Twins by Can't Be Bothered To Type My Email Address - Short, Horror, Action - After the Halloween party is over, the true spirit of the Season kicks into gear and an affluent family will never be the same. - pdf format

Writer interested in feedback on this work

The story would have benefited from a bit of tension. The closing scene was weird instead of ominous.

First read, you lucky devil! It looked lonely at the bottom so first out of the gate....

Started off with direction 'From above' and a view of a 'sparking pool'. Yes, we know what you mean but won't hold it against you with the time crunch. The pool light must be on for it to sparkle and show steam, yeah?

So far, so good. Decent dialogue and banter.

The intro of Joe and Hunter not in CAPS.

Good action sequences and the tense transitions between scenes of the INT House and Casita - good job.

Uh oh, big shift on the last two pages. Did you run out of time/ideas? The tone change was quite rapid and Mandy seems pretty 'matter of fact' for being the next day after losing a husband and child. Not sure they'd be hanging out in the kitchen that soon after a double-homicide. Your ending, IMO, needs some work.

Good work, writer. A little clean up and it would be much better.

I like the idea here but the story feels rushed. You give us some decent action and tension, but then the last two pages no one really seemed to care that several people were killed. Kendra was just chopping veggies...no one seemed upset. Odd.

And you tell us once that Hayden's dad is mean to him...but to have an ending as drastic as that, I think we need to see it. Also...Hayden said it's no fun without Hunter, but after everything happened he said they're better off without him.

Maybecwork some more on showing problems in Hayden's relationship with dad and Hunter so we believe he had a reason for such anger.

Best of luck!!

This one was written well enough, but ultimately did not work for me. It took a long time to get going. Kind of like a drama more than a horror. Then when things got going, it went wild, but I felt nothing because it came so fast and full force. No build up. No suspense. Then the last few pages went to child sex abuse? I wished it had not gone there. It seemed out of place here.

Hello can’t be bothered

Logline - not the cleanest or well structured. Actually doesn’t tell me much but I guess a wealthy family is going to die after a party. Let’s see...

Ok finished - nice suburban house. !!

Some nice writing and dialogue on display here. There was a natural feel to the beginning.

Story wise, it was ok.  The creatures were foreshadowed as was the fathers unknown behaviour, but did I get a good enough connection? Not sure.

The jealously of twins, one seeking favour over the other, is a sound field for tension. Nice choice.

I think one of the issues I had was the jarring aspect of this blob animal against the background, before and after, of normality

This has potential

The evil twin ... fair enough. But I feel this was a lot more complex than it had to be. And for something so huge as child abuse to be thrown in at the end did not work. I'm not shy of the subject. It's a terrible reality and art reflects reality. But when writing about it, I think it needs to be done justice. So this one wasn't for me.

This started out strong for me but faded around page 7/8 - like the tension eroded.

Good effort for a week though.

Wasn't only one person supposed to hear the scream?

Child sexual abuse is a horror in and of itself. I don't think it belonged in this script and broke the tone completely.

Mandy and Kendra sure recovered fast after losing father and Hunter.

Why did Kendra rush out of the kitchen at the end during discussion about child abuse? Was the talk about Hayden's sexual abuse at the hands of Jason a reminder that she too was a victim of his incestuous abuse?

Formatting and spelling good. Story pretty much worked until the end, when it switched gears to childhood sexual abuse.

Horror is one thing because it's in the state of a person's mind. On the other hand, childhood sexual abuse is real. And reaction to it is far more abhorrent and troubling.

    

This one started as a collection of matter-of factual scenes that didn’t lead to much story for me. You don’t pose a question for the reader, don’t make him wonder what would happen if..,
Instead you left us wondering what’s the point here and if I’m on page 7 and still unaware of that - that’s not so good.
There’s no sufficient build up towards the ending. Why would Hayden say that about Jason. I also think you need to show him and Hunter together

Writer,

Nicely done, well written, good pace. Everything was there except the logic. That's why I'm not good at horror like this, or slasher stuff because there's always a logic gap. So, Hayden? How did he get this power - his creations coming to life? Maybe I missed the answer and would love to hear it if I did.

However, I see some folks didn't like Hayden's reasoning for the killings. I did. It added a texture of realism that I appreciated in a script like this. Good effort.

Steve

Hello writer

I didn't like it, sorry. It's hard to put my finger on why.

You don't seem natural at writing horror. There's not much to the build-up. No tension, or that feeling of impending doom. I could feel myself getting bored and skimming a bit which isn't really a good sign.

The action got a bit much with all the characters - I hadn't realized the brother had died (did he die?) until the end when the mom asks Hayden if he missed him.

It seems too rushed I think - With an ending that was trying to be something but ultimately not resonating.

Don't really know what else to say. So I'm gonna go...

Logline - Doesn't give any detail at all.

Title Page - No problems.

At least we don't have SUBURBAN HOME, so Kudos!

"We view..." - Uh, Ok...don't we view and see everything that's written in the action blocks?

The banter and cheering is well done.  These two seem realistic and like a real couple.

I'm on Page 3 now and writing is good, dialogue exchanges good, and we now have a hint of horror to follow?  I hope...we need to get going.

Dialogue continues to be the strong suit here...action lagging...but I'm still in, waiting for some horror.

Page 5 - and maybe there it is with another scream.

Page 5 - Joe and Hunter aren't intro'd properly - ALWAYS CAP a character's first intro.

Page 5,6,7 - Good job on how you went back and forth between scenes.  It adds tension nicely.

Page 7 - "warped" - "wrapped"

Hmmm, we leave both scenes without knowing what happened - I sure hope we do find out or I'll be pissed.

"Cops" - "COPS" - same as above, always CAP a character's first intro.

Page 8 - The next day?  Seems a little too soon...

"I like her.  She's nice...like Grandma." - It's little things like this that stand out and add realism.

The end.  Sooooo...the Dad and the brother both got killed, the Dad possibly molested 1 of his sons, and the 1 twin somehow conjured up these little twin monsters, huh?

The title makes me think there's more than what we got here, but then again, I really don't know for sure.

The next day is definitely way too soon and loses credibility to an otherwise well written script.

It's good, but it could be better.

***

Take out the papers and the trash!

Your logline is okay, I guess.

Multi-word adjectives should be hyphenated.

TIL what a great room is.

Mandy's cute. I like her already.

Wireless? Wired headphones have better sound quality.

Quoted Text Mommy! Two monsters just walked out of my closet...for reals...real monsters!

Ickis, Krumm, and Oblina?

Mandy turned into a bitch. Something's a bit off about her.

Page 5 and... cue the scream. Only one is supposed to hear it, but the writing's so good that I'll let it slide.

So, when you say soft rock, are we talking REO Speedwagon? Air Supply? Chicago?

"warped" or "wrapped" around her?

Quoted Text He did bad things to me...things that hurt.

How well I know.

Bravo! One of my favorites. You touched on a very serious issue -- child abuse. I've been on the receiving end of abuse (emotional abuse, abuse of authority, "Cinderella-ism") so I know exactly where you're coming from.

I'd love to see what you can do with more pages and flesh out the story even more.

The tone shift kills this script and it's personified by the father character. We have no indication he's anything but a decent guy... and then, wham: he's a child molester.

I suppose that's the way it goes. Nobody knows the evil-doings of seemingly nice people, but for whatever reason, it just didn't work here for me.

Certainly the mom's reaction is WAY too casual the next day. I saw "chopping vegetables" and I just about fell out of my chair.

Maybe telling this from Hayden's point of view might be a stronger way to tell the story. After all, this really is his story.

Hi writer,

That was a cool little story, I really liked the dialogue. Most of what I was going to talk about has already been covered so all I can really say is good job.

I really liked the tension you built in the story, but considering the motive was revenge in some imagination come to life I didn’t really get why the boyfriend got the dirty.

But that being my only gripe, it’s fair to say that this was a solid entry, good job.

Late to the party, and it looks like I'm echoing other reviews again.

The last two pages really stick out, not in a good way. The abrupt cutoff of the action and tension and switch to wrapping things up through ineffective exposition hurts this. I imagine it was a time crunch to submit under the wire. Too bad because I'm really interested to see how this might have played out with more time, if that's a correct assumption.

Not much character development, and the twins thing is barely a factor (strange given that the title is "Twins")...except the monsters are also twins, aren't they? That would have been neat to play into better, twin children and twin monsters. As it is, the story wouldn't change a bit if the boys weren't twins.

If Hayden really saw those two little monsters walk out of his closet (where did they come from??? ) he lets it go way too easily. He doesn't even try to convince his mother that what he saw is real.

You have police and EMTs outside the house but the family is alone together in the kitchen and Mandy is interrogating Hayden on behalf of a detective? Why aren't they in there? The dialogue is particularly bad in that scene, especially given the twist you're trying to pull off. Much more attention needs to be paid to it to make it effective.

Hayden is absent for most of this script. He's in his room at the top of page 3 and we don't see him again until the final scene on page 8. If you're trying to make him somehow responsible for the monsters killing his dad and brother, he should be a bigger part of the action. At the very least, he should witness the significant death of his abusive father.

You use CONTINUOUS incorrectly, I think what you're trying to do is SAME TIME. CONTINUOUS is when a scene transitions seamlessly from one location to another, such as walking through a door. Same character, same actions without missing a beat. SAME TIME is used to change to a different part of the story in another location at the same time as the previous scene.

Otherwise the writing is decent but hurried. There's some good dialogue mixed in with some on the nose stuff. It wouldn't be easy to pull this off but it could be an effective read with some work.

Very nice. I think it would be good, though, to give some hint that Hayden had special powers earlier on. The final description line — “…a huge almost evil grin grows wide.” — may be too on-the-nose. And leaving those drawings out in the open is dumb. Maybe he burns them and the cops find a singed scrap that casts a little suspicion on the kid. As it is, Detective Kennedy and Mandy have major suspicions.

Got mixed feelings here. I like the writing. It's fast and easy to read, but there are a few typos. And more than a few orphans.

Characters and their dialog were actually pretty good. It all read very believable.

Once the action starts, this falls apart. First, you don't give us any idea what size these creatures are. 6 inches? 3 feet? Hard to visualize them when I don't know how big they are supposed to be.

The BIG problem is that you randomly cut away from an action sequence, to bodies on strectchers being wheeled to ambulances, to the next night, where the family is acting normal until the Mom breaks down and Hayden reveals he was behind it all. So both the dad and Hunter were killed? I don't know... seems like theres a cool idea in here, but I'm thinking you were pressed for time.

The more I think about it, the more this one just doesn't work for me.

What an odd little tale.

Your logline tells us very little. Affluent family? How exactly does that play into the story?
Casita? Different from Suburban Home, I suppose.

It's as if you couldn't quite decide which story to tell - psychological horror - twins being abused - (or at least the least favourite one), creature feature (an actual monster) exacts revenge on evil daddy, little kid afraid of the dark (monsters) with a little Friday 13th frolic in the pool e.g. teen bikini-babe action in the pool, and sexy Mom in a cheerleading outfit.

The scene change following the horror denouement - with Mom chopping veggies at the end is abrupt and really weird. Such is life.

I don't think you could make up your mind what story you were telling so it became a hybrid horror. That's my theory anyway. For reals... .

Quoted from LC . For reals... .

For reals...indeed!