Hi Michael, thanks for the read and review.

Agrred, some of the dialogue is a tad off. Most of my scripts are set in the US (don't ask me why - maybe cos most of the SS crew are American?), but it's hard to keep it from being distilled with my Aussie psyche. So  sometimes my dialogue comes out as a hybrid.
I wasn't sure what to do about the creature, so deliberately left it as unknown. Who knows, it could be a person, malformed and twisted.

The deam bit might seem convenient, I guess. I didn't plan it that way! I thought it would be somethig different! Guess I haven't seen enough horror films; certainly none of the recent crop.

Cheers stevie

Hey stevie,

I have to say I didn't really get into the story all that much. I think the major problem is all these talks about the dark and then the ending just comes out of nowhere.

Some of the dialogue sound unnatural to me, especially Ben's. Sometimes he doesn't seem like talking to his dad. "I bet she's up there now, taking up all of your bed"

I was actually interested in Wade's bedtime story about him going to the toilet and had to turn off each of the lights when he comes back. But then his story is not that important to the overall script. Even without that story, the shadow will still hunt them down, right?

Some tightenings can be done on the first two pages. It was just Ben and Wade bantering about whether to go back inside or not. The true story didn't start until Wade talks about the dark.

I didn't get the ending about the killing shadows. It's not like Wade had encountered this when he was going to the toilet when he was a kid.

It's okay, but not too memorable. Just my two cents.


Herman

Stevie

I see this is your first jab at horror.

Not too bad, a pretty formulaic story stops this being anything more than average, in my opinion. This type of scare has been done many times before, from the unamed evil presence (seen to us, unseen to the characters) to the ill-fated camping experience to the dream device right before the protagonist's fears are confirmed thus pulling the rug out from under the audience.

But to be fair, this did seem aimed at a younger age group and that should be taken into account when assessing it.

Well written, prose-wise, short, concise although the dialogue, (particularly from Ben) suffered from on-the-nose(itis) I dunno, you have kids, I don't, so you would know first hand how a kid interacts with his father but Ben did not act or sound like a 8 year old...but as I said, you know more about this then I do.  

On the plus side, I liked the story Wade told his son, innocent and relatively light weight but it felt natural, like something you tell your own children.

Col.

Hi Col and Herman, thanks for the read.

Yeah, this was my first jab at a sort of horror. I would've entered it in the Dark challenge but didn't get it done in time.

The story of lighting the heater is all based on my childhood experiences, being shit scared of the dark!
Ben's dialogue is a bit odd, I suppose. Even though the setting is probably in the US, my characters still 'act' as Aussies I guess. Sometimes the mix in my scripts doesn't quite gel.

In the future I hope to write a really full on horror script, with all sorts of mayhem.

Cheers stevie