The Life Thief by Eric Napolitan - Short, Horror - no logline - pdf, format 8)

Right.

Eric, congrats on completing the challenge. That in itself is an achievement. But this script is rife with mistakes, questionable motives and characters changing their minds completely at whim, dodgy dialogue...

SPOILERS

...your central concept, an old man who rejuvenates himself through making a soup out of people, isn't actually too bad. But the script just bundled along without really thinking where it was going. A corw flies out of a cabinet. A lamp gets knocked over. An old man appears. They play chess. He knocks them out. Jack is brutally slaughtered. Halley has some soup, crawls through a graveyard, then decides to become his eternal queen. Had you not hit ten pages, I'm sure lots more arbitrary things could have happened.

You have 'OLD ABANDON HOUSE' in all of your slugs. Surely you mean 'ABANDONED?'

The dialogue contradicts itself on numerous ocassions. Jack says why he wants to look in the house, then Halley asks him again on the next page. Characters react to situations in completely unbelievable ways. There's a fire burning in the grate inside a house that's supposedly been unoccupied for decades, and rather than react with surprise Halley just warms her hands? Neither character seems fussed at the sudden appearance of Bill (if he lives there, the house isn't abandoned, which was a requirement of the challenge). And as I said, Halley's change of heart on the final page was really a head-scratcher.

Anyway, I could go on, but won't. Congrats on completing the challenge, and if you're new to this, keep writing. If not...keep re-writing.

This one wasn't bad.  Definite text-book horror.   Slightly one-dimensional.   This is the kinda plot I liked as a teenager.   I'm not sure what else to say other than good job on completing an entry.   Also, check for typos.

Good job completing the OWC, but this didn't work for me.

There are errors abound. The characters all sounded the same and  were one dimensional.

I think if you had a little time, you could turn this concept into something pretty good. As it is now, I have to give it one and a half bowls of soup... out of five.

Really need to have a logline for all your scripts. If you are active on here and post some reviews of other scripts, I'll give this a read. Otherwise probably won't bother with it. Knowing who wrote what straight away means you probably won't get as many reads unless you offer some value.

Cheers,
Tim.

Not bad, but I don't know the type font you're using... It's too bold, and yours isn't the 1st in the challenge to be submitted like that.  Anyways, Johnny really echo's everything I feel that went right and wrong with the story.  The soup bit was decent.  I see it working in a "Tales From The Crypt" style way.  Actually, I can see the whole story in that light to be honest.  But I can't really remember too many really (GOOD) Tales From the Crypt episodes, either.  

You got some typos and some stiff dialog here and there.  You have, my biggest problem, redundancies within the characters and conflict.  Too many things are over stated and time is wasted on it.  It's one thing to stall it's another to go over the same ground.

But for one week, probably less, it's a good foundation.  The missing log line almost made me want to pass it up but I told myself I'd read all the OWC I could stomach.  You got lucky.

8th script down.

The script started out a little clunky with the past tense on the first page as well as the incorrect spelling of 'abandoned', but once it got going, it wasn't too bad. The ending is questionable- but I don't mind some ambiguity. Overall, I see this as a nice little "Takes From The Darkside" sort of feel to it. It also leaves room open for expansion as well. I'm not a creepy guy, and in spite of what others may say, I don't take mind altering drugs- but y'know what? Anyone can sucker me in a horror if there's any scene around a graveyard.

Nothing too scary,but that could be just how it is on the page. Cheap jump scares still work in many horrors. My main question here is that if a fella were to live for a century in a house wouldn't he have some time on his hands between meals? There would also be the question of whether the house is "abandoned". There is a way to solve the problem. Have the intruders Halley and Jack trip some alarm (letting the crow fly out?) and our creepy dude rises out of his coffin in the nearby graveyard. This would take care of a lull time, the house being "abandoned" etc.

Other than tech errors, it's not too bad.

Think up a logline, right to the point.

-DjS

This script really didn't do it for me.  I was never a fan of teens staying in the abandoned house when they discover they're not alone.  Upon seeing the burning embers in the hearth, I'd be setting land speed records to get out.

Halley agreeing to have soup after she's been knocked out (and her boyfriend is missing) is a little farfetched.  Maybe if they were thirteen years old, not twenty-three.  Then again, two adults investing a haunted house on a stormy night isn't a bright move.


Phil

Simply put: your idea was interesting but your delivery was weak. The characters felt too bland and didn't seem to follow the same logic all the time. That being said; the idea was still good.

-Trent

P.S. Reread for typos. I found too many to count.

Eric,

I'll never understand why people don't put loglines for their work.  Seriously, why?  

There's a couple oddities in here.  For one, why was there a crow in the cabinet?  And second, Bill says "I'll play Halley first" but Halley never told him her name.  Just a couple things I picked up on.  The major problem here was the dialogue and the proceeding unrealistic - and even weird - reactions.  For example:

Bill: You can wait out the storm here.  Halley: How nice of you.  That came off as very awkward that this guy suddenly appears, they're in an abandoned house, it's spooky, and the reaction just didn't seem to fit the bill (no pun intended).  Then the tea, I mean, the over-trustingness just isn't realistic.  

I think everything else can be summed up with this line:

Halley: Eating people is really gross.

Your concept is good and you draw on several different sub-genres of horror, but the execution and dialogue needs work.  And the ending?  As far as I could tell, you just needed a quick wrap-up because you reached the page limit, but it didn't pay off.  Again, execution needs work.  Typos also.

Good effort, though.

Greg

Eric, congrats on completing an OWC script.  Not having a logline is a HUGE red flag of things to come.

Opening up with a misspelled word in your Slug (that repeats itself throughout the script) and then a poorly written, 5 line passage ending in an orphan isn’t the way to start.

Things don’t improve with the dialogue, either.

Page 4, and that’s it for me, sorry to say.

Really poorly written, bad dialogue, foolish actions and reactions from ridiculous characters.  Not gonna cut it for me.

Read some scripts.  Read some stuff on writing.  Edit your work before submitting.  Good luck.

I thought this showed promise, despite the numerous errors, until Bill showed up. Then it seemed to be very hurried. it has the basis for a good story, with expansion and a big re-write.

Hopefully, the author will read some other scripts in the challenge, or at least reply to these reviews.

One question:  how did Bill know Halley's name? Did he overhear them talking?

Welp, didn't like it. Riddled with typos. Might be the king so far.

Your idea is a good one though. A man trapped in his house cuz he's a cripple. Hoping for some young'ns to stop by to make soup out of them and rejuvinate. Sounds familiar. My problem was, I never felt any tension.

I think you have a decent idea that needs fleshed out a bit. Last OWC i'm reading tonight. Which means I'm drunk. So, feel free to disregard my review. I do compliment you on sticking to the restrictions and writing a script in a week.

James

Eric,

You'll be sick of hearing about typos now. A few too many do ruin the story for the reader.

I saw lots of good things here. It's overwritten though, a lot of sentences could be trimmed back and still achieve the same effect. Liked a lot of the dialogue.

Needs revamping. There is a good story here. Main thing is you did a good script that needs work. I doubt there are many here who have written a script without an error.

Keep at it. You never know.

R ox

It's a simple story and you told it the simple way - they go into a house, meet a bad man...

And "simple" is not bad.

Not enough mystery for me though, maybe if you started with Bill praising eternal life...

I sensed some exposition in the way the backstory was told. The girl saying "He's innocent. He's like my grandfather" is a bit unbelievable.

The idea of a man feeding on the youth is a good one, I think.

1 - Story: Umm... Nyet. I understand exactly what's happened, I think that with a serious overhaul it can be reworked into something interesting.
2 - Filmable & Budget: Yes, but requires a rather large abandoned house. Arbitrary (disposable) knights would cost, otherwise the rest would be inexpensive.
3 - Horror & Audience: Cannibalism is horror. The squirting blood might kick this into MPAA rated R. Otherwise, that R is being wasted on what is too vulgar and gory for Goosebumbs, although that's the maturity level of the story, and it's too silly for PG-13. House was not "abandoned" fail.  No date reference fail.
4 - Technicals & Format: Either some language gap is going on here or there are more typos than usual.
5 - Title & Logline: Needs a better title reflecting the cooking rather than the stealing. Don't forget your loggies!
General Comments:
A - Seriously consider the audience demands the MPAA rating will garner. Craft a story accordingly.
B - Develop Halley's character as to why she would be desperate enough to consider "ten lifetimes of adventure" from this creepy old dude trapped in a sh!tty old house, waiting for some people to wander in at random.
C - Characters act/react silly or as a child would.

hey guys thanx for the comments. I didn't really know what to think.
I have to admit that I saw the contest post really late and wrote it in 3 days without a single re-write which is always a bad idea. I should not have even submitted it that rushed, but I thought I would anyways. The Halloween theme idea seemed fun to try.
All I have to say is writing something in only 10 pages is hard, lol