Spores by Beacher Double Creacher - A ball turret gunner finds himself trapped after his bomber encounters the mysterious orbs known as foo fighters. - Short, Horror

I struggled with the opening scene a bit. We have a Sergeant who is then described as a rookie, or at least that's what it read like to me. A Sergeant is fairly well up the non commissioned ranks...

The character introductions were non-existent, so it was hard to visualise anybody at all. No ages, no descriptions.

This was another story that used the hand sanitiser to kill spores. If the story was called something else and it was alien bacteria that caused the infection, that might be OK, but the fact you've specified it's spores makes it an arguable fail in the criteria, for me.

I did think the premise is good, though. I could even imagine it as a feature film. WW2 fighters vs UFOS is fun.

Hello writer

Quoted Text The rookie nods. Understanding, Jones laughs.

Jones might understand, but I don't lol I am slow though

Interesting stuff, you obviously already know a great deal about WW2 aircraft, or you did your research - either way, well done on that front.

I wonder if this was hacked at a bit to fit into the page count? Just some minor things, like the Bombardier Franks - He appears on page 3 but no mention of him before or after - a bit strange.  

There are a lot of characters, I would cut those down personally - I know these planes have big crews but it's a lot for 5 pages.

Very nicely written.

For a weekends work this is pretty good - a shame someone chose a title very similar to yours.

Oh, and I had to use google a lot for this - thanks for making me feel like an idiot lol

LOVE this title. Sad to see there are two titled this but it's a good title ...

Your logline is simple and to the point.

What I love about this short is that I can see it as an opening to a real scifi/horror feature film that could take place in the present or future even.

I love the vulnerability of the gunner. Sensed the tension all the way through this, especially when it gets down to something that could be much worse than a fighter coming at them!

Really nicely written.. reads fast. Dialogue was great.

Structure feels organic.

The only thing I would suggest is maybe cut down the amount of characters in this leaving it just to the pilot/co and gunner just to make it easier on the read.

GREAT job writer.

frying fortress - cabin
sulfanilamide
ball turret gun
It's like you hate your reader.

Why not tell us the ages of these sgt's and the leitenant?
Captain Cooper call Frye a rookie? Or he wants Frye to get that rookie?
So, they were fighting off the enemy and then people died.
I guess your characters failed to capture my attention.
Nicely written apart from the beginning and meets the criteria though.

I think I understand the opening sequence... but, it's oddly confusing. Not sure I get the "infection" reference as it relates to Plexi and the Lord's Prayer. (My guess is that he's worried about getting an infection if he gets injured by flak? Is that right?) That, and you mention three items: hand san, Plexi and the prayer... but, then follow with a line about "dousing yourself in both." I knew what you meant, but it added to the confusion.

That opening dialogue is close to being really good, if it didn't confuse.

Nit to pick: He would have been in that turret long before they ever got over Germany.

Done reading: Nice use of the hand sanitizer. Subtle, but effective.

All in all, the story worked pretty well. I was definitely interested in the foo fighters as enemies. I could see this as a part of something bigger.

Spores

Okay. Pretty far in the SF Action territory- until the stalks stuff happened.

It's been hard to keep the overview, especially the O.S. dialogue was challenging beside all the extensive action. Sorry, it wasn't my type of story. Stuff didn't feel focused and self-aware enough for me.

Bit confusing at first but then it becomes a very well written script. great job writer. The premise is nice. The characters are believable. Good job.

Loved the concept and setting as I’m a huge WW2 buff and amateur historian lol   Reminded me of my last OWC script lol.

Needs a lot of tightening up so I guess the writer was rushing. The images of the spore growing from the dead crew was cool!!

Have never heard of sulfanimide but presume it’s a 1940’s hand wash? Anyway good effort this and one of my faves

You done a very nice job...

Your words painted a vivid picture of the world they was in and what was happening.

Deleted part of my statement. Leaned a valuable lesson. Google isn’t the all knowing. I know better than just thinking google is one source of info. Sorry ! I honestly just thought was a typo.

Keep doing you.

Well done!

During World War II white sulfanilamide powders became standard in first-aid kits for the treatment of open wounds, and sulfanilamide tablets were taken to fight intestinal infections. Britannica
&
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21969613

Okay, so sanitizer's weren't invented until the 80s so you went with that.

Good to see a plane in trouble ascending, not descending.

Nice work/writing, few qualms, some great visuals.

Quick, to the google machine!

sulfanilamide: apparently used as powders and tablets to treat infection, malaria, fungus. Is it possible someone used it as a cream? I guess.

B-17 Flying Fortress: I always thought they had a crew of 7 for some reason. But wiki says 10. Probably a good idea you didn't try to intro them all. This can't be Jeff's script, he would have felt obligated by rule to intro each of them.

ball turret gunner: yikes, with my claustrophobia I would not do well in that thing. I think a shooting script would have to use different slug breakdowns. For example, when we're focused on the cloud or the incoming fighter. But that would have slogged the read down.

foo fighters: mysterious orbs encountered during WWII. Heard of them. The Allies thought they were secret German weapons, but it remains a mystery. I gather the writer has solved it: they are biological!

Why not give the characters ages? I guess it doesn't matter, but just looks weird.

This reminds me of zombie ants. A fungal parasite infects an ant, which then climbs to the highest leaf and locks onto it permanently with his jaw. Eventually the spores come through the body and shower the uninfected ants below. Mother Nature is pretty dark.

I am guessing the spores are repelled by the sanitizer?

Can you bail out of a plane at that altitude? Stevie would know.

Wouldn't they all be in oxygen masks for the duration? I guess you have to take some liberties for the purpose of filming.

Kev, when you’ve got killer orb thingies hot on ya clacker, you can bail out from wherever you want  

Excellent. I tried to imagine it in a modern setting, but the visuals just wouldn’t work as well as they do the way you wrote it.

Had to look up foo fighters to make sure they weren't trying to shoot down Dave Grohl and his band.  Turns out they were mysterious orbs or shapes seen by Allied fighters and bombers during WWII.  Learn something new every day.

I'm a WWII history nut, so I'm always on board with scripts dealing with the war itself. This one wasn't really so much about the war but about these mysterious orbs.  We never really learn what they are or where they come from, but I'm not overly concerned about that.

They're are some nit picks around the opening, I think Paul picked up on those and I echo his comments.  But it then picked up and once the orbs are spotted, we're off and running (flying?). Nice descriptive piece and you bring the element of terror into it, so good job there.

I also like how you set up the ending and made him realize that he's only escaped this problem momentarily.  

Overall, good job and good story.

Best of luck,
Gary

Hi writer,

It's always going to be an uphill battle with a WWII horror for me, but let’s see what we have...

There is some random asterisk on page 4.

I struggled to follow what was going on and where and to who. This kind of stuff just really doesn’t interest me. Sorry, I'm just not the right audience for this.

All the best.

So the sanitiser definitely feels shoe-horned to suit the challenge as it didn;t really exist in WWII and I doubt it would be ised like this...

But, I'm definitely giving it a pass as I like the rest of the script... always been fascinated by foo figthers and this expanded on them in an interesting direction.

Good job.

"Mystery wrapped in an enigma, son." I don't know why, it just makes me laugh.

Bring on the Heavy Metal!

Not for me, so much. I'm assuming that 'stuff' mentioned early on was old timey hand sanitizer so it meets the criteria. But not much story here. It needs MORE! Some context or explanation. Not much but something.

Some grammatical issues and word choices need attention. Not horrible, just needs more.

Frye's first line is a non-sequitur. Sergeant is also not a "rookie" rank in the military.

The Captain and Co-Pilot are not introduced properly.

The crew would likely use clipped jargon to communicate (takes way too long to say "My guns are jammed!"), but this is fine for making it accessible to a general audience.

"No one wants to go near it" should be more visual. Having Ross and Franks flattened against the walls was a great start.

Not sure how black spheres glow, but I bet it looks interesting.

Seems like Frye knows the sanitizer would repel the spores before any came near him. Just needs a bit of re-arranging to make this make sense.

Frye should know to wait before pulling his chute. This way he can see the explosion, then pull the chute, then see the orbs descend.

My guess is the writer might respond with this:

Like his fellow gunners, the ball turret gunner was an enlisted man with a rank, generally, of Sergeant or higher.
http://www.b17queenofthesky.com/positions/ballgun.php

the dark orbs glowing:

SPIKY STALKS grow out of the man's face, from his bare hands,
even through his clothing. On the ends of each spike forms a
BLACK SPHERE. Some of them glow faintly.

So the spheres are black until they reach maturity and begin to glow. A match stick head is black until it is struck.

intro of Capt and Copilot:

CAPTAIN COOPER and CO-PILOT DAVIS watch the fighter head
straight up into the night sky, disappearing over cloud,
bright orbs dancing around it.

Before that we hear their voices through the intercom, indicated by VO. Not sure how else they should be introduced. Could add the ages, but seems irrelevant to me as we have a general idea of the ages of military air crew.

Frye is already a germaphobe. He douses himself in the sanitizer in case he gets hit by flack. When he sees the strange growth on the dying crewmen, he goes to the only protection he has against something biological. It does not kill these strange spores, but it does seem to repel them.

Frye has never jumped out of a plane in an emergency situation and he's not a paratrooper. Running on adrenaline, he pulls the chute quickly, like 98% of people would, eager to get the chute open.

In WWII, Allied aircrews encountered what they came to call foo fighters: orbs of lights that were drawn to the planes, danced around, did no damage. At first they thought this might be a secret German tech. But to this day it remains unsolved.

This story seems to posit that the orbs were biological. Like the fungus that makes infected ants climb to the highest leaf, lock onto that leaf and die, allowing the spores to spread from height. These spores force the pilot to ascend the craft. Eventually it explodes, dropping the spores. From this height they have a better chance of finding another aircraft. The last thing that Frye sees is the spores dropping toward an Allied bomber formation.

A bit of a hard read for me.  It’s good you’ve placed it during WWII but the flying orbs wasn’t to my liking.  I guess it meets the criteria.

Really good!

The ball turret gun is such a vulnerable position, and you made us feel that. I loved that he was effectively cut off from the rest of the plane by the position of the disabled ball turret. Excellent choice, it really amped things up.

The orbs were menacing enough, but what they did to the crew was downright creepy. Great job.

The "sanitizer" was a good substitute to fit the time period. Maybe it's technically outside the bounds of the challenge (the requirement was specifically hand sanitizer) but I'm fine with what you came up with. What I liked most is it seemed to have nothing to do with the story, it was a character thing that likely helped protect him from physically contracting the spores.

It feels like a proof of concept, like introducing a problem for a larger story. Nothing wrong with that at all, it's just light on story, it's mostly a series of obstacles Frye has to go through and no real ending.

Overall one of my faves. Well done.