A Tale of Two Nuggets (Great Grandfather Wasn't Crazy) by Walter Mellon - Short, Family Horror - Jeremy has lived his entire life with the legend of his Great Grandfather finding a gold nugget which fell from space. He never really believed it until one night a gold streak fills the sky. Will he find another gold nugget, or something else entirely?  12 pages - pdf, format

This story reminded me of something you'd see back in the 50s, which I wish it had been because it would have worked better (the whole children sharing a room, the way they talked, the walkie-talkie conversations between the two friends), but then again, it wouldn't have worked because of the Nintendo DS scenes. Which I thought was really clever that you put that in there. I never would have guessed.

It was a cute story that I thought wasn't really going to go anywhere, no offense, but I was pleasantly surprised that you executed it the way you did.

Sean

I would echo Sean here - it did seem rather old fashioned in it's structure, and maybe it would have benefited from being set in that period. The dialogue, the whole set up - it could have come from a 1950s SF Wave movie without any problem.

It was a perfectly pleasant, unremarkable, little story. It would work as a kids feature actually - it has Disney written all over it!

There was a August OWC that had a similar retro feel to it - I can't remember who wrote that one, but it would not surprise me if they were also responsible for this.

I liked it. Clean wriitng. Fit nicely into 12 pages. Definitely a G rating for cartoonish action scenes. Good way to tie in a video game. The story was good with the grandson, but it might have had more resonance if grandpa was there.

Solid effort.

Gary.

I don't know what say here really... i loved it. And i think kids will too!

Thankyou for the great read! Good luck with it.

What can I say about this... I didn't love it but I didn't hate it either.  It just didn't do it for me. It just didn't get me real excited about getting to the next page. I kind of don't like using cartoons or protected materials in a huge way, like you based your script on.

Also this doesn't really do much for the genre. Kids get bored easily and I'm a kid at heart.  Yes, you have to be simple but kids just like adults have emotions and you can play with them. My advice create your own characters don't include Mario and Toad because you assume that we all know them. Instead of Toad how about Tadpole.

The writing was ok but your first pages have to be different in someway from stuff we've seen a hundred times. The story sort of got lost because I don't really get the connections between how the Nugget chose this moment. Something has to make that happen. I hope you don't hate me for this, I'm only giving suggestions to make your story pop and more original.

I thought it was a good story but I could see points that were a little mundane at times.

Spark your story with something different or exciting from the beginning.

This is a very good script. It is definitely family horror and I really liked it. The setup is there and it goes hand-in-hand with the resolution. The ending is very satisfying as well.

Now I really want to see Nugget on the screen. I bet it'll be as cute as the Gremlin.

I enjoyed this piece...it does have an old story feel but in this day and economy...it is understandable that the two kids might be in their own bedroom if their parents couldn't afford anything more than a 2 bedroom house or apartment.

It was a little too "gamey" for me...but I understand the importance in present day time.

Over all I thought this was a great kid story.

I was promted to watch a little goonies last night to get in the mood for all of these and this falls into that "kid adventure" feel

Great job!

Morgan

I thought this was a cute kids movie. It probably would not hold the attention of adults in the family (well maybe if they were parents who had a childhood in the 80s).  The whole deal sort of struck me as being similar to the Goonies and ET.

I didn't really find much horror in it.  It struck me more as sci-fi fantasy rather than horror fantasy.  But you did have the Halloween festival.  And you did a great job writing this piece. Good job.

***OO  

What I really loved about this was the altered images breaking free, that could be done really well I feel and was perfect for the genre. Wasn't sure why it was diamonds instead of gold at the end though.

LUCKY LAST!

I wasn't enamoured of this quite like all the above folks, but, yeah, it was well written.
The kids would love it for sure.
Tighten a few things up (i really doubt a brother and sister that old would be room sharing) and this would be a top one.

Ok I've read them all.   My faves were: 'Ghost in the Graveyard', um, that one that everyone liked but I can't recall the name of(Pumpkin Pie), and hmm, possibly that Roo one!
Oh, and I thought mine was alright too.

I thought this was great!

I see it as animated. Very much kid oriented, makes great sense... and very well written. This is actually a good idea Mario is out...

I was a little confused when Jeremy said "We must stop them". Why? They were about to do something evil? That part I did not understand. It might be my fault though.

if you going to rewrite - p6 - typo - "it's Cold" instead of "it's Gold"

Great job!

Nice work.  The Mario characters didn't really do it for me and I was hoping for a little more emotion.  But in fairness to your script you have more af an action major with a minor in horror, and I do think kids would go nuts for it (mine would).

Not my speed but I suspect would be a hit with the youngsters.

OK, last script, so we’ll get a very in-depth review.

BEWARE….BE AFRAID…BE VERY AFRAID!!!  BWOOOOOOHaHa!!!

Opening is great…very well written with a nice, realistic flow and feel.  Good job so far!

Page 3 – Why is Jeremy’s dialogue OS?  It shouldn’t be, cause he’s in the room.  If you’re intending the camera not to be on him here, this would fall into a form of directing, and there’s no reason for that here.

Page 3 – Why such a huge bottom margin here?  Something’s wrong…

Page 4 – No age given for Georgie – I’ll have to assume he’s 10 like Jeremy.

Page 5 – Good dialogue between Jeremy and Georgie!  Nice chemistry and again, very realistic and believable.

General note – I don’t like using “SAME” as a time in your Slugs.  I’d recommend “CONTINUOUS” or an actual time like “NIGHT”, etc.

Page 5 – I don’t think the wrylie “determined” is at all necessary here.  My advice on wrylies is only use them when they make a difference, and…sparingly…very sparingly.

Page 5 – “Jeremy starts scooting to the edge.” – An easy fix here would be, “Jeremy scoots to the edge.”, which reads so much better.

Page 6 – “Mario Kart figures races across the screen.” – “races” should be “race”.

Page 7 – Not sure what happened here, but personally, I don’t like the direction we’ve moved in with the Mario Kart stuff.

Page 8 – “Bowser spikes glide past Jeremy’s head - shaving off a lock of his hair.” – “Bowser” should be “Bowser’s”.

I do like how the ghosts and gargoyles are coming to life!  Cool!

Page 8 – “The two GARGOYLES at the gate open jump off their posts.” – Something is wrong here…removing “open” fixes it, but maybe you meant to put “open” in front of “gate”.

Page 9 – I like the scene in the hall of mirrors.  “The grass splinters and cracks.” – “grass” should be “glass”.

Page 11 – Confused where the tiny space ship came from.  Wording is odd also here – “It opens a tiny space ship and gets inside.” – I’d rewrite that sentence and also add something about there being a tiny space ship in the crater.

Quick review – Very well written script that meets the challenge, although the horror level is very low.  Good characters and interesting story.  I don’t really feel that the payoff lived up to the setup.  Also don’t really like the Nintendo stuff, and the Ghostbusters stuff was a bit weak as well.

Although I definitely liked this, I felt a bit let down in the end and was hoping for a lot more.  Why were there diamonds instead of gold at the end?  Seems out of place.

Good effort for sure!  In the top 6 or 7…good job!

I love this!  Great story.  Very creative and totally fits the family requirement.  Jeremy, although put through living heck, was vindicated.  Jeff, I think the diamonds were a nice touch, because now Jeremy has his own unique story to pass down through the years.  I think that's why it was diamonds.  Plus, they'll help his family financially.  Not that gold wouldn't, at the current near 1000 dollar per oz market value, but diamonds ain't bad, either.

Great script!