The Church -
"Living in a downward spiral of drug abuse after the death of her husband and unborn child, a young woman is spurred to action when she finds out that her sister has gone missing after joining a secretive religious cult with her boyfriend. She joins the cult and travels to their location - a small commune dominated by a massive archaic church - where she discovers the disciples all follow an enigmatic priest who uses and encourages self mutilation in order to gain a higher enlightenment and servitude. After being told that they never heard of her sister, the woman finds her sister's boyfriend but he is too far brainwashed by the priest and his harsh teachings to be of any help except for confirming that her sister was once there. Desperate to find out what happened to her sister, the woman begins to dig deeper into the church's activities while the priest slowly begins to work his "magic", trying to convert her while helping to cure her drug problem and get over her husband and baby's deaths. Convinced there is something far more sinister than just pain and punishment going on and, with the help of a young ally, the woman sneaks into the lower levels of the church to find carious torture rooms for the more "difficult" conversions and eventually comes across the body of her sister - having died from too much punishment. She breaks down after this and becomes a true convert until her ally - a child - snaps her out of it and reveals the horrible truth the priest has been hiding all along..."
And that is where my movie idea dies. For the life of me I cannot come up with some evil plot for the priest and his followers to be in on outside the predictable "he's just doing it for control". I want to do something like "A cure for Wellness", where there is almost a supernatural goal for the church but I can't come up with anything that flows without taking the story too far our of the realm of possible. What is the point of all the self mutilation and punishment? Summoning a demon (too predictable)? What is the priest trying to accomplish?
If anyone has and good suggestions, I'd love to hear them. Either on a goal for the church and pries or anything in general to make the story better. For example, when and where should this take place?
Thanks everyone!
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I can see where you're running out of steam in Act II. Go back to basics: Who is the protagonist, what does she want, why does she want it, who is preventing her from getting it, how/why is he preventing her from getting it? Why does the Priest need to be evil... He believes he's right and on a mission. Your Protagonist has a 'want', but what does she need (& why)? What is the theme? Otherwise it sounds as though you're writing another ho-hum story.
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A look into some of the horrors committed in the name of God by the Church might prove to be helpful inspiration. What reason do they need other than to save the eternal souls of the masses?? I like what you have so far...
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I love what you've written so far. Although, I'm not sure why discovering her dead sister would cause her to become a true believer. I think it would make more sense for her to be converted after the priest helps her, then she snaps out of it upon finding her sister.
I don't really have any suggestions for how to move forward, as there are so many possibilities, and it depends on the message you're trying to convey. However, in regards to self-mutilation, I couldn't help but think of the book "Geek Love." One of the characters, who was born without limbs, starts a cult that requires followers to be amputated in order to be like him. It's not a book I would recommend for everyone, but if you liked "A Cure for Wellness," you might enjoy it and it might spark some ideas!
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Hi Tim,
People might be drawn to and sold on concepts, but they become invested in the character.
I don't think your issue is the church, or the priest per se - you need to understand what your inner conflict is for your protagonist and how they overcome this in your story.
If your protagonist has lost a husband and child and has serious drug addiction issues, how are these wounds made raw and how does she finally evolve so that she can deal with them and move on?
The trials you put or through (church, priest, cult, search for her sister), are the obstacles that allow the transformation to occur.
Hey Eoin,
So far for my protagonist I see her as someone who turned her back on the world when she lost her husband and child and the journey to find her sister will help with the wounds, something to snap her out of her head and force her to be in the present. Meanwhile the priest himself will actually help the kicking of her physical addiction and even with confronting the deaths, something she has avoided by turning to drugs. The death of her sister will completely break her down and the help of the child ally will snap her out of hiding away like she did before, giving her newfound strength and determination to overcome the church and priest.
Do you think this is strong enough?
And, everyone whose replied - I had an idea of the church and priest using cannibalism as their dark secret. Either the truly devoted or the ones who aren't devoted enough are ground up and either served as meat or used as fertilizer for their self sufficient crops.
Kind of like the weak feeding the strong or the strong feeding the weak, depending on which angle?
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I like the cannibalism angle for a higher purpose, but that's not going to help with the structure issue you have. I agree with the recs above. But it sounds like your ally character is the problem. Your story is: woman with a problem is jolted into dealing with a bigger issue than her problem-whereby she's relieved of her initial problem but now is faced with the truth of the 2nd problem's resolution (that her sister is dead like her husband and not still alive and missing-all hope is lost), (my idea) she retreats back to drugs/depression only to realize that it doesn't work like it used to, and now she realizes that while she can't save her sister, she can still save the other people in the cult and teeming up with the child character (who she initially rejected) they are able to free the cult members minds, save herself by finding transformation, while the antagonist priest can never see that he's still living his problem (i.e. his problem is he's numb to reality through religion and he never will give that up, unlike the protagonist who numbed herself through drugs, but then was able to change).
Hope that helps!
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Your story doesn't have a real character and doesn't have a hook. I've read the exact same plot in three different scripts last year. A woman with a dead husband isn't a character. Women exist outside of their martial status. Who is she? Why her for this story? And your story doesn't have any hooks. Why this missing sister? Why this cult? What does this woman risk by going to get her sister back? How is the lead character connected to this story?
The priest doesn’t believe.
I don't know if this helps any but the original backstory I had for my protagonist is that it is late 60s, early 70s, and she was happily married and pregnant and a devote Christian. Her husband then was drafted into Vietnam and KIA. This was such a shock to her and her previously perfect life that she lost her baby from a miscarriage. She has become a drug addict to cope with life and has cut out everyone in her life and turned her back on religion. Finding her sister, finding her faith, kicking her drug abuse, not getting eaten, and finally coming to terms with the death of her husband and child and being able to move on is what she stands to gain at the end, risking death and/or assimilation.
Her sister is/was a hippie who was brought into the cult by her boyfriend (kind of like how David Berg and the Children of God cult preyed on disillusioned hippies using "flirty fishing")
I'm really starting to like the cannibal idea of using the meat of the followers to feed the others because really, how do you go back to a normal life even after the church falls knowing that you ate people? You are changed forever in the name of this religion. It has been done in actual religious practices in the past and a horrifying way for them to weed out the truly devote from the unfaithful while giving the protagonist something to risk - get caught and get eaten. And maybe she will now struggle with this issue herself in the end if she gets out. Maybe she's been eating followers without knowing since she got there?
There is so much I like here but I want to make sure the plot is as sound as I can get it.
If you want to research/or study a screenplay about cannibalism, go read the number 1 script of 2020 annual Black List, "Head Hunter." A terrific read about a stylish New Yorker who chooses victims by their social media status.
Thanks Dan! That sounds awesome, I love a good cannibal story lol
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https://www.scriptreaderpro.com/tv-show-bible-examples/
Does anyone else think that having a cult that believes in self mutilation and being a cannibal cult that feeds its members to each other sounds like they belong to two separate movies? Like two vastly different extremes of violence? The more I think on it, the more I'm beginning to doubt the idea....
Tim, do your medical research - cannibalism on long terms is certain death to the consumer...most flicks disregard this fact, so you take another turn...investigate true life cannibals (Jeff Dahmer, Chikatilo and such) you'll discover they've if, only practiced it for curiosity and in strictly limited occasions.
Thank you Kiril, you make an excellent point that I'd forgotten about. Who knew eating people was bad for you!
Thing is, evil cult leader is a trope. So in itself, it is not a story, even if you come up with some super-evil plot twist. The interesting bit to me would be what the drug addict goes through and DOES, when she discovers the corpse of her sister (so it should come early, i.e. end of act 1 or sooner). Having her submit to the cult doesn't seem like a reasonable response.
I like the idea of a kid sidekick. Have the kid be a target of sex abuse by evil cult leader maybe. Have drug addict save the child, to make up for not being able to save her sister. Instead of having her kick the addiction at the start, let it be an ongoing issue. But at the end, having saved the child, she gets clean to take care of the kid, so the kid saves her too. Cutesy, but ...
Great minds think alike Christiane lol. You kind of arrived at the same conclusion I did about how the drug addict reacts to finding out about her sister and what she does with the kid. It is cutesy for sure but if I go the cannibal route I have a neat idea on how to make it not so cutesy...
Does this movie idea sound like it should be a period piece rather than a modern day one to you?
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Tim Mihocik There you go: Scratch sex abuse, substitute human sacrifice :D You could intertwine with the drug abuse, i.e. drug addict stumbles on a human sacrifice (of another child), but is high, and doesn't know if it is a hallucination or real. When she realizes it was real, she also realizes her kid friend is next.
As for now or then, it could be either. If it is now, it should be somewhere remote, US or Europe. If period, Victorian UK.
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You read my mind again, Christiane :) I love the folk horror trope, i.e. Wicker Man, Midsommar, Blood on Stan's Claw, The Apostle, etc. and this is my attempt at one but it seems like for every idea I have, another problem pops up. Its beginning to feel like I have two different movies in this one.
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Ya like cannibal stories? Back in the '60s when I attended the Univ of Colorado, there was a grill in the student union building - we students voted to change its name to The Alfred Packer Memorial Grill.