A Moment of Madness by Marcello Degliuomini (Reel-truth) - Short, Horror - Unexpected violence grips the riders of a subway train, during a mid-day rush. 13 pages - pdf, format 8)

Hey Marcello,

You've got a good premise here, a good twist at the end, too.  I enjoyed it.  However, your typos almost took me out of the story.  Not to be harsh, but this is very sloppy.  You need to clean it up.  Your action blocks are okay, but sometimes disjointed.  Some would do better with a comma rather than two sentences.  But otherwise it's okay.

I think your dialogue got better from your last script, but in the longer passages I'm still noticing...  ...  ...!  So unnecessary, Marcello!  A simple period will do!

Story-wise, what I didn't like was 1/2 live, 1/2 die.  As a plot device it sounds too contrived, and reminded me immediately of The Dark Knight.  I'd think of another way to go about it, perhaps something more final.  All of you will die!

The other thing I didn't like was that he didn't just kill Kate, he killed a bunch of other people.  I think your story loses impact there, because him killing Kate made me stand up and notice.  It's almost like you devalue Kate's death by having a few others meet the same fate.  And BTW, if that really were to happen wouldn't a bunch of passengers immediately be on top of this guy instead of giving him the chance to kill a few others?

Anyway, very good effort here!  Hope this helps.

Steve

This one really didn't do anything for me.  I felt like an excercise in violence.  Your characters were two-dimensional and their dialog was extremely artificial.

Quoted Text        MUSCLE MAN I got these two fists. Been in plenty of battles. They haven't let me down yet.

Quoted Text       MICHAEL Prey for the best, prepare for the worst.

People just don't talk like this.


You describe things in unfilmable ways:

Quoted Text An elevated rail station, one of the largest in the world, hosting four subway lines. This is the begin and end point of the new york city transit subway system.

Based on a quick shot of the station, we're supposed to know that this is one of the largest in the world?  And the beginning and ending point of the subway system (I would've figured Times Square or Grand Central Station as such...)


SPOILER SPACE!!
SPOILER SPACE!!
SPOILER SPACE!!

I'm not sure what happened at the end.  Was Michael tripping when he killed Kate?  A psychotic episode?

What you may want to consider is making Michael and Kate (and a few others) the only ones on the train.  The conductor announces that only can survive the ride.  After he kills the other nameless ones, M & K start talking to each other, realizing their fate.

Develop tyheir characters more, so we're concerned what happens to them.  Everyone dying had no impact on me as I invested no feelings in them.

Hope this helps.


Phil

Hey guys thanks for the feedback

Steve to your point, I did notice it was sounding awfully similar to the dark knight boat sequence. I originally did have the conductor say, That they were ALL gonna' die. I changed that along the way. I think at that point I wasn't sure where I was taking the story. But once I thought of the ending, I kept it in. Figuring it doesn't matter, because of what happens at the end.

(STEVEN QUOTE)
The other thing I didn't like was that he didn't just kill Kate, he killed a bunch of other people.  I think your story loses impact there, because him killing Kate made me stand up and notice.  It's almost like you devalue Kate's death by having a few others meet the same fate. ....

I'm not sure you entirely understood what happened at the end.

SPOILER!
Michael never killed anyone else. Just Kate.  She is the only one that died.


Dogglebe...

Your right, it really was an exercise in violence...Just with a twist at the end.

The dialogue being extremely artificial, Not sure I agree with that. It definitely wasn't my best. But extremely, that might be a bit.....extreme...lol

As for the elevated rail station, one of the largest in the world.  We started high above the wonder wheel. Maybe I should have added PAN to station..and from an elevated view you would be able to see the station on a grand scale. But I just thought that camera directions were a no non in specs.

As for you figuring times square and grand central station being the beginning and end point, you would be wrong. Keep in mind it's an elevated station. Those two are underground. The Coney island Stillwell station is above ground, and is a start point for the trains. Times square is major junction, not a start or end point.

So...about the ending

SPOLIER!

Personally I thought of him having some kind of psychotic episode. In Michael's opening dialogue I indicate that he had just picked up an "iffy batch"...But without giving too much away, I left it at that.

Or...It could have been a very lucid dream, that he acted out toward the end. If you look back, he closed his eyes before the switch. Before, things started getting really crazy.

I guess the reason I kept to many ppl in the train as opposed to just a few. Which would have definitely served my story better with character development, Was that I had a few visuals in my head, that I wanted to put in the story. PPL falling out the train doors while it was moving...that was one.. And the fact that they can see ppl in the next car over, being butchered and knowing that they were up next. That level of intensity I wanted to translate in to he script. I guess it probably didn't come off as well as I hoped.

But thanks again for the review and feedback.

Marcello