Demons by Adam Blockton - Short, Sci Fi, Horror - After twenty years, Julian returns home after the death of his father. As Julian cleans the farmhouse, to get it ready to sell, he discovers clues that remind him about "The Hopkinsville Demons" a local legend from the 1950's about monsters who would take kids in the middle of the night. He finds journals and 8MM films (along with a mysterious, metal door) that begin to make him wonder if the stories were true.   16 pages - pdf, format 8)

Every horror/mystery fan, not reviewing this, is missing an absolute gem. I liked the script. So much potentials. But feedback is anything but kind, pointless words, so let's get down to business.

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Logline:
A father, cleaning an newly inherited house, finds that he may lose his family if he doesn't solve the mystery of his mother disappearance when he was a child.

Summary:
After inheriting a house from his father, who kicked him out when he was young, Julian has to clean and prepare it for sale and leave as soon as possible. But when he finds a footage of a shootout that took place in the house decades ago, he starts to investigate what really happened the night his mother disappeared. With the help of his father and grand father journals, Julian realizes that whoever been hunting his family for generations, still needs something from them. Something that might put an end to this demonic threat, before his wife and son arrives.

Overall:
It's certainly a good piece of horror. I like the atmosphere, the mystery, and the ending. However, the characters needs more work, and the wrong pace is damaging the structure and giving this concept less suspense than it deserves.

Style:
It's clear and fairly straight to the point most of the time. But it's better if you stick to present tense: "has been cleaning" and "is throwing" for examples could have been avoided. But there wasn't really anything that stood out and took me out of the story, which is a good thing.

Dialogue:
You seem to know what you're doing. None of the lines was memorable or anything. It wasn't bad but it wasn't great either. But the essence of the problem is the character himself. I'll be addressing that in a moment. Also, some lines when he was talking to himself and explaining things to us was really unnecessary and felt a bit on the nose. Like: "Hopkinsville Demons..." and "This isn’t his handwriting. My Grandfather."

Characters:
Julian was an ordinary fella. Very ordinary actually. His lines was predictable. There was nothing witty, humorous, or interesting about them. For example:

Code I have a gun. I’ve used it before and I’m not afraid to use it again.

Everybody says that. Yes, it's a common thing to say for intruders, but Julian was always saying common things. Another example:

Code Hey babe. Sorry I missed your call.

I know what you're thinking: what else to say? But Julian didn't have a chance to talk much but every time he opened his mouth he said what regular Joe would have said. Give him a personality. His own set of words. Russel was the character with the best lines in the whole script. You need to make your characters stand out from the crowd.

Structure
Here lies the real problem of the script. I'll summarize it like this:
A slow march toward Julian realizing the imminent threat, then a quick a jump to the solution. I felt only a jolt of suspense during the whole script.

What you need to do:
Julian will start investigating the mystery early in the script. As he does so, signs of the possibility that they may be after his son too will flicker every now and then. By the middle of the script, Julian have no doubt that his son is next.

Now, he must know what they're really after. From that point, the mystery has stakes to it. You get the ticking bomb effect. His family is on their way, and he has to solve this puzzle. Make as close to danger as possible during that second half.

Don't make the solution as clear as day light. I mean his family wasn't smart enough to realize that returning the body may solve the problem? Give me a break. So the body is hidden somewhere. And Julian last hope is to actually find it.

Maybe a crazy priest took him to a church, this is why the demons couldn't retrieve it. What matters is Julian struggle toward the solution needs to be as hard as you can make it. He may even be a little late. So they take his son before he finds the body. And after he gives them what they want, he will just hope his son will return.

Conclusion:
Stuff as much suspense as you could in this story, and make Julian a well rounded character with his own personality, and you will have a winner.

Good luck.