Chuggers by Neil Bennett (NeilAB) - Short, Comedy - A horror movie parody about a 'sub-species of society' with evil intentions. 10 pages - pdf, format 8)

First scene line is off. It's on the wrong side. When you introduced Neil, you didn't introduce him in all caps, which is what you would do when someone first appears in your story. Some of your wrylys (believe that's how you spell it) are off as well. Also, you have big blocks of dialogue and scene descriptions that tend to drag.

Other than that...

I did find humor in this, I laughed a few times at how over the top this was. Everything from the zombie reference and the dad sending a warning with a shotgun had me laughing. I felt this could have been trimmed down a bit, but it seems like this could even have been longer at some point.

Overall...

I liked it, just some of the formatting and big blocks of dialogue and descriptives kind of dragged the read. But, I was amused which is what I imagined you were going for, so in that regard...well done.

Cheers 13th Chamber - this is "NeilAB" btw. I changed my name the other day. I'm relatively new into screen writing, so I'm not surprised you find error in the formatting.

Firstly, I'm unsure as to why this is down as a horror, because it's definitely meant to be a comedy. I'm almost certain I ticked Comedy when submitting. [bert's note:  fixed] I hope this doesn't give anyone the wrong impression.

I've changed the first scene line accordingly. I think that was just down to accidentally highlighting "Transition" rather than "Screen Heading" in Celtx.

I'll try to cut the dialogue and scene descriptions (I know the ones you're referring to straight away).

Thanks for reading my script and the overall feedback Chamber. Much obliged! :)

For being new to the game, this was beyond just good. I don't know if your in school or self taught, but your on the right track. I'm also somewhat new and self-taught, and let me tell you, as long as you legitimately like writing, I don't see why you won't get very good very fast. Once again congrats on a solid effort and script. Be easy.

some notes,

you've got some mistakes on the first page. shit, you've got some mistakes on the first sentence. not only is your slug not aligned correctly but you wrote:

"Brian is stood outside the woman's changing rooms."

the ONLY reason i bring this up is because several regulars on the board will stop reading your screenplay immediately after reading this sentence. it's bad enough having mistakes on your first page. its suicide to have grammatical errors in the first sentence. i'm going to keep reading but just thought you should know (so that you can edit it now and resubmit asap).

when you first introduce a character, his/her name should be in all caps. just the first time though.

try to avoid words that end in "ing." you want to employ present tense/active verbs. so instead of:

Brian is walking down a busy high street.

it becomes:

Brian walks down a busy high street.

whoops, there we have another error. what is a "busy high street?" it's getting harder for me to defend you....

these chuggers appear out of no where. what do they look like? do they all look the same? shit, now that i think about it, what does brian look like? how old is he? you don't have to outline these details too specifically, but you should give your audience a general idea.

top of page 3. grammar mistakes. past tense verbs. i'm going to stop pointing out these mistakes from page 3 on. needless to say, you need to fix these problems.

some REALLY big chunks of dialogue on page 6. break em up with some action or descriptors. it will keep your audience interested.

shaggy? really? ehhhh

kinda getting tired of this chuggers thing by page 8...

woah! you need to break up that narrative on page 10. descriptors should be no longer than 4 lines. group em my friend.

done. overall i'm going to have to disagree with 13th chamber. this one wasn't very funny. it reminded me A LOT of that episode of south park with the homeless people (which is probably the best south park episode ever made). instead of homeless people, you've inserted chuggers. check out the episode if you haven't seen it. it's hilarious.

BUT SOUTH PARK EPISODES ASIDE, this one still doesn't work. the opening was okay (i liked the bit with the wife trying on dresses), but the joke wears thin after 3 pages. this is literally a one joke script. chuggers = zombies. now you could use this chugger/zombie joke as a BACKDROP to this script but it can't be the only joke. put some more humor into it. keep the audience interested. then again, maybe theres no more humor left in the comparison.

so keep writing. not bad for an initial effort, but not all that good either. plus, your script is plagued with spelling and grammatical errors, which makes it almost impossible to get through. if you don't take the time to edit your scripts, then why should we even read them.

good luck. if you rewrite this one, i'd love to take another look

Hi Neil - overall this was pretty good. I'm not going to go over the formatting, as that has been well referenced by other commentators, and suffice to say they are correct, and you need to look into it - there is an ocean of material on the net about formatting, so no excuses.

Keep an eye on certain things. Some of this script is 'story-like' A script is meant to be a functional document that a director can easily turn into a film. Therefore you need to emphasise the visual actions that are taking place. I had a little bit of difficulty with the son and mother taking the barricades off the door - the father had put them on from the outside, so I didn't really see how they could get them off from the inside. I also felt that there was some inconsistency with the character of the son - one minute he was resigned to his parents acting mad, the next he was helping them. There was also a minor inconsistency with the father when he rolls his eyes at his wife weeping - he and her are both a tad 'off kilter', so the father needs to maintain his empathy with her.

The dialogue at the very beginning needs to be a bit punchier - it came over a little bit flat - and first impressions can be very damaging.

All in all very promising - visually it would work on the small screen - a skit, shortened - I've honestly seen worse - I liked the whole over-the-top nature of it. But it does need the son to contrast their behaviour, and it does need to be written properly.

Best of luck to you.

Thanks for both of your feedback ap and SC007. (How do I resubmit my script?)

I've taken your advice into account for my edits. I do however have to take objection to your point about the son Si. I think the fact that he - as the child - offers the level-head is a funny concept.

Quoted from Court Jester I do however have to take objection to your point about the son Si. I think the fact that he - as the child - offers the level-head is a funny concept.

A bit strong? No, I think you've misinterpreted my point - or maybe I didn't explain myself clearly (surely the former?). I was referring to character inconsistency - I think it's correct that he is quite different to the parents, this offer much-needed contrast - what I was referring to was the consistency of the character, and I felt that sometime the way that he joined in with the parents made it appear that he was acting in unity with them, thus detracting from the contrast that he brought to the script. That he is level-headed is spot on.