Glad to be of service.

What I still don't understand is how easy it all is. You have a great opening, but I don't understand the switch. Too many unanswered questions about Travis. We know why he kidnapped her, but how did he know about the murders? Vision? Is he from the future?

I think this could be 8 or 9 pages long. Once Julie gets back in the car and turns on the radio, she learns about the murders and that two Latin men were captured. The end.

The best thing about this script is that its low budget. We don't necessarily need the rain, but it helps. Two old people will just as easy bypass a guy in good weather. Finding an empty farmhouse is going to be the hardest part.

You could have her find the note in her purse, or maybe behind her visor, instead of at the cafe.

It's a good story but I don't think it necessarily works as a short film. It could be a nice beginning, but Julie is pretty passive. The major events happen without her.

Uh-oh, the second David Lynch-y type story I came across yesterday.  (Sorry, I couldn't reply until now.)  It seems this story, on the other hand, wasn't meant to be confusing on purpose.  I think this story might be a case where the story was clear in the writer's head, but it never made it to the paper successfully.

Hey Derek.

I heard Stephen King say before that every writer should have a haunted house story in their arsenal, and a hitchhiker story in their arsenal, so I'll let the originality factor on this one slide.

While there are elements that can work here in a story, it comes off way too convuluted and unexplained by the end.

Austin's (ABSteel) brought up some good points and some good advice on fixing the story up a bit, but it's going to need a lot of work to make this one click with everybody.

The first white woman was already brought up, so I won't dwell on that.  What bewilder's me the most about the story is what happens at the house she's held captive.

What was that gunshot at the house all about, if the shooting happened at the B&B?  Why was everything wrapped in plastic after she got out?  Why wasn't it wrapped n plastic before?  I guess you could say it's all part of the supernatural element to the story....  but why?  It doesn't seem important to the final outcome of the story.

I thought this was going to have a moral about not judging a book by it's cover, but at the end I can throw that out the window.  First, we have a black man who seems nice, then we go the stereotypical route by having him pull a knife on her.  Then, it ends up the black guy was doing her a favor, (all the while freaking the hell out of her?), so that brings back the moral of judging a book by its cover, but then everybody ends up getting blown away in the end by people of a minority group anyway.

It's just a way too convuluted idea as it is now that needs to be answered within the parameters of the story, and not by your explanation in this thread.

Congrats on an initially good idea, though.  Although it won't be the most original story, you still have some things to develop it more and work from.

- Mark

Quoted from rc1107 Uh-oh, the second David Lynch-y type story I came across yesterday.  (Sorry, I couldn't reply until now.)

No problem. Thanks for replying at all! I'm taking all these comments and saving them in Word. Take a couple days to digest them and then either revamp the short or just stop putting off the second draft of my feature script.   But either way you all of been quite helpful here.