Homa by Mark Dykshoorn (TheCasualScreenwriter) writing as Claude Cooper - Short, Horror, Scifi - A man's home network of smart-speakers attempts to murder him. 6 pages - pdf format

Writer interested in feedback on this work

Alright Claude,

SPOILERS BELOW:

What we got, what we got, what WE got...angry robotic home help, it’s kinda like A Space Odyssey, but not in space, therefore An Odyssey. But that’s problematic as then it could be confused with Homer’s work, the Greek dude, not the Simpson’s one. Just imagine, Brad Pitt as Achillies slowly going insane after a Trojan virus infects his computer and steals his passwords, there’s a script in that...I’ll get on with the review.

I fear you’re gonna have a few issues here. The writing was overall decent, but I did find it clunky in parts, such as the delayed intro of Matt and no real description or character depth to play with on his part. We need to build the character in order to make the horror element work, as with an under developed central protagonist in horror we can often lapse into accidental comedy if we don’t care enough about what happens to them.

Also, develop Homa. Why’s this IT demon from hell so worked up with poor Matt? Is he malfunctioning or has Matt had the Back Street Boys on repeat for a solid week now and it’s finally broken it? Mirror the strength in protagonist and antagonist, let them fight the battle and hook us in.

I think you could rework this to be more impactful and could really sing. Scratch the scene with the detectives, build the relationship between Matt and his electronic assistant demon, build the tension and let a complex and engaging hell ensue.

It’s not there for me yet, but a little bit of work and you could be dancing.

Best,

Cam

Quoted Text A man lays in bed,

lies

On the first page I’m thinking why in the heck does he a traditional alarm clock when he has this HOMA device?? It seems to know and do everything other than the time. Lose the alarm clock.

You need to give your HOMA’s different character names. You have two talking to each other with the same character name – that’s confusing. E.g., rather than:

DEMONIC HOMA
So, do we do it tonight?

Something like:
FRONT DOOR SPEAKER
(demonic voice)

The dialogue from the cop and the coroner was really unnatural to me.

Story-wise - I like the concept - a man being attacked by his own home - felt that you were missing the deserving why and why now.

Kudos for entering

HOMA

I picked this one first because, if I had entered, I would have written a script much like this.

I liked it pretty well.

My major concern is - why are the HOMAs all of a sudden plotting to kill Matt?  
I would have liked a scene early in the script showing Matt dissing one of the HOMAs, or even a news report about a nation-wide HOMA recall after a few "technical malfunctions" were reported.
Something to build suspense, before the HOMAs attack.

Also the police scene at the end is an unnecessary epilog.  Maybe use the last page to include more attacks on Matt.  Or give Matt a false victory before the final HOMA does him in.

Anyway, good job.  I enjoyed reading it.
Good luck in the contest.

Opens with someone waking up to an alarm clock... okay, if you insist.

There's quite a lot of passive writing hear, easy to fix with a polish though.

This felt fairly familiar and went along the route I expected, so needs some form of twist... and the police ending things is definitely not needed.

Well done for entering

Though a house killing its owner has been done before, I think this effort is the best one yet. The casual way Homa decided this was the day Matt died was a little bit chilling. I was left with one question, however: Why? Or do houses not need a motive for killing the owner?

Hi writer,

Another script that uses a person’s fortress to turn against them, as in a prison, all conducted by a demonic AI system.

The story is fast paced, and it was a super easy read that went by like butter, but… where’s the angle, the arc, the driving force behind the murder of the homeowner? Sorry if this issue has already been addressed, I’m not really looking at previous comments cause that tends to influence a read, even if consciously unintended.

Anyway, yeah, just not feeling anything remotely sinister here, of course, the speakers controlling the home are a bunch of homicidal psychopaths, but we’re missing a main catalyst of Matt’s demise… why?

Perhaps a quick re-write after the OWC to flesh out a more intriguing story, but I’ll leave that up to you.

Best of luck.

Technology turning against their owners seems to be a theme within this challenge.

I liked the story but with no backstory I don't know why the tech turned and I got confused as to why the cops or forensics would move the body from the bedroom to the living room floor.

Otherwise an enjoyable read.

Well done.

Some good, some bad.

I liked the concept. Also, I definitely felt the tension of the attack.

But, maybe you've heard the saying "begin after the beginning, and end before the end."? This is a classic case of ending too late. Consider cutting everything after the death.

Also, the dialogue from Matt as his dear HOMA is turning on him is just clunky.

Still, there's some fun to be had here. I hope you do a polish and share the rewrite.

Best,
Paul

Great concept but not a big fan of the execution here. I think you tried TOO hard. A pleasant woman's voice saying horrible things is scarier than reverting to a deep demonic tone shift. It would be obvious by what HOMA says, not by sounding demonic. Much of Matt's dialogue was really on the nose and unnatural too. Show it don't say it. Not sure HOMA would talk to itself either. The blue turning to red says it all. HOMA also needs a reason. That would help immensely. Maybe Matt was talking about changing systems to Alexa and HOMA got jealous!

Good work, writer.

Story: Well, poor Matt.  Whatever did he do to all the Homas to deserve that ending?  The story is okay, but there’s really no explanation for it.  Seems like a missed opportunity there.

Characters:  The characters don’t have much depth.  Don’t really know much about Matt, what he does, why the Homas are mad at him, etc.  Need a little more characterization here I think.

Dialogue:  The dialogue is fine, no complaints.

Writing:  The writing itself is not bad at all. That’s why I’m a little mystified at how you came to this conclusion for the story.  Just give me a reason to buy into what’s happening.

Meeting the challenge:  Meets the challenge, I think.

I think this has potential, but needs more meat on the bone. You had the best part of a page left available to do that too.

As it stood, I didn't care about him dying. Don't really know if he was nice or an asshole, just seemed like he was put there to die.

Actually I do know something about him. He was easily spooked and, and other than bolting for the door went to hide in bed like some kind of man-child. Didn't even think to switch off the plug. Would have fun to see him have a scrap with a hoover. But that didn't happen and now I'm glad he's dead.

Nice idea, just needs some execution

The Homa dialogue to Matt was a bit in the nose and the detectives at the end weren’t really required for a short.

The last laugh has a nice ring to it.

I also liked the way they plotted as though they are more than one. If extended you could see them get miffed by some other purchase, as though a jilted lover - they then seek revenge !

All the parameters ticked I think, it just didn't work for me.

There is no explanation for why this smart speaker turned demonic. In fact, when Demonic Homa starts plotting Matt's demise, it's comical and it shouldn't be. The cops arriving adds nothing to the story and the ending is unsatisfactory. Have a think about why this one person out of the billions on the planet has been singled out for attack and how the smart speaker became corrupted in the first place. Once you've figured that out, more depth can be added to the story and it may give you new directions to explore.

Some clunky action as well but that can be fixed.

Best of luck with this.

-Mark

Writing is a bit stiff. A lot of “is placed” type writing that reads poorly.

Smart home turning on the homeowner. Been done, but still a cool premise.

It’s a short, so it’s hard to foreshadow, but I would think Matt should have been shown being nasty to the Homa system to something.  It wouldn’t warrant his death, but it would at least give us something.

If you take away the Cops at the end, you have 3 pages to work with where it could have just been cat and mouse with Matt and Homa. Could have been some really cool shit and justification for the tech to turn against him. Without that, it’s just “Evil House with zero motivation or history kills man we don’t know.”

This starts off strong. The HOMA devices are well established, and I like that you go through Matt's morning routine to introduce this world, a world we can easily envision. I also really like the demonic HOMA as soon as he leaves and the anticipation that Matt is going to die. That's a good horror hook.

Unfortunately, it goes off the rails after that. The action is clunky, the pace is off, and it's boring. The demonic HOMA cackle at Matt like a mustache-twirling villain in what might be an attempt at toying with their prey, but without any clear motivation behind it it comes off as just silly. The latch on the door was strange, why wouldn't it be controlled electronically like everything else? Matt doesn't react in a believable way, he jumps straight to fleeing for his life when it's far more likely some hacker is messing with him. The police arriving on the scene doesn't work for me either, all the tension is gone already and as much as I was hoping for some twist or something to elevate the ending it's just an exposition wrap-up and a corny lingering threat. Far better to have left us with Matt and the HOMA returning to normal, like nothing happened, maybe even calling for medical help, or just going through some automated bedtime routine since Matt is indeed in bed.

Good concept, I think the page count hurt it. The action needs room to pace itself out better.

Okay, so... essentially this was - speakers intend to kill man, and speakers kill man. We know not why.

Which takes about 30 seconds of screen time. The chilling aspect with the technology speaking through the TV was good, however we didn't get enough of that. There are wasted opportunities here to build tension or give us more about Matt, which were spent on things like showing him shut his alarm clock and get out of bed and close his briefcase.

AJR

Great premise! Needs a revamp though.

Lines like this were just a bit hokey for me:

DEMONIC HOMA
So, do we do it tonight?
The smart-speaker on the table responds.
DEMONIC HOMA
Yes. Matt, our master, will die.
Tonight.

And it all came completely out of the blue.

I wanted to know 'why'. I think you need to set up some reason for machine turning rogue on its master.

This is good:
It's clear that he died of
electrocution, but there was
nothing connected to electricity
anywhere near where he was found.


This a big tell:

Matt's prolonged screams are
heard as he is electrocuted to death.

No need for that last line.

I think Rene summed things up perfectly really so I won't labor the point. And Dave mentioned the lie v lay thing::

Yes, I'm a broken record here.
https://www.quickanddirtytips.com/education/grammar/lay-versus-lie

You hit the brief! Well done, thank you. Self contained location. Horror/SciFi, all tick.
Just needs some finessing.

An evil Alexa device. Neat idea. But this just didn't do it for me. The writing was actually pretty good, but Matt's dialog was very on the nose. This reads more like a comedy than a horror to me.

Still, a pretty good effort here. :)

Thanks everyone once again for the feedback. I'm glad to see that this was better received than my last OWC script. Like last time, I'll go through the feedback I received and respond to it.

Lies vs. Lays, I never know which word to use. Also I don't know what is meant by "Passive writing". Needless to say it's been many years since English class.

Yes, I still need to work on dialogue writing. I'm still not the best at that. Maybe some of you will have some advice on how I can improve that.

Due to the page count I couldn't flesh out the story as much as I wanted to. I'm planning to do a second version which will be a bit longer and have the story more fleshed out. Would anyone want to see that?

Now for a couple of fun facts. The name I used, Claude Cooper, is a reference to an old comedy skit. Here's the info from Wikipedia:

Quoted Text In 1968, Jack Webb guested on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson and took part in a parody of Dragnet. The premise was Webb (as Sgt. Joe Friday) grilling Carson about "kleptomaniac Claude Cooper from Cleveland, who copped clean copper clappers kept in a closet." It became one of the most famous sketches in the show's history and was regularly shown on anniversary specials.

The admittedly unnecessary police ending was also inspired by Dragnet, as I'd been watching that show a lot at the time. I couldn't figure out any other way to stick the ending. The coroner's last line is taken directly from the cult classic adventure game Titanic: Adventure Out Of Time. It is spoken by the character Officer Morrow when the player goes to inspect the scene after another character is electrocuted in the Turkish Bath.

Finally, the title (and the name of the smart-speakers) is a play on Alexa. Alexa for the home, thus Homa.

All the feedback has been extremely valuable to me as always. Thanks once again, and I'm glad many of you enjoyed it.

Mark, did you look at the link re lie v lay? It's a good summary.

Passive writing. Just remember to relay only what we're seeing, and resist telling us information.

Example:

Having seen enough, the detective quickly covers the body
back up. He is sorrowful at what he has just seen.

The detective quickly covers the body back up. (this is what as an audience we will see).

He is sorrowful at what he has just seen is passive. We can only know this with you relaying the expression on his face, not telling us he is sorrowful. Alternately, he could look to his colleague and mutter something (in keeping with the lingo a detective might use) like:  shit way to go, or: poor bastard.

He tries to unlock the door, but it appears that the latch
is stuck in the locked position.

He tries (to open)  the door but it won't budge from the locked position, or the lock won't release. Delete 'it appears'. Just show us what we see.

Delete preambles like:
Not knowing what else to do,
Just then
Having seen enough
It appears

And:
Is heard

They're all static/passive lines - belonging in a novel, not screenplay.

All of this:

HOMA
Good morning, Matt. Outside
temperature is sixty-eight degrees.
Weather is mostly sunny, with
scattered clouds. Do you want me to
start the heater in the bathroom?

You had me onboard. It's terrific.

I think in a rewrite it might also be less hokey, and more sinister if it's just a robotic monotone voice, not demonic. I think this:

emits one last
low, satisfied demonic laugh.

Veers into a tongue in cheek comedic tone, instead of serious/threatening rogue machine turning on its user.

Likewise this:

DEMONIC HOMA
So, do we do it tonight?
The smart-speaker on the table responds.
DEMONIC HOMA
Yes. Matt, our master, will die.
Tonight.

These devices and their interaction sounds human, as if human beings have intercepted smart devices, and that'd be a different plot.

I also got a bit confused with the two devices with the same name communicating with each other.

Perhaps use terminology to differentiate: virtual assistant/voice assistant, home automation system, smart speaker.

HOMA 1
User 65571B
Matthew Ian Smith, has been preselected for termination.

HOMA 2
Affirmative. End of life scheduled for tonight, 23 March, 2029 at 2000 hours.

Don't use mine, cause it's off the cuff, but you get the gist.

I'd definitely go for another draft, Mark, lots of good material here, draw out the suspense a bit more, and you won't be restricted by page length.

Earlier today I got an email from someone in Bulgaria who has interest in filming this. I don't know whether he means the OWC version or the second draft version I wrote later.

I'll mention that I got into screenwriting mostly as a hobby and didn't anticipate selling any of the scripts I write. I haven't decided whether I'll take him up on his offer or not. To be honest I'm a little terrified.

Just thought I'd post this to let you all know.

Terrific news, Mark!

Don't be terrified. This is what we all aim for, hobby or not.

Ask him if he has examples of his work and what his plans for the film are.

Nothing worse than a badly made version of a good script, imho.

Nice!