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Rose Haven by Benjamin Pearce, Josh Boyer & Gregory J. Daniel - Horror - After a teenage girl gets into a controversial argument about religion and science with her science teacher, a group of kids plan to go to a local, abandoned, retirement home known as Rose Haven. Rumor has it that it is haunted. All they need is the slightest bit of proof to prove science wrong. So the group of kids spend the night and record their surroundings. Once one of the kids go missing, they spin into the seventh circle of hell. When all possible exits vanish, the group of students are trapped in a hellhole of demons, ghosts, and monsters in the abandoned, inescapable retirement home. It's either uncover the history of the retirement home and find a way to defeat the demons, or become part of the legend itself. 59 pages - pdf, format
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Currently being filmed:
Written and Directed By Benjamin Matthew Pearce Starring Mackenzie Scalese, Josh Boyer, Ben Pearce, Gregory J. Daniel, and more! Rated R for graphic violence, Gore, disturbing images, and sexual content Genre Horror/thriller
I'm sorry but I couldn't make it through this one and had to stop on page seven. I usually take notes while reading a script if something sticks out to me in a good or bad way so I don't forgot it while reviewing it. I filled a page in the first seven pages and none of it was positive but I'll post what I wrote though just in case it'll help you in the future.
This first thing I realized was that the first slugline says its a classroom during the day but there is no further description, it goes straight in to dialogue. You go on to say "juniors and seniors" but I'm still not sure if this is a college class or a high school class.
The teachers lecture seems odd especially not to have any background to why he is lecturing about spirits and such.
Zooey's argument was poorly executed, the dialog was just not believable this line: "You take a guess. A theory isn’t the truth. That’s why they call it a theory. Just because it’s a theory, that doesn’t make it not true." She is just talking in circles which doesn't make for interesting dialog.
I don't know what city this school is in but I'm pretty sure a public school teacher would not be able to get away with dissing God, calling a student stupid, and then calling people "Jesus Freaks".
The scene where Adam and Zooey make there plans is clunky sounding. It was really "On the nose".
I realized you don't capitalized your "I"'s.
You don't used enough descriptions, its mostly just long passages of dialogue, there is no written reaction.
I stopped at this part:
BEN Eh, yeah. Religion and science together is like mayo as icing for your birthday cake.
ZOEY Yeah, that happened to me once.
JOSH You had mayo as icing for a cake?
ZOEY Yeah! I guess mayo wasn’t in the mayo container, and dad thought it was the icing and spread it all over the cake. My little brother had an allergic reaction and died.
BEN Well, that sucks.
I had no idea if she was joking or not. There is no description to how they react, Zooey giving a little smile or smirk would tell that she was joking. I wish you all the luck keep up the writing you can only get better.
-Tanner
Check out my Script:
Feature: "Candy: Inspired by the Houston Mass Murders" Horror, Drama - 15 year old drunkard Wayne Henley gets caught up in procuring his teenage friends for a serial killing psychopath. 117 pages
Well what I wanted to do was drop the reader and audience right into some random story. To show these are normal people and you don't really need to get to know any of them to judge whether or not you like them. After I finished the script and had it posted on here, I re-read it. I did realize that the dialogue was a bit choppy. The scene about the mayo is a joke with Zoey. I wanted it to be one of those jokes that you don't know if she is being serious or not. So that is up to you. Let me remind you this is a Horror/comedy so there will be stuff like that in the script. That is what Josh and I find funny, so we write our type of humor into the script. I should fix the part about the juniors and seniors because you are right about that. This is a high school class and it is a suburban school. If you really want me to explain why he is talking about religion in his lecture, i can think of something, unless you have any suggestions.
I see the only way of this working, is if you set the world the characters inhabit as a world where science teachers are evil, and science itself has become the sadistic dominant force ruling the land. Teachers and non believers are just not like that in real life.
Also the dialogue needs tightening up, it's got no soul, for the want of a better word. I know you're only teenagers, (having been to your home page), but you need to make each piece of dialogue realistic. Good dialogue, no matter how basic, allows the reader and the listener to concentrate more on the story. Keeps the flow if you will.
Other than that, just add more description, and best of luck with your new film.
Cheers
Lee
P.S. To introduce why the teacher is talking about ghouls ghosts and goblins, you could have the class being taught the history of Halloween or Folk Lore perhaps. Then it could turn into a relgion versus science debate. Ergo, the rest of your story.
Well actually the person I have cast for the teacher is like that very much. He isn't a science teacher, but he is a non-believer and if you watch his videos on religion at http://www.youtube.com/onision you would know why I chose to cast him as the teacher. I am going through and fixing up dialog, taking stuff out, putting stuff in. Like I said in my above post, I did go through and read the script once I have posted it up on here and was thinking to myself "That doesn't sound right." So I know what you mean by "no soul" and I am in the process of fixing that. Thanks for your help. And also thanks on helping me introduce the first scene. I am going to do what you said.
'm pitching in money and my parents are throwing in some money. Along with my grandparents and co-writer Josh Boyer's mom. We're editing this one with Pinnacle Studio 12.1 which is a step up from our previous editing programs (Windows Movie Maker, Cyberlink Power Director) We finally have the whole Chroma Keyer (Greenscreen) so for the monster attacks I'm thinking of combining shots so the monster is actually in the frame with the actor instead of cutting back and fourth.
I"m thinking it's around $350, maybe a little more.. This isn't a major motion picture and this is the first movie we have ever used a budget on. Mob Rules did not have a budget, we just used props around the house. Shadowman had like a $10 budget with the mask, gloves, and Axe. True Love did not have a budget. The Last Action movie wasn't even intended to be a film. haha.