Dead

[George Willson]

Following an attempt to destroy an zombie infestaiton using nuclear weapons, the remainder of the North American human populace seeks cover while awaiting evac to South America. Eight people find shelter in a single farmhouse and discover past memories and future hope while defending from invading zombies.

This is more of a dramatic piece than a horror film, since the zombies primarily provide a means to trap these people inside together. I wrote this piece for Poison X Productions, and he plans to shoot it next year sometime.

Click here to read the first draft of Dead.

[George Willson]

From Alfred Hitchcock on SimplyScripts:

before i tell you what i thought of it these are some notes i made while i read it:

the opening narrating HEAVVELY reminded me of Terminator 2. was this your intention?

oh weak! you used the word "zombie" in your dialouge! you know you're not supposed to do that in a zombie movie.

there appears to be to much "white" at the end of some pages. and on the next page there's dialouge. did you do it like that because you didn't want a character to have dialouge on two pages continuesly? because if that happens then all you reall have to do is:

RYAN
it's not my fault your medic died, miller.
i'm just a stupid soldier who HAS to stay
_______________________________________ PAGE ENDS

RYAN (CONT'D)
at my post only to get all of your men
killed in the end except for Reiben
who will be the sole survivor apart from
me.


get it? did you not know this or did you just chose to ignore it?

EDIT: Ok forget what i said but you don't need to write "(more)" at the end of the page. i know this from reading many scripts with this situation in it. sorry to be lecturing you but you don't have to listen.

Katie Romero? not a very subtle homage there but ok!

a thing about this Romero thing. this could have been taken a bit further cos i frankly think that fans would have been more annoyed by it than inspired. an idea: have it be an inside joke of some sort! like when they meet Chris Romero in the house and he introduces himself have it be like the cops react a bit to the fact that his name is Romero. like George Romero made his movies in the past and now that there are real zombies this guy is named Romero. play a bit with the irony in that with the dialouge.

you're good with characters. i'm really starting to dislike Nolan.

there's a slight error on page 35. there's no inbetween between:

INT. HOUSE - DAY
Chris stands with Katie in the kitchen.

married after two weeks? quite a swift romance you made up there. i wonder if people actually do that. i mean i've already had a romance but even though she was great i didn't wanna marry her after two weeks.

having just come out of a two month romance i detect a large weight on relationships in this script. relationships between two people. you've written this very well i think.

they say that every zombie script needs to add something new to the genre. i suppose your contribution was the smiling zombie after Oscars death?

this script has the uncanny ability to awaken emotions in me. only good writers do that. one emotion i felt just now. in stead of pulling Ryan away from Nolan when he tried to kill him i would have joined in and thrown Nolan out for the fucking crows. spoiled brat!

Katie slipped quite fast to ryan i think. she didn't protest or nothing. "upstairs about 5 minutes?" "ok." what's with that? i think you could have written some more about her emotions there. i mean she's with chris! was your intentions here to make the audience recent Katie here cos i sure as hell am right about now.

BRAVO!!! finally someone hit that bastard! way to go Chris Romero!

Ryan and Katie's half-love scene. i'm trying to put myself in Chris' position here. this is making my recentment against Katie even bigger. i'm glad that she didn't go through with it in the end but she still did consider going through with it.

"if he died?"? man what a jerk!

on page 66. "and that i'll have to kill her"? isn't it supposed to be "and then i'll have to kill her"?

He shot Erin! oh man why man why?!?!? now i really wanna kill that shit hole Nolan and what i can't figure out is why didn't Derek do it? he's just sobbing?WTF?!?!?

Ryan has a morality problem he's trying to kick? he wanted to sleep with a married woman but he can't kill a selfish spoiled brat for killing three people?

oh no man! i can't deal with this! you have made us hate Nolan so much dring this and now he's suddenly supposed to redeem himself by helping? HE KILLED ERIN FOR GOD'S SAKE!!!

wha....man i don't wanna tell someone like you how to write a script but bear with me a bit here: in my opinion you should have killed off nolan right after he killed erin. have derek do it or if derek was to upset then you'd have Tyler and Ryan do it together. at this point the audience are very blood thursty for Nolan and you let him live? i would have changed it to have him die then and not as a hero later on.....but that's just me.

no i'm sorry to be this blunt with you George but i think you failed as a writer with Nolan's death.

"i don't know.if i have to distract them, it may be at the sacrafice of my own life." - a bit to melodramatic don't you think?

the end. you got very visual in the end there. or at least i thought so.

what i thought:

i am very reminded of the movie Starship Troopers 2 when i read this. have you seen that movie? it's basicly the same thing. it starts outside in a war, continues in a house and ends with a man being left behind after the chopper comes and rescues them. was this a mere coincedence or were you inspired by that movie?

well i liked it. it was good story about the characters and (like many scripts) this could have been a part of a MUCH longer story.