All screenplays on the simplyscripts.com and simplyscripts.net domain are copyrighted to their respective authors. All rights reserved. This screenplaymay not be used or reproduced for any purpose including educational purposes without the expressed written permission of the author.
Cleansed by Steve McDonell (stevie) - Short, Horror - A man finds that the past can come back to haunt you. Especially on October thirty first. - pdf, format
I liked this script, Stevie. It had a nice down-to-Earth gothic feel to it. I would suggest tightening the dialog up a little bit and, at the same time, adding to the piece to build some suspense. A little contradictory, I know. Have William explain his hardships (but don't add anymore hardships to his story.
I'm not sure why William would marry a vegetable, though....
Revenge is a dish best served cold. Old Klingon Proverb. Sorry, Stevie this one didn't do much for me. I think I've just officially burned out on reading stories of murder and mayhem. This one was well-written, though.
Btw, isn't flooding the house pretty much equivalent to burning it down?
EDIT: Steve, I read your script last night after a long day's work. Tired. After thinking about it again this morning...I like it a whole better. The house filling up with water would look pretty terrifying on film.
Liked this one, Stevie. Simple and to the point. Starts out with an intriguing scenario with the guy in a wheelchair for some unknown reason, but you let the details trickle in until the truth is revealed.
"Like a shark's eye. Like a doll's eye..."
Seen Jaws lately?
Creative use of the abandoned house theme, and so far the most creative deaths in this OWC.
Hi guys. Thanks for the read and comments. This was my first ever horror script and its interesting for me to see what people thought.
The original script was a bit different at the start of the week, but after some good suggestions by pre-readers, I made some changes - thanks to Jeff, Pia, Murph, Tommy and Jwent(I know his name is James but it avoids confusion with James McClung).
Phil - yeah, It can be improved no doubt. And William has gone a bit crazy over the years; he' sort of a sad 'hero' and married Rachel out of self-sacrifice.
Jwent - cheers man. Looking forward to the gang reading your top script.
SR - sorry it didn't work for you and i understand about ploughing through a heap of horror scripts!! Um, flodding and burning? Completely different in my neck of the woods And we were allowed to do anything to the house except burn it. Cheers. Oh, and Murph came up with a great tagline for this which you emulate: 'Revenge is a dish best served wet'...
Ryan - thanks for the kind words. And well spotted! Jaws is my fave movie and threw that line of Quint's in! Actually the ending to this was inspired by the end of the 'Deliverance' original book and what happens to the valley.
Cleansed by Steve McDonell (stevie) - Short, Horror - A man finds that the past can come back to haunt you. Especially on October thiry first. - pdf, format
Sorry Don, but I've just noticed that 'thirty' above is missing a 't'! My error...
Stevie, really good job with this one. Nice to see you step out of your comfort zone and write a serious piece... now if only I could do the same
Writing was really crisp and things flowed nicely. One thing that stood out to me was that going by the math, Fraser would've only been 13 at the time he caused the accident. I think it'd work better if you made him 17 or 18 so it's a bit more believable.
I could sense the ending coming, particularly about Rachel, but it had a sort of full circle feel to it in terms of the original accident. Overall I thought it was really solid, good job here mate.
Good on you for completing the one week challenge! This story read very well, you have shown off some serious skills here. I kinda wish you had sued your third character as a more interactive dynamic. You play the scenario out well and I think it would be better if Rachel could participate. I think the ages are a bit off, too young to legally drive, unless you meant to do that.
I'm a little unclear on why Richard would marry a vegetable. I'd like to know more. This feels more like a revenge story than a horror piece, but that's a minor quibble. I'm not too keen on the flood, it works for your title though. It seems odd that someone planning out revenge would not know about that.
This is one of the strongest efforts I have read for the OWC. Thanks for posting!
Regards, E.D.
LATEST NEWS CineVita Films is producing a short based on my new feature!
Great effort Stevie, especially as this is your first horror. I liked the story, and liked the imaginative use of the flooding being a catalyst for the drama.
So many scripts fail to answer the important question of why now? i.e. why are the character doing what they are doing right at this time? What is the compelling event? Well you gave us this brilliantly so full marks for this.
It is probably borderline horror in my book, but that is quite subjective, many would call this horror, I am just a little old school and kind of expect something supernatural to be considrered horror. But when crap like Hostel and Saw is considered horror then I guess this certainly fits the mainstream view.
Overall a great script, it worked well and delivered on what it promised. Nice one.
POSSIBLE SPOILERS***********************************************
Hi guys and thanks for the comments...
Stephen - cheers mate. Yeah, there are some unfilmables in there. I put them in to try and add to the mood overall. I thought people might mention them.
Gary - hi buddy. I dig the fact that you dug it!! Great way to start a Monday morning. And the Niners finally won a fucking game too!!!
Tim - hey, man. How's this odd October GC weather? You know what? I didn't even thik of the age thing!!!! Pia pointed out that William wouldn't have married a 15 year old so I fiddled with that but didn't realise about the driving age. Easily fixed so ta!!
ED - I love the way your replies are always in quartrains(is that the name for them?), like you gonna rhyme your posts!!!! Look, I know Rachel does fuck all, but I didn't want to use her as anythiing else - it shows how much of a crippled soul she is. A few people have wondered why William would marry a vegetable - well, he's gone a bit crazy over the years(maybe he always was?) And he knew about what was gonna happen the valley - that was all part of the revenge. If you re-read his lines, he's been sarcastic to Fraser (hopefully...)
Cheers again guys!!
Shit! Sorry Murph, forgot you!! Thanks buddy for the pre-read and ideas. Love that tagline u gave me. My mate is a graphics whiz - he's gonna do me a poster with it on.
However, I do see that you've cleaned this up a bit since I read it.
I'm still laughing at the brain tumor line though. Too much misfortune. I understand why you have it there but it kind of crosses the line of belivability for me. It would be better if it was his wife who was going to die and he would have no one to care for. Or maybe he's loco for some other reason that isn't related to misfortune.
Or maybe a letter came to him from the real estate guy saying he must vacate the house by October 31st. That could be just enough to send him over the edge. He could shove the letter in the guys face. It could work.
It's a very good story, starts and flows well and I loved the very last visual and William's last words.
Pages 4 (from the middle), 5 and 6 - it's too chatty for me, maybe you could cut some of it, it really doesn't add much I think. That's my only gripe though.
I liked the "brain tumor" stuff and he doesn't know who will support Rachel - this makes total sense because he did not plot the revenge before and did that only now - so the new found tumor explains this very nicely.