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Caesarean Fiction by Twenty-Nine - Horror - A young man is tormented by an evil voice within his head...the voice of something within his pregnant wife. ( R ) - pdf, format
There’s a gleeful maniac energy running through this. I loved it!
Pg. 5 The scene with Sheila ends too abruptly, but its set-up superbly.
It felt like this may have been rushed to the finish, and the witch requirement is really just glanced over, but the idea and the execution through the first half is brilliant.
This definitely deserves a rewrite to bring the last few pages up to par with the rest of it, but this is an early favorite of mine.
Writing-wise it I enjoyed the read, crisp and effective visuals -- feels like you let loose for the challenge and had some fun with this. Think Ewall433 nailed it with the ‘gleeful maniac energy’.
Think you could trim the V.O’s back a touch, but on the whole I thought they were used to good effect. The tension was set-up well and I got a good feel for Warren’s desperation.
The half-sister/witch link felt a bit tenuous, we never get to see this evil half-sister or get a real feel for why she’s tormenting them and that’s where I think the page limit holds this back. All in all an enjoyable and darkly entertaining idea in here.
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An intriguing premise. Not a fan of the voice over so much. But it is underused in horror. Effective in getting the plot out. I would have been intrigued and more scared if narration or voices were of witch. Or baby.
Intriguing. Well-paced. But uneven. Not a lot of witch content or horror. Good suspense.
I thought you pulled of a good TWILIGHT ZONE feel. With pages to go why not "deliver" the horror - a grotesque demon baby or death of the mother. Just my thoughts.
Anyway, this one was good. It got better as it went on. I don't know how the writing style is going to go over, but I don't mind.
You could cut down on the V.O.
As for the story, I enjoyed it. You told it in an interesting way, too. In a way all the V.O. works because it turns the whole thing into some sort of montage of moments leading up to the end.
Well...I guess I can see the good in here, but I don't like the execution.
The whole thing is written in V.O. and it's really pretty much a cheat, but then again, nothing much really happens - it's all in the mind and we're privy to "hear it", per say.
I detest the Slug work, as it's so lazy.
But, all in all, I can tell a good writer is at work here, trying something new, and when it's all said and done, this does work in the way the writer wanted it to.
Bigget isue is the lack of any withces or withcraft. Sure it's hinted at but really has nothing to do with the plot or story.
Yeah, this was another dandy. This is my favorite so far, the psychological angle that comes through the V.O. works. And when Warren actually talks it's a great broad stroke. This is one that would translate to film well, definitely a TZ vibe. I feel the slugs were intentionally roughed up.
The one complaint is I didn't know this was about witches until it was disclosed, but I guess it's a good thing because the story sucked me in. I forgot about it.
I like that Warren was really twisted, and the suspense was great. This is my favorite so far, as far as that goes, but there's only a mention of a witch in the story, which is kind of a cheat. I also don't know how he realized there was more than one sister. I may have missed something though, I'm reading this on a defective kindle down in Mexico with a sporadic internet signal. Not very condusuve to accuracy. But at any rate, still my favorite!
I like the title page and the FADE IN, intro. Very nice, showing me your voice already. Let's hope it continues as strongly.
"BEDROOM - NIGHT
A very pregnant belly, half covered by a t-shirt. The woman lies on her back in the moonlit room.
WARREN (V.O.) It started talking to me one week ago.
WARREN (30) lies next to his wife. Poster boy for everyday American, the guy looks harmless.
His wife, KERRY (20s), lies angelic and fragile, the glow of pregnancy visible on her face.
Oh yeah...Warren grips a butcher knife with two hands, terror in his eyes. "
Took me a while to figure out what was niggling me about the above section of scene 1. As much as I like it, there's something not quite right about the way you have listed events. I think you could drop the dialogue altogether and move straight into the description of Kerry looking all angelic etc. Then move onto Warren, with the poster-boy thing... then hit with the knife. It seems weird to me that the scene describes Warren without a knife then mentions him having a knife like he's had one all along.
"WARREN (V.O.) It tells me it can come out any time now, any time it chooses. No hospitals, no help. And it tells me the first thing it will do is chew its way out then eat her heart while she watches. What would you do? "
Seek psychiatric help.
"She stands and takes a position behind the couch...begins rubbing his shoulders. "
Why not just ...massages his shoulders, or ...rubs his shoulders.
"WARREN (V.O.) It was she who put that thing in my wife. She who made me kill Sheila. She who will get that thing to kill Kerry...if I don�t do something. "
She didn't actually make him kill the sister. He did that himself. His motive was clear earlier, he doesn't like her because she's a bitch, she also sleeps with her sister's (his wife's) boyfriends just to hurt her. This guy is obviously obsessed with his wife and if at the end it isn't down to him being completely crazy then I'm not buying it.
OK, well done... he is crazy. Perfect ending. Nicely done. Touched upon the witch theme without going all the way.
Despite a couple of little niggles that may or may not be niggles to anyone else I enjoyed the story. Very well executed.
This read like the diary of a schizophrenic. There was an oddly detached feel to this, most likely because of the virtually nonstop voice overs. For some reason this reminded me of one of those old Night Gallery episodes. Is the guy crazy, or is the evil baby actually speaking to him? I'd lean toward the former. Didn't feel like horror, more like macabre drama. And the witch part was superfluous at best. Still, I'd say this is one of the more unique entries.
It's a very interesting short. I liked it but I think the VO's could be done smoothlier. And in some instances there's no visual to support the VO. Like when Kerry collapses (top of p4) - we don't see it. And what was the collapse about? I didn't understand that part. Also, why would he think a fortune teller is behind all this? It's like you're undeceded yourself about who's doing it to him or if it's his sick imagination.
I also expected a twist at the end. It doesn't feel complete for some reason. But I was glued to screen. I think it's Kerry who does all those awful things. Maybe... Would be more fun if it was her, I think.
Very strange start. At least I didn't find a mistake in the first page so you kind of broke the cycle on everything I've read so far.
The script is getting more outrageous the further I read. But I find it strangely amusing.
Very hard script to judge. I didn't hate it, and I tried to like it but it's not really working for me. In a funny way, it's a different tale of somebody progressing into fatherhood. Not too bad, doesn't have a lot to do with witches. Needed a little more depth for me to like it but it was a fun script to read.
I'm sure you're going to take some heat for the slugs especially, but for me, I thought your Fade In Witch Lovers was a great warning that the style here would be different. I loved that Fade In, btw. Made me smile wide.
The story itself was good, but I kind of wished we were allowed 12 pages. I wanted to find out more about the half-sister witch. I imagine in Warren's head she had placed the "spell" on Kerry out of jealousy for Kerry living a better life and not being abandoned by their father.
There were several tense moments where I was thinking he would kill. I knew he would eventually though. But the tension worked.
So, good job on making something different and in just one week.
I honestly thought this was gonna be an (ineligible) pisstake. The opening dialogue was almost comic!
But it settled into a nifty little story, with some good imagery. I didn't even notice the slugs - actually half the time I don't whilst reading a short - so wasnt a prob AT ALL for me, lol
This had a real Soulshadow feel, could almost imagine Bert's old hag narrating at the start (can't recall her name right now).
One query? When Warren asks about Kerry's hidden sister, why doesn't she think it's odd that he brought it up out of nowhere while she was in the bath?
The effect seems to be to leave the audience wondering if this was all in Warren's head, or whether there really was a monster in the womb...or whether there was no monster, but the half sister witch was merely using the unborn baby to torment Warren, and get him to kill the sisters, who she wanted revenge on because the father had abandoned her to a life of poverty.
(Stevie's Beatles thing in the post above is making me dizzy!)
The bookend opening and closing with Warren in the room with the butcher knife, thinking he is saving his wife from some invisible harm, is haunting. Could this guy really just be terrified of being a father and this is how his subconscious mind plays out his fears? To kill the person you love most in the world because your mind has played a trick on you is pretty darn horrific.
Not actually hearing the voice of the monster, instead hearing Warren relate what it says, is strangely effective at giving us a sense of his coming unglued.
I would like to see him wrestle longer with killing Sheila...that suspense should build more, and it is a point of no return moment once he kills her.
And then after he kills her, there should be a bit more unraveling at home. He is a murderer now, he should be wracked with guilt and coming apart at the seems. Maybe just one more quick scene will do it.