Toilet Horror by James Barron - Short, Sci Fi, Horror  - A man struggling with public bathroom phobia discovers his fears may not be imagined.  4 pages - pdf, format 8)

James,

This wasn’t my favourite one of yours.

Flows pretty well and the writing is good. There are grammatical errors, mainly missing commas that would be easy to see on a edit

A few other minor things, do with them what you will:

You have through phone in parenthicals a couple of times, I feel its unnecessary as we already know he is holding a phone and it's a voice over.

You have Poker Face as a ring tone, so usually I'd say it would be too expensive to get the rights and does it really add anything to the story, I mean why cant his phone just ring? I’m less inclined to be worried about it here because this is pretty big production stuff so I'm not sure if it would get picked up that easily.

I didn’t quite get the reveal, well I got it but I don’t think I understand the bigger picture and in a sense why it really mattered.

Seems like writing about people shitting is the topic of the week.

Good luck with it.

Haha yeah I didn't know I was gonna be following after the adventures of turd monster...

Figured this one might not go down so well. Was there anything in particular you disliked though or just the whole story in general? Like the whole farting thing, was that just too much?

As for the ending, it matters because the implication is that these body snatching creatures are everywhere and possibly taking over the world and Spencer's about to walk into another place with one of them.

Or it's possible she was just staring at the mirror and blinking and the whole bathroom incident was in Spencer's head.  

You had big shoes to fill.

I think it was the mainly the farting thing, I've always felt it cheapens movies/scripts, but hey movies keep getting made with it in so they are appealing to someone.

I guess I went in expecting more of a horror and felt the horror aspect was pretty light on.

SPOILERS:

Sorry I wasn't implying that you should get rid of the ending. I meant why does the story matter, just didn't feel too attached to it, but then again I wasn't thinking they were taking over the world. I assumed the psych was using rather extreme methods to treat her patients. Whoops, missed that one completely.

I was expecting 4 pages, but this is actually 10.

Very few people admit to liking toilet humour... but I think they're full of shit ;) When done right, people will laugh. I didn't with this.. but then, it wasn't supposed to be funny. The story works for what it is... but I don't like the hero-type ending where he has to fight his way out. Why can't he barely just escape instead?

I get that we're supposed to think he is delusional, but then the twist is that he isn't. That all works. The hero part, not so much for me. He goes from snivelling wreck to somebody capable of fighting for their life.

When people are scared, they generally freeze in fear. They may even have opportunities to fight back or escape, but their fear is such that their feet feel welded in place. Where does his will to fight come from?

It's a decent idea. The hero part lets it down somewhat. I tend to zone out when good guys start fighting monsters and the like. I long for something more inventive. I'm probably guilty of the same thing myself though, I often wish I could be more inventive too.

Good luck with it.

Hey, James.

You kept me up on my toes with this one. Not that it was funny, actually I didn't laugh at all but it's full of suspence and I was interested in Spencer's fate. I didn't know it was all in his head however obvious it might have been.

I didn't understand the reveal - does she have trouble urinate as well? If yes then I don't get it. It's a little out of place then for me - I mean the reveal. Unless it's something else and I didn't get it. It should have a punchline I think expressed in a clearer fashion.

I want to write something about a talking toilet. Don't know if it was done before. It feels like I read something like the thing I have on mind but not sure.

Quoted from khamanna I want to write something about a talking toilet. Don't know if it was done before. It feels like I read something like the thing I have on mind but not sure.

Checkout, Better Call Saul. One of his clients invents a talking toilet. FUNNY!!!!  ;D

Hey, thanks Pia, I sure will!

Quoted from Angry Bear Checkout, Better Call Saul. One of his clients invents a talking toilet. FUNNY!!!!

That was a hilarious scene and I love that show.


Khamanna -- You're not the first person to miss the ending so I think it's my fault.

I tried to give clear "signs" that someone has been body snatched. Namely, their eyes get all weird and alien-like when they blink and their faces lack expression. It happened to skinny guy (implying he got taken over before they entered), it happened with fat guy when he's at the mirror (implying a creature went up where the sun don't shine and took control), and it happens at the end with the therapist. Idea being she may have been turned also and now Spencer's about to walk into a trap.

I don't know if the signs aren't clear enough or something else is causing the confusion, but I'll take another look at it.

Dustin -- Yeah, none of this was really intended to be humorous. As for the hero ending, I get what you're saying, Spencer is an emotional wreck and might just stand frozen in shock the whole time. But I like to think the frozen in place thing passed as he was sitting there waiting as one door after another got kicked in. He had time to think about it and get some semblance of control over his body. At some point, the will to live (or the desire to run) overpowered everything else.

I guess him wrestling with fat man and getting a weapon out and stabbing him might be too far. I was considering just having a tentacle lash out and grab his leg, and he has to desperately wriggle out as fat man advances, and finally his shoe pops off letting him escape.

Thanks for the reads.

Not sure why the embed doesn't work, but here's a link to the BCS scene. Saul's client intended the toilet to be a toilet training tool for parents.  :D

https://youtu.be/83KLxQ1jjdg

Quoted from MarkItZero I guess him wrestling with fat man and getting a weapon out and stabbing him might be too far. I was considering just having a tentacle lash out and grab his leg, and he has to desperately wriggle out as fat man advances, and finally his shoe pops off letting him escape.

You could make this more comedic (although I know you don't want that) if the tentacle were to lash out of fat man's ass. Maybe he strains really hard like he's going to do a poop... and then, poop... out flies the deadly tentacle.

I'd laugh.

@Pia, watched it - lol))) thanks. Looks like a good funny show. I thought it was dull and long, couldn't survive the first episode. Now I'm thinking to give the whole thing another chance.

@James, wow, you sure thought a lot and none of this is on the page)) - I mean it in a good way) I think we don't need to know if she's turned as there's so little of her on the page that it kind of seems out of place. Even if he's to walk into a trap. Or it should have been more of her on the pages. At least let us see her or something if you're to give us such an ending.
Maybe at the end something is on the radio about the catastrophy, people turning etc - this might clear things up for us.

Two toilet based horrors on the board in one week?

It’s so OTT it doesn’t need an ‘explanation’ to work.  It’s entertaining in its own right.  What’s the worst thing that could happen to a guy with a phobia of bathrooms?  There’s a darkly comic vibe running through it with gross out humour that just about stops short of spoiling the fun.  Punchy dialogue -- I got a good sense of character even with so little to go on.

The tentacles could be tough to budget on a short, but there could be compromises to make it work.  

Could perhaps tweak Dr. White’s final scene to show her about to use the bathroom rather than already having been ‘infected’, but that’s all I got.

Works for me.  Good stuff.

Steve

Steve -- Thanks for the read. It's safe to say the toilet based horror quota has been met this week and possibly the entire year. Glad it worked for you for the most part.

James,

Haha! Loved it. I don't think it'd be bad thing to describe Dr. White's eyes at the end. It took me a moment, I waited, then it came to me. No matter really. A small nitpick.

Great premise and set up. I love stories that start out with someone with a terrible phobia or something, is assured everything will be all right, then proceeds to have the WORST possible situation befall him. I'm partial to fart humor, as well. But it has to be done right. I've seen plenty of fart jokes that fell flat. But when Fat Man cried "Fuck Yeah..." I was on the floor! Great comedic use of the situation.

Toward the end I was wondering how you were gonna wrap it up. It was a bit anticlimactic, IMO, but only because the rest was so funny. I think a director with a little bit of a budget could bring this, with it FX, to the screen and be really good.

Great job!

Steve

Hey James,

Pretty good, I wondered if the Skinny Man was going to be a ghost, haunting the toilets (pretty depressing thought), but the alien toilet beast works too.

Kept me going, and overall a decent effort.

Cam

Hi James,

I'm normally not a fan of scatological humor, but I really liked it. Many people have so called "Bathroom Issues", and I love the idea of taking such a premise, and pushing things to the extreme. Yes, it's gross and disgusting, but also quite funny and gripping, and never to the point of being a turn off.

I was also a bit confused by the ending, but that bit of mystery was fine, as I'm sure a second read would make things more clear.

One bit -- I would make a point to mention that Spencer isn't urinating at the stall. once he zips down, and faces the stall, I assumed he was going. It's only once the Fat Man enters, you realize he's just been standing there.

Ron

James, good premise! Could you explain the presence of the Skinny Man in the evolution of the story? Maybe, he's important but I don't understand it.
I love the ending...my interpretation is that the tentacles/Fat Man episode was only in Spencer's mind.
I liked your descriptive writing style...but a little too expensive to produce.
My best,
Fausto

Thanks all for the reads!

Fausto -- The ending was meant to be ambiguous. I was trying to create doubt as to whether Spencer survived the beginnings of an alien creature invasion or the whole ordeal was made up in his head.

It was not meant to be confusing in the sense of people asking "Why is the therapist standing in front of a mirror blinking?". Glad it worked for you, but I'm gonna try and re-work it a bit cuz some people had trouble with it.

As for Skinny Man, he exists mainly to establish the signs of someone being body-snatched (lack of facial expression and alien eye blinking). That way, when Fat Man looks in the mirror and displays similar traits it becomes clear something is "taking over" these people.