Hey Lee;

I liked this. It had a good creep factor for me, and I think it's directly contributed to some of the direction you were trying to embed within the scenes, without being too overtly descriptive as to how you would like this filmed.

Perhaps a better explanation.

The 'Stop-motion' movements of the shadows, and 'Twitching' of the girl's head, is reminiscent of a composition format that was done in post-production to give the characters a bizarre, surreal form of travel with respect to the rest of the (stationary) scene.

This is accomplished by using 'contortionists' to act out the parts in extremely weird, seemingly impossible motions, and in post-production, remove every Nth frame to chop it up, giving the player's motion short, staccato bursts. It works extremely well to creep people out.

Some movies that incorporated this post production concept are 'The Ring', and 'The Grudge'; two movies that creep the s*it out of me to this day. So this put me in mind of that. Long story short, this would work if it was done along those lines.

Another thing that caught me out, however, was 'CHANGELING'. I had an inkling that some aspect of this 'word' pointed towards a dead, or disembodied child, but thought I'd look it up for a better understanding;

change•ling:

1) a child surreptitiously or unintentionally substituted for another.

2) (in folklore) an ugly, stupid, or strange child left by fairies in place of a pretty, charming child.

I think you have an understanding of what you wanted to represent the child(ren) to be, but did not incorporate any premise for their existence, or motive as to why they need to pull a corporeal structure (Cate) into a watery grave. They only called to her as 'Mommy', needing to return home. Where's home? and why?

Check the 1980 movie 'The Changeling' for nice visuals of a wandering ethereal child. The movie has a good back story as to why it (child) lingers on.

Anyways, I wouldn't give up on this, because it could actually be a real creepy short if you find the right post production team. It does, however, still need some more insight as to the dead children’s existence.

Hope this helps in some way, take care... Rick.

You say early in this thread that this script is an excercise in horror or fear.  I don't think you got it right just yet.  All you really have is a bunch of creepy elements thrown together.  

I didn't feel much concern for the two sheriffs; they were throw away charac ters that needed more development.  If I don't care for the characters, I won't care what happens to them.

You should be able to cut this script by three or four pages.  It dragged on for the most parts while you were trying to spook us.


Phil