After following a trail of clues that began with a cryptic E-mail, A tired middle-aged family man must enter a hidden world of supernatural mystery to save the soul of his childhood friend from an ancient secret society bent on hiding their existence at any cost.

I think Luke nailed it but here is another take. Here I wanted to suggest the focus be on why saving the childhood friend's soul is important to the present story, and the protag's family. The cryptic email is a nice plot point for the script but isn't "juicy" enough for a logline.

"A middle aged family man struggles to save the soul of his childhood friend before members of dark secret society come for his son."

That's a good re-write. I might change "as he tries to uncover" to "as he uncovers" (but that is just a tweak)

I like it!

Thanks guys!

I think Luke nailed it!

I like the pitch. The story seems intersted, and I would be interested to know more. If there is any problem I think it is just with the way the logline is written. The sentence structure is odd and at times it's meaning cluttered.
How about this, as an alternative? I think it keeps all of the beats your original logline, but perhaps has a greater clarity of communication.

'A cryptic email throws a middle-aged familyman into the world of the supernatural as he tries to uncover the mystery behind his childhood friend's relationship with an insidiuous secret society.'

I was taking out the secret society from the logline so it doesn't tell the reader too much.

However if there's no "Big Reveal" or if the secret society enters into the story line early into the story line, then there is no problem being in the logline.

Richiev

first off, thanks for responding! I'm very new at log lines and I can tell I have a long way to go! your revision tells me that I haven't really conveyed what the story is about at all.

a few questions:

in your revision you removed the refrences to the secret society and their goals. is that just for brevity? or do you think it's not necessary in this case to describe the opposition?

I also noticed that you removed the reference to the supernatural. again, is that just for brevity? or do you think that describing something as supernatural is giving too much away?

thanks for your help!

After receiving a desperate e-mail from his childhood friend, a middle-aged family man, follows a trail of cryptic clues to discover what happened to his now missing friend.?

"After receiving a desperate cryptic e-mail from his childhood friend, a middle-aged family man, follows a trail of cryptic clues to discover what happened to his now missing friend."