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Took a quick read, a few thoughts, just my opinion of course...
1) I expected a twist, but not that one, good job. 2) It's well formatted and skips along well. 3) The last scene with the young girl... how? - the old lady would still be locked up?
Overall, liked and well written... but would have liked a little more interplay with with the driver and old lady.
That is bullshit. I'm so disappointed with this that I don't really want to read on. Why not something like:
Festive holiday music warbles through a tiny, high-set, metal speaker.
Take your time with the visuals. Describe that speaker... use it to set the tone. Maybe there's some blood, grease, peeling paint on it... whatever. Then move onto a new action block to describe the woman.
Code
an attractive WOMAN
(30s), hurries to her car with shopping bags in tow. She
unlocks the car, places the bags in the trunk, opens the
driver's side door.
She's attractive... but what is she wearing? What a woman wears says a lot about them. Men less so. Men you can get away without giving them a description. A woman too if it is obvious, like she's rescuing somebody from a burning building with her other firefighting buddies... but here, in a car park... even as a bit player I need a little more.
You're also feeding every little detail. She does this, then that that before this, this before the other thing she did before that... it's too much.
Code
The woman inserts the key in the ignition, closes the door,
reaches for her seat belt. As she crosses from left to right
to buckle up -- WHAM! There's an OLD LADY (80s), sitting in
the passenger's seat. The startled woman SHRIEKS!
Same again in the above. This, that, this, that... you even feel it necessary to mention that it's a left hand drive car. Nobody cares which way she has to pull her seatbelt. Also... WHAM? Is that an actual sound effect or just emphasis for the fact the old lady has shown up out of nowhere? I'm guessing the latter and it's terrible. It's something I'd expect to find in an old graphic novel.
Code
The stoic old lady sits calmly, staring straight ahead. The
panic-stricken woman struggles to unbuckle her seat belt and
remove the key from the ignition. She exits the vehicle as
fast as she can.
It's just an old lady. Sitting there doing fuck all. Why is Woman panic stricken? Offer the poor love a cup of tea.
Ah, I see that she does kinda do just that a little later on. I don't think she needed to be scared in the first place. If an old lady is sitting right next to you it's kinda hard not to see that it is just an old lady. Maybe if she was possessed with black eyes and screaming 'cunt' at the top of her lungs I'd be a little wary, but other than that, it should be pretty safe.
OK, I've just read to the end and I'm guessing a youngster has written this. The choices made are good. It works as a story. Nice job. Just practise, the rest will come with experience.
3) The last scene with the young girl... how? - the old lady would still be locked up?
Yes, this probably would have worked better as a flashback (e.g. "ONE MONTH AGO"). Also, perhaps you could add a bit more suspense by revealing earlier on that the old lady was hiding a machete.
Many thanks for the quick read and kinds words! Regarding the last scene, I took some creative liberty there to make sure the ending really packed a punch! Good endings are hard to deliver, and I feel really good about this one. Hypothetically, the character could have escaped, been released after a year, who knows? It's that uncertainty that makes the story so utterly creepy on so many levels. I suppose I could have fleshed it out a bit more, but I was going for "short and sweet," keeping budget in mind for would-be filmmakers.
I don't think this works as a thriller. There's just not that much suspense about an old lady sitting in a car. I don't know, I got a lot of comedy undertones when reading. An old lady that is actually a man (with some damn good disguise and voice-altering apparently) magically gets into a locked car. Along with the cliche nice old woman dialogue and the "Good for you, because I was going to kill you" line, which in a serious script is just an utterly stupid thing for a criminal to do.
The based on true events sticker is rather creepy. Do you happen to have a link? I'm intrigued.
Anyway, I think this would make a good dark comedy, the ridiculousness could be upped even more. Thriller? Imo no. Not in its current state at least.
I think I remember reading about this, but then, maybe it's only wishful thinking.
In general, a good job. I, too, was mystified by the sudden appearance of the old woman. For a moment, I was expecting a guardian angel. No such luck. I think it might play better if the old lady climbs in, but that makes the machete problematic. In any case, the protag is wonderfully bright, and the old lady pretty dim. Why he lets her out of the car at this stage is as dumb as it gets, but criminals are often dumb. Might have been more suspenseful if he hands her his phone and says 'use mine'. hmmm
The ending is fine as far as it goes, but it doesn't go very far. Presumably, the old lady was in jail for attempted murder, since he admitted that. So, putting him back in the car is a stretch.
In any case, this is an easy read if not wholly satisfying.
A random thought. What if the old woman is gone when the cop arrives? But they find the wig, the dress, and the machete? The inference is clear and the guy gets to try it again?
Some great feedback and suggestions... much appreciated! Glad to see the script is garnering some interest. I'd like to address the "based on true events" heading as it may help clear up a few things.
The story was told to my co-writer, Tony, when he worked at a shopping mall in the '90s (note: pre-cell phone days). An anxious woman approached him and asked if he would call security for her. She felt as though she was being followed. She proceeded to tell him why she felt so uneasy, and dove into the story. As the story went, she was on her way to her car and spotted an old lady sitting in the passenger seat. She approached the vehicle with caution and tapped on the window. The old lady rolled down the window (old-school window) and proceeded to ask for a ride. The woman was understandably weary, but came very close to agreeing to help. She said she first needed to call her husband to let him know she'd be running late and went back into the mall. She called the cops instead. The officer tried to coax the old lady out of the vehicle, but to no avail. The officer couldn't help but notice how "strong" she was for an old lady. Eventually, he removed her by force and the machete fell to the ground. The officer took the now "man" into custody as he looked at the woman and said "It's a good thing you called the cops. I was going to kill you."
Whether or not this actually happened is debatable, BUT... this is the story she told Tony and we don't suspect she'd have any reason to make it up. Nonetheless, it's a bone-chilling story and I've always thought it would make a powerful little short film. So after all these years, Tony and I decided to write it into a short.
As you can see, we've changed a few things. The woman gets into the car without realizing there's an old lady in the passenger seat. All of a sudden... BAM! There she is! Maybe a bit unrealistic, but we thought the "surprise" element was more dramatic. There were no cell phones back then, so we improvised to make it feel more modern-day. Obviously, the very last scene was also improvised. We have no idea what happened to the guy, how many years he served, whether or not he escaped from jail, etc. But it's a classic way to end a psychological thriller, so we went with it.
So... did this REALLY happen? As far as we know, it did. Hope this helps answer some questions
A while ago I was looking at urban myths for inspiration for 'shorts'. I came across one (listed below) and recognized another via a script I read here on SS about the monster under the bed/duplicate kid - can't remember what the latter was called.
Anyway, re your story, this urban myth (below) has been around for a while and is basically a re-interpretation of the Little Red Riding Hood story imh.
I haven't seen this story put to film as a short so I suppose - go for it.
The one negative for the story as you've written it is that I reckon the 'old woman' would surely take a hike when the young woman claims she left her phone in the store or at least she might flee when she sees the young woman returning with the policeman in tow - I don't know - perhaps there's another way to work around that. Have her pretend to talk to her husband on the phone behind the car when really she's alerting security/cops??
What I did like was the addition of your post script at the end with the scene with the young girl (1 - I'd call her young 'woman' btw. And, I'd think about perhaps setting that latter scene at night for the creep factor too - even though night filming is probably more difficult.
The WHAM thing made me think the old lady suddenly appeared. Like a ghost. Also why didn't the old lady kill her while she had the chance? It's a car park. She going to drive out somewhere else that's secluded? Then, the woman calmly gets out of the car and is able to call security. The reveal where it is really a psychotic murderer was completely out of whack, IMO.
That's why I thought a kid had written it. If you're that guy from IMDb, I suggest you stick to working with writers, rather than trying to do it yourself.
As I'm reading the script and I've not read any other comments yet.
Logline - The logline is supposed to reflect what your story is about in one or two sentences. It's supposed to hook the reader. This logline does neither and what is she unsuspecting about? That's really odd.
Give your main characters names and give us an idea what they look like so we can picture them and identify. Woman isn't a very good name.
Your action blocks are too big, too descriptive.
Interesting twist with the Old Lady. It's gonna be tough to pull that off visually but not impossible. I also am trying to imagine where he hid the machete lol. What is harder to believe is this person somehow is out of jail a year later and at it again but it was an interesting tale and very readable despite my comments. I doubt the claim of this being based on a true story, it sounds more like an urban legend; a tale told around a campfire or in a bar.
This reads like the intro scene to a horror feature. I'd encourage you to write more if you have any idea where this might lead as it could be very interesting.
Good job!
-Mark
For more of my scripts, stories, produced movies and the ocassional blog, check out my new website. CLICK
LC - to answer your question, that is not my IMDb page, but I am frequently mistaken for him. In some ways it works in my favor I can tell you that I have had a number of shorts produced, though, and have produced a few myself. I'm not opposed to producing this one if nobody else shows any interest. A number of my shorts were produced directly from SS exposure, so we'll see what happens.
Fascinating about the urban legend, but man, it's still so bizarre! The woman who approached Tony in the mall and told him this happened to her... what do you think her M.O. was? To seek attention? Or is it possible that some psycho decided to turn the urban legend into reality after hearing about it? Or then again, maybe this did really happen and inspired the urban legend? I guess we'll never know...
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