Mark of the Fiend by Mike Shelton - Short, Young Adult, Horror - When strange, red X's start appearing on various windows throughout the neighborhood, the adults chalk it up as good ol' fashioned Halloween vandalism, but Jeremy and Mitch know better.  There's something out there.  Something...evil.  - pdf, format 8)

I liked it! It wasn't too original and pretty predictable but all in all it was entertaining, I thought the red x's on the forehead was a bit odd and it was scarier on the windows but it made sense to where you were going with the story and it works. The whole thing reminded me of an urban legend, which isn't bad at all, I like how you ended it because I thought the dad was concerned until he said those kids are joking around, pretty creepy! Overall, pretty good effort, could of been more suspenseful I think but it was still a good read!

I liked this one...   Good effort for sure.  I personally liked the red "X's"...just not sure why Jeremy wasn't careful NOT to wash it off his face.   Not sure also why the fiend didn't take his parents...must have been a teenage thing...

Could have used additional development...the basis of the story was good...could be even better with a little more pages :)

~m~

Very good!  This worked well.  Definitely scary and creepy.  I didn't see any mistakes either, which is rare for in here.

Only complaint (or question) is these red X's on the windows...are on the outside, right?  Are these all 1st floor windows we're talking about?  How does the Dad clean it off so easily (it would have to be done from the outside).  Only suggestion is to state that these are mostly single level homes (they didn't sound like it with the trees branches against the window in the beginning).

I guess this covers all the requirements of the contest.

This is my new favorite so far.  Nicely done!

Yeah, this is probably my new fav. I was also reminded of an urban legend type of deal with the red marks and the forehead business. You dealt with this a cool way.

Also, when i hear someone say good effort, it makes it sound like you were close but no cigar. Thats definetely not the case here, because you nailed this completely! The contest so far to me was lacking a quality i finally found something here.

Great job and your work should be noted!

Just had a thought that I think would make this even better...I think the red X's should be painted on the front doors.  Yeah, you'd have to rework the original scene, but for reality sakes, it would make alot more sense.

Still the best so far.

Just had a thought that I think would make this even better...I think the red X's should be painted on the front doors.  Yeah, you'd have to rework the original scene, but for reality sakes, it would make alot more sense.

Still the best so far.

This was a good one. Covered all the aspects except prob the invasion since it seemed more like kidnapping. But all in all great work. I wouldn't mind reading the revision for this one.


Mr. R

I felt that your action could have been cut, to make things flow better, and quicker. If only we were given those extra 10 pages for the OWC! http://www.simplyscripts.net/BlahImages/Smilies/wink.gif

This was a strange one for me. Just nothing really made sense. What it seemed like to me was a treatment for a feature, where you just wrote down the brief ideas that you had with a view to fill in the blanks at a later date.

There wasn't really any definition to your characters, they all talked the same pretty much. It just didn't ring true to me.

The ending confused the hell out of me. Just was too vague.

I don't really think this met the criteria either because there's no real invasion more just several kidnaps. Two kids don't know the truth, it's just one kid and he doesn't really know too much anyway.

I'd be interested to read the version that has been expanded to do your idea justice - which I 'think' is a good idea, but not too sure.

I'm guessing Jeremy & Eddie were the two teens that knew it wasn't a hoax?

Overall I really liked this one... its vagueness really helped in that I didn't know until about midway through the script whether or not it was a hoax, which kept me interested. I felt like this script had a lot of things that could be explained (this would make a great beginning to a feature) but at the same time I think it does well on its own.

My only complaint really was that I never got a sense that Mitch believed Old Man Philbert before he was taken away, but since Eddie seems to, I think you still met that requirement. Also, Jeremy's carelessness in washing his face seemed a little stupid, but most characters in horror movies tend to lack common sense so I excused it.

Overall, very enjoyable read. I really think you have something here if you want to keep at it!

Nice one. The story moves along well and has some good chills.

The first line has a very literary feel to it. It’s nicely written but tight is almost always good for these things. The rest of the script isn’t like that so much but first impressions are big.

How come Old Man Philbert knows about the fiend ?

“It is October 31st and a community is being invaded, however everyone thinks it's a hoax. Two kids know the real truth”

The community wasn’t being invaded, there’s no hoax, unsure which two kids know the real truth.

However, the writing was good and there was some real character development, it would have been nice to have the at least one missing kid up front to identify what the danger was. The fiend then does what to the kids? Takes them away forever? It was hard to relate to the danger which was the motivation for the actions of the characters. They were sort of in the dark as to what the danger was - as were we, all except Old Man Philbert. Hence the first question. walford

I thought this was ok.  It's questionable whether it really met the challenge. The writing was good but it was a bit lackadaisical and didn't involve me too much in the story.  The story itself, I though, was good for a quick scare. However, it was weakened because we really had no clue what the fiend was or why he was there.   I think this needs to be explained.  The dialogue needs a bit of work because it feels a bit clumsy - especially in the beginning. Well done, but I think this still needs some work to make it all it can be.

This is a really good example of how a lot can be done with very little. No ghosts, no aliens, none of the typical ghoulish things we might expect, but a mysterious red x that keeps appearing on windows and...

I really liked this, I think you've got the young adult genre down here and the opening was fun with the dad playing a prank on his son.

This was a fun read.

Sandra

Hi Mike,

I liked this script.  Although the title doesn't quite sound right.

The 'X' mark was good, and the description of the fiend was interesting.

I can see how this fiend invades the town once a year and the parents believing this to be kids playing a hoax on them.

A nice read that sounds to me met the challenge.

All the best,


Javier

Mike,

This was an interesting story. The Fiend was kind of creepy, the whole very skinny, no distinguishable facial features, yeah....Though, the thing that kind of brought this script down was the dialogue...I don't know if you intended it on making it this way, but it didn't seem real, but then again, this is a young-adult horror, so, unless you intended it on making it that way...But it was kind of a creepy story, so I thought it was good.

Sean