The Last Night by blank - Short, Horror - In 1960s rural Kansas, Clyde the little he has left to a dark and ancient evil. - pdf format

Writer interested in feedback on this work

Hello writer. I get a feeling you are pretty new to screenwriting, but not new to writing. Your writing needs to be a lot leaner for a script. Readers of screenplays like the pages to fly by. Try to keep paragraphs to four lines max.

You start your script with telling us it is early 1960s Kansas. How does an audience know this? Are you going to put an insert that tells us this or are we going to figure this out by just watching your film? Maybe there's early -60s farmhouse decor? A tube TV with rabbit ears? An old newspaper on a table with the date on it? Try to give us some visuals instead of just telling us. That goes for the dialogue too. How would a typical farm person speak back then? Last question on that part, is it even important that this takes place in Kansas or in the early 1960s? I read the whole story and I did not see one instance where that even played a part.

Another thing to lookout for on the technical side are "orphans". They are a single word that end up on the last line of a paragraph. See if you can rewrite some of your sentences so that word can be eliminated or ends up with the bulk of the paragraph. These might seem like silly things, but one page of script is usually one minute of film. If you have a lot of orphans, it messes with the true length of the script which in turn affects budget. Not to mention those pesky readers that get annoyed by them.

Your slug lines could use a little work too. Nothing wrong with writing INT. BEDROOM - NIGHT, but you must first establish where this bedroom is. In a house? An apartment? Right now we go from inside a barn to a master bedroom. If your reader is on the dense side, they could be confused and think that bedroom is in the barn. Instead, write INT. HOUSE - MASTER BEDROOM - NIGHT. Now we know we are in the house and therefore it's now okay to just use KITCHEN or BATHROOM or whatever. We won't be confused, because you established that we are inside the house. When you move on to another location, you do the same thing.

The dialogue is fine, but I would suggest using some words and phrases that sound like that era and location. Also, Clyde keeps saying son to Booker and there's nothing wrong with that except that the Stranger keeps calling Clyde that too. Try to make sure that your characters don't sound the same.

Storywise, it was okay. Started out strong with Booker having to take care of the dog, then it lost some steam IMHO with the demon. I also felt Clyde had a very odd reaction by getting to sleep in the car after what had just happened with Booker.

Just my nitpicks. Hope they will help.  

Anyway, good job over all.

So there's some formatting issues as noted but I think there's also some issues with this as both an OWC entry and as a story in general.

Firstly, there's no obvious curse, no mention of Halloween or midnight, this just reads like a horror script... so it doesn't actually fir the criteria of the challenge.

Putting that aside I think there's a few logic gaps in the story that derail what is in places a well written narrative.

E.g. the story starts with what appears to be a rabid dog, giving Cujo vibes, then a monster appears with no real rationale, same with with why his neighbours house is burning down, and the Stranger... none of these things feel connected in any way.

Well done for getting one in.

I liked the dialogue and setup, and it got scary and intense, but it flips so fast, and we end up so quickly disconnected from the beginning. And then, after all of this horror, The dad decides to catch a few Zzz's.

1960s Kansas, I guess that should just be,

ON SCREEN: Kansas, 1960s.

But maybe some of the more advanced gurus could chime in.

Hi writer

If we ignore the competition guidelines for the moment, there’s a lot that’s quite good here.

I think the majority of the bigger formatting issues pointed out by others could be resolved by using a screenwriting software. WriterDuet is free and intuitive.

The dialogue between Clyde and Booker is rich and novelistic. There’s some real atmosphere here, and a commitment to tone.

Some more work in making the sequences flow into each other more seamlessly would aid this greatly. You intro a number of concepts here but don’t expand them to fill the script- what would happen if we stayed with Clyde and Bookers story of the dog throughout rather than jumping to the other concepts?

It sounds small, but most new writers don’t have such a strong command of their voice which I can see here. Thanks for sharing

This started off really well, that really traumatic scenario when a family has to put a pet out of its misery. It set the tone. This was gonna be a hard-hitting ride. Which I liked - not sure Clyde should have been getting his son to do the deed though.

I was caught a little off guard though by the abrupt introduction of the monster. There didn't feel like any build-up to it whatsoever ever. Now on paper, that didn't quite work for me, however, on screen, it could be very startling and effective, so I'm conflicted on that.

I really liked the dark hard-hearted feel to this though - Clyde having to shoot Booker was harrowing and no-nonsense. Reminded me of the scene at the end of 'The Mist'

On that though, he didn't seem as traumatised as he should have been. Perhaps Clyde is just proper hard-hearted.

Overall, I liked it.

I agree with the others', the beginning started off good, but it just feels like there's two different stories going on here so things got a bit muddled for me, and well the ending just seemed to peter out.  Anti-climatic to put it mildly. Some of it is a bit overwritten. But you've been given some great advice already. Not bad, but it needs work. Good on you for entering.

All the best,

Ghost

My final review of the entries. (As everyone breathes a sigh of relief).  I didn't read this one last, but it took me this long to decide what I would say.  As with my other reviews, I'm not focusing on misspellings, erroneous formats or missing commas on page 6 - just trying to feel out positive, yet honest feedback to the writers. This is a tough one.  For starters, the opening scene being a direct throwback to "Old Yeller" (tears and all) threatened to make me stop right there.  But I didn't.  The next scenes were filled with horrific mental imagery of violence.  I didn't stop there either, because all of a sudden it struck me that this might be a psychological monster, eating away at Booker, a generational curse - passed from Father to Son a/k/a verbal and mental abuse.  The curse was visited on Booker by his father who had in turn received it cruelly from his own father - and who knows how far back?  Were the fires burning symbolic of how widespread the curse is? Was the "Stranger" an angel of healing?  Am I way overthinking this? LOL  Anyway, this one was either very shallow and graphic horror....or something even more evil.  Not sure, but glad I finished the read.  Thanks for sharing, writer...and causing me to ponder just what exactly was inside this grisly tale.

The writing was really good in this one. The gory details were also done nicely. Although, I'm a little underwhelmed with the ending tbh. The ending's seems a bit lame for what has happened before that. And I feel that you could've used the remaining three pages or so to draw out the story a bit more to make it more impactful.  

Good luck.

Writer,

The writing wasn’t half-bad, but the logic gaps..? Whew! Those are in need of some work. Basically, you have a story here that doesn’t really end. I mean, it ended, yes, but it didn’t end for us, your readers. What’s going on here? Why is it maybe their last night on Earth? Why did Clyde inexplicably stop when he was starting to get his son to the hospital? None of this makes any sense to us, and it has to. That said, good job on entering the challenge! Glad to have you aboard.

Steve

Nothing quite like an apocolyptic tale, they continue to be popular despite the Pandemic, and the current War in Ukraine.

You have formatting issues, some of which have been addressed by other reviewers so I won't harp on except to say your attention also needs to be drawn to the use of wrylies/parentheticals.

Example:
CLYDE
Wait. (clears his throat) I'll do it.

Should be:
           CLYDE
   (clears his throat)
        Wait. I'll do it.

That said, you want to go easy on Directing to this degree.
Here's a good link that explains their purpose. They're often used to avoid confusion ie which character is being spoken to etc.

https://www.movieoutline.com/a.....intent%20or%20action.

The only other thing I'll add is to go easy on exclamation points. They're far more effective used sparingly.
Anyway, enough of that.

Story wise you start strong with a very relatable scene and the dilemma of putting a dog out of its misery, examining themes of courage, setting up character etc. Whew! The kid is only seven years old. The problem is it appears a bit disconnected to the rest of the story that unfolds.

Reading on I have to wonder if it might have been more dramatic to flip it and make it Booker's story. You'd have to make him older, of course, eighteen, maybe. So, he refuses to kill the dog in the opening scene but when he's really tested to prove his mettle he kills the 'monster' attacking his dad/Clyde. Way more powerful imho. I'd personally flip the story and characters that way. Have Booker (seemingly) one of the last survivors. We already know Clyde could step up to the plate but Booker's a kid (even at eighteen) and as a Protagonist thrown into the deep end and now am orphan and completely on his own. I think that would hold a lot more conflict, your audience will doubt he can survive etc.

Anyway, just my thoughts on it.

Bit of a logic problem here:
Booker struggles weakly to fight
off the Monster as it takes big meaty bites 
out of Booker's stomach.

I think the kid would be gone with his wounds at this point, but I could be wrong.

There's nothing wrong with an open-ended story, plenty of people make Horror teaser Shorts that go on to be developed into feature length scripts, think, The Babadook, Lights Out etc., but I do think you needed a little more to the Narrative by way of cohesive hook, a bit more to the backstory, theory or origins to the Monster etc.

The vibe was great and I enjoyed this very dark tale.
Definitely write another draft.

I think there's a story in the making here. Clearly the writer can write and can capture the terror of a horror story.

Just need to step back and rethink the requirements:

Someone/something sets in motion a curse that will have major consequences if the solution (obvious or to be discovered) isn't accomplished by the ticking clock of the deadline.

So do we first see the monster with the dog that then must then be killed, and what must be done by when to stop the monster before it attacks Booker? And if not before infecting Booker, then by when to save the the rest of the world?

I bet if you go back and rethink the formula that unleashes that Hell on Halloween night, you will have yourself a sweet horror Halloween short!