Pediophobia by Anonymous1 - Adult, Short, Horror - A man with a phobia of dolls fights for his life when his dead grandmother leaves her most prized possession to him. 12 pages - pdf, format

Pediophobia - Fear of dolls

1st one of the bunch...here we go!

"a nice guy but unsure of himself" - total unfilmable

Never...I REPEAT NEVER use "etc." in a description

"TRANSITION:" - Huh?  So unnecessary.

"MATCH DISSOLVE/MORPH" - You're trying way too hard here, and the writing is really suffering because of it.

"a bright light on a gloomy day" - Oh man...no.  You're killing me here.  STOP!!

"but his mind is still on the dolls" - Really?  Thanks for telling us that, because it would be impossible for anyone to know that. Completely unfilmable.

Dialogue is so OTN, it's almost humorous, sorry to say.

Why in the world would Allison act like this with the "female Chuckie", knowing he has a deep rooted fear of dolls, and especially this doll in particular?

Jason wears pajamas?  The dude is 25 years old...why is he wearing pajamas?

A "bobcat"?  LOL...needs to be Capped, otherwise, you're referring to an animal.

OK, I read the whole thing.  Writing is not good.  Dialogue is very poor.  Character actions and reactions totally unrealistic.  Story very simple and adds nothing we haven't seen before.

This one is not for me, sorry to say.

Grade - *

First page - way - way over written. The writer does settle down after that.

Unnecessary unfilambles - I would lose them.

The dialogue was a bit on the nose and done for exposition - these people know each other - the chat was unnatural as if only there to explain to us.

I would lose the camera directions.

Where was the rest in peace at the end? Did I just miss it?

Just okay for me

Didn't take to this one straight away with the UNDISCLOSED ATTIC (what?)and the comment about this being the type of place you would expect to be haunted. It really took me out of the story before I'd even started.

I tried to stick with it. The first page is like prose but then settles down. However we have camera shot transitions and then a lot of instructions for the actors via unnecessary parentheticals.

The dialogue felt really unnatural and weird. All of this could have been overlooked to some extent if the story had been original and compelling but for me, neither was the case.

Sorry, didn't work for me but you entered and it seemed to fit the criteria for the OWC.

-Mark

Definitely meets the phobia requirement but I don't see 'rest in peace' or RIP anywhere?

Spoiler - Poor Jason, with women like his in his life, who needs a phobia about dolls! No consideration for the dudes feelings and fears at all. Even after death.

It looks and reads like it was written last minute. A revision or three would help immensely. Molly/Mollie mistake and a big timeline issue. Did he receive the doll the same day he was called about his G'Ma's death?

Needs work - Congrats for entering.
John

Wow!  My first OWC.  "Who let the dogs out"?!?!  That being stated, I'll stay in the kitchen, heat or no heat.

Anyway. . .  An Overwritten kick-off to initiate a scary tone?  Okay, I understand your intent.  The dialogue between Jason and Allison seemed manufactured.  Not real enough.  Main purpose: to move your story forward.
Yes, OTN:                                           ALLISON
                                               Let me guess.  Dolls.
                                                          JASON
                                                How did you know?
                                                           ALLISON
                                               Sweetie, you have nightmares about  
                                               them at least twice a week. . . . . . .. .

Maybe some subtext instead.

I think your writing is very descriptive.  I had no problem visualizing the scenes and characters.
  
Story wise; and maybe I missed something;  BUT:
So why does a Loving grandma, who knows her loving grandson "loathes" her favorite doll,  leave it to him?

I think that's your story.

I liked the birthday Barbie, escape.  My favorite part.

The ending was a bit contrived for me.  I wish you hadn't used the word "phobia" in the last string of dialogue.

Good luck.  

JJ

Hey writer,

ARGHHHHHHHHH!!!! This is the third script where the dream sequences haven't been formatted correctly!!! Maybe I'm in the wrong here, don't think I am but it's always a possibility.

Right, I'm not afraid of over writing, it's something I've been pulled up on a lot of times, but I'll let it pass if it's really required. Unfortunately I think you could take an axe to at least a quarter of this, really trimmed it down and make it easier to digest.

I actually quite liked the doll aspect. The reference to Chucky was bang on and the parallels are obvious. It felt quite comedic in bits like a lot of the classic horrors do.

The phobia brief was met, so well done there.

Anyway, overworked but none the less I quite liked it.

Cam

Hey writer.
Thanks for entering!
This was a fun story, overall I liked it. It raised a few questions that remained unanswered - why his grandpa was so mean to him? Why would Allison be so mean to put the doll on his bed when she knows he can't stand the site of them. Why he didn't burn the doll? And what's with Jennifer - that's some sister he got.
I think you can rewrite and work on these things.
And the dialog felt stilted to me at places - like would Allison say "unrelenting fear" - it sounds forced.
Also, some of their conversation could be cut - on p4 you could start with "I know you two drifted apart"
I like the idea though, think you should rewrite it.

And I think you just forgot the rip part as the RIP fits into the story very well here. Obviously you wrote with rip in mind so the script met the criteria very well still.

Love the doll aspect of this as my first script was called The Doll about a girl who was turned into a living doll. Kudos on your concept...

I hate dolls as much as I hate clowns. Maybe I have a phobia. LOL

The formatting makes this a bit hard to read... the phone formatting is off... slows the read down.

I think the dialogue is on the nose and goes on for way too long. Loses the reader sometimes when you do this.

Not sure why she would leave her collection to someone who feared dolls.

All the telling in the dialogue was a turn off for me.

Meets the phobia but I missed the Rest in Peace requirement or was it there? Found myself skimming through this after the three pages of dialogue. Maybe I will go back and revisit it.

Good job entering the owc.

Is the opening scene DAY or NIGHT? It could be during the day because there might not be  any windows in the attic, and therefore dark oe low light. It could be night.

How do I know Jason is "nice guy"? The way he dresses? A fella could be wearing dirty sweat pants and a cheap T shirt he could still be a "nice guy".

The description of "creepy dolls" takes a bit long and is too wordy for my liking. In fact, you even tell me twice in a bitr of prose. We are not off to a good start.

Quoted Text . He tugs on the knob with both hands, as well as he can while still holding the candle.

Creepy looking laughing dolls will soon be the least of his worries. Maybe he should find a place to put the candle down or blow it out first?

Quoted Text , Jason shines the light in a different direction.

Wrong. He can't do this. He's holding a candle, not a flashlight.

Quoted Text Jason starts to scream.

Starts? Why not just write "Jason screams"?

Oh, okay.It''s only a nightmare. Which explains why when he drops the candle nothing catches fire. WE also get a DISSOLVE-MATCH CUT, and as much as I hate bringing it up, that's not a spec writer's choice to make.

Quoted Text Jason lies back

At the end of the nightmare, he was on his back. When he wakes, he is on his back.Since lies back now, was  he sitting up? Not that I can tell.

an, I gotta tell you. I don't come off as sounding like aprune. But that phone conversation Alison has with Jennifer just brought me out of the script pronto. . Who does this? Who talks like this?  A close relative passes away and Jen the sister (I'm assuming it's Jason's sister) doesn't say "put my brother on the phone"?  Instead , I feel there's a "so what/ "meh" attitude. It just doesn't read right to me.

"His mind is still on the dolls"  We can't see that. And..why would it be? Your sister  (or anther family member) just called with bad news. And she doesn't even want to talk to you! Hell, Jennifer doesn't even show up at the funeral. For that matter, neither does Nathan. And...Jason is a Nice Guy, so his attire at the funeral should be more respectful. Alison dresses up See below:

The forced OTN exposition between Alison and  Jason is where I'm calling it quits. I'm sorry- Pass the hanky. And Alison has a confession to make. She never met Jason's grandmother.
See above ^^Uh-huh.  And what about family gatherings? I guess Grams never came to any of those? Hmm.

Anyway, this can be salvaged I think. Less wordy, less foecred exposition, more clarity. Smiling dolls at night, can be creepy in most horror thrillers.

Best of luvk
.  

This one was overwritten. In descriptions and dialogue. We don't need to know what color pants Jason wears unless it's vital to the story for example.

Lots of other unnecessary stuff too, IMHO. Do we really need to attend grandma's funeral when nothing happens there? Also, too much talking and stuff when looking at family pictures. Easy for a reader to start losing interest when there's just idle chit chat. I would suggest trimming that scene's dialogue.

Although the doll scary stuff is nothing new, I still liked it, but it came rather late. Not until page eight. I think this script could easily be two pages shorter and be better for it too.

And finally, I think you need to find another reason for Molly to end up inside the casket. I didn't for a second believe Jennifer or Allison would put it in there. Maybe the priest or someone else mistakenly thought it was Jason's favorite gift from his grandmother or such.

Not bad, just needs a lot of trimming.  

Hi,

Quoted Text INT. UNDISCLOSED ATTIC

If it's undisclosed why not just write attic? A time of day may not be necessary but it definitely makes the slug look better.

Quoted Text The kind of place you would expect to be haunted.

It’s an unfilmable aside.

Quoted Text a nice guy but unsure of himself

Unfilmable, how could we possibly know this just by looking at him?

Quoted Text Using the candle, he surveys his surroundings. Shelves upon shelves of dolls: creepy dolls, pretty dolls, realistic dolls, etc.

I don’t think there is ever a good reason to use etc. in a script; it’s your job to paint the picture.

Quoted Text Each seems to LAUGH at him.

I'm a little unsure of what I'm seeing/hearing hear. You say they seem to laugh, so they aren’t actually laughing? But you have laugh capitalised. To me that means the sound can be heard. I think I get what you’re going for; it's just not very clear right off the bat.

Some good tension building.

Quoted Text The manic eyes glare at Jason.

Again, it's not very clear to me what I'm meant to be seeing here.

No need to type transition, there will obviously be one because the scene changes.

Quoted Text MATCH DISSOLVE/MORPH to the same shot of Jason, only he lies in bed with his arms across his face.

Unless you plan on editing this yourself there is no need to put MATCH DISSOLVE/MORPH.

Quoted Text half lying next

How do you half lie next to someone? I'm definitely finding an issue with the writing not being clear. I know it's not an easy task, but I think if you can write a script where at no point you have the reader questioning what they are meant to see, you have done a good job.

Quoted Text Jason snaps out of one shock, straight into another.

Same thing again, what does this mean?

Quoted Text Jason, his button-up plaid shirt and mismatched brown pants creating a big fashion no-no

Is this really relevant?

Quoted Text JASON I would spend a couple of weeks with my grandparents during the summer. All of the grandkids would. They had this old farmhouse by a lake. I have a lot of fond memories of those days, except for one thing. ALLISON Let me guess. Dolls. JASON How did you know? 4. ALLISON Sweetie, you have nightmares about them at least twice a week. Then there was the time my niece opened her birthday Barbie and you ran out of the restaurant.

Expositional, OTN dialogue.

Page 6, Molly feels a bit like Annabelle.

Quoted Text JASON No. I would put her in the closet with the others but she’d be in bed with me during the night. She’s like a female Chuckie.

Or just Annabelle.

It’s odd to me that Allison want to sleep in bed with the doll, it's even stanger that she'll do that thing he wants (sexual thing clearly) if he sleeps in the bed with the doll? Did I miss read something?

Some of the dialogue is unnatural.

Okay, so you pretty much admitted it yourself that there is nothing original here with the female Chucky statement, and then there’s the Annabelle movies as mentioned.

It was still somewhat enjoyable and met the criteria. I just think it needs a massive clean-up.

All the best.

Warren, just a note to say that actor directions such as:

"a nice guy but unsure of himself"

Are preferred in professional scripts.

Quoted from Scar Tissue Films Warren, just a note to say that actor directions such as: "a nice guy but unsure of himself" Are preferred in professional scripts.

Sorry I'm not a pro, just a hobbiest giving my opinion. Noted.

Too sick to take an important call like that?  Do you really need this scene?  Could you not start with Grandma already dead and relate this back to triggering Jason’s dream in some way?  Saves you a chunk of room to the same effect.

I struggled with why Allison is so determined to have this doll around when the man she loves is clearly upset by it.  Their relationship dynamic doesn’t feel right.  It feels forced to fit the story which weakens the read.

Hmm, a bobcat doesn’t immediately create the right visual for filling in a grave - more a U.S. thing?  Maybe that’s what’s with the big paws...

Were Jason somehow alive and trapped in a confined space with the doll then this ending might carry some weight.  But he’s dead, so there’s no consequence.  And if sister knows he was scared of dolls then isn’t that just oddly disrespectful?  Where’s the rest in peace, did I miss it?

The creepy doll trope isn’t for me, feels a little too worn and it’s tough to pull off without seeming comical.  But that’s a personal preference and these simple horrors seem to get interest.  Trim the fat, iron out the character dynamics so they’re believable and keep the locations simple and it could work.

Excellent. Nothing I can think of is going to improve this piece.

I was trying to get a sense of the mood you were trying to portray in the opening scene, but found myself skimming.

ALLISON HARPER (23), a bright light on a gloomy day -- was kind of thrown by this description.

It didn't feel right that Alison didn't hand over the phone to Jason - that felt a little heartless on her part.

ALLISON
Itï¿¿s never too early for a good
wine. -- I liked this.

Page 3 at Jason's house is where your writing starts to kick off in this - things start to feel less cardboard.

ALLISON
Must be something she willed to
you. Open it! -- I saw her shouting it - completely threw me for sec.

Illuminates with delight once she shoves the tissue paper inside out of the way. After Alison being sympathetic to his phobia, this reaction felt out of place. I think if she grimaced - knowing it would pain him to see it then said 'oh my' that would work better.

Considering he had fond memories as a boy of spending time at Grandma's -- Grandmaï¿¿s favourite because I loathed it the most --doesn't seem to fit. If he has a phobia of the dolls because of Grandma I couldn't see him having fond memories at all - his main memory would be the tormenting moments.

Allison places the doll upright on Jasonï¿¿s pillow. -- If I were Jason I'd dump her ass right there cause that is just plain mean. Making fun of his phobia is also kind of sadistic - pleasure in torturing people.

Ok, I know I'm kind of stomping the point in, but just trying to help, honestly -- We go from this: 'Superman has kryptonite. You have dolls.' To this: 'Come on now, you big baby.' in a pretty short span of time. She comes across caring at one point then not - even in the end. With the way she has actually been and the slight fear in her about the possibility that maybe Jason was right - I could have pictured that it would have been her that placed the doll with Jason because now he was dead and you know, just in case it really was alive - no attacking anyone from the grave.

I liked the idea you have here, but this definitely needs work - bit of a clean up with formatting and the tonal shifts in Alison. Good job though.

RJ

Quoted from Scar Tissue Films Warren, just a note to say that actor directions such as: "a nice guy but unsure of himself" Are preferred in professional scripts.

Hmm.

Got to say I'm with Warren on this one.  I would have gone with something akin to - his hand trembles as he lights....to demonstrate the unsure of himself - especially given the contrast the writer is using. i.e., nice guy but unsure of himself. Like they were contradictions in traits.

Like Warren I don't know what "professionals like". So maybe I am out of line here. I would have rather seen some description of the lack of confidence rather than just stating it.  

Maybe a good thread on character descriptions would be beneficial - Think I'm going to start one when the OWC dies down. Really interested in different peeps takes on the subject.  

I was a bit worried about this one. Killer dolls have never really scared me (except for Trilogy of Terror and Dead of Night) and it seems horror writers are completely reliant on the doll being scary rather than telling a good story.

Not the case here! This was an entertaining little horror short but I adored the ending. I dug that Allison never really took Jason's phobia seriously because she thought it was childish, and you never made Jason a hysterical wreck. You can have a phobia without going insane about it. I'm afraid of heights, but i don't become completely unhinged when I'm in a high place.

The script could make a really great atmospheric short with a nice Tales From the Crypt type ending. Great job!

The opening sequence, in my view, needs more on the character side. The doll pile is all well and good for a scary opening, but this is also the introduction of the protagonist, and it would be nice to get more of a sense of his character and how he solves problems -- not just his reactions, but his actions.

I'll also say, re the opening, that while I don't think it's terribly overwritten per se, I do think that the construction of the sentences/paragraphs themselves makes things harder to read. Sometimes the shocks don't really read as shocks. For example: "He urgently shifts his light down to his feet. One of the dolls has a grip on his pantleg."This reads fine, but it doesn't give us the sense of how big/startling/scary a moment this would be on screen.

This dialogue scene (Jason and Allison) is big and long and Allison doesn't seem to have a personality to speak of. Definitely coming off as a stock Selfless Girlfriend. The dialogue itself is believable enough, but there's not much conflict here, and not much other reason to watch these two in their private moments. Jason also has very little personality, but he' got the fixation, which is working. They're a pretty boring couple of people, though.

See, the doll stuff itself is all super fun. But wouldn't it be much more interesting if there was an existing conflict between Allison and Jason that was exacerbated by all the scary stuff? That's the typical formula for this Blumhouse-y kinda stuff, anyway.

Good ending. I think what's most compelling about this is the idea that no-one ever really takes his phobia that seriously, and I wish that had been reflected in the piece more as a whole. The story is good and entertaining (though I did find the big death moment a tad underwhelming -- he just trips?), but the characters are definitely on the bland side. This short asks us to enjoy watching two people in their house for twelve minutes -- they better have some interesting stuff going on between them.

Good fun. Thanks!

P.S. Throwing my vote in with Rick -- "a nice guy but unsure of himself" is, as far as I know, the exact right kind of description. The expectation, of course, is that this initial character description will be immediately supported by the visuals and character actions. I'll also note that Allison's description -- "a bright light on a gloomy day" -- perfectly highlights the issue with her character, which is that she has no inconsistencies or flaws and exists more in terms of her relationship to others (the gloomy-day-havers) than she does as her own person. This shows, though, how effective that style of description can be.

Quoted from eldave1 Maybe a good thread on character descriptions would be beneficial - Think I'm going to start one when the OWC dies down. Really interested in different peeps takes on the subject.

Not to derail the thread, but I think this would be a great discussion point for after the OWC. I'd be interested on peoples takes are as well.

The writing and scene descriptions here aren't bad, but aren't great either.

"Thenthere was the time my niece opened
her birthday Barbie and you ran out
of the restaurant."

Yikes.

I actually thought Jason and Allison's relationship was developed pretty well, good
job there.

My main gripe with this was it that it was too predictable. I pretty much knew that the doll
was going to come to life as soon as I read the logline.

However, the doll in Jason's casket was a good touch.

simple plot (guy afraid of dolls, gets a doll from his dead grandma) no problem. But then we get this weird dialogue, like others have exposition. It just stagnates the script and so it feels aimless at times.

The end is kind of anticlimactic he's killed cause the doll tripped him down the stairs?
My only complaints but otherwise not bad.