Seven for a Secret by Brad Huffman-Parent (bradhp) - Short, Horror - A young girl returns home to take brutal revenge on her abusive parents. 5 pages - pdf, format 8)

Hello Brad,

This is a good story.  I like the ryhmes throughout.

As an idea, why don't you have Kalli appear before anything happens to Erin.  As it appears that George has been disturbed by the noise downstairs.  That way Kalli has come to save Erin before anything bad has happened.

All the best.


Javier

SPOILERS


This was a really good script. The nursery rhymes gave it a really creepy feeling, though, some times I started to get a bit annoyed with them, but at the end, they all went together. The ending nursery rhyme is the best, and I remember hearing that in a song from Patrick Wolf's "The Magic Position" CD album.

The twist at the end was good. I was thinking the whole time why Kalli was bleeding and I thought that her parents had stabbed her and left her for dead on the side of the road or something. Then, when Erin asked if she was her mother, that's when I got really confused, and then it all fixed itself later on.

The scene between Erin and George is messed up!

Any way, yeh, good script, good job.

Sean

Hi Brad, I remember reading this over at Movie Poet, i liked it a lot. Really good short and some clever use of the nursery rhyme in there. A great effort.

Thanks everyone. Why does if feel like I'm the last person to know when my script is up?

As GM mentioned, this was written for the Movie Poet July contest. I had a longer version and had to make some big cuts to fit the contest page limit, and now I'm torn between adding stuff back in and leaving it how it is.  My original script fills in the gap between Kalli handing Erin the knife and them opening the trunk in the attic. It's mostly just more gore, involving George's severed penis and the line "knick knack paddy wack give the dog a bone". Looking at it now I don't know if it adds much besides showing Erin get her revenge too.

One of the complaints I got in my reviews for the contest was that people didn't get how Kalli could be Erin's mother since I didn't give ages for Darla and George. I was thinking about somehow adding something showing how long ago Kalli was killed. One idea is to add a line for George, something like "It's been seven years, but I ain't forgot what I did". Another simpler idea was to have pictures hanging in the hallway, one with George, Darla, and Kalli, then one of them looking much older with Erin.

Or I could just leave it all how is. Opinions?

It would be worth reading the longer version Brad, my only issue with this was that I did not buy into Darla that much, Her reaction to Kalli appearing like that just never felt right. You could get her to mention about how it had been 7 years etc.. or something anyway. I would expect something more from her, her dead daughter is in her kitchen, is she repentant? is she sorry? Or is she angry, scared?

By the way, Welcome to Simply Scripts!

Quoted from Murphy I would expect something more from her, her dead daughter is in her kitchen, is she repentant? is she sorry? Or is she angry, scared?

She was really f@##ing drunk. That's what I was going for in her reaction. She thought she was dreaming or hallucinating and didn't believe it until sharp nasty things got swung at her. I'll have to think of a way to get that across more.

Hey Brad, liked this a lot.  It was very dark and twisted, Ten year old Kalli, being raped by George, giving birth to his child and dying during.  I think I got that right?

Anyway the nursery rhymes throughout are very clever and really add to the spookiness of the story.

Very good short.

Hey Brad,

I thought this was pretty good. I'm not sure if nine year old girls are capable of getting pregnant, but given the genre of the story I'm sure most people will overlook that. Coupling the nursery rhymes with the slayings was a definite winner and the way you tied it in with the chest full of books was first rate. The only thing I'd take issue with is with the way George died. He started off all fired up, telling Kalli that he could kill her again, but then he died without firing a shot, so to speak. I would've liked to have seen him do something like punch her in the face and to have her simply shrug it off before planting the axe into him. Or after he punches her in the face, and realises he can’t hurt her, you could have him running from room to room only to run into her everytime he opens a door. Finally, he could become so disorientated that he trips and falls down the stairs and lands flat on his back. When he opens his eyes Kalli could be standing above him with the axe poised above his head and as she drops it we could cut to the chest full of books.  Anyway, play around with it a bit and see what you can come up with. If you can’t improve on what you’ve already got leave it as it is, but it’s worth experimenting to see if you can take it to the next level.