I like the title. Congratulations on completing the OWC.

Did you do some kind of weird find replace thing because there's all these apostrophe's where they don't belong:

Headlight’s
Start’s
Slump’s
Yell’s

Logline use of "find" is wrong. Should be "face" I think because finding makes me feel like they were searching for terror.

"Just" should be used with caution.

The very first line gives away a lack of attention.
You only needed one line to say that.

Sandra

Didn't get the tie in with the title. Obviously, you've been berrated about the apostrophes. Sorry, rightly due.

I dunno how you can have EXT. ENGLISH COUNTRY ROAD as a slug. Show us something that tells us we're in England. To be honest, your dialogue was acutely American IMO.

I didn't read up on the goblin for this, don't know much of its folklore. The goblins motives need to be evident IMO. Maybe set-up that there's been some strange killings in those woods early on. And in a subtle way, hint at the legend of the goblin.

This one was pretty flat for me. Good job writing a script in a week.

James

While every OWC script is an accomplishment, this one just didn't work for me - for several reasons.  

The apostrophes after every word made this quite difficult to get through.  Interestingly enough, the punctuation in the rest of the dialogue was missing.  Where there should have been commas, there were none.

The dialogue and the characters also came across as flat, and somewhat horror-movie cliche (complete with the car breaking down, a character tripping over a tree root, and running aimlessly through the woods.)  The monster at the end seems tacked on, instead of organic to the story.

But there are a few passages where the visuals work (I particularly like the passage where the "swaying branches look like claws, ready to tear at her.")  So keep writing, and polish it up!

Pros

Good title.

Great use of the Will O the Wisp...visually think that would look great and easy to do. Cinematically it's a great device for building mystery and tension.

Woods at night with the luminescent Wisp floating around...that would look cool. No doubt.

Also nice little reversal at the end with the Wisp being protective.

Cons

Goblin is a bit tacked on. Would like to see that developed more in some way.

I agree with Bert about the set up being cliche. It's cliche because you've got to get them out there and that's a realistic way, but you need to do better.

They could be anything...naturists, bird-spotters, enviromental people...just pick something that gets them in the middle of nowhere.

Overall with a little bit of a strengthening here and there I think this would make for an enjoyable romp.

Holy apostrophe catastrophe!!  Yikes.  

Not sure how your opening slug can be "CONTINUOUS".  Continuous from what??  You just started.

This needs some work.  There isn't much actual story and your characters come off as a bit annoying rather than sympathetic.  I should have cared about Emily and her panic attacks and the voices in her head, but I didn't feel anything.  We just watched her freak out.  You need to make us really care about her.  I liked the light following them.  That was interesting.  But the rest just fell flat.  Add dimension...to your story and characters.  

I won't throw any more gasoline on the format bonfire in this thread.
The setup was overlong and the nervous breakdown didn't add much.
If you're going for the super cliche in the woods for fun, make them go skinny dipping.
Glowing blue lights are more interesting with wet naked women.
I didn't feel any suspense, kinda felt one note all the way through.
The goblin wasn't foreshadowed, it didn't add much for me.
Congrats on submitting for the OWC.

E.D.

Well, too many technical errors to count here.  So I'll leave that to the other reviewers.  The story just didn't work for me.  I understand the basic Will O' The Wisp legend is that it's a light that strays people deeper into the woods, where they become hopelessly lost.  I think you should have stuck closer to that instead of bringing in the disembodied voice of the mother.  You were never able to convey the growing dread someone feels as they come to realize they have no idea where they are.  

In the last scene, you tell us Emily is lifeless.  Then, she comes back from the dead somehow.  

The  Goblin dude felt out of place here.  You had a ghostly vibe going until that little bastard showed up.  

I like the story, it is simple and moves along at a good pace.  I would suggest that you try to let the audience view things more from Emily's perspective of intense anxiety, as that could provide greater drama for the viewer.  Although you never want the audience to be overcome by anxiety in such a short piece because sympathy for the characters will be lost.  
We the readers only had to contend with an attack of apostrophes and some of us are still punctuation shy... !

The story in this is an effective, low budget scary story. It uses a classic people lost in the woods storyline, but that stuff works, and your version of it is solid.

The writing technique is letting this down a bit and perhaps some of the dialogue is a little on-the-nose, but that stuff can be fixed up.

These are notes I made as I read:

Pg 1 – “CONTINUOUS” – This doesn’t make sense on the opening slug.

Your first sentence is an example of description that can be tightened up, say “A flicker of the sun glimmers over the horizon.”

“shine#s”

“good looking”, “pretty” – Unless it says otherwise people assume everyone in movies is good looking, so these descriptions might not add much.

“She look’s agitated. Her attractive face is pale.” – This could be tightened to, say “She’s agitated, her face pale.”

I’ll stop being picky and get on with reading!

Pg 2 – You got them in a good tense situation.

Pg 4 – Lost in the woods and hearing voices makes for a good scary situation.

Pg 8 – Moving along well.

Pg 10 – The ending with its twists works okay, although I’m a little confused about the outcome.


For this OWC if I was the producer looking for a movie to make this would be one I'd consider. It's not hard to make and many of the script's problems could be fixed easily.

Philip

Sorry, but this will be the first OWC script this go around that I won't get past Page 1.

So many errors of every kind imaginable on every single line of every single page.  Just downright horrific how poorly this is written.  Whether or not this is an example of someone throwing something together at the deadline, doesn't matter, as these mistakes shouldn't be made in the first place, on a first draft of a rough idea.

I'm sorry, but that's the deal and any full reads you do get, you should be very, VERY thankful for.

Really poorly done...

I add my sentiments to what was said above.

I read the entire script, and it felt somewhat juvenile. The dialog did. The action did. The tension did. I don't know if that was what you were going for; perhaps. There is a market for young horror. This could be fairly strong for that demographic, just clean up grammar and spelling issues.

The story felt rushed, yet it dragged.  There wasn't enough of anything going on.  If the couple was looking for help, why would they not go to the goblin's light.  They saw it, called out, didn't get a response and just said F it let's go back to the car which we already know is useless.  The storyline made no sense, the goblin came so far from left field that you couldn't call it a twist, it was more of an accessory.  If you're going to spend the whole script following two people as they walk down a road, give us a reason to care about those people.  Make them interesting.  I think you tried to do that (the girl hearing her mother's voice) but that seemed like another unnecessary add-on, rather than being something of interest or importance.  The voice of her mother was basically used as a plot device to draw her into the woods...  Why would she chase her mother's voice into the woods when she knows the voice is in her head?  She acknowledges that the voice is not real and then follows it anyway.  For this script to work, the story's basic logic needs a major clean up.

Thank you all for reading that, warts and all. lol I'll have a rewrite up as soon as I can. Am still trying to make my way through the rest of the scripts as well. What a great job everyone did. I'll attempt to eventually make my way through the comments here and respond.

Ok I rewrite on this story. I Changed it to a form a little bit more readable... I hope lol. If you get the chance, give it a read! Tell me what you think. I'm all ears here and am willing to learn. With practice I think anyone can learn the basics of screenplay writting. But If you think its waisting your time in some way, please skip it! lol Thanks

Wow, that really is night and day as far as the writing. I remember the first version being full of grammatical errors. This was very well written. Easy to read, the dialogue was much, much better. Good even. And it made a huge difference in the story too, just the improved writing alone. It had a nice spooky feeling to it.

I think if I have any problem with the story it is just the new beginning. When you start out with a character at the gates of Hell with the Devil, I kind of can't take it seriously. All I can see is an episode of the Simpsons.

But I understand what you are trying to do. And after that opening scene, I think the rest of the story really works well.

In my opinion, if you want to stick with the legend of Stingy Jack as you have developed it, maybe just have the guys tell the story in the car. Or better yet, after the car breaks down.

I also think it will be hard for a small production company to create the gates of Hell and Satan.

So maybe the car breaks down, establishing some tension, since they are in the woods, and the girl hears voices. Then one of the guys tells the story of Jack. Just an idea.

I think the story is pretty good now, and anyone reading it will be surprised by how much the writing improved. Nice work Hugh!


Bloody hell, their gone

Daniel notices shes in distress