Old Man Crim's Holiday Treats by A Member - Short, Horror - Not every holiday tradition is...palatable. 3 pages     A October '06 One Week Challenge entry - pdf, format

SICK!

SPOILERS MAYBE...

I can't really say this was a horror... but it was horrible and twisted. Crim is a weird character, which I liked, but it is pretty sick what happens. Also, there is only a slight mention of milk, but I guess it doesn't state in the rules how much of milk (the subject) needs to be in it.

Very well written, nothing much to do about milk, not horror but horribly twisted. Quite a good little tale of sickness this one.

Jamie

I thank god we dont have the Halloween traditions in Australia! This is certainly a very chilling tale, but yeah as parkster said, little reference to milk and although the content is horrorfying its not particularly horror.

Very well written though and i couldnt help but yell "dont take the treats kids!"

This was SPLENDIDLY disgusting. This one was awesome I thought. You do a fantastic job of setting the mood, and describing Old man Crim and his house and hobbies. Great descriptive stuff. I pictured it perfectly, (even though I didn't want to) Milk was a slight mention, but I guess he did drink it and p*ss it out, aya? So, I guess that's prudent. Maybe if the excercise was about tootsie rolls, it would have been more relevant. But man, twisted stuff. A true tale of why they always say parents should check the candy.

This was gross, and I guess if you were one of them kids it could be classified as horror cause that would truly horrify me.  

This one didn't really have anything to do with milk, it was funny, but it seems missplaced in this exercise.

I can see how this is horror -- I mean, if this dude lived next door to me, I would be pretty horrified.  Being repulsive can certainly count as horror.

But yeah, milk plays a pretty minor role here.  And I don't know about that picture at the end.  I mean, it's cute and all, but I am pretty sure you aren't supposed to do stuff like that.

I liked it pretty good, though.  A unique one, at least.

I pretty much cringed through most of the way through this.  Your writing style, whoever you are, is straightforward and descriptive.  I just wish you had worked it in somehow for old man Crim to have the tables turned on him.  Because of that this was less than satisfying but still a good read for only three pages.

Good descriptive writing, but I don't see a story here. He just does a disgusting thing, and that's it.

I love the tiny picture beneath the last Fade Out on the 3rd page. I laughed at that for a while. But wow, this was truly disgusting when I found out that he put the refined tootsie roll inside the jackolantern bucket. I literally screamed out, "Oh my God!" and I started reading faster to find out what was going to happen next, even though I already had an idea of what it was going to be.

Though, as the other people have stated before, this had little to do with milk, but, hey, at least you mentioned it!

Sean

Hey.

Quoted from MonetteBooks I don't see a story here. He just does a disgusting thing, and that's it.

I think monette is completely right.

Add that to a small usage of milk and the fact that many of us, including me, don't consider it horror and you have quite a lot of revising ahead of you.

I could picture it all though, so your descriptions of action and the setting was fine, and their is nothing to complain about with a dialogue, so fine job there.

-Tyler

CONTAINS SPOILERS

This was the first one I read. I think it's a good one for Halloween, but kinda fell short of the challenge... I too would have liked to read some kind of a twist at the end.
Idea... the milk carton was open and on the counter, maybe some poison was on top of the fridge, and it spilled over into the milk ??? He's  poisioned himself, and drops dead before giving the kids their treats. LOL
I don't know.
Congrats though. At least you wrote a script   I wasn't able to this time.

Cindy

Not really a horror, but still good. I liked the attention to detail in the way that it has been written, the descriptions are, well, descrptive without dragging on or becoming boring so kudos to the writer.

Praise Jebus we don't do Halloween down under. But then again, the children deserve it. I don't like children very much. They creep me out.


Cheers, Chism.

Got nothing to say that hasn’t already been mentioned by other readers, but I’ll try to expand on three main topics in order to -- hopefully -- offer some more detailed insight to the author.

Horror: Eating pee flavored candy might be disgusting, but it’s not terrifying. You’ve got a very sick minded character which seems capable of doing terrifying things, but he didn’t do them “on screen”. This script might be a good introduction to an horror short, but doesn’t have any horror in it right now. Work a bit more on this fellow, on the evil things he might be capable of doing; I think that could contribute to give this piece a good horror feel.

Milk: It’s got to have some relevant part to play in the story. The point of the exercise was to come up with a story in which “milk”, or something closely related to it, could be scary. In this current draft, “milk” isn’t important to the story; the reference to it seems circumstantial. The main character could have drunk anything in order to pee.

Story: There isn’t any conflict in this piece; I think that’s what could have lead other readers to mention that this short lacks in the story department. You’ve got a character that does something naughty, and a bunch of kids who doesn’t realize what this guy did. Find a way to have different characters with different interests/goals and make them “fight” to achieve them; that’s conflict (i.e. the kids’ parents find out what Old man Crim is doing and come after him, but he has some surprises for them as well, etc.)

I can see some potential for a good OWE entry here, bur right now I feel like it needs a bit of work. Hope I helped.

I enjoyed this little tale in a twisted frenchkiss-my-grandma sort of way.  There was some gothic horror element to it, I thought.  Your brief mention of milk didn't do anything for me, though.

You could tighten this script a little bit.  You put in a lot of detail which could be taken out.  If this was filmed, I wouldn't see it running anymore than ninety seconds.


Phil

You could have had it be rotten milk that he drinks, then pisses out, then dips the chocolate into.  Oh yeah.  Would have involved the milk theme a bit more.

Anyway, this script has given me a fantastic idea.  Some day I hope to do something like this--to just one kid.  I'll have a bowl full of candy to give out-one of which has been tainted-and give it to some unlucky child.  Oh man.  Haha.

Nice concept.  Not much on horror or milk, but a good idea, nevertheless.