The Wicked by Chris Rhives (Ziggy_W) - Short, Dark Comedy - Three girls venture into an abandoned house, when one of them accidently dies, it is up to the other two to cover it up. - hml, format 8)

This was actually written by a request from someone else on this board, they said they wanted to make a short film, though I haven't heard back from them so as far as I know, this is still unproduced.

BTW, this is also a loose follow up to "My Siamese Twin is a Demon", the Caar house should be the Rennes house, I just mixed up the name.

Either way I'd like feedback on this, thanks.

Okay ima give u a review as i am reading it. SPOILERS

1) You should add some more detail on what the gothic house looks like. I myself would like to know more. -5 points
2) I like how you get right to the point. (About going inside the house that is) +7points
3) I like the girls attitude. I believe it so that is +10 points.
4) I like the death of Tracey. You dont see many crossbow killings now a days. +5 points
5) I got confused when she answered the door. If you are breaking into a house why the hell would you answer the door? And i didnt like the dialouge between the two. -5 points
6) April has a nice attitude lol. I would never do that to an officer no matter how fucked up he his. +5 points
7) The story seemed to jump a lot. Some parts i was confused. -5 points
8) I wanna know what happens next. goodcliffhanger  +5 points

OVERALL
Plot- 15/20
Characters- 15/20
Events- 20/20
Suspense- 20/20
Ending- 15/20

BONUS- 32/80

127/180 = 70% C

Alright, well this is a rough draft and I appeciate the critique.

At what points did the story jump?

I'll get to a rewrite once I have enough reviews.

Different scenes in the house. I was like reading one part and then i got confused and had to re-read it. I think you should add more scenes inside the house.

Alright, I guess since this was written for someone else to produce so I really didn't know what the house looked like. I'll define it in the rewrite.

This one is alright.  The three girls seem to be a bit too cliche-ridden though.  Also, as someone wrote earlier, there are some confusing moments where I had no idea what was going on.  Namely the entire part with the axe.  Towards the end, things are rushed too.  As a matter of fact, this entire script would probably fare better as a feature-lengthed film than a short.  Still, I like the dialogue (after reading "The Erased," I see that you have a gift for making people talk normallly as opposed to myself who has every character blurting out bizzarro exclamations) and the crossbow death is cool, though a bit expected.

Bottom line: this could actually make a cool feature-length script, but as it is, it is just too much squeezed into too little.

**1/2 out of ****

The part with the axe is supposed to be her hiding behind the door and waiting for Shields to enter. I guess I could write it as a longer script, but maybe a bit later, you know.

Personally I like "The Erased" a lot better, you know.

Hey Ziggy, I enjoyed this, interesting characters, good dialogue, nice cliffhanger. It does feel abit rushed though. They don't seem that fazed that they had killed their friend, fair enough they had to deal with the officer at the door so they don't really have much time to go to pieces, but you would think at least one of them would freak out. I liked the fact that it was the quiet studious one that decides its a good idea to kill a policeman with an axe, but I think you needed to spend a bit more time developing this, at the moment it is just too quick a jump from good girl to hiding a dead body to swinging an axe at an officer. I did get a bit confused by the axe scene, I thought he had come through the door the first time I read it and didn't understand why he was being so calm about the fact they were trying to kill him. I also felt you needed more description in the crossbow scene, I wasn't sure at first who had even fired the thing. The two girls left pretty calmily at the end, wouldn't they be worried Shields was going to find the dead body? The woman that reported it saw three girls going into the house so the corpse would be linked straight back to them. Maybe it could end on Shields pulling his foot out and opening the door, just as April gets ready to hit him over the head with something from the fallen shelf and Linda prepares to finish the job with the axe. Silly I know, but it would make more sense.

I think it could work as a short, it just needs maybe ten more pages - mainly between them entering the house and the officer turning up.

I read it, but I really don't have much of an opinion about it.  I mean, it was entertaining -- there was nothing wrong with it -- and it'd be a good project for film students.  I enjoyed the character Officer Shields.  I only read it because you asked me to read it; this isn't a genre that I'd typically read, but it did hold my interest.  It seems like a way to begin a movie.  

Shields for me at least was my favourite characters to write for, you know.

It makes sense.

I didn't read the other reviews first and I hope this helps you... PS Spoilers ahead, don't read on if you don't want it to be spoiled.





I'm not going to mention the spelling as people have already done that; I'll just jump right in. Okay, so what is gothic style? Maybe you should describe the house a little more because someone such as myself when thinking of gothic I refer back to Marilyn Manson and than to death and than it brings me to SCARY house... Is it one of those tall spooky houses or should you have described it better?

You're supposed to capitalize names when they first come up, it's a rule that you must follow or else. I noticed here you change from calling it a Gothic house to a condemned house; you really should make up your mind. They give different impressions, condemned makes more sense and fit your story I'm thinking.

The girls dialogue is good, thought you might want to know. They come across as three typical girls in this genre and well that's what makes them so real, girls are bland and the same at this age.

Maybe you should have shown the ending to the other version if this is kinda a sequel, beef up the beginning to make us care more. I don't get why he just comes out and tells her all of this right away, the cop I mean. It just seems odd and a little creepy.

Here's some thoughts, it's seems as if this is the ending to a feature script, like it all leads up to this big climax. To be honest the girls should have seduced him, he seemed up for it. A suck here, a suck there and your home free if you know what I'm saying. Instead they try a sink? Are they retarded or am I for reading them doing that?

So, I think it should be long, 30 pages or a feature. There's a lot you could do to differentiate the girls from each other, they all accept 1 felt the same. The cop was pretty cool but unbelievable at times which may not be a bad thing since real cops are boring (I know, I live beside 2... One is a chief)

Overall it could have been longer but it was good nonetheless, really the main problem is the length which isn't a bad thing.

Alright, I'll probably revise it a bit later on, you know. right now I'm mainly focused on a few other rewrites and I always like to allow a couple of months before I do a rewrite.

Yeah, Shields is a bastard and thats what I wanted to get across, you know. The sink thing was pure dumb comedy, it made me laugh when I wrote it, but I don't think it worked to well.

I'll try to lengthen it as well though my main concern is that it'll seem to drag. I think ideally it works as a short, and Wes, you're right that it should be about 30 page, if I could pull it off, possibly a feature.

Though, as I've said before, this was written on request and they had wanted it to be only 7 to 10 pages long.

I found Shields to be a bit dumb for a cop anyway, he came across as more of a good guy than the girls. I'll try and read the other Erased one today as well, it was really early in the morning when I read the other and I fell asleep right after I posted it.

Shields was supposed to be a bit dumb, since real cops wouldn't work in a comedy, the general consensus is "The Erased" is a better short, I tend to agree.

I WANT you to make this longer. It is a good plot and would be very interesting.

I'm gonna piss on your parade, here, Zig....

This script made absolutely no sense to me.  And reading it a second time didn't help.  For starters, you describe using three cliches, punk, geek, and stoner, and then do nothing with that.  The characters didn't act their roles and they were all the same.  And why would three people-- so different from each other--want to hang out together?  I got the impression that they didn't like each other.  This isn't like 'The Breakfast Club' where six or seven completely different people are forced to be together for a day.  

You have to explain the house a little bit.  What draws the three to it?  It's just an abandonned house.  Why would teenager girls go to something like that?  And why would there be a live crossbow laying around?  Once the crossbow was found, I was expect the crazy rubber-mask wearing owner to pop up to claim it.  And then an axe and rope?  Was the civil war cannon out for cleaning that day?

The only reason for the idiotic cop to be in the script was to get the girls out of the house, and that they could've done on their own.  Even the role of the nosey neighbor wasn't important.  

The dialogue was very forced and choppy.

If you wanted to keep this story, I recommend strongly starting over from scratch.  Give people reason to be doing what they're doing.  Throwing people into a crazy situation doesn't make a good story.


Phil

Thanks Phil, this exactly the type of harsh critique that I need. You're not pissing on my parade you're weeding out what makes it bad, you know.

Though I liked the dialogue, I'll probably read over it in a few months and realise it's pretty shitty, you know.

Again thanks for the review.

Hey Zig,

I read your script at lunch and have to say I liked it, but it could use a few pointers. Firstly, I imagined the house to be similar to the one in Edward Scissorhands - thats the impression I got from gothic. Is that what you were going for?

Secondly, the girls were okay, I think Phil is right about why have 3 comp diff characters and then not make them stand out in each of their speaking parts. They reminded me of the girls in the movie, 'the craft' a bit mixed and looking for trouble.

Again, the nosey neighbour was almost irrelevant to the story. You made the cop show up, thats fine, but I think if you really want to make it funny, and this is just me, get the character of the old guy who plays cop in saving silverman/evil woman. His acting and persona would be brilliant - Not only would he be hiliarious in this, he would at least make a real attempt to kick their asses and also, make for a really funny attempt on the girls part to try to kill him. Make the cop a bit gutsier and gung ho - I think he was too feeble, reminded me of Dooy or huey in Scream, whatever his name is. I think comedy is one thing, but I think he was underused and you could make him so funny, you really could.

Dialogue was good, I think again you need to give the girls each more personality and I think the sex talk wasn't necessary. It made no impact, why not make them talk about stuff which identifies with them individually? This is why the short could be a bit longer, I think another 7-10 pages would suffice.

Overall, great potential, I think the crossbow was very random, were we supposed to be able to understand why a random weapon like that would be lying around? I'd like to know more. Bring the owner of the house into it if you can. Or maybe the cop could be tied into the house himself and trick the girls?

Good work, don't be hard on yourself, but definately re-write it in the future. Erased was great and this can be too.

Andy

I'm not really sure I can say much of anything that others havent said already. I pretty much agree with most of the posts.

I didnt like any of the characters. The cop made me mad because he was so ignorant. He couldnt see the obvious even when its smacked him upside the head - lol. And the girls were all stupid, I thought.

There are a lot more reasons that I didnt like the characters but its basically everything others have said.

I really liked the story and the situation, though.

You are a great writer Ziggy but this wasnt near your best.

there is soooo so much potential for this one Ziggy, hope to see it made feaure length! ::)

This?  As a feature length?  I don't see it.


Phil