The Ewig by Blank - With the Red Army on the doorstep of East Prussia, three men board a merchant ship bound for German lands in the midst of Operation Hannibal.

Death Ship - S4E6
  - Short, Drama, Horror, War

Hi writer,

Quite an elaborate approach to the original, you definitely have a good imagination. The Death Ship is somewhat of a Ghost Ship now, afloat in the Baltic with only three survivors, well… dead, but still very conscious of their surroundings.

Lost in an ethereal void and adrift for how long? If their memory does not serve them or goes through a constant reset of that fateful night, they may very well be lost at sea forever. An eerie tale in that sense, but why only Egmont, Rikard, and Eigel left behind when the other passengers (souls) were rescued by the heavenly orbs?

“EIGEL: Maybe they’ll dream about their families tonight, you know, Be home for the last time.”

Maybe they are going home, the final transport…

I liked this take on the "Death Ship" episode -- the writer has a great imagination and a knack for writing description well so we know what we're looking at. And the dialogue was also well written. My biggest concern is this isn't anywhere close to being a low budget script. Other than that, nice job.

-- Michael

Enjoyed this as well. You went big. You've got some very creative visual imagery going. I can see the contrast between the two.  So if you'd had more, I would've kept on reading. No nitpicks I care to share. A good entry.

Ghost

A couple of nit-picky things...

Rickard should RICKARD when introduced and 'stalky' is an odd description. Same when Eigel is introduced.

Some of the dialogue is a little awkward... e.g. would
He said he was going to be only a few minutes.
be better as
He said he was only going to be a few minutes.

There's a lot of typos too... nothing that another sweep can't fix.

Low budget, not really.

Onto the story.

So a clever setup and a different take on it that works well, thought the ending got a little muddled but overall liked this one.

One of my favorite Twilight Zone episodes. Jack Klugman is great as the captain in denial. Death Ship itself is inspired by the legend of the Flying Dutchman. Richard Matheson was one of the all time greats.

Just a nitpick, but the title would look better in ALL CAPS.

You forgot to fade in.

Quoted Text SUPER: "Danzig, 1945.

Motherrrr...

Quoted Text towards military the vessels.

The word "the" seems out of place.

I imagine this would be difficult subject matter to tackle in a low budget short.

Rikard, as with all characters, should be introduced in all caps.

Quoted Text [H]e gives the guys a quick smile and flashes a handful of cash from his pocket.

Quoted Text Alright. [G]ood work.

You need to work on your capitalization.

"Though" is usually preceded by a comma.

**POTENTIAL SPOILER**

"Ewig" essentially means "forever."

Quoted Text Rikard [lets] himself down with a SIGH. He looks to his companions seated by him and smiles.

No apostrophe.

Quoted Text Telling of how bravely they will fight the Russians. Bunch of fools.

Seems strangely indented.

Quoted Text Despite what we have been through together, those [guys] won’t [s]not[s/] hesitate to blow your brains out if we were caught. Don’t be so hard on yourself and get some rest.

Is it "won't not" as in a deliberate double negative, e.g. "We can't not win"?

Quoted Text Hey, we’re still on th[e] ship!

"lifeboat" is usually one word.

You have a few missing periods.

The typographical writing needs more work, but the creative writing is spot on. I feel your take is original enough not not be a simple retread of "Death Ship" or The Flying Dutchman.

There are a lot of little mistakes in this which distracts, it feels rushed.

Massvie budget! Not low budget by any stretch of the imagination.

This may feel a bit mean but it's my opinion, I found the first 3 pages dull. Some soldiers go AWOL and head to a ship, that is all that happens in the first three pages. The characters are not interesting, their dialogue doesn't read naturally.

Then when the torpedos hit, this gets interesting. We have this mix between them in the afterlife and the images of the ship sinking. Very nice. If you can think of more activity, more obstacles and things for them to achieve in this afterlife and ditch most of the unnecessary intro, you could be onto a great idea here.

Best of luck with it and I hope my comments help as they are intended.

-Mark

Hello writer

This hurt my eyes to read for some reason, like I was straining more than when reading the others... strange. and absolutely nothing to do with the actual script, so not sure why I'm mentioning it.

The writing was alright, I favour the leaner type of writing so was a bit overwritten in places for me but personal taste I guess.

It seemed to take a while to get going, and with only 6 pages didn't leave much for the middle and end, I would probably quicken that opener.

This could benefit with some more reason - at the moment it is unsatisfying for me, as I don't understand why the others passed to the afterlife but not these 3?

Quoted Text RIKARD Despite what we have been through together, those guy�s won�t not hesitate to blow your brains out if we were caught. Don�t be so hard on yourself and get some rest.

This bit of dialogue I didn't get either. Who would blow their brains out, who is being hard on themselves? It's probably just me to be honest.

Yea in this one, it just kinda happens and I want to know why, I need more to really enjoy this.

Oh, and low budget? did you miss to read that part of the criteria?

All the best with it

This seems real rushed. A lot of basic writing errors - capitalization, spaces, etc. Stuff that we should catch before submitting a script to anyone.

You changed the space ship to a real ship, but other than that, I don't think it's really a rewrite.

The characters and dialogue are flat and don't really do anything to progress the story. I don't know why you wasted three pages on them getting on the boat. It doesn't matter how they got there.

The story is the boat, the explosion, and them finding out that they're dead.

Yes, a lot of spelling, punctuation, and grammar issues but many have already nailed those little details.  I liked your story but the set up was very long winded and at least a page could be trimmed easily. The best part was your idea with the lifeboats and the light. nice touch.

Next time, have a friend, spouse, or stranger on the street give it a read for proofing. Many of these mistakes stick out like a sore thumb except to the writer. Good job.

Here is my favorite line from the script: "A black sky meets a black sea." Great. I also the choices you made for character names: Egmont and Eigel in particular.

I am not familiar with this episode, but I like the overall vibe.

If these guys are deserting the army, why would they carry their uniforms around in a bag? Wouldn't they just ditch them?

The description of the boats moving toward the white light was a bit unclear. A few typos, which some readers will gleefully point out.

The end is not particularly surprising.

Looks like an experienced writer rushed to complete the script.

Writing was good overall. However, I wasn't a fan of people just vanishing into a bright light. There could have been more. Something interesting and weird before we discover that they all are dead. Probably instead of other people, our lead charcaters wake up on a life boat and wonder how did they reach here?

Good job.

Great stuff. Very TZ-esque. What was that light that the boats were going towards? Perhaps we'll never know.

Well, slow start but then I was hooked with your story telling prowess.  Very  entertaining and a great TZish creepy vibe. Just a shame the budget is out there.

Up to Page 2 and I have 3 basic comments - This ain't no low budget shoot.  In fact, there's no way anyone could film this as written.  Lots of mistakes on display - looks like a rush job without a single edit. Thick writing and rather dull for some reason - and I say "for some reason" because it shouldn't be dull 1 1/2 pages in - it's the writing.

Up to Page 3 - mistakes continue and are quite irritating now.  Dialogue is poor, dull, and just not realistic at all.

Here's a classic mistake - 1 you should never commit again, if you pay attention to this.

"The MS Ewig trudges along the choppy black sea of the Baltic." - So, what's wrong here?  Is it wrong that this ends in an orphan?  Yeah, kind of, but it's actually the reason it ends in an orphan.  Why in the world would you add "of the Baltic" to end the sentence?  Your Slug tells us we're on The Baltic Sea, so this is repetitive and a complete waste that ends up costing you a line and bringing another lonely little orphan into the world.

It's just way too obvious what happens here on Page 3 and what's going to happen.  I would bow out now, based on this and the poor writing, but I'll trudge on and give some final notes.

Page 5 - Shit, there you go again - "The inky black sea of the Baltic dissolves into..." - "of the Baltic" is a complete waste.  We know where we are, and you don't need to keep repeating "of the Baltic".  Stop the madness!

The end.  Obviously (or hopefully) written and conceived in less than 30 minutes.  No surprises here at all.  No character to your characters, so why would we give a shit about them?  For me, this doesn't even really come across as if the TZ episode was the inspiration.  Very poor writing throughout filled with lazy mistakes.

Not for me.