I envy him as well.

Hey George,


I thought this was a good piece, and the minimal locations really helps it out.  I'm sure a lot of people can identify with Keller since we've probably all had a nosey neighbor at one time or another.

I thought the tension between everyone was just right, and the dialogue was well written.  I too thought that he was going to get away with it for a second, and although the ending is fine as it is, it would also work with the police simply spotting the blood.

Good work!


Mike

I originally had written it with the police just spotting the blood, but one of the earliest comments that I got was that it was too convenient and not very dramatic. With Keller throwing a huge fit and jarring the hiding spot, it creates a little extra tension as well as the catalyst needed to squish some gooey out of the corpse...that really does sound sick.

Thanks for reading, Mike. Appreciate it. Gives me those wonderful warm fuzzies...even though its been a week.

And so George does the happy dance. I had submitted this to Southern Heights Entertainment for inclusion as an episode in straight to DVD anthology series they were doing. I got an email today accepting it. Be getting a contract for it in the next week or so and get some notes for revisions when they get to it (there are twelve or so episodes and they're reviewing them one by one and sending the writers notes).

Ah, my first contract. It's a good day.

I remember reading this script when I first found this website, as I am just getting familiar with this posting deal...I'd like to leave a response.  I actually thought it might be a cool affect if at some point if he heard the heartbeating, like the Poe story, like an homage (I believe that's the correct word).   Other then that I thought this was a cool idea.  

Jaykur

Hey George:  Finally got around to reading this one.  The suspense builds nicely, and the character of Ophelia is pretty easy to visualize.  Her name is perfect.  They'll probably tell you what they want on the rewrite, but I've got a couple of things to submit for your consideration:

(SPOILERS)

*  You have a teaser for a short?  Don't recall seeing that before.
*  Pg 3:  Patricia asks John, "What're you doing?"  Well, what is he doing?  You neglect to tell us.  I assume it's looking out the window or something.
*  It's a pretty big plot point, but I can't envision a couch that could accommodate a body beneath it without drawing plenty of attention to itself.  I assume you have something in mind, and this deserves a tad more description to help us see it.
*  I agree that you should end with the discovery of the body.  That last little bit adds nothing new, and in fact, is a little anti-climactic.

If it's allowed, I sure would like to see the rewrite.

Thanks for reading, Bert. Some responses to your couple of things.

The early drafts of this one did not have a teaser. When I was working on something to submit, I asked how it was to be setup, and the guy said it would have a teaser followed by a Twilight Zone-ish voiceover and then continuous from there.

I was playing with the reading voices on Final Draft 7.1.1 today that I recently came across (no details under penalty of death), and I discovered this mishap of not having John do anything action-wise. It was in an earlier draft, but it must have been chopped out when I did the teaser. Oops.

Some couches have legs that support them. My parents had a hideabed under theirs but it was open all th way to the floor when the bed was pulled out. I have seen a number of couches that wil accomodate a body beneath them. A hide-a-bed couch that is on some stubby legs would have more than enough room..and yes, this knowledge greatly disturbs my wife.

And ok, so the denoument isn't necessary.

Great script, George.  That was very entertaining.  I really was feeling the tension in the house, especially everytime Ophelia would go over to the couch or the closet.  

I was kind of pulling for John and hoping he got away with it.  (Sorry I guess I'm demented like that haha), but it really kept my attention.

Great job, George

Nice one. Formatting is great!  I like the part of where Anderson talks about 911 blocking Miss Keller's number.  I had to laugh.

Nice ending with the body being under the couch. I thought he was going to get away with murder.  Nice plot

Dan

Thanks Dan. I can relate to being behind on reads myself. I spend a ton of time writing, even though a lot of it doesn't end up posted here. It gets me all behind on reading.

On a broader note, I wish I had something positive to report on the DVD thing, but I've not heard from this character in months. I emailed and nada. Kind of a bummer. I guess their deals fell through.

This was the script of the day so I decided to give this one a read.





*************************SPOLIERS***************************


Overall I thought this was kind of a funny story, I'm pretty sure it was ment to be, at least I hope, cause it made me laugh a few times.

At first I really didn't care for the dialogue, at least until page three, then it seemed to get better.

Ophelia was a mojor bitch, but I guess she was right in the end, so...LOL

where I live we dont have locks on our doors and we basically walk into each others homes at will, and answer each others phone if we are in the same house(we have a party line so we all have the same phone number), and Ophelia reminds me of this lady that lives in our community, she is always asking a thousand questions and needs to know everything and she always walks into our house, for no reason, I think just to snoop, so I could relate to John's feelings towards her.

I liked the way the tension was built when the two police officer's arived, and then when you think John was in the clear something would happen to mess it up.

I was kinda hopin' that John would get away in the end, but the way it ended was still satisfying, but that's probably just the way I am.

all in all this was a fun read with some good laughs that had a lot of tension.

Keep up the good work

George,

Too bad the DVD thing didn't work out!

I liked this one.

Could be tweaked just a little bit to make it a "little more" of everything, but I like the basic idea here. Could be done on the cheap too.

You want to give this one a shot? Be ok with me after some sharpening.

Let's see what "the Boss" thinks.  

I don't get what's so great about this script. It's been done over and over and much better. Format was good. But it's a tired story. No excitement here.

Well, Captainron, I suppose based on the comments you've left on other scripts, I can guess that other than your feeling that the plot is a retread (perhaps I can help here: maybe Dial M For Murder with a little Telltale Heart thrown in), you felt the script was fairly well written. Perhaps, you could let us know where you felt it really let you down. Negative feedback can be positive.

George, I figure I really haven't read much of your stuff so I gave this the once-over, and really enjoyed it.

You have really good character development right off the bat.  I can tell the kind of Person Johns wife is, and she's only their breifly.  Although you can't really tell the cops apart, they have a certain flare they both share, which makes sense because they're partners and freinds.

I don't know if you always do this, because like I said I haven't read much of your stuff, but you make your descriptions, which are usually just an extremely dull part of the script, interseting and humorous when it's applicable, I actually laughed twice just reading descriptions, which I assure you has never happened before.

I did have a few problems though.  When John reveals that he's going to kill his wife, the dialogue between them becomes cliche.  This is probably because we actually would all say about the same thing if we found out someone we trusted was about to kill us, so I was thinking you could avoid this by having it happen in a different way.  What I was thinking was that the tension between them could build into a fight which could quickly accelerate and he could just shoot her.  It wouldn't be part of the "perfgect plan" but it would rid you of that kind of cheesy dialogue.

At one point the cops tell ophelia they lost a coin toss to come over here.  I know that thats too establish that she calls in a lot, but there are other ways to do that.  I thought the whole coin toss thing was a bit corny.

I also didn't like the male pride comment, it sounded awkward, and I'm sure there's a better way to phrase it, it just doesn't seem like something a guy would say.

When they ask about Johns tools it's sort of unbelievable because the rest of the time they've been siding with john and then they suddenly side with Ophelia for no real reason.

Johns "I'm stressed" thing was a good idea, it was believable in getting the cops to stop, I think it would actually work.

I didn't like how you ended it with the cop speech.  I think you could end it on one of johns lines, a sort of "I would have gotten away with it too, if it weren't for you...."

anyway, good job.

-Tyler