All Reviews

I'm afraid I can't really discuss this one without getting into spoilers, so be warned.

Premise:

The premise here is pretty good in theory. You essentially have a group of twenty/thirtysomethings accidentally getting involved with a vampire laying siege on a town of werewolves. However, I've got to mention that this isn't the most original idea. The Howling did the concept of a town of werewolves before, and once Cowboy is revealed to be a vampire he becomes a pretty standard "powerful vampire" character straight out of Fright Night or even Dracula. And when we consider the site we're posting on - if you click on the "Scripts" tab you see The Temple (basically a zombie script), Pack Behavior (werewolves), Devil's Pass (werewolves and cowboys), ZvG (Zombies and Gladiators), Pray for Dawn (vampires), and My Gun, She is Quick (cowboys) (and now we're getting into my personal experiences) but I've also reviewed The Good, The Bad, and The Undead (zombies and cowboys)). I have to admit that I was pretty excited by the title, hoping to see something new - but was a little disappointed to see that it was just more werewolves, vampires, and even a cowboy. At least there weren't zombies.

The other problem I have with the premise is a logical one - not sure it's quite a plothole, but it's an issue that bugged me more and more as it continued to go unaddressed. This is a premise that works great for one night every month, but what does this town do the rest of the month? It's stated that Cowboy needs to feed every night, so we know at least one person is dying every night. This is a small town, how many people can they afford to lose before they call someone to help them, no matter how preposterous it sounds? Alternatively, Cowboy has to sleep during the day, so why don't they just take the doors off their hinges and hunt him down then? Maybe this is explained by the slow onset of the werewolfism. Cowboy didn't attack so much, but as the town became werewolves he felt the need to hide less and attacked more, and the town began to feel they could fight back with their new powers. However, this still doesn't solve the problem since the population of the town is human and completely helpless for twenty-nine nights out of every month. They're still pretty screwed, so why wouldn't they call for help or just move out of the town?

Which brings us to werewolfism: I have no idea how it's supposed to work in this story. With regards to transforming, it appears that it's the full moon that transforms them rather than emotion (like in The Howling, for example). However, it's not clear what the rules are for how moonlight transforms them. Most of the werewolves stay werewolves when they aren't in direct contact with moonlight, but Wes doesn't transform until he actually enters the moonlight.

The bigger issue with werewolfism in this script is one of memory and control. Do the townspeople remember what they did as werewolves when they transform back? Do they have control over their actions as werewolves or are they mindless animals? Stories have been told both ways in the past, but I'm not clear on what the rules are supposed to be here. There are logical/moral/story problems either way.

If the werewolves have no control over their actions then every time one is killed an innocent person is dying - that's not very funny, it's actually kind of tragic.
If they do have control over their actions, then why are they attacking innocent people? Are they evil cannibals or something?
In which case, story-wise why even bother having them be werewolves if they're just as dangerous when they're not in wolf form?
But if they don't have control, then logically you have to explain why they don't immediately alert authorities when they turn normal because people are dying and their town in completely trashed.
And story-wise, giving them no control would ruin your ending - there'd be no way to assume they'd take vengeance on Cowboy, no way to assume Wes would attack Cowboy instead of Brandon and Penny, and his ending would become tragic.

Right now it feels like werewolfism works however you need it to for a particular scene.

Structure:

1-10: Intro characters
11: spooky clerk foreshadowing
17: first blood
21: first werewolf
24: intro Cowboy
25: They decide to go to the school
39: They make it to the school
49: Cowboy=vampire
75: They form a plan to survive the night
78: They get split up
85/86: Lowest point? Wes presumed dead and the other two stuck with only five shots left.
92: Or here? Where they've run out of ammo and Cowboy reveals he's still alive. Doesn't last long and it's a little late for a final complication, though.
94-97: Resolution

Hook, intro, situation established and moving to a new location by pg 25, mid-point turn at page 49, Act 3 turn on pg 75
Follows the Three Act Structure pretty well, but I've got to subtract a star for the subplot with Brandon having cold feet for his wedding to Penny. It's clearly meant to be the character-based subplot that gives emotional drive to the movie, but while the mechanics of it work the motivations are entirely off and it was the single biggest problem that stuck out to me - with the exception of one scene, both of which I'll discuss further in the Character section.

Character:

This is where it all falls apart for me. While there are minor-ish nitpicks with the logic behind the plot, that could all be glossed over if we were following characters we liked. However, I actively disliked every character in this script - some by design (Debbie), and others who disliking them ruined the plot for me (Penny). In order to explain this, I'll break down all the character introductions.

Brandon - First met complaining about his fiance. At this point, we don't know his fiance, so we don't know how to feel about this. Are we supposed to be rooting for him to grow up, ditch his friends, and get married? Are we supposed to be hoping he gets out from under this controlling bitch's thumb? Complaining is no way to first meet a character we're supposed to like, so we don't really like Brandon at first. At best, we feel indifferent towards him. Adding a simple Save the Cat moment might help us to understand that he's more than just some frat bro with a girlfriend he doesn't like.
Wes - Wes becomes likable by the end, though that's not saying much relative to the other characters. However, when we first meet him he's a crude asshole. There's a difference between fun comic relief Seth Rogen-type character and the type of dude who humps the air while talking about boning your fiance. What do we know about him from their first conversation - he's looking for a place to live, he's overweight, he drinks too much and still hangs out with his friends from his frat nearly ten years later, he's crude, while Brandon is trying to talk about a serious life decision he makes dick jokes. I get the type of character you're going for here, but it's a little too much right now and stays that way until people start dying.
Penny - Seems fairly normal. Compared to the others she's even likable, but that's not saying much. My problems with her start when she learns that Brandon was considering calling off the wedding:
A) She doesn't know how serious he was about it and immediately assumes the worst.
B) She's upset that he considered not marrying her, so the first thing she does is call the wedding off. Kind of counterintuitive.
C) She doesn't try to save the relationship at all, jumping straight to making snide comments that feel incredibly petty and representative of a messed up set of values considering their current life or death situation.
Kai - no character at all.
Darcy - Cartoonishly emotionless, makes so little effort to interact with the others that it's mean, and later we learn both that she possesses no value for human life, and that she's crazy enough to sacrifice herself to a vampire - assuming vampires are exactly like in the movies.
Debbie - intentionally unlikable, I get it. But why make a character intentionally unlikable? Do you want to annoy the audience as much as your characters? She was so annoying the other characters didn't even mourn her death. Even her own husband got over it in like an hour! Why even include her if even the most extreme action you can take with her character (killing her off) is going to produce no effect? I guess she provided for a little comedy in the first act.
Roland - Well, he's more likable than Debbie. Or is he more likable only in comparison to Debbie? He acts like a prick about the SUV, and even when he "loosens up" he's still a hateful bastard - when he learns that the label says "man sauce" he instantly assumes it was an intentional plot to embarrass him by his nephew who he claims "always hated me". He's pretty useless later when they're fighting werewolves, and just serves to bitch at the others about his wife for a while before unrealistically getting over it.
Cowboy - the problem with Cowboy is that he becomes a completely different character once he reveals himself to be a vampire, effectively wasting all the time we've spent with him up to that point. As a "human" he comes across as a character like Raylan Givens on the tv show "Justified" - a stubborn lawman with a moral code harsher than the laws he enforces - who's enjoying this opportunity to take payback for injustices he wasn't able to right legally under normal circumstances. As a vampire he seems like the typical Powerful Vampire Lord. He's pompous, Evil (with a capital E), sadistic, has a massive labyrinthine home that he traps people in. I say he's pompous because he really has no other reason than pride to keep chasing the humans. If he let them go they'd never make it past the werewolves and his secret would be safe, and it's established that he doesn't need the blood, so he must just not be able to stand losing. We get no set-up of that kind of personality before his reveal, so it feels like a totally different character.

Okay, now we have to talk about why I hated Penny. Which means we have to talk about the scene that made me really begin hating Penny. The scene with Selene. First of all, let's remember that sex has never been graphically discussed prior to this - Cowboy never looks the girls in the group over lustfully, he rejects Darcy's offer to be his vampire bride, etc... - and the tone has generally been that of a goofy horror/comedy. Even the death of a major character's wife wasn't allowed to change the tone to "serious". Out of nowhere, the characters seem to step onto the set of "Martyrs".

Now let me clarify that I'm not a prude. In the proper context damn near anything is acceptable to be shown in a film. I watched "A Serbian Film" and barely batted an eye (thanks 4chan!). My problem here is not with content, but with tone and story. This scene is so out-of-tone with the rest of the script that I'm not quite sure you understand how fucked-up this concept is. You have a young girl, who's been kept in a dog cage for four months, tortured and raped the entire time, knowing that her entire family is dead, having witnessed a pregnancy, miscarriage, and murder while trapped in this room, carrying an inhuman child, a completely broken human being begging for death - and you're making JOKES?!

You have Penny (who we're supposed to continue to like for the rest of this script) belittling Brandon for having a moment's hesitation in mercy-killing this girl, because she's still feeling slighted over Brandon's cold feet. This situation doesn't put anything in perspective for her? The fact that any of these characters can wipe this girl's brain matter off of their faces and continue on as normal completely kills their likability for me.

And in story terms it's a scene that serves no purpose. You're introducing a concept that could be it's own subplot - hell, it could be its own movie - and then discarding it in the space of a scene, never to be mentioned again (except for one line that doesn't amount to much).

Moving on... Right now the cold feet subplot doesn't really work because we don't really feel an inner life for Brandon or Penny - they don't feel like three-dimensional characters. We don't get the little steps along the way that make the final turn (Brandon deciding he is in love with Penny and going to marry her) feel earned. It just seems like he has a personal problem with Penny (she's smothering him), then some monster fighting happens, then she finds out and bitches at him for half the movie, then they realize they're in the middle of Act 3 already so they need to make up.

In order to fix this, I'd recommend removing the entire part of the subplot where Penny finds out that Brandon has cold feet. Considering they could die at any moment a case of cold feet should be a non-issue, so any time it gets brought up it feels so incredibly petty on the part of whichever of them is complaining that one can't help but start to hate both Brandon and Penny.

This is Brandon's story so it should be his issue. If his chief conflict is going to be that he's having second thoughts about Penny, this should be part of a larger character flaw - the most obvious example would be commitment issues. Maybe at the beginning Brandon is either debating whether he should propose or he's already called off the wedding but he and Penny are still together on relatively good terms, he has commitment issues, we hear about how he's lost out on good things in the past because of them (he could make more than Roland, but he didn't take a better job because he'd have had to commit to a big move, for example), because of the werewolf/vampire situation he's forced to get over his commitment issues by making a bunch of life or death decisions, at the end he proposes/tells her the wedding is back on.

Dialogue:

Good for the most part. A few minor cases of plot points or character details being verbalized a little too on-the-nose for my liking. Some clever lines, but occasionally your wording seems overly complex. That may ruin a few jokes, so I'd recommend you read all the dialogue out loud to see if it sounds okay when spoken rather than read. Film is a visual medium, so the more you can do with stage action to pare the dialogue down to only what's necessary for the joke, the better.

There are also a number of cases where a little setup for a joke would go a long way to making the joke funnier. More likable characters would go a long way toward generating audience goodwill that could make the jokes get more laughs, too.

Emotion:

Since I didn't really care about any of the characters I didn't feel any happiness when they escaped death or sadness when they were killed. However, I can't give you a 1 star here because you did manage to make me feel a lot of anger towards Penny, a little towards Brandon, and bad for Selene.

Overall:

There are two types of horror comedies:
1) Those that are about the genre itself, poking fun at its tropes (April Fool's Day, Scream, Scary Movie, Gremlins 2)
2) Those that are examples of the genre that happen to be particularly funny (An American Werewolf in London, Shaun of the Dead)

As it stands, Wicked Creatures is neither of these. It doesn't have significantly more laughs than many 'straight' horror movies. The only thing that gives this away as a horror/comedy (other than the scene where they discuss the movies Blade and Van Helsing) is the tone. It's a light tone that doesn't really treat the deaths seriously enough to qualify as a serious horror movie, and the deaths aren't original enough for it to just be a splatter movie (like Final Destination or something where people don't come to see a story, but rather to see a bunch of creative kills).

In order to make this into a type 1 horror/comedy you need to come up with more original takes on the concepts you're dealing with here - Like the scene where they talk about "Blade" and "Van Helsing"

In order to make this into a type 2 horror/comedy you need to make the characters more three-dimensional, or at least more likable. I'm sure you've seen it, but rewatch "Shaun of the Dead". Listen to Edgar Wright's commentary track and/or this third-party commentary track: http://www.downinfront.net/audio/commentary-10-2-SHAUN.mp3

I'd wager "Shaun" is one of the most perfectly-scripted movies of the past ten years, and it deals with characters of a similar age and place in their lives as Wicked Creatures, working out relationship issues under attack from monsters, often being assholes to each other, and yet they all come across as likable because they're three-dimensional characters. We can relate to three-dimensional characters, so we can forgive them for being assholes - we're all assholes sometimes. Shaun has a strong emotional motivation that the audience can relate to (his desire to get his girlfriend back and get his life in order), and that drives all of his actions in the movie while simultaneously effecting all the other characters' emotional motivations.

On top of all that, "Shaun of the Dead" is screamingly hilarious from the first scene on. That's the big problem with the script right now: it's not funny enough, so instead of feeling like a horror/comedy it feels like a horror movie that's not scary enough. This wouldn't be so damaging if we had three-dimensional characters who we liked to fall back on, but we don't have that either.

There's definitely a market for these kinds of horror/comedies and this concept's not been done before, which bodes well for Wicked Creatures. The bones are there -- it's got the crew of young, unwilling victims, the small town and the evil forces at work. Most of the horror elements are already in place, too. The werewolves are clearly introduced and work well throughout. The addition of vampires is good, too, and adds a nice monster vs. monster angle, which audiences love (me, too). One by one, characters are picked off and there are some truly horrific moments -- finding Selene and what happens to her ranks right up there with the grossest/most unsettling ones. What I found lacking was the comedic element. There are laughs, most thanks to Wes, but there needs to be more. The first time I laughed out loud was on page 73 (the Van Helsing bit and when the 3 characters vote -- both really funny ideas). However, a comedy needs to get laughs rolling early on and that's where most of your work in a future rewrite lays (in my opinion). Wes is a classic comedic foil -- if you didn't picture Zach Galifinakis when writing it, I'm surprised. He looks like him and he sounds like him... and that's a good thing. The rest of the characters though, aren't necessarily funny... and somehow finding laughs through them is going to put this script over the top.

Structure-wise -- it's solid but unspectacular. Can you come up with a few more twists to surprise/scare the audience? You did a nice job of setting up Darcy as a vamp and her demise is a really nice twist (esp. as it sets up Cowboy as the surprise antagonist) but apart from that and what Wes does at the very end, you're out of surprises. These kinds of movies thrive on not just scaring but also surprising. Perhaps one of the other characters also has a supernatural secret. Personally, I thought there was the possibility that Penny was going to whip out some kind of Fen Shui pseudo-Asian bullshit thing out of her purse... and surprise everyone when it actually works and takes out a wolf. Something along those lines would be nice.

A few specific notes:

I really enjoyed the Penny/Brandon fight as it escalated and then, of course, brought them back together again. Thumbs up with that.

On page 16, I believe the phrase "yours truly" means "me." If that's the case, then Brandon's line doesn't make sense. Look at it -- perhaps I'm wrong -- but it threw me when he delivered that line.

I'd consider changing one of either Brandon or Roland's characters' names. There's enough letters in common that reading through the script, I was constantly mistaking one for the other. If Roland was instead Mark (Mario on his pasta sauce bottles) then that issue would be nil.

As I previously mentioned, I really liked on page 93 when Wes is the surprise hero at the end. But on the next page I felt that Cowboy was dispatched too easily. Stretch his death out a bit -- give him one of those James Cameron surprise last gasp moments where he nearly wins but then dies anyway. His character is the main bad guy here -- give him his moment in the sun (no pun intended) before he's kicked to the curb.

Overall, this is a solid concept which needs more of what's already here. Kick everything up a notch -- make it scarier, funnier, sexier, BIGGER -- and you'll have yourself a winner here. Best of luck, Brian!

Let me start off by saying that I’m not a huge werewolf/zombie/vampire fan simply because they are done to death… no pun intended. So I may be a little bias. However, great opening scene! I love how the script drops right into the heat of suspense. The characters are clearly defined and identifiable for the most part. “…and why is it wearing Kai’s shirt?” Hahaha. I laughed my ass off at that one, not because I saw it coming a mile away,(which I did) but because it was an “Oh no he didn’t” moment. Even better though… “This jackass owed me fifty bucks”. Fucking epic line. Love the bitch-slap on page 92. It was a pretty good ending. All in all it needs some work, on dialogue mostly, but also on the pacing and scripting of the action/fight sequences. It has some serious potential though. Horror/Comedy’s are making a comeback with the success of “Zombieland” and “Jennifer’s Body” so there definitely is a market for them when they are done correctly. This would most likely fall into the Rated R category, so since it's already past the pg-13 rating, you should do a little more with it, and really push the limits. It has some twists and turns, and still manages to follow the established story structure for this genre. I could easily see this one on the big screen.

POSSIBLE FIXES:

1. Page 1. Sound cue the spark of the lighter to add more intensity to the dull silence.
2. The ellipsis is used for trailing off. The double dash is used when dialogue is cut off or interrupted. So when Brandon is speaking on page one before the second howl, use a double dash.
3. Have the door burst open, or break down, but either way, wood does not shatter, and especially into a million pieces, unless it is blown up. Is the door glass?
4. Also, in the action sequences, and description, it appears as if you are double spacing after every period. Why?
5. Lose the dialogue parenthicals. They should only be used in extreme circumstances. Studio readers (at real studios) take off points when reviewing, if they find more than ten in an entire script. The reason is that they feel you are both trying to direct on the page, and not letting the actors act, or did not do an adequate job of conveying the tone of the scene in the preceding action. Either way, it’s just something to think about. Not a huge deal. I find myself wanting to do it too sometimes. Just fight the urge and trust that the tone is clear.
6. Page 2. When trying to annunciate a word in dialogue, use an underscore instead of italics.
7. Page 4. It’s funny, but doesn’t fit. Penny did nothing relating to pre-wedding jitters. They were not discussing her behavior lately, but simply the fact that he never sees his friends anymore. So it is out of place.
8. The voiceover feels out of place, but we will see how it pans out as a whole.
9. Continued is no longer necessary for dialogue, or page tops and bottoms.
10. Page 5. What made Wes draw the conclusion that Roland was driving simply because Penny said that he was running late. Walking their stuff out to the street, instead of loading it into one of their vehicles didn’t tip him off. It just seems a bit forced.
11. Page 6. The flow of dialogue regarding the desire to show off the SUV makes no sense. She wants him to bring the SUV to show it off, and then says that the friends shouldn’t resent his success. I suppose the subtext is what is confusing me. I see the direction, just not the execution.
12. Page 8. “new car here” should be “new SUV here”.
13. CD’s huh. How retro.
14. Why is Roland reading the map and not Debbie?
15. Page 9. “let you off” should be “let you out” since they are not on a bus.
16. Wes’s dialogue is not coming off funny, just annoying and stupid.
17. Page 10. GPS is hardly fancy at this point in time, but I’ll go with it.
18. Roland seems very pointdexterish at this point. Wes is just slamming beers while they drive, and throwing empty cans around, or Kai sticking gum on the seats. It just seems blatantly disrespectful and childish. The characters seem as if they are in their early twenties, not thirties. Roland’s reaction, and repeating don’t distract the driver seems out of place. There would be more anger in his tone.
19. Page 14. The dialogue is too on the nose.
20. Page 16. How did Brandon know what the jar said, if Roland hadn’t showed anyone yet? Did he hear all the way over where he was, or did Roland walk over to him and show him?
21. Improper usage of the term “yours truly”. It is used when referring to oneself, not another party. It’s a not so common misconception.
22. Just a side note; you have the characters calling each other by their names far too much. It is not natural dialogue. So watch out for this on your next draft.
23. Page 17. Kai was really about to key the SUV? How are these guys even friends? Nobody was forced to come. They are all there by choice. If they have that much resentment toward each other, then why the hell are they even hanging out?
24. Page 18. OK, the December or so bit is getting really, really tired.
25. Page 19. They are sure eating a lot of stew. Maybe give them a new activity when we go to the later scene. Possibly drinking cocoa, or passing around a bottle of liquor. Maybe roasted marshmallows for dessert, but stew for the fourth scene segment in a row is a bit much.
26. Page 20-21. Kai is just coming off as an asshole. Penny tried to be sympathetic and he attacked her and belittled her input, even after which she still offers him a Tylenol.
27. Is Wes on bowl six or seven now… who the hell is he, Shaggy from Scooby Doo?
28. That was very abrupt with Kai taking off then the howl, then the eyes. The scene advanced far too quickly. Work on the pacing of the campfire sequence. Less stew eating and more build up of Kai’s infected wound.
29. Do they see the eyes? If so then it would have to be pretty close.
30. Page 22. I love the fact that a scary beast comes out of the woods and into camp, and their reaction is to sit around playing the guessing game, and not to run or defend themselves.
31. Page 23. So Mr. responsible never closed the hood, huh?
32. Hahaha. Do we see the silver bullet moving through the air, a la slow motion matrix style? Otherwise we wouldn’t know it was a silver bullet.
33. Page 25. I’m curious to see where you are going with Darcy’s character. Is she like the head werewolf or something? It’s clear that you have made her emotionless, indifferent, and unafraid of death since the beginning. Just as Merle was “hypnotic” earlier on. I’m anxious to see how this plays out.
34. Page 32. Roland’s reaction to his wife being decapitated is pretty mild.
35. Page 33. “pass” should be “past”.
36. The dialogue throughout the script could use some work.
37. It’s funny, but every time you refer to the cast of characters as “the gang” I instantly think of a movie titled Scooby Doo and the Werewolf.
38. Page 35. So at this point Cowboy should only have the two huge handguns to reload, since he tossed both the shotgun and the rifle to the ground outside in the clearing. Just checking.
39. Pages 41-42. The dialogue is getting worse… and like I said before, characters’ constantly addressing each other by their names is no bueno.
40. Page 47. The dialogue is getting consistently bad, unrealistic, and cheesy… and not in a good way
41. Page 54. If another person tells Brandon that he is jumpy, I might have to stop reading, and call it quits. Haha, not really but damn it’s getting old.
42. They have been running from supernatural creatures since around page 23, yet are just asking who has a cell phone to call for help on page 54. Hmm.
43. Page 55. Penny asking if he packed her phone??? Who the hell packs a cell phone? It goes in a pocket, or in a purse. This is what I mean about the bad dialogue beginning to distract from the story as a whole.
44. Page 75. “battle royal” should be “battle royale”. I’ve been trying not to nitpick typos but I figured I would at least point out a few to help you out.
45. The constant bickering back and forth between Penny and Brandon is beyond annoying at this point and totally over the top.
46. Page 79. So Wes has just been lugging around these two massive handguns the entire time, since entering the school. Jus like Brandon still had the lighter and cigarettes. These plants are a stretch.
47. Page 82. OK the art easel poster, that was crucial for Wes to run back and do, is completely stupid. The movie is far too bloody for a PG-13 rating, so what’s with the 12 year old humor???
48. Page 84. Since the beginning of the script the entire relationship between Penny and Brandon has been inconsistent, and unrealistic. It seems as if the writer is unfamiliar with relationships, or at least conveying them on the page. Their redemption is cheesy, and manufactured.
49. Pages 89-90. Cowboy runs into the closet while Brandon is in there, then back to the hallway? I’m trying to get a picture of this scene but it seems jumbled, and in reality, like most scenes in this script, would be damn near impossible to direct for the simple fact that the close calls are all very unrealistic. The isopropyl alcohol incident, is also BS, as well as the way the scene is written. The explosion would be a nothing… a poof at best. Trust me I know explosives, and flammability.
50. I didn’t know that the Prince of Darkness needs to stop and catch his breath.
51. Page 91. Jumpy??? Oh, no you didn’t! All those annoying references were not a build-up to that one final punch line were they? It’s cute, but just no.
52. Brandon just stands there while cowboy caresses his girl and talks shit.
53. Haha. I was wondering when Wes was going to come to the rescue.
54. Not a bad ending, some good humor on the last two pages.