This started out okay. The fortune teller, the house of mirrors... all pretty standard but brings about the retro style of Tales from the Crypt and its contemporaries. That works for me, especially the house of mirrors. It's hard to go wrong with such a setting IMO. I thought the mantis and the roller coaster nonsense was a little much. A little too kid friendly, even for this challenge. A success in the context of the OWC but not so much in regards to my personal taste. Anyway, I suppose it's a decent entry. Could've been way better though.

This was fun. I procrastinated and procrastinated until I only had like 3 hours to write my script Who's Afraid of A Big Bad Bug, but that's no excuse. I'm happy with a 2 from your son. Hmm... no comments must have been bad. lol.
I knew the action needed some more but I had like 5 minutes to submit or even bring the parents back into the picture like I wanted to. I wanted it to have a Pixar type animation feel to it and to be all about family, Fear, ambition, and I wanted it to be a bit funny as well as scary and not alienate kids.

I really didn't have enough time to finish this but the idea really said write me at the last couple of hours. I hope we have another one of these. I want to write more alot more.
I can see how someone may find the mantis familiar but it wasn't my intention. I've never seen that Buffy episode.

All or most of your comments are valid and are problems that I knew my story would have also I didn't know if my story could go out the festival.  I had a foreboding scene in the front before but I deleted it. I had plans to get to why the parents were there but I had no time to get there. I didn't want Rube to ask for Carla's help it was originally her parents. The last act I was just rushing for time to complete it so thanks for all the feedback and I'm already outlining this.

I'm really happy that alot or most of the people on here got my humor and my scares at points.

Thanks yall, you can count on me entering the next contest which I hope is christmas themed and this time I'll finish it.

I enjoyed this one. I think it exhibits a great sense of creativity in many regards; however, I'm stumped by the lack of creativity in the title.

I almost feel bad that I hadn't read this sooner, but every time I looked at the title, I said, "Nah". Seriously, part of the order of my reads goes by the feeling I get from the title and this one just didn't grab me at all in that sense. Now, after reading it, I'm thinking the whole "bug" idea, doesn't feel really developed. The praying mantis idea I feel isn't really relative. Or, should I say, it's not made relative really within the construct of the story.

The boy, Rube, who's a lady bug doesn't feel right to me at all. What boy wants to dress up as a lady bug on Halloween? Don't they want to be The Joker? or A Ninja or something like that? That seems so unreal to me.

You had my attention when the crystal ball didn't work on Carla. I thought at that point, the story was going to be about her not having a future. This would have been intriguing if you would have followed along on that course. But then you switched.

I may have missed something, but I was wondering why, after witnessing what happened outside the fortune teller's trailer, Carla wound up running into and through the house of mirrors.

This one has its strengths and weaknesses for sure, but it is certainly a good effort I think.

Sandra