Penpal by Grant Cameron (shepard) - Horror, Thriller - Claire is the popular girl in school with many friends but, deep down, she is lonely until she finds confort on the internet when she meets a Penpal online but his intentions with her are more than just friendly. 77 pages - pdf, format

Thanks Don for getting this up.

I hope everyone enjoys the read and any critism would be appreciated.

Thanks!

Hi Grant, sorry for the delay but here is what I have so far for you.


The first paragraph - you wrote: "Lights flicker in the distance as it is quiet and a porch light from a house flickers in the distance" . I think you can see the problem here, I'd cut the last line as it is not needed.

I can see early on that you maybe need to keep the descriptions short and in the present. Nothing major though I like how you start this off. Not too sure I liked the "1..2...3" before Sophie entered the room but it's a small gripe. Apart from that, I enjoyed the opening.

Some of the dialouge from the school to when Claire is walking home with Lori seems a little off. It's not bad but it could do with a little touching up. For example, I take it Anne and Haylie are mocking Claire. If thats the case I think your dialouge works fine here but maybe having them giggle to each other after Claire gets annoyed just to clarify it instead of having them look straight ahead.
And the conversation with Lori on the way back seems a little odd when she mentions to Claire that her insane uncle used to look after her. It just seems a little random.

Lori's immidete responce to Claire saying she is lonely and needs someone to talk to: Go on the the net! I know it's a way of getting Claire onto the chat but Lori loses points for being so uncaring. Maybe you could work this a little so Lori tries to get Claire to talk about whats bugging her  but she cant get it out. Lori's advice would then come across as a pretty reasonable thing and not make her out to be insensitive!
Having said that I really like the concept of what might happen here so Im looking forward to what will happen in this one.

p14: Im already thinking Lori is in on this murder by net. Could it be something to do with her crazy uncle aswell?
p20: "Claire pauses, thinking for a moment. Claire: I'll think about it"
Cut the thinking for a moment line as it is not needed.

Claire has been a little cold with Zack to say the least and even told the cops he was probably possible of murder. Now she seems all bent that he has been arrested. she seems to contradict herself a little. Girls, eh?

So Im on page 30 and the first act pretty much over and I think it needs a boost. Hoping something over the next few pages will provide it.

I think a few of your lines in writing could be cut and made a lot simpler. It's good for the most part but I read the odd line now and then that is more like you read in a book - I am a sucker for that myself. Some of the lines just dont need to be there, period.
"The house is barely lit up by the lights as the kitchen light is the brightest light in the house"

I do like the use of sounds as actions though. It makes for a far more interesting read in my opinion, as long as they are used sparingly and I think you have used them well so far.

Really liked the scene with Anne being chased around the house. I thought you wrote it very well and the actual killing was good. Would be a good jump for an audience.
Questionable how the heck he managed to get up there but you have to suspend belief sometimes and I wouldnt really alter that scene too much. It works.

I didnt want to pull you up on this but I think you should take out that certain songs are played by certain artists. Just put in that a sad/angry/pop track plays in the background if you feel it absoultly necessary.  The dialouge reference to Christina Aguilera kind of moots my point I guess but I dont know...I think a more experienced writer could give some valid points about this way better then me,  Anyway I will move on because Im probably being way too picky on this. Just something to consider.

EXT. ANNES HOUSE - MOMENTS LATER.   < Drop the full stops after you used the scene headings.  You dont need one. Use only DAY or NIGHT. You dont need to explain this is moments later in the heading or even the action following as we will figure this out. This is the storybook writing I mentioned earlier and it needs to be cut. Try not to put in THEN, LATER, WHEN, SOON, you know that type of thing. Always try and keep things happening in the present, as they unfold.

I dont really like the cop, Andrew, having his first name used as a character - it kind of diminishes his authority a little to me and I forget his role until he starts talking. Maybe using his last name would feel and read a little better. Again, just a small thing to maybe consider.

37-38: I dont like that Claire gets to order Andrew on what to tell her parents. I dont like her motive or how Andrew responds to it. It just does not come across real to me. Why does Andrew feel guilty? He's doing his job! He feels guilty about what?  

I will read the rest a little later, as it is Im on page 40.  

Quoted from Scoob EXT. ANNES HOUSE - MOMENTS LATER.   < Drop the full stops after each and every INT/EXT you have. You dont need one.

Snoob, are you talking about the period after the INT./EXT. abbreviation? Abbreviations should always have a period after them. You don't need the period after the "later". If that's the one you're referring to, then ignore this message.

Quoted from ABennettWriter Snoob, are you talking about the period after the INT./EXT. abbreviation? Abbreviations should always have a period after them. You don't need the period after the "later". If that's the one you're referring to, then ignore this message.

No, but thanks for pulling me up on that because I made a right balls up on describing the problem there!

I meant the full stop at the end of the NIGHT/DAY/LATER as ABSteel pointed out. I have altered the post so it reads a little clearer. Sorry for any confusion.

Continued Review:


Back on the chat room and this is where I think you are working really well. Although a little too desciptive for some perhaps, I like how you write and I think you could make this into a decent script with a rewrite.

P39: The sun shines yet it is 11:30PM? I think you mean AM.

P41: I dont like that they all think for a while, remembering Anne. Its such a small thing but I think it is so important that you cut this type of thing out. It is not needed at all. You have decribed that they are there at the fair for her, no need to put in extra details like this as it just make me visualize these girls looking up at the sky in unison and making them look like fools. Do I know what they are thinking? No. You have not told me so I dont know. It needs to be cut, all similar things need to go.

P42: This whole dialouge contradicts what Lori and Claire were just talking about a page or so earlier. It does work in a way I guess, Lori being the outlandish one that has bitten on more then she can chew on. So yeah, its fine. Just have to always add in what I feel is the negative so it gives you something to work with or else what is the point of me writing this?

Great move with Zack being with the other girl. On a ferris wheel of all places!  I think you did a good job at the carnival so far. Created a good atmosphere, as you have done throughout so far to be honest.

Wow. Bill has got CCTV in his own home to spy on his 17 year old daughter??? What the hell?  I actually thought Bill was one the most rounded characters you had in this but this is just ...wow. It's insane.

Following this, you do have a nice few scenes with Claire on the net with BadBoy87 and Zack and Lori having a little confrontation. It's good.

P48: Now, ooh. You have me by the nuts here. When Zack drops the bag and the manuscript of BadBoy87's activities come out, that was just great. His explanation is off to say the least but that was a good moment. The best, probably apart from Anne's murder.

I did like how Claire is at breaking point and her saviour BadBoy87 is then concerned about his privacy being possibly revealed.

OK so Im on page 50 and will finish this off tomorow. Its good and I look forward to seeing how all this ends up.

Hey.

I liked your opening. You don't waste time. Your descriptions are detailed and well written. Anyhow, I really think the opening should contain a lot more GORE.
Instead of just a blood-splattered screen.

Claire tells a strange guy on the internet/chat her surname? She must be very confiding. (and insane!)
Even if she wouldn't mention her full name the story would work.

Your death-scenes are well elaborated and suspenseful. (I like the POV shots as well, though they're not needed in a spec...blah blah blah)

The father installs cameras everywhere in the house. Even in the room of his daughter!!!  Hmm...well.....
I don't think ANY 17-year old teenager would accept that. She doesn't even complain about it.

Ok, I understand why Zack swallowed Tracy, but his explanation on page 52 is a bit weak.

The explosion is very visual, shocking and unexpected. (I was betting on an urban-legend-kill when Zack got into his car again)
Though, according to the genre, I don't think the car-explosion fits into it.

I liked the car crash. Nice idea.

Hanging Bill scene... Holy Sh*t - this is a great death scene!!

I also liked the horror movie allusions.

I thought the killer was just as old as Claire when you described him!! He is much older!

Your script has got a very fast pace. It never got uninteresting.

I also like your characters. Tey're all believable. -Your dialogue is lean and sounds natural.

The tricky thing here is, if you're planning to change one little element, the whole story will be different.
---
Overall I would say this is a very dramatic horror/ slasher.
I enjoyed your script. A quick and fun read.

Hey guys, thanks for the read.

Scoob, all your points are very good and i will take them into consideration when doing the rewrite.

I hope you enjoy the rest of the script and Tod, im glad you enjoyed the script. I will, in turn, read what you have written.

Thanks again.

Hey Grant;

Nicely done! Overall,  I liked it. Good suspense, good characters and a strong plot. Scary thing is that there really are guys out there doing this sort of thing (preying on young girls, etc.)

Format wasn't bad, but some of your description blocks are pretty heavy, which slows down the action. Had some spelling errors and capitolization errors throught.
Pyjamas springs to mind. Also watch the you are/ you're contraction.

Liked Claire; seems like she wouldn't still have her Barbies displayed. Maybe in a box in the closet if she couldn't throw them away.

I would have like to have met insane crazy larry at some point instead of just the dialogue reference. Just in the background, installing the cameras or something.

The whole I know who you are from the internet is a bit problematic as there are millions of people all over the world using the chat rooms everyday. That he would pick out her screen name and identity that quickly is not likely, but alright for the purpose of this plot.

Like all the Modern Rock these guys have. I'll buy that soundtrack if you toss some Drowning Pool or Killswitch in there somewhere...Usually in a spec though its something in the style of modern rock in case the production guys can't get the rights.

The school certainly would have canceled the carnival for the violent murder of one student, if not many. You'd have grief counselors on hand and a general dark shadow over everyone, whether they knew her well or not (I still remember you, Lisa B.!)

Didn't like Zack, but the exploding car seemed outside of Larry's usual M.O. as a hands on sort of serial killer...True he was an electronics guy and he could pull it off as such, but, I'd like to see him sweat a bit as he was getting into trouble himself. Think he got off a little too easy.

Lonelygirl87 is awful close to Lonelygirl15...Might suggest changing that

Liked Lennon High School...A nod to John, I assume and applaud.

Liked Bill, although I agree that video cameras in her room would be a major problem. Outside is find, inside is pushing it, and in her room, Nope. Liked how he handled things with Zack. Good man who didn't deserve to get hung off the roof. Where is Claire's Mom during all this?

A good piece of advice that I got...Use active verbs instead of -ing verbs. Instead of saying Claire is running to the door you might say Claire runs to the door

Liked Andrew, the cop. Only if he were going to try to stop a murder, he would not have just gone by himself. He surely would have called for back-up, SWAT and any other means to try to take this guy out.

Its odd that the girls would be riding a cab out in the suburbs this late at night. Haylie might have been driving her brothers muscle car or her college age sisters VW Bug chick mobile. Not a cab, though, unless they are in the big city.

He had a lot of time to set things up, this serial killer. He had to drag Tracey from her house and nail her body to the shed. The next door nieghbors might have heard some of the noises. He also had to get the two injured girls out of the wrecked car, into his car, into the house, and tied up in the kitchen. Then poor Bill gets caught, bound, gagged and dragged up onto the roof?. Course, there would have to have been a noose already up there, tied and ready for use. Lot of prep work for this serial killer. But, then it is just a movie.

Might also want to consider making this a little longer; 77 mins is a bit short of the 90 mins, but not that much. Suggest adding and extended murder scene of Zack, since he is one of your main characters and the fact that he is a canidate for being the killer (Having the print out and such)

The dialogue on the whole is alright, but all the girls really sound pretty much the same. Don't sound like distinct individuals. Suggest giving one of the girls a Southern accent, or maybe British, something to change them up a little bit and add a little contrast.

Good job and good luck to you!

Penpal
By Grant Cameron (Shepard)

Horror, Thriller - Claire is the popular girl in school with many friends but, deep down, she is lonely until she finds comfort on the internet when she meets a Penpal online but his intentions with her are more than just friendly. 77 pages

Before I launch into my review I want to say that the act of completing a script, short or full, is an accomplishment in itself. So, it is the first thing I want to congratulate you on. Well done.

Now, with every script I read and review I try to focus on a particular aspect of the script to avoid from becoming vague, or piling on unnecessary criticism. Well, I believe anyhow that most problems are reoccurrences throughout a script of the same misunderstanding I’ll try to explain more as I go along.

Character(s) and Need

Starting at the ending, cause usually it exposes things done well and not so well. When Claire and the audience ‘sees” who the perpetrator is it isn’t a revelation at all cause we’ve never seen him before then. When we “discover” he is Larry, its still doesn’t work cause we’ve never seen him before then. Sure, upon a ladder, but as someone that is the driving force against your hero and you hero being the driving force of the story he has to be someone that challenges you’re hero mentally, psychical (which you have covered cause he is trying to kill her). How can he challenge her?
First her greatest need, which it great that you have one, its probably the first important thing you need, is to appreciate her friends, if her need is to appreciate them, then our antagonist plan is to make sure that he does everything in his power to drive them apart now he can do that by killing them but that shouldn’t be the starting point. You want to move from small to big, that’s suspense. Point I’m trying to make will be better explained after mentioning that second the audience has to get more of a sense of the antagonist and by that I mean his values, likes, dislikes, his pros or cons. How you ask can you kill two birds with one stone. Our antagonist should interact with not only Claire, but also the people around her Lori, Haley, the boyfriend, the father even.


...continued

He should get in contact with the friends, signing on as badboy, or someon else, or even as Claire to trick the friends into believing things that drives them apart. And you don’t even have to show the audiences this right away causes you want to show the powers of your antagonist at a good pace and revelations. He could relay something from Haley to Lori that Haley didn’t want Lori to know and the two girls are at each other’s throat about it. This is what he does, this is a power that will make him even more dangerous attacking from a mental aspect. You want to put the idea in the reader and Claire’s mind that this is a bad guy, but then pull it away again when he comes up with a reasonable explanation “I didn’t know I wasn’t suppose to tell Lori”, “there’s a dozen people with the name, badboywhatever, it wasn’t me”. I have other ideas but I want you to come up with your own.

Killing another bird, since we’ve made the antagonist even more dangerous and powerful and that’s what you want for him to be as strong as possible to be able to reach all avenues into the hero. We have to be able to believe your heroes learned his lesson by believing he/she’s been through hell and back. We’ve made our hero stronger cause she has to be smarter to keep up and more active to stay out of harms way.

Claire could catch on that this isn’t a nice guy but another friend might be quite fond of him. That’s the last idea I’m going to pony up unless you request otherwise. If you’d liked me too comment on other aspects, I’m willing. If you take away anything from this I hope it's that I think both the killer and Claire need to be more active in their relationship and that doesn’t necessarily mean killing quicker.

So who do you like better Fall Out Boy or My Chemical Romance? I tried to decide but Black Parade was such a good album threw and threw and when Fall Out Boy is at the top of their game the make great records.


Fin

Sorry for the delay in sending in the rest of my review, Grant, but I hope this helps.

To continue, I'll drop off my breif notes onwards from page 50:

After Zack and Claire break up, I like the message from Badboy87 that he knew what just happened. The following scene with the figure was also good, showing his obsession with Claire and introducing the killer for the first time. From this scene, it would look like it was her dad what with his CCTV and all, but I'll stick to my guns that Uncle Larry will still be the guy. Apart from that brief mention earlier on, there has be nothing more said so it would not make sense it was not him - he's the only suspect.

The car explosion caught me by surprise. I was expecting the killer to be in the backseat when Zack got back so I give you credit for the surprise. How the killer managed to fix an explosive device - Im assuming - in such little time is debatable but suspension of belief is pretty much required in most films anyway. It was a good scene all round, again Im being a little picky here but I thought I'd mention it.

Loved the onscreen messaging between BadBoy87 and Claire once she gets back from the police station. You have done a great job on all of these scenes so well done for that.

P57 : You have a "he" when I think you mean "her".  P58: EXT. STREET as opposed to INT. STREET

The car crash needs more. Its too short. Its very sudden but feels rushed. Its a good idea though and quite surprising so I would have liked to have a read a little more.

There is definitly a Scream-ish vibe throughout this. I think you even said you wrote it with that film in mind so you have done a good job in making it your own.

Bill's death was harsh. I liked it. Claire is shown to have a lot of strength, or she is just plain nuts, when she continues to play the killer's game after she has just murdered her father.

One thing I am curious about is how the police knew Tracy was dead, yet the killer must have kept her body in order to have her pinned up against the shed. Did he go back and steal her body from the morgue? Seems a little too far fetched. I reckon you're best bet here would be to just change the police station scene and drop any mention that they know Tracy was also killed.

I like the text message about opening the door. Ha! Did make me laugh in a good way.

At least I got the Larry the Killer right but the Lawrence and Co. installation of the CCTV was a good touch and explains a lot.
Nice ending!

All in all, good job. It was entertaining, quite surprising at times and for the most it was well written and structured. The plot was typical of the genre but I did really enjoy the different take on it with the messaging over the internet and I think you did a very good job on doing that.
The characters and dialouge were a little off. I think with a little touching up it would make a big difference. You have the basics here, just need a little fine tuning.
The pace was good - no problems with that and I liked the atmosphere you created within this small town. I think you carried that off very well.
Most of your writing was good, solid and I can see you have big potential. You need to cutback on describing too much at certain times and writing things as if they have happened - try and keep things as if they are happening.
The final revelation of who the killer was, to me a little predictible and a little off maybe. I never really read this like a mystery guess-the-killer type, so I probably wont be as harsh as those that will be dissapointed in the final reveal. If you were to make some changes, then you could put a little more into showing this Larry character. He is only mentioned once but it is pretty obvious from that dialouge who the killer is as he is never mentioned again. It just stuck out like a sore thumb.

However ,nice one, all round an entertaining story and keep working at it.

Hey, thanks Scoob for finishing the script and giving a thorough review. I will definitely take your thoughts into consideration when doing the rewrite.

Also thanks Blakkwolfe and Busy little bee for reading and reviewing the script. Any script of yours i can read, i will do. Just let me know by PM or on here.

And, busy little bee, on the note of who's better: Fall Out Boy or My Chemical Romance, I couldn't possibly say, lol. Ive always been a FOB fan but Black Parade is such an amazing album that i became a huge fan of their's so i like them both just the same.

Hey Grant,

Here are my thoughts. SPOILERS BELOW.

I'll start with the bad, just to get that out of the way. I didn't like the opening scene at all. It was really clichéd. The character talked to herself too much. However, on a positive note, it does set the tone of the screenplay.

The dialogue ranges from mediocre to horrible. There's a moment in the script where Lori tells Zack something along the lines of, "Claire has a new boyfriend on Yahoo! Chat, so get lost." This just cracked me up. I'm picturing Lori snapping her fingers and rotating her body as she says this. It's really corny.

I also laughed at the gas station sequence. It says he fills up his empty tank, and it costs him ten dollars. TEN DOLLARS!? WHERE THE FUCK DOES HE LIVE!? I'M BEING ROBBED OVER HERE!

Ok, now that I'm done with the bad --

You have some remarkable action sequences. I was impressed with the scene with Anne. Very well done. I hate horror movies where the character doesn't put up a fight, so this scene stuck out to me the most. The death was pretty gruesome, too.

Haylie and Lori are a blast together. I laughed out loud when they were talking about riding the top of the ferris wheel just so they could throw up.

The mystery to BADBOY87 is good, too. When I read the dialogue about Uncle Larry, I knew it would come back somehow because it was so random. I didn't guess that he would be the killer, though. I believed it was the dad for the longest time, so you can imagine my surprise when he died.

I absolutely loved the line "Smile." It's the simplest and creepiest thing in the entire script.

Overall, I enjoyed it. Keep writing.

Hey Sham, thanks for the read.

About the gas station scene, Im from Scotland and have no idea how much gas costs in America, so I just made that up on the spot but feel free to tell me how much it usually costs so i can change it in the rewrite, thanks, lol.

If there's anything i can read for you, please let me know.

Thanks again

The car Zack is driving is a BMW, so I'm guessing it would be about $25-$35. That's the average in the U.S. for that type of vehicle.

If you do happen to rewrite this, let me know. I really enjoyed the story and would love to see another draft.

And, if you'd like, you could check out my short script CAGE OF FURRY. The link is in my sig.