An excerpt from Reals’ script review for Weapons (2025) which will be available 08/11/25:
What Worked
The Hook – This film has a fantastic hook, which is important because it makes for a great logline. Your logline will be your first impression, and you need to catch your reader’s attention and make them want to read your script.
A solid hook – or a unique take on a familiar tale, or something that a reader has never seen before – is a must.
I tell my students to look at their hook – what is it that sets your story apart from the hundreds of others that the reader has looked at? What makes your story unique? Why does the reader need to stop everything and pick up your script?
To further elaborate, let’s look at two loglines (from IMDB) and compare:
Eddington – In May of 2020, a standoff between a small-town sheriff and mayor sparks a powder keg as neighbor is pitted against neighbor in Eddington, New Mexico.
Weapons – When all but one child from the same class mysteriously vanish on the same night at exactly the same time, a community is left questioning who or what is behind their disappearance.
Now, as is well-documented, I don’t like Ari Aster’s work. However, from an objective standpoint, one of these loglines is not like the other.
By this I mean one of these loglines is interesting, and one of them is as dry as sandpaper.
I am drawn to the one sentence description of Weapons – what happened to the children? Why did the one student not disappear? Who is responsible? How will the town react? Etc.
Whereas with the Eddington logline, I just don’t care.
It tells me exactly what has happened, it gives me no reason to want to read more, and it doesn’t specify that this is a “dark comedy” (it’s not, because it’s not funny at all).
With the Weapons logline, it is clear that the story is a mystery/thriller.
With the Eddington logline, it could be a drama, a thriller, an action, a romance (if the sheriff and mayor are romantically involved) or anything else. I have no clear idea what genre we are in, and what story the writer wants to tell.
My point with this is twofold:
First, Ari Aster sucks.
Secondly, you have to have a strong hook to catch your reader’s attention.
Then, of course, you must keep the reader’s attention with a strong story, but we’ll talk more about that in a moment.
Right to the Action – I like that we start with the children having already vanished.
Just on Page 2 we get this line:
JUSTINE reaches a classroom door and steps into…
CLASSROOM: The room is EMPTY.
It is a great way to grab our attention and put us right into the story without having to do a bunch of exposition.
A Situation We Understand – I am a big fan of horror movies, and slashers especially.
Sadly, most slasher flicks don’t really do a great job of giving you characters you care about who are put into a sympathetic situation.
For example, in I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997) a group of teens who have just graduated hit a man on a dark road one night. They then decide to dump the body in the river and pretend it didn’t happen.
This is a problem for multiple reasons:
It makes the characters really unlikable, and you kind of root for the killer.
The dude they hit was walking in the middle of the road, late at night, and had just committed a crime of his own. Basically, the kids probably would have been fine if they’d just called the cops and explained the situation instead of doing something really, really stupid.
SPOILERS – I guess? The guy wasn’t even dead, so they even screwed that up.
The point is that in this script, we understand why these characters act the way they do: they’re scared, confused, and suspicious, just like anyone would be.
And, it is that fact that keeps the story grounded and keeps the reader invested.
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