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.

As far as I'm concerned, "a therapy that turns into their worst nightmares" is not a way to rise interst without spoiling the end. You can use this kind of sentence in a teaser not in a logline. The ending that you shoud not spoil is 'will the pycho kill everyone, or the couple will survive', etc. But you have to give one specific detail about the kind of "nightmares" they face in the movie: this is what the movie is about and we want to know it.

By the way, Hannibal lecter has a mask :) http://oaprendizverde.com.br/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/Hannibal-Lecter-Raio-X-do-Canibal-636x395.jpg

There's nothing wrong about the mask, but it must be something original with a symbolic power.

It seems to me that your movie falls in the survival horror genre (see 'monster in the house' in 'save the cat' book). There are so so many movie in this genre but there's always a possibility to come up with something new. I think it's necessary to put a "new" and strong element in the logline.

Hi Lee, thanks for the comment!

I think we are looking for a word that expresses the state when you are not yet breaking up, but not in heat anymore as well. A state where the partners are not putting much effort anymore into their relationship, probably they are already looking outside, but still not at the brink of breaking up. Say they were in love for 3 years with great emotions, ture love and for the last 8-12 months it has changed.

Maybe they don't dare to break up. They don't know yet, maybe they just don't admit for a reason, but an outside spectator would realise that they should break up. However they are not warring, they are not yelling at each other, they have gone maybe a bit apathic even.

Hope I could describe it better with these details!

I don't like 'alienated' or 'estranged'. I don't know what you mean by alienated in this context, and they're not really estranged if they're attending a counselling retreat together to save their relationship. How about a warring couple?

Hi dpg, got your points!

the couple decides for a "normal" counseling retreat service, e.g. http://guidedoc.com/the-8-best-marriage-counseling-retreats-in-the-us . They agree to meet with the service provider at a nice excursion place inside the forest, so they decide to hike there.

Their only expectation is to give their relationship a last chance by attending services like the ones in the link above. With an "I don't think this would help, but let's give a last try" attitude.

Meeting the psycho and its dog is absolutely unintended! He is definitely not part of the service they signed up for. They rather fall in his trap. In their captivity this guy is doing things to them they don't like, so this is one side of what I mean by facing their nightmares. On the other hand, they will have to be honest towards each other at last, which is another kind of nightmare that an alienated couple will have to go through...

Gabor:

It is my m.o. to ask for details that I know wouldn't and shouldn't be part of a logline in order to get a better understanding of the concept, to, hopefully, provide useful feedback.

And I still don't have a clear, focused view of your concept. Your logline currently reads:

An estranged couple decides for a last-chance counseling retreat in a forest just to experience a therapy that turns into their worst nightmares.

Does that mean the couple are intentionally seeking a therapy that will force them to confront their worst nightmares? Or do they discover that the therapy forces them to confront their worst nightmares -- an unintended consequence?

And, again, what is their worst nightmares?

Maybe it shouldn't be included in the logline, but isn't EVERY plot (certainly in the horror genre) about a protagonist who MUST confront his worst nightmare, the one thing he fears most? Isn't that sui generis, the standard psychological dynamic of the modern dramatic formula?

So what differentiates this couple's nightmares from the 1,001 nightmares faced down by estranged couples in a 1,0001 stories about relationships on the rocks? What makes this story unique from the others?

Thanks guys, this is really exciting! Small update:

dpg - added last chance, instead intensive. I like your questions, but I am not sure if I should give away all that information in the logline. I envision a movie that pulls in the audience (or a potential studio) becuase of these questions (audience to watch the movie, producer to read the synopsis). Not sure if you can agree with this view?

Rutger, by don't give away the end of the story you mean I shouldn't use "turns into their worst nightmares"?