The Scriptwriter by Ron Aberdeen - Horror - An unsuccessful writer throws his computer out and replaces it with an old Underwood typewriter, previously used to write “Psycho”. With his typewriter his characters from his dark twisted scripts come to life with devastating consequences. 92 pages - pdf, format 8)

Lucio Fulci wrote this movie already... It was called "A Cat In The Brain" .  I'd comment on the rest, but it's all too familiar. Almost as if you watched that movie and then wrote this one.  

Edit:  I got to page 36 and had to stop for the night. I'll pick it back up, but "Cat in the Brain" wasn't balls out horror, either.  It was a fantastic film and one Wes Craven ripped off himself, even. I think he openly admits it now too.

Kind of reminds me of this, actually:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0514415/

---

I'm about 25 pages or so into this, and while I think it's really well written/formatted, I'm confused as to why this is in the Horror section.  The scene where all of the horror icons come out is written in kind of a campy manner, so I'm not really sure of the tone of this piece yet.  I'll read on, but perhaps the writer might explain why he feels this film fits in the Horror genre.

Too the writer...

It could be horror, but I don't think so.  Nit-picky maybe but things like this is prevalent in your script.

Page 11... The PHONE in the lounge RINGS, (O.S.), Alistair carries on typing.  The RING gets LOUDER.  How can it get louder?  Get rid of the O.S.  How about...

The phone in the lounge RINGS.  Alistair tries to ignore it as he continues to type.  In the very next actionline, and MASTER SCENE HEADING you show him, getting up to answer it.

Page 19... Max approaches Boris as Boris rise.  How about... Boris rises as Max approach.

Page 26... eventually all have gone.

You already introduced Katia at the begining of the script.  Now on page 16, you re-introduce her with (JORDAN).  Why?

Your overuse of wyrilies and all those darn FADE OUTS.  You don't need them.  

Based on the dialogue between all those CHARACTERS between page 17 and 21... seems more like a comedy.  The only thing scary was when I cringed at the  pretty cheesy and at times silly dialogue.

Your attempt to re-do the infamous shower scene from 'Psycho," failed.  It was also predictable.  I wasn't surprised.

For the most part, the formatting was fine and I was curious to see what you had done with this.

If your gonna rip-off someone else's idea, atleast add something too it to make it stand out.  If the idea of having his wife in an affair with another woman, then you've succeeded.  That surprised me.  Wasn't expecting that.

This is just my take, I'm not an expert on horror but... you have Baltis -- Dressel coming... good luck too you.

Ghostwriter 22

Ok, finished.  I'm not going to really go into your formatting, because I think it's pretty spot-on.  You clearly know how to write.

However, with this script, I think you really need to work on developing your characters a bit more and working on the story.

For example, Alistair isn't a very dynamic character, in my opinion.  First off, he goes from relatively normal to bat-sh*t crazy in a manner of a few seconds.  The zombie attack comes completely out of nowhere, and I was left wondering "What exactly am I supposed to be feeling while this is happening?"  I know we start off the script a bit into their relationship, and come to find out he's brewing with jealousy and what not, but the trip into madness just seems to happen waaaay too fast.  Also, Alistair is a very unlikable character in almost every respect.  Now, I know he's the main "villain" of this piece and we're not necessarily supposed to "like" him, but we can at least "enjoy" watching him.  For example, Patrick Bateman in "American Psycho" is a ruthless killer, but he has personality and charm.  When he's going around killing people and being a complete ass, it's fun to watch.  Take basically any scene in the movie as an example.  When Alistair is doing it, he's just being an ass.  I'm not intrigued by him at all.

As for the story itself, it's pretty predictable throughout and can't really decide what it wants to be.  One minute it's a comedy, the next it's a gory horror film, the next it's an episode of "Law & Order".  I really think you need to decide what it is you want from this film and go from there.  While the idea of someone having a magical typewriter (or, I guess it could be in his mind) isn't very new, you could have some fun with it.  Instead, you basically just take the plot to Psycho and run with it.  Which, by the way, you can see coming from almost the very beginning.  

Overall, of all the turns the script made, I'd have to say that it turning into a crime drama in the end was my least favorite.  The cop characters were pretty stale and spouted off very bland dialogue, and like I said, everything just dragged like an episode of "Law & Order"; except we knew who the killer was!

Sorry if I'm coming off as kind of harsh, I just think there's a lot of room for improvement.  Like I said, I think Alistair and the story needs work, but who knows, maybe just fixing Alistair as a character will change everything.  He really was my biggest problem with the piece.

If you need me to elaborate on anything, I can.  I know I have a tendency to ramble.

Hi Folks

Thanks for your comments and time committed in reading this little piece of mine.  I deliberately made the protagonist a really unpleasant character, a bit like myself really.

This was my third screenplay and written in June 2005 along with another during that month simply as an experiment to see if I could increase interest in my work on InkTip.

I had placed my first two screenplays on their web site in April and May and wasn’t getting many hits, so The Scriptwriter and The Box were written quickly and placed up on that site because my first two screenplays were large budget biographical yarns.

It did the trick and by the end of July I received my first commission, from Horror director David DeCoteau.

He commented on the line in The Scriptwriter regarding the dyslexic murderer getting the wrong victims out of the phone book. David said, “he like the combination of humour with horror and that line was a premise for a screenplay, on its own”.

It is not a script that is likely to ever be produced because of the copyright issues with the various characters who make an appearance, but it amused me at the time and still does to a degree.

But what it has done is get me work from three different sources.

Hi Mr. Aberdeen,
     My name is Chris Morris, and I have a interest in the script called,
                  " The Scriptwriter" and I was wanting to produce it.
                         My email address is chrismorris.films@yahoo.com
               Contact Me ASAP, Please and Thank You..
                      Til Then,
                      Christopher D Morris