A Night at the Sundown by James Anthony McSloy - Short, Horror -  David, Donna, and Dan embark on a blood chilling journey into the Sundown Nightclub, after hours. 25 pages - pdf, format 8)

This one ends pretty well.  Reminiscent of Hellraiser and Event Horizon -- stuff like that.  Which I like.  You have some nice things in here the FX guys could have a lot of fun with.

This script is chock full of “we see” and “we hear” and so on.  Lose those and it will read better.  You can also lose all the (continued).  Those are for shooting scripts, and here they are merely clutter on your pages.  I mean, it's obviously continued, right?

I also had big problems with Dan.  Virtually none of his dialogue felt authentic -- even his attitude rang false -- and he is dragging this piece down.  I lost interest every single time he appeared, which seemed way too often.

You don’t need to make him heroic or anything -- and I did get what you were going for with his "change" -- but the whiney little wuss you’ve got him as up front in this story just doesn’t suit the tone here.  Better dialogue for him might help.

Also, the title of the script is something besides “Slaughterhouse”.  Just sayin’, in case you forgot to change it.

Your name sounds familiar.  Do you have some features up on these boards?  This one is pretty decent.  You should participate more.

Hey thanks man. I do have a couple of features up on the site, Slayer episode 1, 2, 3 and a short called Dead Case, check them out. The title isn't slaughterhouse I've changed it to "A Night at the Sundown." Thanks for the critisism, I love it. I hate people who go "yeah, it's fine." I am now working on the character of Dan and his dialouge. Any suggestions wil be taken on board.

Cheers again, Bert.

James McSloy

Quoted from anthony_mcsloy ...a short called Dead Case, check them out.

Dude, I've read Dead Case.  I commented on it.

That's a little insulting, actually....

Quoted from anthony_mcsloy Thanks for the critisism, I love it. I hate people who go "yeah, it's fine."

Jim, I looked at some of the criticism you've left behind for other people's work.  It's not much better than "yeah it's fine."  Hell, my comments about your criticism is longer than your criticism.

Something to think about.


Phil

Now this was my kind of Horror flick! I *love* movies with grotesque imagery like this one ala Silent Hill or Gateway to Hell (that was the international title name for that Laurence Fishburne movie which took place in a shuttle....anyway that's besides the point).

I'd recommend extending it to a feature length, because it does have the potential.

A problem I had, though, was the lack of suspense--NOT because of your writing or because the scenes were bad, but because suspense actually TAKES TIME to build and it is almost impossible to cram it into 25 pages, in my opinion.  

I have to agree with Bert--Dan was a friggin' cliché magnet. His character is like ANY other cop we've seen in other Horror films. He has no place in this. I suggest you change the character drastically or just remove him all together.

But overall it was a quick read that didn't drag on at all. I liked it. Keep up the good work.

--Julio

Thanks for the kind comments, Julio. After a lot of thought I'm thinking of removing the cop from the story. Glad you enjoyed it and I will consider extending it to a feature.

Thanks Again

Jimbo