Brains, Stains, and Automobiles by Matthew Cohen - Horror - A doomsday prepper reluctantly teams up with a group of teenagers to survive a zombie outbreak. 86 pages - pdf, format 8)

Sorry, but I couldn't make it more than three and a half pages through this.  When every other word out of every character's mouth is "fuck" or a derivative thereof, not only do they all sound the same, it colors them as imbeciles and makes you not give a damn about them.  Just sayin'.

That aside, just from what I read, this needs work.  Action/narratives are overlong (four lines or less is the general rule of thumb), you've got some unfilmables in there, you're using far more description than is needed and the pacing is...well, there isn't any.  Horror isn't just about gore and violence, it's about rhythm; even in a horror comedy, the building up of tension and suspense is hugely important.  There's nothing wrong jumping right into things, but pace yourself and give us some appealing characters to root for, because the ones you've got?  I'm already hoping they die, and soon.  I've been a horror film fan since I was 7 years old; I'll be 42 this month.  In those 35 years I've seen hundreds and hundreds of horror films.  I'd wager close to 1,000, though it's likely a great deal more.  And very, very, VERY few horror films work when they focus on characters you couldn't give half a shit about -- and your characters' behavior and dialogue makes me not give half a shit about them.

I don't really have much more to add, given that I've only read three and a half pages.  But then again, in most cases, if there's this much chaff in the first three and a half pages, it's a good bet the rest of the script is full of the same.  My advice would be to go back in, trim any line of description that isn't absolutely needed -- and for God's sake, give your characters a vocabulary!  

You have a good concept here, IMO, and I'd hate to see you waste it on characters I don't give a shit about.

Best of luck.  Keep writing. :)

- Lon

Hello Matthew,

I haven't seen you around before, welcome to Simplyscripts.

First off, you have a pretty cool tongue in cheek title. It seems to fit in with what you're writing.

From page one, you have lots of little issue, that are a little sloppy IMO.

Just wondering, did you remove the co writers name on purpose or did you add that as a style choice? I'd get rid of it. It looks amateur on both counts.

The following: 'There is a tense feeling in the air.' Remember, film is a visual medium, I'm not sure how you can show this. You can use visuals that imply tension, but that line of action description doesn't belong.

'He kicks his leg and the rat flies across the room.' What else would he be kicking?!

'as if it were a caustic acid.' Nerd moment - The term caustic applies to alkaline bases, substances with a PH greater than 7, an acid has a PH less than 7. On either extreme of the PH scale, both are corrosive.

So a caustic acid is incorrect.

What I suggest is that you go over each page of your action descriptions with a fine tooth comb and cut out anything that's redundant.

Hope this helps.

Kind regards,

Eoin