My feature screenplay... Anyone fancy a read?

Kind-of bumping this, as I would appreciate some feedback, particularly on my dialogue, that from the first 11 pages or so...


Also, since it's a feature and a bit too much for some people to be reading, I thought I'd offer a scene by scene breakdown of some of it, so people can get the idea. Perhaps somebody may have an opinion of this...

1. We open with footage of Nazi experimentation.
2. A young couple witness a gorl murdered by a "slasher"-type killer.
3. We meet our protags, who are heading to a festival.
4. A vicar arrives at the home of a couple, whose daughter appears possessed.
5. Our protags head out on the road.
6. A group of teenage girls are toutured and killed by men in suits.
7. Our protags find their road closed, so must drive throigh the woods.
8. A group of teens im the woods are killed by the "Slasher".
9. Lost, our protags pick up a hitch-hiker. Soon, they are kiddnapped by the men in suits...

...This is where everything begins to tie up. The seemingly random references to films like Friday the 13th, The Exorcist and Hostel should all begin to make sense as the story all rolls together towards the pretty crazy conclusion.


So, once again, if anybody has any comments, all are appreciated.

Cheers!

First ten pages: Looks like a fairly decent beginning.

Honestly, most scripts look like rubbish on the first page or two.
But this looks not to bad.
By page ten you've introduced some nice characters and scenarios, so if you've maintained this quality through to the end this should be a good product.

I'll warn this does have some pretty common genré tropes, meaning this also has the potential of just being refried beans easily rubber stamped:

This looks relatively costly, so production values are going to be begging for mercy.

Good luck & best wishes!

PS, shooting for festival or VOD distribution?
PSS, and how will you be mixing your audio? Lt/Rt or 3.0?

First of all, I absolutely like your title! It's really awsome! I read the scene by scene breakdown(the main script won't load, maybe there's something with my internet connection) and it really stays true to the title. However, it seems like a mix of multiple movies(or that's what I thought from reading that message, I'm almost surely wrong), but if you manage to tie everything together, you'll write a very nice thriller. Write the screenplay to the highest standards, and submit it to someone for consideration. It would be a pretty cool movie to watch!

I've only read to page 12- don't take any offence at that. it's late and I'm off to bed in a minute. Definitely looks more pro than I was expecting. The dialogue is actually pretty good but there's too much of it. Often it's running on for too long to emphasise a joke or a moment that's already speaking for itself. For example I like the line when Michael says "we're not lost,. We just don''t know where we are." It's cute vaguely funny, character type of line. The next half dozen lines are just emphasising that line for no good reason. You can just cut straight to: "Shit! Fuck me. I don't believe it." It's a hell of a lot snappier and what do you lose if you do that? There are a bunch of examples of the same thing in the pages I read.

I'd get rid of lines like: "erm... Can we go. Like now?" Too cute. This is obviously a balls to the wall horror film. That belongs in a kids flick where you're deliberately trying to undercut the tension.

I'm also wondering about the structure. I'm only twelve pages in but I don't who my central characters are yet and we've cut through quite a few different types of scenes quickly. Not necessarily a problem but it will need to settle quickly pr lose me.

This is all just criticism because that's what you asked for. I'll certainly be returning to the rest of the script tomorrow and looking forward to it.

Thanks for all the positive comments so far! It's great to know I'm doing something right!


Ray - I'm kind-of hoping you feel that, at page 10, what you're about to watch is a straight forward slasher. It's not. The next scene could almost have been lifted from The Exorcist. It's designed to confuse (or, to instill curiosity, perhaps). Hopefully, it becomes something you definitely haven't seen before. You may have seen all the separate parts, but never assembled like this. At least that's what I was aiming for....

Also, what makes you fell this would be particularly expensive?

I'm aiming for as high of a quality as possible. I'll have to see how it goes. Truth is, I'll really be doing this simply for the fun of it. If it turns out as well as I think it can, then I'll send it to festivals and maybe look for DVD distribution. If it only ends up online, I'll still be satisfied, as I'll have finished it and, no doubt, I'll have learned a lot!

Audio.... What the hell is audio...


victortiti89 - Glad you like it so far! The ttitle's just meant to be a bit crazy, just like the story being told. Hope you manage to read some of the screenplay.


Dom D - I agree there's a bit too much dialogue, but I left it as a bit of a build up... to nothing in some cases. That was my intention. As you've noticed, I have gone for some humour, that's the reason for the "cute" dialogue. It is "balls to the wall", but in an Evil Dead kind-of way, ie. it doesn't want to take itself too seriously. If you do read a little more, let me know if I do lose you. It'd be really useful to know.


Thanks all. Just so you're aware, I was aiming for a Cabin In The Woods feel to this, so hopefully I'm somewhere near successful...

Thanks again!

Read it cover to cover and enjoyed it. I like the structure where pretty much every second scene is a cut away to seemingly unrelated nasty things going on. Then it all ties together nicely too.

I think you do have a serious issue here with the dialogue. Your characters are intentionally cliche (I assume intentionally given the Cabin In The Woods vibe) and I don't necessarily want to spend that amount of time listening to them sitting in a car, not doing much, when they don't really have anything to say. I get what you're saying about it being there for build up but it bogs down on the page and I think it will be interminable on the screen. And often too much dialogue is destroying your good gags.

Generally I think the dialogue is really well written but you are tredding a fine line with tone that I think you occassionally trip over. There are some bits here that are just too cute. Like the girl wondering how she's going to plug in her hairdryer at the festival. You can get away with that in Scooby Doo but it's an issue when it's not a cartoon. There a bunch of such examples but I'd also really reconsider The Nameless Ones final lines. I like the idea of the gag here. I think it's execution is a bit too obvious and weak.

But good work man! If it gets produced let me know, I'd like to see it.

I promise I will read this soon! It's been open in a tab for a couple of days, just got to sit down with it...

Thanks, Nick. I'll look forward to your comments!

Wow. Okay, so I also read the whole thing.

I agree with comments about the dialogue, especially early on, being too cute and also carrying on with too much back and forth that did not really contribute to the plot or character development or anything. It makes the story drag a bit when you really want to get the audience hooked in and engaged.

This is about as unoriginal as you can get as a B horror film, but I don’t mean to say it’s bad. It actually hits all the right notes with the occasional wise-ass moment, the thrills and chills, the blood and guts. I like it quite a bit, with the following notes to consider…

I think there is a shift that happens in like the last act where for one thing the story falls apart and is all over the place, and for another it becomes almost laughable in tone, like a complete Troma-style, Shaun of the Dead type farce, which it was not up until a point.

Things like the Nameless One severing two girls heads with one swing of his axe – really? How is that possible?…the news report that there are 300 bodies discovered at the nursing home. Freaking 300?! If you said ten it would have sounded more sensible. Jerry doesn’t even know what a cell phone is? What is this set in the 1980s? And the whole bit with Jerry, what point does it serve anyway? They pick him up, and then they let him out? Why not just get rid of that whole part?

The guy takes the headless chicken to make dinner for his family? That was hilarious, but totally not in keeping with the tone up until now. Same for the bit where the Nameless One decides he’s had enough and then runs off, and ends up pleading with the zombies “I just work at the post office” and “I don’t even have a girlfriend.” I was dying laughing, but this felt way beyond the tongue-in-cheek kind of tone I think you are intending. There’s other plot issues like the Cardinal specifically says one of them will give their blood (Alice) and the other two (Joe, Steve) their flesh, but then he is suddenly looking for only one of the guys to be “Adam” to Alice’s “Eve,” and when he decides on Joe, he doesn’t give Joe’s flesh but bleeds him into the ground – isn’t that what Alice is for? I don’t know…and then when the zombies are killing everyone but Joe and Steve and Alice, at one point the cardinal tells his followers that’s fine because it is Satan’s will, but then later he decides he has to kill them himself, for some inexplicable reason that they could have ruled alongside the zombies but now will live in purgatory or something. Like I say, it all just kind of starts iot to make sense, for me anyway, in the rush to the end.

Nice effort, and good with it. I can definitely SEE a movie here, and an entertaining one at that.

redcarpetmedia - Thanks for reading. And all of it... Wow! For one thing, that tells me you can't have been too bored at any time!

I appreciate your feedback. I never intended to go for full-on comedy, but Troma-esque isn't too far off. It was always supposed to be humorous, tongue in cheek and OTT. It's useful to know that you don't seem to have felt thatway until the final act.

The part with the sacrifices seems to have confused you; Alice and Steve were to give flesh, Joe was to give blood. It's good to know that, perhaps it needs a little tweeking. Jerry is there for two reasons, to give the friends a reason to stop and simply for the sake of messing with a classic horror cliché.

Another big influence here was Texas Chainsaw Massacre. I was aimimg to emulate the way that, in that film, we dont know who all the villains are until they all turn up for dinner.

Anyhow, thanks for reading!

Wow you have all the bases covered there teen slasher, devil worship zombie horror comedy. Just read cover to cover also, it’s a really entertaining read I must say.

In my unexpert opinion some of the dialogue probably does need a little tidying, some of the exchanges can be cut down a bit whilst retaining it meaning and the humour whilst really good could be written so it’s a bit less obvious and cutesy(not sure what cutesy means but it fits)That news report probably needs redoing somewhat so it’s a little less fantastical but I think someone has mentioned that.

Also I kind of like Alice, have her swear a little less. Lol. I think she’s the central character so bring her out a bit more.

What happened to the couple at the beginning, where they caught by Nameless Kevin?

Aside from that and maybe some general formatting bits Great effort. I can even see the first seen being filmed in the old abandoned Selly Oak Hospital.

Oh and One last thing. Id like to put in a good word for Ghengis Khan. Im pretty sure he was fair and generally benevolent in his conquests, though granted a little bit violent at times. Do you know 25% of Europeans alive today are descended from him. (Not Important)

Good going.

Cool. Thanks for reading Kurt. Entertaining is what I’m aiming for. Nothing too serious. If I can meet B-Movie standards, I’ll be happy. I love B-Movie’s, and I believe I can find B-Movie grade actors and create B-Movie grade effects and get a B-Movie grade score…

As far as Alice’s swearing, I appreciate that. You should find that Alice and Steve swear a lot less than Sandra and Joe; they could never swear, but I decided to make them a little more human.

The couple from the opening scene… My attitude is “Don’t Worry About It”… The viewer can make that bit up themselves. I’d hope that after a few more minutes, you’d forget about them anyway… (As a side note, I had written a scene with a detective investigating the scene and finding the dead fox, after the couple had reported witnessing a murder. This scene eventually led to the introduction of the Cardinal. I felt it didn’t work, though, so I got rid of it.)

I thought it was a fun, pulpy read.

Page 3.

We're not lost. We just don't know where we are.

Click to expand...

That's cute. Me likes.


Page 4.

...Michael darts forward...

Click to expand...

That confused me for a moment. No big. You figure it out quickly. But for a moment the reader (at least I) was wondering what happened with their being in a car? I might consider modifying that to something like, "Michael's hand darts forward"... or "to the volume dial," etc.


Page 19.

With her, she carryies a tray.

Click to expand...

----awkward.

How about describing it more simply and more directly, like, "She is carrying a tray."


Page 21.

..had been...

Click to expand...

Not sure you want that tense in a screenplay?

He shuts the door, before he stands behind Anne and holds her by the shoulders.

Click to expand...

-----awkward.


Page 36.

ALICE

Oh, God. And to think she’s normally so beautiful.

Click to expand...

Hey maybe fine. But I’m skeptical that a girl would respond this way to the guys making sport of her girlfriend, when girlfriend is unconscious and vulnerable.


Page 78.

SANDRA

What the fuck do you want?!

Click to expand...

At this point, since Alice asked that very thing so many times earlier, I would consider having Sandra say something else, just to differentiate her a little, and to avoid the further repetitiveness of it.

In the zombie feast scene the script refers to the "floor" a lot. But I’m guessing you mean the ground?

I think one impression that I’m left with is that it doesn’t have a lot of structure. Is that accurate? Not saying that it should or shouldn’t have. But I think you have written that this is experimental, right?

I also notice that it seems to lack any denouement at the end. Not saying that it should or shouldn’t have it. Just noticing that, or thinking that I notice that. What are your thoughts about that?

There are a quite a few spelling and punctuation problems. Does the program you are using not have any kind of spell check?

Nice work. So when do you begin production? =)

Hey, Richy. Thanks for reading!

The spelling and punctuation mistakes are absolutely down to my excitedly rushing to complete the final draft! I've actually recently corrected (hopefully all of) them.

Maybe a British thing, but floor (referring to the 'forest floor') and ground are pretty interchangeable. I have to say though, 'ground' probably is more like what I was going for.

I agree with what you say about the structure, and that is actually what i was going for. The scenes involving to protagonists should flow as complete story, but I wanted to interrupt it with lots of seemingly unrelated scenes, to throw the viewer off track. I wan't the viewer to think they're about to watch a slasher, until the scene with the reverend... Then I wan't the viewer to be thinking, "What's going on?" Then, the part in the torture chamber is supposed to lead the viewer in a different direction. It all then degenerates into a zombie movie. I'd like to think that the whole way through, the viewer wouldn't know what to expect next. Hopefully everything is tied up in the end. And, hopefully, it's not too confusing... I also wanted there to be enough blood and guts and bizarre characters to keep a viewers interest for the full 80 mins of a (literal) no-budget horror!

As far as denouement goes, the good guys escape, the bad guys die, the zombies live on to do whatever a viewer may like to think they do. That's good enough for me!

Production... Yeah... I was hopeful for this summer, but distractions are leading me to think it may have to wait til a bit later in the year. I'm still hopeful I'll shoot this year though, then edit through until sometime early in 2014.

Writing a good screenplay is hard. Writing a great screenplay even harder.

I have written five scripts so far. When I look at my first now, I cringe - and back then I thought it was great. Note, OP I have not read your script.

If I wrote down all my lessons learnt/advice, I would be here for hours.

These folks have done it for me:

40+ key screening tips and advice articles
http://reelauthors.com/

100s of advice articles but often tricky to find what you need
http://johnaugust.com/

...and read as many pro scripts as you can