Halloween Heros by Justin Time - Short, Family Horror - Seven kids are imbued with the powers of their Halloween costumes to battle the man who wants to use the Halloween festival to kill people or drive them out of time. - pdf, format

I didn't bother to read this all the way through...it was way too out there for me.  It was also fractured in it's set up and execution.  

I'm sorry...I kept trying to be open minded, but in the end my mind just closed down.

Morgan

This is a very cool idea but the problem is, it's too big of an idea for 12 pages.  Way too many characters and much too much going on.

Large blocks of narrative make it move slowly as well.  This either needs to be expanded or maybe turned into a short story.  

Great imagination though...the story itself has potential once you work out the kinks.  

Have to agree with the above comments. I very nearly gave up cos I wasn't enjoying it.
Look, kudos to the writer for the valiant attempt, and i see what the aim was, but the blocks of action were too much. Minimum four lines please.
And too many characters intro'ed at once. Also some stuff in there that was edging above kid's heads.
Do this as a longer short and it might work.

I definitely see what the writer was trying to do here.  However, it was a lot of information and events for 12 pages.  The writer has a great imagination and has created some interesting characters.  I think this could work quite well as a longer short or a feature length script.

Very interesting...very interesting, indeed.

Well, there are lots and lots of problems here, but for some reason, I do see some talent on display.

The bads - WAY to much going on, WAY too many characters, and WAY too big a concept for a 12 pager.

Lots of typos and grammar issues, most likely caused by a time crunch.

HUGE blocks of text and dialogue blocks.  You really don't want to go over 4 lines ever, and your average passage length shouldn't be 4, either.  A case of over writing here, over describing, and just too much information to get across in 12 pages.  Same deal with the dialogue blocks.

Based on the massive concept here, time elements were an issue - some events were very detailed, while a whole week seemed to go by with nothing at all.  Another issue the too big concept caused were many instances of fractured ideas.

The goods - A cute story, told in a way that was very reminiscent of Saturday morning cartoons or even Scooby Doo.  Although there was quite alot of violence and even over the top mayhem, it all had an almost "innocent" feel to it.

You met the challenge, but you went way overboard and it appears to me you had time constraints, as well as obvious page constraints.  I think this honestly would require an additional 25 pages at least to get it to where it should be.

Good effort, but tough read in 12 pages.

This is a huge idea - it's quite obviously (well imo at least) a 'feature' film or it should be so kudos to the writer for packing it all into twelve pages.

I have to say I think some 'reviewers' and 'writers' of this challenge may have forgotten what it's like to be a kid.

*******HUGE SPOILERS BELOW********

I've so far only read a couple of scripts here that even qualify as being highly entertaining - full of action/colour/plot and weird and wonderful happenings for a Halloween Family Horror OWC. I suppose some have varying ages in mind when writing so it can vary but ...

This one has raining frogs, snakes and eggs; exploding pumpkins, floating bodies, chomping baby alligators, bats, octopus, skunks, kids with superhuman powers, and much much more -- all the stuff kids love!

Yep, I could pick at it especially from about page 8 onward where it does need some work re editing/structure etc. And, I’d tone down quite a bit of the passive language and condense some of the descriptions. There is way too much 'telling' instead of showing but my instinct tells me this maybe due to page count restrictions and the deadline. And if not, it's an easy fix. Btw, you need a Fade In/Out too. I'm amazed when people say they will not read on if that's not there.

I am a little concerned about the 'blood bath' - (perhaps a clarification that this is raspberry cordial) the 'body parts' room and the 'torture room' - but then I think "Harry Potter" etc.

Is it a harder read than most? Are there too many characters? Yep, it requires something of the reader cause it's a big story. But overall c'mon! This is the 'right stuff'.

Deft little touches of humour & outright comedy, great characterizations, great character names i.e. ‘Snively’ & 'Diego' - all of the above and an actual plot.

Yes, we need to write in a correctly structured way according to all the rules/format etc. but don't JUST read it, imagine WATCHING it!

Definitely in my top 3.

The premise of kids taking on the power of their costumes to right a wrong is really cool idea, and the Snively character made me thing Lemony Snicket all the way through!  However, the number of characters in this small space made it very confusing for me.  Perhaps it would come across better on film, but I'm not sure.

it pushes the family requirement at some points, but overall it seemed to fit.  Not a bad effort.

Cool concept. I could almost see the villian twirling his mustache.

However, it's difficult to introduce that many characters and have any chance at a coherent story in 12 pages. Esp. given some of the longish dialogue and descriptions.

I'd like to sees this one developed into a longer script - maybe cut a few characters.

Gary

It completely lost me - I have no idea what is going on, and found this impossible to follow properly. I had to keep rereading bits to try and make it our, and that is no good.

It start's off badly -EXT. AERIAL - CONTINUOUS - which makes no sense, and goes down hill from there.

Jeff (Dreamscale) is a good judge of these things, so I will take his word, along with the others that liked this, that it had potential - but it just left me dazed and confused!

I think here I will side with Morgan, who summed it up pretty well for me in the first post above.

Ok, this needs a lot of editing. That having been said, I thoroughly enjoyed it. I can see why the purists didn't. You tried to cram so much into twelve pages, the format went completely South.
What the hell...
This was always going to be a difficult OWC and you coped better than most.

I know a thousand kids who would absolutely have loved this... my wife amongst them.

Surely, that was the whole point?

Great Job!

9 out of 10

"...we glide slowly over homes and neighborhoods."
"INTERCUT throughout the slow sweeps, we meet seven kids and a little mutt."
Screen directions and audience asides should be avoided in spec scripts.

DIEGO, a Latino 12 year old at the school Science Fair stands next to a large Tupperware container filled with kitchen garbage creating electricity, with a series of wires extending from either end attached to a small fan that's whirring away. Whew. That is a big sentence. Less is always more.

Also suggest not defining folks in ethnic terms. Does it matter to the story that Diego is hispanic? (no) The role will be filled by a casting director, and the readers only need a quick, visual description to keep the characters straight.

Just for the record, Pat Boone is close friends with Ozzy&Sharon Osbourne, in fact they used his lounged up version of Crazy Train for their MTV show. Pat's cool with O&S, he's cool by me.

"With all these strange goings on, Doug wants us to move away near his parents." Why? The screensavers and a faked shark attack would cause reasonable adults to suggest picking up and moving? Nah.

Liked the visual of the squirrel howling at the moon after the dog. That was funny.

Rule #1 of Screenwriting: Show, don't tell. "they are suddenly imbued with the SPECIAL POWERS and talents of their Halloween costume characters." How do we, as viewers know this? Consider the scene in Spiderman when Peter Parker first discovers his spider powers. How does Cat Girl know that she all of a sudden has cat powers?

Suspect somewhat longer than 12 pages, considering the awkward formatting of dialogue. Suggest looking at David Trottier's Screenwriting Bible as a good reference. Also suggest looking at some of the other entries to get a better idea of formatting and content. Looks like you had some fun with this, letting the imagination run wild.

Didn't work for me at all. Although I did, as I mentioned, like the squirrel.

On a positive note, you've got a good idea with the idea of costumes giving the kids powers. It's just a really fun idea for kids.

But then:

You've got Rusty, a Classmate, Diego, Principal Brown, Twins Tammy and Tommy, Roy, and Clarence, Blinkie, Brutus Snively…

And I'm not going to read anymore to find out, dear.

I'd almost think that someone around here wrote this to be funny.

Seriously, what you need to first do is determine who this story is about. Don't put in too many characters. Better still, don't put in too many NAMES of characters because that's all we'll wind up getting. Names.

Secondly, the action lines need to be shorter. Do a little bit of reading on what you should strive for. Then have at 'er again.

Sandra