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Harold and the Minion by Kirsten James - Short, Comedy, Horror - Harold thinks he got away with murder, until a Demon in the afterlife proves him wrong. 14 pages - pdf, format
Kirsten, Thoroughly enjoyed reading this. My only feedback would be to re-look at the Flashback sequence. Is it really required? Sort of dumbs it down for me. And it still flows well if you jump over the flashback. But this is coming from someone who is a total newbie to script writing.
Bit of a drawn out mother-in-law skit, but I like the basic notion that Aamon, the Devil’s minion, isn’t sure what to do with a guy who murdered his own mother-in-law.
Some amusing dialogue from Aamon and I could see actors having fun with this. Reader wise (at least for me) it starts to drag on the actual story towards the mid point and getting to Aamon’s questions. After that it kind of drifted into a series of bluffs/double bluffs which felt like you weren’t quite sure where to take it and hedged your bets with a bit of everything. So both Harold and Joan end up in Hell anyway..? At 13 pages it feels stretched for what it is.
Hope this helps,
Steve
My short scripts can be found here on my new & improved budget website:
Kirsten, Thoroughly enjoyed reading this. My only feedback would be to re-look at the Flashback sequence. Is it really required? Sort of dumbs it down for me. And it still flows well if you jump over the flashback But this is coming from someone who is a total newbie to script writing.
Hi - I blinked between first and second scenes as well b/c there's wasn't info in slugline about passage of time. I read a lot about how Hollywood hates flashbacks, but did you consider placing scene in the middle of the script where there's an ah ha moment and Harold is considering his answer to minion's question? Except for that one blink, it was a very easy read. Good story!
Thanks heaps for the read! Yes I think what I might need to do is use supers to indicate where we are in the timeline to make it clearer. The flash back is there for fun and added character development. I like imagining Seeing his wife looking strangely at him while he is going on and on so obviously in his sleep about murdering his mother in law. (I made it that way for the humorous irony of it. He's always down on his luck even when it comes to keeping a secret.)
"Turn that off, our friend has just been killed in a fatal sunlight accident!"....