Cold Call by Mike Shelton ()  (OWC name - Torene Ostrovsky)  - Short, Thriller - During a routine call, a telemarketer overhears a woman's screams and decides to investigate. As he gets further into his search, he finds that the woman he thinks he heard has been missing for six months.   August '07 One Week Challenge entrant. - pdf, format

This story was fairly clichéd, but I liked it. Nothing special, just your average, run-of -the-mill ghost Thriller. I didn't like how you quickly established Sharon as a good ghost so early on. That just drained all the scaryness away and it turned cheesy. I thought the killer was kind of boring. Bad guys should be a bit more interesting than that. And this had little to do with the boat. I liked it though. I only hope you didn't think of it as an exceptional piece when you wrote it. It was your average Hollywood formula Thriller.

--Julio

I agree with julio on this one. It wasn't amazing, but it wasn't terrible either.

The story isn't anything new. Just another ghost story.

You're format is good. no complaints there.

Same with you're descriptions. Everything looks good.

You're characters are bland and boring. I didn't like or care about any of them.

As Julio said above, this had very little to do with the boat, but I'm not gonna go on about that.

Overall a nice try. definetly better then the last script I read.

~Zack~

Why'd the clerk say, "that's gotten us nowhere." Where was he trying to get filing the police report?

How come Marshall responds so calmly after seeing an apparition in his bathroom mirror? I think he'd panic, at least initially. I think Marshall needs a little more motivation to start chasing visions. He goes along the goose chase too easily.

Why'd he suddenly get scared of her? Marshall's reactions are all over the place.

The end is a little long winded. You could have ended it with them on the shore watching the boat.

Decent story, well written.

Joseph

Where is the boat? lol.

Interesting characters, but I found myself bored after a couple pages.  

Good format,etc.

Overall, not bad at all.

Frankly, I didn't like it.

I had a problem with Marshall's motivation, he hears what sounds like a case of domestic abuse and decides he better leave work, pick up and go check it out? Who does that? Why didn't he call the police?

I had a problem with Sharon's motivation. She let him hear what he needed to because she knew that he would listen? She doesn't have family of friends that would listen? Her best hope was a random telemarketer?

Marshall had no reaction to communicating with the dead. I know I for one would be freaked out, confused, something.

Some of the dialog was really cliche, " I'm just a telemarketer." " No, your a hero" .

Lastly and most seriously, the name Stovepipe doesn't work. I love the name Stovepipe. Its perfect for a lovable hobo drifter that teaches you life lessons but thats the problem. This guy is a murdering rapist, not Stovepipe of "The Rail Car Adventures of Stovepipe the Hobo"  

Some good things were your formating, your actions and descriptions were pretty good. I kind of liked Marshall even though I did understand why he was doing all this stuff. I adored Stovepipe, although I wasn't suposed too.

So all in all, didn't like it, realize its hard too write with the time restraints but it could have been better. If you worked on it, you could flesh it out into something I'd like...
More Stovepipe would be nice.

Sorry, buddy, but this was pretty generic. Typical "vengeful ghost" story. Sharon was pretty cliche with the pointing without talking. It's been done. I had a good idea what Marshall was going to find well before he was able to uncover Sharon's body. There was definitely a formula here and that for me was the problem. The characters were pretty bland. The only one who seemed to be developed was Sharon and she really didn't sound all that likeable. Marshall seemed to exist only for the story to act upon him. He was quite bland. I did feel for him, to an extent, but only because of his seemingly hollow existence and profession. Telemarketer has got to be the worst job ever. Still, others might hate him for that reason alone. I also don't understand what would prompt him to act upon any of this, especially after what he's told about Sharon. I also don't buy that an average joe like Marshall would decide to burn a boat with a man still inside just because a voiceless spirit instructed him too. There should probably be a stronger connection between him and Sharon.

The writing itself was good and read smoothly and the story isn't exactly bad but it's formulaic as hell, which prevented me from enjoying it. While not everything here was a cliche, I do think there was a serious lack of innovation here.

the story didn't peak my interest except for the beginning. the beginning sequence was quite funny and when Marshall attacks the guy holding the garabage bags. But other than that, the story didn't thrill and didn't involve a boat that much. the dialgoue was there but needs more work.

Hope this helps,
Gabe

I believe you attempted a supernatural thriller, the only problem is that you tell me too much too quickly, and this is when it started to lose my interest – too much too soon.
i LOVE SUPERNATURAL THRILLERS AND I SUPPOSE I SET HIGH EXPECTATIONS.
I did think it was a wonderful attempt and rewriting this piece with a little more suspence would turn it into a good little story.
Thank you for allowing me to share your script.

Premise: Quite interesting. The cold calling twist on the serial killer movie was a good one I thought. 7/10

Relation to Theme:  Very tenuous use of the boat, but the genre is solid enough I suppose   6/10

Story: A little down the beaten path so to speak. Very typical ghost story with the ghost appearing to help out and lead the way. I think it would have been better withoutthe supernatural elements personally. It was also a little too remioniscent of the Vanishing. Not bad though.  5/10

This was okay. I think it could have been told more excitingly. With the way it was written, it just basically told us what was happening as though it was just recalling the sequence of events, not like it was telling us an exciting story.

For example, after Marshal hears the screams suddenly stop and he’s hung up on, we’re told what he physically does - look up her address and write it down - but we’re not shown the drama of the situation. Instead of: Marshall writes the address down and quickly exits. It should be something more like: Marshall frantically scribbles the address on a slip of paper and recklessly rushes off.

The writing was fairly succinct. But it lacked punch.

You can economize with things like the line; the interior is plain - we already know from the slugline that we’re in the interior. You could just say; plain. Remember; your slugline is descriptive too.

I’m not sure why we even open with Marshall eating breakfast at his home. It wasn’t exciting and it didn’t enhance the story. At the very least, it could have been condensed. You could cut some of the more extraneous stuff and punch up the descriptions of actions.

Now to a few plot items:

The big question is; why didn’t Marshall call 911 in the first place? It didn’t make sense for him to just run off to investigate himself. For example, if Marshall had called the police - which would be the logical believable action - of course, the police would have found out what Marshall did at the apartment place and you still would have ended up in the same place, but with more credibility and more drama.

Sharon popping up in the mirror when it closed was awfully clichéd. It’s overused for a reason I guess. Still, it was awfully familiar feeling.

The shovel at the gravesite was just too convenient. I mean, what are the odds? Sharon would have been killed 6 months earlier. It’s inconceivable that Stovepipe (what a name) would leave a shovel right by the grave of his victim all that time. Really, Marshall needs to find a shovel himself somehow, even if he has to sneak up to Stovepipe’s boat and steal it.

Some of the dialogue was stale. This has some good writing in it. You just need to punch it up. As it is, it’s quite bland. So it’s got potential but it needs bite.


Breanne

This was a thriller but the boat wasn't really used at all, so I don't think it quite fit the challenge.

I think Marshall would have first called the cops after hearing what he did on the other end of the phone other than going down there himself, just seems like what someone would do.

I really liked the start of this script, all the people pissed off at the telemarketer, there was some good writing there.

I liked the ghost story element, reminded me of stir of echos in a way, finding the body so the soul can rest kind of thingy.

The climax was a bit anti climatic foe me, it just seemed a little too routine.

This was well written, but I think more time spent on stovepipe would have helped a bit.

I really liked the premise of this and it had moments of brilliance; however, it also had some flaws which need fixing.

How did he hear her after "The Man" hung up?  Even though it's supposed to be supernatural, we don't know that in the beginning and so it doesn't make sense.

At the point where I got confused, I had to go back and read it and of course that didn't help.

So that kind of thing is of course frustrating.

Also, it doesn't make sense that he'd follow the guy out with the garbage bags.  I think instead he would have been sneaking up to Sharon's room.

Finally, Sharon is a ghost.  She may be able to do a lot of things with telepathy, but she can't untie ropes.  This bothered me.

But what bothers me most is that I love this script and it just misses the mark with some little problems that could have easily been fixed.

One typo:

>he hold the headset at away from him

I honestly, would love to see this at the movies.

I've had a few favorites in this challenge and this is definitely one of them.

Good job!

Sandra

First off I'd like to thanks everyone for reading.  I just checked to confirm, and as of this writing, this was the second least viewed script, at least thread wise.  Yay.

Seems that most people have felt that this was alright, but kinda "meh", which is fine.  I really couldn't expect peopel to feel anything more for the story than I did myself.  That's right, even I the writer thought this was just "meh".

Not that I didn't enjoy the concept when I came up with it, because I really did.  It's just that I made the mistake of taking this concept and trying to cram it into a 15 page short when it would be much better suited for a feature.

All those little questiosn about why he didn't go to the police or his boss and all thought could have been easily answered, and I could have spent more time on Stovepipe, the evil rapist kidnapping hobo.  More pages eliminates all of the comments regarding too much too quickly, at least in my opinion.

Oh well, it's my own fault.

Anyway, a few responses to some things that were mentioned in previous reviews.

Breanne,

I opened the script with Marshall in his apartment because I wanted to add a little bit to his loser persona.  I'm sure I could have cut it out and went right into him on his way to work, or even with him just at work, but I wanted to give him just a little more devlopment.

The shovel at the gravesite wasn't there because Stovepipe had left it out for six months.  The reason it got there is more in tune with how Sharon wrote the message on the mirror and Marshall's paper.

Jordan,

The boat was used, which was all that was required.  It fit the challenge.

I battled back and forth with him calling the police.  I know there's a logic factor there, definitely, but I just couldn't justify continuing the story if he had done that.  At least not at the time.  I have been able to figure a few things out since then though, so if I ever decide to extend this thatt'll be taken care of.

Sandra,

The man didn't hang up the phone.  He slammed it down, but did it so hard that it didn't stick and just sat on the table, open for Marshall to hear everything.  Hope that makes sense.

The garbage bag thing was just something that's in line with my style.  A small gag, if you will.  He sees this suspicious looking character come out of the building, has a horrible thought that he killed the girl and cut up her body and decides to confront him.  Only problem is it's just a guy taking out his garbage, and Marshall is still a loser.

Sharon was only able to physically touch things after Marshall had dug up her body.  It's like a sense of completion.

Glad you loved the script.  I think the things you had problems with and missed the mark are easily fixable.

Thanks again to everyone for reading.

Good job Mike.

The concept was clever.  The script could benifit from some expansion but I think with a little work this could be an excellent script.

The main problem I had with this script was that I didn't believe Marshall would chase after this woman.  Why did he do it?  I think he needs more motivation.  If he had more of a reason for his actions then the rest of the script would be more powerful.

This is only a nit but if someone was not paying their phone bill for six months their phone would be disconnected and their number probably assigned to another customer.

There was one piece of dialogue I thought didn't work.  

I’m just a telemarketer.

It made me laugh at a time when the tone should have been serious.

Overall, well done.