Demon.Star.31 by Great Dane - Short, Horror - Neo Alchemists open a portal to Hell on a space shuttle orbitting Earth. (R ) - pdf, format 8)

>:( Title page.  >:( Don't try to be gimmicky. It sets off a red flag, waving on high. Sure enough, Sojourner's dialog to her daughter on page 2 is grating and I'm thinking about getting out of the script...

wait a minute.
Hmmm...cult coven on shuttle. Summon alien demon....okay...I'll stick with it.
And I'm glad I did. The script does get better as it goes along. You got this Alien vibe going down, and that's clever in the OWC. I was a skeptoc. You made me a believer. Great job! One of my favorites.

A lot of things give me problems in this. I don't get why the captain allows the ritual aboard her ship, Halloween or not. Or the purpose of the naked flayed woman, who is unaffected by the "vacuous" forces of space. Vacuous? Why are the stars at the beginning "dying"? And if the ship is in orbit around Earth, it certainly can't be "drifting through the stars" (unless I'm misreading something). The exo-skeleton monsters seem taken right out of Alien. A lot of it's-its misuse. The single-sentence action lines are monotonous.

I was waiting for a sci-fi take on this challenge.  I hope this one delivers.  The opening image was rather confusing.  I had to reread to make sure.  A nude woman emerges right in the middle of space?  Couldn't figure out how that related to the rest of the tale.  

In my experience, it's always a mistake to stock your space shuttle crew with Neo-Alchemists.  But, that's just me.  Some deeper explanation here would have gone a long way.  Why were the Alchemists on this mission?  Only to perform this ritual?  It would have made more sense to me if maybe only one of the crew members was an Alchemist and the rest of the innocent crew were slaughtered by the demons.

I like the Lovecraftian imagery with the interdimensional sea monster demons.  The action did feel a bit repetitive toward the end there, although a nice nod to Alien.

Overall, an imaginative entry, but needs to be tightened up more, IMO.

Can see the opening throwing off a lot of readers, not entirely sure I understand it myself (at least clearly). I remember reading Under the Skin a while back, had a similar start to this.

"exiting this portal to another world." Avoid this, mostly because it doesn't make much sense in screenwriting.

Signs of Moon as well with the wife/daughter.

A few little mistakes popping up, but it's a week's effort.

"The ritual has opened a dimensional bridge to Hell." Might get a lot of flak for this, again, avoid it unless necessary.

"Fuck. The Alchemists. That ritual.
I told them not-- Computer." lol. Have you ever seen Sunshine? Notice how Garland never does this with Pinbacker? It just doesn't read well. Also give the computer a name, and the shuttle too.

Really don't have much clue what's going on with the Flayed women, might need to make the visuals a little clearer methinks.

Not a fan of this unfortunately. There's a distinct broken style to the writing which made it hard to get through, almost like it was stumbling through and jumping between descriptions without much flow. It's hard to explain.

The problem with weak horrors are that the characters suffer for the sake of suffering, which has its place but with a short like this, I think you're going about it the wrong way. There's five pages of fluff at the beginning where nothing happens more than half a page that concerns the story later on, you tell me she has a wife and daughter but that's just brushed off like nothing since it doesn't have anything to do with the story you want to tell. Think of Moon, the interaction was important. Think of Sunshine, the interaction with Capa's sister was half a page at most and it was most definitely payed off at the end.

I think what I'm trying to say is that there needs to be a plot that doesn't simply rely on gore, tricks, and monsters. At least in Alien, the goal was simple, kill the Alien, but here, it's kind of stumbling for direction. If you were to make the goal something as clear as just destroying the portal, then make it explicit and centre the story around just that.

Good luck!

There has to be a quicker way of doing this. I'm half way through and almost falling asleep. I don't know why the computer can't talk, maybe I missed it. But my phone can do it. So long as it is plugged into a power source I can call her hands free... hey siri, suck one you dizzy bitch.

I don't know what you mean, Dustin.

Yes you do siri, yes you do.

Not one for me. The computer needs to be able to talk or have some way of this being disabled to work, IMO. Don't forget AI can exist in a bracelet too. If they're flying around in space, AI would be shit hot.

From the very beginning you have "exiting the portal to another world" - and I have no idea what I'm supposed to see here. Does she walk through a tunnel, exits and is surprised by what she sees? I don't know it's another world, and what exactly she exits, what the portal is...

You have a lot of description which you can omit in my opinion and the script won't suffer if you do.
Like here on p1 "Delicate fingers trace along cracks in a mirror. Sojourne's sad reflection stares back.."
There are four lines after this and I am not really sure if you need them.
I think you could start the scene with "She slide a hand across the panel in a mirror. The panel opens"
Then Sojourne tells them about neo alchemists and I'm not sure what she's talking about.
There's a lot of unnecessary (IMO) description on p3 (a lot really).

And on pages to follow.

I don't want to complain much, but this one is not an easy read for me. It's also hard to visualise and understand for me. so, I'll leave my comment to the script at that.

I think the best thing to do is not to listen to me. I'm not a big fan of atmosphere and imagery and slow-building drama. I should have left it alone in the first place.

Lovecraft in Space. Certainly some potential there.

Some of the descriptions are a bit off, makes the reading a little confusing.

Tone is decent. Little bit cliché with the ominous grin at the start..felt. Too reminiscent of other stuff. In particular Angelina Jolie in Beowulf.

There's a distinctly Alien feel to the space shuttle. Not necessarily a bad thing, but it stands out.

Neo-Alchemy seems like a fun idea, though it would be good to get an idea of their mission.

Sojourner's dialogue felt off. Also, just something about her being there at all didn't feel right.

"Bloody flayed woman". Know how you feel. Skinless bitches, who do they think they are?.  :)  I think you're missing a comma there.

Made me think of Sunshine at that point.

Some good Event Horizon action after that, but then my mind started wandering. Was struggling to understand what Grace was all about.

The Wizard of OZ ending was really weird as well.

Dunno. Not for me, all in all. There's a good story in there, somewhere, but I have few suggestions on how to find it.

Rick

This one blew my mind wide open… like it was right out of the pages of Heavy Metal, or some twisted dream of carnage Buckethead wanted to do as a prequel to his ‘Spokes for the Wheel of Torment’ video.

This is Hermes (Thrice Greatest), kicking Jung in the side of his head, and the effluence that came blowing forth from his ruptured temple, the dream paradigm, would become the concept of this Psychopomp lore… or something like that.

After you mentioned ‘Scarlet’, my mind was playing out a fusion of ‘Under the Skin’ and ‘Solaris’… nice. So many things going on here, that to even begin to mention them would seriously bloat this thread.

Even the title, the weight and spacing of the font, carries this early 80’s composition technique indigenous to alien lore of that era. Really creative, seriously!

Sorry, three times I have written this out abutmy ipad Loses it!

I do recognise the title font...is it you.. You know who?

So, to summarise, without the detail which was lost,  a heavy read that I wasnt  always sure who I was following

Difficult to say why, but something has to leap out, quickly. And when it does, we must follow it.

Lots of detail may may be good in the head, but not in the read. That's a sin I have as awell

All the best.

Deep down I think this could be good.

It seems you're trying to cram too much in and some of it just didn't fit.

I didn't get what was going on with the laughing woman at all.

By the end I was quite bored.

Having said that, the setting was good and creepy. The demons were also scary so you definitely have something to work with.

Although rushed and repetitious, I liked this a lot. Another entry I would love to watch.

The surreal nature of inside the vessel was good - red shoes and blue dress - but once the hull breach alarm went off, so did the story - it was fun. I gotta say, the sequence when she was asking the computer questions was intense, great use of dialogue. And to take it one step further, when she asked the computer if she was alive... oh my gosh, that was brilliant. Just waiting to see a red light or a green light had my eyes popping. Brilliant.

The creature could be done better, but I did like the swivel verb. Crazy stuff.

This script defiently no doubt needs touch-ups, a rewrite without the limitations of the challenge. It was highly enjoyable.

This one has a lot of good stuff going for it that makes it right up my alley. Others mentioned Alien (which is here of course), but the creature and the Neo-Alchemist ritual actually put me more in mind of Dead Space, which is not just the creepiest video game I ever played, it’s one of the creepiest things I’ve experienced period. So that was a good feeling to evoke.

I really like the end twist with the shuttle being forced back into Halloween night and there were a lot of other nice details along the way.

But I’m not sure it’s a fleshed out story yet. All the elements aren’t coming together. The family at the beginning doesn’t really factor in that much. Grace’s sacrifice would’ve meant more if we’d known her before that moment. And it felt like maybe there should be a more explicit connection/explanation for why there’s a crustaceous demon AND a flayed woman.

So great setting and atmosphere. Plot threads need tidying.

Notes as I read.

Nice image of the naked women coated in blood.

Exiting this portal to another world - bit of a 'tell' going on there and I notice that type of thing is repeated quite a lot.

Couldn't we have seen it split from the mother-ship, or take off?

The circle of suicidal women is an interesting image.

And then this big 'tell' -

The ritual has opened a dimensional bridge to Hell. We shouldn't have to be told this is what is happening it should be evident by the script. You're effectively telling the audience what they should be seeing.

It's nice and gory.

Some descriptions are awkward and others belong more in a novel than a screenplay.

A childish laughter shivers through her spine. Does that mean she laughed at that moment?

She sets aside emotion. How do we actually see that? That's another 'tell'.

Blink out of unison. That sounds odd to me - something's either in unison imo, or out of time. Least that's the way I see it.

In actuality, Those two words should be deleted. Read the sentence without these words and you'll see they're superfluous.

I'm scanning a little by page seven, sorry.

In summary - a lot of this reads quite well, there's some nice writing in part but there's way too much 'telling' the audience.

The main thing though is that it's a bit more than a nod to 'Alien' in my opinion with a little occult thrown in and a few different flourishes to meet the challenge.

Well she did tell them not to do the whole ritual thing…  Those neo-alchemists and pagan suicide rites…  

I like the setting, think you could have used it to update the portal element, have more fun with the concept -- though there is something to the offset of technology vs. primitive ritual...

You took the time to introduce your main character with the comm. link to earth and the whole Halloween element.  A bit of clunky exposition to bring us up to speed with how the rest of the crew like to mark the occasion, but otherwise this was going great.

Unfortunately the subsequent neo-alchemist suicide circle pretty much killed the chances of me taking anything else seriously enough to really be invested.  Some nice action and demon stuff but that portal angle needed to be set-up with a lot more care for me to get on board.  Not for me I suppose.

I have been looking forward to this one since it popped up on the list.

I think you have nailed the tone -- some say "Alien", but I am getting "Event Horizon" -- but the execution is flawed.

All of the puzzle pieces are there, but they are not fitting together quite right.  Part of the problem is Grace showing up out of nowhere, altering the course of this story like a ghost in the machine, vital but unimportant all at once.  Page limitations are likely a factor, but she needs more than you've given her.

I liked this piece more than I did not like it -- for sure -- and the surreal nature of this helps it along, with a style of writing that I enjoyed.  The one thing that threw me was the question about blankets or whatever that was.  I am not really opposed to that technique or anything, it just did not work in this instance, and I recommend that you jettison that line.

You should come back to this one when you have a chance.  Doctor it up a bit and do it proper.  

Bit confused, but liked the imagery of the skinless woman and the general, dark, claustrophobic alien feel to it...Particularly liked the coagulated blood of the victims rising in anti-gravity to form the portal for your cephalopodan demon to burst forth from...

All in all, easily 1 of the better entries.

There are some awkward phrasings, some overwriting, and some completely unnecessary asides, BUT...I can't help but enjoy this for exactly what it is and what it's meant to be.

Alot doesn't make sense, or just isn't explained, and if you had written what you wanted to in a leaner, meaner way, you'd probably have an extra 2 pages in which to describe these nasty Neo Alchemists, Grace, and just WTF they're doing on this shuttle, or what they're trying to accomplish and why.

There is too much repetition and you also repeated several words, lines, and descriptions to the point where it stood out...in a bad way.

BUT, it's ballsy, it's exciting, and it's actually a fresh take on this challenge, even though it does seem to channel Event Horizon and Alien(s).

It works for me and I give you Kudos for a prety well written and even conceived take on this difficult OWC.

Starting off with a quote from Hamlet. Rather audacious.

Struck me as quite well written. Sojourner's a weird name.

I think if the writer had given the computer a name then the dialogue would have worked better.

It's not bad. As others have said, it's hard not to picture Alien. And indeed Event Horizon.

I think this needs more story. The ritual business in space seems a stretch. I'd have bought it more if this was given a bit more background.

R  

I like the title page. Maybe I'm weird but if anything would make me remember a script or pick up a script to read, it would be something OUT of the ordinary. Thank you for that.

And I love a quote...I dunno why but I just like it..especially if it fits, really fits with the story.

Not sure if I am liking the bloody woman in the stars. That visual is a bit hard for me but I'm sure with a rewrite it would be more visually engaging for me.

Naked women...Sojourner in just underwear...bound to get some votes just for that (men)

When I read Sojourner's dialogue ...it feels to me like it needs some work. I do like the fact that you show relationships and build connections between the characters. Family. That stuff is so instinctual.

I feel like this needs a rewrite...the descriptions are a bit confusing and the ritual needs to be shown instead of told imo. Everyone is going to say you copied Alien...but I like the Alien vibe if you do it different and you have tried it appears so I don't have a beef with that. Just give this a rewrite ....I'd love to read it again.

Good job.

Summoning a demon in space.... interesting premise! I don't really buy space tech doing it though. We'll see...

So she knew about the ritual? What kind of shuttle is this?

I know you can't have the computer talk, but the color thing doesn't really work for me. I'd make it a voice in a re-write.

All the demon stuff is meaningless to me. I mean it's cool, but without context, since I don't know what they are doing, it's all white noise (might just be me?)

I don't get the part with Grace. What happened? Who is she? I thought everyone was dead.

What happened at the end? Portal re-opened?

Overall, this wasn't bad, but some parts were confusing, and I don't really get the point or message of it. Did she learn anything? How did any of it tie to her wife and kids?

Oh no – Shakespeare – I might not enjoy this one.

“She wipes sweat from her forehead” Isn’t the room cold?

“DARK CHAMBER” Literally?

“The process continues, as a circle of women methodically kill themselves.” A gruesome and horrifying image, but I’m lost at what’s happening in the story at the moment – still early days I guess.

How come you didn’t cap the daughter, or give her a name? I can see an extra coming in for this roll then.

Starting to pick up now which is good – I was starting to lose interest.

“The ritual has opened a dimensional bridge to Hell.” Who would do such a thing? Oh, of course, but you have to wonder if the NASA recruitment guys have taken a holiday.

“Sojourner's boots enter.” What about Sojourner?

“Her crew. Slaughtered in a circle.” So everyone is gone? Didn’t she realize this earlier? Seems curious that she never once thought “where is everyone?”

“Captain.” Have we met the Captain?

How come she needs a bracelet to talk to the computer?

“Fuck. The Alchemists. That ritual.” Doh!

“Sojourner keeps running. And running.” Forrest Gump would be proud. Glad to see the action has picked up, but I’m not completely following…

“her Captain's chair.” Oh, she’s the captain – must have missed that at the beginning.

“empty escape pod bays” If the whole crew is dead – who used the escape pods before?

“A nude woman” A few nudity scenes which is normally a good thing.

A few errors creeping in now but no biggie – nice writing for most part.

I didn’t think I was going to enjoy this one at all from the opening few pages but it did get a lot better as it went on. In saying that, I did stumble along and the found that it did become a little repetitive as it got towards the end.

I didn’t like that Sojourner, the captain, just kept hitting the console every few seconds when the ship was changing course. I thought somebody with experience would at least try using some of that to get out of the situation rather resorting straight to “mash the top of telly” routine to get it working again.

The story does lack some back-story… why are the Alchemists on this mission? I also didn’t care for the family reunion at the beginning which served no purpose to the main character and slowed the pace somewhat, but I do understand why you did this. I think Chloe, who sacrifices herself deserves to be involved  more, possibly in the opening pages as that would help the ending but the challenge parameters probably helped in not introducing any of the other crew before the ritual.

In saying all of this, the Alien/Event Horizon feel that I got from this I liked and I think it was a good approach to the challenge - the positives definitely outweigh the negatives.

The writing was decent, few errors spread around and I thought you directed shots just a little too much but I would put that down to preference.

Not bad but has potential to be a lot better.

Holy Aliens!  Definitely a Ripley vibe here. And I rather like the fact that the writer created a same-sex marriage for the protag.  (I kind of got the feeling that this takes place in a world where men are completely gone?)  And I'm also impressed with how many SF horror titles we're getting out of the OWC.  Interesting trend.

I'm not sure if it was totally explained WHY the ritual was being conducted.  And I also admit to getting a bit lost towards the end.  But taken as an SF short (as opposed to necessarily an entry in the OWC), this one's quite interesting.

--J

Lots of visual stimulation and action.
Sojourner is pretty interesting. Imagining her flitting around that shuttle is rather cool.
Got a little lost at times. Probably just me...

Loved the space setting, definitely different, and Sojourner's name plus how you intro'd her with the home message. I also liked the ritual scenes and when Sojourner asked the computer if she was alive then left her waiting - good suspense tactic.

I liked the suspense you had before grace (even though I have no idea who she was) saved sojourner without being seen and then how the ship go pulled back (though I didn't really get why)

But while parts of this worked, as a whole, IMO, it didn't because as a story needed more. This greatly suffers from page constraint and being rushed along. To get more out of this it needs to be extended to explain a few crucial things. After that though, this would be a great short. Good job.

7.  Demon.Star.31 by Great Dane - Neo Alchemists open a portal to Hell on a space shuttle orbitting Earth.

Alright, I'm not "really" reading your screenplay, I'm going to "watch"ť this short horror-fantasy film and just make comments as I "watch."

With a title like 'Demon.Star.31' I'm expecting a place of very wrongful things or a spacecraft of ill repute.
I’m good with that opening image. Have you seen 'LifeForce' Great 1985 camp.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lifeforce_(film)
Odd wrist slitting scene - sure to make sense later.
A progressive couple, nice.
Time delay on communications, nice.
Claws and thrashing tendrils reminds me of the portal in 'Poltergeist', nice.
Great creatures.
Nice skull crush description: "... like a rotting pumpkin."
BTW, I believe I missed the precise reason for the hull breach.
I'm not very clear on who or what Grace is. Isn't she part of the ritual that opened the portal to Hell?
That whole Sojourner/Grace/Flayed woman-demon scene with the razor blade seems pretty random.

The alchemists in space is a nice change in scenery.
With some clarification as to WHY the ritual is performed in space the story would be stronger. Subtle changes require only subtle explanations, violent or big changes require some pretty definitive explanations.

Suggested construct alternatives:
- Explain WHY the ritual is in space.
- Explain the cause of the hull breach.
- Find a different tool to cut themselves with, something that belongs on a space shuttle.

D E M O N . S T A R . 3 1

Hello,

I also slept a night over this, so I hope to find the important things I can mention.

The introduction of the Captain's family-circumstances went too long. With that you missed the space for establishing the story's preconditions.

There's a hole in the space ship's cladding suddenly and anyhow I missed the point from which this resulted.

I also didn't understand the circumstances which lead to the crew's mass suicide.

That you changed between the characters' names distracted me from reading straight on several times.

There was an amazing moment:

Sojourner closes her eyes and asks...

SOJOURNER
(lost)
Computer? Am I... alive?

This was exciting and thrilling. Though I have to say that her
question before...

"Am I the only living crew member?"

The light blinks green.

... already answered her question. So it's illogic with regards to that. No matter, still, it was a strong moment.

The fantasy was enjoyable, but it reads unfocused to me. You're often too far away from the plot and lose yourself in being repetitive imo. That mirrors the fact you needed every single line of the given 10 page frame. It's always negative to me to see a writer using all the space to the point. I don't think an organic story leads to an end at the very last possible mark.

I can tell you, that if you're able to write a low budget Horror scenario, out of this "alone on a space ship" premise, that would bring you a lot of attention.

For those great plots like, again...

SOJOURNER
(lost)
Computer? Am I... alive?

...You can impress without a lot of money.

By now, there's too much thrown inside here for me.
The approach was very interesting and a minimalistic construction of building tension would result in a thrilling and makeable short film. Lots of possibilities

Good job, Dan.  You got 1 of my votes.