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The writing on this one is mostly excellent, I'd say. Some really good stuff.
The story... it was fine. It felt like you maybe ended after the end. Going out on the second twist leaves us with the punch of the twist. Everything after that is just the balloon slowly deflating.
But, you wanted more blood, so you just kept going. And, knowing with a 98% certainty who wrote this... I can respect that.
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Pretty good writing overall that follows the slasher trope to good effect. I feel the story should've started earlier (easily done by compressing the intro).
Suggestion: Jack should be the final victim. I was much more invested in his relationship to Sam, than a middle-aged dude we just met. Imagine Jack's emotional journey on those final pages, realizing he judged the cover of that book *way* wrong...
A good slasher script that features the expected slasher tropes. Action flows smoothly, descriptions are very good, and dialogue is also good. Jack turning the table on his friends is another common feature of slasher flicks, but having Sam turn on him and his father, the Killer, was nice. When she tells Eric, “You should be running now,” it would’ve been great if he’d answered with something like, “No can do, babe. I am Satan.”
Thanks, everyone, for reading and sharing your thoughts. I'm actually surprised most of you liked this. That's awesome, because I had a blast writing it.
Yeah, I know this story all too well. A standard slasher horror I've seen way too many times. That's not a bad thing, it's just when you lay down a challenge with your logline, you'd best be able to back it up.
My nitpicks are simply because I'm a bit tired of the slasher horror and your logline suggested that was going to be something more..
I like the twist of the bad guys being turned into the victims by someone even more f*cked up. I think something like this would work really well in the new version of Scream.
That was my "something more". Not really sure I understand your logic here.
Suggestion: Jack should be the final victim. I was much more invested in his relationship to Sam, than a middle-aged dude we just met. Imagine Jack's emotional journey on those final pages, realizing he judged the cover of that book *way* wrong...
My only comment here is that the twists aren't really twists. Or not ones that land with impact, because they're not set up. They come from nowhere and you could swap the characters around at the end and it wouldn't make a difference. If you tightened that up - set up the twists so they're organic to the story - this would be both an entertaining read AND a really good story..
While you are not really wrong, I will defend my decision to present the story the way I have. In an early draft, I dropped a lot more hints that something might be up with Sam and Jack. Early feedback made it clear that the hints were too much and spoiled the twist that Sam was the real villain. Seeing that I was dealing with a page limit for this challenge, I was in a bit of a pickle. Either plant a bunch of seeds and give away the twist, or keep the hints very vague and let the twist come out of seemingly nowhere. I opted for the latter. If I were to turn this into a feature, I'd have a lot more room to play with. Still,I respect your opinion.
I wasn't as glued to the Halloween other than the characters talked about it.
Well, all of my characters were dressed up in Halloween costumes and they've just left a Halloween party to explore a creepy abandoned house. And it's set on Halloween. What more do you need?
But the double twist didn't cut it for me as we'd not really had any suggestion of supernatural to that point.
Tough to plant seeds for a supernatural twist in a short. Instead, I opted to hint that something is just off about Sam. Still, you've got a valid point.
Hm, I have entirely too much free time on my hands today and ended up rereading this. I didn't have any major problems with this the first time round, tho' I do think the ending is much stronger. Like I said, you have a very wicked imagination! Best of Irish luck.
Hm, I have entirely too much free time on my hands today and ended up rereading this. I didn't have any major problems with this the first time round, tho' I do think the ending is much stronger. Like I said, you have a very wicked imagination! Best of Irish luck.
Thanks for giving this one another look, Ghostie. Happy you feel like this version has a stronger ending.
Still, I feel like there's still more I can do with this. Maybe expand it even more? So many possibilities.
Thanks again for reading. Anything I can look at in return?
Hey, Zack! The revised ending definitely works for me. I was much more invested in the final confrontation, and the fate of the last victim. Nicely done on that!
Prose and blocking flow well! Some dialogue in the second half could probably be scaled back to let the actions speak for themselves. But that can also be worked out in post, so you do you on that Thanks for sharing the revised version.
Hey, Zack! The revised ending definitely works for me. I was much more invested in the final confrontation, and the fate of the last victim. Nicely done on that!
Prose and blocking flow well! Some dialogue in the second half could probably be scaled back to let the actions speak for themselves. But that can also be worked out in post, so you do you on that Thanks for sharing the revised version.
Thanks for giving this one another look. And thanks again for the awesome suggestion for the new ending. I agree that it's much more satisfying now.
Do I really need to get past the nxt pages? I think not Chumbo.
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You think that because Vincent Price is dead that there are no longer any recordings of his monologue from Thriller? And yes, I'm quite aware that I'd never be able to afford the rights to use Thriller. This script was written for fun and that song was a stylistic choice meant to enhance the Halloween atmosphere of the story. Most readers seem to enjoy it.
Page 1. A ZOOM and a PUSH are different camera moves. A zoom moves the lenses, a push moves the whole camera.
Page 2. Instead of (re: the house), in the previous action line I'd add "He looks at the house."
Page 6. I find it strange that they're doing all this under moonlight. A house that dilapidated would be dangerous to walk around in at night. They should have flashlights. It would give you more options to have the light suddenly go out.
Page 10. I don't really like the "What. The. Fuck." part. It's not needed since you set it up clearly the line before.
Page 11. I feel like the chase scene went on just a few lines too long. Some of the lines could be truncated so it speeds up the tempo of the read as the tempo of the story speeds up.
Overall this was a clean read with minimal gripes.
I don't care about obtaining the rights to Vincent Price's voice or being able to use Thriller. I'm here for the story, and while nothing groundbreaking happening... you delivered.