Pumpkin Pie by A. Ghost - Short, Family Horror - Try some pie? You can't say "No" to these... - pdf, format 8)

I liked this in the early beginning.  I liked that you tried to do something different, but as you got deeper into the story there were more and more mistakes and it was more difficult to follow.  

With so many V.O's...what was going on...what was happening on the screen?   For me...there should have been something going on to watch during the Freeze, V.O.

Additionally just a word of advise...I'm guilty of this too...mostly because I like to write stories and you have to remember to always "Show...not Tell" your story when writing a screenplay.  Only the parts that you can see have any relevance.  Take for instance this paragraph from your script:

"Finally, it shatters. Erin screams. Darlene reaches through
and fumbles the the door’s lock. She struggles with it. Erin
watches on, her fear being overtaken with confusion."

The last line is wasted...mainly because it's not anything you can show the viewer.

I think with a re-write you could make this immensly better as I like the premise of the story.  

M

Not bad at all. The story is nicely structured with a proper inciting incident, middle, climax, and resolution. I am not too keen about the abundance of V.O. though. It might be a bit tiring to listen to Erin's voice to understand the story.

I would prefer more explanation about the hypnotizing pumpkin pies and Mrs. Henderson's intent. In the way it is now, I understand what's happening but I don't get why this is happening.

The writing is good. Not a lot of mistakes. The action/description reads fast as well.

Another solid effort. Good job.

I will declare straight off that I absolutely detest VOs! So I am afraid that has coloured my reaction to this script.

This is not at all a bad little "invasion of the bodysnatchers" type of story, and while it is a bit overwritten in places, I didn't find this a problem, as it is well constructed and is so far probably the script that best fits the OWC theme.

It's just those damn VOs that ruin it for me!

Not bad, Not bad at all.

VO were overdone. The first two VOs should be OSs since Erin is not in the scene until the third VO.

Page 10: Doubled up on "I could."

Good premise but I would have liked to know why Mrs H. was doing this.

Having Erin tell Tim's story was an unusual choice. Not sure if liked that.

Tim's car flying in the air was memorable.

Good effort.

Gary.

I know that in telling a short story like this that V.O.s are your best friend and I didn't see any flagrant misuse of them so well done.

The storytelling  itself was well-executed.  I think it was more for the kids than the whole family though - I can't really see teens being that interested in this and adults less so - but I'm older and probably not the best judge of those things anymore.

For my first read this OWC, this was quite good. The others will have a high benchmark to match. Nicely done.

****O    

I have seen this before. I’m a big fan of ‘Scare Tactics’ and this was one of their episodes. The ‘try the pie’ line was repeated over and over in the episode. It was almost an identical scenario.
I could not get that out of my head while reading this – wondering if that’s where you got the idea.
Hopefully, it is just a coincidence because hacking someone else’s work is just no good.

-electricsatori

Yeha, i didn't have a prob with the VO's. As Michael said, they suited the style of Erin's narration nicely.
I loved the sort of dryness she put in her comments, which showed the dragginess of her life.
The writing was well paced and the characters easily pictured.

Nice job this one and suited the theme.

This one is pretty good, it's more light hearted and funny, with a little horror put in there.  I didn't see any problems with the V.O, It worked pretty well for me.  This feels like it should be expanded a bit more, but a 12 page limit can do that too you.  fit the challenge perfectly i thought.  good work!

Hmmm...not bad, but a bit ambitious, IMO, in terms of the actual writing, which is quite flawed.

Does it meet the challenge?  Yeah, I guess it does, although the actual festival was pretty much non existent.

Here's the deal with the writing...first of all, as others have noted, there are WAY too many VO's going on here.  The odd choice of "freezing" the shot in the beginning, while using a VO isn't going to work, IMO.  Why would we want to watch a freeze frame of a character while listening to a VO?  At times, you forgot to "go back to normal speed".

Also, with such a plethera of VO's, I was kind of waiting for something at the end, that would "show" us where she's VO'ing from.  You know what I'm saying?  Like a different setting and a time in the future.  I don't know if that makes sense or not, but that's what I was feeling.

I don't understand the intercut on page 2 at all.  Tim wasn't even in the scene...where does this come from...and why?

I also had BIG problems with your Slugs.  For instance, you have the same back to back Slugs on page 2 and page 3.  Both use "DAY" as the time, but I would bet it was actually "MORNING", cause Erin is about to go to school.  So your next Slug uses "LATER" as the time, but your first line tells us that it's evening, cause the sun is disappearing.  A neighbor is watering his grass...at night?  Huh?  Next Slug and we're back to "DAY" again, but we know this is a "CONTINUOUS" scene, with Erin being chased.  She gets inside, and the Slug now says "EVENING".  "EVENING" runs for the next number of scenes, all the way to page 9, when "NIGHT" finally falls, and this "single" scene runs to the end, 3 1/2 pages (but in reality, I think this is actually several scenes that should be broken out)..  These are all off and need attention.

The flashback is also an issue, IMO.  The pacing is thrown way off because of this and we're pretty much waiting for it to end, so we can move on and find out where we're going.

The end is OK, and I like the witch angle.  The horror elements kind of come out of nowhere, but I actually kind of like them, as well.

I think you've got a good story here that you tried too hard to make hip, cool, or different.  Because of this, it didn't work overall for me, but it's defintely a good effort.

I liked it a lot. Very good flow. Liked the VOs and thought they were executed very well. Resembles Zombieland in some way, but it's an appropriate resemblance - meaning not too much.

kept me engaged up untill the end. I'd call it a nice romantic comedy but won't deny that it fits under family horror just fine. It's just a romantic comedy for me.

Some typos throughout, no big deal.

Thanks for the read.

This was a lot of fun.  A lot of fun!

This line was hilarious:

Quoted Text ERIN (V.O.) It all occurred to me now. After seeing my mom being able to run that fast, I knew something wasn’t right.

Great dry humor, and excellent action.  pacing and dialog also worked for me.  As for voice overs, Christmas Story is one of the most popular movies of all time, and The Wonder years was one of the most popular shows of it's time.  They were almost nothing but voice overs, so don't worry about that.

This was a really fun, good script.  Loved the pies-as-missiles bit!

I liked the majority of this but there were a few niggles.  I thought the sledge hammer swinging and the chainsaw weilding was a bit much for a family theme.  The dialogue wass good, except for the final exchange between Erin and Tim which I thought was a bit too on the nose.  The Witch transformation was good and the V.O's worked well.  A decent effort.

I liked this one for the most part. It was fun, light-hearted and not too gory. Definitely one for the younger people but a couple of things nagged at me.

Erin's constant voice overs got in the way of the storytelling a bit. Also, everything seemed quite rushed. The whole pie pandemic started very quickly and you just rushed into the craziness. But I guess with a twelve page limit that'll happen. I think this could be a really fun story if it's fleshed out a bit more and the characters given a bit more of an introduction.

I really liked all of the flashbacks and freezeframes. I thought those worked quite well, gave the script a bit of style and directorial flair, which is something I think there should be more of in scripts, although I'm sure most people on the site would disagree with me there.

Overall, this was a fairly solid entry. A few problems with the pacing and the plot, but all in all a pretty decent effort. Good job!

Well, I want to thank all who read this script of mine. I actually went through this same idea about 6 times, writing, scrapping, writing more, scrapping more, until I finally showed up with this, satisfied enough to turn it in, though I knew I could do better.

For the people who didn't like the VO's, sorry that you didn't like them. Yes, they may have cluttered up the script, but I think that it's just hard on the eyes when it comes to reading, but if this were filmed, I think it'd move along quite smoothly. It's different, reading and then seeing on the screen.

MBCGirl:

That last line I don't think deals with the problem of the whole "show, not tell" rule. Because you can show someone's face have fear on it, and then it is overtaken with confusion. I probably worded it wrong in the script, but basically I meant to make her facial expression go from fear to confusion.

Niles:

Sorry that the VO's kind of ruined your reading experience. But I know what you mean when it comes to VO's. I'm fine with them, but I don't like it when there are no VO's throughout the entire movie until the very end, when a random voice just pops in. It's like, "Either use VO's throughout the movie, or don't. Don't just let them pop out of nowhere."

grademan:

I don't believe that Erin's two VO's should be OS's until she comes in. Erin could be a narrator for the story and never be seen once in the script. Thanks for reading, though. Glad you liked the car flying through the air.

mccornetto:

Glad you enjoyed it. I was actually aiming for an older audience here, but everyone has their own taste in movies, so it could be for kids mostly, or mainly for adults or teens, but it just depends on who watches it the most.

electricsatori:

I have actually seen that episode, but it did not come to me one time while writing this script. I hope that the similarities don't change your opinion about the script...

stevie:

When I was writing Erin's character, I was kind of following in the footsteps of Georgia Lass from Dead Like Me in her earlier episodes, with her sourness and dry humour. I'm glad you liked it.

Dreamscale:

Non-existent? At least it was there.

The intercut is just a random intercut. It's just a way to establish who Ms. Henderson was in a comedic way. I guess I missed the comedy. Or maybe you did. Or both.

I'm not even going to bother with explaining the slugs considering we had a short amount of time to plan, write, and check over these scripts, and I was close to the deadline before I started writing it. Rushing...When it happens, people make mistakes.

And by the way, I know some people who water their grass as the sun is setting ;) I know people who even mow their lawns at nighttime.

steven8:

Wow, I'm glad you really enjoyed this. Your comment lifted my spirit, too, after the previous comments were switching back and forth from bad to good and whatnot. Glad you thought it was funny and had some memorable bits.

alffy:

Yeah, I kinda agree with the sledgehammer and chainsaw bit, but it was to kind of get the point across that these people are crazy for pie. Though, with the video games and kids movies these days, there's enough violence in them to the point where the stuff in this script might be okay. And the dialogue at the end, in the original draft before I changed it up, the dialogue was really, really on the nose for specific purposes, but I realised I didn't like it, so I changed it up to make it seem more real.

To Everyone Else:

...Mainly because most of you either liked the script and didn't have many problems with it, or that you guys had a problem with pacing and the ending. I am thinking about expanding this to make it longer and fit in everything that I wanted to put in there.


Thanks again to all who gave it a read. I'll go back and fix whatever problems this baby has and expand it.

Sean

Hi Sean

Just to let you know that someone expressed the belief that you had written my entry - take this how you will! :)

Nothing personal re VOs - I just don't like them, and I would feel the same if this had been written by Christopher Nolan!

It's just me. Obviously plenty of people here on SS have no problem with them.

As I say in my post above, apart from this it was otherwise a good script.

Yeah, nothing personal to you not liking VO's. We all have our pet-peeves. We just shouldn't worry about it :P But thanks for reading, glad you liked it :)

Sean

Quoted from Niles_Crane Hi Sean Just to let you know that someone expressed the belief that you had written my entry - take this how you will! :) Nothing personal re VOs - I just don't like them, and I would feel the same if this had been written by Christopher Nolan! It's just me. Obviously plenty of people here on SS have no problem with them. As I say in my post above, apart from this it was otherwise a good script.

Wow, that's weird. I read this and saw "Sean" and I thought, "Why is he bringing me up, here? Now?" Then, when you mentioned that you thought I (Sean) wrote your entry, I was so confused. Then, last, when you mentioned not liking V.O.'s, I remember you responding to 12 Seconds about their being too many V.O.'s.

Finally, it all got straightened out in my mind when ZOMBIE Sean responded after that. Lol. Good times, goooooood timessssssssss.

Sean, I liked this, although my review may not sound that way.  It was a great story with some good visuals.  I'm a stckler with details and Slugs, and those things threw this off for me.  You wrapped things up nicely, as I said, adn I think with a few tweaks here and there, this could be a great short.

As per the VO's, and the intercut thing, again, I think it was merely an example of trying to do too much...maybe (probably) the deadline and page constraint came into play and was an issue.

This was, IMO, in the top 10 anyways.  Good effort!

Quoted from Zombie Sean electricsatori: I have actually seen that episode, but it did not come to me one time while writing this script. I hope that the similarities don't change your opinion about the script...

Unfortunately, it did. The repetition of the line 'try the pie,' was exactly what Scare Tactics had done. Not only that, the mind control was EXACTLY what they had done.  It just felt way too much like the episode.

I like reading original work for its creativity and fresh perspective. Whether the story was intentionally lifted or innocently inspired by another work, it matters to the reader who knows the source material.

'Give credit where credit is due.' - I said it. Wait, or was it Loretta Young?

-Daniel

I think you have something here, but as is often the case, needs developing.

The idea of pies being the source of trouble is interesting. What I didn't like is that I felt that this piece lacked motivational aspects. As it is, it just turns out as zombified type individuals that are doing there zombie thing. Can't fault a Zombie for doing there zombie thing; so what I want to know is why.

I have to say, I completely missed what Tim actually did to save the day. I went back and read parts again, but I still couldn't find it. Maybe I just missed it.

This is a good attempt. It needs more substance.

Sandra

"One bite won't hurt." but it always does. My wife tells me I got to stop blaming the dryer. She may be right.

Very nice job here, this one. Like Erin's sarcastic, whatever kind of attitude that seems pretty typical of kid's today, which plays well in the dialogue. Some good action sequences, particularly the car slamming into the pie table.

That Tim/Erin Intercut (assume it was in a mockumentary style) was hard to follow and broke the pace of the story.

The violence (parents yielding knives, sledgehammers and other lawn implements) might send this more to the PG-13 side of things, but nothing that wouldn't fly on broadcast television with an intensity warning for young children.

Well done, and now I want some pie.

Dreamscale:

Yeah, I had so many ideas that I wanted to do for this, that I tried to squeeze in everything and I guess it messed things up even more.

electricsatori:

:/ Sorry about that. Nowadays, it's hard to come up with something, but I can see the many similarities with this. The only thing I changed, I guess, was the whole "they try and kill them" thing.

Sandra:

I do plan on expanding on this, so I will fill in gaps and correct mistakes. Don't worry. Tim saves the day...kills the witch...water...etc.

Blakkwolfe:

Glad you liked it and thanks for reading. I will fix the intercut, don't worry. As I write, I play it out how I would film it if I were directing it, and I thought it was "clever" or "funny", but what I think is clever or funny...really isn't. Sucks, yeh.

Yes, this whole script was one big subliminal message for everyone who read it to go get pie.


Sean

Quoted from Zombie Sean Dreamscale: Yeah, I had so many ideas that I wanted to do for this, that I tried to squeeze in everything and I guess it messed things up even more. electricsatori: :/ Sorry about that. Nowadays, it's hard to come up with something, but I can see the many similarities with this. The only thing I changed, I guess, was the whole "they try and kill them" thing. Sandra: I do plan on expanding on this, so I will fill in gaps and correct mistakes. Don't worry. Tim saves the day...kills the witch...water...etc. Blakkwolfe: Glad you liked it and thanks for reading. I will fix the intercut, don't worry. As I write, I play it out how I would film it if I were directing it, and I thought it was "clever" or "funny", but what I think is clever or funny...really isn't. Sucks, yeh. Yes, this whole script was one big subliminal message for everyone who read it to go get pie. Sean

The interesting thing for me is that I'm working on "A Zombie Script" now and:

Who Knew?

If things work out, a new genre will be born. Nah! A new genre HAS been born; we just nee to realize it.  ;)