A Tale That Wasn't Right by Jeff Bush (dreamscale) - Short, Horror - Old Man Pomeroy's ghost's been hauntin' the area ever' year on Hallowee...well, you know what I mean.  Josh and Jael race against an unseen clock in a race against time to end the evil. - pdf, format

Hey, at least you tried.  At both humor and writing a screenplay.  Glad I'm the first to comment, really.  I caught the new uploads just at the right time...


1. You don't space after your scenes... This is not a pro move.  And if you say it's because of space restraints maybe you shouldn't have entered a OWC with so many.  I see you took this one all the way to the end, teetering on the brink of spilling over into page 11, though.  Just imagine what a properly formated version of this one would look like.    

2. Goofy good looks?  What does this mean?  And south of the border babe?  I take it she's suppose to be of Hispanic orgin, but only because you reference it later on.  A bit, I dunno... Vague, maybe?

3. You have more comas than a secretary with a stuttering tourette problem.  If you take your sentences down, Mr. Grammar, you culd probably have better lead thru's.  Short sentences are always better than broken ones.  Even if you don't finish them properly -- You know, like me.  

4.  Josh's beat on page 3 is lunacy.  Beats all together are lunacy, though.  Beats are no different than a parenthetical instruction. Or, as you'd so aptly say -->
"wrylies".  You'd probably follow that word up with "Orphan", though, too.  And lots of times.    

Anyways, ball busting aside... I didn't go into these OWC's with high hopes and grandiloquent expectations.  I didn't pin my future writing endeavorer(s) on my script and I'm glad I didn't.  I knew the challenge was going to call for a strict formula and that is why I changed up my own format to adherer to it.  

Simply put, I'm no more happy with mine as you should be with yours.  Oh, wait, yes I am... At least I tried.  You simply jotted down, in what appears to be an hour, some poorly crafted thought; stretched out into a 10 page teenage romp, full of bong hits, cussing and sexual innuendos.  Oh, and jokes that went nowhere too fast for us to ask where we were going.

We could all talk technicals here and there, but what's important is story... And there just isn't much here.  I see you keyboard commando around, taking snide little hits at other scripts, perched atop a cloud holding a giant gavel.  But if people would take 2 seconds to compare their work to yours... they'd see you both wear the same size shoe probably.

But, hey... At least you tried.

Thanks for all that, Balt. It's appreciated.

So you're saying you didn't like the script?  You didn't find it entertaining or funny?  I actually am still laughing my ass off over numerous lines in here.  I'm glad I can entertain myself at least.

You are correct about the spacing, obviously.

Sorry you're against commas.  Commas and I seem to get along very well.

I always try, my friend.  Did I not succeed here?  If not, my apologies.  Thanks for reading.

I thought it was  a very amusing attempt at the challenge.   I got a few chuckles out of it.  At least you tried to create a world and I respect that.  Plus, I liked it, it was different.  And knowing you, you could have taken the easy route and gone for pure horror.  

But I did think it came off as a bit rushed and some of the formatting you did was very suspect

(beat)
(beat)
(beat)

for example.  What the hell was that?

Plus, I didn't really get a Columbian vibe from the Columbian girls dialogue.  You need to put some twang there.

There were other little things but overall, I kind of enjoyed the read so I don't really have that much to criticise.

Thank you for reading, Michael.

The triple beat was a joke.

Maybe you guys aren't familiar with the SyFy network show, Destination Truth.  Josh and Jael are real people, and maybe why it's so funny to me.  Jael may be from Columbia, but she doesn't sound like it.

I actually fucked up when I submitted this.  This is the first version, and I added several lines (and trimmed a few things out) and thought I submitted the right one...I was wasted, obviously I didn't.  The correct version actually ends with some horror.  Oh well, my bad.

Glad you got a few chuckles.

Even comedy scripts should be serious about how they are presented.  If you joke with things like beats - it just makes the script seem like you didn't really care about it and weren't taking it seriously.  If you feel that way, then your readers will too.  

I understand and agree with you, Michael.  The revised version had those extra beats removed.  It was the vodka's fault.  My bad...

Jeff,

A tale of drug induced sexual partying by a bunch of ghost hunters? Funny!

Not quite what I was expecting from Mr. Horror...

Gary

Sorry, Jeff, but I thought this was utterly ridiculous.  Not even funny.  I guess I was expecting some real horror from you.   After all, you're one of the "horror kings" on this site.   This was a major let down.   But congrats on completing an entry.  I know you probably wrote this one at the very last minute.

Don't drink & write!

EDIT:  Sorry, Jeff, I shouldn't have called this utterly ridiculous.  It's just comedy.

Thanks for reading Gary and Michael.

It was written the last day, but not in a matter of minutes.

Sorry it didn't work for you.  I'm still laughing over numerous lines in this.  Guess my sense of humor is unique to myself.

Sorry to let you down.

Quoted from Dreamscale Sorry to let you down.

No apologies necessary.   You gave it a shot.  That's all that counts.

We all gave it a shot.

Dreamscale

I was waiting for yours.  I was expecting some good horror... instead I got some good laughs... really.  I thought it was funny, but then I have a sick sense of humor anyway.

I wished you had spend more time mixing a better story together though.

But it was entertaining, so congrats.

Ghost

Thanks for reading, Ghost.

Sorry about the lack of horror.  I got kind of annoyed with the limitations and wasn't going to enter a script, but tried Friday to come up with something that would work and still contain my Sperm whale.  Nothing came to mind, so I decided to go another direction Friday afternoon.

Glad you got some laughs.  As I keep saying, I'm still laughing myself.

"My God, no!"

"My God, no!"

"My God, yes!?

HaHa...

Jeff,

I didn’t get much horror from your story, but props for inventing a pretty weird environment.
My favorite image is that of the sperm whale bones in the whale room.  I’m picturing it as on display like in a museum, which is an imposing thought.

As for the characters, Josh and Jael, I got tired of their sexual antics.  I didn’t mind them early on, but they just kept at it and I thought, enough is enough. Kind of killed any shift in tone.  Then again, I guess this wasn’t played for the horror anyway.

The scenario with the Mr. Pomeroy’s leg bones was amusing. It got a little interesting when the old ghost reared back with the harpoon, but didn’t care much for Jael being intercepted by the whale remains at the door.  Not sure how that works — couldn’t get a clear picture of giant whale bones detaining the woman.

I could appreciate the part of Josh and Jael in the house to get footage of Pomeroy, but again, I wanted J&J to kind of get serious and do the job right.

I was hoping for more down and dirty horror, but oh well.

Written for laughs and I think you had fun.

Jeff,

So, you used the sperm whale after all.  Way to go.  I had seen in some of your earlier posts that you had written a pisserino, so that's what I was expecting.  Unfortunately, I was quite disappointed with the lack of laughs.  I had high hopes at first, because I did like the toup cam.  But, that whackiness, by and large, left the story and you went with the sex jokes.  And IMO, you went to that well way too many times.  Okay, these two are horny bastards.  We get it.    

I like how you tried for the madcap ending, but it wasn't nearly enough to salvage this script for me.  I liked some lines at the beginning and end, but very little held my attention in between.

But hey, you did stick to the owc rules,  and that's an accomplishment.  In the end, I suppose I wish you had just made an effort at a serious entry.  Maybe next time.  

Take care,

Ryan