First Annual Barbeque by Steve Merlo - Horror - Many Youths are lured to an old abandoned house where an annual barbeque is to be held. The house is not as it seems, as they are tortured by a chainsaw wielding cannibal! 97 pages - pdf, format 8)

This needs some fixing, it isn't terrible, for me it's just bland.

Reading the log-line (which needs major work) I got the impression that this would be some kind of Texas Chainsaw flick.  And already on the first page, that's what this seems like.

It's set in Texas.  It has a cannibal.  With a chainsaw?  I'm wondering whether this is a TCM fan-fiction or not.

Also, you're character has the name "Sayer" and already I'm thinking about the "Sawyer" clan from TCM.

The format also needs a lot, a lot of fixing!

This is what you wrote:

"EXT. SAYER HOUSE, SOUTHERN TEXAS, 10:00 AM"

Should be --

"EXT.  SAYER HOUSE - DAY"

SUPER: SOUTHER TEXAS
           10:00AM" ... or something like that.

No times in the title.  Super it.  If the time isn't important to the story, then just write if it's "DAY" or "NIGHT".  Simple. :)

You go onto write:

"SHERIFF Ramsey, a 60 year old male Sheriff, 5'8, with a
slightly heavy build, pulls his car up to the Sayer house,
gets out of his car, walks to the front door and knocks."

Should be --

"SHERRIFF RAMSEY, 60, heavy build pulls up in a car, gets
out, and walks to the front door.  He knocks."

-- You must capitalize ALL of the character's name when first intro-ing them.

-- Never include heights.  You did it with your second character too.  It isn't important, you're wasting space.

Also, from then onward, you keep on capitalzing "SHERIFF". ???

I'm sorry, this is just giving off bad impressions.  You're not bad, you seem to have some kind of grasp towards formatting and how a screenplay is written.  My suggestion would be to jump in, read some scripts, it'll help you improve.

Good luck with this, hope to see you around.

-- Curt

Hi,

i read just 2-3 pages so thatīs my impression

--your dialogues are not soo good..(just me)

--donīt start so rapid..just to BUM ..you know...

--let us more feel the ambience...itīs so important on the first 2 or 3 pages.

--show us more thingīs ..

but under the line..a good one..go on...:)

I opened this a month ago and scanned over it.  I wasn't really interested.  Seeing it's back up at the top of the portal I decided to give it another peak.  At around 15 pages, I started to only skim the next 5.  I stopped at page 20.

For starters, you intro a gigantic amount of characters equipped with specifics such as height.  This list of characters you have here makes it hard to remember who's who.  Maybe you should chop it down a bit, this way some of your characters stand out a whole lot more.

Number two.  I'm twenty pages in and there is no sense of dread, like in the original TCM.  It's more of a comedic route (that's not really funny), I would say.  And I will assume that this is either a fan-fic or probably an homage to The Texas Chainsaw Massacre?  It's obvious from the logline, the setting, and even the R. Lee Ermey type sheriff.  I think you should drop the entire idea and go in a different direction, create a whole new horror icon, instead of trying to recapture the pure magic of Tobe Hooper's original TCM.  I think 6 movies have tried to live up to the original and every single one of them sucked (maybe with the exception of Leatherface:  TCM III -- but even there that one was so-so).  It's the only horror series without a decent sequel.  I don't think any of the later directors ever really "got" the original.  The original TCM is chilling...frenzied, squalid, frantic...art.  No one gets that, and that's why the sequels are plain trash.

Also, your script has waaaaay too much dialogue.  There's no action going on.  It's just people talking back and forth.  It's what some here would refer to as a "talking heads" script.  A note...I was recently watching a Clint Eastwood documentary on Turner Classic Movies and they discussed how Sergio Leone liked to make his movies with as little dialogue as possible, and then they showed scenes from his movies, and I was like "wow, that's amazing."  I decided to re-work some of my scripts to accomplish that task.

On some positive notes:  Schizo is semi-amusing and I like the title "First Annual Barbeque."   8)

I still maintain that maybe you should try your hand at something different in this genre, and wish you luck in doing so!   :)

Sup, Steve

To begin with, you may want to revisit your premise. You get your point across. First thing I noticed was all the exclamation points. What's with that. I'm sure the character's aren't going around yelling at another. I got up to page 15 before I stopped. There's a few evident problems such as the exclamation points that I'm sure if they're in the first ten pages they're likely in the 80 or so pages that follow.

Reaper pretty much touched on everything that I saw that might cause problems for other readers. Till next time.

BLB