Smiler by Mark Renshaw (markrenshaw) writing as Smiley Emoji - Short, Horror - A man with a freakish frozen smile on his face follows a woman down a deserted side street, determined to carry out his duty. - pdf format

Writer interested in feedback on this work

This is pretty awesome! Creepy and super creative. Excellent and descriptive writing. Very suspenseful without a word of dialog. Great work.

This reads WAAAAAY too similar to "The Smiling Man" short that went viral (there's a few variations of the short online). I do like the twist ending, but it just feels like a rewrite of an existing work.



Writing was okay, though it felt rushed, which sort of killed the tension and suspense while reading.

-- Michael

Well done

Writer,

Well, that was different. Didn't expect that, so you got me. However, I did not feel the tension of the pursuit the way you may have intended. Something more dreadful or foreboding was missing here. Not quite sure what it was.

Steve

Hi writer,

This has very much been done, the twist adds a little something new but the whole build up is very similar to another short out there.

This one was just middle of the road for me.

All the best.

EDIT

Michael knows what I'm talking about.

Very clearly inspired by the classic Smiling Man creepypasta. I liked this one.

This is the first one I'm going to comment on of the ones I read, but I'm noticing a very similar theme to quite a few of these, and it does come across pretty derivative. Having said that the writing is pretty good and it was easy to visualise as I was reading.

Good luck

The Smiler and the Frowner

Smiler comes across as creepy, with all the matching movements. Wasn't that much of a fan of the Frowner but liked the reversal of roles.

The writing could be tightened up a lot to be honest.

Best of luck

Very interesting - a story that's been done many, many times but throw in two freakish characteristics to set it apart. It wasn't until you see the upside-down features that it becomes something greater than the average. Good work, writer.  

Decent story and no dialogue, simple in it's telling.
Well done.

I didn't understand a lot of this. Why is the pursuer smiling if he's just returning her purse? Why is she so freaky? If the "frowner" wanted to go after this guy, why was she running away?

I'm sure the imagery would be cool if shot, but I feel I'd be baffled at the ending.

Weird, but that's not a bad thing.

I just think some of it doesn't quite hang together.

Decent effort.

Smiler – Joker, and then Frowner; I think we’re in Gotham, which makes it dark and surreal. Not sure why she would snarl and give chase if she’s so fugly, you’d think she’d get his number, hook up, and bare fugly kids. None the less, it had a fun turnaround and meets the challenge. Best of luck.

The apparent stalker turns out to be a good guy, and the would-be victim turns out to be a baddie, is an all-too-common theme. I think it would have been more fun if the two freaks found each other attractive and then tried to find a way to kiss.

It’s weird and unexplained in a way that doesn’t leave more questions than answers.  I liked how they match one another’s movements that could be interesting visually not to mention unnerving.

Low budget?  I don’t know, maybe if someone has the basic knowhow for the make-up/prosthetics.

Best to finish on FADE OUT than THE END.

Yeah, I liked this but unfortunately it is hard to shake comparisons to the Smiling Man (the little girl in the kitchen scene is hard to shake).

OK, I agree with most of the previous criticisms you've gotten so far. I was certainly intrigued enough by its similarity to other stories like it, and props for putting your own spin on things towards the end. Best of Irish luck!

A lot of these scripts have the same twist..
1 person chases and in turn they become the person being chased..

Not bad, the writing was very good.

2 dysfunctional "humans"

Not sure what to make of this one. It’s full of suspense, but if she could effectively take him on, as she does at the end, what’s the purpose of her running from him all throughout the story?  Doesn’t make sense to me.  Otherwise a fun read and loved the visuals. Best of luck with it.

Good writing, nice visuals, quick pace. Interesting idea. It didn't knock me out but I did enjoy it. Nice entry.

That was solid. Doesn't overstay its welcome. Sufficiently weird for my taste.

This reminds me of the Jameson First Shot short The Smile Man with Willem Dafoe:

https://vimeo.com/203450398

This, however, is more of a joke. Comedy meets tragedy, turn that smile upside down. It's a meme. Written well enough, but still just a meme. At least it was original, despite the similarities to other smilers out there.

The story is no good, but the characters are fantastic.  Very imaginative.

One is a ridiculous emoji head, the other with her "face cloaked in shadow" -- so we kind of know already where this is leading.

The table-turn was a disappointment.  I was hoping these two would hook up.

The writing is effective. The description of the smiler is really creepy. A good character.

Here is what confused me: How did he get her purse? Did she drop it? I must have missed something.

A fun read.

Thanks for the feedback!

The backstory to this is it is set in an alternate universe in which the population are all humanoid emojis. The Smiler and the Frowner are like yin and yang twins (which is why they are in sync) and locked in this endless circle of the smiler following his twin and trying to make friends with the frowner always wanting to (literally) bite his head off.

It's weird, bonkers, experimental and, of course, you can't get that from what I wrote, but I thought the setup and reversal would tell its own story and people could interpret it how they wanted.

I am going to add a scene at the end where the next day we see folk going around their business in the town and they all have different emoji faces. This would have blown any chances of it being low-budget which is why I didn't include it, but now I wished I had.

As for the Smiling Man and this being too similar. That was not my intention. I have never seen the movie before nor read the story, although I am aware of it and read a summary of it in my research, so it must have had an influence. I watched the video after Michael linked it. It is creepy, but to me, it just looks like a guy high on drugs messing around with another guy.

Thanks again!

Read this and wasn't quite sure what to make of it.

Then dived into the comments (which I normally don't do, in order to avoid being influenced) and watched the Smiling Man video (genuinely brilliant spark of creativity there) and realised this is something of a homage.

So with that in mind, you've actually done a good job of putting a sting in the tail by playing on something already out there, and done it in less than two pages, which is a good job.

I think the writing would've benefitted from a quick rewrite (then again, which writing doesn't), but you've done a clever little quirk on what's already out there.

Seems people are very familiar with this existing universe of 'smiling man', but it was completely new to me.

Just read your comment, Mark, which invalidates my previous post

So your script ends up being a reverse of The Smiling Man organically, which is kind of cool and makes it slightly creepier!

Thanks, Andrew for both your comments. If people want to view this as a homage to the Smiling Man with a different twist then that's fine by me, with something so famous it is going to be impossible to avoid comparisons, even though I wasn't aware of the movie when I wrote it.

I'll add that extra scene at the end to take it to a new level but I think everyone will think I've copied the idea anyway.

New version uploaded and I've added this at the end to, hopefully, make it different. The plus side is it is still only 2 pages long:

EXT. CITY STREETS - MORNING

As the city wakes, the first few citizens begin their day.

Only they aren’t like you and me, not their faces anyway. A SIDE-EYED MAN with his face locked in an eternal smirk winks at a permanently BLUSHING WOMAN as they pass each other.

The sun rises, the streets fill with people. All of them have warped facial features that express their personality with crystal clear clarity.  

This is Earth of sorts, it just isn’t the one we know.

FADE OUT.