Shadow River by Elisabeth Dubois (Elis)  (OWC name - Stev Kimmer)  - Short, Thriller - A young married couple buy a cheap old houseboat off ebay; Soon to realize, they have bought more than they bargained for.   August '07 One Week Challenge entrant. - pdf, format 8)

500 dollar boat - They got ripped off!

"John laughs and rapes her" - That seems odd.  Wording, not the action(well that too, but that's not the point!)  That's difficult to see in my mind.  When I hear "She walks" I can visualize that, but "rapes her" ?  How long was the raping?  The time issue there could have been better, I think.

"And i got off on it" - a little too on the nose for my taste.

Also, he wanted a challenging hunt.  How challenging is it really to lure people in through ebay like that.  Not too challenging, I'd imagine.

Other than that, it was suspensful.  Between Susie going missing, Peter freaking out, and wondering if Mark was the bad guy or if there could be something supernatural going on...I liked it for the most part.

You're format is good and... well... that's the only positive thing i have  to say other tan the story has a little potential.

First of all, the genre was thriller. This is a slasher/snuff. It wasn't entertaining in the least. It is sick.

You're characters are as dry as Rob Zombies humor. Please, give them some emotion! When 3-year old is crying for his mom I should feel bad for the kid, not be bored and annoyed.

Page 4 Mark says "It's all yars". That souunds absolutey ridiculous. Also, on the same page Mark has some double dialogue. Which brings me to my next complaint...

The dialogue isn't very believable. In some cases it is just down right terrible!

Did you submit you're first draft? Many sentences seem a bit off. Example- Pg 5 John says to 3-year old Mark -"Shut up and go home you little brat go home."
There are more, but I don't wanna point them all out.

I laughed out loud  during the rrape scene. It was so terribly bad! It was "The Cabin" bad. What were you thinking?!

The rape scene flashback was very random and seemed out of place. Lose it.

As I said earlier, the story has potential. You just need to learn more before you are ready to deliver a deserving script.

Sorry if I'm coming off as rude or mean. I don't like it when people sugar coat their reviews, so I don't sugar coat mine.  Only the truth here. Good luck in the future.

~Zack~

Nice suspenseful effort for this exercise. Your story was put together well enough that it kept me reading to find out what happens next. The flashback does feed into Susie falling to foul play without using her. The bumping of Suzie's head was nice.

Susie said, “Someone’s hurt,” to herself when she heard a man scream. That sounds like a cartoon superhero. “Someone’s hurt! I’ve got to change into….” It’s unnecessary dialogue.

John laughs and rapes her? I’m sorry but this is lazy writing. This writing implies that the entire rape is shown in its entirety and you leave the director to figure out how to do it. If you only want to imply a rape has occurred, you have to write it that way. Just, “he rapes her,” is unacceptable as a description. You don’t have to write a graphic rape scene - I would personally prefer you didn’t - but you do have to describe what’s happening.

P7 - John’s van nears the campsite but Peter gets out. Names mixed up.

Same thing on P14 - Officer Mike yells at Mark and then he morphs into Officer Rick. Then he morphs back into Mike.

While I’m on Officer Mike, you may want to use a name less similar to another character. You have a character named Mark and then introduce Mike. I know in real life there are people named Mark and Mike who may talk to each other but this is one area where screenplays differ from real life. Characters’ names need to be generally a little more differentiated unless there’s some reason why they’re very similar.

It’s inconceivable that the police would allow the houseboat to be burned two weeks after finding out it had so much evidence of so many murders in it. The police would most likely have confiscated the entire boat as evidence. There would no doubt be tons of evidence to help find the identities of who knows how many missing women. I doubt it would be getting burned. I also doubt very seriously that pathologists could distinguish between twelve women’s skeletons and one male skeleton in only two weeks. Nor do I think they would date the bones of fourteen skeletons that quickly either. Maybe a year later.

At the end, when Officer Mike and Peter were talking about Mark and then his partner; none of that dialogue rang true for me. It all sounded forced, rushed, and insincere.

Another big problem with the story is that Peter is passive. Yes, he tries to find his wife. And accidentally finding her is fine. But - after he finds her - he’s completely passive in the situation. A wounded police officer has to miraculously turn up and save the day - a character who wasn’t really in the script up to that point and wasn’t developed in any way. He was essentially Cop One until he shows up to save the day. Then it’s like there was an attempt to develop him quickly at the end. It was like you said, oh hey I’ve got this new character emerging with this cop; I’d better give him some meatier lines.

This story had the distinct feel of being a work in progress. It had some good writing in it but it was ultimately just too underdeveloped.


Breanne

Premise:  Fairly strong, the hunter luring new victims. 7/10

Relation to theme:  More of a slasher than a thriller? Perhaps but I'll let you sneak in. You used the boat.  6/10

Story: A bit "by the numbers", it was short on originality and there were some flaws of logic, such as the boat being burnt. It wasn't terrible, but some of the writing was slightly weak.  5/10

I think this was pretty good for a one week script.

I was on the edge of my chair during a lot of it, and when he said "Wonderful catch", well that just creeped me totally out.

I agree with the others about buring the boat. They should just turn it over to the cops.

Cindy

Hmm. Okay this one was I guess. Didn't float my boat though. (I know, it's probably been used already.) ;D

It wasn't terribly original. The whole luring and hunting thing I found bad. Not my kind of story and something I've definitely seen before. I expected more I guess. The whole buying of the boat from Ebay was a good idea and the villain was a nicely done character but I didn't like it I'm afraid.

The writing wasn't bad. Could be a lot better though I reckon. Dialogue was fine also. Mark's was the best I think. Others were normal. Nothing exciting or new though. A little disappointing. Still...

Idea: 6/10
Relation to Theme and Genre: 7/10
Overall: 5.5/10

Not my cup of gravy.

Jamie

Formatting: Good
Actions: Ok.  Occasionally poor - such as 'he rapes her'.
Characters:  Ok.  Some backstory - no distinctive traits thought.
Dialogue:  OK.  A bit on the nose most of the time.
Story: Good.  The story was not unusual but it wasn't bad either.  You even threw some suspense in.  

I feel like if I had read this earlier, I would have had a different opinion about it. The writing is decent and I haven't seen the hunting theme anywhere else. Overall, it's a pretty good fit as far as the OWC goes. My only gripe would be the cops came off as a little incompetent. Unfortunately, I wasn't really able to enjoy this one for the sake that there's been so many others with bound-and-gagged females, rednecks, and victims suspended over water. This felt like a hodgepodge of various other entries. Of course, the same could be said about the others. It's not intentional, of course. I'm pretty sure you didn't expect things to turn out like this but from a reader's standpoint, it's a little tedious to read the same script over and over again, especially when there's forty OWC entries in total.

Overall, I couldn't get into this one but it's not really the fault of the script itself.

I thought this was mediocre at best.  I'm getting bored of reading scripts about hick guys who rape innocent young women.  It's the plot of almost every horror movie you see and, as in this case, it allows for lazy character development and little else.  

People tired of hunting animals so they hunt humans.  See: "Most Dangerous Game."  Tired.  

awkward and stilted dialogue in places.

p.7 typo -- peter shows up but you wrote "john" emerges from the van

a night search is impossible for the cops?  c'mon.  flashlights have since been invented.

The speech Mark gives to explain himself on p. 14 is the typical "this is why I am who I am" speech, and it doesn't even make sense since you set Mark as a child up as an innocent kid.  how did he go from innocent to "getting off on" watching killings?  now, that might've been an interesting story...

sorry if this is harsh, because I think you structured this thing well, but the content needs help.  The second rape flashback is also a bit unnecessary --we don't learn anything we don't already know.    

I really liked the logline on this one.  It has a good beginning and it didn't have any typos that I could see.

I think the trouble with it is the fact that it blends in with how many other scripts like it.

After awhile, these stories all look alike and the only thing we remember are the characters.  So I just don't feel like originality is coming through here.

A couple of small things to mention: Someone usually knows to bring a pot to boil first before dropping in the vegetables.

At the end, Officer Mike, is shown to be grinning.  I just don't see how that can be.  Yes, it's a good thing that they finally caught the guy, but I can't see him grinning.  He might look relieved I'd think, not cheery faced.

Also, I can't see him asking the question: Why burn the boat?  That's obvious.  The question should be: "Why wouldn't you burn the boat?"

There wasn't a lot of time to do this, so that has to be taken into account.

This was a nice effort I think.

A good looking script.

Sandra

  

  

Liked the title. Seems that after Thomas and Julianne were killed, someone would have started looking for them. I'd imagine they'd be looking at the lake, especially around the docks.
Mark would've known they were coming. I think also Peter would have introduced his wife as Susan, instead of the more informal Susie, especially as this guy is coming off a bit creepy.
I wouldn't leave my wife alone in the woods with that guy out there.
Pete's also a pretty easy sell. I'd have HIM running down the hardware store, fixing the lock, cleaning off the boat before he got a nickel out of me. $500 bucks is $500 bucks, y'know?
We hear a gunshot and a man scream. Who was that screaming? Mark to set her up? Might explain that action.
John's line to the poor woman of the "hunt is about to begin"? Hunt for what? Seems like the "hunt" is well over at this point.
The Police aren't to bright. Sure, they can search at night. They got flashlights, dogs, helicopters, boats...They'd start looking.
Susie is a wimp. For once I'd like to see a woman victim get midevel on these abusive rape guys.
Anyway, they wouldn't have burned the boat, looking for additional DNA of those that might not match the skeletons beneath the boat.
Also, If Peter was in the water up to his waist, that's pretty shallow. He'd be stepping on all those bones.
Officer Mike wouldn't be grinning at the end, as he's still be torn up emotionally by the death of his fallen comrade.
I hope these thoughts might be helpfull to you.

Hey Elis,

I thought this was pretty tense.  All the elements were there and it was well written.  I do think that the story could be condensed a little though.  For the purposes of this exercise I think you might have been a little too ambitious.  It actually reads like a treatment for a much larger story.  If you focused the attention a few key scenes then I think it would have played better as a short story.  

I liked the senario you created - purchasing a boat on-line and it being used to lure people into a trap.  I also like how it ended.  Maybe one week isn't enough time to pass though.  I might change that to maybe a month or even a year.  That last line did make me smile.  It's also nice to see the victim (one of them anyway) survive for once.  

Thank you all for taking the time to read the script. All reviews were appreciated even yours Zack!

There were a lot of nice pieces to this.  I laughed at the "I hate boats.  And you hate water" line.  I also liked that both intended victims survive, though I alos agree that it would have been nice if Susie, her hackles already up, had fought back some.  That could even have been part of the "hunt," which I'll bet Mark would have liked.  That would've been tough given the limitations on time and length, but maybe this could have been more from her P.O.V. than Peter's.

I was also taken aback, though, by the simple "John laughs and rapes her" line.  No, I do not want a gratuitous description, but it could have been done, perhaps, off screen but getting the point across.  Or something like that.  I'm also confused as to what Mark was doing, was he taking up what John was doing?  Was he getting off on this at three years old?  Can that happen?  Why was he drowning as opposed to knifing?  Again, I think with this done from Susie's P.O.V., this could be clearer.  And that could make for a better piece, because the writing is there.  I was still gripped despite the confusion.  I look forward to more.

Thanks EBurke73,

All points taken.
I agree the rushness of the OWC and the limit of the script played a big part in a few things that I omitted.
I am rewriting, including the rape scene as well as making the background on John a little clearer.
I appreciate your feed back and thank you for reading the script.
Cheers,
Elisabeth
Sorry I took a while to thank you. I didn't realize anyone else would read the script after the winning one had been picked.