Clowned by Kye Cooper - Short, Thriller - Two friends return from pulling a prank on a group of killer clowns, but they soon realise these clowns are in no mood for games. 22 pages - pdf format

Writer interested in feedback on this work

This is the first screenplay I've written so any and all feedback is appreciated, feel free to be brutal!

Hi Kye

"Looking down upon a tall cornfield, still under the night sky" - None of this is needed, you have already established that we are in a cornfield and it's night in the scene heading. This is double information and just adds to the word count.

"Suddenly out fall JOE (18 ) and DAN (18 ) in a heap on the
floor. They pick themselves up off the ground." - Where did they fall from? confused me. Also, do a search in your script for the word suddenly, find them all, and burn the fuckers to the ground. Suddenly is akin to "We see", completely unnecessary. Amateur scripts are riddled with them.

Look out for your "ing" words in action, write actively IE - "He is walking to the car" should be "He walks to the car"

I've ran out of time to read more - Overall, not too bad - I didn't read much dialogue but wat I did read felt a bit flat.

Good job on getting out a story. Considering you say this is your first script, I think this is a great effort, my first script was utter dog shite. There's no huge issues, just things that need learning and polishing.


Matt

Thanks for the read and the advice matt!

Quoted from Matthew Taylor Also, do a search in your script for the word suddenly, find them all, and burn the fuckers to the ground. Suddenly is akin to "We see", completely unnecessary. Amateur scripts are riddled with them.

Yesterday I ate half a box of Alphabets cereal and now am ready to eliminate some words!

Hi, Kyecooper4.  Welcome to the board.

manoeuvres

Tyres

Stood

I am going to take a stab in the dark and say you're from the UK...  Ugh...I better be right, I hate second guessing myself.  Can I get some help.  Libby?  Anyone...?

Technical issues aside -- Your story -- so basically what we have here is a practical joke gone bad.   For a prank, those clowns weren't joking, it actually seemed like they were trying to kill Joe.  In hindsight, maybe it would have been better If they were real killer clowns.  Just thinking out loud here.  Anyway, the opening sequence: you decided to show us in flashbacks; not knocking it, but truth be told, I would have showed it up front.

I kept asking myself;  What genre are you going for here?  Yeah, it's thriller, more so horror in IMHO, but I personally get comedy when I read the first half of this, but I don't know where in that large umbrella you’re placing it.  I mean,  I saw some light chortles but nothing I'd say was really funny  So I'm going to assume it's really suppose to be less funny, more thriller/horror.  You just have to push it in that direction and nail down tone/genre better.

As for the story... well... the biggest problem I'm having with the story is that it feels trapped in its formula; I don't particularly feel like this is doing anything new with the genre at this point.  A running list of cliches. 'the cornfield, the Killer Clowns, The Cabin in the woods.  The girl standing in the middle of a dark, lonely road...'   And if you're gonna do a lot of that,  it's gotta be memorable.   Try and get creative.  Turn it on its head.

I will say the thought of a prank going array and somebody getting killed is indeed horrible and will def. give people the shock willies.   That said, I was hoping your ending would be its saving grace -- I didn't care for it.  In fact, you could not have telegraphed it any better than a western union message.   To include the Sad Clown reveal.  You know how you get that twitch in your asshole when something just ain't right?  Well I got it during Dan's absence.  So that angle didn't come as a shocker, either...  Or maybe it was intentional.

Oops, I forgot, consider givng The Old Lady a name.  I mean she plays a big part in all this.

(the inhaler bit)  Hide it from us till later, did you ever consider that?  I think you missed a golden opportunity here for a bigger payoff.  That is a worthwhile discussion to have, methinks.

Needless to say, if not the others' -- Dan should have known better.  Joe's best bud and all.  Even worse -- can't say it's due to his poor planning but, well - stupidity.  So I can't even begrudgingly respect him.  

The general idea of a story is here and I think your voice and style are good.  That said, I hope my notes do not discourage you at all, rather inspire to try again and work harder.  As always I'm just offering my opinion, I'm not claiming I'm right, ignore me if anything I've suggested just doesn't fit your story.  Hope it helps in some way, good luck with it.

Ghostie, based on the Queen's English I'd say deffo UK, or Aussie. Then again there's always those Kiwis. You never know...  

So I haven't read the entire script.... because I have issues with the logline. I peaked in on page 1.

Why would anyone want to prank killer clowns? I would expect that killer clowns are in no mood for games. Probably part of what makes them killer clowns.

And in the description on page 1 they are introduced as killer clowns. How do we know they are killer clowns before you tell us they are killer clowns?

Forgive me, but I just love typing the words killer clowns...

(0:

AJR

Hello Ghostie,

I am indeed from the UK good spot haha.

In general yeah it is meant to be a prank/birthday present gone wrong.

I'm glad you mentioned the flashbacks because it was an element I was torn between keeping in or scrapping, the reason for not showing them at the beginning was because I wanted to have a strong start and get people interested early on. And I thought the whole Jack In A Box and Clown bit did that? I hope haha.

Genre was an awkward pick for me because I didn't really know what to class it as. With regards to the comedy side, you are completely right, I wanted it to have aspects off comedy and be slightly satire but when I put Joe on his own I struggled to find funny things to happen to him and looking back the balance is definitely off.

As I said this is my first screenplay so I'm still trying to figure out how much carrot I should dangle so to speak, I didn't want to be to ambiguous or clever, but as you pointed out I've probably swayed to far the other side. I think maybe showing Dan get stabbed may help? And changing a few of the lines that make it obvious?

Just want to say thank you so much for giving it a good read and also your opinions, you've given me a lot of good advice which for me (a newbie) is very valuable, so thank you!

Hello AJR

So to clarify Killer Clown is in reference to the craze of the last few years of teens dressing up as "Killer Clowns" and scaring people, and the two friends have just pranked them.

I can see how it may seem a bit misleading, however I couldn't think of a better way to describe them, if you read further on there is a bit that explains it in a flashback scene, I thought the anonymity of a killer clown would be a much more exciting start rather than showing a kid pop on a mask and then scaring someone, so my thoughts were show first, explain later.

Hope that clears it up and you give it another crack.

Thanks for your comment