The Lonely Tenant by James Williams (jwent668 - Short, Gothic Horror - A woman rents the first renovated apartment in an old building, but she soon finds she's not the only one there. 12 pages, 4 characters, Hard R Rating - pdf, format

What I liked: the abandoned building that has been recently renovated is a great location. The ghosts planning for the future scenario by always moving the knife and the lighter was extremely well done and conceived.

What didn't work: the Ouija board was a little too straightforward. I understand that might be due to the page limitation or even the time limitation. But the whole thing is convenient to begin with then plays too straight, like they were just dialing up the ghost on the phone.

Things happened too quick with the landlord seeing her looking at the wall and then going after her. And it was strange where she asks the ghost right away if it was him that killed her. These are things that were again probably due to limitations. Might be tough to make all of this come together in a plausible way in a short.

I also did not like Jenny taking over Maria's body. That did not seem necessary.

In general, good stuff that can be smoothed over after the challenge is over.

Very well written. Really kicked in on page 7.

Fits the theme well enough.

Downside...very traditional ghost story, with a very traditional ouija board conceit...not a hugely gothic vibe.

Probably going to one of the better written scripts in the OWC, but not one that I see having a huge amount of potential in the long term...(I'm a meany,  I know!).

Not too bad, but I wished that some scenes in the house actually had the character's name instead of only her pronoun (She). I also didn't mind the oujia board too much, but since it takes two folks to operate it for it to "work properly" - the planchette moving with people's hands one letter at a time would take a minute for one line ("Leave Or Die") as opposed to spoken.

Given the outcome, I'm surprised that Maria didn't get to the body. I would have liked to have seen a sketeton in plastic, ghost inside etc.

Not too bad overall. Good job.

OK, although I felt this one became a little simple and predictable halfway through, it was good fun, was a quick read and it entertained me.
Some of Maria's behaviour towards the ghost seemed a little laid back, as if this type of thing was just a nuisance, and after it saves her life I just found her last line quite amusing. Not sure why, maybe I'm getting tired.
I liked the set up, with Jenny moving the objects around and to be honest, I thought the reason for this was really well thought out. The ouija board scenes were nicely done.

All in all, pretty good job.

Hello Gert,

I enjoyed the read and thought it well written and balanced.

My comments are;

It went along nicely until the scene with the landlord and it then felt forced with too much exposition
Didn't like the permanent resident line - too well used for my liking

In terms of characters sierra was written clearly and different to her friend but I was left wondering whether she could play more, but it is a short after all.

I liked the interaction with Jenny and the set up.

On the gothic theme, I felt this was a bit weak. I saw this as more of traditional horror/thriller with a paranormal element, but again I think we have to accept some flexibility bearing in mind the constraints.

All the best.

Nothing gothic going on here (maybe the Ouija board) but a solid ghost story.
Jenny taking over Maria wasn't necessary and the Ouija board caused me to groan.
I loved the idea of the ghost preparing Maria for what was to come, great idea and well executed.
How the hell did Edward remove the chain lock? not possible, they are designed so you can't, otherwise it sort of defeats their point. (unless he adjusted it specially so he COULD get in...?) or have him return with some bolt cutters!
I was hoping that jenny was just another tennant, maybe that's what Edward does - he is a serial killer that takes in Tennants and kills them.

Cliche but really good. I think this can be expanded a bit more. It flows too quickly ie sierra and the ouja board. I think it would be better if during the struggle we see the ghost help her out. However, how does the ghost know what Maria needs and where? The ghost's a psyic?

Hope this helps
Gabe

This was a good modern take on Gothic horror, although it is pushing the boundaries of the definition a bit.  However, you do have a doomed romance and a very helpful ghost.

The writing flowed really well and story zoomed right along.  The knife and lighter were set up well.  I would like to have seen a different method of the ghost communicating.  Ouija has been done to death, as it were.  

I did find myself wondering if Jenny's corpse wouldn't have stunk up the place.  And if Edward owned the building, maybe the basement would have been a better place to stash a stiff.  Out of all the apartments in that building, he probably shouldn't have chosen the one he murdered his wife in to rent out.  That might have been a funny line when Edward was out on the fire escape, looking into the apartment.  "F*ck.  Why did I rent her this one?"

But overall, I did like the speed of the narrative and the setting.  Good work for an OWC.

Yep, i liked this one.

It needs a good re-write, as the first half is done well, but it sort of wandres a little, when the action starts.

Maybe the author lost impetus during the writing? That can happen especially with a tough challenge like this.

Decently written, though a very by-the-numbers submission.  

In general, I cared about the characters (always a good thing), though I found some of the dialogue wooden...especially with Edward.  (Strange, because some of the banter between the girls was actually very fun and entertaining.)

As the script progressed, it sort of slid into horror story cliche, and lost it's sparkle.

Still, competant writing - and your basic evil killer meets ghost story.

Congrats on the OWC - even though not particularly gothic!  

Solid opening page. Good flow. Except that Great Room slug.
Sierra jumps to conclusions pretty fast.
Don’t know how those long Ouija messages would play on screen.
You have Maria using the planchette alone? Don’t work that way.
Did Sierra leave the board there? Plot seems too rushed.
I respect keeping things moving, but the atmosphere is suffering.
Who was the lonely tenant in the story?
A lot of expository dialogue explaining things I figured out.
How could the ghost know where to put the knife?
Pretty decent formatting. Thanks for playing OWC.

Regards,
E.D.

This is an entertaining story, and Maria is a character that an audience could like, she's plucky and bright.  
And, no matter what, I love that apartment.

Overall, I like it. Had a few plot holes and some unlikely occurrences but, otherwise, I thought it was a good story.

If I understand this right, the knife is on the floor when Maria first finds it? Then she puts it in the silverware drawer? Uh-uh, no way. She might put it in the sink but I hope no one would pick silverware off the floor (that their shoe has touched) and put it back in a drawer. Maybe I’m just OCD that way.

Would Sierra be so cavalier if she really thought a ghost was moving the planchette?

A few spelling errors, buy where it should be by, hallow where it should be hollow.

How can Edward unlatch the chain from outside the door? That isn’t possible. He would either have to break in or sneak (or smash) through the window from the fire escape.

There’s a problem with Edward’s plan. If he murders Maria while she’s tied up, there will be evidence that she was tied up left on her body. You may have to change it so that he drowns her without tying her up.

Needs to be tightened up but good job.


Breanne

I thought this was a pretty decent read. Didn't get too much goth from it other then the setting.

"Ghosts are not bad, just misunderstood". - I thought Jenny was a bad ghost. She wouldn't have put Maria into danger had she not been moving her things around and telling her if "She doesn't leave she will die." That really set-up the whole scenario. Seemed like Edward was content on just murdering his wife and having a renter until Jenny's ghost used her as a tool for her own revenge.

Could understand the writer maybe not seeing it that way until much retrospect. To me she came off cold hearted.

This might be pretty good with a few extra pages and a slower build. Til then, it does feel the story was too rushed...

Good job completing an OWC.

James

I will bet a beer on who I think wrote this.

This is the first script I have read in the OWC that has all the hallmarks of a writer I truely like to read and who hasn't been around for a while.

I just Pm'd him to see if I'm right.

Great script. I really liked this one. It flowed good, the technical stuff was good and the story IMO moved along really well.

No complaints!

Great job!

Shawn.....><

This script was easily in the top 5 as far as formatting goes.  Very solid, fluid writing.  The style is 95% how I write my own scripts (usually... probably too spacious for a 12 page OWC).  Plus an anonymous submission OWC is a perfect place to mess around with your writing style... Just saying.

I'm not a fan of "THE END" justified to the left, but at least you put a FADE OUT on the right.  Right?

Anyways, enough of the technical stuff -- which is fundamentally really good -- I've read 2 stories so far that have a similar vibe to it and that's probably gonna be common.  I've got like 13 scripts to go.  

-The dialogue was swift.  
-The story was plotted, even as spacious as this script read, very well.   Nothing felt rushed to me.
- The oujia board was a bit of a question mark... I don't like them in movies as they are usually always handled very jib jivey -- unless it's "Witchboard".  If it's "Witchboard" then it's cool.  

One thing I'd suggest, and it's probably gonna take up more real-estate on your pages, is to do this when showing the Oujia board

OUIJA BOARD:

(then go through the motions of what we see on the board and only the board.)

BACK TO SCENE

That ensures us nothing else is being miss handled by the reader, and it's also a very clean read.   Try it out next time.

I think, in the end, it comes down to a really solid short with some genuinely gifted writing and some bad ideas tossed in the mix.  There are elements that work to the benefit of the script.  It's haunting and has a certain color all its own for this contest.

Best of luck to you with this script... It could very well be the script chosen for whatever these scripts are up against or going for.

I thought this was really good but it then ventured onto a different road that I wasn't too thrilled with.

First - why would this guy rent out a room with a dead body in it?  Especially since this is a large and (unless I missed something) empty apartment building?  The logic doesn't really make sense.

I thought Edward was okay in the beginning, but then he turned into a big bad cliched villain who says all the routine stuff along the lines of you're gonna die, I thought you were pretty, that's too bad, etc., etc.  The fireball also seemed kind of crazy for the moment.  Of all the things she could have done it was a can of hairspray and a lighter.  I dunno - it just didn't sit well.  And Jenny calling on the phone I think you can take advantage of for style.  Instead of having it say the call is from Jenny, have it say it's from an Unknown or something.

This has a lot going for it.  I liked it very much up until about page 9 where it kinda fell apart.  Characters were good for the most part (except for what I said about Edward) and the ouija sequences were solid.

Nice job.

Greg

A pretty clean read.
Maria walks in wearing only a large t shirt, you have my attention

A few small issues on certain action descriptions, like, 'business minded suit', but just nitpicking.

Edward is cooly deceptive at the beginning.

Not too enamoured by the Ouija board, although it does have a period nod.

Sierra's OTT flirting, doesn't have a genuine ring to it, needs to be a bit more subtle.

Edward
Figured if she likes the place so much, I'll make her a permenant resident .

Mixing up past and continous present tense, sounds awkward, maybe it's done on purpose? His following dialouge is the same.

Edwards hair is ironically burnt with hair spray

This has a few element's that remind me of Open Casket. Overall, not a bad read. Fit's the parameters od the challenge.

I saw this as a pretty straight forward well written script, but it read as old news to me.

It wasn't at all gothic. It's completely plot based and zero character. You could plug in any names and it would be the same.

You did provide a reason for Edward turning so evil.

Sandra

OK, #38 of 38 scripts I've looked at (obviously, I didn't actually read all 38 in their entirety, but I did give them all a fair shot).

The writer PM'd me on this, so I know who who "he" is.  If I didn't know, I think I'd be a bit more harsh in my assessment, but since I think of this writer as an online friend of mine, I'll be a bit more lenient, but don't worry, I'll still let me feelings be known.

Writing-wise, this is pretty good, pretty clean.  I see others have praised the writing here, but I can't go nearly that far. It's definitely heads and shoulders above the vast majority of these OWC entries, but, IMO, it reads rather rushed, and...how can I say this...pedestrain?  Not trying to put this down in any way, but I'm sure the writer himself would most likely agree.  There are mistakes here and there, typos, spelling errors, awkward deliveries, some over writing in places, some unclear lines, etc.  Not bad by any means, though.

The only character with any real "life" happens to be the only supporing character, Sierra.  And that's a problem, IMO.  I think that taking out alot of the unnecessary stuff (over description, unimportant details, etc.) would open up room for some character depth for Maria and Edward.

Story-wise, there are both goods and bads on display here.

The BADS - Overall, this is very cliche, by the numbers stuff.  Again, based on page restriction and unnecessary detail and info, it all moves along WAY TOO FAST.  Things happen so quickly and "easily", it really takes away from coming off as remotely beleivable.  As others have pointed out, either Edward is a complete idiot, or little actual thought was put into the actual plot, in terms of beleivability.

The GOODS - As others have mentioned, the writer did obviously put thought into the setup, in terms of the knife and lighter stuff.  I didn't quite understand the importance or relevance of the moving objects, but they sure came into play, so that's well done.  Sierra's dialogue was also quite good, and I guess I could even say the dialogue exchanges between Maria and Sierra was also pretty good.

I have to comment on a few more things, since this is my last OWC review.

I didn't like the helter skelter Slug useage on display here - some Fulls, some Minis - didn't work, IMO.

I also didn't like the ouija board stuff at all.  First of all, like others brought up, it all happened so fast and "easily", it really deflated the beleivability.  Also, as others mentioned, each time the ouija "spells out" a word, we're talking several seconds per letter, minimum, meaning, this will run much longer than it appears.

Did this meet the OWC requirements?  I don't think so.  It didn't have much of a Gothic feel to me at all.  In terms of horror, I think we're only talking about a killer acting like a killer near the end.  Misunderstood ghost?  I don't really think so, either.

All in all, this came across as a decently written, decently conceived quick effort that straggles the OWC lines.  It is is definitely in the upper eschelon of these OWC entries, but for me, doesn't bring anything new to the table, but definitely wasn't a waste of anyone's time, either.

So here we have an entry from a self-loathing author who privately compared this work to excrement -- using words that were far less polite.

It certainly isn't as bad as all that, and in fact, is a story very well-suited for telling as a short in that it is essentially all set-up and pay-off.   Odd things happen, and later it is revealed that these things happen for a reason.  Well done on that, and this is crafted better than you think.

There is good tension with the Ouija board, but at the same time, there is far too much activity with the board.  There is a reason you do not see much use of a Ouija board on film, and if you sit down and actually think about the planchette slowly drifting from letter to letter to letter to letter...well, you will quickly figure out why this works fine on the page but lousy on screen.

Your best bet is to stick with yes or no questions, or one very short word answers at best.  If you formulate a rewrite, trimming all of that stuff is job one.

On page 7, you lose an opportunity for a nice jump scene when Edward knocks at the door.  The girls (and the audience) should be startled at that point.

I would also question the whole possessed thing with the switching eyes and the misty breath at the end.  I mean, Edward is trying to kill Maria, so it seems like she could take care of the job herself, as Jenny has already given her plenty of help along the way.  The whole "taking over the body" thing seems over the top for a story that is already working well in its own right.  It is an added dimension that this tale does not require.  That does not mean to lose the cell phone call, which is a nice touch.

Apart from those issues, this thing is actually pretty tight.  You might give Edward a bit too much exposition near the end -- and Sierra seems kind of slutty for no real reason -- but those might be just a matter of taste.  On the whole, this works.

If you ever get around to a rewrite let me know and I will give it a look.

I liked this one okay. It is pretty straight-forward, but given the complexity of some of the other entries, it serves as a nice relief

The only real issues I had with this one were the dialogue (not entirely believable at parts) and the gothic theme (sorry, just didn't get that vibe).

Good job, though!

Thanks to all who took the time to read. Already checked my list and will be returning a couple reads from people here who's script I did not get to. This suffered from lack of pages. I started writing Thursday night, got 6 pages into it and I only had about a quarter of the story written. So, I went at it with butcher's knives and this was the end result.

Many didn't like the use of the ouija board. I agree. I didn't have time to set up a medium coming over to speak with the ghost or I would've. And most of you caught on that the ouija scenes would take much longer on film.

I got that many of you didn't get a gothic feel from this. I can't blame you. I, myself, still don't understand gothic horror very well. I just stuck this story in an old building.

The chain lock was a good point, he shouldn't be able to reach into the room to undo it from the outside. should've just had him bust it open because its really not hard to do.

Quoted from Electric Dreamer Solid opening page. Good flow. Except that Great Room slug.

Checked the slug, dunno what your quandry is with it. looks pretty clean to me.

As far as the posession part, that just popped out of me as i wrote it. Witchboard was one of my favorite movies as a kid. I remember hot-ass Tawny Kitaen getting possesed because she tinkered with the ouija board on her own. A big no-no in the world of ouija. So, i looked at it as if Jenny saved her from the guilt of killing Edward by taking over her body.

Quoted from Brea If I understand this right, the knife is on the floor when Maria first finds it? Then she puts it in the silverware drawer? Uh-uh, no way. She might put it in the sink but I hope no one would pick silverware off the floor (that their shoe has touched) and put it back in a drawer. Maybe I’m just OCD that way.

I guess you shalln't be having dinner at my place anytime soon. I let my dog lick the marinara off my plate before sticking it in the dishwasher. Good point though. It was blade up in her defense.

Thanks again, OWC is always fun. And usually amounts to at least one account deletion. Fuckin' pussies...

James

Hey all.... I'm going o be filming this script (first week of Dec, best estimate) and the link in the post above is the facebook page for it. Wanted to let people know that i have changed and added some things.....Doing so i took several suggestion made here.

I love this site... Great place to find great scripts with built-in coverage and opinions. I'll often decide to read a script or not by reading through the discussion board first.

Hey, cool, glad to see this being filmed! With some fine tuning I'm sure it's gonna be great.

I assume James knows!!

Otherwise, good to hear and best of luck. James needs a bit more film credit, he's been slack recently.

Dragonwolf, you did get James' permission, correct?  I don't recall him saying anything about this.

Good luck with it.

Yes,

I am aware. We've spoken. I like the facebook page. Some real nice visuals to set the tone.

James

Congrats James on the script getting filmed- Loved the story. Solid writing as usual. Damn creepy. Reminded me of "What lies beneath" a bit. - Dirk

I see James has fielded the question of if he knows.....

Just wanted to post that the shoot dates have been set.

Dec 13th - 16th