An estranged couple decides for a last-chance counseling retreat in a forest just to meet a therapist who reveals their secrets that should rather have remained buried

But that goes back to the original problem, they shouldn't be confronting each other, they should be working together to survive. They are estranged and they disagree on everything. They have to learn throughout the ordeal how to work together.

An estranged couple decides for a last-chance counseling retreat in a forest just to meet a therapist who reveals their secrets that should rather have remained buried
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This re-write gets away from what makes you story interesting. You have a bickering couple going to therapy in the woods, they are attacked by a madman and in order survive they have to do the last thing they really want to do; work together.

The irony of your story is, being chased by the madman does what the therapy couldn't, it gets to work together.

This logline version gets away from that.

This logline kills it!!!

If I have to pick one : Estranged couple decides for a hiking therapy where a masked psychopath with a killer dog captures them. They are now forced to confront each other to survive.

Thanks Rutger!

FFF - how about you, would you suggest one of the loglines from above or an alternate version for them?

The SIN ? hmmmm - An alienated couple and one (the protag) has an extremely high life Insurance. The other one leads all of his wife?s/flings into the Woods where his partner in crime kills them. Sorry Robert, it's the same thing but only different!

The (incomplete?) logline I like best:

An estranged couple decides for a counseling retreat in the woods just to meet the therapist of their nightmares.

OK I now for a fact that Frugals recommendation works, I read a script of a friend of mine, Robert Arthur Jansen, that was set up like this: " Link the sin to a marital discretion, (lying, cheating, etc,) for example, and connect one of the partners to the killer ? like ex boyfriend, or partner in crime, etc.. Then the main action affects both the outer story (escape from the killer) and the inner story (atone for your sins)."

Yess FFF, but not all the time. I agree with "a symbolic power".

I found the idea that a therapy is involved very interesting but...

I'm still confused, is there a psycho or not? Even if at the very end we learn that it's just an hallucination (we've seen this before many times, and very well executed a few times), it's not what is important now, you don't need to spoil this kind of ending, but the logline should let us know what the movie is about. A man and a woman who fight? They fight together against a psycho? Against a mad therapist? Against many supernatural being who haunt the forest? Is the therapist a deus ex machina who set a trap for the couple so that they will be pushed to fight each other?

One more thing, usually there is only one real hero, not two. Even when there is a team, only one person is the real hero. Your movie seems tricky because you have two heroes. Even if they fight each other, the audience needs to take one side.

There is one more tricky point: you should make clear also if the couple is 'broken' and their experience in the forest 'heal' them the hard way, or if it's two lovebirds who become rabid dogs. Usually, the best is to imagine the story that allows the longest journey... if you have a broken couple and they become rabid dogs the journey is shorter...

About Blake Snyder, let me know if I'm wrong but he's the teacher who is the most successful as screenwriter. All the other gurus hardly wrote one single feature lenght movie... Anyway I don't think that it's really necessary to be a screenwriter to teach screenwriting. Maybe Snyder is not the best, but not because he has a short file on Imdb (with this criterion he would be the best!).

Your story fits Blake Snyder's genre called Monster In The House (MITH).

The three ingredients: 1) A Monster: a terrifying supernatural being with evil at it's core; 2) A House: small enclosed space, making escape impossible; 3)A Sin: someone is responsible for letting the monster into the house.

You have two: a house(Forrest) and a Monster (psycho therapist). What is missing is the sin.

With a little tweaking you could have a FATAL ATTRACTION like story.

My recommendation is make one of the couple the MC who either wants the divorce or wants to stick it out. And have the partner want the opposite. Link the sin to a marital discretion, (lying, cheating, etc,) for example, and connect one of the partners to the killer -- like ex boyfriend, or partner in crime, etc.. Then the main action affects both the outer story (escape from the killer) and the inner story (atone for your sins).

Updated the nightmare part to something new. Let's hear your voice! :-)

Here are the earlier versions sorted by date modified latest to first:

? An estranged couple decides for a last-chance counseling retreat in a forest just to experience a therapy that turns into their worst nightmares
? An estranged couple decides for a counseling retreat in the woods just to meet the therapist of their nightmares
? Estranged couple decides for a hiking therapy where a masked psychopath with a killer dog captures them. They are now forced to confront each other to survive.
? A hiking trip of an alienated couple turns into a fast-lane relationship therapy through a sadistic encounter with a horrific villain

Hi FFF and thanks for your thoughts! At this point I am out of ideas on the nightmare part of the logline, I would welcome any suggestions for a situation where a couple faces sins they committed against each other, against their relationship.

The first logline featured the Masked Psycho and his aggressive killer Dog, but as you can read above, it was removed.

I looked up the Monster in the House concept, and you are right, my story falls in this (sub)genre. I also checked Blake Snyder who wrote very popular books, but I was disappointed about his IMDB filmography. He is not the first one whom I see as a good teacher with very few results. Maybe I'm wrong.