One Stormy Night by Matt Layden (the usual suspect) - Short, Horror - Frank and Daniel hide out in an abandoned house preparing to leave a town they scammed when a little girl pays them a visit.  - pdf, format

Matt,

Pretty good stuff.  Simple but effectively creepy situation you illustrated here.  While I liked Charlotte's character and the demonic-like traits you gave her, Daniel and Frank were interchangeable and lacking.  Good use of the wheelchair, but otherwise those two dudes didn't do it for me.

Good ambiguous ending with the story concluding with Charlotte's dad glaring at Daniel and Frank.  Overall a nice read.

Greg

Matt,

Didn't get this one.  I think you need to clarify what the little girl is and give her some kind of backstory.  How is she supernatural?  As I read it, the one guy stole her bag while she was out trick or treating, and now she comes back to collect.  So, how does she live through a gunshot and slashed throat?  You just don't give us any details as to her history and where she comes from.  

Not too much story after she shows up.  The guys seem oddly restrained for just witnessing a girl rise from two mortal wounds.  Didn't really understand the ending.  The girl lives across the street.  She's obviously not a ghost, so what is she and what is her father.  Too many unanswerd questions, IMO.  A whole lotta typos, too.  But, you met the challenge, and that's something.

I dunno, I liked it and I didn't.  I think, me personally, it'd be more effective if you had the little girl be just that.  The two leads exchanging while all this was going on wasn't believable to me.  You had some instances of typos in there too.  Like "overly weight"  that makes some sense but not much.  The story, at its core, is good and creepy.  But all in all it falls apart when the supernatural elements are brought into play.  Not because they have no place in movies like this but because the set up itself doesn't really need to have it.

A little girl gutting someone over a trick or treat is scary enough.  Go with that.  Demons are all too easy to fill in why they can't kill her or overtake her.  A child and nothing more is another all together.

Another good attempt, but it just fell short in some aspects.  And the little girl doesn't meet the requirements as Don said 18 to 80 something.  The wheelchair, EDIT TO BELOW, is a technicality one could let slide as it was used.  I do believe he was in one, maybe not wheelchair ridden.

4th script down.

Matt, I am gonna have to disagree with Ryan on this one, you never really met the challenge. One of the male actors should have been in a wheelchair and the girl should have been over 18.

Apart from that side of things however this was a decent, and creepy read. I quite liked the idea of the little girl taking revenge for her candy being stolen ( and whatever they did re: the scam). A little bit of Hard Candy crossed with Let the right one in I think. The dialogue was good, what stands out to me so far with the OWC are that the best scripts have a simple premise and lots of nice dialogue between the characters. This is up with those.

Unfortunately though it does not really meet the challenge, so despite being a good script it is not gong to be on my shortlist, sorry.

Murph, read the first page again.  Frank is in a wheelchair.  However, you are correct about the girl not being over 18, although that wasn't in the original guidelines.  So, I gave him a pass on that one.  Point is, he cranked out a script in under a week, I just didn't like it as much as you.

Quoted from Ryan1 Murph, read the first page again.  Frank is in a wheelchair.  However, you are correct about the girl not being over 18, although that wasn't in the original guidelines.  So, I gave him a pass on that one.  Point is, he cranked out a script in under a week, I just didn't like it as much as you.

From what I can gather Frank is in a wheelchair, but is just pretending, it is all part of the scam they are pulling. He does stand up during the climax. My interpritaion of the criteria is that the actor was supposed to have been wheelchair bound. If I am wrong then apologies to Matt.

Matt,

Congrats on completing the challenge!
As much as I enjoy demonic children that I'm not babysitting...
it does not fit the challenge criteria. Why did you ignore that rule? Just curious.
Anyway, I like your set up but I wasn't sure why Charlotte had to be superhuman.
She would be much more disturbing to me without the Jason Vorhees durability.
I think it might be more fun if the other kids scatter when Charlotte comes around.
Thanks for posting this, I'm always up for Halloween mischief!

Regards,
E.D.

Overly weight?

I thought it was good all around.  I liked the demonic little girl, she was quite different.  So different that she really seemed like you were trying to skirt your way around the challenge.   But I think you just didn't realize when you wrote this that they needed to be adult.

I think what would improve this would be to show a bit more of their back story - which of course you could not do for this challenge.   I would also go through it again and see if you can tighten up the action and punch up the dialogue.   Though both were good, I think they can be better.  

I can't believe only Balt has mentioned the typos in this? There were lots of errors which made it a clumsy read for me.

BUT, the basic story was good and could be decent with a fairly big re-write. I didn't have a prob with the guy only pretending to be wheelchair bound; I'm sure th eorignal criteria was only that one male had to be in a wheelchair.
That doesn't mean they have to paralysed or anything. Phils' script didn't have that, neither did mine and i guess not many of the 40 will!

Fix all the mistakes (i tell you, Jeff will savage this), make the girl more demonic if she's meant to be - some of her dialogue is too 'cheery' - and this could be a neat script.

Cheers stevie

I thought it was a cool ghost story, even if the girl wasn't technically a ghost.

There was some really good, trailer-worthy lines in here: "I'm just a girl asking for her knife back." comes to mind.

As for criteria goes, I believe it meets the guidelines. Technically, one male was in a wheelchair. As far as I gather, it's part of their scam, thus crucial to the story. And the adult stipulation wasn't tacked on til after original guidelines were posted.

Matt, congrats on completing an entry for the challenge.  But this one just didn't do anything for me.   Too much damn cussing.   Plus, the whole thing just came off kinda silly and way too one dimensional, IMO.  

Don't give up.  Keep at it.

My biggest problem with this script was that it dragged.  I think if you cut a page or two of chatter out, it'll flow better and be a more enjoyable read.

I figured that there would be some scripts where the guy in the wheelchair didn't need to be in one.  My problem with your script, though, was that Frank stayed in the wheelchair as long as he did.  I figured he would've jumped out of it upon seeing Daniel hurt.

SPOILER SPACE, KIND oF...

If you do a rewrite on this script (and I think you should), you should mention that Charlotte was killed by Daniel in one of the robberies.  Mention it toward the end of page eight when she's condemning them.


Phil

SPOILERS
I like Charlotte, everything she says and does is creepy and has a strange slow motion, low key tinge to it.
Daniel opening the door for Trick or Treaters seems odd, I didn't understand why he would bother (he's tired already, has candy).
Charlotte is a terrific character.

Okay I had the same thoughts pretty much as Ryan on this one. Wasn't sure who or what the little girl was and as a result doesn't really work for me.

My first thought was that the twist would be that after the two guys conned her parents the father commits murder-suicide and Charlotte was killed, now seeking vengeance. When that didn't happen and she mentioned her father won't be too happy, I thought he might turn out to be the devil or something. But then it just sort of ended an you gave us no explanation. Feels like cheating in a way, and not satisfying as a reader.

There were some good parts though, a rewrite and a rethink will do wonders for this.

EDIT: When he is looking out the window you have him looking at kids and their parents running from the rain. Considering you only have a cast list off 3 actors this would be tough to pull off.

Cheers,
Tim.