Can't Scare Me by Brian Howell (reuel51) - Short -  A macho guy sets out into the woods, alone, to prove that he can't get scared.

A February 2011 One Week Challenge script. - pdf, format 8)

Notes as I go.

- Your first block is too big. You use large twice. Reword and rework so it's tighter.

- Where did you get these names? Did you consider whether the actors could easily pronounce these names and how they would sound? I like them though. :)

- 'Have you seen my mommy' a Dr. Who nod, in a horror? Well that was a horror episode.

- Nice horror set up by page 3.

The extra twist might be overboard, but I'm alright with it. So the washer woman was warning him about the vampires. I think the theme of this round is water faeries and vampires.

Nicely written little short. I'm not sure how the vampires fit in with the washer woman story. I think you need more of a twist. By the time he sets out to the woods, it's a little too obvious given the information from the previous conversation how this might play out. If they were all involved it would make more sense, especially in the context of Catriona and Duncan's conversation. Why would a vampire go out that long with Duncan, just to get Lachlan??
I think you could have thrown a few 'what if' senarios in here . . . like what if Duncan was faking and was really a vampire hunter and Lachlan turned out to be the real wimp who needs to be rescued?

Overall, enjoyable. Great job on completing the OWC.

This one didn't do too much for me.   It was just "ok" but probably more so because I'm getting burned out on this celtic folklore thing already.   I need to go read a good comedy or rom/com.   So, not the writer's fault.  On a plus side, there was plenty of white space in this script.  Good job on that.  

Congrats on completing the OWC.

I wasn't a huge fan of the ending and I didn't quite get the melding of two myths.  It just didn't seem to gel.  

It was a quick read.  Nice effort.

Average impact * names authentic sounding to me * the campfire tale mentioned blood and the story was about blood * no excitement from exclamation marks in the narrative * title was cool for a horror type move * the wash lady’s singing while authentic sounding was hard to figure out * my favorite line

“Lachlan looks petrified, but he sprints across the woods.”

*Spoilers*

Not bad, even if the twist at the end wasn't completely unexpected.  (Though I didn't suspect that Catronia was in on it, too.  To lay additional groundwork, you might want to have the girls mention that Malvenia and Lachan are a new item as well...maybe introduced by Catronia?)  

Nice visuals with the washing woman, and the song was a nice authentic touch.  The banter at the beginning was nicely done as well -  snappy.  

Cheers on the OWC...!

Good on you for getting something done for the OWC.
This one reads well enough but feels like an uneasy hybrid of mythologies.
The old crone and the sexy vamps didn't gel for me.
We don't get any creepy goods until two thirds of the script is expended.
A competent effort, but it didn't make a distinct impression suitable for filming.

E.D.

This one was just okay.

Pretty basic setup.  I remember reading a bunch of "I'm not afraid" scripts for the last OWC.  I definitely think you could have gone down a less traveled concept.   The washer woman and the vampires were cool but I didn't get the connection.  I just reread her song and I still don't get it.  I like her inclusion, but for what purpose I'm not sure.

Overall I do like the mythological stuff but I don't like how they were involved.  The setup has just been done so many times that it did absolutely nothing for me except for knowing what was coming; dude thinks he's tough, dude does something to prove his toughness, something happens to show dude isn't that tough after all...and then he gets bitten by a vampire which I didn't see coming but I would have liked a better route to the finale.  

Nice effort though.

Greg

To echo what's already been said...didn't care for the ending.  The set up was fine, and the story zipped right along.  Just hoping for a more creative twist, I suppose.  I'm not gonna lie, with the wilderness setting, I was hoping for one of those Fear Liath bigfoot things to make an appearance.  Maybe next script.

The macho guy got scared almost a little too easily.  I wish you spent more time on his growing fear and a bit less on the Washer Woman's lyrics.

But this had a direct, straight forward approach I liked.  Good work for one week.

I thought the image of the washer woman was top notch. The way she looked, the speaking in an old tongue that we could not really understand, the bloody clothes.

I suspect the other parts of the story are tied in in ways I don't understand. If they are, and the explanation makes sense(in a supernatural way of course), and I can be made to understand...then I might really like this story.

Some things I need tied together: the old spirit woman, the vampires, and the scream while he was getting water.  I also see the girl has been dating Lachlan for a few weeks. So they have been dating just to set up a meal? And how do they work with the woman?

They only way I could make sense was that something took over the bodies of the girls when then were in the woods, something related to the old woman. OR, maybe the old woman appears when someone is going to die? Yes! That's it. Ok, makes sense to me now. Only part that still does not was, as I said, why date someone for a couple weeks then drink his blood? So maybe this would work better if they met that night at a pub or something.

Getting tired, last story today I hope, but now that I figured this out I like it. The old lady was def cool; good writing; dialogue worked. Hmm. This could actually be today's winner! With some more work on this, this could be the best to produce. There were a couple good ones yesterday that I think might be to hard to film. This would be easy to film.  

- I thought guys in their 20's camping was a myth made up by Hollywood.  More over, brag about not being scared when they do it.  Strange...

- Your 1st block is only 1 word too long or 10 words too short.  Some would call what you have an "orphan", and they'd probably be right.  But it's not unheard of to have a 4 line action brick.  You just want to either

A) Make it more 4 lines than more 3.5 lines. (if you catch my drift)
B) Make it interesting when you do decide to make it that long.
C) Make sure you don't recycle the same words in them.

You can have a 4 lined action brick, that's fine... Just don't over do them and try to make sure you can break your actions down into as little as possible.  Give us 2 or 3 things of importance for each instance and move on.

- Double space after your periods.  <--Like I just did.

- There's the promise of suspense and horror, but it never really, to me, pays off.  You mashed a few mythologies together, we get the creepy old haggish lady and the
the vampires, but why?  The whole story seems like a random event of something that'd never take place to begin with.

In fact, you could show big foot a picture of these "20 somethings" camping and even he'd question its authenticity.  And that's kind of how I feel about your overall script here... I'm questioning the authenticity and worth to the genre.

A nice thrilling story. I haven't expected this twist which is good but it was almost too easy. They are at a campfire and ate each other...

It's still interesting. Very easy to read. The last scene - you showed Malvina, then Catriona in the same paragraph when they were far from each other otherwise Lanchton would have seen Duncan.

I liked the song and it sounds very eerie.
Nice job, I think.

A good tale about machismo. It would be nice to see this more developed.

I'm thinking I'd like to see Duncan, who looks outdoorsy but is the scaredy cat of the bunch, wind up saving Lachlan.

Congrats for completing the challenge.

Sandra

Quoted from Baltis. - Double space after your periods.  <--Like I just did.

No don't. That's old school. When I did an an article for a paper, I was told not to do that.

However, there may be different rules depending upon who you're submitting to and what you're submitting.

Save a space, buy a farm.  ;D

Sandra

Hi, William

Gotta do the FADE IN: left justified and FADE OUT: right justified thing. Sorry.

Nice little campfire story.
Wish it was more horror and less spook-the-braggart. He spends too much time running about being spooked.
Seems to end rather abruptly.

Still, it's nice.   :)

Good effort - neat writing, it flowed well.

Probably could cut a page and a bit off it - some of the dialogue could go, but overall i really dug it.

I enjoyed the first half of this script, didn't much like the ending, it felt forced and somewhat offensive; freaky for its own sake.  Maybe I've just read too many of these OWC scripts.

Damn, my entire post got wiped out, so here goes again.

Not bad at all, but not too good either.  There are things that work and things that don't. Let's look at them...

Title and logline are absolutely terrible to the point where they may have skewed my opinion.  If time constraints are the reason here, I understand, but if not...change them both immidiately!  The logline especially is just so cheesy, juvenile, and downright poor.

As others have already pointed out, the biggest issue here is the setup and logic flaws.  For this to work and make sesne, the 2 girls cannot already have relationships with the 2 guys.  Just doesn't make sesne and this is really what sinks this ship.

Dialogue isn't good and it's also very meaningless banter for much of the script.  It comes off as cheesy and juvenile and just doesn't fit the tone here, IMO.

A bunch of typos and punctuation errors, but not horrid for a week's worth of time.

Things definitely pick up once Lachlin goes into the woods.  This section could be written better, though, and I think a rewrite will really help.

The Old Washer's dialogue is well done and researched.  It sounds authentic to me, but I have no clue what she's singing about.

I actually like the end twist, but again, for it to work and make sense, the setup has to be changed and corrected.

Not bad overall.  Solid OWC entry.  Congrats.  

This is a solid simple story that has some good chills in it.

These are notes I made as I read:

Your title sounds like fighting talk!

Pg 1 – I like the beginning. Starting in the middle of something gives it energy.

Pg 4 – I think I’m about half way through and the discussion has been okay, but it has only been discussion.

Pg 6 – Now this has become chilling.

Pg 8 – The twist in this felt quite predictable, but the singing thing works well.


Philip

I thought this was pretty good. Combination of two legends no less. The banshee and the sith.

I liked the washing women's rhythmic chants. They were well done. I just don't get why Mal sent him to the river. The girls had their meal right in front of them. Also, I didn't get the jingling. That may have been a part of the legend I've missed.

All in all, nice work. Good job writing a script in a week.

James

Despite the cliche set up of two young couples in the woods, I actually like the banter in the beginning.  The creepiness of the lady by the river and her mostly (seemingly) non-sensical ramblings in song were nice elements.  I agree with the reviewer who said Lachlan gets scared too quickly.  Because of this there is less of a build up before the climax.  I like the approach; A suspenseful build up crescendos into an all out panic until the girl finds him on the ground... you have the brief period of relief, the audience settles in as your character does and once his/their guard is down, she literally goes for the jugular.  I just don't think there was enough of a build up for the payoff to have the impact that you were trying to achieve.

Pros

Simple, well told story.

Nice work with the songs.

Interesting mix of myths.

Cons

Bit TOO simple...not enough meat.

Thank You everyone for the feedback.

These characters have really weird names.

Having Malvina be sort of bitchy in this scenario is fine, but you really need to give her some reason to be that way.  What is motivating her to argue about something so silly?  It is a lost opportunity to inject her with some character.

The song you give the washer women is appropriately creepy.  Feels authentic, as if there were some actual research behind it, which is always great to see.

Where are all of these shrieks coming from?  And what are they adding to this story?   I think on film they would just appear weird and random, without purpose.

And the tale turns on a dime, as the twist appears out of nowhere, and our old Washer Woman is hung out to dry.  She was the creepiest character out there, but ultimately, she was given nothing to do!

The end is alright, I suppose, but I kind of felt ripped off when you did not even use the old woman, and I thought this might have been better if you had.

I just wanted to thank everyone again who read and commented on this. I tried combining two myths and some things worked, many things didn't. This was a rushed draft, and I'll let it simmer for a while and then tinker with it a little more. Horror is NOT my genre, so I took this as a chance to branch out. I had a good time.

And, if I haven't read your script and you read mine, I promise I'll be getting to it. I'm in charge of a small stage production for a youth church group (by in charge I mean writing, directing and producing). In one week, that will be over and I'll have some more time to participate more on this site.

Thanks,
Brian