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SimplyScripts Screenwriting Discussion Board    One Week Challenge    The May 2021 Challenge  ›  A Crowbar To The Skull - May3
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  Author    A Crowbar To The Skull - May3  (currently 408 views)
Don
Posted: May 28th, 2021, 6:13pm Report to Moderator
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So, what are you writing?

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A Crowbar To The Skull by A Reservoir Dog - A man’s path leads to off-the-charts aggression and peril.  Short, Horror


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mmmarnie
Posted: May 28th, 2021, 11:02pm Report to Moderator
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"A bull pierced by the matador"...niiiice.

We watch Ben fall apart. That first scene is pretty chaotic, then the garden scene is very calm. Good job showing the complete change in Ben and his life.

I feel like the change happens rather abruptly though. Like when he brought that woman into their bedroom. Seemed super extreme and a quick and drastic personality change.

Interesting idea but maybe needs some more work on the tone and how you unravel everything.


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eldave1
Posted: May 29th, 2021, 11:49am Report to Moderator
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Much of the writing is stellar – some really vivid descriptions and the action sequences are really well done. But there are some problems for me..

The (ANOTHER TIME) in the headers didn’t do it for me in terms of getting my bearings straight. As an example – I haven’t a clue if the garden scene took place before or after the affair scene.

And there is a weakness in character threads. For example:


Quoted Text
DR. ODOM
Phineas Gage was the most famous case involving brain trauma and personality. Do you know that name?

She stares. No clue.

DR. ODOM
He was a foreman on the railway, and his accident was quite gruesome. After that, he wasn't exactly the same..

And – we never hear from Phineas again – so why set up the expectation that we are going to – you don’t need a name here. The Doc merely needs to describe the malady.

AND

Why drop Cisco from the story??? I thought for sure there would be some reference to him as we went backwards – IMO – he needed to be included – we need to know why he met his demise.


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Yuvraj
Posted: May 30th, 2021, 8:07am Report to Moderator
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This one goes for the tonal change throughout. But there is too much crammed in just 6 pages so, nothing feels intriguing. It's just a series of events happening in a jumbled manner.

The writing is good and easy to read, no doubt about that. But one thing was left unanswered here - What about Cisco? Who is he? Just a guy who messed with Ben? I think it needed an explanation since he is killed and we don't know why.

Good luck.    


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Zack
Posted: May 30th, 2021, 3:36pm Report to Moderator
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Love the title.

Writing itself is uneven. Technically, it's fine. Some really good, visual decriptions. But the action sequences themselves are repetitive and don't have much logic to them. Hard for me to visualize how they play out.

The story is unclear to me. Beginning to think this style of storytelling isn't my thing at all.

Good effort.
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Gum
Posted: May 31st, 2021, 2:27pm Report to Moderator
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Memento meets Sweeny Todd, and a strange but true tale of that dude who took a crowbar through his skull but lived.

Would Bridget really have stayed with someone this unstable, would anyone? Stranger incidents have been recorded I would imagine, about emotionally abused spouses hanging around, waiting for better days.

Ben dying in and amongst the flowers was a nicer ending than some dark basement somewhere, him ending up back in the garden where he and Bridget sowed happier times, indicating there’s a hint of who he once was lurking in his dour mind, the memories of what could have been rising up to transport him to the ethereal. Not sure what else I could add or take away from this, there’s a million avenues of approach during the writing process, and I think you found a good way, albeit dark, to tell Ben’s tale for this challenge. Best of luck.
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Spqr
Posted: May 31st, 2021, 9:23pm Report to Moderator
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Good guy Ben gets a crowbar to the head in a home invasion. He takes steroids to build up his muscles so he can defend himself in the future. Unfortunately, the steroids, coupled with his head injury, change his personality. He becomes a drug dealer and promiscuous. Ben had a rather extreme character arc, but it was handled well, as was the positioning of the scenes.
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MarkRenshaw
Posted: June 1st, 2021, 3:40am Report to Moderator
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Excellent writing here and I like how the experimental narrative is used to get across the confusion of head trauma resulting in personality changes. You just try to do so much in 6 pages when it is obvious this story needs more to do it justice. Putting the timeframe in the scene headings is okay but you need to have some mechanism in the scenes to show the audience when this occurs as well. At the moment it is a bit muddled.


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JEStaats
Posted: June 1st, 2021, 12:57pm Report to Moderator
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No sh*t, there I was....

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Ah, Phineas Gage. Yup, never quite the same after his little puncture wound, eh? Trauma, whether by accident or self-inflicted, has untold effects on the old psyche. I've seen a number of peeps change from exactly that self indulgence. Sad.

Just a nice little gruesome tale of woe. Who was Cisco though? Never really got a backstory on him.
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PKCardinal
Posted: June 1st, 2021, 2:32pm Report to Moderator
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I really enjoyed the writing on this one. For me, it flowed really well.

Oddly, the story lacked. Which, I find kind of confusing. There really is quite a bit packed into this. But, it really boils down to: Man gets hit in head. Bad things happen. Of course, it's unfair to break it down so simply. But, I can't help but feel like all these interesting pieces should have added up to a larger story.

I'd like to provide better notes, as I think this is a bit unfair, but I just can't quite put my finger on why it didn't work for me. I'll come back if something better comes to me.


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spesh2k
Posted: June 1st, 2021, 3:14pm Report to Moderator
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Love the title.

But I wasn't big on the story or the characters. The flower aspect/garden symbolism felt heavy-handed and overdramatic for me at the end. The writing was pretty good, though it seemed a bit too mechanical during the fight scene on page one -- it felt a little blah, didn't come across as intense as a fight scene should be. The overall story didn't have much of an impact on me. It was a good effort, though.


THE SUICIDE THEORY (Amazon Prime, 79% Rotten Tomatoes) https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2517300/?ref_=nm_knf_i1
RAGE (Coming Feb. 2021) https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8874764/?ref_=nm_knf_i2

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Matthew Taylor
Posted: June 2nd, 2021, 3:38am Report to Moderator
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Hi Writer

Love the idea behind this, head trauma and changing personality traits. (I remember seeing someone on T.V who had Foreign Accent Syndrome (FAS) after a hit over the head, they were English and woke up with a Jamaican Accent)
Our brains are funny things.

The story feels like a lot of loose threads though, Cisco, the Dr, the flowers, the floozy he brings home, all felt incidental - I wanted them to connect in a better way. It needs something to tie it together, like if the wife was the cause of his head injury which is why she stayed with him for so long despite his new way of life, and playing on the drama that way.

Best of luck


Feature

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Two steps to writing a good screenplay:
1) Write a bad one
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AnthonyCawood
Posted: June 2nd, 2021, 5:39pm Report to Moderator
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Interesting idea here and I liked a lot of the writing on display.

But it felt a little too extreme in places and came over as a little heavy handed in showing the switch in his nature.

I think there may be more mileage in altering some of the bad Ben stuff so it's cruel and calculating rather than just brutal 0 imho of course.

Decent effort


Anthony Cawood - Award winning screenwriter
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Cacutshaw
Posted: June 3rd, 2021, 12:14am Report to Moderator
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A bizarro Flowers for Algernon.

I liked the idea in this quite a bit, but I think this needs to be a bigger script. I never felt the tragedy in Ben, he was just a madman and Bridgett should've got far away. Nice Ben would've understood. Either way, we needed to feel for the characters more.

The writing was great though and I think with more space this could be made into a demented but emotional tragedy.
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Geezis
Posted: June 3rd, 2021, 2:35pm Report to Moderator
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There's always a single malt waiting for you.

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I liked this story, one man's attempt to protect himself and his wife from another attack eventually leads to his demise and death. So much obviously happens to him off screen that this seems in a hurry to cram as much into a small six page script. I think this would make a much better feature expanding on the deteriorating relationship between Ben and Bridget.
Well done.


If at first you don't succeed........bribe someone.
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