Milkman by A Member - Short, Horror - A milkmans job consists of awakening early to deliever milk to residents around town... but this milkman wakes to a less peaceful morning. 12 pages     A October '06 One Week Challenge entry - rtf, format

Zombies always make a graphic story and you didnt disappoint.

This seemed like more of a comedy because such characters as the post man. I'm not sure if it was your intention, but were you thinking of "going postal" when you wrote the postman having a whole lot of rifles? I was.

Milk didnt play a big part, milkMAN but barely a mention of milk.

The first thing I noticed here was the name Albert Birkin. Could this be a reference to Resident Evil's Albert Wesker and William Birkin?? lol. There's even a Barry later on. XD

To Ape, I think it's blatantly obvious this is a comedy and not really a Horror. It had some funny bits like the we'll-go-out-in-a-bloody-hail-of-blood-and-decapitation (or something like that) part. The rest of the dialogue was cheesy to the point of comedy too and it was obviously intentional.

Still, the gore is present, and that's a plus. There's not much else to say, really...I mean, milk didn't really play a major part here, which was the whole point of this excersize!

Zombies.  I wonder who wrote this one huh

Pretty decent for a zombie story, you used the theme(well you had a milkman in it at least) which is a plus,.

There seem to be a lot with milkmen in them, I wonder if they feel they are being missrepresented....

anyways it was pretty fun, some of the dialogue was flat, but it had a neat premise and some good gore moments which in a zombie story yoiu always need.

Hey.

Loved it.  It managed to be scary as well as hilarious, with what I thought was just a great concept, milkman on his rounds completely oblivious to the zombies until...well you know.  Great job.

"to find the street is completely dead of life." ha.  Although funny (probably unintentionally) I think you would be better off with lifeless or just dead.  dead of life is, well, repetitive.

-Tyler

LMAO i loved this script. I think you have seen Shawn of The Dead because this is on par with it's humour. I really enjoyed it.

                     POSTMAN
Oh, I’m Barry by the way... Barry Spencer. I’m the postman.

Barry holds out his hand to Albert. Albert gives him a long, slow handshake.

     ALBERT
I’m Albert Birkin... the milkman.

Lol i really liked this. Made me laugh. I liked Barry the best though, but hey, had to kill off a few characters.

This brings inspiration to milkman and postmen alike lol.
                                                                                      Nice Work.

This one was pretty cool. The dialogue semed believable and natural (as much as it can be considering we're dealing with zombies).

I loved the postman character, hated to see him go.

There's a lot of humorous dialogue sprinkled throughout that I liked. "we'd more go down in a blaze of gore and decapitation" I thought was funny. The postman drinking milk in the truck was a nice touch.

I thought though, for the most part, it's just like every other zombie film, and seems more like a parody. The description also I felt was a bit tedious. Good job though.

I tend to think better of horror pieces that come up with an original “scare factor” (i.e. The Ring) than those which just use an old/known one (vampires, zombies, werewolves).

The later ones haven’t got a chance when put against an original concept, yet I think they could fuel a decent story if the author tries to find an original angle about them: In “Land of the Dead” zombies demonstrated some basic thinking abilities. In “Underworld”, vampires and werewolves were engaged in a bloody hi-teck war and two of the main characters were trapped in a Romeo & Juliet kind of romance.

This piece, will well written in some levels, just uses the zombie factor without trying to find an original twist to it. Zombies attack people like in any other zombie movie, and people find guns and blow their head off as usual.

I liked the introduction though. Albert waking up to work without knowing about a serious threat, the zombie factor slowly creeping in, that was cool. But, once Zombies are officially introduced to the audience, this one is just another Zombie movie.

This short’s theme isn’t “milk”, it’s clearly “zombies”. Albert working as a milkman is purely incidental. If he had another profession, the story wouldn’t fall apart. On the other hand, if you take away the zombies, you’ve got no story.

I would suggest to remove Albert's discussion with the postman about the nature of zombies; it doesn’t add anything to the story, IMO. It could be interesting to hear Locke and Sawyer discuss about the nature of those smoke creatures in Lost, because nobody knows what they are. But everyone knows what a zombie is at first glance and the audience could fell a little bored when waiting for the characters to catch up with what’s obvious to them.

Try to increase the horror factor a notch. Zombies don’t guarantee horror per se, you still got to work to make your scenes horrifying. Albert is never in real danger; I felt like this script’s lacking a “Now Albert is screwed moment”. You took good care of Albert during the story: The Postman heroically sacrifices himself to facilitate Albert’s escape, when Albert runs out of bullets, there’s another weapon conveniently placed there for him, etc.

Don’t “protect” your protagonist, do the opposite. Instead of giving him an heroic partner, give him a coward who betrays him in order to save his own ass.

Sorry about all the negative comments. I hope they could be of help at least.

To be honest, I don't find zombies, vampires or werewolves scary. Yucky, yes. Scary, no.  Maybe it's too predictable. Or repetitous from over-exposure.

This one is written well, and delivers the expected devourings. It does its job, if that's what you're into. Each to their own, as to what entertains or doesn't.

Making him a milkman did get the milk theme in...sort of through a side door.

This sort of reminded me of Army of Darkness: zombies with comedy. Not like Shaun of the Dead comedy though, but yeah, you get what I'm saying...I think...


Anyways, I give you a plus for having zombies, though, like in Dawn of the Dead '04, we don't know where they came from. At first I thought something in the milk turned people into zombies, but there was nothing like that in this script.

Your descriptions were good, and so was your dialogue, and I liked the milkman's last line at the end. That had me giggling.

This was good, and I enjoyed, but not only because there were zombies in it. :p

Sean

This is the second zombie script I've read so far from the OWC. I liked this one a little better than the other one I think.

You write well and I didn't see any problems with it that way.

I liked how Albert wakes up right after the news and has no idea what's going on.

Hooking up with the Postman worked well I thought. There was little milk involved in this, like Mr. Z said, it's a zombie script where the main character just happens to be a milkman.

I think you need to describe the two daughters a little more. You say two young girls, in my head I thought they were around twenty or so, because to me that's young. They turned out to be more like little kids, so it gave me the wrong image when he goes in to save them.

This wasn't too bad, not one of my favorites, but not bad. Your writing was better than the story.

When this was ended, and your hero said, "I'm the milkman", I heard strains from spaghetti western music rip through my head as the camera cranes out from him walking back to his milk van and driving off into the sunset.

This was a strange little piece, but ultimately satisfying, though Albert does lose some respect for abandoning someone in need in the form of the postman. You had a lot of basic zombie fare in here, but Albert was a decent little character as well. You showed as much as you could through his actions and reactions, which was good.

Some of the dialogue was a bit cheesy (i.e. "I think you'll be needing this."), but you do a fare bit of showing more than telling what is going on, which was a plus.

Not exactly horrific or suspenseful, but just a fun read.

Where is the anchorwoman reporting from?  Would be neat to know if she is on location somewhere that the zombies have already destroyed and more about that scene.  The actual scene could shift to her reporting and then shift back to the TV in Albert's house as she signs off.

The scene between the Postman and Albert in the police station is awkward.  I also don't understand what he did with his bag to fight the zombie or why he says that one is locked in a cupboard.  Also, when they are encountered by 50 zombies, Albert uses Barry's name too often.

Mr. Z makes some great points.  There is no 'all is lost' moment for Albert.  The reason this story isn't really scary is that you put all the power in Albert's hands.  He notes that the zombies are dumb, and 'incredibly slow.'  He has unlimited weapons.
Also, I don't think Barry's actions are heroic.  I didn't buy that it was the only way out of town since Albert just sort of drives by the scene.  It's as if the zombies are only on one side of the truck, rather than circling it.  It's as if Barry doesn't even care that he'll die a horrible death as long as he kills a few zombies along the way.

Hmm, well the story sorta went on and on without any real hiccups.  Our milkman didn't really ever seem like he was in serious danger, and the climax wasn't too climactic...

This was well written and fun but I think it suffered from its storytelling.  It just wasn't very theatrical.  No big moments or small moments, just a man escaping from a town and saving some farmer's daughters.

It was very well written in my point of view. Its structure is very linear I supose, but It made me to giggle a little. I would ask me why, I'll say: because when Albert met Barry they seemed to be a couple of gay, you know...And I'd chuckle more when they got out of the police station together...The scene should be in slowmotion...

Oh my god, I'm sorry it was my peverted mind.

Don't blame for this, okay I just regreted.

HaHa yess, i knew it had that British feel. Nice one man.

Thanks to everyone who read and reviewed this.

I know it's not my best. I wrote it in a few days... I feel I should have used the entire week to get the best but I had to write this. I needed to write a zombie story and I felt that this challenge was my way into it. Could've been way, way better. Just a story inspired by Shaun of the Dead, milkmen everywhere and... mmm, other zombie flicks.

Thanks again.

Jamie

Ya know, I thought Sean wrote this, and I thought the one sean wrote you did, seems you two may have a lot in common

Good job though

Quoted from ReaperCreeper The first thing I noticed here was the name Albert Birkin. Could this be a reference to Resident Evil's Albert Wesker and William Birkin?? lol. There's even a Barry later on.

Forgot to point this out! Thanks to MeatForTheBeast for noticing this.

As a, kinda, trivia thing for this script (the zombies and all) I thought I'd add a couple of references into it. So, I thought I'd go with the zombie franchise that got me into zombies, which was the game series of Resident Evil. Every character in Milkman, even the name of the town, is a reference to one of the characters to at least one of the Resi Evil games... just the last names and first names jumbled around. Thought it was a neat idea anyway.

    

Gawd – I feel like I’ve been reading these milk stories forever.  I didn’t make it to this one during the challenge because of the logline.  For the next OWE work on generating a more compelling synopsis.  That’s the key to getting reads on these.

So what the hell is a mediocre television?  Anyways, I like the way this one starts, without wasting any time.  This is the one people were comparing to Sean of the Dead, isn’t it?  That does seem like a fair comparison.

Like Sean of the Dead, though, I wish some of the weapons at our hero’s disposal were a bit more unconventional.  It seems like it’s always guns of some sort.  And I was kind of surprised that the postman went as soon as he did.  I thought he was with us for the duration.  We do get a pitchfork later.  That’s more like it.

And I like that final line.  I envision that much as George did, as our hero strides off to face his next adventure.  I suspect that was your intent, and you achieved it, so good job with that.

But it doesn’t feel complete, somehow.  It’s an episodic tale, with no real conclusion.  That’s my only real complaint with it, though.  The pace was good, and the characters were appealing.  I’ll bet I would have suspected this was yours had I read it earlier.

Quoted from bert I didn’t make it to this one during the challenge because of the logline.  For the next OWE work on generating a more compelling synopsis.  That’s the key to getting reads on these.

Was it too vague or just not attention grabbing stuff...? Or a bit of both?

Quoted from bert So what the hell is a mediocre television?

A television set that's mediocre. Like a standard household sized TV... I should've just said that I guess.

Quoted from bert Like Sean of the Dead, though, I wish some of the weapons at our hero’s disposal were a bit more unconventional.  It seems like it’s always guns of some sort. We do get a pitchfork later.  That’s more like it.

I should've put some frying pans, golf clubs and townsfolk battering zombies with baseball bats and cutlery. Ha. I'd been playing a new computer game called Dead Rising... look it up, you'll see where I'm coming from.

Quoted from bert The pace was good, and the characters were appealing.  I’ll bet I would have suspected this was yours had I read it earlier.

Wow, really? Right, that's it... I'm gonna surprise everyone on the next one, I swear... if I enter it that is.

Thanks for the read Bert.