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Thanks for reading! I'm glad you enjoyed it all and am happy to hear you thought everything about it was strong. I appreciate it.
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Page 5) I think Helen should hold the knife when the police officers enter the house since, later, she stills stares at Young Jesse with ill intention as he walks escorted by an officer through the room. She could throw the knife to the floor when the police officers enter.
Why Helen left the knife in the bed?
I guess I wanted her to have immediate regret for what she had done, or was going to do. You wonder if it was really her that was going to kill Jesse, or was she "possessed"? Plus, I like the visual of the knife glimmering on the bed when one of the police officers shines their flashlight into the room.
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Page 8 ) I think you could introduce the VOICES just after Jesse doubts:
DEPUTY CONNORS (V.O.) Would you be willing to, Jesse?
JESSE I, uh...
VOICES(V.O.) (very faint) Do it.
Jesse lifts his head up at the VOICES.
JESSE What?
DEPUTY CONNORS (V.O.) I said we have the key to the house. It wasn’t hard to find. She had it on as a necklace.
It took me a second realizing what was going on, but that's just me being picky.
While I do like this, I also like my approach of Deputy Connor's voice getting manipulated into the voices that Jesse hears in his head, when Dep. Connor's says "Go back to the house, Jesse." Does he actually say it, or is it just another voice that Jesse hears?
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Page 13) In the line:
Jesse opens the fridge full of expired foods and drinks. He retches back in disgust.
Maybe you can reverse the order for anticipation:
Jesse opens the fridge. He retches back in disgust. It's full of expired foods and drinks.
Again, just me being picky.
Updated. I like this approach, stylistically. It's the small changes, right?
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Page 15)
INT. HOUSE - DAY
BACK TO PRESENT
HALLWAY
I wonder if "BACK TO PRESENT" maybe should go before "INT. HOUSE - DAY"…
I've actually updated the slugs completely in this script to read as more "traditional" formatting, rather than how I have my slugs, and then mini slugs. Hopefully it still reads clearly. And I think you're right, how BACK TO PRESENT goes before the slugline. I'll have to look at some scripts that utilize flashbacks.
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Page 18 ) I think Marco wouldn't want Jesse going into the basement… so I would suggest changing the dialogue from:
MARCO (CONT’D) You wanna go down--
JESSE (sternly) No. (beat) Not now. Not yet.
To:
MARCO (CONT’D) You aren't thinking about going down, are you?
JESSE (sternly) No. (beat) Not now. Not yet.
Or something like that…
While I also like this idea, I wanted Marco to have more of a "guidance" and "I'm there for you" demeanor ever since we first meet him. With him dismissing the basement along with Jesse, I feel it's out of his character. He's there to support Jesse and be there every step of the way, especially since he still has feelings for him. Which prompts him to kind of "push" Jesse along by asking him if he wants to go down, rather than dismiss the basement along with Jesse and make him avoid it even further.
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Page 40) The man was Trent, ok. I expected it but it was solid. Good dialogue.
One question came to my mind in that scene… Is Trent Jesse’s biological father?
Jesse introduces him that way on page 2:
"Her boyfriend at the time, Trent, …"
But in this scene I felt like Trent WAS his biological father…
I suppose Jesse didn't introduce him as his father on pg. 2 because, in that moment of the story, he didn't feel like he was. Am I correct?
You are correct. Yes, Trent is Jesse's biological father, and I like how you noticed that at the beginning it doesn't feel like Trent was Jesse's real father. In a way, Trent wants to feel the same way, because he didn't really want a kid. And to Jesse, Trent was barely in his life so he just doesn't consider him as his dad really, and that he grew up without a father. Not until their reunion does it feel like they're related, as if Helen's death has brought them together and a bit closer somehow. And then the exposition "Like father, like son" and having Jesse run up the stairs two steps at a time like Trent did just further solidifies that feeling/fact that they're related.
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Page 52) Awesome scene at the freezer room!
My favorite scene
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Page 60) Maybe you could change the bold text style with underlines in the note:
PUT HIM IN THE BASEMENT.
why
DO IT.
why
HE IS A BAD KID. HE DESERVES IT.
I wouldn't ask for it if it weren't for the adjacent "BACK TO SCENE".
Anyway, is a matter of style. Do what you feel more comfortable with.
This has actually bothered me as well but I never did anything to change it. I want the lines in all CAPS to still be bold because that's how I imagine it to look written on paper (boldly written), but this time I underlined those lines and it separates the BACK TO SCENE better. Thanks for the suggestion.
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Page 62) Jesse's depression tried to slow down the script a little, but you solved it with craftmanship.
Thanks. That route of formatting the script was a risky move for me because I wasn't sure I was doing it correctly, but so far I've gotten nothing but compliments on how I solved the downward spiral of Jesse. Took me a while to figure out how I wanted to write it!
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Page 82) Great end! Jesse has to confront his fears if he wants to stay alive. The basement on fire was a strong visual and I couldn't think of a better ending. But I missed one thing. Maybe it's just me, I don't know, but since the demon feeds on one's fears and insecurities, I wanted Jesse to have to confront him in the crawlspace to make it alive. I wanted the demon not to just lie aside, but to try to scare Jesse to death, giving him the opportunity to finally make a stand and defeat it (in a visual way).
Argh, you're not the only person to suggest a stronger ending and I'm sure you won't be the last either! The Thing represents mental illness in a way, and I find it the most reasonable for it to just lie there and watch Jesse ruin his own life, because that's how depression works. It hangs around and makes one's life miserable, and it feeds on, like you said fear and insecurity, but also the hate and energy and mind/psyche of someone until they become weak, break down, and ruin their own lives. With Jesse, The Thing and The House had swallowed him up so far that it causes him to create his own demise (i.e. setting the house on fire and burning alive) because he's not thinking clearly/he's depressed/"crazy". While yes, The Thing should be more "physical" it is more of a "mental" character than anything. Him forgiving his mother was him overcoming the demon. I hope this makes sense.
Thank you again for reading, and for your suggestions! I'm working on a rewrite that I will hopefully post here shortly on SS. I really appreciate it!
Just wanted to update that this screenplay won the Horror Film & Screenplay Festival and the WILDsound Film and Screenplay Festival (both not TOO big of competitions, but still the news was exciting nonetheless), and they did a reading of the 1st few scenes, which you can watch on the first page of this discussion thread, or here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Mdi4hliMzY
The script should be updated to its most recent draft as well, so it'll be a bit different (just slightly) than from the reading that they did. I'm happy with how it turned out, and hope that more good news is to come!
Thanks everyone! I can only hope more good things to come but I wouldn't have been able to accomplish this without the help of SS and everyone within it!
Congrats Sean. Good to see you back. A win is still a win. You can put it down in your resume.
Gabe
Just Murdered by Sean Elwood (Zombie Sean) and Gabriel Moronta (Mr. Ripley) - (Dark Comedy, Horror) All is fair in love and war. A hopeless romantic gay man resorts to bloodshed to win the coveted position of Bridesmaid. 99 pages. https://www.simplyscripts.net/cgi-bin/Blah/Blah.pl?b-comedy/m-1624410571/
While the film is still in post production, I have seen a rough trailer as well as a rough cut of the first 30ish minutes. Even though there are no subtitles for the film at the moment, it looks great.
Obviously, being filmed in the Dominican Republic, they changed around some things in the screenplay but they're still following the script as closely as they can without changing too much.