End Of The Harvest by by Darren Seeley (Darren JamesSeeley) writing as Miles Bennell - Short, Horror, Slasher - A Halloween urban legend about a trio of cursed scarecrows turns out to be the life and death of a party. - pdf format

Writer interested in feedback on this work

On to E in my alphabetical reading ...

There's a spelling mistake in your first slug. We all make typos, but that is pretty much the worst place you could have one so fix that.

The following doesn't make sense to me -

the moonlight reflects a droplet onto the corner of her lower lip.

Do you mean reflects off a droplet on her lower lip? If so a droplet of what? Spit, blood, wine?

Closer, no mask.JOHN (30s) Like Judy, he wears a scarecrow costume.

Needs a space after 'mask' and 'like' should be lowercase.

If I spot any one of these things I wouldn't mention it. But three mistakes and I'm not half a page in. This needs a good edit. But hey - you could have been rushing to meet the deadline - I'll continue!

Okay finished. A lot of rushed mistakes. There seems to be references to "The Raven" by Edgar Allan Poe. Although the references seem random rather than a homage. But the whole deal with these people supposedly making it look like a botched robbery needs to be clearer. Needs a few more drafts! But good on you for going full-gore.

hi miles


logline - feels like half a logline, I guess its going to be messy, and perhaps a cover up?


the first slug - that has to be a plant. surely. which makes me think of what type of writer does that :-)

just saying but as soon as we are in the home I would name it, not suburban home

that first scene is confusing as to where the attention - inside or out - is being focused and where join emerges from

'A MAN’S HANDS emerge from THE SHADOWS. Closer, no mask.JOHN (30s) Like Judy, he wears a scarecrow costume.' needs a polish

“John”. why quotation marks?

EXT. SUBERUBAN HOME -NIGHT  ... nope it seems this repeated

O.C is off camera and if I'm not mistaken a TV script format. we would use O.S off screen - same thing really, just letting you know


ok finished

quite a few format and writing issues, but this can be tidied up

what I liked - this bonny and Clyde duo, combined , together, united, single purpose - that has legs

I also liked the entry to the story half way through - added mystery. to me it suggests you have a good sense of story

what didn't - was primarily the dynamics within the house. the end felt a tad off

got potential

all the best

Small detail but "It’s raining a light drizzle, the moonlight reflects a droplet onto the corner of her lower lip." It's raining and the moon is out. How does she get a rain droplet on her lip if she's in the kitchen? Sorry, it just derails the train of thought when reading.

Done. So was the droplet blood? Overall, after four reads, this is my favorite. It was difficult keeping names straight and not sure the importance of the phone call and message. Was that relevant? Just a good slasher short.

And who was the mystery man? Luke? That had me lost too. But Helen got away? Hmmm...part two in the works? A little explanation when this is all said and done. Good job, writer.

Logline is ok.

Title Page is fine, but as I've said a few times, these Pseudonyms aren't adding anything, IMO.

Using "SUBURBAN HOME" as a Slug is bad enough, and we've now seen it numerous times in numerous scripts, but to spell it wrong out of the gate is a HUGE issue.

You start with a 4 line passage, and there's nothing wrong with that in general or here, but this is overwritten, obviously and alot of extraneous detail that's unnecessary.

I don't understand how the moonlight from outside is reflecting anything on Judy's mouth - what that droplet is supposed to be, who knows?

Writing is very awkward...maybe beyond just awkward.  I'm having serious trouble even understanding what you're trying to say.

So, it looks like we have another case of a writer who won't use a subject in his/her lines, which causes alot of unnecessary confusion.  Just use the damn subject...please!

Why are some words and names in quotes, in dialogue?  WTF?

The dialogue itself is very stilted and odd...unrealistic.

Page 3 - WOW!  WTF?  Now we have back to back Slugs with misspellings.  Terrible.  I'm about to quit.

So many things are off here.  Spacing, wording...just really poorly written.

Page 4 - "There’s ANOTHER SCREAM" - I don't recall the first scream, but if this is indeed the scream in the parameters, it's a bit late, don't you think?

Oh boy...and now we get a Flashback, huh?

The end.  I stopped taking notes, as I'd be writing pretty much about every line and passage - easily one of the worst written scripts I can recall, but the strange thing is that you're probably a decent writer, as this seems to have been written extremely fast and probably with some alcohol and or drugs involved.  It's pretty fucked up and impossible to understand in a single read, which means the writing here is terrible.

Story-wise, it may be quite good, but as presented, it's beyond a chug to get through.

I have to grade based on what I see and I see a complete mess here.  I just read over the comments of the earlier readers and I'm beyond shocked to see someone say this is their favorite...absolutely shocked.

It takes all kinds, I guess.

*

My two cents (and that's all it's worth):

Writer, it feels like a rush job.  Stephen King.  In his book On Writing he says (paraphrasing), "Don't show your first draft, that's your draft.  And this felt like one.  Still, it's a good idea to proof-read any work before publishing it.

The overall quality of the writing is good, but... some of your action lines lack punch and clarity, with clarity being the more important of the two to pay attention to.  Found myself re-reading several lines that were a bit confusing.

I didn't see the relevance of the phone call.

Nice effort. I dug the premise, but this, to me, needs more oomph. Keep writing. :)-Andrea

Seems like there's actually a halfway decent story in here, too bad it's in such a messy script.

Some poor writing here. A ton of awkward descriptions that only took me out of the read. Somehow, the dialog is even worse. Read some of this out loud.  It's not good.

What's with that odd 12th page? Maybe this one was rushed in at the last moment?

You meet the criteria, so good job on that front.



:-/

Another story of murder and mayhem. Nothing wrong with that, but there are so many characters to try and keep track of, it makes it difficult to follow on the first read through.

Formatting needs some work. Drops on the lip doesn't seem related to the story.

But the couple working together to kill as many people as they can has story potential. So I would encourage the writer to hone his/her skills.

By the next OWC, this writer will be hard to beat.

Hello writer

The more I read in this challenge, the more I suffer from Dejevu - almost every bloke so far is trying to get some and getting turned down.

You are oddly specific in some action description and definitely tend to overwrite. Obviously how you write is up to you, but if you take a sharp knife to this you can make it a much easier crisper read. "kisses her right shoulder" "that can be bought from dollar thrift stores"

Quoted Text HALLWAY Loaded with flickering Jack O� Lantern decor on tables and bookcases. A framed B film horror movie poster on the wall. Judy balls her fists. Lets out a scream of her own. JUDY SON OF A BITCH! SON OF A BITCH! DEN She snatches the sickle under the watchful eye of the fake raven and scarecrow. BATHROOM Judy pulls back the shower curtain, raises the SICKLE. TWO BODIES lie in a BLOODY MESS. One man, one woman. Both throats are slit. The DEAD MAN has a missing ear. THe DEAD WOMAN misses a left hand. Neither corpse move.

Wtf happened? did I miss something? she goes to check on a noise, randomly shouts SON OF A BITCH, grabs a weapon, and for reasons only known to her, check the bath (why?) and finds two dead bodies?....

wait... "did you miss someone?"... I thought that was an odd thing to say, makes sense if they had already slain the guests - still not sure why she randomly shouted son of a bitch, but it now makes sense that she knows where the bodies are... I'll read on

N.B it may be style choice, but the dialogue in capitals to denote shouting looks amateurish to me.

The story was interesting for a while but it faded into nothing, I am none the wiser to why any of it happened, what the relevance of some people is (Ryan, what's the point in him?) why Helen invited them to rob a house, why they murdered everyone apart from Helen, why Luke was seemingly just lying there pretending to be dead for a while.... just stuff happens with no cause or consequence, no reason or thought

FYI first you say Ashley and Rob are on the bed wearing vampire costumes, then you change it to Luke wearing the vampire outfit.

Well done for getting something in.

If it wasn't for the previous reviews, I would have bailed on this early. They suggested some redeeming factors, so I stuck with it.

I'm glad I didn't bail, but I'm not as enamored with it. There's some interesting stuff here, and a good story at the heart of it. It's lost in the haphazard action that's difficult to visualize and even more difficult to comprehend. The flashback is poorly executed, I don't understand how Helen got to be hung up there and still alive, and why didn't Judy just kill her when she concluded she must have been the one to scream? Did she even scream? It's never stated, and I don't see a reason for it. The scream seems to be there just to meet the criteria.

John and Judy (BTW, using "John" and "Judy" in dialogue isn't going to be seen on screen if you're implying that's not their real names) said they met Ryan out in the van but Ryan wasn't there according to his message later. I'm guessing that's a mistake, but why even have it in there? It doesn't do anything for the story.

I don't get the Poe references, and I know a fair bit about Poe and his works. If style is what you were going for, it needs work.

It's gory, but not horrific. Not scary at all. It might visually be horrific though, and could be really cool to see with hyperstylized visuals. Like I said, there are some good things in here. The story needs a lot of work.

Quoted Text SUBERUBAN

Ooh! Right out of the gate. Not good.

Quoted Text bits of straw [dangle] in and out of pockets and sleeves.

A few spelling and grammar issues on the first page.

What's with the quotes? Normally, you put the period inside the quotes.

Quoted Text Gets down on [one] knee and offers the ring to her.

What knee? Whose knee? His knee? Right or left.

I'd also break up this paragraph.

Quoted Text Judy slips it on, admires it. John gets back to his feet, leans in, kisses her right shoulder. She reaches over to a serving bowl, scoops up the last of the candy corn. Feeds him.

I'd break this one up, too.

Same misspelling of "suburban." Twice in a row.

Quoted Text Judy sponges off the blood off him, rinses the excess in the sink.

Redundant.

Quoted Text A framed B film horror movie poster on the wall.

Awkwardly written. "A framed horror B movie poster" reads better.

Quoted Text Judy pulls back the shower curtain, raises the SICKLE.

Psycho reference?

Quoted Text THe DEAD WOMAN misses a left hand. Neither corpse move.

Either "The" or "THE."

Very strangely written. You seem to be a new writer and English probably isn't your first language.

Quoted Text The blade hits home. Judy jacks the sickle back.

Huh? What?

Don't overdo flashbacks in a short. I learned this the hard way.

"Suburban" is misspelled again. No excuse.

Quoted Text You did a great job[,] Ashley.

Offset people's names like this with a comma.

Quoted Text He stops where, in between notes he hears JUDY SCREAM.

Very awkwardly written.

Poe. Nice shout out.

The answering machine voices should me marked as (V.O.) next to the character's names.

Be careful with huge chunks or dialogue. Keep your paragraphs as short as possible. Not every character is Quint.

Quoted Text JUmps

Very poorly written. I'm sorry to say.

Quoted Text An AUTOMATED VOICE greets her.

Automated voice?

FADE OUT is on the wrong side.

The story itself had some potential, but the writing hurts it. I hope you stick around and improve your skills, and English. Congrats on entering.

Writer,

Slasher much? This was full of it, however, not much substance. What you’re lacking here is a story. You have a reason - cash, but not much else. We never see it, and why all the killing if it’s just a robbery? Maybe serial killers? I don’t know. Lots of gore, yes, a scream, yes, but you need a cohesive story/backstory to set this up.

Steve

John kisses her bare left shoulder. I thought she was dressed as a scarecrow? I've never seen one with bare shoulders.

First 2+ pages with dialogue that doesn't do much to set the mood for horror or setup the story.

Seberuban? Well, at least it's not suburban. I hear some people hate that word.  ;D

Page 4.   Another scream? I must have missed the first one.

Dialogue on this same page feels like filler.

Page 5.  What does Judy see that I don't?

None of this makes sense...

You add a bunch of people in the last third of this script. That's too much in a short. Even in a slasher where you're just look for bodies to kill off. IMHO.

I'm sorry, but this one didn't really work for me and it's not because it's a slasher.

Right out of the gate, page 1 is riddled with issues. Every single time one of these issues pops up, your reader stops reading. Your story needs to flow which is why learning the rules of screenwriting is so important., as well as clear descriptions. Pg. 1 examples...

the moonlight reflects a droplet onto the corner of her lower lip. ... huh?

Closer, no mask....again, huh?

Quotes around dialog..."John", "Judy"...why,?

Kisses her bare left shoulder...that's one sexy scarecrow.

The goo is dry but sticky...you're telling us. You need to show it. Maybe with her facial expression when she touches it. But show, don't tell.

Ignoring other issues I read to the end. Not much of an actual story here though. Sorry...nothing really pulled me in.

Hello writer,

That was a twisted tale, maximum horror right there.  Unfortunately it felt like you didn’t take the time to edit it or go over it, which is sad because it was a cool story but definitely needed a clean up.

I wish we as the audience were told the specifics of the harvest and what it entails, it felt like a cop out just to mention it as if it was reason enough for the massacre.

Good job on entering.

Judy and John spend the first three pages talking about nothing, when they could have been discussing what the massacre was all about: Helen inviting them to the party so they could steal some money under the guise of a home invasion, but she didn’t want anyone killed. They could have justified their actions by mentioning that the cops would’ve immediately suspected Helen’s involvement, so they were really doing her a favor by killing all the witnesses.

When it comes to killing Helen, John and Judy prove inept. Helen puts up a good fight and manages to escape. But she has to die, doesn’t she? So maybe the script should end with Judy and John chasing Helen down the street, weapons waving in the air.

English is my first language; jibber-jabber is my second.
So bear with me.

The rewrite is on the way soon.  The most obvious fix is SUBERBAN HOME, that nasty fellow. When the first review hit,I was shocked I didn't catch it.  Since the program remembers what locations you tell it to, the slug automatically repeats as you originally had it. That was an oversight on my end,I own up to it. And I revised the script twice and still didn't notice.

So why don't I use the name of the homeowners? I felt that would create some confusion, as John and Judy ("false names" was the intent) were not the homeowners. I suppose it didn't matter, since I didn't give their last names.

The pair as part of a robbery gone bad scheme  was, I admit, very flimsy.  But I had eight pages then, soI wanted to work in the earlier scene which was in the last draft prior to submission. "Ryan" was indeed in the van the previous draft before submission, being a dead body. John and Judy came in that van.  After killing Ashley, Luke, Rob and Brooke, and leaving Helen for dead, John was supposed to go back to the van, show the revealof Ryan's body, and bring out a big wooden trunk.  The pair would open that trunk, and with a spell, corn stalks and an additional Scarecrow outfit appeared. They would then have additional decorations to the house, cut off Brooke's hand (with the ring) and steal Helen's iPod.

Offscreen, they would dress Helen up as the new scarecrow.

But it took too long to set up, and then I re-read a thread where the OWC guide said that the couple could not do anything supernatural.  So it got chopped, and I still wanted to build up the mystery until Judy goes back to check the bodies. So the party was a brief flashblack. But "Ryan" wasn't there anymore, so I needed something to let folks know what happened to Ryan.

Big mistake. And too add insult to injury, not many folks dig flashbacks. There's a time and place for them, but as a flashback, it seemed to goon a bit long and stopped the current action. Big mistake,

I think the biggest challenge is the scream and only one of the couple hearing it. It is then a requirement for the couples of nearly all the entries to have some sort of banter which mayor may not be related to the story. Mine was. Heck, I even had a small bit of gore when we first meet Judy and John. And it didn't matter. You see thirty some scripts with couples talk about a scream only one of them heard, and give a reason why one of them didn't hear it...it kind of blends in and somebody's bound to miss something. Add in a few dumb errors on my end, and the sharks smell blood in the water.

Earlier this week I corrected all the spelling errors, and other problem areas. took out some awkward words. and put back in the wooden trunk gag, got rid of the robbery plot (which wasn't tough to do, it wasn't elaborated on) and posted the revision on Script Revolution for a good 24 hours. I didn't care if anyone here laid eyes onit at SR; this draft here was embarrassing due to that SUBERBAN error, I almost felt like..ifpeople knew I wrote it, fine. If they didn't fine.

But It was salvageable... and I took took that update of SR because...

I'm no longer bound by the OWC.

So, the SUBURBAN part of the house is gone. It's redundant, yes. Action only takes place in and around one HOUSE. I also feel this could "free up" potential production.  Any house will do.

The SCREAM is gone, now it's just a noise, and they both heard it. Judy's line "I'll take care of it"  takes care of that.

The FLASHBACK is reworked and now will kickoff the script; there is no alleged robbery gone bad plot. It is simply a "home invasion" where the supernatural plays a role. It's working a lot better. Hard to say what the page count will be, I'm still aiming for 10-12,but it'll probably wind up 13.

The new draft will be around shortly here and SR.
Damn,I really dropped the ball on this   

Thanks to all who read.
Sorry about the torture chamber.

The rewrite is up.  Among the changes:

- the most obvious error is corrected,or more specifically, just simply HOME now.

- the flashback is revamped at starts the script; however, John and Judy enter the house another way, and there is no robbery gone wrong. It's still a home invasion, kind of. The scarecrow display had arrived in a mysterious 'cursed'  box, according to Helen,now dressed as Little Red Riding Hood.

- John and Judy are a supernatural couple. They hear a noise, but not a scream.

- script is 14 pages long.

- .

Quoted from DarrenJamesSeeley The rewrite is up.   - the most obvious error is corrected,or more specifically, just simply HOME now.

"SUBURBAN HOME" or "HOME" as a Slug is not an "error", it's just very generic and boring.

Give your script some life and write some interesting Slugs that show your readers information.

What Jeff said...

Here's the thread to look at, add your magic etc.
https://www.simplyscripts.net/cgi-bin/Blah/Blah.pl?b-screenwrite/m-1571265713/

Regardless, good for you DJS for doing an updated draft.

Darren,

I checked this out, was all prepared to take in depth notes but after page one I found myself kind of lost once again, much like the original.

Page 1, this is what I got: Perhaps mention there's a party going on right off the bat. You got the music, some dollar store Halloween decorations, but there's no punch bowl, no chips. Not even a mention of a party.

Luke's first line of dialogue is long and I would cut it a tad. Maybe just the last two sentences.

No alcohol at this party? I saw a root beer, but I figured there might be some booze. Because right now this doesn't feel all that much like a party.

Also, Page 1 you introduced at least 5 characters, and that, for me, really muddled the rest of the script. really wasn't sure who was who, who I was supposed to be paying attention to. And when I did realize, it didn't seem to matter much because I'd forgotten who they were.

This still doesn't work for me. If the Harvest is the reason for all the killing, then what exactly is the Harvest anyway? I don't know. Maybe I'm in the minority. Be nice for a couple more people to chime in here. Still, it is cool to see someone rewriting from this OWC.

Steve