The Final Level by blank - Short, Survival, Horror, SyFy - Two warriors fight for their survival in a wicked game with deadly adversaries. 9 pages - pdf, format

Ummm,

Not sure this fits the criteria at all.  This seems like it'd be very very expensive to shoot.  

It was a decent read, but, again, we don't know why they are forced.  Again, leaving out spoilers.

It was a fun story, but, man, this would be far too expensive to shoot on a shoestring budget.

7/10 for idea, 4/10 for the rules of the exercise (at least IMO)

A Brit perhaps?

Who is Ayreon telling to get down?  Guessing it’s Olzon, but it should be clarified as such.

Despite the budget issues the action is handled pretty well, writing is sparse, visual, and to the point.  Tough to pull off this type of fantasy/SF in a short, it often ends up feeling random, and disconnected from the bigger world you’re imagining but unable to show.  The final intercom gives us an idea, a game of sorts.  But it’s unclear if it’s real or imagined/computer generated etc.  or for what purpose and without that context, tricky to connect to the characters plight.

My guess is you’re much more at home getting these ideas down in features.

Congrats on entering!

Strange sci-fi tale.  Yeah, budget concerns for sure, but not if it's part of a larger feature.  It's just too hard to get into a complex world of characters in a short.  You took it right to the action which helped it.  Writing was good, just couldn't quite get into it.

Good luck.

The title may give the end away a little, or hint at it at least.

But it's well written for an action ascent up the lift, not sure why they are wearing Norse armour but adds to the colour.

Twist ending worked well enough too,

Anthony

Cheesy action writing is a must-have skill for the blockbuster movies. So the writer is wise to continue to develop that.

The next step is to learn a little more about narrative and about character development.

There's promise demonstrated here in the skill the writer does have...action writing. Like the all of us, more growth is needed as a writer. Good luck!

Fair enough for what it was - by that I mean it was pretty standard out of the box warriors vs monsters.  Action was handled very well-  I could see it. However, I found the dialogue relatively uninspired.

I am not quite sure that this meets the spirit of the competition as the story does not really take place in an elevator or lift but rather in a forever rising tunnel that just happens to have doors to enter - maybe it's just me, but it's kind of like - two guys enter an elevator - they look below - it's the Grand Canyon.

Ok, not exactly low budget etc, and sci fi is not my thing, but that kept me reading when I'm usually lost in these things.

What to suggest? Difficult to say. The fact it is an experiment or testing facility perhaps should be known. A kind of running man scenario rather than a bolt on

All the best

this one started well for me.  A battle, an escape, a fight against tall odds.  A doomed pair who fight on anyway.  Then, it's just a game, a simulation or something.  Damn.  

Oh well.  Not a bad attempt but because it lacked a good backstory logic, it turned into something else.

Best
Richard

Read the whole thing.

Writing's solid.  Action well handled...and it needs to be, since there's not much dialogue.  It kept me entertained.

It's definitely not low budget, but it's all in and just outside a lift, so I'll go along with it.

The ticking clock works well to provide tension and these Myygen things are badass bitches.

The end reveal is interesting and works for me, but I can easily see how others may not approve.

At 8 pages, this reads quickly, but I bet a 1/2 a page could be cut and a little more "meat" could be included.

Good effort.

The action is well written here. It draws you in and feels cinematic. I also got a pretty good visual of the world you were creating.

I had some issues with Elsa. They never really got a firm number on how many Myygen there were and it seems like they would’ve tried to figure it out first. It also makes me question what kind of sci-fi world this is where the robotic female A.I. gives more obtuse answers than Siri.

The two places this could be beefed up is the characters and the final twist. And they sort of feed into each other in my view. After the final reveal I found myself wondering how much these guys knew about their predicament. Did they know it was a game? What did they think was happening? Where did they think they had come from? Lots of unanswered questions, and answering them could give an opportunity to build up the characters and their history a bit.

Otherwise, a pretty good effort.

Hi Writer,

Very cool. You should be designing video games IMO. There was a leviathan amount of action going on here that I found myself re-reading /tracing back more than a few times,  trying to get a grasp on:

a) what was transpiring
b) what kind of world we're in, and
c) is this a snippet from a larger piece

That being said, the atmosphere you set, and your descriptors were spot on and detailed enough so anyone jumping in could get their bearings based on previous knowledge of the OWC theme. It would appear you have a very distinctive voice that resonates with a couple of writers on this board...  maybe they'll show.

One other aspect that caught me out was ELSA, why is she not programmed with any form of deductive reasoning? Perhaps she's just an asset within the game that's available to the players, but limited in scope... like a weapon with a limited functionality?

Wicked creative if you whipped this up from scratch for this OWC, well done.

I liked the action at first, but after a while it bored me. I wanted more dialogue. But then again, I'm not really into thrillers, anyway. It was good for what it was. I thought the monsters lacked imagination - spider like things shooting webs are kind of cliched.

The opening blows whatever shoestring budget the producers had for this movie.

But it was set in an elevator at least. A big sci-fi action fest. You know how to write action but without context of characters, or the world they inhabit I felt myself drifting and then scanning the rest of the action. The setup reminded me way too much of Aliens, in particular Ripley’s encounter with the Queen in the Elevator as the self-destruction countdown blares out.

I liked the twist at the end, it’s all a game, but again because I don’t know the players involved or what the stakes are it doesn’t resonate the way it should do.

-Mark

Upon rereading the logline, I see you sort of told us the deal here without giving it away. I didn't see it it coming.

The ending aside, the set-up is a staple in any number of genres -- western movies, war movies, thrillers. Plus the countdown to lockdown. Fortunately, the monsters are interesting enough to keep us watching.

The action is well-timed. The dialogue does not do much, but it's serviceable. Such lines as "Come on, we can do this" seem too contemporary.

The elevator parameter? Close enough.

Although the script is hardly a ground-breaker, it holds its own in this challenge.