. While we sort of get that vibe from her in the final scene as she watches from the water, I think to myself, well that’s just from the movie Wild Things. In fact, the whole teacher-student relationship is reminiscent of Wild Things, but that movie is only memorable for its shock-value, not its strong premise which your movie could be remembered for.

So, if we’re thinking in thematic terms of your premise, Order vs. Chaos, what’s the best way for Bonnie to show contempt for her enemy? In my mind Bonnie’s main enemy is not her husband Jim (who she has already corrupted/destroyed), it’s Terry, her high school lover’s mother, who represents religion and Order. You had a great set-up scene with Bonnie and Terry in the principal’s office, but these two never come head to head again, which needs to happen (maybe a few times). After all, it was the principal who said that Bonnie needed to resolve the situation (which she never does). I think in Act 2, just as the dogs start their attacking spree, or when Dan basically tells his mom to F-off, Bonnie arranges to meet Dan on her mom’s bed and go at it. This should be the most sexually explicit scene in the movie, as we finally see that they are in fact having sex, and moreover, it is Bonnie who is on top, she is the one initiating and fulfilling her selfish desires, she is the one who suggests they run away together, she is the one corrupting all around her …

Even worse, perhaps Terry will walk in on them having sex on her bed. This is Bonnie’s way of saying F-You, literally; she’s not going to follow anyone’s rules but her own.

However you decide to resolve the conflict between Bonnie and Terry, in my opinion they need to meet head to head one last time. In the end, once Dan has been fully corrupted by her, he should be killed by the rabid dog Gretchen as Bonnie escapes unscathed. This not only reinforces the theme of everything she touches becomes destroyed (chaos), but it also shows her utter disregard for anyone but herself.

Following this logic, it's not too hard to see that Bonnie in some ways personifies the devil herself. So instead of 3 rabid dogs, there really should be 4, as this could be a subtle connection to the four horses of the apocalypse. Gretchen, of course, would represent the pale horse, the last and final, the most dangerous of them all.

This review is getting rather long, and I could go into more detail on improving Jim's ending, expanding Officer Mercer's role, etc., etc., but I will leave you with a few final thoughts.

First, the fact that these are "drug-sniffing" dogs should come to fruition meaningfully in the screenplay. Perhaps Bonnie is abusing drugs, it could be one means of corrupting Dan. Just a thought.

Second, Jim needs to come out changed for the better. We need to see that he will get his act together, instead of reverting back to a useless drunk. Perhaps Mercer could get him to rejoin the police force in some way, perhaps a love interest could be hinted at...or maybe you want to leave it solemn/ambiguous, this might make Bonnie's actions more foreboding.

Third, the title needs to be changed. At first I thought upon reading the title "Origin of a Species" that there was going to be an actual new species terrorizing humanity. But really it's just a bunch of rabid dogs, so that was a minor confusion. I would make the title less grandiose. While I get the connection to Darwinism and survival of the fittest, it's really not that fitting here and is too blunt. The title could simply be "Rabid" or just the name of the lake or the wood your story takes place.

Well, that's it for now. Overall it was a solid screenplay and congratulations once again on your win. Wish your script the best in its future.

Hi Matthew,

I posted this over at ScriptShadow, but as I'm a member of Amazon Studios, I figured I would post it here as well, even if some of it only makes sense in context of the ScriptShadow community.

Congratulations on a great script.

Karl
_______________

IMHO of course, but if scripts were bands, then 'The Disciple Program' would be U2: Slick and popular. Mainstream as it gets. Kinda corporate. Their music does everything you expect of it and exactly when you expect it. Some would say they are dull and soulless. Never any surprises. Always ripping off better bands. But you have to agree they have some classic songs in their repertoire. Bottom line though is they make a lot of people happy and make a shit load of money in the process.

'Origin of a Species' on the other hand would be 'Sigur Rós'. Defiantly weird. Happy to do their own thing. Never an attempt to sellout with a guest rap by Kanye (note to self: check Kanye's never rapped on a Sigur Rós track). Obscure for a long time, people begin to catch on, and they quietly become a pretty big band, soundtracking movies and ads everywhere. Oh... And they sing songs in a made up language.

Based on their track record with 'Ben Franklin' and 'Zombies vs Gladiators', I'm amazed - and very pleasantly surprised - that Amazon handed Matthew a $100,000 check for this - the 'Ágætis byrjun' of scripts.

Though the writing in 'The Disciple Program' grabbed you by the balls in a way 'Origin of a Species' can't match, I think this might just stick with me longer. It had that element of 'heart' I thought was missing in 'Disciple'.

That's not to say it's perfect, but it has this very weird, off-kilter charm I really liked, and in all honesty, the scene with Bonnie being confronted by Terry and the headmaster was as tense as anything in 'The Disciple Program' - and funnier.

With that said, if I was producing this, I would ask Matthew to look at these things:

Jim is a very passive character. He doesn't do much, even as he suspects his wife of an affair. He kinds of shuffles through the story, letting life happen. You can almost sympathize with Bonnie running off with someone younger and more dynamic. Though the two stories eventually collide, I'd like to see Jim taking a more active role in investigating his wife's possible infidelity. Add some tension as Bonnie and Dan get close to being caught (by Jim). Maybe have Bonnie persuade Dan to kill Jim - shades of 'Body Heat' - with rabid dogs.

I liked the ending a lot, but in all honesty, it's odd. That's a good thing in my book, but I also like the idea of Jim - crushed by his wife's unfaithfulness - faced with the choice of rescuing her and her lover from the dogs, or letting them die. It's one of those rock and a hard place choices Carson has championed before. Do the right thing and save them, or use this 'get out of jail free' opportunity to let them die. Could he do it? Does he want to? Does he still love his wife? Would he get away with it anyway? There's some juicy drama to be mined there.

This also feels very much like a Coen Brother's film, but without the humor. Larry the neighbor, Terry the evangelical, Bonnie the harlot, Dan the dumb, randy teen - these are all borderline caricatures, and what the Coens do is embrace that, pushing the outrageousness of their characters just that little bit further, until we see the humor. Their 'A Serious Man' mirrors 'Origins' in many ways, with a sad sack hero at its center. The difference is Gopnick tries to do something about all his troubles. And it's funny. I would like to see the black humor amped up here.

Finally, I think the dogs' killing spree starts a touch too late. I was getting a little itchy for something to happen during the scenes with Larry and the fence. There also seems to be a hint of the supernatural at times with the dogs, but it never quite plays out. The Darwinian links suggest the dogs might be evolving, but at other times, they are just plain old rabid dogs.

It seems from a marketing point of view, the bigger and scarier the dogs, the better. Make them intelligent. Payoff their police training somehow. Go full Cujo.

Overall though, I really enjoyed this, and would rate it a strong [x] worth a read. I'd love to see Amazon Studios risk some money on this, instead of some of the bigger budgeted projects they seem so keen on. Keep the budget low, make it scarier and push the black humor and this has cult hit written all over it - just like Sigur Rós'.

While I was writing this review, my wife asked me why I was reviewing the big winner.

“Because I think I can contribute to turn it into a better movie”, I answered.

It’s true I didn’t like the script too much, but I loved to hear all the opinions of people that read my Strom Dragons script here in AS. The hard critiques are the ones that really helped me to improve my work.

So let’s go. First the critiques and after my suggestions.

Formatting:

The general formatting is fine, but the many scenes with repeated scene headings in sequence sounded weird.

Premise:

The premise is not original as theme and plot. I think it needs to have some new and fresh elements in the basic premise and development to connect with the audience. It seems work better as a drama than as a thriller.

Story Structure:

I could not find the arcs, the hero’s stacks and goals. Nothing happens in the first 40/50 pages and even after that the pace still is slow. No twists.

Character:

No doubt they are very real life ones, full of conflicts and emotional degrees. Unfortunately, I was unable to connect with them. They weren’t good enough to make me cheer for them nor bad enough to root against them.

Dialogue:

As the characters, the dialogues are realist and show us conflict in each scene (a strong feature). They are well written but I felt like they were done exactly to show this conflict and didn’t get me emotionally involved. Maybe if the characters had got me I wouldn’t feel it this way.

Emotion:

The thriller sequences showed me low suspense/ intensity and I was not cheering for anyone. So they definitively didn’t work for me.

Suggestions:

I think working in Jim and Bonnie, the main characters, is a key to do the script/movie better.

It’s good they are very plausible but they couldn’t be ordinary. They have to shows us aspects of their personalities that make us love and/or hate them.

Putting some objectives to Jim could be a tool to do a significant improve to the structure and also give strength to the character. Jim has no wishes, hope, expectations or passion on anything, so I feel the same related to him.

A stronger, less day-by-day relation with the dogs could make us to love him and love his dogs. It would be great to increase the future conflicts.

Bonnie could be a worse person, not only an unfaith wife with a conflicted relation with his husband, following his sexual instincts. She could be more conscious of the harm and damage she can cause. She could like to humiliate Jim. I don’t know but I think we have to somehow connect with her.

I’d like to see a more dramatic ending too. I think that in the final chase Jim could discover about her wife affair and decide if he wants to save his lover or not. At the end, the lover could lose his leg and become impaired like Jim. It’s only a idea of what I’m talking about.

Well, Matthew, these are my comments. As I said at the beginning, the goal is to give my two cents contribution.

I hope it can be useful.

Best of luck!

A good script that is pretty original, though I think the pace was too slow. While reading the script, I knew that eventually the dogs would go crazy from the rabies and start attacking people, but it would have been nice if there was more tension built up by having the dogs going crazy earlier in the script and having more instances where you see them going starting to go crazy over time until they eventually start attacking people.

Their first attack happened on page 46, which in my opinion should have happened around page 30, it just seemed to long before things really got going, and then the dogs don't make an appearance again for quite a while.

Instead of just seeing people dead, actually seeing the dogs stalk and then eventually attacking people would make it more dramatic.

With that being said, the script was really well written. The dialog was good and the characters were well defined, though it would have been nice if Jim's and Bonnie's relationship was more defined and why Bonnie was cheating on Jim.

The script was really tight, though the tiff that Larry had with Jim about Jim's fence being on his property didn't seem to drive the story forward very much or seem to be related to any of the events in the screenplay. It would have been better if Jim tore down his fence and the dogs got out while the fence was being moved, so the scenes of Larry complaining about the fence would be apart of the story and help move it forward.

Other than that, a pretty enjoyable read.

This is an interesting script with a compelling premise. It straddles genres—generally considered to be a liability in Hollywood, but I’m drawn to stories like these. The early dog attacks are suspenseful and you grabbed me with the threat of rabies. I was eager to see what would happen with the potent mix of the failing marriage and the rabid dogs. I also thought that you were making an interesting point about the current state of education in America but I'm still chewing over the larger thematic point of your script. Not quite sure what it is, but maybe I just have to think about it a bit more.

If you wanted to push it more firmly into the thriller/horror zone, I would say that your template is Jaws. You have a lawman protagonist (ex lawman, in this case) whose town is beset by a marauding monster. The lawman has an unfaithful wife (this subplot, which was quite prominent in the novel, was wisely cut from the movie).

The problem, as one of the other reviewers has pointed out, is that your protagonist is passive. In Jaws, Sheriff Brody, despite a terrible fear of water, is compelled to leave dry land and pursue the monster out of guilt. By knuckling under to the Mayor’s wishes, he has delayed closing the beaches and in doing so caused the death of a young boy. To atone for his sin, he has to go to sea and fight the shark.

Your protagonist should also feel terrible guilt and be compelled to go after the dogs. They are, after all, Jim’s dogs. It is Jim who (as one of the other reviewers also pointed out) neglected to get them vaccinated–pretty basic care for a dog owner. He seems not only passive, but rather slow-witted in putting together the attacks and his own missing pets. Finally, he seems more broken up about his dead dogs than he does about the human lives they have taken.

Frankly, between that and his willingness to put innocent lives at risk by gazing at his girlfriend's windblown hair while doing a hundred m.p.h. through the town, he comes off as a jerk. This is a man who is supposed to be protecting the public, not endangering it. However, I really liked the revelation that Bonnie was instrumental in Jim losing his leg.

In fact, between Jim, Bonnie, Dan, Larry, Terry, there’s almost no one to like in this story. Everyone is, in his or her own way, reprehensible. By the end of it, I was rooting for Gretchen. Sure, she’s rabid, but she deals very effectively with the problem of the fence and Larry’s intrusive property line–go Gretchen!

In all seriousness, I realize that you’re aiming for something that is less of an action thriller and more of a psychological study than a movie like Jaws. I also realize that the characters in psychological studies can be less likeable than the heroes of action movies. I make the comparison only to point out that your protagonist has to be much more strongly motivated. All the elements are there for this; Jim just doesn’t seem to respond to them.

I also agree with the reviewers who have pointed out that the dogs must attack earlier in the story. Jim must become aware that his dogs are causing the problem and try to do something about it. The dogs must be actively evading Jim and perhaps even pursuing him.

In short, if you’re going to set up the elements of a horror/thriller/monster movie (which is what your cover image would certainly indicate), at the end of the day, we want it to come down to a battle between the hero and the monster—Jim versus the dogs. We got a hint in the script’s final pages of how poignant that battle can be, with Jim forced to kill his beloved pets. But as it stands, that battle starts on about page 93 of your 99-page script—about 53 pages too late, in my opinion.

Your other choice is to go with the psychological study of a collapsing marriage set against the backdrop of a town ravaged by a pack of rabid dogs. In that case, I think you’ll have to have far more scenes between Jim and Bonnie. We’ll have to feel some hope of their relationship healing, or at least get a glimpse of what it was like before it all began to crumble so that we can root for them as a couple.

But as soon as Jim finds out that it’s his dogs who are killing people, if he doesn’t stop sulking and go out there to try to stop them, we’re going to lose all sympathy for your hero. His dogs are out there killing children and other innocent characters. So in that case, you might want to give ownership of the dogs over to one of the other characters.

I think you have some hard choices to make. I hope my 2¢ here helps you to make some of them. . . or not! As it stands, your good work on this script has already paid handsomely and your other viable strategy is to quit while you’re a hundred grand ahead!

Congrats!

The main Character should be changed from an retired or disabled Police Officer to someone that doesn't know anything about dogs and just has pets. A Police Officer's K9's would be vacinated at the highest level, even if retired, from rabies, and any other malaise that hits a GSD.

A Police Officer wouldn't just wash down concrete with a hose; he would also scrub the concrete with at least a solution of clorox and water if not something else specifically made as an anti-bacterial as concrete absorbs urine, parvo etc...

Also, Let's assume there were even one GSD running alongside a "Track Team". The Track Team would stop and seek some kind of height advantage. Maybe the last guy up a tree doesn't make it, or some such action, but no action even initially, doesn't hold true.

All dogs can turn given the right circumstances; however if you want to use this premise you have to go back to a botched batch of Rabies Vacine that the GSD's received, maybe in a flashback or a side investigation.

This is a well written script. Good premise and an easy read.

I really like the three main characters. They have a lot of depth and each has their own pluses and minuses.

The secondary characters need a little bit of work. I like Mercer and Troy, but the mother seems pointless. What's her role in the story?

Having said all that, there are some fairly big holes that need to be filled. The main problem is with the rabid dogs. How do three dogs contract rabies? Just by Gretchen licking the blood? How do the other two get it? Does she bite them? Is it normal for rabid dogs to hunt in packs? Isn't this a virus that makes them go crazy? Would rabid dogs have the wherewithal to come back and kill the nasty next door neighbor?

How did the first dog die? And how did he wind up inside the slide? That scene was unclear to me.

Also, you have to be careful with your scene descriptions. This is a blueprint for a movie. Does Jim really "leap" into the truck? Does he really "run" out of the house, or does he hobble?

Does a 7 year old really take off the dogs collar?

At 99 pages, this script comes up a little short for an action movie, and there simply isnt enough action. We dont get the first dog attack until page 46. Thats too long.

This story may work better as a short story or a novel. It's a good premise, but not necessarily a good movie. The ending leaves me wanting. Why is bonnie left alone in the water? Where is the resolution?

Spurgeon and Sprenguard? A little close, no? I thought maybe that was going somewhere, but it didn't

Lastly, Dan seems like a pretty standup guy. He's got the balls to sleep with a cop's wife, why does he melt down and scream like a little girl when he encounters the dog.

Congrats on the script and good luck in the future.
JM

w

I posted this on Scriptshadow. It's worth repeating here.

I quite liked this one. It kept me interested till the end.

There are a couple of particularly effective moments. When the cross country team is running along the sidewalk and they are suddenly joined by the three German Shepherds, the writer made a choice to nicely elongate the inevitable. The lads exchange smiles when they notice the dogs have matched their speed, thinking they’re sharing a cool running moment with the canines – and they all run along together. Yet, we know something is about to happen. And it does. I was impressed with how much stronger this makes the moment than just having the dogs come out of the woods and attack.

Another surprisingly strong scene is when Bonnie arrives at the Principal’s office to be accused by Terry, Dan’s very religious mother, of corrupting her son. Now, we think it’s because Terry knows Bonnie has been having sex with Dan – when all she’s really complaining about is the curriculum Bonnie teaches her students. Yeah, the religious wrath thing is a little far-fetched (though maybe not so much in the USA, I’m not sure.), but it is a nice moment where your expectations get nicely flipped.

The overall tone of the piece is consistently solid. It reminded me a lot of "In the Bedroom" -- not because of the story, but because of the simmering tension which imbues every scene.

I am a little confused by the ending. Is the final shot of Bonnie in the water somehow indicating a regression in evolution? A return to the water, the place of origin of our species? If so, it’s overkill. And if it’s not, then I’m not sure what to make of it.

Still, a pretty solid script. Good on you, Mr. Gossett.

I'm no stranger to critiquing scripts but this is my first review on AS. Please keep in mind, these are just my own opinions, so whether I point out whether some aspect of the script is really good, or something doesn't work, it's all subjective. Use all your reviews and see if the same problems keep getting mentioned.

First, I was attracted by the title, "Origin of a Species"--very nice. The two-sentence blurb gave me the sense that a new type of rabies was about to terrorize a small town. Labeled a thriller/suspense, I figured this would be a fun read.

However, it turned out to be ordinary rabies, which can still be very frightening in a story. But you spend so much time with other story lines that distract from the potential of a viral outbreak that I was never drawn into the story. I can appreciate creating subplots with their own drama going on along the edges of a life-and-death main plot, but you give these other "dramatic" subplots so much ink that they got in the way of the main story. In addition to that, the main story line took too long to unfold so that the whole thing read like a potential thriller bogged down by competing MOWs.

For example, the gravity of the situation doesn’t hit the main characters till page 57 when Mercer tells Jim about the dead boy and the dogs; that is, this is when the race is on to stop the dogs from killing again. I think you waited too long for this scene. And then, you followed this with a scene where Mercer and Jim have a talk about quitting smoking and relationships for 3 pages. Brought the tension you had just created to a stop. You do a similar thing with the two shirtless guys in the woods that may or may not be the next kill, then give us 7 pages of Bonnie defending herself to Dan’s mom and the principal. Brought the tension to a halt. It slowed more on page 79 where another 3 pages of subplot start (Dan having typical teenage argument with religious-crazed mom).

The scene on page 39-40 where Jim finds his dogs missing would make for a better plot point 1, if you can back it up to page 20, 25. It seems perfect… the dogs are infected and now are missing, further complicating things. The other stuff about religion and teacher-student sex seems superfluous and does nothing for the tension of the original premise of a town ravaged by rabies. A few early "kills" to get the town nervous would greatly heigten the tension, as would the cops doing their jobs by discovering clues as to where the dogs are going and how bad the virus is changing (as opposed to talking about their pasts) .

The characters didn't do much for me. Bonnie is engaged in sex with her underage student, Dan. Dan is quarreling with his moon-bat mom. Larry is a turd of a neighbor. And the lead Jim doesn't really do anything until the middle of the story other than fight with his neighbor, fight with his wife, and pet the dogs.

Though this may all sound harsh, I think you could still turn this into a descent thriller. You have better than average dialogue--that's half the battle as dialogue is typically the one thing most writers struggle with most (though you do throw around exclamation points way too often). You wrote a couple of engaging scenes like the one on pg 45 where the track team is hunted down by dogs (would've liked to see more scenes like that earlier on… helps build up the tension faster} and another one around page 70 to 73 where Larry gets mauled then the cops come in and the helicopters circle overhead looking for the dogs (they truly know now that they need to stop these dogs fast--you need more scenes like this earlier in the script). And the premise of rabies morphing into a new killer virus that terrorizes a town and will force the dog owner to hunt down his own dogs has lots of potential.

Unfortunately it took too long to get to the good scenes and the action blocks you write are too wordy, makes for a tough read. Consider jettisoning a lot of the unrelated stuff. The student-teacher thing, the border war with the neighbor, the overly religious mom... it's all too much distraction from the main focal point. I think you could cut out all three of those subplots, throw them into a separate script that is strictly a drama, and have the beginnings of a 2nd script. But for this script, the characters had few redeeming qualities and did little to help their causes. The true action didn't start coming until the second half of Act 2 and it seemed like Mercer and Jim (after spending time shooting the breeze in the car) suddenly stumble across the dogs, then Bonnie winds up just floating in the middle of the lake, then THE END. No redemption for her moral-less acts? The only audience members I can see liking her are other 16-year-old boys. More importantly, your hero didn't have to do much to bring an end to the threat--it was pretty much handed to him on a silver platter. Give him more obstacles, maybe more dogs get infected, may people go rabid, whatever... I've no doubt you can come up with more life-and-death hurdles.

Again, this isn't a dig at you or your writing. As I've tried to make clear, you have some good things going on here. You just need to focus more on the main story line, get to the major scenes quicker, and your thriller will be more thrilling, in my opinion. See what others say.

Just my two cents. Hope this helps.