The Forgotten Christmas Tape by Brian McCluskey - Short, Dark Thriller - An excited seven year old boy awakes on Christmas Day but soon finds out this is one Christmas he would rather forget. 9 pages - pdf, format

Morbid and nicely executed (a little pun there, ha ha). The punch line is buried in there, so I'll leave it at that. Clever, though.

Impressive and well written. Doesn't mess about and cuts straight to the chase.

Only real let down for me was the initial cops' dialogue which didn't sound real enough in my humble.

Could have made more of 'the sack line', there's a killer response to be had there. PM me as it's a bit rude for here.

Impressive though. Enjoyed it a lot.

RV

Thanks to Don for putting this up.

I wrote this in a day between polishing feature scripts for a change. It started off as a comedy idea about a lost Christmas sex tape then transformed into, well, this. All reads will be returned.  

clorox,

Morbid is good! Thanks for the read.

rendevous,

Glad you enjoyed it as I have a feeling this will not be for everyone. The cops dialogue is quite stiff, I always have a problem with that stuff to be honest. PM sent.

Whoa.  All I can think is how sorry I feel for that little boy.  Well written little tale, Brian.  Those 9 pages read like 4.  Very smooth.  Who knows how cops would talk in any given situation.  

A horrible little terrific story.  

Merry Christmas!  

I've always noticed you on the boards but I think this is the first one of your scripts I've come across.

I enjoyed this one quite alot. Good job on how scene by scene you add another piece to the puzzle until the last scene you have the complete picture.
I had no idea how anything had anything to do with the death of kids parents but you tied it up all neat in the end.

Hey Brian,

I'm really enjoying your work,

This was great- really easy to read, nice and grim with a 'killer' ending.

I agree with Rendevous about the sack line. 'Santa only empties his sack once a year' instantly sprang to mind (it is usually in the gutter though)!

Good work, highly recommended.

Craig

Brian

Great job here, very well crafted story, very assured how you revealed the events bit by bit through the flashbacks. Its greatest asset for me was that I didn't know how it was gonna end until you (I presume) wanted us to. When I saw the rat poison, all the dots joined together. I'm sure others will claim they saw it coming earlier but that’s how it unfolded for me, so it worked brilliantly.

One snag though in terms of plausibility, was believing that the parents would leave their kinky, role playing sex video lying around like that…and in the middle of the bloomin' dvd collection! I know Markus is only 7 but still, very absent minded of them.

Regardless of that, this was a great short, well done.

Col.

Brian,

I've got to say, I absolutely loved this. nice one. I for one didn't see the end coming and was delighted when it was revealed. Very hard to find fault with this.

I think what everyone's trying to say is that you're one sick eff, Brian...  

I saw all the good reviews so I took a look - I was not disappointed!

Of course there's always ways to tighten things in a re-write so I really didn't concentrate on why the DVD was out or the cop's banter, etc.

I loved the reverse story-telling and the comedy of errors plot - in the greatest Greek tragedian sense, of course...

Overall I thought it was brilliant that you could weave that story in just 10 pages.  As everyone said, very well done.

Hi Brian,

Not much to add, just wanted to let you know that I really enjoyed this read.  As someone said, it read like 4 pages.  I thought your use of the flashbacks was great.  Hell, I even dug the adult movie portion!

Craig

I thought this one was great, really good story you got here. It all flowed nicely and I had no idea how it was going to end up until the second last page.

The only thought I had is that it could have ended with Markus sitting in the corner, clutching his action figure. I think at this point it is obvious what happened, and I don't know if the final scene is actually necessary. That's just my opinion though.

Otherwise I think everything you did here came off really well and it's one of the better scripts I've read on here in some time.

Cheers,
Tim.

Liked how you told this in reverse so to speak.

It was written well, but I think you can probably find better verbs to use rather than adding a "slowly". You did that quite a few times and became annoying.

I didn't believe Markus would be in the sitting room with the cops as his parents are wheeled out in body bags. He would more likely be somewhere else with an adult.

I agree with a previous reviewer that it seemed a little too sloppy of the parents to keep that dvd with all the rest of them. Would work better IMHO if Markus found it somewhere else in the house.

All in all, you did a good job and I enjoyed reading a story that at least I have never read before...and no need to return the read.  

Whoa! I've been away at work for the past nine hours and come back to all these replies.

I'm actually surprised so many people like this as I had second thoughts after I sent it in, I wished I could turn back time so I could go through it again because it's definitely not for everyone because of the turns it takes.

I'm aware the logline kinda sucks but I couldn't reveal anymore or risk giving the game away early.

A few points brought up. First, the ending. I was aware I could have ended it right after the reveal of the rat poison on the table but eventually added the scene with the parents because I really wanted to end with the words "Merry Christmas". Also, reading the final page first, it would look like a happy ending. A little bit twisted, I know.

Some killer suggestions for the sack line. Thanks to everyone. The current line will be gone in the next draft. Lazy writing there.

The parents leaving the tape lying around is a problem which needs some sort of explanation. I will work on that for sure.

Thanks to everyone for the read. I will return the favour for everyone, 100%.

Brian

Hey Brian

SPOILERS!!!

Well what an opeing page, the joy of christmas and the excitment of the present then...your parents are dead!  That was a shock opening.

One question, do they still draw around bodies?

Anyway, I loved this.  I wasn't sure how the bad Santa was involved until the dvd, it worked really well.  The innocent little boy mistakenly killing his parents, you've just tainted my christmas lol.  I loved how it came together, it wasn't obvious and you slowly lead us down the road to the conclusion.  Good work.