All Reviews

Okay, this might be the longest review I've ever written and for good reasons because my head is kind of left spinning, I'm not sure what this review should be but here it goes.

Things I like that worked-

Right from the beginning I was drawn in wanting to know about this mysterious death at 1:02am, and the rest of the scenes were put together very tight, no scenes in the first few pages felt out of place.

I can tell this must be a very tight draft as other scenes must of been deleted to keep the story going, it showed.

That sequence at the Frat party was interesting, I was a bit confused reading what happened right after the frat party.

You get an A for proper grammar, spelling and punctuation. I felt like I was reading a screenplay edited by several English scholars.

Great Story Editor, this was edited so tight that the script should be called Virgin.

Really liked the scene with Jimmy and Hannah in the cafeteria when he tells her about Laura Marie's family. Jimmy is a well written character. The only one I felt with less robot dialogue. I don't mean Robot in a bad way, but he seems to be the only character with a unique tone about him, as everyone else seems to speak too properly.

The scene when Hannah's soul is fighting through Hell was a very cool scene, reading it was good, but seeing a scene like this visually would be a great experience.

That ending sequence with Jimmy, Laura Marie, Hannah was intense, really enjoyed that. Though I'm not much for happy endings, for some reason I was real happy when Hannah and Professor Lyndon walked(drove) off to the sunset together.



Things I didn't like that didn't work-

Couple of scenes in the beginning that are flashbacks should be written as such, a bit confusing when one scene of present jumps to a flashback seen with no indication and vice versa.

When Professor Davison talks Hannah into throwing her medication away, Hannah seemed to just do it too easily without much persuasion from the professor.

The ending left me a bit confused, Hannah's problem is never really resolved as far as I can see, she will continue to die at 1:02am, even though her watch is smashed, nothing implies that her condition is cured. Unless each time she dies it really is because she has narcolepsy and is just dreaming, but you as a writer seems smarter than that to let that be the answer. So I will just assume she is not cured.

The story started in one direction but end up going in a whole another direction. From the beginning pages, I thought I was in for some kind of sci-fi phenomenon to explain why this girl keeps dying, but it headed towards her trying to solve a mystery for a ghost which had no type of connection whatsoever with the story or her character. That left me confused a little.

I thought after Hannah finally tells the ghost who killed him, somehow The ghost would reveal some kind of answer to the key of life or something, I guess I felt this way because, you set us up, the reader with this Ghost relationship but, there seems to be no meaning behind it all. Unless I missed it.

I guess I'm a little pissed because the conflict with Hannah is never resolved, though she had many conflicts in the story, only one mattered that much to me as a reader. But then again, not having your typical resolution somehow feels a bit refreshing, disappointing but not enough where I hated the story.

Other Issues:

Not quite sure if this is bad but every character has the same proper dialogue, maybe this is intentional. To me it makes everyone almost sound the same, like a robot. But it really helped me in reading the characters dialogue in a clear manner.

I wanted some answers and explanation after the fourth time she died, it started to become redundant without the story developing to explain this phenomenon.

This may not matter to the story, but I was wondering what was the setting of the story? Was it present time, where was the University, was it in the U.S etc…, though not necessary for the story, I just felt this was an earlier time setting and maybe set in another country, but I may be way off base.

It's never explained early on why she dies for those minutes, but then wakes up, I guess as a reader I was looking for some kind of logical explanation, but maybe the fact nothing is said may have worked for the story.

The film turned into a murder mystery, Hannah became sort of a detective and didn't really focus on her problem.

There were several subplots going on here in the script, I found myself towards the end being much more interested in the subplot of Laura Marie, Jimmy & Hannah. I wish those characters would of developed more, but you know what, because the edit was so tight on this, maybe it worked better that way.

I maybe wrong here, but this story seems to have the making of a novel. It seems like there are a lot of things that were left unexplained, and putting them in a screenplay would not have worked as well as in book format. You write so well that if this were made into a novel, I wouldn't mind reading it.

You must be a English Professor for the way you write so well regarding punctuation and so on...

Conclusion:

Well what to say here, the story had me going in one direction but took me somewhere totally different. I really enjoyed reading this for the simple fact how well edited and written it was. The plot maybe a bit all over the place, but it is edited so clean that it doesn't lose you.

If this would be made into a movie, it would fair better with a 3 part movie franchise, there is too much to be explained in just 2 hours. But the cool thing about it is, it might just work just as is.

So many questions are left unanswered, but the biggest is, nothing's really resolved with our Heroine. It has been said, every good story has a resolution, this one maybe an exception?

Because of the simple fact of of the weird plot and subplots, not too many people will welcome this type of story, I at first didn't but for some strange reason I'm willing to look pass it all. This is the first script I've read that I'm not really sure what my conclusion of it is, and that my friend compliments this story.

Joe,

I like the title and the premise is solid for a horror flick - sort of like ‘Final Destination’ in that the character is coping with her impending death. The “death zone” is an interesting device and probably my favorite aspect of the script if the “rules” of the death zone are established early and it’s used sparingly.

Although I find the idea that Hannah’s grandparents were Nazis interesting, I’m not exactly sure how or why it fits into the story. This adds to her alienation, but establishing that she’s racist/prejudiced makes her unsympathetic from the start. It may be enough to establish that she’s not prejudiced, however secretive and embarrassed by her family history.

The Ghost subplot is almost entirely divorced from the main plot of the story. He serves to explain the “death zone” to Hannah, but how or why his death needs to be solved by Hannah isn’t clear. Why is this ghost contacting her? Perhaps only in solving his murder she can solve her own?

Doctor Leach subplot where he explicitly approaches Hannah comes out of nowhere and goes nowhere. What’s the payoff?

I don’t understand how (if?) Hannah survived at the end. Is there something I missed?

By the end, Laura Marie is a murderer and Jimmy is a rapist. Does either get their comeuppance?

After reading this script, I’m left with more questions than answers. While ambiguity can work, in this case it’s more confusing than anything. Maybe there are some details I didn’t pick up that you can clarify in subsequent drafts. There’s a kernel of a movie in here, but the various storylines don’t quite come together yet.

Nick