Review: AETHYRIKA (REVISED)

Script review for triggerstreet.com

AETHYRIKA (REVISED) - by Edward Ellis

I don't enjoy assassinating Aethyrika, but if I'm honest this was a script I enjoyed very little and felt had numerous shortcomings.

I’ve summarized the story in chronological order to try and extract a clear concept from it.
1) Biblical Times: Lillith was Adam’s original partner in the Garden of Eden, usurped by Eve. She has no soul and must steal others’. She needs to have a child to ‘break her cycle’.
2) Ancient Scotland: Lillith ‘buys’ a husband, Jonathon, who she then kills because he loves another, Heather. Heather is caught performing a pagan ritual from a tome on Jonathon’s body. Lillith blames Heather for Jonathon’s murder and has her burned as a witch.
3) Modern Day: Carly and Steve are lovers. Carly runs a bookstore and finds Heather’s tome in a delivery. Lillith turns up at the same time, following the book and fixates on Steve as the reincarnation of Jonathon. She murders one of Carly’s employees to take her job and worm her way into their life. She drives them apart, kidnaps another of Carly’s employees, then lures Steve to her place and threatens to kill the girl if he doesn’t sleep with her. Fortunately the tome contains warnings about Lillith and Carly arrives in time to save Steve. They kill Lillith.
4) Later: Lillith seems to reincarnate as a little girl fixated on Carly and Steve’s son.

Lillith needs to have a baby with Steve. Why Steve? Apparently because he’s the reincarnation of Jonathon. Why Jonathon? We’re not sure; it could either be because Heather performed a ritual from the tome on him, or because he was the reincarnation of the original Adam.

How does this reincarnation business work? We have no idea at all. All we know is that Jonathon is now Steve, and Carly seems to be Heather. And there’s a hint at the end that Lillith has reincarnated as a little girl fixated on Carly and Steve’s son, Chris. So on one side it seems random, on the other hereditary.

So what’s Lillith been doing for the centuries between ancient Scotland and modern day? No idea. Following the book? Waiting for Jonathon to reincarnate?

Has Jonathon ever reincarnated before this point? No idea.

If it says in Heather’s tome about Lillith being a soul-vampire and needing a baby, why didn’t Heather tell anyone about this and why did Lillith kill Jonathon who could’ve given her that baby? Who knows.

The concept is clearly something to do with Lillith, and her being the original biblical woman so she ‘got their first’ – but it’s an original fantasy/horror creation, so the audience doesn’t already know the rules of the monster – as they’re never clearly explained or demonstrated the concept remains confused.

Moving on from the bigger concept we have the specific story about Carly, Steve and Neal. All three are incredibly passive, pushed around at will by Lillith, barely able to think or act for themselves. There’s no protagonist. The only character making anything happen is the antagonist, Lillith, and nobody else even realizes they’re in opposition to her until page 105! Even if you view Lillith as the main character then nothing she does counts as much of an achievement because it’s all so easy!

Lillith kills Amanda and gets away with it easily. Nobody sees anything, no police ever investigate her.
Lillith takes Amanda’s job incredibly easily. She just walks in and gets the job, no interview, no CV, nothing. I wish the real world was like this!
Lillith spikes Carly’s drink with broken glass and gets away with it easily. There’s no CCTV, the barman can’t remember her face and the police aren’t involved.
Lillith breaks into Carly’s house, kills a cat and gets away with it easily. There are no witnesses; the police are never called, no fingerprints taken.
Lillith calls Carly asking for ‘Stevie’ and gets away with it easily. Carly doesn’t recognize her voice from them working together.
Lillith kidnaps Jaime and gets away with it easily. Again, no witnesses.
Lillith lures Steve back to hers and drugs him so easily. He just does as he’s told.

Everything Lillith does happens so easily for her, it’s just completely implausible. There’s no challenge, so there’s no drama. Carly, Steve and Neal are all so dense and lacking in initiative that nobody ever comes close to piecing anything together and there’s never any danger of them rumbling Lillith. When they do eventually catch on it’s not because they had a brain-cell between them, it’s because the answer was written down in a book that’s been in front of them the entire time.

The story has a juvenile tone to it that did nothing for me, like Neal playing a computer game. Lillith’s only early conflict is the catty argument with Kay and Jaime, which seemed plucked from a school corridor setting. It’s exacerbated in the limited vocabulary of the dialogue – do you know how many times a character says “the hell”, as in what the hell, who the hell, where the hell, etc. Fourteen times. I searched. By the eighth or ninth time I was grimacing every time I read it. And the amount of times people talk to themselves, especially Lillith! It reminded me of an immature teenager, whispering to themselves after being told off so they feel like they had the last word.

The structure is average. The acts don’t exactly move into new territory, just mark key points on a fairly linear escalation. End of act one Lillith kills Amanda, end of act two Lillith splits Carly and Steve up, etc. The key events fall in the right proportional places, but not enough actually happens to justify a two hour run time.

For your next draft I recommend you focus on turning one of your apathetic good-guys into an actual protagonist. It can’t be Steve because he’s placed in mortal peril at the end, but it could be either Carly or Neal. Accelerate events and let them rumble Lillith much earlier, perhaps at the mid point, so there’s time for some actual conflict between them, rather than one climatic run in and shoot her scene. You need to develop Lillith’s concept further or explain it more succinctly and earlier to let the audience get a clear handle on her.