Incy Wincy by Anthony Cawood (AnthonyCawood)  writing as P. Parker - Short,  Horror, Family - A young boy must overcome his childhood phobia or remain paralyzed by fear and be doomed to watch basketball forever.

Based on Itsy Bitsy Spider - pdf, format

Writer interested in feedback on this work

I don't know about this one.

I forgot to read the genre before going into it. I assumed you were going for a comedy horror, in which case there were elements of comedy and I did crack a smile several times.

So, turns out it was a family horror, not entirely sure what that is but the problem I have still remains. In any subgenre of horror there still needs to be a horror element and I did not get any from this. I think with a bit of tweaking this could be a straight up comedy.

The writing isn't bad, it's not great either. A few asides and unfilmables. I also feel it is over written with unnecessary detail in parts.

So as a comedy, not bad. As a family horror, it's a pass for me.

I'm actually arachnophobic, and was worried about this one (as well as the other spider script).

Nothing to fear here, though.  No horror whatsoever.  No story whatsoever.

The source material leaves little to work with and I'm kind of shocked anyone would choose it.

This is way overwritten, has so many completely unnecessary orphans, and just shockingly nothing remotely interesting here at all.

The only thing it shares with the source material is the lead creature.

Sorry, but doesn't work at all, and shows little to no effort in coming up with something that is entertaining.

Grades

Challenge Parameters - D

Script/Story/Execution - D-

I didn't feel too much horror in this one.  I can't relate with this at all because I would have just squashed the damn thing if it was that much of a problem.  But, I'm not afraid of spiders and I'm sure someone who is afraid of spiders would have a difficult time doing that.  Again though, I didn't really view this as a horror.

Nolan

This is simple and easy to read.

I found myself skimming this - and I know why. It's a bit too simple for me. You managed to write 8 pages on a boy-spider battle. And it's not even a battle. It's staring and glaring.
At the same time I'm really fascinated to see that you found what to write about this. And it seemed full of action. All relevant.
However, still not enough story for me.

I liked "What Dad would say" and Mom's words - these bits revived the story for me. I think there could be more of that. And it could made a great one character comedy. I wish you went that route instead disregarding the challenge paremeters completely.

But it does have some thrill at the end. And I was scared to see that spider survive the vacuum. Liked the ending.

I liked what you tried to do but this story had no bite... I don't even think it falls under family horror.
One guy and his attempt to get rid off a spider. It had some comical moments but sadly nothing Horror.

I liked this, although no horror, and too long for what happens.

But as a silly, comedy based on the lengths some one with go to to avoid a spider, I think this could be fun to watch.

A bold effort here to have an intense enclosed encounter with a boy and a spider. For me it kind of works and kind of doesn't. There's lots of unfilmable comments to pad it out like, "It could be the sound of Kieran's pain, or it could just want a rest. Whatever the cause, the pause is short-lived." This is the type of writing you see in prose.  

I also found myself skipping and scanning through sections which is a sure sign that something is missing. I think the encounter with the Spider on it's own is not enough and this script needs another element to beef it up.

Just a side note, you set the boy's age at 11 at the beginning and later have the mother say he's a teenager now. A minor thing but it stuck out for me.

However it is a decent effort and well written, easy to follow.. There's some intense moments and some elements of humor as well. You have the beginnings of something, that is for sure. this would be a consider for me.  

-Mark

There's a simplicity to this one that I like, but it's a little too long for the events that play out. For something like this I think you should've gone really out there and had this kid doing everything possible to kill the spider and the spider keeps coming back. Have it get to the point where we’re wondering if this is some sort of magic freaking spider. I'd have the vacuum be just the start. How would this kid react to rinsing it down the drain only to have it crawl back out of the sink? How would he react if he stepped on it only to have it crawl over his shoe and up his leg?

And come up with a real ending too. Presumably the spider crawled on him when he fell, but realistically, so what? It's not gonna kill him, and when he flicks it off it'll either be dead or he'll still have a spider to deal with. For me this didn't seem like a real ending.

Outside of those bug eyed gargantuan things the size of dinner plates, I'm not really quote/unquote... "arachnophobic", so this didn't actually hit that (horror) note for me but,  I can see what you were going for.

As I was reading this though, I thought: "this would be great as a radio play". It'd have to be told by someone like, I dunno...  Jean Shepherd though and, of course, all those action lines would need to be rewritten as a narrative.

Unfortunately he (Shepherd) died some years ago so that's most likely a no go. Not all is lost though, if you watch A Christmas Story, and really listen as he (Shepherd) narrates all those quirky, mediocre happenings about his (Ralphie's) childhood, how big and grandiose they seemed to be as a child, it really does make a difference as to how that narrative is told, but, I don't think I need to spoon feed you that information; this appears to be written by a seasoned writer.

Any-hooville, the fact you scripted quite a bit of tension for such a mild mannered scenario is pretty cool none the less. So, I'll give you points for a unique take on the theme, then...  I'm gonna have to take them away cause there's no blood.

It's alright this one, sorry to say it's a pass for me but I definitely didn't hate the piece. I couldn't spot any grammatical errors, it read well and certainly didn't drag.

A bit of a concern, there's not really much horror here, so it's kinda ruled out for that. My main issue is that if you're going to do some work purely surrounding two duelling entities, then you've got to build those characters up so we really care about, or are interested in them. I'm sorry to say it but I just didn't get that from the kid, that spider though...

Anyway good attempt, just not for me

Writer,

This didn't work for me.  It's way overwritten, with several cutesy-cute asides thrown in that do absolutely nothing for your story. I think you tried to set up tension throughout the entire script, but at no point was Kieran fearing for his life, so the tension doesn't take hold, nor does it have forward progress due to the unfilmmables. Now, had you gone with something that mirrors the spider - say an unwanted, human intruder - now that might have given us reason to fear for Kieran.

However, this is pretty well written for the most part so kudos for that in the time allowed.

Steve

"doomed to watch basketball forever" LOL. Might be the funniest logline I've ever read. As for the script itself, it has potential. Right now, it's so overwritten I could barely get through it. But I think it could be quite funny.

I'd recommend finding a way to go from tiny setbacks in his quest to kill the spider to bigger stuff later on. The lights going out should be something that happens at the end. Maybe somehow he starts a fire or something explodes (although this won't help with the chances of it getting produced). Mostly just work on the overwriting.

Title is too nice and lovely, logline sounds bizarre.

So, spider territory I guess.

Page one has a page number here.

I don't think his behavior fits to his age. He's eleven, acts like five. Perhaps you just haven't established the phobia properly, so that I cannot fully understand him here.

It's quite over-descriptive. Anyway I liked the image and concept around the lamp.

Imo you should have put more energy in developing the spider, why it's dangerous, why a boy of eleven would fear it, explain his phobia to me so I can identify and fear with him. Instead, there are countless descriptive parts, how that room looks like, and countless other, to me, secondary things in case of the narrative. Still a solid entry. You just set wrong priorities I believe.

This is entertaining to read, and is a clever variation of the source material, but I think the descriptions spell out too much what Kieran feels and thinks rather than what one could actually see.  

The tone of those descriptions is generally, I think, distant, suggesting that an audience would regard the behavior of the spider and of the boy almost from the same perspective.  Which would be a good and creepy effect.  

On the other hand,
   "It could be the sound of Kieran's pain, or it could just want a rest. Whatever the cause,      the pause is short-lived."   In this quote we are not given information as much as we are told how to form a possible conclusion, and this kind of thing distracts rather than helps, I think.
On another hand, if Kieran spoke aloud, directly addressing the spider and/or giving a play-by-play sort of narration (similar to the commentators on the TV)-- there'd be comic dialogue to provide the inside look at Kieran's emotions etc.

And since it seems that the camera would be on the spider quite a bit, the audience could still regard the spider and the boy as being simply, two adversaries interacting in a confined area.

Good script, could be very good short film.

This is another that read more like a comedy to me, although some people are scared to death of spiders, doesn't really make for a good horror. This is a good story you have here though, I liked Kieran's constant failure to kill the spider. This could make for a decent short film.

Good work.

I get a "paint by numbers" feel while reading this.
Technically all the information is there, but it's dry.  
You could have worked the description of the room into the script without blatantly spelling it out.

How does one "overbalance"?  Is that anything like "falling over"?

"...newly ONE trophy."  Should be "won".

I don't have a fear of spiders so this won was lost on me.

It might as well have been Wish Bear from the Care Bears chasing him.  There was no horror here.

Other than the fact that there is a spider in the story, I don't see any correlation to the original.

Jordan

For a family horror, this doesn't rise to even Goosebumps levels, let alone Are You Afraid of the Dark?

Glad Spidey was bigger than "itsy bitsy."

A fair effort.

Challenge/Parameters: C
Story/Execution: B
Horror: D
Overall: B

A weak consider.

Thanks to all for the comments... I'll get round to re-writing this at some point and probably move it to be more comedic.

Cheers

Anthony