The Neighbor by Bernard Mersier - Horror - The laws of the ten commandments are enforced, when Deacon Patrick Graves discovers his wife cheating, leading to a gruesome murder. He goes on a holy rampage of murder, killing those who break the commandments, eating their flesh, which in his mind is cleansing their souls. 111 pages - pdf, format

Writer interested in feedback on this work




This is a full length script from the October 2013 OWC - http://www.simplyscripts.net/cgi-bin/Blah/Blah.pl?m-1382192984/

Hey, Bernard, ok, I didn't get past page one…I'm wondering if this might have been better as a novel; because the prose is a lot in the beginning. My advice…? Break it up more, try and describe what's going on in as few words as possible. This can be fun; just think about your scene and strip it down to only a sentence or less. Just give it a try, I'll try to get back to this one another time…good luck, my friend. I hope this helps.

Hi Bernard,

I do agree with dellmoeg regarding your first page. IMO there is waaaaaaaay too much description here. I'm not having a go, we all do it. I myself have been guilty of it numerous times in the past, but remember, your first page is perhaps the most important in the entire screenplay.

Here is a link which really helped me, http://www.scriptforsale.com/firstpage.shtml it examines the opening pages of three (produced) screenplays: My First Mister, American Beauty and Bill Durham and talks about how they are writteen and the effect they had on the reviewer. Obviously these are the pros, but that's what we're all aspiring to right?

Also, sidebar, I feel that 155 pages is far too long for an unproduced spec screenplay. And everything I've ever read and everyone I've ever had correspondence with have confirmed that. The average length for a feature clocks in around 110 pages, just something to consider.

Hope this feedback helps.

Good luck dude.

Matt

From one extreme to another… This log line has too little detail (see irrational circumstance, too much detail). Whenever, I see 155 pages, I see a red flag. Sure could you write a 155 page horror, yeah, more likely it’s a case of too much descriptive narrative, something dellmoeg and MatthweBiggin, point out.

BLB

Hi, Bernard.

I read your script from beginning to end and I have made the following notes:

Page 39-40:  I think this scene would work better if we didn't know where Patrick was.  When the woman is dragged down the alley and just before Bradley rapes her, Patrick jumps from the darkness and subdues him - no dialogue between them.

You have a character whose name is simply "Officer."  Since he has a sizable speaking part, you should give him a name.

There are some formatting issues that need to be addressed:

1) All characters must be introduced in ALL CAPS.

2) No space between character name and dialogue.  No spaces before and after wrylies.

3) The page number should be at the top right of each page.

In addition, the script is riddled with grammatical errors.  The most obvious is the lack of "'s" to indicate a possessive noun.  However, these errors can easily be fixed with a good proofread.

The title and the logline could use some work; they don't effectively catch the reader's attention.  I felt that the title didn't accurately represent the story.  Maybe a better title would be "Deacon." (just my opinion)

It was a fun story to read!  The way that he killed his victims were quite gruesome.