Beyond The Dark by Julio Weigend (ReaperCreeper) - Short, Horror - A surreal story in which a woman attempts to commit deicide with the help of a mysterious partner. 5 pages - pdf, format

It's definitely surreal.

As it's surreal it kinda is hard to follow.  In the end it's okay.

For the line:

There's a gory hole where its heart should be.

I would change its to her.

This man that is colourless and at the same time black & white, seems a tad difficult to imagine and film.

The Girl on pg 4 - the line :I can't die like this1 should be deleted as it's written twice.

There's a few spelling mistakes, nothing a quick spell-check couldn't solve.

All the best,


Javier

This was more fantastic than surreal, at least by my definition of surreal. It well written and I didn't find it hard to follow. I pretty much knew where you were going by page one so it wasn't a big surprise when I got there, but I enjoyed the dialogue and the way you described the action so I liked getting there.

I don't know if it's fair to call this a story, it's really just a scene - a well written scene though (but catch those spelling mistakes).

A successful exercise I think.

~Pete

I dug some of your imagery. The Loved One on the cross and the dead girls. It had a artsy feel to it and by artsy, I don't mean arthouse. I mean I could picture it in an old baroque painting or better yet, a Clive Barker painting, although he's a little more abstract. In fact, there was definitely a good dose of Clive Barker flavor here whether it was intentional or not. Very cool as he's one of the more underrated horror icons.

I also liked the idea of deicide although I don't think you followed through as well as you could have.

The story, I didn't get. I don't always mind being left with blanks to fill but the dialogue felt overly cryptic. There was enough that I could tell you knew what was going on in your head and didn't try to be surreal for the sake of surrealism. At the same time, I could never figure out the Man's motives. They seemed to change every page. It seems like there's a lot of betrayal going on but at the same time, it feels like his development is somewhat unstable. I don't know what he wants or how he really feels.

Frankly, I only have a vague idea of WTF happened here.

Regardless, I think this is the kinda thing that would be ruined by making it too obvious. It's pretty convoluted though. You might want to make some changes.

Hello you guys, thanks for giving this a look. I had a couple of limitations writing this. I did it as an exercise in preparation for a contest. The script has to be Horror and no more than 5 pages. I'm having a little bit of a hard time writing a decent 5 pager. I've got until February though.

Thanks for the notes, Jayrex.

Since I'm away from my home computer until the 12th, I had to use a free online screenwriting program to write this (I'm on a borrowed laptop) with no spell-checker or the like.

I *hate* laptops and would rather wait to revise this until I'm back in WI. I just want some feedback in the meantime, so thanks for reading. And the repeated line was intentional (though the number one was not --- LOL)

Pete, I'm glad it wasn't hard to follow for you. Personally, I think the story is pretty straightforward as it is, though clearly fantastic in nature, but I will wait for more reads before I decide on that.

James -- sorry it was confusing. Funny you should mention Clive Barker. I was actually going for a Lovecraft vibe, but I was reading Clive's  Weaveworld (still am -- it's damn long) during the time I was writing this. Great book. I dont's see too many fans of it in the real world, even though it has great reviews on the 'net.

The Loved One is actually a (named) character in a feature I've been working on. The same visual is used in her intro there as well -- with a bit more detail.

--Julio

Julio,

This was F**king awesome! Weird? Yeah. Disturbing? Very. This feels right at home with your other demon'esque scripts (Influence and Insanity Outcome) and I couldn't help but feel that they're somehow connected.

Sammel? Hmm. An archangel. A fallen angel. An evil spirit. Yeah, the plot was pretty easy to follow but I liked the subtle way you went about your business here.

The only real problem I had with the script was this clunky desciption on page 1:

"She lets go of the dagger, letting it fall carelessly, blankly, on the grimy floor. No sound is made."

That sounds like s***, Julio.

"She lets go of the dagger, watches it with her vacant eyes as it slowly glides through air until it lands silently on the grimy floor"...would work better imo. But, hey, that's just me.

Good work.

Cheers
Rob

I agree with James. I didn't really understand the story, but I did think it was pretty amazing visually. It reminds me of a mix between David Lynch and Tim Burton.

Since I love surreal stuff, it might be unfair that I love it so much, but I do indeed think it is something interesting and that everyone should have a look at it.

Quoted from Sniper "She lets go of the dagger, letting it fall carelessly, blankly, on the grimy floor. No sound is made." That sounds like s***, Julio.

I disagree. It's succinct and it works.

Quoted Text "She lets go of the dagger, watches it with her vacant eyes as it slowly glides through air until it lands silently on the grimy floor"...would work better imo. But, hey, that's just me.

That doesn't work better, in my opinion. It's unnecessarily long and it changes the action. In Julio's line it's clear she doesn't watch it fall at all, she lets it go "blankly" - she doesn't look at it. And "glides through the air" doesn't work because the point he is making is that the knife just drops from her hand and "bam" it's on the floor. I don't think a dramatic, potentially slo-mo action is needed here.

~Pete

We're gonna have to disagree then - to each its own. I just think it's static and passive. To me it's supposed to be a flowing motion picture instead separate still frames.

Julio

I think I read a piece of yours before which took the same surrealistic, gothic, gruesome approach. This seems to be your field and that’s cool, to each his own. Personally, this wouldn't be something I would attempt to write but I'm always open to everything and interested to see what other writers are...well...writing about. Even if it is million miles from what moves me.

I enjoyed the read for what it was but I can't say it had any lasting impression on me. I feel like I've both read and saw stuff like this many times before. The prose is the best thing about this, very rich, vivid and visual. Real power and punch behind it which effortlessly imprints the picture of the dank, grimy setting into our minds while we read, at least it did it for me anyway. The dialogue however, seemed to drag and over exert itself at times making it become more a like talking heads, telling us everything we need to know rather than actually showing us...until the final sequence of course. It was like you had to pack in all the back story, all the necessary information about what’s actually going on here to get us up to speed, before unleashing the grizzly climax, which in itself worked perfectly fine and was well written. The gory visuals again proving to be your forte.

I mean I dig the twisted, satanic sacrificing of the whole thing, it accommodates jarring, striking imagery which in turn create undeniable dramatic qualities. However, on the negative side, I think the story or mythology behind the relationship between the two characters is unoriginal and files under the "seen-it-all-before" section, there just isn't anything new here, in my opinion.

Having said that, in light of your post stating that it was written under the constraints of a specifically genre'd horror contest, its understandable. I would seriously struggle with that type of competition so I suppose I can't really criticize all that much.

Col.

As soon as I saw the word surreal in your logline, I was doing cart wheels of joy. my kind of script.

Loved it even thou it was cryptic. The story has a beautiful, grimy dream like quality with a biblical flavour. Classical story of betrayal by a trickster/devil type told in a bold nightmarish style.

  I got that Sammael was a fallen angel and the dialouge was about other fallen angels and God. I get that, but I'm very curious as to who the LOVED ONE is. Who is she? I'm fascinated and need to know. Could it be Lillith, the first wife of Adam? The daughter of God? I tried to find clues in your script but the dialouge and visuals are so vauge and elusive I just gave up.

Oh and I just finished reading Weaveworld last year. A spectacular book!  Both Clive Barker and Neil Gaimen are two amazing story tellers that I totally overlooked in the early 90's when they where publishing their works because I had my nose stuck in a endlees line of Dungeon & Dragons inspired trash fantasy novels. Uhgg, I'm such an idiot.

A beautiful girl in a room with blood-spattered walls: great image.  Very Dexter, but what can I say, it's still cool.

The girl's VO is feeling unnecessary here.  Especially "guilty of murder."  She's standing over a corpse with a knife in her hand; I think we can figure that out.  Also, a lot of it seems to be trying to be enigmatic (e.g. "my lover, my butcher, the new king), but because I really have no idea what she's talking about, it doesn't work for me, it has no effect on me.

The dialogue between the girl and the man feels to expository.  Why are they talking about things that already happened that they both know about?

"You promised I would be your queen!"  Not sure what prompts this line, where he said otherwise.  He mentions someone else he loves, but given the context, I just don't know how that means he's saying she won't be his queen.

"I do tend to break my promises."  I really like this line.  Funny, sounds like understatement.  

"Deep black holes in their chest"--visceral image.  Nice.

Don't understand why he has to kill her as the 12th instead of any random person on the street.

Great image of reviving the old woman on the cross because he's essentially resurrected her.

On the whole, this feels to me more like one scene in a larger movie, I suppose because it hints at so much else going on.  It doesn't feel contained.  

Also, I'm not sure what your point is.  That evil people are evil?  That lovers can betray each other?  I'm not sure if this this is enough to get to me, emotionally.  What are you trying to say about the human experience?

I wonder if you give us enough to relate to your main character for.  All we really know about her is that she killed 11 women for love, but we have no idea why she loves that guy, or why she wants to be queen.  I think we need to know those things to really be able to root for her, which would make the guy's betrayal that much more shocking a twist.  Actually, showing the guy seeming to really be in love with her, say, before she kills the 11th girl, would also make the ending more of a twist.

Not much to add here, you did a fantastic job with this. Very visual, with the feeling that this could easily be a scene from a feature as there's all sorts of ways to expand this.

I enjoyed the last 3 pages much more than than the first 2. The voiceover was a bit much for me and I thought it went on a bit but that's just my opinion.

Not much to complain about. For a five page horror, you can't really ask for more. Top work!

Brian

So, I helpfully amend Julio's logline, certain that "deicide" is a typo.  But instead of the usual "thanks, bert", I get a big WTF in my PM box.  Turns out that deicide is a real word -- and perhaps the coolest new word I have learned in months.  Go look it up if you are not familiar with it.

So apologies to Julio.  I told him I will read his script by way of penance -- though the concept of deicide had already made me more interested in his story.

And not only am I learning new words, early in the script, I find "intricately-designed" with its proper hyphen!  Nobody around here seems to get that kind of stuff right.  Yay, Julio.  Your English is getting so good.

This opens strong, but the excess VO drags it down a bit.  Not that it is bad, but it could easily be cut by half, keeping only the juiciest bits. Less is more with that kind of thing, Julio, particularly if you wish to evoke an atmosphere of the surreal.

I might say much the same thing with the actual dialogue.  The man explains so much that there is really not much mystery here.  Look at how much dialogue you give the girl -- I would attempt to give the man roughly the same amount, perhaps a bit more.

Then, when the "big cross" appears, I was momentarily confused as to its size.  You say it is placed before her, implying that it is small -- that perhaps the man has placed it on the table.  If it is full size, or even huge, it might be better to say that it "appears" before her.  But this is just a minor niggle.

[Spoilerish]

In the end, I really did not find this very surreal at all.  I found it fairly easy to follow, but I do wonder if your reveal of the name "Sammael" will have much resonance with those who are not inclined to perform a quick Google search.  He is certainly not a major player with a great deal of name recognition.

On the other hand, I adore "Loved One" as a name for such a creepy character -- though I feel compelled to point out that this very cool name will be lost on anyone viewing the work onscreen and not actually reading the script.

[End spoilerish]

A fine example of your work here, Julio.  You continue to improve.  This script is complete, and delightfully gruesome where you want it to be, though it could perhaps be a bit more compact in terms of the dialogue.  If you are going to bill this as a work of surrealism, there needs to be less talking.  That is my opinion.  Otherwise, it packs a nice little punch for the few pages that you are given.

I have no problems with mentioning Clive Barker in a discussion of your work.  I still remember that cigarette-monster from one of your earlier works, and though I forget the specific details, the image lingers.  You should definitely dip into his short fiction, Julio.  You would love it.    

Damn, there are too many comments. I'll go a couple at a time...

Thanks for reading, Rob. But like someone pointed out: your suggestion is too long and I was attempting to save space so as not to go over the 5 page limit. Anyhow, I'm glad you enjoyed it. In a perfect world, I'd like every read I get to be as uplifting, But alas, in order to improve honesty is required, and I admire your honesty.

Pete and Usaking, thanks for reading too. Pete, I'm glad you enjoyed the dialogue. I know some people have found it too in-your-face or what not. I guess my prior watching of Inglorious Basterds did more harm than good in this case. LOL!