The Flesh Won't Be Missed by Darren J Seeley (DarrenJamesSeeley) - Short - A witch and her psychotic boyfriend plan a robbery with the use of a very special candle.  10 pages

A February 2011 One Week Challenge script. - pdf, format

A nice witch tale. Not sure a pentagram would be used for a Celtic ceremony, but who cares. Knowing these old fables I was half expecting the dead guys to get some revenge. Overall a nice piece.

This was sort of an odd mix between gruesome ritual cult killings and Twilight Zone-like fantasy.  The beginning was nice and depraved, and the description of the "recipe" for the magic key hand or whatever was truly twisted.

But the whole frozen time thing just didn't work for me.  It felt out of place in what had been up to that point such a nasty, bloody tale.

I didn't quite understand Tophet's presence.  I get that he was in cahoots with the girl, but I guess the twist just didn't grab me.  Probably because he showed up so late in the story.

Good job on cranking one out for the OWC.

Some truly full on stuff here, with voodoo and whatnot. The mix of hardcore violence and a very erotic flavour was good.

A few disturbing images that were nicely written. Probably the best for me, so far.

I liked the twist a lot but I felt you spent far too much time in building this up. You're over half-way into your script before any of the witch craft is used. That was a problem for me.

The story is very good and is a clever take on the myth but the characters and motives need to be developed more. I think with a rewrite this could be excellent but as it is it's a near miss.

Good work,

Ste

My fourth read...

This one takes the cake for being the most evil, so far.   I'm sure the writer will take that as a compliment.   Intelligent story, excellent twist, but probably not the most likely to be filmed, IMO.   Too gory.    Good job on completing the challenge, though.   I'm willing to bet this was written by one of the Soulshadow alumnis.   You're writing style seems very familiar.   Well done.

EDIT: Scratch that comment about it not likely to be filmed.   Anything is possible.

A really good effort, dark and gruesome.  I enjoyed the twisted mix of violence and eroticism.  The ending worked well for me, especially the final shot of the eye... nice!

The only thing that threw me off a little was on page 6 when they arrive at the O'Mallory house - 'Without a disguise or mask, Beau gets out of the passenger side. All he has is a small sack with him.'  This just made me think "Why the hell would he be wearing a disguise?", as at that point there was no hint as to why they were there.  It would have made more sense to just say 'Beau gets out of the passenger side carrying a small sack.'

Aside form that though, this was really good, especially for a OWC.

I thought this one was decent.  I especially liked the frozen in time thing when they robbed the house.  

The ending was OK.  I didn't expect it, but it didn't really do much for me.  

Overall is a good effort.  

I thought this was pretty good. I liked the twist. The writing seemed pretty solid. Good entry for a week.

I liked the frozen time robbery. Was the highlight for me. Kinda wish Beau wasn't so "on board" with this, though. He was obviously put up to it. Would have thought he would be more skeptical about it.

James

I really liked this one and the brutal evilness of it. Your opening was very nice as we get thrown right into the aftermath of a murder.

The narrative and dialogue was a bit awkward at times and there was no setup for the reader to know why or what caused the people being robbed to be frozen. The conversation starting at the bottom of page 8 - 9 between Tophet and Beau was really confusing.

Nice job all around and great horror short.

Hi, Jack

This is pretty good.
Genuine US blood and body horror.
Great twist.
Low budget, visual and visceral.

Very nice.

GL!

This seems to have been written by one of the more veteran writers here. Someone that knows their craft.

I did have some questions with the story, but most are covered above. For example, I also was not thrilled about the frozen time thing. A little too much for me. And if I could freeze time, to think of the things I would do!

Also, this freeze time skill seems like something they have practiced for a long time, a skill handed down for generations within some cult. I would say that would that power, this cult should rule the world by now. Even if the skill is just something these two characters discovered on their own, say several years ago, by now they would be well past robbing houses. How bout a bank? A casino? Oceans 13.

I think the twist and the reason behind is fine and good. It will work better with a couple of pages of further development after the challenge. Give a better idea of who Tophet is, maybe a little more insight into the mind of the girl(forgot her name). You gave clues, so I am sure you just needed the freedom of a couple pages.

Maybe the best I've read so far, and I've read about 8.
                                        

I really liked Beau explaining her why they should cut off the body parts - I think this is really original.

The twist is a bit random for me - suddenly she's with someone else, planning to rob O'Mallory and using Beau.

I'm not sure I understand why O'Mallory appears frozen. That whole part is about Beau. The teeth part is funny but that part could be very quick as it doesn't pay off much. It all has to build up to the pay off - her with another man using Beau's body parts. Or maybe not but that's what I think.

Having said that it's a very nice tale, very original (at least I haven't read anything like it) and clever.

Good on your for submitting for the OWC.
I enjoyed the mix of gore and eroticism.
The time freeze and late arrival of a new character derail the effective mood.
Sometimes the action description is describing things not happening.
Removal of stuff like that will help the reader focus on the actual story.
Good effort and goriest so far for sure.

E.D.

Only thing I'm going to say is

A) The writer should check out House Of Clocks, by Lucio Fulci.

or in the event you have

B) Shame on you.


There were other elements at play here, but so much of this reminded me of that brilliant flick.

                    
The Flesh Won't Be Missed                    
                    
CRITERIA                    
Horror > Hell, yeah!     
Low budget     > A warehouse dock,  an axe, and a house     
Powerful ***
Original > Betrayal never gets old.     
Celtic Myth > Hand of Glory     
Visually interesting > The licking scene. The house occupants.
Memorable characters > Tophet     
Unique ending > Good twist, ties into VO at beginning     
Standout moments > When Beau thought about cutting the homeowner     
                    
LIMITATIONS                    
Locations, vehicles, animals ***     
                    
*** average impact/no specific comments                    

This opened up nice an clean looking on the page and I appreciate that.

What I didn't like was that the dialogue felt far too cryptic for me and it was only sandwiched in between a lot of gore which didn't work for me because I didn't really care about the characters. Basically, they were bad people doing bad things. In the end, bad guy Beau, gets his reward from a guy named Tophet in cahoots with the witch, but it's not really clear who he is or how he fits in.

In the dialogue I noticed this:

On your knees. Interlock your fingers.

*That stopped me in my tracks. I would change interlock to lock.

I really do like the title. The story might better be told if we know the reason behind Jenifer's actions.

Sandra

I was liking this story just fine until the late introduction of Tophet.

At that point, the story stopped making any sense.  I mean, I understood it, but it stopped making sense in terms of the storytelling.

Simply introducing a brand new character to turn the story on its head is...well, it is kind of lazy.

High marks for the first two-thirds, but I was very dissatisfied with the latter third.

Were this mine, I would ditch everything after page 8 and try another approach.

I liked that you used the hand thing.  I was wondering if anyone would do that.  To me it almost felt like Natural Born Killers but with voodoo.  I liked that.  Just evil.  Yum.  But I think it could be trimmed a bit to help the pace.  It became a bit monotonous after a while.

Good job on this!!

This was very visual while also being very lean. Your choice of words is really precise and really brought out a haunting tale. From the get go this grabbed me and I was curious to see where things would go.

I think around page nine i started to lose interest though..I didn't quite catch why Jennifer was doing the thigns she did. Why was she there?

Also, why introduce Tophet so late in the game? He sort of discombobulated the story from then on.

I think with another rewrite this story could be taken to another level. Great job with it though! Overall i liked it a bunch.

P.S. LOVED the title!

Pros.

Nice work on the title. It's not quite perfect, maybe "The Flesh Not Missed"...or something, but it's memorable already and has a lovely Gothic vibe to it.

Nice atmosphere. Good set design with the witches abode.

The writing had nice weight to it.

Particularly liked the way the candle was used to freeze time when they broke into the house. I've seen others say they didn't like that, I thought it was good...very good.

Cons.

The twist came out of the blue. There was no foreshadowing of it and it weakened the whole . It would be better if the ending was more to do with what had gone on before...the witchcraft.

The ending you have is a typical crime twist, it didn't really belong in this story.

The story was underdeveloped. It had no real meaning or depth. I feel you need to eke out a little more drama.

I thought this was pretty good.  

Good mix of witchcraft, the supernatural, and some creative blood.  Creeping the dismembered hand down Jennifer's back was one of the more memorable images I've seen thus far.  Bringing in Tophet at the end was, IMO, a little off key.  It reminded me of all of those horror flicks where, in the middle of the movie, it looks like everyone is about to die a painful death and then some random new characters comes out of nowhere to save them.  I would consider going over that ending again.  

But nevertheless, this wasn't half bad.  Nice job.

Greg

SPOILERS!

I liked the idea. However, I would have liked a hint of the betrayal. I think it would have easy to hint at it. Jennifer could have talked on a phone or something.

Also, I saw Jennifer to be psychotic not the boyfriend. That's probably me.

Gabe

This is a good chilling story that gets into the detail of the subject and gets great visuals and creepy moments out of them.

For me the arrival of Tophet felt a little random so maybe I missed some earlier hint of him.

These are notes I made as I read:

Pg 1 – The first page puts us into a compelling situation immediately and establishes a good mystery over what it is she wants.

Pg 4 – Good chilling scene.

Pg 6 – Things have gone freaky, but that’s good.

Pg 10 – The twists play out with some good thrills and this sticks with a solid scary tone.


Philip

*Spoilers*

There's a lot that I really liked about this story.  Good, strong characters - engaging story line.  And the writer clearly researched the Hand of Glory mythos for the script (one example being the Scalp/Wick detail.)  The details of the frozen homeowners (the dribbling teacup and the toothpaste) also worked well for me visually.

Although the twist at the end works on a basic level, I'm not sure why it was needed (by Jennifer, that is.)  Isn't the arrangement with Beaumont giving her what she needs?  You probably need to show some level of friction between the two, to make this kind of a double-cross logical.

But overall, great story!  Cheers and best - WV

I just reread this story, even though I basically liked it the first time. I think the writer could definitely take the suggestions above, use an extra couple of pages, and make this story really kick ass, especially with the writer's obvious skill. As suggested above, foreshadow Tophet a little, explain Jennifer's motivation a bit more.

I will never be thrilled with the time freezing, but that's me. I hated when ET made the bikes fly after a grueling chase. Come on!

But I hope this story is considered for production, because most of it looks great and can easily be tweaked.

Bravo, author.  This script is a joy to read, I think it is perfect.  Going to be a great film.  

SPOILERS
Love the mention of brown sugar on the shelf.  

Regarding the introduction of a character late in the story, my take is this, they're fiends -- there's no predicting what they'll do, there's no honor among thieves.

There is potential here and even talent on display, but overall, it didn't work for me, and your writing style is a problem for me.

I'm pretty sure I know who wrote this and I have the same problems with all your works (assuming I'm right, of course).  You have a tendency to omit simple words like "a" and "the", making the read very cryptic and unnatural for me.  You also also "tell" us alot, as opposed to showing it with good clean writing.  And, as others have commented, there are many instances where you tell us things that aren't even onscreen, or don't need to be mentioned.

A quick gripe...you're opening action/description line contains an orphan.  No big deal, I know, especially if time came into play, but I don't think that's the case.  The reason this orphan rears his ugly head is because of the way you wrote the line (and the way you write most of your lines).  Let's look at it real quick...

"A fire axe, fresh blood on the blade, rests on planks of oak." - "fire" totally unnecessary.  "on the blade" also unnecessary...if the axe is bloody, chances are pretty good that the blood is on the blade.  "planks of oak" again, detail that we don't need to know...your Slug reads "WOODEN DOCK"...do we care that the wood happens to be oak?

Why am I being such a prick about this?  It's your opening line and it's a red flag that started waving for me immediately.  Most won't catch this kind of stuff or even care, but some like me will, and you just don't want to piss off your readers if you can help it.

Story-wise, I was enjoying this quite a bit until they get to the O'Mallory house, and it turns into some kind of crime drama.  Also didn't like or get the Tophet character.  The twist?  Not much of one, as far as I'm concerned.

What I did really appreciate was the fact that this started out as "real" horror.  It's played for reals and for keeps and you succeeded with flying colors on that.  It was brutal, graphic, unflinching, and as others have mentioned, even erotic in a creepy way.

But you abandoned all that and lost all the speed you had generated, and that's too bad.

If any of this stuff is do to time constraint, then I understand completely, but I don't think that's the case.  I have a feeling this was written quickly, soon after the challenge info was released and I doubt you went back and thought much about what you had put together, and again, that's too bad if that's true.

Great beginning, poor middle and end.  Solid writing, but your style doesn't appeal to me at all, and I think there are numerous examples of where you made mistakes that could have so easily been fixed up with a few edits and more thought.

Solid OWC entry though.  Congrats!

I was into this until the time freeze robbery. I liked that aspect, but what pulled me out of it was the man's tea was spilling onto him and the water was still running? For whatever reason, that pulled me out of the story to think about why the people were frozen in time, but nothing else was.

The introduction of Tophet took this a different direction, and I'm not sure if this was intended. With his appearance and the circularness with the opening scene, my thinking is that pretty soon, Tophet will fill the role of Beau, who filled the role of Kent (I think that was the first dead guy's name). This witch will repeatedly use one fellow to get what she needs, then double cross him and use another fellow to do her bidding, only to then double cross him, etc etc. I kind of liked this, but it didn't quite seem to fit with the earlier stuff between her and Beau.

Strong writing. Very nice job!

I very much liked the beginning.  But there was such a drastic shift in tone from the opening sequence to the robbery.  And it happened so quickly, without build up or transition.  The whole robbery really felt uninspired.  It was like a different story.  Beau was so inexplicably different from one scene to the next, yet it wasn't a character arc because there was no progression, no reason.  I think if you had more time, you could've come up with a better direction for this story to go from such a strong visual opening, because the way it is written now, I don't think it flows very well.

Quoted from screenrider My fourth read... This one takes the cake for being the most evil, so far.   I'm sure the writer will take that as a compliment.   Intelligent story, excellent twist, but probably not the most likely to be filmed, IMO.   Too gory.    Good job on completing the challenge, though.   I'm willing to bet this was written by one of the Soulshadow alumnis.   You're writing style seems very familiar.   Well done. EDIT: Scratch that comment about it not likely to be filmed.   Anything is possible.

I decided to start with your comment, SR, because something about it made me smile. No, t had nothing to do with 'most evil', but rather the mention of SoulShadows. I haven't written anything for it, and I'm still hoping that SS will give it a third season. If so, I might...think it over...but the gist here is that I'm honored to be in that company.

I am coming forth on my own works now to spare Don some time and, if he reveals th scribes tonight, I won't be around tomorrow. I fear that if I'm gone 24 hours and don't comment, someone's gonna have a bird up the butt and there's been enough drama this past week, for you, me...and Charlie Sheen.

This would definitely make for an entertaining/creepy short film.  Very Tales From the Crypt-ish.    Maybe you could even get Charlie to play a part.      On a serious note it could be a solid entry for the next Shriekfest.

All the best.

Now I'm going to, with the exception of a few, do a general, overall response. Simply due to the fact that in using some research into the Hand Of Glory (and from what I gather, the only writer here who picked it) I went to its direct origins.

It surprised me that some folks were "taken out" when the Hand Of Glory froze the inhabitants of the house. According to mythos, that's what it was used for. But quite a number of you wre not. For some, they actually liked it. That's good with me; that's really being subjective about it all. I would rather have some debate on it with nays and yays then have an overall group think. I take that back; I'm glad not everyone hated it.

Tophet was the next subject of debate. In a re-write, I chose to add a scene with him early on. Not much, but at least he doesn't come out of the blue as before (*not that anyone asked, but, yes, his name is a name for hell/a place for sacrifice, just if you wanted to know..uh..you didn't? Aww shoot..) but y;know, I actually had two endings--and I simply chose the one with Tophet. In the alternate scene, Beau also dies by poison and chainsaw...but it is Jennifer alone who did the double cross. She cast a spell on Beau without him aware of it...

But then some folks dug Mr. Hell, I mean Tophet, and oddly- if you look back on those comments, it's like this in general:

* Those who seemed to like the freeze heist didn't care for Tophet.
* Those who didn't like the freeze thought Tophet/doublecross ending was alright.

can't win, can't lose. which way, which way to choose?  

I write what I see. That's all I can say.

I will say this though. With my two subs in the OWC, I'm a bit burned out by horror, I think I went a bit too grim. Maybe something joyful next time...maybe a comedy or an inspirational sports story like 'Invincible' or 'We Are Marshall'...

Quoted from leitskev The Flesh Wont be Missed Was born to write horror, bloody, gruesome horror, the kind that is not about a battle between good and evil, but just about evil. Like the dark horror from the 70s, when you just knew it was gonna end badly, and you wanted to look away but couldn't.

...before I get typed.




P.S. At the rate he's goin' ol Tiger Blood Charlie's gonna need the gig...

Quoted from RayW Hi, Jack This is pretty good. Genuine US blood and body horror. Great twist. Low budget, visual and visceral. Very nice. GL!

I really did mean it when I said you gave me one of the best comments. Of course, if I wrote something short and nice, I'd get a cookie   ...no seriously man, thanks for the read.

Quoted from Baltis. Only thing I'm going to say is A) The writer should check out House Of Clocks, by Lucio Fulci. or in the event you have B) Shame on you. There were other elements at play here, but so much of this reminded me of that brilliant flick.

Since The Hand Of Glory mythos is used for rendering persons in a home immobile, it is (and was) fair game. Many films and stories have "time frozen people" yet objects around the people do not freeze. Is it the way I done it? All I know is after your comment, I looked up the info on the film. Different story.

Shame on me anyway for not seeing it.

Quoted from wannabe I liked that you used the hand thing.  I was wondering if anyone would do that.  To me it almost felt like Natural Born Killers but with voodoo.  I liked that.  Just evil.  Yum.  But I think it could be trimmed a bit to help the pace.  It became a bit monotonous after a while. Good job on this!!

Thanks, but there was no voodoo involved.

Hmmm.. Natural Born Killers meets Serpent & The Rainbow...maybe someone ougtta make that film...sounds high concept...

Al kidding aside, thanks for the read. Glad you liked it.

Hey, Darren

Congratulations!
After Cathy's, I voted for THE FLESH WON'T BE MISSED second.
Her's I "enjoyed" best.
But your's nailed the criteria right on the head. Great horror.
Good stuff, man.

I got all of it: blood, axe, bodies in the lake, thumb candle, thievery, cycle twist. Everything.
Totaly got it here.
And a good mix of a few locations, small cast and sensible budget to boot.
Bravo. Great work.

I wasn't familiar enough with your work to make a legit "guess", but I was always "kinda" suspecting this fit your work profile: Straight forward, gritty, no subtle BS.
It's great.

Congratulations.


Ray.

Quoted from wonkavite *Spoilers* There's a lot that I really liked about this story.  Good, strong characters - engaging story line.  And the writer clearly researched the Hand of Glory mythos for the script (one example being the Scalp/Wick detail.)  The details of the frozen homeowners (the dribbling teacup and the toothpaste) also worked well for me visually. Although the twist at the end works on a basic level, I'm not sure why it was needed (by Jennifer, that is.)  Isn't the arrangement with Beaumont giving her what she needs?  You probably need to show some level of friction between the two, to make this kind of a double-cross logical. But overall, great story!  Cheers and best - WV

And cheers to you for reading.
Yes, while doing the OWC I wanted o cherry pick some details of the legend, and work it into the script. I added/subtracted a few minor things, but I generally kept the rules intact. Not just the link Pia provided awhile ago, but in general lore altogether.

More to come, give or take a day.

Quoted from DarrenJamesSeeley Since The Hand Of Glory mythos is used for rendering persons in a home immobile, it is (and was) fair game. Many films and stories have "time frozen people" yet objects around the people do not freeze. Is it the way I done it? All I know is after your comment, I looked up the info on the film. Different story. Shame on me anyway for not seeing it.

You're being defensive

A) I said if you HADN'T Seen it to do so... It's a damn good flick. One of his best.

And, there is also another flick that reminded me of your story to a T -- It was a short on an English film called "SCREAMTIME", which uses the plot you've laid out to a T.  It's the 3rd story on the flick, minus the hub with the absurd video tape.

Again

See A) for my reasoning.

Quoted from DarrenJamesSeeley Now I'm going to, with the exception of a few, do a general, overall response. Simply due to the fact that in using some research into the Hand Of Glory (and from what I gather, the only writer here who picked it) I went to its direct origins. It surprised me that some folks were "taken out" when the Hand Of Glory froze the inhabitants of the house. According to mythos, that's what it was used for. But quite a number of you wre not. For some, they actually liked it. That's good with me; that's really being subjective about it all. I would rather have some debate on it with nays and yays then have an overall group think. I take that back; I'm glad not everyone hated it. Tophet was the next subject of debate. In a re-write, I chose to add a scene with him early on. Not much, but at least he doesn't come out of the blue as before (*not that anyone asked, but, yes, his name is a name for hell/a place for sacrifice, just if you wanted to know..uh..you didn't? Aww shoot..) but y;know, I actually had two endings--and I simply chose the one with Tophet. In the alternate scene, Beau also dies by poison and chainsaw...but it is Jennifer alone who did the double cross. She cast a spell on Beau without him aware of it... But then some folks dug Mr. Hell, I mean Tophet, and oddly- if you look back on those comments, it's like this in general: * Those who seemed to like the freeze heist didn't care for Tophet. * Those who didn't like the freeze thought Tophet/doublecross ending was alright. can't win, can't loose. which way, which way to choose?   I write what I see. That's all I can say. I will say this though. With my two subs in the OWC, I'm a bit burned out by horror, I think I went a bit too grim. Maybe something joyful next time...maybe a comedy or an inspirational sports story like 'Invincible' or 'We Are Marshall'... ...before I get typed. P.S. At the rate he's goin' ol Tiger Blood Charlie's gonna need the gig...

I really liked the freeze time effect...like you say, that's what the point of the hand is.

I was also one who didn't like Topher. To me the ending should reflect the body of the story so that their undoing should come from the misuse of the Hand of Glory. Maybe a good ending would be to have the witch "freeze" the guy in the house by keeping the Hand burning, so he's stuck in that position permanently.

As it is the twist sort of undoes the story-telling because it's not related to the subject matter.

I'd definitely like to see you try a different ending on this anyway.

Rick.

Quoted from Baltis. You're being defensive A) I said if you HADN'T Seen it to do so... It's a damn good flick. One of his best. And, there is also another flick that reminded me of your story to a T -- It was a short on an English film called "SCREAMTIME", which uses the plot you've laid out to a T.  It's the 3rd story on the flick, minus the hub with the absurd video tape. Again See A) for my reasoning.

If I seem a bit defensive, that was not my intention..

Quoted from bert I was liking this story just fine until the late introduction of Tophet. At that point, the story stopped making any sense.  I mean, I understood it, but it stopped making sense in terms of the storytelling. Simply introducing a brand new character to turn the story on its head is...well, it is kind of lazy. High marks for the first two-thirds, but I was very dissatisfied with the latter third. Were this mine, I would ditch everything after page 8 and try another approach.

After giving it some thought, I decided to look at my alternate ending which I mentioned above. I looked over the comments again, especially yours and Rick's.

Although I re-submitted an update with an early into of Tophet, I'm going to ask Don to either discard that one or put the *other* version up instead...the one I mentioned above. I have been swayed for the following reasons:

1- while my script wasn't chosen, if it had been, what would Rick ask me to change, if anything?

2- While there were some who liked Tophet, others did not. Some still did, but didn't like a few of his lines with Beau. Eliminating the character solves that concern.

3- if Jennifer acted alone in Beau's demise, would the double cross twist still be in play? The answer is yes. I lose nothing in that regard.

4- By my own admission, I have toyed with the possibility of having no such character.

5- Let's say it was filmed by Director X. Production cost is a concern. One expendable character means...one less actor. More time and lines for those characters (actors) who are not outside of the story.


In short, Tophet may have been a bad ass, but the SOB cost me, and may still cost me in the long run. So---I would like to thank you , Mike, Rick and everyone else for swaying me.

Tophet will be gone.
Okay, it still was a tough call- but when folks are right, they are right..

I 'spose....
But IMHO, what you lose by getting rid of Tophet is Beau's shock -- Beau, who manipulates other people's worlds, realizes he has no control over his own.

Beau and Jennifer argued, previously, but intimately.  Beau was sure that he and Jennifer had a private reality where they pulled all the strings.

Beau's expression would show "you're dumping me, for this guy?" and he'd see his own worth (in Jennifer's eyes, and that's all that matters) reduced to another pile of unrendered fat.  That's a good kicker, I think.

Quoted from c m hall I 'spose.... But IMHO, what you lose by getting rid of Tophet is Beau's shock -- Beau, who manipulates other people's worlds, realizes he has no control over his own. Beau and Jennifer argued, previously, but intimately.  Beau was sure that he and Jennifer had a private reality where they pulled all the strings. Beau's expression would show "you're dumping me, for this guy?" and he'd see his own worth (in Jennifer's eyes, and that's all that matters) reduced to another pile of unrendered fat.  That's a good kicker, I think.

An arguement can be made for both versions. That was pretty much in line with my reasoning over the Tophet ending instead of the other. The character was problematic for quite a number of people. Even though I rewrote that draft to introduce him earlier (he was spying on the pair) I reread the comments and I wondered about that other version. I like both myself, not just because I wrote them, but because there is an argument for each.

I actually considered having both versions up here for comparison. But someone might see that as me unable to decide on how to end it. If you want to read the alt version that goes up, I'll read anything of yours that you have, be it a rewrite of this OWC or something else I may not have gotten to. Just name it in this thread or a PM.

Darren, sorry, I didn't mean to "type" you. Was just trying to complement. Maybe you were born to write horror...AND some other genre! Maybe just born to write! I've only read your work from this OCW.

I did not know the freeze time thing was part of the mythos. Makes more sense now, I guess. My objection was on the logical level, and I tend to do that with stories and movies. Like I said, if you could freeze time, would you just take some jewels from a rich person? Or would you hit a bank? To me freezing time is too much like the Superman movie when superman reverses Louis Lane's death by reversing time. Why doesn't he do that all the time when there's a big problem? It's too much for me.

I was ok with Tophet if his role can be explained a little, foreshadowed.

Bottom line is this OCW is over, and other than the one filmed, the rest are like a pleasant vacation, gone but not forgotten. What's important is to draw from the experience, use it next time. In this story, Tophet was the main objection. So the lesson would be to make sure, if a character is suddenly introduced, there is some explanation or some foreshadow. In your case, this would have been easy, and you might have done if you had focused on one story.

In my short, I learned a lot and will hopefully not repeat the mistakes in future stories. The OCW was a great exercise. I look forward to your future work!

Quoted from leitskev Darren, sorry, I didn't mean to "type" you. Was just trying to complement. Maybe you were born to write horror...AND some other genre! Maybe just born to write! I've only read your work from this OCW.

I was kidding Kevin. I'd have to write other scripts long and short based on vampires, zombies, mummies, giant monsters, ghosts, a mad slasher and a Baba Yaga story for good measure before I get typed. I'm still pretty much in the safety zone, I think.

No cause for alarm  

Hi.
Some really strong ideas and imagery in here.  I see Tropet is gone, definitely much improved in my opinion.  Good stuff.  If i was to make a suggestion,  in my limited opinion, i would have liked to see more depth to Jennifer's character, a little more behind what makes her tick.
Leon

I really enjoyed it.  The frozen in time is one of my fav's; I fondly remember watching a Twilight Zone episode as a kid with a similar angle.

This was truly gruesome as well, I was about to close the cover at page 2 - thinking to myself, what a sick F*** this guy is!