First single scene entry I can remember so it stands out.  There’s a simplicity to the idea, intriguing, but it does leave it a little too static/wordy.  I could see the first half dragging on screen.

The Ipad images upped the tension a notch but it could do with something else before that, something to give it a bit more edge - unsettle us.  The start felt more like a light-hearted drama.  The end not so much.

I didn’t quite buy that Leona would resort to deleting her thesis so quickly, and given the ending, does she really need to?  A lot to get across in one scene.    A more thoughtful approach to the challenge - albeit capped by a brutal triple slaying.  Works for me.  Though maybe the idea is stronger than the execution, like you could do more with this?

I liked it. Can't add anything, except to say well done.

Really liked the ending of this one. And the pleasant friendship between the girls that turns scary reminded me of Albert Brooks and Dan Akroyd at the beginning to the Twilight Zone Movie (Wanna see something really scary?). I really enjoyed how the atmosphere changes dramatically as the script progresses.

I also really dug the idea of human's fear actually being an alarm bell for "monsters' walking amongst us.  Not much to critique in this one. One of the better entries.

As the names have been named I thought I'd explain my entry in more detail for those who are interested.

After years of trying, I was lucky enough to have not one, but two short stories published in an anthology of international competition winners recently. One of them was called Fear. It seemed to perfectly fit the criteria of this challenge so I decided to try to adapt it as a screenplay and call it The Origin of Fear. I've never adapted a story before, I thought this would be a good opportunity to have a go.

The basic story is the same as the short but there's a different ending. In the story, Imogen is a lizard person and there's more evidence of supernatural powers. I wrote the first draft with this ending but a couple of friends read it and said it seemed a bit over the top and out of left field, therefore I changed it so Imogen is simply a psychopath.

I actually prefer the Lizard angle as that is the published story, but what do you guys think? Do you think it would suit a more outlandish, supernatural ending?

The other appeal for the psycho ending was it made the screenplay cheaper to produce. The last two OWC's my scripts have had great review comments but they've been huge budget sci-fi scripts that will never get produced, I really wanted to go back to the ultra low budget, one location script that most independent producers are begging for. And that meant dialogue, lots of it.

I spruced up the dialogue from the story, made it more entertaining but some of you guys balked at the sight of it on the page. This reaction I did find disappointing. With so many dialogue heavy great TV shows like True Detective, Breaking Bad and Mindhunter I thought this would open people's eyes to the value of great dialogue in a short.

This was my attempt to show it can be done, but for some it didn't have the desired affect.

Anyway. I have incorporated a bit more action in-between the talking to break it up a bit and gone back to the lizard ending for the second draft, but I've also applied the same changes to the Psycho version so I have a cheaper alternative if producers are interested.

Thanks again for the feedback and any other comments are welcome!

-Mark