Doctor Kay's House by Toll's Toy - A group of teenage boys say goodbye to an abandoned cottage they used to play in as children.  Short, Comedy

Toll's Toy,

This was another script that had me feeling confused emotions. Most of it seemed more of a drama than a comedy. Especially when they found the flower lady. Some comedic bits here, but I wouldn't categorize it as one, more than a drama at least.

It was a good story nonetheless. The writing was great, and I liked the pacing of the story in regards to the limited page count. The characters were great, and I did enjoy the cooking sherry bit (the first time).

All in all, it was a great story. Gave me some good Stand By Me vibes.

Sean

Sean's Stand by Me comment is right.

TREVOR
There's somebody in there.
For more urgency would be more effective as 'someone's here'.

Pare back your dialogue a bit -
Example:
JON
My dad said he was a Theology
professor, whatever that means. This
was his summer house. He was going to
live here full time when he retired.
(stop the dialogue at this point)
That didn't happen. I guess they
finally found a buyer for the house.

Then -

BILLY
I wonder who bought it.

You don't need this line:
Gloves, the hood, and long, gray hair hides their identity.
Spoon-feeding the reader.

This reads as drama. I feel the last scene with the homeless man was your inclusion of comedy but it doesn't really fit the tone with Flower Lady.

I really liked the feel of this but...

I have just one more thing to say:
Dr Kay should have been in the chair.

Stand By Me crossed with The Goonies for me with a lot to like.

But there seemed to be a lot of, very good, build-up to a weirdly anti-climactic and convenient ending imho.

A dead homeless woman that needs exposition to explain away, then a homeless guy wanders in just to set up the last punchline... the end didn't work for me in what had been a good scrip to that point.

Decent effort.

Writer,

If you want the last scene to work, then I think you would need to punch up the comedy, like LC said, it feels out of place.

Now I laughed out loud when you first introduced the Sherry. After that, I didn't. So the tone is off.  Maybe leave it  as a drama. Not going to knock you, comedy is hard.

That aside, I liked it the overall. Minor tweaks.

All the best,

Ghost

A tale of adolescent pranks, club houses and rites of passage.  There's a reason so many of these stories were big hits - The Sandlot, The Goonies, Stand By Me, etc., they are nostalgic and comical in their own innocent sort of way.  I liked that the boys decided to have one last get together at their old meeting place - the kid stealing the "wine" from another kid's Mom was a good gag - the cooking sherry made it funnier.  Technically, I can find no fault with anything here.  Like others, I couldn't decide if the homeless guy at the end was intended to be dramatic or comical - a little of both I guess.  All the "Old house" parameters were met here as far as I can see, so good job on this OWC entry!

Hi Writer

Not much of a story here. None of the pieces fit together (The kids, the stolen sherry, the dead homeless woman, Dr Kay, the living homeless man) it was more just some stuff happened.

The finding out Trevor actually did steal from his friends house was probably the best part.

Best of luck

Hello

This did feel like a youth coming of age type of script. I did not find it comical. Like others have said this felt more dramatic with a zip of youthful energy.

Overall, the pace was good and the story was decent. Some good twists, especially with the cooking Sherry as wine. Nice one.

Good work.

The story itself has merit, however, there’s just too many intricacies embedded within that take it in various directions, IMO. The dialog at the beginning felt on the nose, that being, there seemed to be too many questions asked that should have been known by the kids, to the extent that it came off as unnecessary back story to lend credence as to why these kids should go into the house in the first place.

As well, turning someone's a gas range on full broil and leaving the house does not, in my opinion, warrant someone deciding it’s pizza night. No, in fact it sets off a shit ton of red flags that someone who's not playing with a full deck is lurking in the broom closet.

Cooking Sherry, lol. I once had some kids (daughters’ friends) steal Triple Sec (martini mix) from my place. To this day I’m not sure who, but if they stole it to get drunk with their friends, I’m sure they found out straight away it was probably the worst thing to take. Considering there was all kinds of rums and tequilas in the same drawer… eggheads.

Then a frozen corpse makes an appearance, which the kids acted very nonchalant about, and then we have a vagrant thrown in for good measure. Both of those scenarios had me scratching my head as to what direction this script was supposed to go in.

Not the review you’re looking for I presume, and as I stated, the story has a basic construct to work with. considering the hardest part is getting something down on paper, revisions to modify what is and what is not working come easy, after feedback that is. Best of luck.

There is a lot going on here, story-wise. It could have gone in any number of directions- the boys' history with the house, or Dr. Kay, the homeless lady, the thievery among friends, their interrelationships, their casual reaction to a corpse. I thought the dialogue was natural, for the most part and I pictured the set piece in my head. My only note regards the pronoun used when the corpse was discovered. It is plural (their, them) instead of singular.

Hey Writer,

Straight away, I sensed the "Stand by Me" vibes, and that's a good thing cos I frickin love that film!
I found this to be very well-written. I particularly enjoyed the gradual buildup leading to the Cooking Sherry situation. I believe it has the potential for a genuine laugh on screen, especially if the characters end up spitting the sherry out all over Trevor.

I like the shift into the more poignant vibe with the frozen lady but perhaps if you made her death more personal to one of the boys it would add a relatable sympathetic touch. I think you should have ditched the last scene with the vagrant and just concentrated on the boys and the lady.

That said, I enjoyed the read and appreciated the writing.

PS. Since I criticised somebody else for this silly nitpick, I must stay consistent - Think it should be one space for —

Quoted Text Jon enters the -- DINING ROOM

Hmmm. Tough one to review.

I never got into the flow of the script like everyone else seemed to, mainly because the first page (and several other places) felt so expositional to me.

When I finally thought I'd get some flow, the tone shifted with the body discovery. And, it shifted again with the vagrant.

Definitely some good pieces to work with. The cooking sherry was funny.

Hey writer,

Don't really have anything to add that hasn't already been said, other than I thought the kids sounded like they were 14 going on 30, which for me felt incongruent given their actions.

That should be fairly easy to fix with another draft though.

Good luck!

That was a story that left me wanting for a bit more.  There wasn’t really a finish to wrap it up, other than the old geezer finding the cooking sherry.  Nothing was addressed with the flower lady, and really the gist of the story was they came to give a toast to a house that wasn’t theirs to begin with.  One odd quirk for me – you know the dead person is the flower lady, but you consistently refer to her in the plural.  Just kept throwing me off thinking there were other people in the house with her, maybe even Doctor Kay, who never factored into the story other than the house belonged to him at one time.

Not bad writing, but just needs a little more oomph to the storyline, me thinks. Best of luck with it.

I know nothing about cooking sherry, but now I know not to drink it. Is it really that bad?

This had an interesting wise-guy vibe. The discovery of the dead body didn't throw me off. Weird stuff like this certainly happens to sarcastic teenagers.

One small thing: Instead of turning up the gas on the oven, it probably is more accurate to write turn up the temperature. When I first read it, I thought he was actually trying to kill his friend's parents. That would be a different script entirely.

I agree with those who felt this is more dramatic and finding Dr. Kay dead would have given the story more of a wallop and closed the loop of the story premise. How/where they might find him in a more unusual way would also leverage the impact.

Good dialogue and character development of the kids, and I enjoyed the humor when it popped up.

Thanks for putting this on paper.

This feels like a last-minute-type story to me, it just didn't really lead to anything. You had a good build-up then after they have seen the body they just went home. It didn't get too deep into what the logline suggested the story was about.  

I did like the whole stolen wine bit, though. That was well done. The dialogue was good too, but all in all this story didn't tor much for me.


Good effort.

So the ending of it - the dead flower lady and the man in the end - both went over my head.

How did they play out in a story? So she was killed but why?

The three boys, their sherry instead of wine, Joh having pizza instead of horrible lasagna with chicken liver (man!) thanks to Trevor - all of this was very good and I was waiting to see what it was leading to.

This was well written but failed to excite unfortunately. If the cooking sherry was the joke it failed to deliver IMO. But as a short scene from a drama it may hold some value.

I'd like to thank everyone for their advice and their comments.

I learned a lot with this so I'm glad I participated. I am feeling much better and thanks for the get well wishes.

This would have been a good week for the Fever Dream OWC. As Libby pointed out, that was last year.

PS - If anybody was wondering, the vagrant at the end was supposed to slip and fall on the spilled wine. I can't believe I forgot to finish my own story. I don't think it would have made a difference.

I like the relationship between the friends and would certainly like to know more about Dr. Kay and what went on in his house. And the vagrant, how did he get there? What happened in his life? Was he kicked out of a pastors house for not behaving himself? And the deceased. What happened to her? I think there is a thematic premise which could have some dramatic tension if that was a road you’d choose to go down.