Soulshadows II: Death Hunts The Soul by Javier Torregrosa (jayrex) (Tanis by Robert Newcomer) - Series, Supernatural - Adrian's stressed, financially broken, and will take help from anywhere he can get it.  In Vegas they have dice, the past lies prophecies, and in tarot we have truth.  What fate will the tarot cards reveal? 21 pages - pdf, format


Listen to the Audio Performance
Enjoy other scripts in the SoulShadows II Series or the first season of SoulShadows

Hey, somebody tell the guy reading these that this is his best job with Tanis yet!

The leprechaun is gone -- I am very pleased with his work on this one.

But the audio is incomplete, and cuts off after about 16 min.

Jayrex... Bert

I thought the Pussy and The Hound was good but this one was just as good.  Every time I read one of the Soulshadow II series...

I'm thinking a cross between "Tales from the Crypt," and the "Twilight Zone."

Have you'll thought about pitching this too any of the networks?  Or maybe you have, I don't know.

Anyway,

Nice enjoyable read.

Ghostwriter 22

Quoted from bert But the audio is incomplete, and cuts off after about 16 min.

I've re-uploaded the audio, so the full script should be there now.  

Hey Bert, I agree this is the best reading of Tanis's dialogue yet.  A little more Jamaican feel to it. The Irish brogue never was right.

Jayrex, good job with a difficult story line: How to make a tarot card the holder of someone who dies? The girl in the red dress was kind of creepy in a cheery way -- if that makes sense. Giles playing deck was nicely revealed when it was needed not before. The pacing of the story was good for a supernautral theme.

Suggestions? Not sure if this one had enough tension going into the kill scene. That may be a result of iScript's rather dry reading of it.

Gary

Javier,

I thought the reading was really good.

The story was pretty close to what I read earlier. Although I didn't remember the cat, but I'm all for cats so it was a good addition.  

Nice job Javier.

Pia  

Hey Javier,

I enjoyed the story here.  From a script standpoint (didn't listen to the audio version) I could see a decent amount of suspense going on here, and a few decent jump scares.

The setup with his money problems worked well as a way to get him to the Tarot card reader, and from there things just kind of took off on their own.  I think a little more could have been added to it to give off the vibe that going to the reader was really his last resort, but it wasn't a huge deal.

From a writing standpoint, I noticed where you ended some sentences and picked up the next one as a continuation of the first.  A comma may be better than a period in those cases.

Anyway, nice work, and nice work on Tanis, Bert.

Hello everybody,

A big thank you to Don & IScript for putting this together.  I enjoyed the IScript and it felt pretty sweet to hear my name read out.  A good pronunciation by the reader.

I'm really surprised and pleased by the positive reaction people have posted.

Bert did a great job on Tanis and felt it perfectly complemented my script.

Thanks for the read Ghostwriter 22, I'm happy you enjoyed it.

Not sure about the pitching to a big network but that would be cool.

Thanks for the read Grademan, happy you thought I did a good job.

I tried to make a nicely paced script, not too slow, nothing extra nothing wasted.  I did however wanted to make this longer and after listening to the IScript just wanted to listen to more.  So hopefully I can come up with an extra six minutes without damaging the pace.

Tension, not sure if making that particular scene longer would give it a feeling of dragging along or improve on it?  It is certainly worth a stab at.

Thanks for the read Pia, happy you thought it was really good.

I had tidied it up a little bit here and there, but the cat was more of an analogy.  I was comparing the reflection of light off the Girl's eyes.  Like a pair of cat's eyes on a road.

Thanks for the read Mike, happy you enjoyed the story.

I did try to rack my brain to make this script longer, and an extra scene at the beginning prior to visiting the tarot reader would be a good idea.

I'm always trying to improve on my writing and sometimes I should use a comma more often.  I sometimes hold myself back from doing so.  So hopefully this time next year I'll have improved.

Cheers for all the reads and people who've listened to the IScript audio performance.

Regards,


Javier

p.s.

I thought the logline up last night, just a few moments before submitting so it probably isn't the best.  It never is.

Hey Javier, good to see another Soul Shadows script posted…I’ve been waiting.  I read your script, but did not listen to the IScript.

Wish I could come out and say how much I loved it, but I just can’t, man.  I see numerous errors repeating themselves over and over, which made for a difficult read, IMO.  I didn’t take page by page notes, but I will throw out a few examples.  I’ll also comment on the story, which I didn’t really care for either, I’m sorry to say.

Let’s start with the positives and highlights, though.

IMO, this is the best Tanis writing in a long time!  I really like how she comes off here, as well as the very nicely done transition in the beginning, as well as the ending.  Great job, Bert!

Javier, you did manage to capture a few good creepy scenes in the hospital that worked quite well.  The water stuff, the girl in red, etc. all worked well and actually came off as nicely visual.  The only downside for me was that they seemed rather cliché in terms of I’ve seen them before, many times in such “ghost” influenced stories, and they became very repetitious.  Nonetheless, they did work well here, and I commend you for that.

Writing

As I said earlier, lots of mistakes throughout.  Shelton briefly mentioned my biggest gripe about your sentence structure.  You continually ended sentences with periods that should have had a comma connecting the next fragment to them.  Because you did it this way, you have tons of fragments that don’t read well at all.

Here’s a good example on Page 4 – “A few moments later after the cross has been revealed. Lady Demor reveals the ninth card.”  You’ve got this as 2 sentences, but in reality, it should be 1 sentence.  The first ‘sentence” is a fragment and doesn’t read well.

Other mistakes are merely fragments that don’t stand on their own, and again, just make for a difficult read.  Check out these 2 examples on Page 5 – “As they play cards.”  And then the next line, in a new paragraph - “With boxes as makeshift seats and another that doubles up as a table in between.”

See how these do not make any sense as standalone sentences?

To make matters worse, let’s check out your opening line – “ADRIAN, 29, who lives in a dingy one bedroom flat with nobody but himself for company.” – First of all, this is a fragment.  To correct it, you’d need a comma where you have the period, and then something about Adrian, or what he’s doing.  But it also doesn’t tell us anything at all in its 2 lines, other than a name and an age.  The rest is an unfilmable all the way around.  The scene is set in the dining room of his flat, so we’re not going to know how many bedrooms there are, and there’s no way to “show” that he lives alone.

See what I’m saying here?

Story/plot

It’s not that I don’t like the story/plot, but I just feel that it’s kind of thrown together, and not at all developed.  There are also an awful lot of things that don’t make any sense when you think about it.

So, we start out meeting Adrian, who is in deep financial shit at age 29.  The fact that he’s a night janitor at a hospital isn’t going to be helping his financial matters.  It also brings up questions in my mind.  How did Adrian get in this financial situation?  We know he doesn’t have a degree and also doesn’t even have 5 years experience in any field.  Seems to me he’s never had any money, so I wonder how he managed to pile up all this debt.

Next thing we see is Adrian going to a Fortune Teller.  He seems to be familiar with how this all works, but also doesn’t seem to have any prior relationship with Lady Demor, so I’m not sure what the deal is.  I also don’t know why he’d waste the few dollars he has on such a thing.  From here, we find out that he’s basically marked for death, based on the cards, and this is an issue, IMO, because the money angle is thrown out the window, meaning all the talk about his financial woes was a complete waste.

So then we go to the hospital, where Adrian continuously plays poker for money against Jeff (great name, BTW!), and loses every time.  Again, this just doesn’t make sense.  Adrian doesn’t have any money, he’s deeply in debt, how and why, is he playing poker against a guy who seems to win every hand?  I just don’t buy it.

We finally get into the supernatural elements next, and as I said earlier, they work pretty well, and things seem to be improving, story-wise.  But, on the other hand, we’re already about 40% into the story, and there really isn’t any story yet at all…and there aren’t any interesting characters we can route for.

More bills, more poker losses follow, and then we get another fairly well done supernatural scene.  And back to Lady Demor, who tells him the same thing she did the prior day.  Again, he wastes more money on this that he doesn’t have.  We’re now at the 60% stage, and it’s really impossible to say what the story is here, as there isn’t any setup for the supernatural occurrences at the hospital, which is a big issue, IMO.

Another 2 page supernatural scene, in which we really don’t learn anything new at all, and is pretty much a rehash of the 2 scenes we’ve already seen.  Only 8 pages to go, and we don’t have anything to wrap our interest in still.

Page 14 – “It’s the next day.” – This is another Unfilmable, unless you’re intending on showing a SUPER here, which doesn’t seem to be the case.  The next action passage tells us that it’s actually midnight, so “the next day” thing doesn’t even make sense, and how are we supposed to know it’s midnight, other than you telling us?  You need to show these things, if it’s important for us to know…you can’t just tell us.

So now, we find out a little (very little, that is) about this Giles character.  Nothing at all is revealed that would lead us to believe Giles is (was) a bad person, so basically, it doesn’t do anything for the story at all.

Another long supernatural scene follows, but doesn’t give us anymore info about Giles or what is going on.  (again, these are clearly your best scenes, but they are repetitive, and aren’t offering the information we need to be truly scared, or inquisitive, etc.).

So, now Jeff winds up dead, with a broken mop handle in his back.  Next thing we see, Giles appears and kills Adrian.  We’ve never seen Giles and know nothing about what he looks like, so unless he’s wearing a name tag, we’re not going to know who he is.  And, we’re definitely not going to know why he’s here, why he’s killing people all of a sudden, or what the Hell is going on and why.  Just doesn’t make any sense because it wasn’t set up at all.

Back to Lady Demor and a new character.  Same deal for this chick…marked for death.  Now Adrian’s face is on the card.  Why?  Who knows.  Finally, the little girl in red enters, and again, we just don’t have a clue as to the relationship here, or the how’s and why’s.  Ambiguous?  Yes, but not in a good way, sorry to say.

So, Javier, that’s that.  I hope this helps and alerts you to the issues going on here.  I don’t mean to be harsh at all, but I do want you to understand what works, what doesn’t work, and why.  Take care, bud.

Hi Javier, i just read this. Good job with the Soulshadow structure. I didin't listen to the audio, i'm not rally into that.
This was a well paced read, always a good sign. I reminded me of old horror stories but with a 'new' sort of feel to it.
There were a few grammar errors to be fixed, pointed out in earlier reviews. Most were ok but a couple severely ruined the sentence they were in. I think mike pointed out the instances where the punctuation wasn't correct. But, hey, you can fix 'em!

The only problem I had was with the ending. It was pretty good but seemd rushed, as if you wanted to tidy things up in a hurry. I dunno, Giles just appearing and killing Adrian wasn't as gripping as it could have been. Might be just me, but it took away some of the gloss of the rest of the story. Before that your desciptions were top notch.
anyway, nice work overall.

Javier, this really creeped me out.  I really liked the story, and the little girl, and the flashes of Giles that he doesn't quite see and the little girl in red.  I'm sitting at work by myself at 4 o'clock in the morning reading this, and let's just say that I keep hearing things. . . .Brrrrr. . . .

Good job!

Hmm. Not bad this one. The supernatural themes felt a little to generic for me. You had some good visuals like the flowing dirty water and the tarot cards where used effectively, but the whole haunted angle of past play itself out in ghostly images is a bit stale.

I thought you handled your character quite well, and made him pathetic enough to make me feel sorry for him and be concerned for his well-being. Maybe it was all the poker games that even thou he lost every game, he was still stupid enough to go back for more. This gave Adrian a very human quality.

SPOILER ALERT

What I did like was your big reveal at the end. I enjoyed that and a bit of a freaky concept that those who visit Psychics for guidance could end up becoming prey to a Psychic can be the one who alter a customers future. A cool idea and I would like to have seen more focus on Lady Demor and learn what she was and what she was about- oh and that little girl too.

Also I second what Dreamscale posted above about your action sentences being fragmented cause you use a full stop where a comma would work better. It interrupted the flow of your script and made it annoying to read. A silly simple mistake that is easily fixed.  

Hey Jeff, thanks for the read, I appreciate your feedback.  I'll try to respond to all of your points.

Quoted from Dreamscale Javier, you did manage to capture a few good creepy scenes in the hospital that worked quite well.  The water stuff, the girl in red, etc. all worked well and actually came off as nicely visual.  The only downside for me was that they seemed rather cliché in terms of I’ve seen them before, many times in such “ghost” influenced stories, and they became very repetitious.  Nonetheless, they did work well here, and I commend you for that.

I drew on the far east films for inspiration.  There are a lot of creepy films with a young girl in them.  Even FEAR the computer game has used this idea and I'm no different.

Quoted from Dreamscale As I said earlier, lots of mistakes throughout.  Shelton briefly mentioned my biggest gripe about your sentence structure.  You continually ended sentences with periods that should have had a comma connecting the next fragment to them.  Because you did it this way, you have tons of fragments that don’t read well at all.

In the past I have been comma crazy and in this script I did reduce the amount I would have used, due to my over-the-top past.  I can now move forward and learn from my mistakes as so evidently pointed out.

Quoted from Dreamscale To make matters worse, let’s check out your opening line – “ADRIAN, 29, who lives in a dingy one bedroom flat with nobody but himself for company.” – First of all, this is a fragment.  To correct it, you’d need a comma where you have the period, and then something about Adrian, or what he’s doing.  But it also doesn’t tell us anything at all in its 2 lines, other than a name and an age.  The rest is an unfilmable all the way around.  The scene is set in the dining room of his flat, so we’re not going to know how many bedrooms there are, and there’s no way to “show” that he lives alone.

There are a few instances where I wrote some lines that weren't filmable.  A few that can be if computer wizardry was in place, but the above example is something where I should have been more careful.

Quoted from Dreamscale So, we start out meeting Adrian, who is in deep financial shit at age 29.  The fact that he’s a night janitor at a hospital isn’t going to be helping his financial matters.  It also brings up questions in my mind.  How did Adrian get in this financial situation?  We know he doesn’t have a degree and also doesn’t even have 5 years experience in any field.  Seems to me he’s never had any money, so I wonder how he managed to pile up all this debt. Next thing we see is Adrian going to a Fortune Teller.  He seems to be familiar with how this all works, but also doesn’t seem to have any prior relationship with Lady Demor, so I’m not sure what the deal is.  I also don’t know why he’d waste the few dollars he has on such a thing.  From here, we find out that he’s basically marked for death, based on the cards, and this is an issue, IMO, because the money angle is thrown out the window, meaning all the talk about his financial woes was a complete waste.

Working in a bank, people can run up extra ordinary debts.  My uncle committed suicide, my brother did that draft/check/cheque fraud thing, and people's nature can just make them repeat their mistakes.  These things just happen.

Quoted from Dreamscale So then we go to the hospital, where Adrian continuously plays poker for money against Jeff (great name, BTW!), and loses every time.  Again, this just doesn’t make sense.  Adrian doesn’t have any money, he’s deeply in debt, how and why, is he playing poker against a guy who seems to win every hand?  I just don’t buy it.

Funny enough, I couldn't think of a character name and remembered the OWC which was very prominent in my mind at the time and remembered your name.

Quoted from Dreamscale Page 14 – “It’s the next day.” – This is another Unfilmable, unless you’re intending on showing a SUPER here, which doesn’t seem to be the case.  The next action passage tells us that it’s actually midnight, so “the next day” thing doesn’t even make sense, and how are we supposed to know it’s midnight, other than you telling us?  You need to show these things, if it’s important for us to know…you can’t just tell us.

Good point.  Because we were still in the hospital I wanted to highlight that it was the next day not a continuation from the previous scene.  I should have been more creative here.

Quoted from Dreamscale ...Ambiguous?  Yes, but not in a good way, sorry to say.

I like ambiguous films and sometimes I feel that it's necessary.  In this case for yourself it hasn't worked and probably won't for others too.

Quoted from Dreamscale So, Javier, that’s that.  I hope this helps and alerts you to the issues going on here.  I don’t mean to be harsh at all, but I do want you to understand what works, what doesn’t work, and why.  Take care, bud.

You've made some valid points which I will take into consideration.  I don't think swapping a comma for a period will take long at all, and extending some scenes that require extra info.

Cheers for your review, look forward to reading your script.


Javier

Hey Stevie, thanks for the review, much appreciated.

Quoted from stevie Hi Javier, i just read this. Good job with the Soulshadow structure. I didin't listen to the audio, i'm not rally into that.  This was a well paced read, always a good sign. I reminded me of old horror stories but with a 'new' sort of feel to it.

Thanks, new is always good.

Quoted from stevie There were a few grammar errors to be fixed, pointed out in earlier reviews. Most were ok but a couple severely ruined the sentence they were in. I think mike pointed out the instances where the punctuation wasn't correct. But, hey, you can fix 'em!

Yep, won't take long to fix.

Quoted from stevie The only problem I had was with the ending. It was pretty good but seemd rushed, as if you wanted to tidy things up in a hurry. I dunno, Giles just appearing and killing Adrian wasn't as gripping as it could have been. Might be just me, but it took away some of the gloss of the rest of the story. Before that your desciptions were top notch. anyway, nice work overall.

I kinda feel like I have two endings here.  One with the demise of Jeff and one with Lady Demor & the girl.  It was a hard thing to finish.  The ending may not be to everyone's liken.

Happy you liked my descriptions.

Cheers for your review,


Javier

Hello Steven,  thanks for your review.

Quoted from steven8 Javier, this really creeped me out.  I really liked the story, and the little girl, and the flashes of Giles that he doesn't quite see and the little girl in red.  I'm sitting at work by myself at 4 o'clock in the morning reading this, and let's just say that I keep hearing things. . . .Brrrrr. . . . Good job!

If my story is doing this to you at 4am then I'm happy, in a good way.  Shows I'm on the right track.

Cheers,


Javier