A Killer In The Woods by John Cowdell - Short, Horror - A weekend of camping in the idyllic English countryside turns into a nightmare as an axe wielding psychopath stalks a young couple. - pdf, format

Hi John - gave this a quick read, so here's some thought's - just my opinion of course.

1) There's a few typos and spelling mistakes, have a re-read to tidy up, nothing major though.
2) The inital scene(s) could be cut and the story start on page 5 instead.
3) The formatting is decent throughout.
4) I think some of the dialogue is a little on the nose, but again a quick re-read and amend here and there and it'd be fine.
5) I think the main problem here is that this could be a scene from any number of stalk n slash films - it's too bland.
6) I think this needs to subvert our expectations, do something different or send up the genre.

Cheers

Anthony

Cheers for the feedback. I get what you are saying, but this was meant as a love letter to early 80's slashers. It's very difficult to bring something new to this genre these days. Sometimes you can send up the genre too much. This is intended as a short for myself to shoot, but at the moment I don't have the resources to do so.

Well as a fan of the 80s horror (and fanzine editor back in the day) I can certainly see it that way too... still think the end needs some twist/punchline - but I do hope you find the resources to film it, be interested to see it.

Thanks a lot for the feedback. I will certainly look to revise it and deliver a twist as you've suggested.