Zombies (?)

[Captain Pierce]

Logline: There's a time and a place for everything, and this isn't it.

This is not happening. Please tell me this is not happening. Please tell me that you are not sitting here having a hissy fit about proper terminology in the middle of a zombie apocalypse.

Okay, so this was inspired by a discussion that happened in the original MonsterFest thread, before the official rules went up, about the nature of zombies and their evolution in film.

It's short, not quite three full pages, and the main reason for that is that I was going for a Kevin Smith, dialogue-heavy, kind of vibe with this and (since I first thought about trying to do this myself, and once I'd determined it was probably beyond me, tried to find a home for it via the MonsterFest collaboration forum) I did keep running time in mind. (And yes, I do remember that I've said before that running time shouldn't be a factor in a ScriptFest. ) Also, there's the fact that I have never actually seen a zombie movie, and I really haven't had time to do any research on them, so I guess I was hoping that, if it found a home, the person making it would help flesh out the movie references based on their own preferences.

Read it here.

 

[Chris_Keaton]

Did you take my argument about the virus things not being zombies and make a screenplay out of it?


Super Spoiler Alert.....


I'm right dammit. Those things in '28 days later' weren't zombies. You know what is really funny. I worked on a group feature about a slob uncle and his paraplegic pron addicted teen nephew must fight monsters to save their town. And I wrote a whole scene where the kid debates his uncle about what a real zombie is while they are being chased by them. It's always an entertaining discussion.

 

[MrKilloran]

Short but funny, good dialogue between the two, got a good sense of their friendship and survival. Nice work :thumbsup:

 

[DarkElastic]

Hi Captain, thanks for the read.

Yes, short but sweet. Great dialogue, enough action for this length.

Not happy about the attack on 28 Day Later, I thought it was an excellent film, zombies or not!!! ;-)

It would be nice if they look up from the car and an entire horde of zombies are there waiting, as if they have been waiting for the conversation to be finished.

Overall, a very good short. Well done.

 

[Tim Joy]

Great dialog. Had me laughing pretty good, felt natural, and would be fun for actors. It was over before I wanted it to be. so that's good.

I think this is an example of a perfect idea for a short script, because it's really only about one tiny thing, 'what makes a zombie?'
Many writers (myself included) try to write a feature-length story in 6-pages, always ending up with mediocre results. Think smaller, people!

I liked how you established the situation, with all of its intensity, the just let them talk.

Highly rated from me.

 

[arroway]

He brings up his gun, takes
a shot, misses, but it’s enough to scare the zombie back.

whaaaaaaat? a zombie getting scared back by someone shooting at it? That's like a vegetarian vampire or a quadriplegic slasher villain...completely antithetical.

JASON
They’re not zombies.

Oh thank god...

JASON
And that’s another thing! Zombies
aren’t caused by viruses. It’s
something supernatural, voodoo or
some shi*. poo pooin' Resident Evil
started that whole virus thing.

Not to out-nerd Jason but there were many instances of viruses, or at least science, being the zombie catalyst long before the first resident evil. Peter Jackson's "Braindead" had zombies that were caused by a monkey virus. Even in Romero's penultimate zombie flick "Night of the Living Dead" radiation was the alluded to culprit. In the "Night of the Living Dead" series it was an airborne toxin...

JASON
I don’t know. I'll have to think
about it, I guess. They’re just...
not zombies.

lol

They start reloading again. Just then, they hear the inhuman
growl again.

Repetition of "again".


I liked this a lot. What I think could improve it is some intercutting between them having their argument and the zombies converging on them until finally they hear a noise and realize they're surrounded.

I also think it would be funny if after a brief credit scroll it cuts back to Jason having his brains being eaten out of the top of his skull while he sobs "They are zombies, they are zombies, they --"

all in all a nice simple story simply told. good job.

 

[kennethhurd]

This script was entertaining. I liked the dialogue between the two characters. Good job.

 

[Captain Pierce]

Thanks to all who have read and commented so far.

That's like a vegetarian vampire or a quadriplegic slasher villain...completely antithetical.

Oh, c'mon... a vampire is only after your blood, not your flesh, so one could technically be vegetarian. To be vegan, I guess they could only drink the blood of plants, though... And you've just ruined my idea for Freddie vs. Jason vs. Stephen Hawking...

Not to out-nerd Jason but there were many instances of viruses, or at least science, being the zombie catalyst long before the first resident evil. Peter Jackson's "Braindead" had zombies that were caused by a monkey virus. Even in Romero's penultimate zombie flick "Night of the Living Dead" radiation was the alluded to culprit. In the "Night of the Living Dead" series it was an airborne toxin...

I did not know that. Obviously.

Repetition of "again".

Good catch, that is pretty clumsy there.

I liked this a lot. What I think could improve it is some intercutting between them having their argument and the zombies converging on them until finally they hear a noise and realize they're surrounded.

I thought about this, actually, but I was hoping to make the audience forget about the zombies just as the characters do.

I also think it would be funny if after a brief credit scroll it cuts back to Jason having his brains being eaten out of the top of his skull while he sobs "They are zombies, they are zombies, they --"

That's not a bad idea. Either that, or both of them having their brains eaten, and Steve asking, "Now do you believe they're zombies?" "Well, admittedly, the eating of brains is a classic zombie trait, but..."

 

[arroway]

That's not a bad idea. Either that, or both of them having their brains eaten, and Steve asking, "Now do you believe their zombies?" "Well, admittedly, the eating of brains is a classic zombie trait, but..."

That's even better! do it!

 

[Rustom Irani]

I left a note about this in the viewing thread...

For some weird reason your script won't open up in Adobe and it gives me an error. I'd love to be able to read it and vote on it.

 

[mookid]

This felt really fresh. It's very short but there are enough potent details that would be fun to play around with during the shooting of this script.

These kind of zombie discussions are very common among armchair-commandos, I never understood why they are so obsessed about zombies and SHTF-scenarios. This scene elegantly embodies everything that their culture represents to an outsider.

 

[Rustom Irani]

Did anyone else think of "Clerks" when you read this script?

Great dialogue!

Jason shifts his gun and ammunition to pantomime the marks around "Klingon warbirds" with both hands.

This just seems to offset the pacing a bit. Does he do it as he says the line? (Which seems to be the case) You could've split up the dialog then.

He mimes the quotation marks with a hand that’s still holding a shell.

We get it! We get it! This is his exacerbating trait.

I love the fact that this is a slice of time story rather than a dramatic plot and more importantly it's only 3 pages long.

Any longer and I'd be bored and start looking for things to happen as far as action is concerned.

Fun read and a very affordable short to make.

Could the "walking dead" creature be a friend of theirs? That'd enhance their Zombie/Not Zombie diatribe, I think.

All the best!

 

[Charli]

Technical - try to keep your action paragraphs to the maximum of four lines.

A better way to show that these are not true military guys is maybe by stating: Urban Civilians Dressed for Combat. Keep it's simpler and their gear should be capitalized.

How do we know they're survivalist?

Get rid of your asides (exposition in parentheses) and just tell me the story.

When they just takes shelter behind the car they are in another location as the focus is behind the car and no longer on the street corner.

What does an in human growl sound like?

ZOMBIE should be capitalized and what does a zombie look like? Show don,'t tell.

You have CLUNKS of dialogue between Steve and Jason which slows the pace down. Break the dialogue into sections so that we can see a better exchange between them.

... they start reloading... - just state that they reload.

The last spoken dialogue should end in an exclamation point.

Content: Therewas a tremendous amount of information that was told to me instead of shown to me. I would have liked to see a smoother and witter exchanged between Steve and Jason.

It was a generic zombie short without any real surprises. A better twist would have been a man and women hunting instead of being the hunters - the zombie or nonzombies as it were.