The Dancer Upstairs by Dwhyte Star - Thriller - After meeting the dancer who lives upstairs a loner finds a deadly new purpose in life, and possibly a chance at redemption. Frank lives alone and has been alone since witnessing the rape and murder of his mother. The woman who was happiest when she danced, so having a fascination with the art of dance and an obsession with proving himself not a coward for standing by and watching his mother be attacked - Frank immediately falls in love with the dancer who lives upstairs. It is not long before he decided the best way to keep her happy and protect her is to murder anyone who might or has caused her harm. 101 pages - pdf, format

Writer interested in feedback on this work

Read this, and not knowing quite what to expect I was blown away by how good this was through the whole thing. There's just some minor things, mostly technical stuff that could use some fixing, but the story was great...

The description could be condense together a little more. You have a lot of one liners, but you could probably save a lot more room if you just combine them into two lines each instead of one every line. You could probably get it down to 85 to 90 pages just on that, then maybe more people will read, 'cuz the shorter it is, the more people will usually have a look at it.

pg 3 - mary os should be vo

you fade in at Frank's work, but don't signify where it is. You need a slugline there.

how old is the dancer?

Frank got up and walked out when Lenny started talking about race. So, is Frank black? or Lenny said something about "their" dancing, so is Lenny black? or was Frank just simply morally object to the joking about it?

pg 15 - Put the canned foods aisle in CAPS and you don't have to reiterate that he enters it

pg 35 - Lenny says "She wants me to FOOT everything"?

When Frank kills Lenny, you say "he cuts THE MAN'S throat" and "lifts THE DEAD MAN into the trunk". Why not just say Lenny?

The cat's name is Nancy, and you refer to it as a he.

I also think it'd be cooler if the same cops were the ones to question Frank, show up at his work, and find him and the dancer dead.

Other than those minor things, I have to tell you, this is damn near flawless in my opinion. I hope more people start taking a look at this one, because the characters are great, the situations, the dialogue is perfect, the story, everything about the construction of this is just awesome. Even your descriptions were fast and set a GREAT visual. Right down to the details even, with the microwave at the beginning, the ravioli, the honeymooners on mute, the leather jacket and leotard, EVERYTHING set a really great mood. A real joy to read. In fact I literally couldn't stop reading it it was so good. This had a really great creepy, stylistic vibe going for it, and delivers all the way through. Really good job!!!

Hi Dwhyte,
I'm thinking your're a relatively new screenwriter and this may be your first submission to SSs.  I'm pretty new at screenwriting so as far as my feedback goes, "take it or leave it".  

   A Logline should be a ONE SENTENCE teaser, to entice potential readers.  A long summary or synopsis of your SP is going to turn off any one who reads scripts on this site.   An overly descriptive Logline usually indicates, to a potential reader, that the screenplay may suffer from poor formatting; Tough to read, tough to follow, etc.  So even if your STORY is great, it doesn't get read.  Frankly, I read yours because Steve-Dave gave it a NEAR FLAWLESS rating.  Unfortunately,  I think it needs a great deal of work.

I would have given up on it much sooner but there was lots of space between your action lines so the reading flowed and the story was  somewhat entertaining.

One example of a possible format fix:

Pg. 3       SCREEN BLACK
                                                    MARY (OS)
                                                 Thank you Frank
               FADE IN:
We see Frank and then Mary gets described;  okay, but where are we?  some hallway some where?

Possible unnecessary scenes:

  Pg. 4 - 7    INT.    PARK- AFTERNOON
FRANK and the OLD MAN.    Why?  How does this support or drive the story?  and how do you pocket a Snapple?  just curious.

Also, Pg 7  Man and a prostitute in an alley.  Again, necessary to the story?

I'll stop here.

I'm not a fan of critics who nit-pik  and I do think your story has potential.   You need to clean it up, I think, so others will be motivated to read.

Regards,

JJ

One of the most promising scripts on the site this, in my opinion.

Nice surprise to see it arise to the top after ten years.

Dwyhte,

Written 10 Years ago?    So, am I eating crow here?  Wouldn't be the first time.
Anyway, it's a subjective game so the dice rolls.

Hope you're doing well with it.

JJ

10 years ago? Wow. Can't remember that long ago, tbh. Lol.

I revisited this.

It's an exceptional piece of work. The tone, the atmosphere are spot on. The slow burn up front is almost perfect, there's a sense of dread, of alienation. It's fabulous.

Only nit-picks would be very slight. I feel we should see the girl dance. Watching a woman dance is mesmerising. It's also very cinematic.

The transformation from everyman to murderer felt slightly too quick. It felt like a further couple of beats were needed there.

I also felt that Frank should have been unable to perform sexually with the Dancer. His voyeuristic nature somewhat precludes that.  

This would make a fantastic film. I hope the writer is around to get the feedback.

Okay, now this is the best thing I've ever read on the site. Hands down. Makes me wonder what other gems are hiding in the shadowy recesses of ancient threads. I wasn't even really reading at first. I was skimming, barely paying attention, then the first scene between the Dancer and Frank... and I was gone as in completely hooked on every word. I'm of the opinion that you can't actually skim a good pro script. At some point, the writing and characters will suck you in and you'll be hanging on every word till THE END hits like a ton of bricks. This script has that. Every scene between Frank and the Dancer... if that's not pro dialogue I don't know what is.

Is the writer around for notes? Cuz I will do notes instead of just waxing not so poetic about how good this is.  

Yep.

It's great.


Best I've read after Suicide Theory. This was always one of Simplyscripts best kept secrets. I'd delved into every nook and cranny looking for material to film, and I've always held a torch for this one.