Junior's Farm by Roto Tiller - Short, Horror - Something's been killing off Junior's chickens...and it ain't Infectious Bronchitis. - pdf, format

The absurdity of this log line won me over right away.  The file name, however, is certainly not the wisest choice this author has ever made.

THE GOOD:  Great tone.  Marjorie falling out of her chair is great.  I love those sorts of details.  Nice, tight writing that moves well.  Several great lines throughout.

THE BAD:   You fumbled the ball right at the end.  I read those final passages of dialogue several times and still have no idea what you were going for.  And Miguel is too obvious, right from his first mention on page 2.  

bert's grade:  B    

The tone and the writing are near enough perfect. It made for a very enjoyable read.

The actual story? Not bad, but pretty forgettable. Separated from the style and energy of the writing, it's a fairly standard creature flick with no real twist or new perspective on a well worn genre.

My opinions are just that, and have been known to be wrong!

Picky bits:-
1) Didn't understand why Marjorie fell out of her chair and pulled a shelf down, fine with locking the door but the other bit didn't read right imho
2) How high is the window that a grown man needs a boost to see in?
3) Why ignore the RUSTLE when you have every reason to suspect someone has been attacked?
4) Accidentally killing his partner, again this doesn't seem natural, too contrived?

Good bits:-
1) Well crafted from a structure point of view
2) Banter between the characters pretty decent too

Rules
Budget doesn't fell very low

Overall okay but just not enough going on or any real twists to set it apart.

Anthony

I loved the pace and comedic tone of this without being at outright comedy.  

PROS: Some of the dialogue was outright hilarious, I almost lol'd (laughed out loud) a few times.  Great start to the story, had me hooked.  The tone and the writing and pace were spot on.  I really enjoyed reading this.

CONS:  The plot was pretty typical slasher/monster.  It got a little confusing at the end, especially the dialogue of "It's me. It's me." to It's him.  Don't really see this as low budget, with the gore and the many sets.

This writer has a great style and knows how to structure a story.  If I was producing a horror short I would want to produce this, needs a little work, but would be super fun to make, and fun to watch.  Great read.  I would want to see this expanded to feature length, as well.

Well crafted, a smooth read. You made a run of the mill monster hunt story interesting. The problem for me is there’s nothing new in here, no surprising twists or anything but the characters were well rounded, believable and there was a nice mix of comedy and tense action.

I started to lose interest on the last few pages and it also seems to me that you had a few more than the ‘one good make-up effect’ rule allowed but this was a solid writing effort.

-Mark

Uneasy mix of the comic and horror. The hillbilly type chars are well done and when the gore kicks in it kind of jars.

I think these type of stories are perhaps better done as full blown horror or as more comedy type and not in between. Just IMO.

Like a few other writers, adding comedy to the horror mix made this challenge more palatable as the open endedness of it with minimal parameters always produces a batch of similar straight forward reads.

Every character was distinctly inked, and the dialogue gave off some "Fargo" vibrations. I don't have too many down-checks on this, it was very entertaining.

Without a character at the helm of the story, it sorta falls flat in the plot department. That said, out of all the characters, Marge seemed like the one who could own a bigger slice of the happenings - she has direct access to the entire plot.

The writing was outstanding, some lines in there I like a lot!

+ Dialogue, characters, atmosphere
+ Balanced humor
+ Marge

- Lack of protagonist
- The vibe let go
- Predictable twist
- Kills need more meat

BONUS:

+ I'm LMAO!
- The file name

Fun characters, flows well as a read with good images and atmosphere. For some reason never felt overly tense, new characters were summoned every few pages and dispatched before we really got to know them. But nice evocation of place.

SPOILERS

The twist of Miguel being the werewolf at the end was pretty clear ever since he was name-checked on page 2, but that's okay. I still liked him as a character when he turned up.

Who put the head in the stove, and why? Might be a reference to something which I'm not picking up on.

I'd have liked to have seen Marjorie get down there and sort things out herself at the end. Might have been a neat way of tying her back into the action.

Overall, not very horrifying but fun. A good read.

Hmmm, I wonder who wrote this? Oh well, at least it should be written to a high standard. No clues as to the monster. That's disappointing.

Ah, perhaps the chickens are a clue, albeit a very subtle one.


An average story in the end. 5.5 out of 10, sorry mate.

I liked the first half a lot. The characters in the first half were fun, too bad Junior had to die such a gruesome death.

I think you could do more with these characters. Is there a way to get read of Stanley? You introduce him very late into the story - I didn't like that.
After that it got a bit messy. We see Muquel...

I wish you could compress it into a shorter up to the point story.

I liked the twist in the end. I read twists like that but yours reads like new nonetheless. Good job overal IMO.

This dialog on page 2 pretty much kills the suspense a bit:

Quoted Text I'm about to make me a werewolf fricasee...

Quoted Text STANLEY EVERS (36), square-jawed, college boy good looks, steps out. He adjusts his hat and exhales.

I'm having difficulties imagining a 36 y.o. with college boy looks here.

I liked the twist in the end as well, but I didn't understand why Charlie keeps saying 'It's me' - doesn't seem to make sense to me, when "it's" Miguel... maybe I'm misreading this.

Overall a nice, easy read.

It's mee

It's meee

It's Meeguel.


That's what it is.


He/She couldn't put "It's Mi..."  as that would give it away.

Quoted from Scar Tissue Films It's mee It's meee It's Meeguel. That's what it is. He/She couldn't put "It's Mi..."  as that would give it away.

Ahh, got it now - ignore me, I'm stupid
Thanks.

Everything about this reads pisstake

Just kidding.
Copyright 2014? do you have DeLorean with a flux capacitor?

This was a great read and flowed very easily, nothing amateur about the writing.

Whose head was in the stove, was it Murphy or someone else?
I like the twist at the end, not too sure what type of monster Miguel is but effective none the less

good job writer

Mark