The Couple Across the Street

Hi Steve, sorry for the delay.

Format-wise I'll draw your attention to the fact quite a few of your scenes are not Continuous so you don’t need those in your sluglines.

Example:
EXT. BAKER RESIDENCE – CONTINUOUS
This scene would require a different location setup, so it’s not Continuous.

If I'm being pedantic you could also keep your description lines to succinct shots only and keep your action blocks to four lines. I'm not a stickler, but the extra info needs to add imho.

Example:

Lilly sees KRISTIN BAKER (33), Paul's wife taking their
garbage can around to the side of their house.

Lily sees. Paul's wife. Not needed.

EXT. STEVENSON RESIDENCE - THE NEXT DAY
Either write 'next day’ as a Super, or in description describe the sun coming up on a new day.

Kristin and Lilly enter the White's residence. A JOGGER in
his early thirties sees Lilly and Kristin enter the house,
and waves. Kristin quickly waves back and shuts the door.

The jogger is actually intrinsic to the plot (being a witness) considering Kristin later lies about the last time she saw Lily. Nothing is made of that later though, even perhaps in the police mentioning interviewing other residents.

INT. BAKER RESIDENCE DINING ROOM - LATER THAT NIGHT
INT. BAKER RESIDENCE – DINING ROOM – NIGHT - LATER

KRISTIN
It seems Lilly Stevenson saw you
last night.

I'd personally make this line more definitive, even accusing. Cut the 'It seems' preamble.

...and realizing that her house is not soundproof...
Just have Kristin lower her voice. That will show us all we need to know there.

A beat. Paul realizes that this could be the biggest problem
they've ever faced.
You're in the habit of 'telling' us way too much instead of ramping up the tension organically through a character's actions and demeanor.

Have him pace around, or fix himself a drink now not later is an option to up the drama naturally.

PAUL
Okay, let's think through this.
The bodies were cut up and placed
in trash bags. So all she saw was
me taking the trash bags out of
the trunk, that's not so bad—
That’s a lot of exposition and spelling out – all she saw – start at that point

He should/could be defensive here, perhaps even get angry: All she saw was...
Spoon-feeding imho with the explicit mention of cut up bodies isn't needed. It's much more powerful to leave this to the audience's imagination. Most audiences would catch on. Alternatively, if you want to show more, perhaps have Kristin point to some blood on his shirt collar, that might be a nice touch, and it would point to his ongoing activities - she could accuse him of getting sloppy.

PAUL (CONT'D)
How much of the vile did you use?
Typo: Should be: Vial

The scene with how much poison she used also should promote an argument between the two - him turning on and blaming her. She did a stupid thing. I'd personally make more of this from his POV - the business end of this operation is his specifically, she clearly didn't know what she was doing, went behind his back and is now the cause of their predicament, and a lot worse, of being caught.

There's no way to link us
to the causation of the victim's death.
Unless the character speaks in a pompous manner I'd leave it as cause of death – sounds much more natural.

I like a lot of this.
The use of poison, the ruthless actions were quite shocking and came from left field.

The ending however is an anticlimax and I feel wouldn't satisfy an audience considering the build up. You need to end on a bang or twist

Because of that it's not quite as self-contained as a Short (as it could be) and read more (to me, at least) as a teaser or opening to a longer piece.

I love the idea but I think you need to develop it more.
In doing so you'd make it more Thriller than drama.

It's a terrific scenario. Nosy neighbours witnessing something they shouldn't is always a great hook for audiences.

Just give it a bit more on all fronts.

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