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Be Devil by Lord Byron - Short, Horror - A teenage girl takes refuge in a church, under the protection of a strict minister. But evil comes in many disguises. 3 pages - pdf, format
It was hard to read for me for the very obvious reason but ultimately I liked this. Senta and the dog's revival is not justified though. They are kind of at your will and I think it's a bit much to take. Still good imagery and a well done short.
I agree with the 2 of you. This was pretty awful for the subject matter alone.
A few typos.
I am not sure you can ever get this filmed.
However, the biggest issue is other than the "horny old priest pedophile" I didn't get it.
If I'm gonna read something like this, and draw any sort of meaning, for dramatic purposes, I'd like to know why, and why I should care about the priest at all.
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2nd passage - "...in an empty church" - Yeah, we know she's in a church, as the Slug tells us that.
"REV. LOCKE, 50s, tall, gangly, slick hair, dressed in dark clothing. He towers over Senta like a vulture." - No reason at all to have this broken down as 2 sentences, as the 1st has no verb. Use a comma and combine these 2.
"Locke lifts her chin. She opens her eyes, as he smiles down." - This is a poorly written passage. Here's why - 1st sentence is confusing, as you have Locke lifting Senta's chin, but you're only using "her", which makes it read awkwardly. Next sentence, in the same passage, then changes to Senta doing something, starting with "She", and then in the same sentence, "he" - awkward and confusing.
The writing throughout is very awkward with strange breaks in sentences, incorrect breaks, incomplete thoughts, subject-less fragments.
Story for me goes nowhere and means nothing. The dice aspect completely thrown in for literally no reason at all.
I had a hard time making any sense of this. The logline said that she was seeking refuge in the church: From what and with that freak? I don't think she wasn't running from her own dog. It was all really weird and jumbled.
And more necrophilia? From one religious fanatic to another. Not for me, thanks.
A decent story but a little too neatly tied up. It actually reminds me of a real story not long ago, where a 15-year-old girl was raped by a Muslim man in my city. After getting away from him, she flagged down a Muslim taxi driver who, after pretending to be helping her, drove her to a secluded spot and raped her himself.
I'm just going to say this one was fine on the writing, but the story just left me blah. Hopefully others find it more to their suiting. Good luck, Gary
Some of my scripts:
Bounty (TV Pilot) -- Top 1% of discoverable screenplays on Coverfly I'll Be Seeing You (short) - OWC winner The Gambler (short) - OWC winner Skip (short) - filmed Country Road 12 (short) - filmed The Family Man (short) - filmed The Journeyers (feature) - optioned
So this priest couldn't care less about getting caught firing a gun in his church?
I think there is too little information to make this a cohesive story. Why did she come back? How did she come back? It's all convenient for the story.
Is the "diced earrings" supposed to be the use of dice here? If so, shouldn't it read "dice earrings"? Otherwise, "diced" has a completely different meaning...
Story was weak, IMO. And hey another pedophile priest... Formatting was good and read fast, that's about it though. Don't really know where the 'horror' was though...read more like a drama/suspense to me.
Didn't get this at all, I've got this image of a dog using a rifle to shoot a priest and that's about as much sense as I can make of this. It seems to be shocking simply to shock, with no reasoning behind it. Not for me, sorry.
-Mark
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I didn't see much "seeking refuge" as promised in the logline; I'd like to know from what and why. I knew immediately this guy wasn't going to do any "protecting" (hand on her head, etc.)
Diced earrings (chopped?) barely counts as using the required object.
I very much like your description of his movements as being like a mantis. I think I'd get rid of the vulture simile and focus on the mantis. (Also, it fits the character: praying mantis/preying mantis).
A believability problem here: As soon as the girl exits the room, the priest shoots her through the window. Remember, she had to go downstairs, out of the church. Plus, in the darkness, he shoots her twice in the same area of her neck! I recommend redoing this last part of the story.
Doesn't work for me. It's all over the place. The concept is good. Now you have to find ways to wring the most tension of out it.
The pedophile stuff is not tense. It doesn't seem like she's being lured into it, or too afraid to resist, or forced to make any sort of decision. It just happens. No resistance, no reaction.
Then he's about to shoot a dog and it's a complete 180 with her wildly overreacting, shouting at him that he's crazy. If it just dawned on her she's trapped with a crazy man the last thing she would do is announce that fact out loud.
Think about something like 10 Cloverfield Lane. The tense beats are stuff like her pretending, manipulating, trying to hide her true thoughts and intentions in a desperate attempt at survival.
This one's got too much stuff for this short a story -- in particular, you've gotta earn it if you want us to stick around for the nasty content. There was lots of fun in the details and I think it could be a satisfying short if there was a bit more development of our protagonist. Even as a three pager, there'd be plenty of room to learn a little more about the situation if this didn't dwell on the rape so much. Less is more here, I think.
Okay, did I miss the dice? I skimmed through again and didn't find it. Regardless, a fanatical preacher protecting a girl from a dog he believes is Satan? Then a little necrophilia, then she's not really dead. Writing wasn't bad, and the tension was pretty good, but this all kinda fell apart for me.