Infatuation by Michael K. Snyder - Short, Horror - After Hal's wife disappears, he receives sympathy from friends and family. Soon we learn, that Hal is hiding the secret of his wife's disappearance. 6 pages - pdf, format 8)

Beware the FADE IN police!
A six page short still needs it, and a title page would be nice.

The characters are fine, but Steve and Hal should do other actions other than 'looks' here or there' looks away' from here or there etc. As far as I know they are just standing still, and if they are just looking around, bored and impatient, at least use different word or two. The FLASHBACK in the garage is a bit tricky since you have REAL TIME GARAGE when we get to scene. I understand what your intention is; but that's the incorrect use of the header, for it is the same garage. Perhaps if you wanted to contrast the before and after there are ways visually you can do it (time of day for example) ;b]if[/b] you really needed the flashbacks. It's near the end of the short script, I suppose it is fine in that regard. There have been many mysteries, horrors and thrillers that do that sort of thing. But I don't think showing the demise of a character isn't all necessary. The actions in the "real time" are effective without it.

-DjS

heya, couldnt resist reading this one, i enjoy my horror and the six pages didnt take a whole lot of time out of my day haha.

though it was for the most part pretty predictable, i thought it was quite well written as far as dialogue and characters go. however i do have a few criticisms.

i wasnt a fan of the flashback sequences, i thought they were unneccesary depictions of violence, and didnt strengthen the script in anyway. real time, in my opinion, would have been far more effective for this one.

my primary concern however, was hal's descent into insanity being far too rapid. he should sweat it out for a bit, let the voice build up and become more and more sinister. flesh out the ending better, add a bit of pacing, and whole short will be far better for it.

First things first: Formatting.  
Whenever we change location, even if it's room to room, you need a complete slugline.  "INT. HOUSE - LIVING ROOM - DAY"  If he goes to the bedroom, for example, you can say "INT. HOUSE - BEDROOM - DAY", or just "INT. BEDROOM - DAY"  The important thing is that you stay consistent.  You shouldn't just put "GARAGE" or "LIVING ROOM" in the slugline, unless this is a studio apartment and it's all one room, then it's probably okay.

As for the flashbacks, here's my suggestion.  Instead of putting flashback in the slugline, put "FLASHBACK TO:" as a transition, flush right.  Then when you come back to real-time, put "BACK TO PRESENT:" as a transition.  You must still use sluglines, though.  Example:

                                                             FLASHBACK TO:
INT. GARAGE - DAY
blahblahblah
                                                             BACK TO PRESENT:
INT. GARAGE - DAY

That's what I do, and it works pretty well.  Don't put "CONTD" in a slugline, though.

Spelling:
-Page 5: I think you meant "fury" instead of "furry," and "viciously" not "viscously."

Plot:
I like this.  The dialogue is good, particularly at the beginning.  Personally, I'm a minimalist, so I'd prefer if Hal said a little less on pages 5 & 6.  Also, we can figure out that it's his wife in the freezer - you really don't have to show us her body parts, fingers in baggies, etc.  Maybe just show us some long hair peeking out between the ice packs.  Again, minimalist.  

I'm imagining a "Tarantino Trunk Shot" of Hal looking in the freezer, if you know what I mean (but that's camera direction, so I wouldn't write that into the script).

I hope this is helpful!  Keep writing & be well.

This felt less like a stand alone short and more like the surprise ending of a feature. By itself it is not surprising or satisfying from a story perspective.

The writing is good, but the opening conversation fell a little flat for me. The garage scene kept me interested even though I knew where it was going.

I would expand this on the front end, maybe add some misdirection.

Thanks for posting.

Nice short here.

It definitely satisfies the creepy factor, even though your logline pretty much tells the story.

In the conversation between Steve and Hal it seems like Hal would be the one saying she might not come home Steve would the optimistic one about her coming back.

Also Hal says the police will stop looking after a month. Isn't their cold cases that are open for decades?

Formatting things have all been said. For the flashback, just place it in the heading.

INT. GARAGE - FLASHBACK

INT. GARAGE - PRESENT

I disagree with FADE IN and FADE OUT. I was taught that FADE's are old school writing. We know we are coming into the story and vise versa. FADE IN is just stating the obviously and wasting good page space.

Just my opinion. If you have it in or not, it's not a game changer.

Hi,
Read your story. It's creepy enough to keep a reader engaged I think.

Steve and Hal's dialog at the beginning went a bit long, I think.

Also I couldn't voice out some of Hal's lines at the end for example here "I’m so glad you could stay. I was becoming very lonely, and all I ever wanted was for you to stay here with me." - he sounds a bit unnatural to me.

I think their conversation could be even funny and quirky. Also, Hal could says something about Beth when talking to Steve and then make fun of it in his conversation with Beth... - he did say something about the park, how she loved it there, why not to play on it in his conversation with Beth...--just a suggestion

creepy!

I enjoyed reading this. It was good. The only thing I can think of that may make it a bit more interesting is if there were more hidden until the end. I didn't mind the flashbacks, infact, I liked them visually. Good work IMO.

If it's a scene element, occurring within a scene, then:
FLASHBACK
Blah blah
END FLASHBACK / BACK TO SCENE
Seems to be fine.

If the flashback is a separate scene in itself, then flashback can appear in the slug, with either END etc ending it, or being indicated within the new slug (INT. WHERE etc BACK TO PRESENT) etc.

This was great. I enjoyed reading this a lot. The dialogue flows really well between Steve and Hal. This would also be easy to film too if he didn't pull out half the body parts from the freezer. Maybe he just takes out her head or even just the fingers and other small body parts. If he does that, you might get a better chance of someone wanting to produce this.

But overall, nicely written.