It Takes A Village by Richard Russell - Short, Horror - A young couple discovers an old and forgotten Christmas village and the elf with it. 14 pages - pdf, format

Writer interested in feedback on this work

Richard, I read this yesterday and something came up work-wise, and I forgot about posting.

This is OK for the most part...good in some places, not so good in others.

Dialogue is really hit and miss here...again, really good in some places, really bad in others.

Story-wise, it reminds me of several things, while still holding some originality.  For me, it went on a little long with too little of significance happening.  It also had a strange way of being very (too) centered on the central story, if that makes any sense.  I mean, there's obviously lots going on in peeps' lives and such, but all 12 pages seemed to involve this elf and the central story here, almost to the point where it felt odd to me.

Writing-wise there are lots of examples of awkward phrasings.  Also some unfilmables that I hate seeing.  A couple things I'm going to bring up in detail, hopefully to help, definitely not to hurt.

You intro Maddie and Jeff as "20's", as many writers tend to do this with their characters.  Problem is, there is a HUGE difference between someone who is 20 and 29.  Huge difference in looks, in finances, in what they do for a living or on a daily basis. You're the writer, and you're setting the scenes here, why not set your characters' ages as well?

If you reread this, I think you'll notice that you never once set your scenes.  What I mean is that every scene starts off with a character doing something, as opposed to a visual of where we are and what the setting looks like.  For me, this is a mistake, because you're missing out on the visual writing that brings readers into your work.

Even the "Christmas Village", which is key to this story, is really never described, so that one can visualize it.

Overall, this is OK, a I said, but can use some work in all regards.  I feel like the story needs more, the characters need more, and the descriptive writing needs more.

Hope this helps.  Happy Holidays.

Christmas themed script… right time

Dialogue at the second half of p2 reads as a checklist of things we saw and obviously should remember. You've not done well this part since the live-experience feels secondary. If it's exposition, bring it to the point.

P4 eventually we seem to arrive at the theme of your story, something about that Christmas village. I do not understand what the other stuff, especially dialogues, was there for. I mean let the kids find the ornaments, establish some mood and atmosphere till they place it beside the tree. Additionally, you could easily give some shorter introduction to this Kate character that gives the needed backstory while driving the plot forward. All this could be done on p1 – IMO

(Location Kate's house isn't needed, even confusing in hindsight. I ADDED THIS NOTE HERE when I realized the different locations. Why can't they meet Kate at the house clearance, or, Kate visits them before Christmas.)

Look, this whole game with the Elf, going on later, is much more satisfying storytelling. Things move and feel entertaining.

Then, when Jeff throws the Elf in the trash that might not be the logical solution for Maddie… what she may want to be done with the figure; like, bring it out of the house.

At this point, she already got fooled by the plot, if one can say so, too often. If you could tighten and shorten the  conflict that Maddie and Elf had before, it would be way more acceptable and believable for her to let Jeff just trash it in the garage, (without seeing it with her own eyes, as here)

but as is, to her, there shouldn't be a compromise like that. At least that's how it feels to me. There was too much terror before by this little f****.

P11 How big is the Elf here? Sure, he's moving now, but, is he also bigger? Work on description here if you like. The attack is visually unclear, though, maybe you leave it to interpretation…

So, in the end, not completely sure why he took Jeff, since before, Elf was basically terrorizing Maddie.

In general, sure, this is the way how it's expected to end, and IMO, it's the right choice of ending.

Okay: All in all, this is a very long short, what by nature, needs much more rethinking, corrections, reconsidering, and all that - IMO. I pointed out a lot of things where I believe you can improve the script or consider different options. To make my review appear consistent, I only focused on those parts above. This has a reason: Between those minor things laid out by me, the script has a very valuable and entertaining feeling. Especially, you are great on concept, as I already know from the Insta-Dream script. You have a talent for choosing fresh themes and draw out interesting scenarios. It's impossible to point oout single good parts because the whole story itself is already working very well as it is and entertains me fine. It's there.

If I'd had one point, I'd definitely would suggest you to rethink -  then it'd be the first few pages. Get quicker to the strong.

We should experience that mysterious Thriller feeling,  combined with that beautiful Christmas mood, as soon as possible.

Script works fine. Good storytelling.

Have some joyful holidays.

Hey, Richard Russell this was nice little read. While I do think, the idea was pretty well developed, I do agree with dreamscale that you get in and out of scenes in some instances that seem awkward which for me affected how smoothly I was able to read the script.

I liked the ending, I don’t think it was obvious as in seeing that ending coming but I do think it was one of the most logical endings. I was surprised that, the two girls didn’t say hey this one looks like so and so, at end because any earlier would have been too on the nose. But, again, my take away nice read.

Is this just a short? Or working feature?

BLB

Hey Richard,

I would have liked a touch more description on the Christmas village - something to help visualise it.  Same for the Elf.  I could never quite get a sense of scale here.

P.5 - not a fan of how this scene is handled.  The revelation about the grandfather is delivered so off-handedly that it feels completely out of step with the rest of the conversation.  I could be wrong but to me that’s a heavy burden for Kate to have carried all this time - not to mention for Maddie to hear - at Christmas time no less…  There’s got to be a more organic way to get this info across,

Why a knife?  Seems OTT and a sudden escalation.  Is she going to stab a small plastic figurine?  Jeff throwing it away seemed much more logical.

It took me a moment to get the ending with the extra figurine. It works as it implies a similar ‘history’ with the others as victims of this witch’s curse but that angle felt a touch underplayed with the focus falling more on Maddie continually finding this Elf in random places.

I do think you’ve missed a trick in not utilizing the village and other figurines more to ramp up the chills.  Simply finding the Elf in various locations seemed a bit one note after a while and I wonder if the repetition would work on screen as you intend?

Feels like a bit of a disconnect between Jeff’s grizzly death by Elf and consequently becoming a figurine.  At the back of my mind I’m thinking - what about the blood?  The body?  You can argue magic/curse but I think there could be a smoother way to handle this without the extra hassle (filming wise) of having this tiny Elf spring to life and rip someone’s throat out.  Even if it’s luring Jeff away someplace.

I do like the idea, but the set-up feels rushed in places which doesn’t do justice to what could be a chilling payoff.

All the best,

Steve

I liked this for the most part.

I did think the unopened box became a bit much - no one was curious enough to open it for quite awhile. That didn't seem logical to me. I would get to it quicker.

This piece of dialogue:

Quoted Text KATE I was too young to see it, but my father was not a good man. I was older when my mother’s friends told me how he abused her. Aunt Ethel said my mother invoked Baba Yaga, whatever that is.

Seemed unnatural to me - they never had this conversation before and now Kate freely volunteers the information.

Richard,

First things first, I enjoyed this script, especially the ending.  I expected a more traditional "elf jumps at Maddie's throat, cut to black" ending, but you gave a clever little twist, so kudos.

Here are some notes from me, but please take them with a grain of salt:

1.  I think you could really trim the fat on this piece.  It seems like a lot of the interactions are unnecessary.  Even the first 2 scenes could be completely removed and you could just start with Maddie and Jeff setting up the tree and explaining where the box came from.  Or introduce Kate and have her provide the exposition in her later scene.  This could cut your runtime down to under 10 mins and make the piece much more likely to be filmed on a budget (i.e. fewer locations, camera setups, etc).

2.  There are no descriptions of how large the figurines and the elf are.  This made it hard to visualize the scenes.

3.  I believe this one has been mentioned earlier, but there should have been some kind of hint that Maddie's grandfather disappeared before Kate's exposition dump for a little better payoff at the end.  Also, I agree that it doesn't feel organic for her to mention "the bad year" as she currently does.

Just my two-cents.  Once again, I really enjoyed it overall and look forward to reading more of your work.

Thanks!
Brian