The Heart of the Matter by The Crypt Keeper - Fire Poker, Jeweller, Cemetery  - Short, Horror

skin the sickly
colour of swamp mud.

Flapdoodle, me? Is it any wonder
given your gibface and fetid breath! Sounds like more of a statement. Funny, regardless.

Gothic Horror comedy if you ask me.
Rather elaborate, bit long-winded opening imho, but once the action started, it was really entertaining.
Highgate cemetery, eh? A lot of the gooduns parked there.

suddenly circled encircled?
Do away with the semi-colons. They don't belong in a script.
Can you never let me be woman? Insert a comma before 'woman'. Without it this line has an entirely different meaning.
inexorably closer. Okedoke.

They look like they could be about to kiss.  
Just a suggestion that your denouement might work more effectively as written if only one of them is skewered in the eye with the poker- I'd say her doing the deed might avoid a visual double up. Doesn't matter it's your object, it's doing double-duty enough as it is.

Lovely final scene to finish.
Some great/funny dialogue to suit the style.
People are going to comment on it being overwritten and it is a little bit, but...

This was a real hoot, met all the parameters and you did a fine job!

This better be good - you had easy parameters to work with....

Points for descriptive gore - nicely done. When does this take place? It would be nice to give a time and place since you went so far to describe the gas lights and horse drawn carriage. A couple grammatical issues:

PATRICK: Can you never let me be woman?

A comma would do wonders, me thinks.

And does this mean something? Egyptian Avenue?
Patrick, weaves through the rows and down through the crypts that line Egyptian Avenue.

A fun and entertaining short.

Atmospheric and straight forward tale but hey, your prose is a torture:

"locked shut against vandals and lovers looking for privacy." this you said about the iron-wrought gates there that "succumed" to Patrick on a third of a page (like 5 lines) Which is fine, okay - they were hard to open. And he worked on them, yes. But the lock against "lovers looking for privacy" - creates atmosphere I guess (for others, not me)

Why did he kill her though? for the stone?

That was very entertaining.

Patrick's struggle with Diedre at the end was really good. Great descriptions and great tension. Loved they ended with the necklace dangling between them.

You nailed all the variables and created a great story. Nice work. Writer!!

Definitely evocative writing, though way overwritten in parts.

At the end of the day we have a villain, not an anti-hero. No real internal struggle. He wants a diamond. Not sure we get any new ground here.

And I know we're in a Poe-like world, but I'd like to know why the wife is able to come back from the dead. Give me a spell or something, a witches curse, etc., not just a random occurrence. Unless I missed it?

And if he killed her, one has to wonder why he buried the diamond with her in the first place.

AJR

This was hard to get into coz of the writing. I found it to be too literary for a script. It was overwritten at places and the use of metaphors is awkward. But the story was nice. Enjoyed the story, once I finished.

Bonne chance!

The prose style writing made this tough to get into, but it's worth it for those who can persevere to the third page.

This finally gets going in the mausoleum and once it does, it's great. Honestly, I'd cut most of the beginning and the guy talking to himself for the audience and get right to the mausoleum. Spend more time with the battle with his ex, maybe have a flashback to him murdering her, and create more obstacles, and this will be a fantastic script.

Reads like comedy-horror, but there is nothing wrong with that, I love comedy horrors.

As it is, you ticked all the boxes and did a great job for the first draft,  

-Mark

"This is not thou bedchamber." HA!

Some really good stuff here, but I think Mark nailed it: it starts a little late.

Nothing more to add except: I really enjoyed Patrick.

Very elaborate writing here. I didn’t mind it though I‘m not a fan of long action paragraphs.

Prolly need a SUPER so we know what year it is and where abouts.  Had easy variables to deal with but you used them in a cool way so good work

Hi,

I actually had to recheck that this was a horror instead of a comedy as some of the dialogue was hilarious.
I think you tried to over reach with the Victorian dialogue, keeping it more simple and less prosaic would have done wonders for this script.
Overall however I liked the descriptions and the story.

Well done.

No FADE IN: or FADE OUT. Looks like an "oversight" to save space. Slightly less flowery action lines would have worked, too.

Seeing what else is written here, I agree that we join this story a little too early. He could just show up at the cemetery. But then we'd have no idea why he's wielding a fire poker. Without that constraint, this could start right when things are getting interesting.

Well done.