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SimplyScripts Screenwriting Discussion Board    Unproduced Screenplay Discussion    Horror Scripts  ›  Misfortune Moderators: bert
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  Author    Misfortune  (currently 5302 views)
Don
Posted: April 25th, 2005, 9:44am Report to Moderator
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So, what are you writing?

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Misfortune by Oney Mendoza - Horror, Thriller - A doctor and his family agree to house-sit for old friends of theirs in the boonies, but the trip is cut short when the family realizes that SOMEONE is watching and waiting...waiting for the screams to begin and the blood to flow.  - doc, format


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Oney.Mendoza
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Hi,

   I'm the writer of Misfortune. Geeze...I had the most difficult time writing this, it has almost taken a year. Out of all my scripts, I believe that this is the most accomplished one of them all. So, please...anyone read it and give it a quick review. Thanks.

-ONEY


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bert
Posted: April 27th, 2005, 7:31pm Report to Moderator
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Not bad at all.  It is easy to tell the difference between a knocked-off story and someone who actually took some time.  Your hard work shows, and I really wanted to see what happened to these folks.  Some feedback (and lots of spoilers):

I hated finding what was "presumably Leigh" in the closet.  How is anybody supposed to know this, particularly since he has been an elusive, faceless, menacing presence throughout?  And why set up this great character without so much as a shout-out?  Give him something TO DO in this house, with these characters!  The "wild-card" possibilities for this guy are endless.  

Some stretches of dialogue are a bit talky, particularly when characters are rehashing events for one another that we, the viewer, have already "seen".  This slows things down.  I recall a really long one in the middle, in the bathroom or something.  Consider trimming them up.  

You simply cannot have Mitch just leave Josh lying there in the rain.  This revenge-crazed lunatic is going to blow him off while he is at his most helpless?  Josh needs to escape or something instead.

Kudos for "setting up" the lock-picking earlier in the script.  Everybody likes a set up that pays off later, especially when you don't see it coming.

Thanks for the good read.


Hey, it's my tiny, little IMDb!
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Oney.Mendoza
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Thanks Bert for the first review.

   I did have a short sequence w/ Leigh in the house before the closet scene, but I cut it. I cut about 25 pages of the script and it was still too long in the long run. Leaving Josh in the woods, yeah...I just couldn't get "rid" of these characters too fast and I really didn't want him to intercept with what was happening with Tatum. Oh and yes, the dialogue, I know, it is WAY TOO talky and a bit much, but I wanted the whole family/friends to get involved the same way and not be like "oh, they know" without having any dialogue explaining it.

  I have a question though, do you or anyone think that the killer's motive is reasonable?

 Thanks again for reading it.


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AsianBoyToy
Posted: April 30th, 2005, 12:25am Report to Moderator
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Oness, I'll read this later, and give you a review on it.
Holla, JoEy
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bert
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Yes, the killer's motive is quite reasonable.  But maybe they are just a little TOO friendly up front.  Perhaps their visit can be more of a reconciliation as opposed to a meeting of old friends.  But you don't have to give alot of details about the nature of their previous falling out, of course.

My story is finally up, and it, too, takes place on a secluded farm.  It's called "The Farm".  You might be interested in giving it a look when you have the chance.


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George Willson
Posted: May 4th, 2005, 12:28am Report to Moderator
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I read through this today. I'll post a more complete review tomorrow because I took a lot of notes to sift through, but here's the overview.

Disclaimer: this commentary reflects my opinon and mine alone. As I dish it out, I can also take it. If I say I don't like something, I will give a reason, and I would expect anyone else to do the same for me. Everyone has an opinon, and everyone has a reason for having it. Share both.

Overall, I think the concept is great, and I think the idea is well worth working on. I also think the script needs a lot of work.

WARNING, THIS CONTAINS SPOILERS!! PLEASE AVOID UNTIL YOU HAVE READ THE SCRIPT!!







Act one went pretty well. There a couple of hiccups here and there on the level of believability and a setup (in the hayloft) that never paid off. The character setup and backstory for Kayla was good, but everyone else seemed a little thin.

Act two was really creepy. I liked the faceless guy appearing in various places and being genreally mysterious. This group of people has a serious comunication problem, though. No one believes anyone else despite clear prior evidence. There's a prowler on the loose, but when I hear bumps in the night and get creepy phone calls, I'll keep it to myself. Some other believability issues as well.

HERE'S THE SPOILED SECTION.

Act three is where some real problems began. The focus suddenly changed from creepy guy from our past to these lovely people who are supposed to be our friends.

While the twist is clever, it doesn't come off real well, and the script almost looks like it got rewritten right after the line when Peyton says he's here. Creepy guy is killed right away and never does anything to anyone which is a real letdown after all the creepiness in the previous two acts. The victims are alternately taken prisoner or killed, and the method used to determine whether they will die or not is unknown. They are left alive for awhile and then killed. Josh manages to escape death TWICE before he gets it (once by getting hit with the flat side of th axe head!?). Peyton captures Kayla and then goes outside without killing her, which is completely contrary to the point of revenge. Instead of running, Kayla hides out in the car and the freaks somehow find her.

Then the point of the whole thing goes the way of George Romero; kill 'em all and take no prisoners. True, endings are personal preference, but personally, I like it when SOMEONE lives, so I don't feel cheated out of the whole thing. I hated the ending of Night of the Living Dead, because I just thought, "What was the point?" However, that a very slanted opinion, and some people like Little Shop Of Horrors endings.

I liked acts 1 & 2 on the whole, but act three just fell apart. If I had to make a suggestion on improving the plot regarding the killer side of things, it's ok that Leigh is out of jail, but I believe it would be far better to have the real killers doing the stalking, and show Leigh at Murray's mostly incapacitated, making it impossible for him to have done anything. It would make the revenge plan more believable.

I'll give a complete review, including the specific parts (and page numbers in my version of Word) that I feel deserve special attention tomorrow.



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George Willson  -  May 4th, 2005, 12:38am
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I respect your criticism and your suggestions.

 Truthfully, I had no idea how I would end it. Yeah, some other backstories on other characters were edited out, it slowed the story down a bit. The ending with Leigh, I guess I wanted a surprise w/ the script and have a motive for Peyton and Mitch instead of Leigh, because they're the ones who ended up dying. Another draft might be in the works in the upcoming months.

 Thank you for your thoughts George.


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George Willson
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Brace yourself.

And now, the moment you've been waiting for. My complete review. My disclaimer remains in full effect, and as I have previously stated, I like the story; just needs work, in my humble opinion.

WARNING!!! THE FOLLOWING REVIEW DISCUSSES THIS SCRIPT IN PAINSTAKING DETAIL. SPOILERS AHEAD! AVOID UNTIL YOU HAVE READ THE SCRIPT OR IF YOU LIKE TO KNOW THE ENDING BECAUSE YOU THINK YOU MIGHT DIE FROM THE FLAT SIDE OF AN AXE HEAD BEFORE YOU GET TO THE END.







Believability: if you can't suspend your disbelief, it doesn't matter how cool the plot is. Here are my observations for when unbelievable things happened. 1 point off for each event.

Pg.1-5: Opening dialogue is a little brazen for children in the back seat of their parents' car with their parents driving. The language alone made a "R" rating in the first 5 pages, and most children, even college aged ones, don't use R-rated language around their parents. Some do, sure, but IMO, it dropped the believability from the beginning.

Pg 18: So, Ben is concerned about drugs, but the BJ's from the sorority girls are okay?

Pgs 24-25: So Kayla sees a broken window, screams, and cleans it up. She tells no one, no one helse hears the glass break, and no one hears her scream?

Pg. 39: Ben tries to get rid of the cops after his wife sees someone at the window and word of a prowler? Odd. And then he tries to talk her out of his existence. Sure the guy in jail may be hard for them to believe but a general prowler would be believable.

pg 43: So no one hears the ringing phone?

Pg 46: So Kayla is scared to death from a dream and a phone call, and the first thing she does is walk into the woods alone.

Pg 54: Making me crazy; why isn't Kayla telling them about what she has seen?

Pg 104: They may be totally psychotic, but destroying their own car instead of using their keys to open the door and drag her out?         



Plot: The heart of the script and the events the characters follow. Again, 1 point off for each event.

Pg 62: Classic scene from "A Nightmare on Elm Street"; unfortunately it seems out of place since Kayla was just packing her clothes in a panic. Panicked people don't normally take a bath in a place that freaks them out due to the vulnerability issue.

Goosebumps on pg 72; the downside: it took 72 pages to get goosebumps.

Pg 76: I wanna know where the secret passages are in the house... this guy is going all over the way without being seen. He is in and out of the bathroom with mom banging at the door earlier, and other similar brain teasers throughout.

Pg 77: Let's think, there's a killer out there. Instead of taking the road where it's wide open, let's go through the woods; nothing EVER happens in there. (3 things in this script so far)

Pg 81: So Kayla left the house with Scott so he could leave her alone in the woods and she would turn back around to go to the house alone?

Pg 84: Where'd Kayla get the candle?

Pg 95: Mitch takes prisoners, but decides to kill Scott. I thought they were just going after those involved.

Pg 98: Why is Peyton trying to kill Tatum when before she was a prisoner?

Pg 98: Peyton is chasing after Tatum while chilling outside, but Kayla is STILL alive in the attic. What is she being saved for?

Pg 101: Hits Josh with the flat side? I thought they wanted to kill everyone...or wait, they want to take prisoners...no, kill 'em all.  

Pg 102: The plank "Ladder" on the roof...I'm not sure what this is or why it is there. I have never seen this sort of occurrence on any house. I believe it needs some kind of setup before this payoff.

Pg 105: Hey, there's Tatum...wait, I thought Mitch had Tatum (see Pg 100)

Pg 107: We're going to get them. I want them dead. Well, if you killed them when you had the chance, it wouldn't be so hard.

Pg 108: Trips over a mound of rope...hm, the rope could use a setup; maybe she ALMOST trips over it on the way up.

Pg 109: If Tatum was going to serve no further purpose beside giving someone Kayla can chatter with so late in the game, why wait so long to kill her?

Pg 111: Again, using the non-threatening end of the axe. Why?         

Most of the hits were from Act 3, since your first two acts were really good.

TO BE CONTINUED...



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George Willson  -  July 12th, 2005, 6:01pm
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REVIEW CONTINUES...SPOILER WARNING IN FULL EFFECT!





Dialogue: The characters have gotta communicate and work well in themselves.

Overall, dialogue was mostly well written and easy to read. There were a couple of weak points and others have commented on its occasional talkiness, but it doesn't get too excessive in my opinion.

Pgs 51-53: Repeat of a lot of info we already know. Good use to cut out most of it and leave only the new stuff about the town hating them. Just a hint that the topic is breached is enough to let the audience know that Scott will emerge fully informed.

Pg 67: Tatum: "There AREN'T any nearby neighbors." In 67 pages, she makes 1 grammactical error?

Pg 72: "THERE AREN'T any knives anywhere..." Same deal with the grammar.

Pg 88: "Don't move or I will cut you into blocks." Into blocks? Huh?          


Characters: Gotta love 'em or we don't care. Since characters are built throughout the script, this is more objective based on my opinion and the genre and type of story we're dealing with.

Interesting backstory for Kayla and how it affects her family.

No real backstory for Scott at all besides that he is guy stereotype.

Most everyone else was given a very minimal backstory, but as the genre doesn't require much, it worked all right for me. It could have used some more meaningful character interaction to build these people's relationships since the loss when people started getting hacked lacked something. Basically, rather than discussing the issue at hand forensically (as it almost always was), they need to relate the plot to themselves and how it affects them in their relationships and history. In this way, we more fully understand who these people are and what they are going through.          


Format/Description: Has nothing to do with the story, but just the blueprint for the filmmakers and us poor saps reading it.

First, the dialogue is running all the way to the right margin instead of being about 3 to 3 1/2 inches wide. Distance from the left margin is fine.

Pg. 8: Out of being polite, Ben laughs. Can't see it, but we can see "Ben laugh politely."

Pg 26. Kayla and Scott reach an open door. Which door? Front door? Coat closet?  

Pg 57: "Something from inside CRASHES to the ground" I understand the mystery, but can we get a description of what this crash sounds like?

Pg 93: Presumably Leigh? This is the blueprint, is it or isn't it him? "A MAN" works fine for the moment if you don't want to tell.

Pg 96: holds him in place as he dies. But wait! He's not dead yet! Hack him some more. Okay, now he's dead.      

Those were the most glaring. Some other minor things existed throughout, but I was able to figure them out or they weren't so bad.



Other Stuff I liked or wanted to say something about.

Fair amount of decent scare tactics; typical of a horror script. I like the man showing up in shadow everywhere. Especially nice in the dark kitchen on pg 43.

Pg 96: Sweet payoff with the lock pick story.  

Pg 102: Ah, who can forget "The Shining"?

Pg 107: I was waiting for the hayloft payoff with Tatum in the barn. Got disappointed.

I like the plot twist with Peyton and Mitch being the bad guys and building it up with the old memories with Leigh.

However, the weak point of this was Leigh was Mr. Creepy in the first 2 acts and then was knocked off unceremoniously in the third. For this plot to work, I believe that Peyton and Mitch would need to be close-by with their cell phone. They would need to be Mr (and Mrs) Creepy in the first acts. Leigh would need to either still be in jail or completely harmless or incapacitated to heighten the WTF factor before the killers are revealed. That would be my opinion on how to fix this wonderful plot.

On another note, the third act was the weakest of the entire script. It killed all the great things you had built up to this point. From the scene where the killers were revealed onward, it went downhill. I believe the weakest part was that the victims were allowed to live instead of being mercilessly killed. When reviewing past films, we find that the killers rarely allowed anyone to live; the only exception is the object of their affection to whom they explain their dastardly plan before immediately acting to kill them. The basic clean-up for act three needs to involve continuous running and avoidance. If the killers find the victims, they are relentlessly pursued and the deadly end of the weapon used all the time. Forcing this situation will certainly bring forth the creativity needed from this third act.          
   


As I said, overall, the script is good. It has good potential and with some work on the third act, you have something special here. That third act had a lot of problems, but the relative strength of the first two kept the score from dropping like a stone.



I hope the comments were helpful, and I look forward to the rewrite.

And if you have the time, I look forward to an equally scatheing review of my own works at your convenience.



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George Willson  -  July 12th, 2005, 6:02pm
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         For some reason, it was really hard picturing this in my mind as a horror script. It felt more like a straight-forward thriller or something. Like would you exactly call SAW a horror or a thriller? I don't know.....

         Great opening, I liked the dialogue between the kids, it seemed real and forced. But, like George said would they actually be saying this in front of the parents? I few cuts should do the trick though

          It took awhile before it actually started to get entertaining for me. You had some creepy sequences that would look frightening on screen, like the scene where Grace is trying to rest and a hand closes the closet door and then bolting open when she reaches it. Good stuff.
          I really would've liked to get some background on JOSH, SCOTT, and TATUM more. I read you cut some "development" scenes. Why? I would've just kept it in, so what if it ran over 120 pages?

         I read George's long review and helpful tips for you. I disagree with him in some places; true they were close to the road, but if they ran away from the house, would there even be a script? That would be too easy and dumb for a horror script. Same with your comment on the deaths, like Josh in the woods, well if Mitch killed them there in the woods how would the story further? Kayla wouldn't escape and that roof scene wouldn't be there. But, I also agree with George on you just ditched Leigh's freaky ass in the 3rd act, how come? He was used effective in the first two.

         Overall, very solid and somewhat scary. It was...okay.
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George Willson
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Hey cool, someone else commented. As for my run on about when people were killed and such, perhaps I should elaborate on what was in my head for a solution to where I found several points to be a little hard to believe.

The characters should escape their situations where death is imminent, but they should not be able to do so easily. When Kayla is in the attic, she should not be left alone; she should escape by the skin of her teeth causing Peyton to stand on the porch looking for her when Tatum shows up. Mitch doesn't leave Josh alone in the woods to live; he chases the hell out of the poor kid giving him a the run of his life. If they want to escape into the woods, that's fine; but, I feel there should be some kind of argument on how that could possibly be a better solution than the clearly safe one.

By making the decisions of the characters more believable, creativity is forced on how to progress the script. If Mitch attacks in the woods, how do they get out? What reason would there be for stashing Tatum in the closet instead of killing her right then (I'm sure there are dozens of reasons). What this third act needs is some thought on how can I get this character out of this situation without just allowing them to live? This won't be easy, but the script will come out awesome because of it.

I'm not advocating a safe script and stupid movie by any means. To suggest the whole flat side of the axe fix, Instead of Josh getting clubbed with the axe, the killer should swing the sharp end at him. He dodges it, falling to the floor. The axe head lodges momentarily in the floor, giving he and Kayla a chance to hit the roof. It's more dangerous, and you're not sitting there thinking "Why the hell did she hit him with the side of the axe?"


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To George,

                                     SO MANY SPOILERS



Pg.1-5: Opening dialogue - Yeah, I already changed that. Kayla says "Are you kidding me" instead of you know and Grace now makes a comment about their language. Other than that I didn't find it that bad. They didn't use "f" or anything, just bitch once or twice and shitting.

Pgs 24-25: Kayla tells no one about the broken glass and hear her scream? The way I saw it in my head it was a scream but not as loud(not exactly a gasp either). I did have an extremely short scene in the morning where she tells her mother. Too quick to even keep it in, so I edited it out.

pg 43: The ringing phone. I don't know why no one heard it? Didn't want anyone to ruin the suspense?

Pg 46: Going into the woods alone. She just wanted to smoke. It's morning, they're safe in the morning. I'll admitt a bad move, but harmless.

Pg 54: "Making me crazy; why isn't Kayla telling them about what she has seen?" This is where she mistakes the "prowler" for Scott, right? Well she was telling everyone what she saw, but in her mind it was Scott.

Pg 104: Destroying car instead of using keys. C'mon, this is a horror script!

Pg 76: "I wanna know where the secret passages are in the house... this guy is going all over the way without being seen. He is in and out of the bathroom with mom banging at the door earlier, and other similar brain teasers throughout." I'm confused with this statement. You mean the scene with Grace and the "hand in the closet", but what do you mean about the bathroom?

Pg 77: Through the woods instead of road. Yeah, if they get to the road, they escape right? BORING.

Pg 81: Kayla returning back w/out Scott. In her mind and what she was thinking was that the person Scott saw was her Mom. She became giddy that she might be alive.

Pg 84: Where'd Kayla get the candle? Wow, I didn't realize I wrote that. She grabbed it downstairs from when her and Scott were in the living room?

Pg 95: Taking Tatum prisoner, but killing Scott. What Kayla said "They'll be back with the cops" made Mitch and Peyton panic. He got Tatum and took her prisoner, was going to get Scott before he got the police.

Pg 98: Peyton trying to kill Tatum. Because she escaped from the closet and was going to leave.

Pg 98: Kayla being saved for? They were going to kill her last.

Pg 101: Hits Josh with the flat side? Just making sure no one escapes. Clearly he can't take them all at once.

Pg 102: The plank "Ladder" on the roof. We had it on our house, it was like the remains of a rose-vine thingy that was taken down years before. The actual ladder itself was really thin and you'd have to have tiny feet to climb, so yeah I exaggerated that a bit.

Pg 105: "Hey, there's Tatum...wait, I thought Mitch had Tatum." Last thing Josh remembered was Mitch trying to get Tatum. When he awoke in the woods, Tatum was gone. He assumed Mitch had her.

Pg 107: Kill them when you had the chance. True, but I wanted chases and I didn't want the characters to die like 2-4 pages after another.

Pg 108: Trips over a mound of rope. I could've had a setup. Is that really  necessary though overall?  

Pg 109: Wait so long to kill Tatum? Because I liked writing that character. It was hard enough to kill her when it was time.

Pg 111: non-threatening end of the axe. To make Kayla feel less in power and to know that Peyton can/will kill her any second.

I won't comment back on dialogue. I didn't realize I made that grammar error. I'm surprised with myself, this is the least errors I've made in one shot! Yes!

Pg 102: Ah, who can forget "The Shining"? Can you explain? I never seen that film.          

Pg 107: Disappointed hayloft scene. How? You didn't like that? It's my favorite kill in the script.

I hope this answers some of the open-ended thoughts you had in your head. Once again, thank you very much for reading and I will start reading your horror script.

-ONEY


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George Willson
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The Shining is a 1980 film by Stanley Kubrick based on the novel by Stephen King. One of the most famous scenes in movie history comes from this film and this image in on the dust jacket/DVD cover. Jack (ironically played by Jack Nicholson) is convinced by the spirits in the hotel they are...um...hotel-sitting to kill his family. He chases them through the hotel with an axe, cornering them in their room. He chops through the door with the axe, looks in, and says "Heeere's Jack!" Here's the imdb page containing the DVD cover showing that image: The Shining, IMDB.com.

YET MORE SPOILERS!

As for the disappointment in the hayloft, I was sort of expecting a pay off from Kayla's little stunt at the beginning with Tatum. I figured Tatum would remember it and clobber Peyton. She didn't and tripped over a previously unknown wind of rope instead.

As for my comments that appear to take the supense and horror out of the script, that was not the intent. I think I've been grossly misunderstood more than once on that. Never. If you'd like, I can take a comment or two of mine, and rewrite a page or so to show how I might do it in that instance to keep the horror, keep the characters alive, keep the suspense, but turn on the believability; you can pick the comments. But as I first pointed out, this is purely my opinion, I could have missed something, and it is your script, not mine.

In some of your comments where you give a little explanation as to why something happened, if that explanation is not in the dialogue to justify those actions, I feel like it needs to be.

As for the secret passage bit on Pg 76, I made these comments during my first read through...for the bathroom, I believe I caught she was dreaming, so that is absolved, the issue I had was that this guy was in the cornfields and then in Grace's closet, however many, many pages later, we find Mitch was the guy in the cornfield, and Leigh was the guy in the closet making this thing possible...or was he? I don't really know. The run of the script makes it seem like it was Leigh who came out of th closet, since Peyton and Mitch had not yet arrived, and yet this is the only time Leigh attacks anyone, and the outcome is of a benefit for Peyton and Mitch.

With Scott separating from Kayla, the issue was not that she returned to the house, but that he ran off into the forest without her. She said wait, and he kept on running. You can still split them up, but I think Scott should visibly notice that he ran off without Kayla and didn't mean to.

Incidentally, on the key to the car thing, this was done very effectively by wes Craven in Scream. Sydney jumped in the SUV and locked the doors. She wanted to drive off but there were no keys. She looked outside and saw the killer with the keys. He zipped from one side of the car to the other unlocking the door before finally coming in the hatchback while she is waiting for another lock to pop open.



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True, it would've really helped if I kept some of the dialogue in, I personally felt it wasn't necessary to keep it in. But, that'll change with the re-write.

PAGE 83 - Explains the cornfield/closet scene. I do have that explained, it's...

                                                             MITCH
        I got her while you were taking care of Ben.

Mitch wasn't in the cornfield, it was Peyton. Mitch was in the closet, ready to capture Grace. Hope that helps.

I have begun reading Vengeance, it's good so far. I'll give you a review in 2-3 days. Sorry, it's going to take long, I have school and work.

       -ONEY


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