Michael,

I would have liked to build up on Jenna a bit more, but with the page limit, I really had no choice but to keep it on the down low I guess.

With the school and computer "jargon" (I've never heard of that word by the way, ha ha), I wanted people to relate to the characters, sort of. Because these days, your normal and stereotypical school teens want to try and exempt class finals, and they're all over AOL Instant Messenger these days.

I'll see if there's a way to shorten the script down by taking some of the chatter away.

Yeh, I'm considering about making this into a series within a series. I'll try and answer unanswered questions and whatnot, and hopefully make people understand.

Thanks for reading, and thanks for the review.

Sean

I liked the feeling of the countdown, something mysterious on the way. The beginning is way too long, why not open the story with Jenna getting one of the messages?  The gimmick of the countdown was really nice, that propels the story very well, but I'd suggest dropping the dialogue reference to the J Horror films, it's too much of a wink and nudge.  

In consecutive scenes, Jenna mentions getting e-mails saying " 3 days" then "One day" , but mentions different days to different people. If she's telling the same story wouldn't she mention the 3 days/1 day to both? it's a small thing but in the dialogue it reads awkward, like an inconsistency.

But overall you went for a less is more feel and avoided blood and guts, looking to shock instead of assault with gore, so kudos there. The story has a neat little "Night Gallery" feel but did you maybe tip off the shocker too early?   Am wondering if you should play it out as late as possible that it IS some joke or prank from her Jeff or her parents, someone planning a nice surprise instead of the grisly one coming up. Maybe set the story in the hours counting down to her birthday to throw in another red herring.  It might be something of a cruel joke   but maybe if she believes...as late as possible...that a good thing is on the way...the final page when the clock & TV & fish go bonkers and she's dragged away might have more impact.

Mike,

The beginning was just a "who is who" deal. Get to know the characters. And I wanted to add the reference to the J-horror films so people won't be like, "Oh it's just like THAT movie!" And I wanted the characters to act like audience members if they were in the situation.

With the whole 3 day/1 day deal...She mentions she got the first weird message by email 3 days ago to Jeff. But she just makes things brief to her friends saying that she got a weird message on her phone a day ago, and just decides not to mention the email she got before. If that makes sense to you.

Yeh, I realized this is one of my first horror scripts that doesn't have any gore in it whatsoever. I wanted to focus more on suspense and stuff rather than get bloody and messy.

And I think I know what you're saying. Her friends/family send all the messages as the countdown, then it ends up being a suprise party or something. Then after the party things get weird again, and that's when she gets dragged into the room? I don't know, I feel as though it might cheat the audience and be a little cliche. Besides, how are they going to make the text message disappear, make AIM come up when it's been deleted, and have it shut back down after the message goes through?

Thanks for the comment,

Sean

This was obviously inspired by the many J-horror movies...I remember seeing one called phone. They all start to blur after awhile. Its cool that you mention a few in dialogue. a bit tongue in cheek. I didn't really like the characters but they fit with the story. I think their dialogue was mostly realistic. They're all pretty vapid and I think it fits well because those characters seem to be the most reliant on phones. I like that you always find time to introduce and spend time with the characters before the real horror happens. But here It doesn't really matter because the characters aren't really likable. You don't really get an impression from them.
The j-horror part was a okay read but it was completely predictable and not really original. I was expecting a twist that would have it stand out. I was thinking that it was all a joke and she was set up by her friends and at the end of the countdown something funny was going to happen. kindof like an April Fool's Day ending or something.
Good writing but the story was only okay.

-SHAWN

Quoted from Zombie Sean Mike, The beginning was just a "who is who" deal. Get to know the characters. And I wanted to add the reference to the J-horror films so people won't be like, "Oh it's just like THAT movie!" And I wanted the characters to act like audience members if they were in the situation. With the whole 3 day/1 day deal...She mentions she got the first weird message by email 3 days ago to Jeff. But she just makes things brief to her friends saying that she got a weird message on her phone a day ago, and just decides not to mention the email she got before. If that makes sense to you. Yeh, I realized this is one of my first horror scripts that doesn't have any gore in it whatsoever. I wanted to focus more on suspense and stuff rather than get bloody and messy. And I think I know what you're saying. Her friends/family send all the messages as the countdown, then it ends up being a suprise party or something. Then after the party things get weird again, and that's when she gets dragged into the room? I don't know, I feel as though it might cheat the audience and be a little cliche. Besides, how are they going to make the text message disappear, make AIM come up when it's been deleted, and have it shut back down after the message goes through? Thanks for the comment, Sean

Cool thanks for clarifying. After having my fill of J-Horror, I really did like the concept of and acceleation of the messages, it works to torque the suspense up, good job.

Shawn,

Thanks for reading. The characters I would have fleshed out more if there were a bigger page limit. Would it still be a horror if it ended in a prank?

Quoted from mikep Cool thanks for clarifying. After having my fill of J-Horror, I really did like the concept of and acceleation of the messages, it works to torque the suspense up, good job.

Well, I'm glad you liked it, then. This this is probably my first very simple script I've submitted here, I want to try and film it this summer. Hopefully, the suspense build up with the messages and stuff will be better once it's off of paper and onto film.

Hey Sean,

Like others have said, this was obviously inspired by J-horror but I don't think anyone can knock it for being like The Ring, The Eye, Dark Water, etc. You really didn't borrow as much from those ones as you did One Missed Call. I did think you upped the antee a little though. In One Missed Call (I've only seen the original), the victims get one message then are basically thrust into a haze of uncertainty. Here, the messages are persistent, which made things a lot more suspenseful, I think. This is what I liked about your script but I still think it needs work.

So apparently, there is a page limit on these Scarefest scripts. Fair enough. It's not always easy to develop several characters in such a short period of time. Here though, I think you could easily have developed Jenna as a character. When you introduce your characters (I think they need to be described better BTW; how can Jenna be the cheerleader if she's dressed the same as her friends, what exactly is "quiet-looking?", etc.), they're basically talking about inconsequential things. Again, fair enough... for an introduction. This stuff goes on for six pages. You introduce Jeff within this time period, which is good, but meanwhile, your characters are bickering about padlocks and text messages when you could be developing them some. Some of this dialogue should probably stay. It gives a good sense of what kind of girls these are (a little ditzy, don't you think?) but some more in depth development would make at least Jenna seem a little less ditzy and more sympathetic.

You've also got some issues with the story itself. First off, if Jenna's been getting messages for days, she'd be a basket case by now. I'd say get rid of that line and start with the "4 hours" text from who/whatever sent it. Second, there's no payoff here. Just Jenna getting sucked into a dark room. If you wanted people to wonder whether or not Jeff was stalking her, you'd probably have wanted to leave this unseen force out. With it in there, you'd want to have some sort of evil force or whatever to make an appearance. If you want things to be a little more ambiguous, which is what I think you want at this point, than you have to rework your ending entirely so no one can rule out that Jeff is Jenna's stalker.

Overall, a little derivitive (the One Missed Call influence is undeniable) but I think you managed to side-step the "rip-off" label by varying the origins of the messages as well as making the messages repetitive. You've also got a fair amount of suspense here and, even though I'd like to see them more developed, your characters seem real enough for high school girls. I have two younger sisters so I know how much they love their text messaging.

This is a relatively strong base. I just think you need to build on it some.

Hey Sean,

I thought your script worked as a suspensful and tension building horror tale.  However... the ending!  I hear what you're saying about leaving things to the imagination and the horror of the unknown and I agree that it's an effective approach in some instances... but in this one I think the audience really needs something, what that something is I'll leave to you.  I was really feeling the tension build and was glued to the page as I was excitedly nearing what I tought was gonna be a twist ending or some great revelation, but alas, all I got was a big '?'

Overall all though it was good for what it was, and it had me all the way up til the ending.

Nice work.

I have to say that I did not like this very much. I thought the dialouge was incredib;y weak. It didn't flow for me. You build this story so much and as a reader I'm waiting for this great ending and then nothing. Very boring. Just a pet peeve of mine also, you mention twice the character's voice echoing throughout the house. Voices don't echo in a fully furnished home. It just doesn't happen. This whole thing seemed like you needed to crank out 16 pages by a deadline and that's all you really did. Better luck next time.