I wrote a second pass of this, and I'm wanting thoughts on my first half (second half isn't ready to share, and I'm less concerned about it).

I posted about this the other day, but I drew this concept from the murders of the Golden State Killer. Back in 70s/80s California, he did things like stalk young victims at home for weeks at a time - breaking in days earlier to plant weapons, unlock doors - before finally attacking couples and single women and assaulting/killing them. He did this for decades before being caught in 2018.

My idea was that the feature would spend the entire first half w/ a young couple in 1980 who relocates to California, and focus almost entirely on the "domestic" plot aspects of the couple with nearly zero serial killer stuff - the couple's marital problems, homesickness, etc. However, there would be a few key moments (finding their windows unlocked one night, getting creepy crank calls) that would "interrupt" the first half. Eventually, these protagonists are murdered halfway through the script and the perspective changes entirely to be focussed on the killer and his escalating violence and psychopathy while he tried to hold down a "normal" family life.

This is basically just the first two acts or so up until the violent confrontation and perspective switch - wondering if it works, in terms of sustaining interesting and promising enough of a hook? I kind of the like the idea of catching people completely off guard but I also wanted to imbue a sense of mounting dread.

Link to first ~50 pages here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/qujwowoac4zjp0o/INTER-STATE%20%28Default%20Document%29.pdf?dl=0

Any thoughts are helpful! I realise 50 pages is quite a bit for a WIP, so any amount you read is appreciated.

If anyone's interested, I'd love some thoughts on the full script. I just redrafted and I'm now happy to share the whole 93 pages, linked below:

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi.....e3rcdh5ywbm&dl=0

I'm really interested to here if the unique structure works. I'm more confident about the first half with Bobby and Leah's POV part, but the final acts with Daniel I'm less sure about. If anyone does read it, any thoughts are helpful ofc, but I'd love to hear whether the thematic links between the two disparate halves is effective.