No End of Wolves by Alexander Brauck (PrussianMosby)  writing as Paris - Short, Thriller, Psychological - A psychologist challenges her trauma patient when she arranges a reunion with the wolf. 9 pages - pdf, format

based on Little Red Riding Hood



Writer interested in feedback on this work

First one I've really enjoyed.

There are some errors floating around but nothing so drastic that they take away from the story.

Very haunting.

Well done, it's a recommend from me.

Little Red Riding Hood is a very obvious and easy choice for source material, sand it's already quite horrific, so let's see where we go here, as there have been so many films/scripts based on the fairy tale.

Extremely odd "note" on the title page.  Personally, I think this is a HUGE mistake to include this.

OK, we start with a POV, but there's no "RETURN TO SCENE", which is a mistake.  The passages themselves are overwritten and seem to be trying way too hard right out of the gate.

Then we have a new Slug, but it's the same as the 1st one, only now, there's no time element.  We're not off to a good start once again, but I'm going to stay in.

Awkward sentence structure and missing alot of commas.

Slug work continues to be an issue and awkward, rather strange writing isn't helping either.

Well, this is an ambitious effort and I appreciate that, but as written, it's a mess.  You need to work on your Slug work, your sentence structure, your use or lack of use of punctuation.

For me, it doesn't really go anywhere, nor is there really much horror here.  Sadly, it doesn't work for me, yet it does show some creativity, ambition, and balls.

I'll throw out my first, "Good effort".

Grades

Challenge Parameters - B

Script/Story/Execution - C-

Authors note and then camera direction... hmmm

Is the first bit really V.O.? usually that means a narrator who's not in the scene, if she's there then it should be O.C. or O.S.

Overall well written and engrossing, I wanted to know where it went... but I think the end is a little disappointing and needs some work.

Good effort

Anthony

I super love the title. Love the logline.

Very well written. Dialogue is good.

I love every part of this except the end falls a bit flat for me. Best one so far for me though.

GREAT job.

My third script and the first based on Red Riding Hood. I was curious as to how many scripts would be based on the well-trodden fairy tales so let’s see how this one goes.

The opening note is really not needed. This sends out signals that the author does not trust directors and producers to have basic human decency or abide by the law when producing this material. That was probably not the intention but it sends out weird signals.

Love the opening – very different and grips the reader. To actually start hypnotizing the protagonist but also the audience at the start gets them immersed straight away.

As for the rest of it, a great psychological horror and a superb way to use the Red Riding Hood fairy tale. It does seem a little rushed at the end but that’s very understandable given the parameters of the OWC. In particular I don’t get Dr. Francesca’s motivations other than she wants to help or why she is not strong enough to help these people. All this made for a disappointing ending but a great overall idea and good execution.
This feels like there’s plenty of material for more here, maybe even a feature film.

A solid entry, just lose the opening note!

-Mark

Writer,

I appreciate your letting us know about the sensitive nature of this script, however I do not feel a disclaimer is actually needed. But I understand why you put it there.

Story-wise, it leaves more to be desired. I think your opening cuts. Ack and forth between Evelyn and the Dr. Too much. That can be helped by having the Dr speak in VO and keeping us in the action in the woods. The ending did not gel for me, nor did I feel it tied anything up that happened previously. It kinda left us hanging with no real resolution, and for that it feels incomplete. A lot of ways you could have gone with this. Basically, I think you tried to show us the real horror of this story, and I applaud you for thinking out of the box. I don't think these scripts I'm reading need to be precisely true to the source material it's based on. That said, well done, but doesn't translate to a complete story IMO.

Steve

This is absolutely great for me.
The tone is fascinating.
The flow, and the characters, and the story - I enjoyed every bit of it.

THe ending is sound but I was lost when the Dr said "I lost her". The serum just calmed Evelyn of am I mistaken about that?

Anyway great job. I'd redo the dialog at the end. Might give it a bit more of a punch.. I don't know.
But memorable and enjoyable - super great job!

I really enjoyed this.
Well written and kept me intrigued to the end. I could see this being filmed.
One of the best so far

The only negative I can find is the ending is a bit light. Apart from that, this is some really good writing.

I found the piece haunting, engrossing and something I never saw coming out of the challenge. I also really liked the disclaimer at the beginning, I know that's not part of the challenge but it was nice to see a writer who cares enough should the work be picked up.

Anyway, back to the script. I was hooked throughout and this, for me, is definitely one of the best I've read. A definite recommend.

I found this one to be too talky and implausible.

The dialogue didn't ring true for me and there wasn't enough show, and too much tell.

The ending fell flat for me because it was trying to hard to be emotional but it just wasn't there.

Jordan.

I liked the setup and the modern twist to the story, but the end seems a bit like you ran out of pages for a better one. The premise of Michael wearing a wolf mask when he kills her father and abducts her etc. seems a bit artificial in order to hit the topic of the OWC. Would work better if she makes up the wolf head because she has suppressed Michael's true face out of disgust. It's probably more a drama than a horror script though.

Overall pretty solid and an easy read, but wrong genre in my opinion.

Wow, such a creative take on the challenge. There's a lot of subtle little things you did that were phenomenal. Describing the opening as if we're through the eyes of a subject slipping into hypnosis was brilliant. And showing signs of strain for the hypnotist was a nice touch that ratcheted up the tension. The biggest thing to work on is clearing up some of your descriptions and mini-slugs to make the read as smooth as possible.

Some suggests regarding descriptions:

The view on the angel statue slightly pulsates. A tear film arises in front. Quick blinks try to get control of it.

The view on the angel statue pulsates. A tear film smears our vision. Quick blinks bring the statue back into focus.

Evelyn stares at the desk in front. She constantly blinks with her misty eyes, then slowly closes them.

Evelyn stares at the desk in front. Her eyes blink rapidly, then slowly close.

Evelyn sits still while every sound that makes it through the office's wide-open window gets louder and detailed:

A stillness overtakes Evelyn's entire body. Sounds drift in from an open window:

A car honks. Far away, some tires squeal. Each bird's noise is distinct from the others. Wind roars and calms in waves.

A car honks. Bird's chirp - each call distinct. The wind roars and dissipates, undulating in waves.



As for the slugs, one in particular early on troubled me. IMO, min-slugs work best as a tool to quickly and efficiently change the reader's focus. They're particularly effective in action sequences. Like this...

Johns sprints into

THE BEDROOM

Sees Henry sprawled out on the floor.


They help conjure up a quick image in the reader's mind.

Henry falls to the floor.  

JOHN

Towers over him, fist raised

So the reader sees that image - John - he's right there in your face about to punch your lights out.


But when you use a slug like this:

EVELYN'S HYPNOSIS

You're not conjuring up any image. I don't know what Evelyn's hypnosis looks like. Sure, you describe it on the very next line. But for a moment I'm stuck in limbo. This may seem very minor, but you don't want anything that slows down a read. I would suggest...

A WOLF'S HEAD

Fills our vision against a black background.

Now the slug is conjuring a clear image and we fill in the rest on the next line. I don't think there will be any confusion that this is a "hypnosis vision".



As for the dialogue, it starts out nicely but then falters, particularly at the very end. My guess is time constraints got in the way.

DR. FRANCESCA
I wanted too much and
lost her. I'm just not capable.
It's not enough.

**I think the first line implies she's doubting herself. You don't need the rest.

DR. KYLE
You're the best
psychologist
there is in your field.

**This is too OTN. Maybe something like "There's only a handful of people could even pull off what you did in there."

DR. FRANCESCA
I know. But that still is not
enough.

**I'd suggest playing up the guilt a little more, I like that you have her blaming herself. Maybe just go with "I failed her."

That was a really interesting read, I really enjoyed it, had a really nice flow kept me engaged and I didn't even notice the pages pass by as I finished to the end. The disclaimer at the beginning is not really necessary, I think the director would find the proper way to film this. The imagery was immersive I could picture every shot and I could almost feel the cold seeping in. Great job.

Quality work.

I didn't like the ending but you pulled off a hard scenario with interest. And very different to everything else.

I sense someone who knows this field, with terms like disassociate , and the ability to have a multiple split personality emanating from a disturbance

And, within reason, this could be filmed and be highly charged.

Yes, it needs a tidy, like they all do, but it's got great potential.

This started out very intriguing to me, but never really got around to the horror, and the ending just sort of slipped away. I think the part where it most lost me is when Michael is revealed and turns into an exposition machine. Something a little more primal, uncontrolled and horrific would've been preferred there. As is, I felt like I was still being fed information instead of being involved in an emotional experience.

However, everything leading up to that is brilliant. It was written-well, and I can tell the writer has a clear vision of what they're writing, but the script felt like a single scene in a larger story rather than a satisfying, self-contained tale.

It's not perfect, but this Little Red Riding Hood sure is looking good.

"And you may see yourself..."

And you may ask yourself... Well, how did I get here? This line made me switch from Sam the Sham to the Talking Heads.

Great job.

Recommend. A-

Haunting story. Thumbs up for the effort.

May have been rushed. There was really an awful lot of awkward action writing and the dialog needs a major overhaul. I'm sorry I don't have time to point out examples. After the reveal, if the writer has spent time on my entry I will come back and try to help with some more notes. There really is a lot of editing needed here.

But I really like the effort! And when you consider that this was an adaptation of Red Riding Hood, that makes it even more impressive.

Most OWC's have characters that we don't care about. I mean like 99% of them. But strangely I did find myself caring for her, which is odd because she says very little and we know nothing about her, other than that she was a victim. So I guess it's a situational thing. The fact that it's a victim, a young woman, someone trying to face her nightmare. We all have nightmares of a sort, so by the end I really started to identify with her.

The writing, especially in the early going, was awkward enough that I would have stopped had I not seen this script getting a lot of votes. That encouraged me to press on, and I'm glad I did, but akward writing can really cause you to lose your reader, so keep working at it, that's what we writers have to do!

Really enjoyed this one. Well done.

Thank you all for your kind and helpful reviews. I wasn't so sure my script could get any positive reception since the formatting of the hypnosis gave me some headaches and I feared it could look like hieroglyphs in the reader's mind.

I see that a lot of you had problems with the ending. Indeed, it isn't that powerful and more of a sad, boring ending as is.

Eventually, it was the one opportunity I found yet, to carry the message of No End of those Wolves; no way out for the victims of those beasts; and more than that, no way out for the therapists, whose task is to fix and heal their patients' wounds. It's lost.

So... in a sense, there truly is no ending here and I thought I shouldn't cheat about that fact and drag the story somewhere it doesn't belong. I'm just not sure by now how to translate that outcome with a more intriguing ending.

Here, I somehow used Doctor Kyle to help to finally explore the true strength of Dr. Francesca, her strength to deal with it. She knows she can't fix things properly. She knows she's not capable. It's the truth.

And instead, her real honor and integrity, her absolute qualification, is that she understands the defeat, and wins, if one can say so, in accepting it and trying to help Evelyn as good as she can. That is her only realistic possibility in this situation. And she sees that clearly. She's sad about it but she nevertheless understands.

An interesting fact is that the original French storyteller whose fairytales were constantly adapted by the Brothers Grimm later, meant Red Riding Hood to be a message for kids to not talk to strangers, especially men. There was a lot of understanding about sexual abuse against children and the danger especially within men, even back in those days...

Thank you again. It was a big task to get this hypnosis across, especially those black screen vision and all that transforming stuff. I wasn't sure one could follow the script there, so I'm happy some parts seemed to work well.    

I will analyze your feedback soon
Alex

This is a great script Alex, I think it's my favourite of yours and was one of my recommends.

I'd encourage you to flesh this out a bit now outside the challenge and see if you can expand the story, it feels like there's so much more you can do with this, there's lots of potential.  

Thanks, Mark. I liked your entry as well.

I'm quite happy some members one time seemed to enjoy my OWC script. My entries usually get demolished.

I need to think about the ending of the script.

This was very impressive. Got my recommend - absolutely, no second thoughts about it. I'll reread it someday.

Thank you Kham. It means a lot to me to hear that.

Fortunately, I can return the compliment since your entry was clearly in my top 4, found it super entertaining.

I need to work on the ending of No End of Wolves soon and hopefully upload a new version before X-mas.

Hey Alex,
    Dammit, I was gonna film it ONLY if I could terrorize kids.  Oh well

I don't think that disclaimer is needed.  I don't know if we will ever see another Omen or Exorcist type story where kids play tough parts like that, especially given the issues that both went through.

I groaned in it ONLY because it could have been so eerie.

If you get a chance, watch a music video called Alison Hell.  I got kinda the same vibe from it.

I had no issues following the hypnosis world.  I also think you could have just intercut back and forth so that the readers know we are flip-flopping back and forth from the office to the fantasy world.

I didn't get the sense of doom and gloom.  Perhaps instead of her having a seizure, what if she full-out flips out, screaming, thrashing about,  perhaps biting off her lip.

OR what if while he bites her lip in that hypnosis world that she either bites her own lip off, OR you do the Freddie thing and have the lip get "invisibly" bitten off like in CandyMan or Nightmare on Elm Street.

OR, what if he tells her that had she left the memory alone she would have been fine, but because she sought out help and entered "HIS realm" that she's trapped there for all eternity.

Make her pay for her choices.

I know that I find the scariest stories the ones that I make the same mistakes that the protag would have.

You have a good solid base, but, you need to take it further and really make her pay.

Oh, and scare the crap out of some little kid

KIDDING, that beginning irked me like people wouldn't know not to really have a kid jump a shark or something...

Oh wait...

Out
Dan

Thanks for the read, Dan.

I considered all your helpful comments from the OWC and now the rewrite is up.

Here is the teaser poster from script revolution, for entertainment purposes only :-)





Even though, compared with the previous draft, there is few to none physical violence left in the script, it still feels like a horror script; somehow on a psychological basis. It's definitely not a thriller to me, so I think I listed it wrong. Once a mod, if reading, likes to move it over to horror, would be fine… however it's not that important

Alex

Hey, no living soul read my OWC rewrite yet. Only myself.

I was so curious about how the new ending works and all that.

Wow, Alexander, your dialog has really come a long way. It's very, very good. All of the writing was good, but I tended to focus more on the dialog, and I was very impressed.

I am curious and intrigued about the ending. Perhaps you will be willing to expand on what's going on here? I'll be back later, I'd love to hear what you had in mind with the story.

Quoted from leitskev Wow, Alexander, your dialog has really come a long way. It's very, very good. All of the writing was good, but I tended to focus more on the dialog, and I was very impressed.

Thank you, Kevin.

It makes me very happy to hear that. And of course it was you guys who pushed me forward in any direction.

Quoted from leitskev I am curious and intrigued about the ending. Perhaps you will be willing to expand on what's going on here? I'll be back later, I'd love to hear what you had in mind with the story.

I noticed that the main critique of the first draft was aimed at the ending. There, if you remember, Dr. Francesca had a talk, with another Doctor, about her failure - and it wasn't coming through that the story should indeed switch and show what clear impact Evelyn's fate has on Dr. Francesca, who follows all those lives, patients, their fears and chasms in a daily routine. I tried to imagine how she feels, what's behind her professionalism, especially when losing as here. And when she gets those tics behind her desk, not knowing what to do, emptiness, confusion, sadness, I magined her doing what we all would when overchallenged; go outside, and take a breath. Then, the very last picture is definitely not real. It is a metaphor, a parable of her soul.

Between all those Michael McKinleys and Evelyn Monroses of this world, there's also standing one Dr. Francesca Cole. Her story is the only unknown.

So, from the start, the heart of the story was a lot about her. To be clearer about that, in this draft, I took back a bit of the Wolf and Red Hood confrontation and gave more space to the therapist in the last act.

I did not read the original (was not in the OWC).

Okay - let me start with a couple of nits:

Quoted Text A BLURRED VIEW fixates a desk crammed with IT equipment, psychology books, papers,and a brass angel statue. The small statue gets more and more in focus, whereas the adjacent objects blend into absolute blurriness.

I would CAP the first Angel Statue. I think the second block would read better as:

As the Angel Statue comes into sharp focus, the adjacent objects blend into absolute blurriness.

This block is a little confusing:

Quoted Text DR. FRANCESCA COLE (45), casually dressed with a blonde up do hairstyle, sits amid her tidy therapy room.

Amid her therapy room? - In a chair - on the sofa? We already know where in the room for the scene heading - why not just say specifically where she's sitting.

Quoted Text Evelyn stares at the desk few steps ahead.

This line didn't make sense as is - is there suppose to be an "a" between desk and few?

Okay - to the general. Overall I thought this was fucking brilliant. You had me all the way. The hypnosis (tricky stuff) was handled so well - expertly.  Really great work here.

Thanks for replying, Alex. I thought you were going for a symbolic visual ending, I just wasn't sure. But yes, thumbs up, I like the visual and challenging ending. As I said, I read the dialog closely and it's spot on. If I remember, English is a second language to you, but you can't tell in that dialog at all. You;'re very talented, my friend, keep up the good work.

Thanks for taking the time, Dave.

Concerning the nits: yes and yes to
mentioning her exact seating accommodation and the "a" few steps ahead issue.

I merely struggle with your advice on capitalizing the statue, because in the first sentence it's just an equivalent object between others, plus I also want to have the only emphasizing on the general P.O.V. concept at this place, to prevent any ambiguities. It is the second sentence when the statue gets a bigger visual attention.

Quoted from eldave1 Okay - to the general. Overall I thought this was fucking brilliant. You had me all the way. The hypnosis (tricky stuff) was handled so well - expertly.  Really great work here.

That's an awesome compliment of you.

Quoted Text That's an awesome compliment of you.

Well deserved.

Those Infinite Wolves

(psychological horror 8p)

Hey!! only few words of the script have changed, plus the title, since having read the latest feedback.

Not sure if I asked before... it's... that I actually would want to have this script in the horror section, I made a fault with the genre here.  So when a mod got time and interest... In the end it doesn't matter though. The words are written however. Best wishes, Alexander