I liked this story better than the other entrant. And yes it was written well.

But... it's not horror. It's a drama. Agree that it's too much telling and not really any showing. At 4 pages what the writer needed to do was flash back to the accident... Oh and have something really horrific happen to the father, like he heard voices or something. That would have made it a horror short.

Tough choice, this one.

A Hundred Midnights

Short notes: I felt for the girl. Definitely a heavy ending. I didn't understand why you haven't brought the horror on page. It was more like the preacher speaking about it than anything visual, touchable. The horrific live-experience is simply to absent, too far away from the picture. It's still within genre for sure, in a kind of crossover scary atmosphere experience. Those movies exist and I still however liked your version. Just a bit more activity, a little bit, and those already well-crafted atmospheric points around the great preacher would have shined much more.

story (0-5): 3

character (0-5): 3

presentation (0-5): 5

total: 11

This one wasn't really for me.  I didn't get the horror vibe.  More drama than anything.

There wasn't much of a story for me.

The snake did it for me!

Loved the vibe and atmosphere. Love the title. I felt nervous for Mae the whole time. The blindfold visual and impending 'who knows what will happen' suspense is terrific..

Was it a Sunkist crate just cause it was available? A no-frills box for a no good rotter?

Good stuff.

Nope, it just didn't do it for me. Well written and all, but I found myself skimming through the sermon. Quality work, but a bit long winded.

Just voted - Wow! 50/50!

I want to address a few points raised about my script A Hundred Midnights.
1. "Too much exposition."
The term gets thrown around too much, and it does not apply here. My story is NOT that a man killed his wife and blinded his daughter.
The story is Preacher James's attempt to help his congregation (and the daughter) move on by forcing them to face the horror of what happened. He does this:
(a) through the graphic details in his sermon,
(b) by placing the poor girl in a chair up front, and
(c) by closing all the windows so everyone can smell the un-embalmed corpse.
2. "You should have used flashbacks."
No. This is a four-minute scene. Flashbacks would disrupt/interrupt the momentum. As I said, the crimes are not the story. Preacher James is.
3. "Why a Sunkist crate?"
Preacher James's sermon uses "darkness" and "light" to get his points across (with allusions to James Weldon Johnson's "The Creation"). I liked the idea of putting the snake inside a crate marked Sunkist.
Final note:
I deliberately gave the little girl no dialogue except for the last line. An ordinary  6-year-child would/should be protected from knowing the grisly details and not be forced to sit in front of everyone while the smelling her father's corpse. To me, that is the horror of this story.