my new draft is up.  I made a few changes in this script, first thing was I cut out about 8 pages, probably more because I added some new stuff.  I hope this new version is a little better, actually I hope it's a lot better.

I take it this is a rewrite?  I didn't see your original so I can't comment on any changes you made.  I will say it has potential.

First off, I noticed a few typos: on pg 34 you have 'tuck' instead of 'truck'.  On pg 36 when Hannah is talking it should be 'thing' instead of 'this'.

My overall impressions were that this was more violent than scary.  With shows like CSI on the tube now I'm not sure exactly how shocking mutilated bodies are these days.  

Personally, I felt that the werewolves kept turing up too easily.  It would have been interesting to see you expand on the hunt with the sherrifs and biologist in the forest.  In jaws, as you'll recall, when they set out to sea in the boat, it took them a while to hunt and track down the shark. It was an obsticle that they had to overcome - hunting down the elusive shark.

I also think, as a suggestion, you could delve a little more into the origins of the werewolve legend.  You mentioned briefly about some Natzi experiments in the past?  This, I think, would help differentiate your script from the others.

If I were to cut anything it might be a killing or two.  These can get a little redundant after a while (although some will say this is the best part).  If need be, you could consider the idea of maybe having only one werewolf.  This would elimate the need for a few peripheral characters.

All in all this was an easy read, which is good.  Some of the descriptions, while colorful, could be streamlined a little.  

Hope this helps.

Thanks mgj, your coments will help, I'm still fine tuning it, this version is a little shorter than the last one, and I put back in the nazi stuff that was in my original 170 page version, the reason I just elude to it is that it was just getting out of control and was going into the lengths of LOTR, I was also thinking of doing a prequel to this during the second world war in France, kinda like saving private ryan meets the howling.  anyways thanks for the read and the tips

Good Job. I enjoyed this, but i think you should definitely have Sebastian reacting a whole lot more than he does when he discovers Sara and Justin got hitched. Also you should definitely write a prequel, it would be intresting to see how exactly how the werewolves originated. Again good job.

Thanks for the read and comments Bates

SPOILERS.


I quickly scanned through the script while at work as it was a werewolf story and I have one completed and at a production company (see sig).

I can't really add anything more than what has been said. It was a little long for a creature feature and I have concerns with the ending and emotional impact (father & son). I also found a bit of a gap in the 2nd act when the pacing is a little slow (but that can be fixed up with shortening the script). Some things boarded on gratuitious, especially dealing with younger victims. Even though I don't care about those sorts of things, it will be a red flag to producers, agents. Trust me, they think and overthink everything.

I had to chukle as I read because you did have some similar ideas to my movie:

1. A small town
2. A mysterious book
3. A loss of a mother
4. Certain scenes (tent, school, woods, driving)

oh well...haha.

It feels like a 2nd or 3rd draft and I believe you can hack away for a couple more drafts before it's ready to shop. Cut down needless scenes, dialogue, description should be top priority. Then work on the suggestions by our reviewers listed above (I'm not going to bother re-stating what has already been said).

Take Care

Thank you for the comments macduff, I know the first kill in the film is extremly diturbing, and believe it or not I cut it down a whole lot...lol, and the end, that was the only way I felt it could end, the only satisfying ending in my mind, it is a downer, but that was what I wanted.  I am gonna re-write this some more as well, so all your comments help each time.  thank you again for the read.

I've only read a little more than half so far, but I'll give you what I think so far. I'll start with the bad. First off, you can trim A LOT of fat, in dialogue, but especially in descriptions. like you write a lot of what music is playing, what's on the juke box, what posters are on the wall, what people are wearing, one scene you even said that Sabastian got into his "1998 Midnight blue Buick Skylark". I just think that a lot of that is unnecessary and drags the story. And your descriptions are very big, try to break them up a little more and cut a lot of unecessary stuff out, and condense the dialogue and descriptions a little more so we get the point quicker. There were also a lot of spelling and grammar mistakes, a few of the worst ones were: page 8 wrote, "I have KNOW idea". you wrote "deader that the buddy holly", "leafless body" on pg 47 when richard killed the bear, and there were a bunch in the 30's and 50's page numbers. Also, the kids swearing saying sh*t in the 60's and then talking about things being swell ideas and what not, I didn't buy that. I think in the sixties, ten year old kids  wouldn't have swore so much, I think the corny talk is more of the way to go. And the sex scene with andrew I think is a little too cliche. Haven't the Halloween and Friday the 13th movies already cover the sex/death scene enough already? I think you couldn't been a little more clever there, like something ironic, orAndrew trying to get some but she won't let him, or something, I just think that could be more clever than just sex and death. The dialogue also doesn't thrill me all that much, but does get better I think after Sabastian finds the dead sex kids. And there are too many smoking references I think, it gets repeatative.  What I did like was your Richard dryfuss gag, I thought it was really funny. I also thought it was good showing the wolf right off the bat. A lot of monster movies, especially ones dealing with wearwolves always have it concealed in the shadows, but I think that just gets us thinking about what it is more than the story. I think it's better to know what it is and then build the suspense from there. Especially in were wolf movies, we see the eyes and hear it snarl, so why conceal it, so I commend you on that. I also liked the grusome death of the little boy, which many others I saw knocked it, but I say if you kill a boy in the first ten minutes, than you don't know what else you can expect from this movie. And the script does seem to be getting better as it goes on. At first, I thought the boy's death was predictable and then with the sex scene, I thought the script would be boring, but now I'm really interested to see how it's going to turn out. The addition of Casey and his buddies being the were wolves was a great addition, and Richard trying to capture the creature I thought was a great idea, and I wanna see how this all effects Casey's girlfriend and his father and what will happen next, so it drives the reader, which is good. I'll probably finish the rest either tomorrow or later tonight.

finished. Ewww... she f***ed a werewolf. I don't remember reading that letter to penthouse. Good story though, definitely got better and better as it went. I liked the ending too, and how it didn't work unless you weren't a virgin, I thought that was a nice touch. You might wanna give it another once over just for spelling and grammar, which are rampant throughout. a lot of instances where you mistake words as well, ie. "theirs" which should be "theres" "heres" which should be hers" etc. But most of my negitive criticism lies within the opening of the story, I think that it's weak compared to the rest and can stand to be written better. It's not very catchy, but seems more typical of horror movies. I think when Sabastian finds the first dead kids is when it starts getting better, but everything before that I think could be a lot better. The dialogue had problems, the cheesy sex scene death, and the scene with Sabastian and Casey I think could be better too with more conversation. The dialogue I think had it's ups and downs, when it was good, it was really good, other times it wasn't great, but I think we just differ in our styles is all. And I think you could trim a lot of fat from the descriptions definitely, and condense the dialogue and description more as well. Your story is 118 pages when you could probably get it down to 110-115 easy. But other than that, I liked it alot. The car chase scene I thought was great, lots of gore, good plot, nice twists, good ideas never explored before in monster films that I've seen, good characters, progressive, and interesting. In other words, a hell of a lot better than Cursed was Good job. And thanks for your review.

I just wanted to pop in and say I'll be reading and reviewing this one after I get done reading Brea's screenplay and one of Burt's this weekend... So look for a review around Sunday or Monday...

But I also wanna say that I don't know if it's a wise move to put your phone number up on your scripts... e-mail, yeah... phone number...?? No.  When you send them off for submission, yeah, that's needed... but here I believe an e-mail would suffice.

Just my two cents on the matter and I look forward to reading this one.

Thanks sryknows, glad you liked most of it.  I am doing another re-write and I am catching those grammer mistakes, and a few other things that I didn't like.  I know the scene with Katie and Andrew was kinda cheesy, I put that there cause I wanted that teenage sex/death thing going, because I think those two are kinda married I guess, and it does come back later, (hopefully it is not as bad as the cabin).  I know after the first 20 pages it does slow down a bit, there's a 48 page gap between werewolf kills, I kinda wanted to slow it down a bit because I knew the last 20 pages were gonna be filled with carnage.  I'm glad you liked it more than cursed.  I don't think there has been a good werewolf movie since Silver bullet, and that was before my time(I did like this 1 called dog soilders though)  I also wanted to stay away from the "if you get bit you turn" and "they only come out at night during a full moon". thanks again for your comments.

Baltis,

thanks for giving this a read, and yeah my bad on the phone number, when I was filling it out I just did it without thinking.  Anyways I hope you like it

Very good werewolf story your descriptions are excellent. You just need to pace the action out better instead of attack after attack after attack.

SPOILERS--

The Good
-Nice way to start out story-keeps reader interested.
-Most of the other reactions were real, especially when they find the pile
of dead bodies in the house.
-Dialogue for the most part was excellent.
-Pretty gruesome stuff in here.
-Nice monologue by Richard
-Good bit at the party with the dreams and stuff.
-When Justin opens the door and there’s a werewolf that would be a good surprise on screen instead of hearing a growl first.
-Casey being a werewolf was surprising didn’t see that coming, but why did Casey turn back so fast?

The Bad
-Rifle is not spelled riffle.
-Leroy trying to stuff his guts back in his stomach is a little ridiculous.
-The sherrif and his boys don't seem to be too surprised when the wolf
turns into a little boy. Maybe there's nothing else you can do, but it
just seemed a little odd to me that when the wolf changed to a boy the
sherriff was like "what the hell is that?" "Oh he courted
my daughter last year." Then Tom says "I bet you're glad he's
still not with her." Just didn't seem like real dialogue.
-Detectives don't accidentally just step on liver they're more careful
than that.
-When people are talking on the phone I'm pretty sure it's (O.S.) instead
of (V.O.)
-Through out the beginning it was just constant attacks the audience isn't
ever given a chance to breathe it seemed like after one attack another one
was beginning. It’s a good idea to keep up the shock factor high. Every time someone gets killed it should be a shock.
-No music
-Dreyfuss, not Dryfuss
-Every time someone is attacked there’s a low growl. Right when we hear that we know the person is dead. It spoils a lot chances for a surprise. Like the part with Mike Walker, I knew he was dead.
-Is the World War 2 thing necessary?
-Just a question when do the werewolves turn?

Excellent story, very gruesome. The descriptions of the violence was excellent.

Good Luck.

Thanks TAnthony,

I see your point on the four guys not reacting enough to the wolf changing into a boy, I should elabrate this more.

On the sheriff not being careful enough, some stuff that I took out was that Sebastian was a drunk, I should put it back in, he is not the greates sheriff in the world..LOL

I'm fixing all those grammer mistakes

The world war 2 stuff will be made more clear in my next draft, I had this thought of doing a prequel, it would be a mix of saving private ryan, raiders of the lost ark, and the howling.

I didn't show the werewolves turning cause  I didn't want people knowing when they were around.  You made a good point on the growls though, I will fix that.

thank you so much for your read and comments, they will help with my re-write.

PS:  I just started reading your script, I will post it tomorrow afternoon or evening.

thanks again

I was just wondering, what kind of effect did you want Sabastian to have on the audience? sympathetic, or disliked? Because I thought Sabastian was kindof a jerk, what with cheating on his wife and his relationship with Casey, him being a hardass with Sara, and then going after Richard, but then you made up for it as it went on, making Richard an @$$hole, and his embrace with Casey at the end, giving Justin the responsibility of protecting his daughter, keeping his family safe, etc. So, anyways, I just don't think you should add drunk to his resume in my opinion. He's hard enough to swallow as a sympathetic character, which I THINK is what you're going for, or should be at least. So, in my opinion, I think you should just cut out his stepping on the organs and being a drunk. We already assume he likes the drink enough from his knowing Tom and being in the bar. Anyways, that's my 2 cents. And I liked the Nazi story a lot. The prequel actually sounds like it would be pretty cool.

I kinda wanted him to be like, I guess, Denzel Washington in  man on fire, I guess that's as close to it as I can think of, the fact that he is very flawed, I wanted him to have his own demons, maybe your right though, I'll see how it looks, if it doesn't then I will just take it out.  thanks for your comments