Awakening by The Hunter - A superhero is called upon to save commuters stuck in the subways. But what waits for him there might be more than his match. Train station, human body part  Short, Horror

Hahaha wtf did I just read???

Ok it was actually kind of fun in a totally mad and over the top way, and yes it ticks the boxes, but the budget for something like that would rival a Marvel film.

Was a little confused by Alan's motives too but that could be cos I was too busy laughing at the gore to be overly focused on that.

Good luck

So that happened.

Wow. A Marvel horror where everyone loses. Why not?

I wouldn't call it a complete story. It's really the opening scene for a much larger story, right? Unless the story is how Alan failed to save the day. Because, that's about as complete a failure as one can have. :)

The writing is fairly clunky in places. Mainly, I think, because it just needs a good tightening.

A few examples, just to show you what I mean.

1st dialogue block: You could drop the "no." It's only one word, I know, but they add up. His answer is implied in the rest of the dialogue.

In Hunter's 3rd dialogue block: You don't need the first two sentences. The important information is: we can't get to them.

Maybe these aren't the best examples, but, an active tightening would really bring out the action. The same can be said for the action blocks.

Still, there's great imagination here.

The writing could use some polishing. A lot of the description is a bit too wordy and kinda drags.

ALAN (34) in the process of having a nightmare, tosses and
turns under his covers.

You can just say ALAN (34) tosses and turns under his covers, having a nightmare. Or something like that.

I like the idea of a superhero horror flick -- I did quite enjoy Brightburn. But I'm not really sure what the writer was going for here. And I'm not really sure what exactly was happening. Are these zombies? And why is there mention of a Janine when we don't see a Janine later on? (Unless that woman was Janine, though it didn't show her name). I did like the imagery and the laughing decapitated heads, but this felt like a bit of a mess. Just carnage without any kind of plot.

Good effort, though.

-- Michael

This one needs a bit of a clean-up.  Way too dense - just taking the opening as an example.

Quoted Text ALAN (34) in the process of having a nightmare, tosses and turns under his covers. He is drenched in sweat as his writhing, muscular body is bathed in the morning’s sunlight. A blaring alarm sounds in the room, startling him awake. Despite having just woken up from a nightmare, he is now fully alert as he turns on his TV. The alarm goes off once the picture on the TV appears.

Lot of things wrong here - not sure how you film he's having a nightmare. How can we see his muscular body bathed in sunlight if he is under the covers?  Where else would the alarm sound other than the room?  You repeat waking up from a nightmare twice. etc. Make it crisper for us. e.g.,

ALAN (34) tosses and turns under his covers.

An alarm BLARES waking Alan. He throws off the covers revealing a sweat-drenched muscular body.

Now alert, he turns on his TV. The alarm goes off the instant the picture appears.

Or something like that.

This revels in its gore factor, starting with that first blood-drenched image in the subway and not letting up one bit. There's a twisted glee that went into this. It was a blast to write, wasn't it?

This is like cosmic horror, in that it's difficult to digest because the reasons for it all are beyond our existence and beyond reason. There's no point asking why any of it happens. The only hint, like Brightburn's twist on Superman's origin, is that it was his destiny. And that's where I think this fumbles a bit. I don't feel much for Alan, he's a smug superhero and I enjoyed watching him fall, but that makes this not at all tragic, unless it's because of what comes next. But then you need an outside character to react to it, to know just how screwed everyone is, and through them the audience can understand this better. As it is, there's a detachment that prevents this from resonating the way it should.

The only way to keep this as a budget-friendly piece is with animation, and that could be really cool. It could be an entry in Love, Death and Robots, once it's been worked over a bit.

Nice job. Probably a contender for the most gore in the fewest pages.

Hi writer,

Definitely not low budget, or anything resembling it. Who cares though, I can see you had a blast writing this.

Fun for what it was, but will ultimately land somewhere in the middle for me.

All the best.

I actually thought it was a comedy ;D

Yeah way over budget but you didn't seem to care.

Didn't work for me sorry

Hi Writer

"Alan goes into shock." - seems an understatement when he has had 1 leg and both arms ripped off and his guts are hanging out lol

That was full-on gore. It was a fun read, thanks

Well done

A SUPER (see what I did there?) high budget and reminded me a lot of the Marvel Zombies comic series.

Just like you don't need FADE IN or OUT anymore you don't need CUT TO either.

Rather over the top and doesn't really explain what's going on, but entertaining!

A fun read, enjoyed the visuals, yet I expected.... something else/different at the end.
Btw, a few too many 'it's' instead of 'its'? Auto correct on/off?

Okay, writer... Were you laughing (manically, of course) when you wrote this? I can imagine how much fun you probably had in doing so. It's happened to me a couple times in the past while writing and it feels great.

Not sure why he said Thank You but don't really care either.

A fun read and written well enough. Definitely written under a time crunch, eh? Good work.

Writing is a bit choppy out of the gate.  Some awkward phrasing that could be trimmed back for a tighter read.

I’m assuming Janine won’t be fine.

Not picking up a horror vibe - not at first anyways.  More splatter-house than anything.  Not sure the train station was overly tied to the idea - could’ve been anywhere.  All in favour of R-rated superheroes but it’s too over the top for me with the blood and guts left to do the heavy lifting in place of plot.  

Writer,

Boy, Alan took a lot of shit before he died, huh? Intestines out, arms off, eyes gouged -- kinda figured that would get him! Anyway, I want to like this, I really do, but the way I see it, you don't have a satisfying ending, dude, or dudette. Plus, you make Alan seem like a superhero out of the 50s with a cape and all, not really updated and almost reads comical.. Goof effort, though.

Steve

Not all heroes win, I can live with that, not all heroes survive, I can live with that. Reminiscent in a way of the classic Superman comic "The Death of Superman" but ramped up to a gore level that goes to eleven. Decently written but had references in it that had no impact on the story, who was Janine for example?
I enjoyed it however and would like to see it expanded into a fuller story.
Well done.

You really went for it at the end, so full credit for that.

It was fun (maybe that's the wrong word) to see a confident hero meet his match. Certainly it was unexpected. Good stuff.

I suggest getting rid of the opening. We've seen the superhero being summoned to the scene of danger a million times. I would start with the superhero arriving confidently at the subway station. That way you could identify him by his hero name instead of Alan, which is hardly heroic. You would get right to the good stuff that way.

Fun and unexpected.

Well that was definitely a thing!

Made me smile, kinda like an episode of The Boys on acid.

Nice effort

I think this needed more blood.

Well, I love Marvel/DC stuff so I liked what you were doing. I just think it needed more of an explanation, or set up. Alan always knew he was alone? And now he's a zombie?

And OMG...where the hell is Janine!!??

Hope you expand on this. You have a great imagination.

Best of luck.

Wow, that went completely all-in and it actually kinda works. Great job.

I don't know if it needs any explanation. I do wonder about the set-up with the superhero going about his average day. I guess he's kind of overconfident, but otherwise there's nothing that makes what happens to him seem particularly meaningful or ironic or... anything. Maybe that's the point though?

Thanks for the reviews, all!

I agree with a lot of criticism for being sloppy. I'll look at the script and think, "It's not that sloppy" and then Eldave will do an amazing breakdown of how it should be written and I'll think, "How the hell did I turn in that junk?". Thanks a ton, Eldave. Hopefully I start actually using your advice soon.

Was surprised so many people thought this would be a big budget film. It's just a gore film. All you'd need is any pitch black room with a small light source (to help hide some SFX shots in the shadow), a raised floor just for the section in the light that looks like a subway station's and for the actor to hide his body under, a gore filled body in a superhero suit that can be torn apart (possibly with some prosthetics for the stretching skin if you're overly ambitious) two severed heads (easy enough to make, and for movement just use the old severed head trick that's been around since the fifties) and two static CGI shots (one of the gore in Infrared (which makes it easier and cheaper) and one of the station floor cracking under the small light source. I absolutely wrote this with a cheap budget in mind, I've seen short films that have a lot more gore FX that are done for pennies. I even did one. I'd be much more intimidated faking a car sinking into a river or even renting a couple manned boats and shooting on them. This was a one room (any room would do) shoot once you get in the pitch black station.

Maybe I read too much Fangoria, but I totally thought this was essentially a low budget gore flick.

Thanks again so much for the insight!

I think as soon as you wrote he used his infrared powers to see, it suggests he can see everything. It isn't just a room, it has to be a subway station, with a subway car. Hard to do that on the cheap.

You're right, you can definitely do a lot with gore and practical effects for little money. It's the scale of it that makes it challenging.

Then it's once again, sloppy writing on my part.

The infrared is one POV shot until he sees the light coming from the subway car. Then it cuts to non-POV again. I didn't think anyone would shoot the rest of the film in infrared, so I skipped over making it clearer. Will not make that mistake on the rewrite, and when I'm not confined to 4 pages. Thanks for clearing that up, I can totally see if someone thinks the rest of the film is in infrared, you would need to have a real subway station gored up to the hilt. That would be a pretty penny.

Thanks again. With the addition of possibly one or two beats, the budget is cut into a tenth or more.  :)