Inane Query Letter of the Week #1

Taking a cue from the geniuses at Query Letters I Love (why didn’t I think of this?), I’ve decided to start a running item in this space highlighting some of worst, most pathetic, implausible and inane script query letters that pass by my desk. This week’s entry, Zealot, comes by way of SellAScript.com, a query letter subscription service that I’ve unwittingly been signed up to and am far too lazy to unsubscribe from. Thankfully, my sloth has been rewarded in spades with a steady diet of truly awful queries from around the globe. This one comes from our friends in Australia.

Warning: this feature is not for the faint of heart (or the good of taste for that matter). All typos/misspellings have been left in their original forms. Enjoy.


ZEALOT

Genre: Drama / Thriller

Acheron is populated exclusively by dead 20th century pop culture icons: everyone from Marilyn to Martin Luther King Jnr. and JFK; from Elvis and Jimi Hendrix to Gandhi. The thing is, most of these people have forgotten who they were. They seem oblivious to their former superstar status and power, and worship instead the tin god of Swayer, who has media hypnotised them into following his treachorous ways.

Tracee is a Shi'ite refugee who fled Iraq after her parents were butchered to death by Saddam Huessein, but now she believes she is the re-incarnation of James Dean. The Rebel Without A Cause has finally found one - to convince the population of Acheron to rise up against their slave status and defeat the evil power of Swayer.

But there's just one small problem, TONY PRINT, her shrink, who's trying to persuade Tracee that she's not James Dean and Acheron only exists inside her deluded mind.

And so Tracee's fight begins.

I am a published author and would like to submit Zealot for your consideration. I can be contacted as listed below.

Yours sincerely,

NAME WITHHELD TO PROTECT THE STUPID

Now for the time being, I’m going to go ahead and gloss over the fact that the writer of this query claims to be “a published author” yet the sweet science of grammar and spelling has eluded him. Can we talk about this premise for a minute? In the logline, which I have mercifully cut from this entry, “Acheron” is described as a “sort of Rock n Roll Heaven and Hell” with some tyrannical leader named Swayer causing the greatest celebrities of the 20th century to forget their powerful superstar past. And their only hope is an Iraqi Shi’ite Muslim refugee who thinks she’s James Dean! WTF! I mean, is this a can’t miss project or what? I say we get Hillary Swank as the Iraqi (hello, Oscar #3), Pacino as the tyrannical overlord (Whoo-ah!) and Billy Crystal as the shrink (he can analyze this, or he can analyze that…you never know) and just sit back. An accessible and marketable piece like this is just a license to print money.

See you next week.