When a lab experiment goes horribly wrong, a clumsy scientist and his two pretty female assistants become the first highly intelligent zombies. Not willing to share their newly found powers with the knowledge hungry human elite that forcefully tries to get bitten, they barricade themselves in their research facility trying to find a cure for their own uncontrollable hunger and bad looks, before turning on themselves. But cure or no cure ? they still have to find a way out!
Rutger OosterhoffLogliner
When a lab experiment goes horribly wrong, a clumsy scientist and his two pretty female assistants become the first highly intelligent zombies. Not willing to share their newly found powers with the knowledge hungry human elite that forcefully tries to get bitten, they barricade themselves in their research facility trying to find a cure for their own uncontrollable hunger and bad looks, before turning on themselves. But cure or no cure ? they still have to find a way out!
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“When?an experiment turns a clumsy scientist and his sexy?assistant?into?highly intelligent zombies,?they must find a cure for their uncontrollable hunger before turning on each other.”
Hopefully, this doesn’t change your idea too much, you just seemed to have some trouble putting it into a reasonable number of words.
I don’t know if the ambiguity of “turning on” was intentional wordplay or not, but I went with it.
I also changed the two assistants to one, since you already have an antagonist – the zombie virus – and love triangles are stupid.
Sorry, it just occurred to me that I’ve turned your horror idea into “sexy comedy”.
Just an idea. Do what you want with it…
Hey Lucius, I like your logline, only problem is I want to tell so much more. I wanted to show the people the world turned around. Humans wanting to get bitten by zombies, because through the virus they will get highly intelligent to.
While looking for a cure to restore their good looks,?a clumsy scientist and his female assistant turned into mega brain zombies through?a fatal lab accident – must protect themselves against the knowledge hungry human elite that wants to get bitten.
I’m also not sure if it should be a horror movie or a comedy. Turning things around should tell people it is a comedy. But how cool would it be to let this play out as counterpart of the Walking Dead series.
Public announcement: “To all zombie citizens of New Zombie Haven:
Where protective gear!?
?
The thing is none of that is really important to a logline – you just need a hero, an incident and a goal, everything else goes into the story.
The second draft of the logline is better because it is shorter and easier to understand.
Regarding your comment “…problem is I want to tell so much more…” this is always the case with all writers and all stories but the question is; what does your audience want?
Your audience only wants to take in the bare minimum of information needed for them to have a meaningful experience, economy in your logline will reflect your understanding of this, therefore all the additional descriptions are redundant.
An inciting incident is important even though in this genre it holds less dramatic stakes (in zombie movies how the zombies come about is less important) it will give a clear starting point for the characters and the story rather than an arbitrary one. So the inciting incident from the first draft should be used in the second draft.
Comedy sounds like a good choice for the revers human goals of wanting to get bitten.
Hope this helps.
Thanks Nir.
The thing I find a little strange is “clumsy” and a focus on “good looks”. ?You have it down as a horror but reads as a comedy.
I can can almost see a story. ?But why not just spread the virus for the good of mankind. ?Everyone gets powers, we keep our intelligence and beauty is redefined. ?I am missing the internal logic. ?I have no doubt it is in your story, but I can’t see it in the logline.
i wish I had more to offer.
Yes Craig, I think it can ony be a black comedy.?But I think when?everybody gets powers there is no conflict. And when there is no conflict there is no story.