Cedarville by Mat Grimes - Short, Horror, Thriller - Three friends go into a haunted house and never come back out. 11 pages - doc, format 8)

Very average: not good, not too bad. Offered nothing new. Act III is muddled with too many flashbacks that took me out of the reading.

Story
I give you credits for having no scenes that don't move the story along. So it gives me a sense of direction and I didn't lose interest. However, the revelation is a bit predictable. I think you need to give us one more twist to feel satisfied. Hunting down your love enemy is standard fare. There are some questionable scenes: Why did Brandon leave Alex alone and go for Jeff first? I thought Alex is his real target. How can Brandon kill off Emily in Alex's home without anyone knowing? You have to do some major rewrites for Act III because the huge amount of flashbacks threw me off to see when and what was happening.

Characters
Alex is the only likable character, but I see the attempt to develop Jeff and Brandon when they were going to Cedarville. More actions and decision-making from these characters would make them more compelling. Emily is the character I feel the least relatable to. I don't know whether she is a slut or just a poor ex-girlfriend of Brandon.

Dialogue
The dialogue is generally good. Nothing really expository. But Jeff and Brandon sounds the same to me. Some of the dialogue description should be within the action. (e.g. ALL (laugh))

Writing
I suggest using a screenwriting software. Don't underline sluglines and character names. Too many "laughing"s in the car scene. Given the context of the scene, we knew that they were joking and fooling around. Please split up large blocks of action text. When using flashbacks, please give us a slugline so we know where we are flashbacking to.