Whispers (was Vengeance) by Jordan Wiebe (theboywhocouldfly) - Thriller, Horror - A highschool cheerleader decides to have a couple of her friends over while her parents are out of town for the weekend.  Creepy things have been going on all around the house with no explanation, and on top of that there seems to be someone watching every move they make. 107 pages - pdf, format

I'm not going to lie to you. As soon as i read:

A highschool cheerleader decides to have a couple of her friends over while her parents are out of town for the weekend

- I thought: THis is crap. Too stereotypical. How many times does the popular girl invite people for a party and things go wrong.

Haven't read the script though, but I will.

I would love some feedback on this script, I don't think I described it well in the log line but what's done is done.  I would consider this a cross between the original halloween and the shining.  If you have any comments or advice I'd love to hear it, and if you have any scripts I'd love to read them, it helps a lot to read other peoples work.  thanx for taking the time in reading this.

Quoted from The boy who could fly I would consider this a cross between the original halloween and the shining.

So, hey -- I appreciate your looking at "The Farm", and I am eager to hear your comments as to how it might be improved.

I've been too busy to do many "read exchanges" lately, but I'll go ahead with this one since it's new and hasn't had many looks yet.

That, and I really, realy like "The Shining".  I hope this story delivers on that!  (I'll call you on it if it doesn't  ) Oddly, more than one reader has compared Farm to that film, but I would never put something like that out there on my own -- maybe that's just me.

Anyways, after your comments are up I'll take a look at this story and give it a comparable treatment -- with honest feedback.

thanks bert, any feedback would be great, good or bad, anything that would help inprove the script and my writing.

Alright, I read through this over the past couple of days and have some thoughts on it.  Your format is great.  You've got that.  You need to work on generating loglines, although what you've got here is a pretty fair description of the story.

The story is a fairly conventional slasher, with a little supernatural tossed into the mix.  There is nothing wrong with the "skeleton" of this story -- not really -- but it is a bit longer than it needs to be -- and it has a coupla' holes:

(SPOILERS)

*  For our opener, we've got:  "It was only a dream".  That is a contrivance that has fallen out of favor in recent times, I think.  Some readers will frown at this.
*  Mrs. Bergman actually says some funny things -- like "sexing" haha -- is that even a word?
*  You've got Christine descending into the basement -- but never resolve it.
*  By page 30, I am starting to feel that there is a little too much "teenage chatter" going on.  Some of this could be tightened up.  This is true of a few spots later, too.
*  The scene in the bathroom is pretty cool, if a bit disgusting.
*  Pg. 49:  How does the POV (there are too many of these, by the way, but you already know that) "move to the top floor of the house"?  Is this guy flying?
*  I figured it out later, but at first, had absolutely NO idea who Mr. and Mrs. Myers were.  You must -- must -- establish these characters earlier.  At least a phone call or something.
*  And -- my biggest beef here -- the guy from the video store???  Oh, man.  I had to go back and find him.  He is never named, and has no dialogue.  Oh, boy.  I'll come back to this in a second.
*  Having mom come back like you do is pretty good, and it gives a very quick and reasonable explanation for all of the supernatural goings on.  But you might want to tone back some of the really "evil" things that occur, as she is a benevolent spirit, and it raises some questions as to why she is being so downright frightening to these kids.

So, here is what I would fix if this were my story.  First:  Why would this guy carry out the plan during this big party -- with all these people running around?  It seems this plot could simply be delayed for another time --

-- unless (and I recommend this) you establish earlier in the story that Andrew is somehow unbalanced.  Make him a little more "there", you know?  If you just have him pop up like he does, out of nowhere, you will have people throwing popcorn at the screen.

And the same thing is true of the Dad and Step-Mom.  You introduce three major characters in the last couple of pages, and that is just stretching the boundaries of this story too far.

But if you bring these people in earlier, you can fix most of that.

So, in a nutshell:  Less time with the teens (who are all established well) and a little more time with the other three -- ultimately important -- characters.  We need to know them -- at least a little -- for this story to work like it could.  

Hope some of these comments help you out.  

Thank you bert for you review.  You pointed out a lot that I knew I needed to change, and a lot that wooshed over me.

you are totaly right about Mr. & Mrs. Myers, I need to introduce them sooner, that didn't even occur to me *blushes*.

I also agree with the guy from the video store, I'm thinking of taking that whole scene out, it's just confusing.

The POV'S r waaaaaaaaaaay to much, I need to cut down most of them.

I know there is way too much teenage YAK(that's what I like to call it), I need to trim it down.

The part of the mother scaring her childrem, the reason they are so evil and frightning is because she does want too scare her children out of the house.  It's kinda like those drunk driving crashes you have to watch, it's grusome, but it does have a purpose.

As for the "It's only a dream", that is at the very beginning, It's not really a dream, but forshadowing.

Thank you again for your advice, It will help me alot.

The part about the Mom scaring the kids is fine if you make it more clear that this is what she is doing.  One or two lines of dialogue could fix that.

The main reason I popped back on here, though, is something that occurs to me just now.

And that's the title.

Um....there isn't really anybody getting even with anybody else...there isn't any Vengeance going on here...that, and the fact that our friend George Willson has a script with the exact, same title posted elsewhere.

You might want to give this a different name.

any ideas's, I suck at titles.

oj yeah and by the way, "SEXING" Isn't a word, but in eighth grade I was caught with this girl by her grand ma, and she used that word, even though what was going on was not sex, but I always remembered it.

I noticed this one as soon as it came out because of the title. I wasn't too concerned about it, though, since a title can't be copyrighted. It does throw me off a little bit sometimes.

I am waffling back and forth on the title of another one of my scripts, because since I wrote it in 2001, two other films came out with the same name.

Now, if another Fempiror pops up...well, then we'll have issues.

And now that I've reared my head on this thread, I'll probably have to read it too just to satisfy my curiosity.

Sorry George, I didn't know there was anothe script with the same name, I guess I'm lucky we're in different sections.  If you have any idea's for a title I'd love to hear it, I suck so bad at those.  anywho, hope your not to upset.  take care.

my re-write is up.  This was the first script I ever submitted.  The title has changed to "Whispers".  I cut a lot of the crap in the middle out and changed some things around so that if flowed a little better, it is now down to 103 pages.  I hope that it works a little better, even though this is hack'n'slash.

I’m going to have to break this up.

PART I

****SPOILERS****

Someone was influenced by John Carpenter, I think. Mr. and Mrs. Meyers? The stranger POVs, watching a young boy, turning up at school, watching teenage girls. The teen girls talking about sex. It all leading up to a certain event. The breathing. Very much a Halloween feel to those scenes.

In fact, in some scenes, if you replaced stranger with shape, it may be a little too similar.

Though, I will say you’ve picked a very good influence for anyone writing horror in my opinion. The first kill was on page 53 and the preceding pages were spent building characters. This shows a very promising intuitive understanding of what really works.

TECHNICALLY:

This was pretty well written. You’re 18, I think? For your age, you write very well. Above average.

There were some grammar errors. It wasn’t too bad but there were a little bit more than I could notate.

P1 - …why your leaving - should be - why you’re leaving.

Aloud to have boys over - should be allowed.

P25 - the way - not they way

P25 - Frankie grabs - not grads

Bo buts, Slat shaker. There are plenty more. Sometimes you don’t have subject-verb agreement. (exp. Does that girls die?) It’s well written enough to overlook many of them but it still seriously needs to be proofread.

STORY:

You tell us they’re in a foyer in the slugline. Why not just say: Mr. and Mrs. Meyers, both in their late forties,  put on their coats.

Christine tells Frankie to go to bed and he responds, “Okay, Chris.” Mmm, I don’t know about that. Maybe a tad resistance to the notion or maybe Frankie yawns because he’s tired. Or just end that scene before he says that.

Frankie snorts up some of the….Ewww! You could word that better. How about sniffles? Sniffles loudly even? Anything else.

When you describe Mrs. Bergman, you call her Berman. Also, she has no make? Make up?

No need for an apostrophe in procrastinators. I thought Mrs. Bergman was going to say something about the way Christine was dressed. She nitpicked other things but not the obvious when Christine wore a miniskirt with a bare midriff.

Your all just looking for a good time - should be you’re. You get your possessives and your contractions mixed up sometimes.

Masturbation is the silent killer of the night? -- haha. I’ve never heard of such.

P26 - We just as well not show up - you may want to add a modal auxiliary verb like “may” to that sentence.

P28 - more p***y than a toilet seat - that’s pretty disgusting.


TO BE CONTINUED

CONTINUED

PART II

****SPOILERS****

P28 - the last time you had p***y was when p***y had you - sorry, I don’t get it. I’ll take your word for it that it means something.

P35 - as Christine leaves to go to the bathroom, she mentions being on the verge of p*ssing her pants. Two things: girls don’t use the word p*ss a whole lot. Secondly, and mainly, she says she’s wearing pants but yet when in the bathroom, she’s wearing a skirt.

P36 - you know, you could just start that scene with her getting ready to flush the toilet and leave out the details of using the bathroom. Also, girls don’t usually pull skirts down around their ankles. That would have them all over the floor. Girls usually watch out for their clothes.

P36 - a large sit? You mean zit?

I could cut a diamond -- haha.

P59 - Jesus please us? -- I didn’t get this line.

There are times when you seem to have struggled with how to end a scene. Lines like, “Don’t let the door hit you on the **s on the way out” seem kind of forced to me. You could just as easily have ended that scene with Jacob’s, “Fine, fine, fine…” line. Enter late and leave early, you know. You enter well but sometimes you leave too late.

Frankie giving Stevie permission to date his sister was very cute.

Stevie’s brother was named Lonnie -- an homage to Halloween? Maybe Christine is an homage to Stephen King?

Crystal Strode? -- now you’re getting way too obvious. Where’s Lake Laurie? -- haha.

The cops didn’t check Stevie to see if he was drinking? That would be highly unlikely if he had been drinking shot after shot for hours straight, I think. Seemed a little implausible.

P80 - Alexis says, “Kay.” That’s kind of Frankie’s distinctive line. It’s probably better if no one else uses it.

I don’t understand why the mom does some of the things she does. She wants to get his attention? By killing their plant? By grabbing his leg from under the bed and nearly killing him? That didn’t make sense to me.

Ultimately, I think it’s just too similar to Halloween. The slow moving masked killer who stalks horny teenagers with a knife and chases them around. You mixed it up a lot but the names didn’t help disguise the obvious influence. It just gave it more of a Scream feel. (For a moment, I thought there might have been a character named Loomis but Scream already did that.)

The large two by four jammed into the doorknob was reminiscent of the rake that prevented Laurie Strode from escaping Michael Meyers.

The twist with the stepmother was nice. Mixing the psycho story with a ghost story was risky and I don’t think it paid off altogether. Though, the effort is admirable. Still, there is a lot of good material here. I found myself wishing it had been a little more original, though.

It was an enjoyable read, however, and the scenes with the mother were quite touching. As I said, it has some definite strengths. But it has some definite weaknesses as well.

Strengths include good format, some well constructed scenes, giving character development as much attention as blood shedding. Several likable characters. An original twist with an original ulterior motive from the villain for this genre.

Weaknesses include the definite need for a proofread to correct spelling errors. It appears from other parts that you know better so a more careful proofread is probably necessary. Also a little lack of originality and a little too much dependence on Halloween. And the revelation of the psycho is not ultimately satisfying because, of course, it’s an unknown character. Much could be gained from the strategic placement of him at some earlier point.

So it does have some flaws but it’s still a worthwhile read.


Brea

thank you Brea for your comments, they will sure help with the re-write.

I did use Halloween as a guide, but I think any slasher flicj that involes a masked killer and teenagers does, I just thought it would be best to be honest with it.

the part with the 4x4 under the dooor must have been subconscience, I didn't even realize that till I read what you said

And Christine is my Girlfriend's name, not based on the Stephen King novel, I call her Nina, but her name is Christine.

The phrase "the last time you had pussy is when pussy had you" refers to, basically, being born you come from there, unless you're c-section, kids use to say that at school, I thought it was funny.

I actually tried to not have as kill till page 60, but it was getting too long and I cut stuff out, I wanted to hold off as long as I could.

The mother doing what she does was to frighten her children, maybe I went to far, but I just thought that she needed to really scare the hell out of the kids, but the part with the plants wasn't ment to be a scare tactic, more like she was her presence and that's what killed them.

Thank's again for the read and I will use what you gave me to try and make it better, maybe I should change some of tha name references and make it not quite as obvious.