Maggots by Jordan Wiebe (theboywhocouldfly) - Short - One day, out of the blue, something terrible is happening to the planet earth.  Maggots are taking over. 8 pages - pdf, format

Thought I'd check this out. The title is simplistic in a way that makes it appealing. Like Snakes On A Plane, you know exactly what you're going to get. Fortunately, you didn't disappoint.

There doesn't seem to be a solid plot. Instead, a random series of events all connected to the central theme of maggots taking over the world. Normally, this would be a problem but I felt it worked well in the context of the style you're writing. I think as a feature length, this would probably not work but in a bite-sized 8 pages, it works very well. I didn't much care for the toilet scene. It was a bit too raunchy for my tastes. Not that I'm easily offended but poop and fart jokes are so tired nowadays. Can't really complain though. When the teacher vomited maggots in front of her whole class, you basically had me hooked. The dinner scene was just okay though I really liked the bar scene. Nice play on words there. The final scene was my favorite. Not like the rest at all. I felt it had a very dark, apocalyptic feel to it and your descriptions for it were excellent. All in all, a solid, entertaining read with some great splatter. Good job, Jordan.

Thanks for the read James.  Yeah, this would be a disaster as a feature.  I got the idea last week when I went to feed the dogs, and I opened up a can of dog food, there was a hole in it, and when I opened it it was swarming with maggots, I dropped the can and almost gagged, the sight of the maggots and the smell of the dog food almost made me hurl, then I got this idea.  I know this is absolutly disgusting, the grossest thing I have ever written, and the grossest thing I will probably ever write, but I felt I just had to do it.   Anyways, thanks again for the read.

I wanted to check out a quick read and so this one caught my eye...

Basically, it wasn't very good. It "to coin a phrase out of your script" sucked... I see a slew of random events and just a mesh of, absurdly over the top, gore scenes that depict one picture to me ----> "TO DISGUST"

That's about it.

The validity in your point was well received, though. I don't think you wrote this script with Oscar or cohesive in mind and for that it has a leg to stand on, I suppose.

It reminded me of Worms a bit... Only, with 8 minutes of gore.

In closing, you write sharp and everything is laid out well. I think that is what's important in this case.

Hey Jordan,

good work as always!

good dialogues, excellent way to describe the action!

It's always a pleasure to read your work!

Love the bar scene! Really good dialog! And as James said, the apocaliptic end was good! I liked it!

Good writing! Keep it up!

thanks for the reads.

baltis, yeah, this is a gross out script, I was inspired, then I wrote it, I thought about it for a couple of days and it was still stuck in my head, sorry you didn't like it, hopefully my next one will be a lot better

rpedro, glad you liked it, I have never written a plain good ole fashioned gross out script before, some of it even made me a little sick...LOL, but I just, for some reason, felt I needed to write it.

I started with the ending, the worked backwards, and instead of having a usual plot, I decided to put these events together.

thanks again you two for the read.

Hey Jordan, never read anything from you (I think) so I decided to take a look at this one. I read what other posters had to say about this, and agree with some of the comments posted.

I guess I'm standing in the border between Like-it-Land and Hated-it-Land. It starts quite good; the opening is quite grabbing. But after that, it gets repetitive. Characters and locations change, but dramatically, scenes are identical: some funny situation or bits of dialogue between characters, and then maggots start coming out from one of their holes.

Once you establish the maggots are taking over (two scenes would be enough, IMO) you need to work on another angle to keep the reader fully interested (i.e. What was the cause of this attack? A military experiment gone wrong? Alien maggots? Are there any survivors? Why are they inmune?).

Of course, the questions written above are just examples which may or may not interest you. My point is: once you establish the main concept, find another angle to work on to avoid becoming repetitive.

I did enjoy the read though. Some bits of dialogue were quite amusing.

Hope that helps.

Who could resist a title and logline like that?

Well, lots of people, probably.  But not me.

No real spoilers here:

*  I didn't know the capital of Canada haha.  I do now.
*  The bathroom scene was well-written -- for what it was -- with a nice eye to detail.
*  I doubt the news reporters would apologize for interrupting with that kind of breaking news.  The drunks were pretty funny, though.  "Faggots" the guy says.  I laughed at that.

This is little more than a series of vignettes, so as far as story structure, I don't have much for you.  But you know what?  I did like this one -- even though I really couldn't tell you why.

  

Jordan,

This is wacked.
Not a story per se, but as Bert mentioned, a series of vignettes.
Taking it in that context, it was a quick, fun and nasty read.
I liked the school scene best, probably because I didn't know what the puke was happening.
Till it got down and dirty.
Plus we stayed with that scene a bit and I could really get into the students' dilemma.
I'm sure this was more exercise than anything else, but are you planning to develop this?

I also liked the bar scene and some of the dialogue between the drunks.
And that maggot-blowout going on around the drunks.
For what you intended, it was a slippery, skid-mark stained ride.  
And the lesson I learned at the dinner table -- Watch the swearing and protect thy nuts.
Haha and cough cough.

Thanks for the read you guys.

Yeah Mr. Z, I figured this was a like it or hate it, this is definatly not for all tastes, but I am glad you were able to like some of it

Bert, I figured I wouldn't hide what it's about, the title says it all, I'm sure it will attract some and turn off more.  Shame shame for not knowing the capital of Canada  --just kidding, most people outside of Canada don't, that was my little geography lesson for the script, you get grossed out, but you learn something, I think this should be read in schools all across the united states

Abe, I never planned on making this into a feature, I think it would be pretty hard since the villians(the maggots) have no real personality and it would just drag on, but I did think it worked for a short.

I did have some other scenes in there which I took out, one was too similar to the remake of the fly, and if you've seen it then you know exactly which scene I'm refering to, but instead of one maggot, it was gonna be hundres of thousands of them, it was either that scene or the dinner scene, I went with the dinner scene becasue it kinda made me laugh, that conversation is actually a real one, when I was like 10 or 11 I tripped and accidntaly grabed this girls tits, then she kneed me right in the nuts, damn that hurt, so I decided to put that little story in here.

thanks again for the reads you guys

Hey Jordan this was awesome!  

Lots of fun gore and toilet humor here and your descriptions are fearless. I don't think I've read anything on here that actually mentioned the skidmarks.  The gore was great, the dialogue was excellent, if only everything here could have been weaved together then that would of really made this a complete piece.

A couple criticisms,
*You don't need to give the anchors an age.  They're minor characters and stuff, plus to be an anchor then you're an adult, so the age isn't really necessary.
*At first I was skeptical about using "thousands of maggots" but after your conclusion I retract my statement.
*Along with having the maggots take over the world, I think it would have been cooler to have a reason.  Something simple but clever, like if you don't wipe your A** well enough then you'll be infected.  It's gross, funny, kinda fits with the story haha.

Overall it was immensely entertaining!  I was cracking up all the way through.  Nothin' like a comedy with fat guys taking craps, skidmarks and maggots eating everybody.  Truly awesome work  

Hey Jordan,
I've never read anything of yours before, I don't think, so I had no clue what this would be like. Your format was good enough to me and there were not too many typos.

SPOILERS:

I thought the classroom scene was pretty good and I was happily reading along. Then came the restroom scene and I have to be honest with you, that one did not work for me. I'm not into bathroom humor I guess. I think the only time I've laughed at something along those lines was watching Dumb & Dumber.

The dinner scene was better than the restroom scene, but the characters (except for the mom) were quite unpleasant so I didn't really care what happened to them. I have to say though, I did kind of enjoy the eyeballs being pushed out of their sockets by the maggots.

I wasn't too crazy about the gore on the television, seemed a little over the top.

Not too bad for a short though, you did succeed with grossing me out and I think that was your intention.

Thanks for the read you two

Greg, I been trying to think of a way that the maggot infestation started, something in the food suply or some kind of sexualy transmitted desiese, (but then how would the kids get it, most kids aren't having sex, well at least I hope not), when I re-write this I will try and come up with a better explanation.  Glad you enjoyed it

Pia, you read my other short, the one with the gangsters and the kid with IBS.  I know the resstroom scene was gross, probably one of the grossest things written on this site, I just wanted to see how far I could go, I did hold back a little, it was even a little more disgusting(if that's possible)

thanks again for the reads

Hey Jordan,


SPOILERS




This one left me scratching my head. I think it needs a beginning.... Maybe a landfill nearby with an infestation of flys. Maybe show the flys landing on people as they sleep or maybe they're at the grocery store, walking all over food... I don't know.
Although you showed each character's infestation in a different way, the people around them only screamed...  I think I would split, and do it quick.

On the other hand, the format as I remember, was pretty good, and the dialogue was entertaining.

I just would have liked to known why this was all happening so I could feel a sense of completion at the end.  

Cindy

Thanks for the read Cindy.

I know it really doesn't have a beginning, I just kinda wanted to start it off with a Bang, maybe if I had the teacher like swatting flies while she's talking to the class or something, I'll try and figure something out.

Thanks again