Just found this.  Interesting stuff.  Started at the top and got through "Bitchslapped".

Bitchslapped

It does totally feel like a 70's Grindhouse type flick.  The spinning head kicks and over the top violence work well for this sort of genre, but it also comes off as rather funny and cheesy, but then again, that's exactly what this shit was all about.

Big problem for me were all the easily fixed typos that ran wild thoughout.  I think I came across at least 40, and that's with a single, quick read.  They shouldn't be so obvious, and it really takes away from the read.

Didn't like how you spelled the names of the girls either. Obviously, a parent can spell their children's names anyway they want to, but I doubt they'd choose the letters you used.  I could be wrong here, but they just didn't look right, and becuase we saw them so often, it took away again for me.

Dialogue was hit and miss. At times, it was great, but those times were when you obviously went for a big, funny speech.  But most of the times, I don't think you got the slangs right and forgot how they should sound.  Way too often you used "you" when a girl like Lateesha would say "ya", etc.

I also didn't buy the interactions between Lateesha and Dolores.  Lateesha may indeed be that clasic "hooker with a heart of gold", but she's stil a lowlife street hooker and in no way would she offer to take Dolores under her wing for no reason whatsoever.

Like others have said, from the hospital scene to the end, it's just nonstop violence and it needs a bit more than that to make the over the top violence work.  It was way too easy to take the 3 rapists out.  Too conveinent that no one else was around them to help.  Also, Lateesha took a shitload of blows that she wouldn't just be able to jump up and attack from.  But, yes, this genre is what it is, and that shit happens in these movies.  Problem is though, that in reality, these movies never garnered any kind of real following and never made any money.  Although the recent Grindhouse double feature was a critically acclaimed work, it also didn't capyure the hearts of mainstream movie goers, and although I loved them, I loved them for their goofiness and camp factor.

This isn't bad, but I think with a little more time, it could've been...and should've been a whole lot better

Read this one over the weekend when I should have worked on something else, my bad.  

Are you trying to convince us that there is corruption in Chicago???  

Anyway, I really liked this one. I think your writing is getting better and better. It's sharp and snappy, but fun in a  lowkey kind of way which might seem like a weird thing to say since the last ones of yours that I've read have had a lot of action. I don't know how to better describe it though. Maybe it's because even though the action or scenarios are over the top, it still doesn't seem forced or that you tried too hard. It just sort of fits.

I agree with the others that the story itself might not be that original here, but I thought it felt exactly like those car chase movies back in the 70's.

The things I would have liked to be a little different would be Jud. Even though this was 50 pages, I never really felt that I got to know him. I would have liked to see him do something where his character comes off as more of a good guy. Right now, some of the kills seemed just cold which didn't make me like him that much. There must be some more justification for the brutality and killing. If that makes sense.
This was also why Bumblebee's affection for him all of a sudden didn't really work. He wasn't likable enough for her to suddenly fall for him.

I had no problem with understanding why Jud does what he does though. It was clear to me that he was frustrated about doing his job only to see the bad guys go unpunished all the time. Again, being ffrustrated with this situation didn't warrant Jud's killings. At least not all of them.

The characters and their names were all great and a lot of fun.

The action, and this is important, was excellent. I usually hate reading action. It's something that is fun to watch, but can be a drag to read. Car chases especially. You did an awesome job on that here. It was easy to follow even though I'm not familiar with Chicago. It was fast paced and visual, never tedious or dull to read.

Make me like Jud better so I can believe Bumblebee falling for him and the killings seem more just and this will be really great and no one will notice that the story itself isn't that original.

Just finished B!TCH SLAPPED!


um...wow.


The beginning had me grinning all while I was reading. I love that your descriptions for this was so informal. For example when you say the wall of the apartment looked as is someone had wiped their ass with it. The dialogue is very typical of Blaxploitation cinema. Lateesha was quite a layered character. She sort of played the role of Lateesha whenever she was on the street with the dialogue and became herself Margaret whenever she was at home. I also noticed that your descriptions became more standard when if the scene involved Mama. This was appropriately over the top and an authentic throwback to 70s Blaxploitation. That last death scene was particularly disgusting. I thoroughly enjoyed myself. Great job. I don't really have anything negative to say. Perhaps Lateesha could have a harder time taking the guys out. More conflict.


-SHAWN

Bitchslapped.

I am guessing that this is from the crazy motherfu**ing' mind of Mr Shelton, though have not read the others yet so may change my mind as I get through them.

I have never really got into the whole Blaxploitation thing, I guess QT is my only window into that world, but from what I have read about it this certainly fits the mould. I was only a few pages into it when I realised, like Chism, that this was going to be near enough critic proof (except to hardcore fans of the genre I would assume). Is it intending to a blaxploitation script, or a parody of a blaxploitation script, it is hard to tell. And thus very hard to comment on.

So I guess the only thing to say is whether it was well written and enjoyable?


It was hard going, especially the final showdown, very grisly and uncomfortable to read. It was written well enough but some of the dialogue did not really ring true. Lateesha asking Dolores to move in with her just never felt right to me. I can understand the need to do it, we need a great reason for what lateesha does, but this really should have been set up better. More dialogue, maybe we need to understand more about Dolores' upbringing and how that mirrors that of Lateesha. Lateesha surely needs to see something of her own upbringing in Dolores for her to take her under her wing? If you were to extend this I would probably have had a scene where Dolores is off the game and living with Lateesha already. As it is I really didn't fully buy it.

Another thing that never sat right was why have her shoot (and probably kill) an innocent girl? Even by mistake this makes it much harder to root for Lateesha. I love revenge flicks as much as anyone but surely the whole point is that the whole audience is rooting for the hero despite the violence they are committing because they are killing those that deserve it?

Like I said I am not an expert on these movies by any stretch of the imagination, so difficult to comment and difficult to judge. Overall though it was a decent script, It was a good read and zipped along really well once we reached the final act, it had that crescendo effect that kept churning the action up towards the climax. Nicely done and a great ending.

I did enjoy it overall. Cheers.

Thanks for the reads everyone, I know there are some flaws in each one, mine for sure....lol, still I like what each writer did here, i think each would work as a feature.  Anyways thanks again for the reads and comments.

Quoted from The boy who could fly i think each would work as a feature.

I agree with that, and definitely with mine since it orignated as a feature concept that I condensed to fit within this structure.

I'll be going back into it in the not too distant future, to extend it and take care of a few minor issues people had.

FLESH EATERS FROM BEYOND THE GRAVE

What Worked:

The characters. For a short period zombie flick, there was a surprising amount of character development. I liked Heather the best -- hippie chicks are so cool. Eddie was a cool guy too. Having had him seen zombie movies and knowing what zombies were and how to kill them from that was a nice idea, kept things interesting without having any boring exposition scenes. Mike, what an arsehole. His story felt maybe a little tacked on, him going psychotic so suddenly over Eddie/Mary thing came right out of nowhere, but it's good that you tried to have a little interpersonal conflict to liven things up. Zombies themselves aren't particularly interesting villains on their own, and Mike gave a good energy and kept things from getting boring. So, nice work on that front.

The Vietnam thing was an interesting idea. Having Nixon pull out of that shithole to fight the zombies was actually kinda cool. If only Bush could follow his example.... but that's another day and another thread. Not gonna get political, just wanted to mention that it was a cool little story point.

Violence, really well done. Zombies chewing and tearing apart people isn't a new idea, but there was some pretty disgusting stuff in here. Gauging eyeballs, crushing with car tires and mass immolation were funky ideas. Would love to see some of that stuff on the big screen. It was also nice to see the return of people being anally raped. I really missed it in Breakneck Vengeance and, since it seems to be a recurring theme in these stories, it was nice to have it back.

What Didn't Work:

There were a few problems with the structure. As people have already pointed out, the outbreak of the infection starts kind of suddenly. There's no real build-up or suspense in the first ten pages or so and it's pretty jarring to go from average day at school to the end of the world so quickly.

The Bottom Line

As others have said, FEFBTG is fairly typical zombie fair, but some colourful characters and imaginative gore keep it afloat nicely. The first ten pages or so kind of dragged, but once the violence starts its relentless pretty much up to the last page, and you go out strong so the beginning can be forgiven. All in all, a pretty fun read. Well done.

TOMB RAIDER TERROR

While I don't want to just repeat the same thoughts as previous posters I must mention my biggest problem with this script is the fact that you kill all three of our main characters off before the climax. I am not totally sure who was meant to be the protagonist, the most likable character was probably Hoover. It is possible that you intended Duke to be the protag, maybe an arrogant and rude but likable hero a bit like Michael Douglas from Romancing the Stone, but if that was the case I think you would have had him change towards the end. I think much of the humour surrounding his character was over the top in the context of the script.

As has already been said we have a climax between two characters who we have only just met and do not care about at all, it does make it very difficult to keep interest and care anything about what happens at the end. You need to introduce your antagonist ideally before the end of the 3rd act, or at least make reference to him, make sure we know what evil is to come. And then you should really decide on who your protag is and have it be him that kills the Jinni at the end. I am not saying your protag should have to be alive at the end but he certainly needs to be involved. And most certainly he needs to change, he needs an arc. Hence why I think your best protag would be Duke, a bit dislikable to begin (but with that roguish charm) with but somewhere along the road he does redeem himself and does something unselfish.

However that being said there was much to like about this script, the actual premise was top notch, a great adventure story with some fantastic and visual horror thrown in. Although you need to be careful of mixing genres too much, I think the comedy was too much, a Comedy/Adventure/Slasher movie might be a little hard to sell, though I guess I am minded of the excellent 'From Dusk to Dawn' so what do I know?

The writing is well done, whoever wrote this certainly knows how to write. I liked the descriptions and had no problem at all in picturing the scenes and seeing strong visual images on the page. The snake charmer sequence was a nice set piece and really helped establish the character of Imenand.

All in all a good script but certainly some things that need to be looked at to make it a great script.

Nice one.

The more I think about it the more that this reminds me of 'From Dusk till Dawn' and that makes me realize that that movie was structured in a similar way to yours and therefore everything that I have said might be wrong! haha.

I think the one thing that FDTD had going for it is that we had a clearly defined protagonist and antagonist right from the beginning of the film. So during the first half of what was then a typical QT movie about two bad boys kidnapping a family, we had real conflict from the word go. A classic protag (the whole family really) with a clear goal (to enjoy a vacation) and an Antagonist (both brothers) who were stopping them reaching their goal. We even had some early signs of redemption from one of the Antagonists, but to be fair much of that might be due to the excellent casting of Clooney, but he always seemed to be the character most likely to change. Of course the brothers were not the real antagonist as we were to later found out but they were a good stand in when a stand in was required to create the conflict needed.

I wonder if that is what you were attempting to do with the Duke character? Not a bad idea really, and certainly would explain why the Jinni just seemed to appear at the tale end of the script. It never really worked however, you would need to have Duke be much more of a antagonist, his role should be to stop the others finding the gold. As it was you had him protest a couple of times but his heart was never really in it. I think if you can find away to make Duke cause some real conflict with the others, really get close to stopping them reaching their goals only to change in some way as we meet what is the real villain then this script would be a whole lot better and make much more sense.

I know I just went off on a tangent there and probably make no sense, but it was only after writing my previous post did I think more about FDTD.

I'll shut up now!

Thanks for the reads matt and gm......I didn't see the FDTD thing till now, kinda has the same vibe in a way, but TRT i think has more horror through out, but still a good comparison.

Seems you boys tried to out-grindhouse Grindhouse.  This script is a pretty mixed bag.  There were awesome moments of violence, great scumbag characters and bits of killer dialogue.  There were also pages that dragged on and stories that didn't seem to reach their potential.  All four subjects of these stories have been done many times before, so it is definitely a challenge to make them seem fresh.

Bitchslapped was probably my favorite of the bunch.  It was just a straight up exploitation script with no apologies.  The violence was off the charts.  Love that shotgun enema.  I thought the strongest part of the script was the dialogue and the street characters.  Man, you feel like taking a shower after reading this thing.  My only complaint, besides the typos, was that it did seem to drag a bit in that second half.  If it was tightened and cleaned up, with a twist or two during the vengeance scenes, this script would be great.

The Tomb Raiders script was a cool idea that didn't quite reach the heights I was hoping for.  Hoover and Ganji are believable characters, but Duke almost sngle-handedly ruined it for me.  The guy is so over the top obnoxious and annoying, it seems doubtful that a British professor would ever want to work with him.  And he never did anything to justify that obnoxiousness.  He just seemed to be there to
b!tch at the other two men.

As has been noted before, at least one of those three should have made it to the end.  It's hard to get into the Egyptian necromancer because he appears so late in the story.  That jinni is one bad-azz creation, though.  Remind me never to open a portal to the spirit world, because that bastard just might pop through.  Overall, I liked the setting, but I wish the story had a bigger payoff.

Breakneck Vengeance is the most professionally written of the four stories.  Since it is based in Chicago, I'll go ahead and guess that this sick little tale is the work of Mike Shelton.  You really know your town.  The dialogue was great and the character names were awesome.  I think Fvckface alone deserves his own script.

You get into the story fast, but maybe too fast.  I would have liked to have known more about Big U and the case against him.  I would also like to know why Jud is so personally drawn to this particular case.  Reading the script, I couldn't help but think of Shaft(the remake.)  The crooked judge, the criminal who thinks he's above the law, and the pizzed-off cop who turns in his badge to seek bloody vengeance.  All of those elements make for a great tale, but while Shaft explained why the criminal was on trial and why Shaft had such a personal vendetta against him, I never got that same feeling from Breakneck.

The story felt kind of repetitive to me as Jud dispatched one goon after another.  I really felt this story could have been shortened.  The crooked captain was a nice touch and sort of a nod to those sleazy cop captains of the 70s.  But I was hoping you were going to bring a fresh twist to the story.  Something we never saw coming and had never seen before in a story like this.  The last fifteen pages just seemed a bit by-the-numbers for me.  We knew Jud was going to get his revenge and Big-U, the Captain and all the goons were gonna die.  Prophecy fulfilled.   Jud deserved his revenge, I just wish he obtained it in a fresher way.

Flesh Eaters has the problem of being a zombie story when the genre seems to have been mined for all its worth.  If you're going to write another Zombie tale, the bar has been raised in recent years, so you really need to bring something new to the table.  Unfortunately, this script didn't do it for me.

It seemed to have that unique setting at the beginning, and I eagerly thought you were going to incorporate Charles Manson and his gang into the tale.  But, it becomes another story of some unexplained virus that causes the dead to rise and feast on humans.  I really think you needed to come up with something to explain the plague.  Way too many of these scenes were way too reminiscent of Dawn of the Dead(the remake of which I regard as the gold standard of Zombie flicks).  I didn't find any of the characters interesting and by the time they all gathered at the school, we all knew how the story was going to play out.  And it just seemed too easy to have that Radio announcer explain a huge part of the story with a simple paragraph of dialogue.  

There were some nice comic touches, such as the lesbian kiss at the end.  But, as I said, you picked a very difficult genre to write for.  

All in all, an entertaining bunch of stories.  And you more than lived up to the title.

Thanks for the read cam17, glad you liked some of it   I know the one I wrote would be stronger if it was longer but I needed to keep the page count down so some of it does feel rushed.  thanks again for the read and comments, surprised you got through all of them at once

The writers revealed...

Bitchslapped - Jordan Wiebe

Tomb Raider Terror - James McClung

Breakneck Vengeance - Mike Shelton

Flesh Eaters From Beyond the Grave - Sean Elwood

Thanks to all who have read Breakneck Vengeance so far, and to those who read Bitchslapped and thought it was mine.  

Good feedback from everyone, and I hope to have a feature version of "Breakneck" up at some point, extending the beginning and adding more to Jud's reasoning, while hopefully adding in one or two more kickass car chases.

So I guessed everyone right then!

Interesting actually when you read the same people's script several times over a long period of time, not only can I usually tell who wrote it, but also how they've changed their style.

You sporting a beard now??  Looks good.  

Okay, cool. I was wondering when we'd announce the names. I've been getting a little anxious to respond.

First off, Mike...

I thought Breakneck Vengeance was pretty sweet. I was a little disappointed to how similar it was to Bitchslapped but that's not your fault and honestly, the two scripts stand on their own. If I had read Jordan's script second, I'd be telling him the same thing.

I did find it a little repetitive at times (it reminded me a little of the third act of Disposable Heroes) but the pace was relatively decent and the action varied, despite the circumstances being somewhat the same. I also liked the character of Bumblebee. She was obviously way out of place and kept things interesting as a result. Standout character for sure. I also dug the names of these guys and the dialogue was pretty authentic as well.

All that said, it fit well with BOB. Good job, dude.