People always make the same mistake. They give the setup, not the plot.
For example: "When a group of kids take a vacation at a cabin in the middle of nowhere, they awaken an ancient evil that wants to kill them all."
Okay, that's act one, then what? Because right now, which movie am I describing? Cabin in the Woods? Evil Dead? Dead Snow? I bet you can think of others that fit this logline. It's too generic. Pass.
A logline tells me what I'm watching for two hours, not just the first act. It needs to tell me what this story is about in an interesting way, a way that makes me want to see how you pull it off. If all you give me is Act One, it sounds like a million other movies I've seen.
It also doesn't tell me what people DO. What do these kids do? Is it simply about escape, as in Dead Snow? Do they try to kill the evil, like in Evil Dead? Is it a mystery to solve, like in Cabin in the Woods? Am I going to watch a teenage slasher movie, or a movie where the kids turn it around on the bad guy? I need to know these things if I'm going to get interested.
So a better logline would be "When a group of teenage friends unlocks an ancient evil hidden in the basement of their isolated cabin, they must find a way to kill it before it forces them kill each other."
Now you know which movie I'm talking about, right?
It still sounds like a cheesy B horror flick, but at least this time it adds something different. I'm not just going to be watching kids track and kill an ancient evil, I'm going to be watching kids try to kill each other, people who used to be their friends. There's suggested interpersonal conflict there. I also now see a goal. I know what I'm rooting for - they have to destroy the evil. Now I've got a reason to read it.
My point is, if you want someone to read your script, you have to give them enough information to want to read your script. Make it sound irresistible. Don't worry about spoiling the ending. Nobody's going to get to that great ending if they don't see a reason to read your story.
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