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SimplyScripts Screenwriting Discussion Board    One Week Challenge    October 2014 One Week Challenge  ›  Demon.Star.31 - OWC
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  Author    Demon.Star.31 - OWC  (currently 4386 views)
Don
Posted: October 27th, 2014, 4:34pm Report to Moderator
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So, what are you writing?

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Demon.Star.31 by Great Dane - Short, Horror - Neo Alchemists open a portal to Hell on a space shuttle orbitting Earth. (R ) - pdf, format


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DarrenJamesSeeley
Posted: October 27th, 2014, 5:15pm Report to Moderator
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> Title page.  > Don't try to be gimmicky. It sets off a red flag, waving on high. Sure enough, Sojourner's dialog to her daughter on page 2 is grating and I'm thinking about getting out of the script...

wait a minute.
Hmmm...cult coven on shuttle. Summon alien demon....okay...I'll stick with it.
And I'm glad I did. The script does get better as it goes along. You got this Alien vibe going down, and that's clever in the OWC. I was a skeptoc. You made me a believer. Great job! One of my favorites.


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Stumpzian
Posted: October 27th, 2014, 6:20pm Report to Moderator
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A lot of things give me problems in this. I don't get why the captain allows the ritual aboard her ship, Halloween or not. Or the purpose of the naked flayed woman, who is unaffected by the "vacuous" forces of space. Vacuous? Why are the stars at the beginning "dying"? And if the ship is in orbit around Earth, it certainly can't be "drifting through the stars" (unless I'm misreading something). The exo-skeleton monsters seem taken right out of Alien. A lot of it's-its misuse. The single-sentence action lines are monotonous.





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Ryan1
Posted: October 27th, 2014, 6:29pm Report to Moderator
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I was waiting for a sci-fi take on this challenge.  I hope this one delivers.  The opening image was rather confusing.  I had to reread to make sure.  A nude woman emerges right in the middle of space?  Couldn't figure out how that related to the rest of the tale.  

In my experience, it's always a mistake to stock your space shuttle crew with Neo-Alchemists.  But, that's just me.  Some deeper explanation here would have gone a long way.  Why were the Alchemists on this mission?  Only to perform this ritual?  It would have made more sense to me if maybe only one of the crew members was an Alchemist and the rest of the innocent crew were slaughtered by the demons.

I like the Lovecraftian imagery with the interdimensional sea monster demons.  The action did feel a bit repetitive toward the end there, although a nice nod to Alien.

Overall, an imaginative entry, but needs to be tightened up more, IMO.
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nawazm11
Posted: October 28th, 2014, 6:37am Report to Moderator
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Can see the opening throwing off a lot of readers, not entirely sure I understand it myself (at least clearly). I remember reading Under the Skin a while back, had a similar start to this.

"exiting this portal to another world." Avoid this, mostly because it doesn't make much sense in screenwriting.

Signs of Moon as well with the wife/daughter.

A few little mistakes popping up, but it's a week's effort.

"The ritual has opened a dimensional bridge to Hell." Might get a lot of flak for this, again, avoid it unless necessary.

"Fuck. The Alchemists. That ritual.
I told them not-- Computer." lol. Have you ever seen Sunshine? Notice how Garland never does this with Pinbacker? It just doesn't read well. Also give the computer a name, and the shuttle too.

Really don't have much clue what's going on with the Flayed women, might need to make the visuals a little clearer methinks.

Not a fan of this unfortunately. There's a distinct broken style to the writing which made it hard to get through, almost like it was stumbling through and jumping between descriptions without much flow. It's hard to explain.

The problem with weak horrors are that the characters suffer for the sake of suffering, which has its place but with a short like this, I think you're going about it the wrong way. There's five pages of fluff at the beginning where nothing happens more than half a page that concerns the story later on, you tell me she has a wife and daughter but that's just brushed off like nothing since it doesn't have anything to do with the story you want to tell. Think of Moon, the interaction was important. Think of Sunshine, the interaction with Capa's sister was half a page at most and it was most definitely payed off at the end.

I think what I'm trying to say is that there needs to be a plot that doesn't simply rely on gore, tricks, and monsters. At least in Alien, the goal was simple, kill the Alien, but here, it's kind of stumbling for direction. If you were to make the goal something as clear as just destroying the portal, then make it explicit and centre the story around just that.

Good luck!
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DustinBowcot
Posted: October 28th, 2014, 7:19am Report to Moderator
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There has to be a quicker way of doing this. I'm half way through and almost falling asleep. I don't know why the computer can't talk, maybe I missed it. But my phone can do it. So long as it is plugged into a power source I can call her hands free... hey siri, suck one you dizzy bitch.

I don't know what you mean, Dustin.

Yes you do siri, yes you do.

Not one for me. The computer needs to be able to talk or have some way of this being disabled to work, IMO. Don't forget AI can exist in a bracelet too. If they're flying around in space, AI would be shit hot.
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khamanna
Posted: October 28th, 2014, 8:25am Report to Moderator
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From the very beginning you have "exiting the portal to another world" - and I have no idea what I'm supposed to see here. Does she walk through a tunnel, exits and is surprised by what she sees? I don't know it's another world, and what exactly she exits, what the portal is...

You have a lot of description which you can omit in my opinion and the script won't suffer if you do.
Like here on p1 "Delicate fingers trace along cracks in a mirror. Sojourne's sad reflection stares back.."
There are four lines after this and I am not really sure if you need them.
I think you could start the scene with "She slide a hand across the panel in a mirror. The panel opens"
Then Sojourne tells them about neo alchemists and I'm not sure what she's talking about.
There's a lot of unnecessary (IMO) description on p3 (a lot really).

And on pages to follow.

I don't want to complain much, but this one is not an easy read for me. It's also hard to visualise and understand for me. so, I'll leave my comment to the script at that.

I think the best thing to do is not to listen to me. I'm not a big fan of atmosphere and imagery and slow-building drama. I should have left it alone in the first place.
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Scar Tissue Films
Posted: October 28th, 2014, 8:48am Report to Moderator
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Lovecraft in Space. Certainly some potential there.

Some of the descriptions are a bit off, makes the reading a little confusing.

Tone is decent. Little bit cliché with the ominous grin at the start..felt. Too reminiscent of other stuff. In particular Angelina Jolie in Beowulf.

There's a distinctly Alien feel to the space shuttle. Not necessarily a bad thing, but it stands out.

Neo-Alchemy seems like a fun idea, though it would be good to get an idea of their mission.

Sojourner's dialogue felt off. Also, just something about her being there at all didn't feel right.

"Bloody flayed woman". Know how you feel. Skinless bitches, who do they think they are?.    I think you're missing a comma there.

Made me think of Sunshine at that point.

Some good Event Horizon action after that, but then my mind started wandering. Was struggling to understand what Grace was all about.

The Wizard of OZ ending was really weird as well.

Dunno. Not for me, all in all. There's a good story in there, somewhere, but I have few suggestions on how to find it.

Rick
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Gum
Posted: October 28th, 2014, 1:01pm Report to Moderator
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This one blew my mind wide open… like it was right out of the pages of Heavy Metal, or some twisted dream of carnage Buckethead wanted to do as a prequel to his ‘Spokes for the Wheel of Torment’ video.

This is Hermes (Thrice Greatest), kicking Jung in the side of his head, and the effluence that came blowing forth from his ruptured temple, the dream paradigm, would become the concept of this Psychopomp lore… or something like that.

After you mentioned ‘Scarlet’, my mind was playing out a fusion of ‘Under the Skin’ and ‘Solaris’… nice. So many things going on here, that to even begin to mention them would seriously bloat this thread.

Even the title, the weight and spacing of the font, carries this early 80’s composition technique indigenous to alien lore of that era. Really creative, seriously!
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Reef Dreamer
Posted: October 28th, 2014, 3:34pm Report to Moderator
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Sorry, three times I have written this out abutmy ipad Loses it!

I do recognise the title font...is it you.. You know who?

So, to summarise, without the detail which was lost,  a heavy read that I wasnt  always sure who I was following

Difficult to say why, but something has to leap out, quickly. And when it does, we must follow it.

Lots of detail may may be good in the head, but not in the read. That's a sin I have as awell

All the best.


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IamGlenn
Posted: October 28th, 2014, 6:10pm Report to Moderator
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Deep down I think this could be good.

It seems you're trying to cram too much in and some of it just didn't fit.

I didn't get what was going on with the laughing woman at all.

By the end I was quite bored.

Having said that, the setting was good and creepy. The demons were also scary so you definitely have something to work with.


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oJOHNNYoNUTSo
Posted: October 28th, 2014, 9:00pm Report to Moderator
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Although rushed and repetitious, I liked this a lot. Another entry I would love to watch.

The surreal nature of inside the vessel was good - red shoes and blue dress - but once the hull breach alarm went off, so did the story - it was fun. I gotta say, the sequence when she was asking the computer questions was intense, great use of dialogue. And to take it one step further, when she asked the computer if she was alive... oh my gosh, that was brilliant. Just waiting to see a red light or a green light had my eyes popping. Brilliant.

The creature could be done better, but I did like the swivel verb. Crazy stuff.

This script defiently no doubt needs touch-ups, a rewrite without the limitations of the challenge. It was highly enjoyable.
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EWall433
Posted: October 28th, 2014, 10:30pm Report to Moderator
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This one has a lot of good stuff going for it that makes it right up my alley. Others mentioned Alien (which is here of course), but the creature and the Neo-Alchemist ritual actually put me more in mind of Dead Space, which is not just the creepiest video game I ever played, it’s one of the creepiest things I’ve experienced period. So that was a good feeling to evoke.

I really like the end twist with the shuttle being forced back into Halloween night and there were a lot of other nice details along the way.

But I’m not sure it’s a fleshed out story yet. All the elements aren’t coming together. The family at the beginning doesn’t really factor in that much. Grace’s sacrifice would’ve meant more if we’d known her before that moment. And it felt like maybe there should be a more explicit connection/explanation for why there’s a crustaceous demon AND a flayed woman.

So great setting and atmosphere. Plot threads need tidying.
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LC
Posted: October 29th, 2014, 5:38am Report to Moderator
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Notes as I read.

Nice image of the naked women coated in blood.

Exiting this portal to another world - bit of a 'tell' going on there and I notice that type of thing is repeated quite a lot.

Couldn't we have seen it split from the mother-ship, or take off?

The circle of suicidal women is an interesting image.

And then this big 'tell' -

The ritual has opened a dimensional bridge to Hell. We shouldn't have to be told this is what is happening it should be evident by the script. You're effectively telling the audience what they should be seeing.

It's nice and gory.

Some descriptions are awkward and others belong more in a novel than a screenplay.

A childish laughter shivers through her spine. Does that mean she laughed at that moment?

She sets aside emotion. How do we actually see that? That's another 'tell'.

Blink out of unison. That sounds odd to me - something's either in unison imo, or out of time. Least that's the way I see it.

In actuality, Those two words should be deleted. Read the sentence without these words and you'll see they're superfluous.

I'm scanning a little by page seven, sorry.

In summary - a lot of this reads quite well, there's some nice writing in part but there's way too much 'telling' the audience.

The main thing though is that it's a bit more than a nod to 'Alien' in my opinion with a little occult thrown in and a few different flourishes to meet the challenge.





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stevemiles
Posted: October 30th, 2014, 6:41am Report to Moderator
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Well she did tell them not to do the whole ritual thing…  Those neo-alchemists and pagan suicide rites…  

I like the setting, think you could have used it to update the portal element, have more fun with the concept -- though there is something to the offset of technology vs. primitive ritual...

You took the time to introduce your main character with the comm. link to earth and the whole Halloween element.  A bit of clunky exposition to bring us up to speed with how the rest of the crew like to mark the occasion, but otherwise this was going great.

Unfortunately the subsequent neo-alchemist suicide circle pretty much killed the chances of me taking anything else seriously enough to really be invested.  Some nice action and demon stuff but that portal angle needed to be set-up with a lot more care for me to get on board.  Not for me I suppose.


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