It Howls by Alex Wasowicz - Horror - A girl chased by a vicious beast meets a hunter who tries to save them both. 96 pages - pdf, format 8)

Alex,

I've always tried to adhere to the pricnciple that if I'm not gonna read the whole script then I'm not gonna comment on it.   But I read your logline and was curious.  And then I read the first ten pages.  All I can say is...dude, is this for real?   This is supposed to be in the comedy section, right?  Not horror.  This has gotta be a spoof.

Anyway, I couldn't make it passed page 10.  The dialogue is just way too spot-on and goofy.   But congratulations on completing a full-length feature.   Sorry I couldn't be more helpful.

Too insulting to be a comedy/parody... Reads to clunky and stiff to be real horror.  This is obviously a script slapped up here to detour people's time away from worthwhile scripts.  It reads like something Jeff would've written for a OWC.  But that's neither here or there.  I couldn't finish it.  Got to page 15 or 16 before the plane went down and I had to bail.  If the author is around please come in and discuss what your motives were for the script and how anyone who reads it got the wrong impression.  I think it'd help you a great deal on future reads because right now I don't know if you're serious or not.

I had a tough time with this as well! Every other sentence was like this!
I understand you want to make this exciting!
But then the monster has dialog saying only a moan or a groan!
And the guy pisses out of the window!
Twice!
Before 30 pages in!
And the DISSOLVES, CUTS, FADE TOs, ANGLE ONs, SLOW MOTIONs wear out a welcome before the OTN dialog does!
And camera angles!
And the exclamation points!
And you see what I mean!
Aaaagghhhhh!! So says SOMEBODY on page 1!

Who?

I think it was Jenny's "boyfriend" but I'm not sure. Somebody could be anybody. I don't know who somebody is for sure. I know it doesn't pass for dialog.  Not to mention that after the scream - which could be written as "She hears a distant scream" or something to that effect-you write "She grimaces and presses on." But after "somebody", so is Jenny the somebody? She's being chased, it does make sense if she's in terror. But there's something else on the first page.

Quoted Text JENNY (24), wearing a TANK TOP and PANTIES drenched in BLOOD, runs for her life!

Then, after Somebody screaming, this follows:

Quoted Text SNAP! -- A branch snags her NECKLACE! She gasps! Turns back-- Searches, but can’t find it! CLOSE ON the mystical LOCKET and broken chain. She grabs it! -- Keeps running!

The two errors here : where did the necklace come from? When we first see her she isn't wearing it. and, if she's running "for her life" why does she "turn back to search"?

There is a way to correct this. Dump it, and rewrite that first line.
It could look something like this:

Quoted Text Blood splatter all over her tank top and panties, JENNY (24) runs. A NECKLACE clenched tight in her right hand. Fights through a thick underbrush. Sweat beads on her face.

Then get her to Deer Blind (exclude the SOMEBODY scream #2 and "she sees something unusual") and to Travis ASAP.

p 30

Quoted Text JENNY (whispers) I don’t hear nuttin.

At this point it occurred to me. You wrote this fast, throwing caution to the wind (considering the bathroom humor around these pages, that's not a pun) and in such haste, you forgot who was speaking. Travis has the annoying stereotypical backwoods voice, not Jenny. It's one thing if she asks about the buck. It's something else if she steals his voice. Speaking of voice:

Quoted Text TRAVIS A’ight.

He later makes a phone call, calls his buddy 'bra'. Who is this guy again? He talks less and less like a hunter. It's nowhere near as annoying as buck, and even that's topped with a double dream sequence. They fight, Travis calls Jenny a whore, she bites, hits him, she kicks him in the center..but at least they are finally out of the Deer Blind.

and I found out I have more tolerance than Screenrider.

But, I went ahead so I could see the light at the end of the tunnel. Even if by this time, I was hoping that either a) the beast, whatever it was, would just get gobble up our two annoying characters or at least shut the buck up so it can at least surprise us in an attack like Rogue's killer crocodile or a werewolf from Dog Soldiers or b) I'm sure the necklace has something to do with something but it doesn't.

The third act of the script and the conclusion makes no sense. If that ending is true, what was the rest of the script really about? What was the point of the dreams, the flashbacks?

As a horror is does not work. As a horror-comedy it doesn't work.
However, if you took out all the SLO MOs, ANGLES, DISSOLVES, flashbacks, dreams, the beast's howls as dialog,  the buck jokes (and the bolded headers) and, say, oh, 60 pages give or take, you could have yourself a nicely worked short script with some jokes, fleshed out characters and a lean, tight story. The problem overall is that you diluted too much of what really worked. The elements are in place.

There might be something here. Buck jokes and dream scenes aren't it.

-DjS

This was so bucking funny - I think reading this out loud should be considered by the UN as a humane/slightly mild form of torture and a viable method of extracting information from enemy combatants!

This is Alex's fourth script, on this site.  And he doesn't seem to post on the boards, not even to say thanks for the read.

We should let this thread (and script) die.


Phil

I read the whole buckin thing, I just want to ask, what was with the cheesy soft porn half way through? Some typos in there and at one point Mike the boyriend suddenly becomes Travis. It was a terrible script but then again there is a lot worse out there that have been made. Good Luck Bra!