Hello everyone, I’m writing a dark comedy/ horror screenplay and would like to get an opinion from some black magicians. The film is meant to be a mock docudrama based on real events that are not actually real, similar in nature to Spinal Tap. Has anyone seen the travel channel TV series the Dead Files? Well this movie is kind of a satire on the ghost shows today. The premise is, a family is plagued by a poltergeist and hires a medium/ghost hunting team to investigate the house. They enlist the help of a local black magician to engage in magical combat against the entity then all Hell breaks loose. The concept is to have a funny, entertaining, and scary story, yet represent black magick rituals accurately and respectfully. I would like to hear what your thoughts might be. I have already asked a number of people who say they like the concept but as we all know, our friends, family, and associates will tell you they like it even when they truly think it sucks. So I’m asking total strangers who happen to be involved in black magick to get some perspective. So, based on this brief description would you say I should I scrap it and not bother finishing the second half or finish the story?
ok
ok gotcha
so that’s your logline then? it’s incomplete. you may want to try rewriting it to include the most important details.
the scientologists who run hollywood will probably get more laughs out of you representing black magick rituals than the audience will
opinions are like…well, you know.
anyway, write your pitch again and then go through the 5-step process of writing the thing out. then send it to the proper channels for appraisal and feedback. good luck with everything
Thank you Magician I appreciate your input.
Here is a more appropriate logline and later on I will condense it.
Logline:
An amateur black magician (pretending to be the real deal) finds himself in over his head when he is enlisted by a desperate family plagued by poltergeist activity, now it’s up to him to vanquish the entity and return peace to the home.
As for the scientologists… Well they can laugh at my movie all they want because the world is laughing at them for believing in a silly sci-fi story about alien overlords created in the head of a conman who got disowned by his Masonic lodge for being as much of a nut as his followers. Although it’s no more unrealistic than christianity.
I am glad you responded to my post and would be interested in talking more with you.
Cheers!
It sounds like fun, what are your specific questions at this stage?
One thing I’ve observed: magicians tend to find “power objects” a lot, out in nature, in second-hand shops, random-seeming stuff like that. It would be realistic therefore if your main guy happened to acquire something, “by chance” that turns out to be intrumental, for example a wand, chalice, or maybe a scrying mirror (most visually creepy, and least redolent of Harry Potter).
Hard to help on the rest without knowing what you feel the gaps are in your own knowledge, or the things you’d like to use but don’t know if they’re credible, etc.
The idea of a Chalice sounds nice. Because it ties into a number of Myths, but is also useful for other things to weave both good and bad things in…i.e. One has a number of negative situations . but then there is a Victory, a Feast (positive) where around a Feast one has the Celebrants which creates a loophole for an extension of a continued adventure. Now of course the Feast or Celebration is symbolic it can be a number of circumstances if a celebration like say a Party, or just something as mundane as sitting at a dinner table which leads into something else. When I mentioned the dinner Table that is symbolic of the chalice… But more importantly also in the creation of a story where you “FRACTIONATE” (hypnosis technique) the reader or listener between different emotional states of a roller coaster of emotion…the dinner table/hall can be a more low key or neutral emotional point… That leads to the next situation… Which can be thought of as like a Rising Emotional Wave.
[quote=“AdamThoth, post:3, topic:6911”]Thank you Magician I appreciate your input.
Here is a more appropriate logline and later on I will condense it.
Logline: An amateur black magician (pretending to be the real deal) finds himself in over his head when he is enlisted by a desperate family plagued by poltergeist activity, now it’s up to him to vanquish the entity and return peace to the home.[/quote]
i’m thinking work it a bit more. remember, hollywood doesn’t want accuracy and logic. they go for rhetoric and drama.
something like this: ‘a magical dabbler is hired by a desperate husband to exorcise poltergeists possessing his wife. in wrestling with the ghosts, the mage realizes they will not leave without claiming either the wife - or himself - as their victim.’ the storyline is much more specific, and there is a built-in cliffhanger.
stuff like that will get more attention. that type of story has the type of soap opera occultism hollywood loves to see.
plot twist: scientology is one of the more powerful and aggressive black lodges in the occult world with roots in thelema and the oto. the higher-ups do quite a bit of lesser (and probably greater) magick behind closed doors. scientology is an offshoot of jack parsons’ brand of dark thelema. never forget that.
[quote=“AdamThoth, post:3, topic:6911”]I am glad you responded to my post and would be interested in talking more with you.
Cheers![/quote]
good luck with everything
Haven’t we seen this before? Poltergeist, The Excorcist, Paranormal Activity? Your plot seems to share similarity to all the mentioned movies. Sure, it’s a safe plot to work with, but it needs something unique between the comfortable plot of the norm of what is known in Hollywood and showbusiness in general. The Sixth Sense is an example of testing the boundaries of the norm and the audience got the big surprise in the end. In my opinion, a masterpiece in the genre of the paranormal. Of course the director got hubris and never really made a better movie after that enormous success.
I think there is two ways of working the plot: Either go your own way and make something non-dogmatic with a base on your own experiences. It can be a visual masterpiece and something very unique. The audience might be lacking, though, and that can break the budget. Or take the safer route and work through the plot you have now. Do research of what made other movies successful in their respective genres, and work on that formula.