The Daughter of Gore by Gorden Lewis - Short, Horror - A woman trying to start over in life just can't get away from the sins of her infamous dad. 12 pages - pdf, format

Writer interested in feedback on this work

This is a pretty interesting concept, but when reading the actual script, it just kind of fell flat for me. And the dialogue is very "on the nose", which is the most common dialogue mistakes screenwriters make. I understand writing dialogue is hard, trust me it's my weak spot as well, but the "on the nose" was prevalent throughout the entire script. It was a good effort though, and good job for completing it!!

Hmmm...from the low budget Herschell Gordon Lewis flick?

Using "smartass" stuff on your title page probably isn't the way to start things off.

No reason for the Mini Slugs following the full Slugs.

5 line passage ending in an orphan on Page 2 is a problem that is so easily fixed.

"MAN TWO" - ?  Huh?  Not good.

"MASKED MAN ONE" - Oh boy...next line when he speaks, he's "MAN ONE".  Not good.

Dialogue is really bad, sorry to say.  So bad that this comes off as a joke or the like.

I guess you only revealed 4 characters, but naming them the way you did is a huge mistake.

I don't get the stranger in a strange land vibe here at all, but I bet you'll say it's Becca the Wicca/Satanist in the Christian's land, but these guys are far from Christians, and it's very unlikely she literally just got here...but again, it's her own house she's in.

Doesn't work at all for me, sorry to say.

Grade - * 1/2

Hey writer,

You've met the initial brief on all counts, well done.

Now, I'm not a slasher fan, but I'll try to put that aside for the sake of this review. Overall I thought it was written well enough, the formatting seemed to be fine too.

The thing that kinda got me is the pace hammers up to "kill mode" very early in the piece (hope that makes sense), and has to maintain that right until the end, and this restricts any tonal shifts or flexibility. On reflection this could be something to do with the genre, and the need to maintain peril for as long as possible, so ignore the previous comment if that sounds about right as you clearly know more about the genre than I do.

The chainsaw too, not sure where that came from but hey, it's probably another genre thingy! Nice touch if so, made me laugh for some reason.

Guess this will be one for the horror fans, but puting the genre aside I thought it was quite good.

Cam

This one left me cold. The whole woman in peril thing was way over the top, the generic names and poor dialogue made me not take it seriously, and that meant the ending didn't have the impact it could have if I actually cared about the characters. Too much dialogue from her at the end, whatever tension there was got lost in it. It was obvious to me the demonic entity was going to be her so I never felt she was in any real danger, and that added to me not taking any of it seriously.

Daughter of Gore

Before I give a review, I liked way you claimed your copyright, but there's a definitive difference between the at (@) and copyright (�) symbol.

Now, onto the actual review.

It was good five pages in. The adverbs could have been left out and the onomatopoeia was a little distracting, but you had me thoroughly intrigued. I even liked the black comedy. But, after five pages in, this went off the rails. Sorry.

The dialog became far-fetched and crude without any real reason, considering the premise and genre. The men just felt out of place. But not only the dialog became tongue-in-cheek and absurd, the characters reveals, scenarios, and prose became tongue-in-cheek as well. (Ex: Man #1 showing off his knife with no attack.)

Another thing: you should have wrote "Man #" instead of "Man [number]". It's far easier on the reader's eyes. Also, why didn't you capitalize "man" but you capitalized the number?

Without rambling in depths, I didn't understand the story. Nonetheless, I appreciate you completing the script and story. With rewrites and more script reading, this would be a better script.

At first I thought the writer went over character limit, then I realized they were the same guy. I watched scenes from "Wizard of Gore" before the read in hopes to gain some context, but after reading my expectations were lost. The story was more like these guys just messed with the wrong lady than strange land theme.

I have to admit that I was hoping for more cheesy gore, brains & guts, not at fault to the writer. Since I haven't watched the original film the references to the father and his beliefs were confusing.

Some nit format issues - what's up with the dual slugs? (i.e., a full slug followed by a mini-slug with nothing in between).

I was okay with this through five pages or so and in fact loved the moment when she made the first phone call to security.  But then it went a bit off the rails for me because of this:

Quoted Text BECCA (to Man Three) Besides, ’roided up freak like you probably has no penis.

type of thing - in a moment of dire panic she's making roid insult - derailed the tension. THe second problem is that the dialogue became so heavily burdened with explanation at the end - the killer and the victim sharing their background and motives - it made it unnatural.

Nice effort - find a away to tell the story without so much exposition. Last add - I think you are better off with just one killer. Adding several didn't really add anything.

With rocks flying through my window I would split from there ASAP. Oh but this is a movie.  I love horror and Satanic horror is intense.  Get rid of one guy and add Satan himself, just a thought.

Well done..

Keep Rockin'

Have never heard of the Wizard Of Gore but this was my last read so gave it a go.

Sorry to say that I couldn't get it into it at all. Writer had a sense of purpose no doubt but the story wasn't strong enough to propel it along.

Uh... Right. Ok, so from a parameter perspective, do we have our stranger? Well, that's what it is clearly establishing in the opening scenes. I got that. Four characters? A bit confusing, but I think there were only four actors in the script.

As for the rest... bloody hell. I can't even.

I thought for a bit this was some kind of dream sequence. I was expecting her to wake up and it be a dream sequence because it made no damn sense. I seriously got lost in all of whatever went on at the beginning of the final sequence. I was completely thrown when MAN TWO came before MAN ONE. But hey, they're just character designations, so not a huge deal there.

Beyond the orgy-fest of mayhem which feels so amateurish that there is not much in the way of positives to offer from a story perspective, we had Becca go into exposition-mode all of a sudden to explain EVERYTHING.

I mean, I can see your perspective on following the parameters. You stuck to that. If someone had an excess of stage blood they needed to get rid of, this'd be right up their alley. It doesn't offer much else.

Do I want to steal from you? Heh, if you write something worth stealing, maybe. This? No.

And I just remembered this halfway through another script... A dial tone? On a cell phone? Clearly you're a moviemaker because they don't know how phones work either. 99% of the time, you will never, ever hear a dial tone on a cell phone. Can anyone name the underused feature that makes up the only time you will actually hear a dial tone? Note that it is never when placing a standard point to point call, so it definitely would not occur in your situation here.

I couldn't take it. I started skimming at page 5 and then by page 10 there was just lots and lots of talking. From reading the comments I see that it's exposition.

Needs a lot of work. I'm not even sure what it was about exactly. Reads like a very first draft. The exposition should be relayed in clever ways throughout the story... as you may already know. Perhaps you were in a rush. It really shows.

I'm thinking this is too talky for a horror. The guys came to hurt her and accidentally revive the demon in her - and suddenly the demon keeps explaining who it is and why it wants their blood. Actually, I didn't get its explanations. It was talking about the time it was working a lot, something like that. I read it twice and didn't' get it.
Man 1 Man 2 - I don't know but feels like wrong kind of introduction.
And you have to find a way to differentiate them. Also, do you really need all three? Maybe two will be enough. And it will be easier for you to have just three.

I also think they need a better reason for breaking than just "we just want to hurt you". That doesn't sound good, I suggest you change that bit of dialog. But don't listen to me, I never watch gory movies, what do I know.

Big fan of horror but meh on slasher. When Becca ramped it up, man, she went turbo! Until a pause for a message from her sponsor to explain why she was doing what she was doing.

I guess it meets the challenge but not a big fan. Good effort but maybe a few revisions will make me a fan.

Wow, that packed a punch, the punch of gore, gore and oh, gore.

Kinda odd the dialog.  Some of it read like a cheesy comedy, like the change from Evil Dead to Evil Dead 2.  

The ending was influenced by another classic horror movie called "The Trilogy of Terror" right down to the red eyes and pointed teeth, sheesh...

I think this felt like a first draft and lots of cuts to get down to the page limit...

It did meet the parameters, barely.  

If she was getting harassed, why would she stay?  

As I've noticed with so many other horror scripts, they need to make sense.  And this fails.  Perhaps the writer ran out of time, or didn't even consider some facts.

This could be an effective story.  Woman's father sold his soul basically, cursed the entire family.  The entity wants her to give into it, she resists, these guys force her to give in and she loses her soul forever because of them.

There's tragedy there that gets overshadowed by the gore.  Tell the story and the gore will come?  Does that make sense??

Dan