Paul A Murray (Rancho Cordova)

Sean,

Just finished your script, and I can see why it has done so well for you. Well done! There are some really nice, original ideas in there, the dialog is good, and you have a nice level of detail that creates a sense of a real world without bogging the story down. You have great action that doesn't just feel like retreads of other movies, some great images and I love that the vampire doesn’t “glimmer.” Suffice to say, I really liked it, so any criticism I outline here I want to emphasize that context. You have created something really cool here already; I want you know the spirit I offer this feedback.

There are just a couple of elements that could be stronger I feel. One is the relationship between Norton and Terrel. For most of the story, they don’t seem to matter too much to each other, and I thought at first you’d put her in the story to illustrate how alone and isolated Terrel was. The two seem to be having some kind disagreement, at the very least she’s pretty antagonistic to him most of the time, but then at the end of the story she suddenly seems more important to Terrel. If their relationship had a little more to it so we could see why she’s valuable to Terrel, I think that would add more meaning to the moment at the end when he’s thinking about trying to protect her. I don’t mean that they need to switch to being happy love birds, but it'd be good to see just what it role she plays in Terrel's life that makes their relationship more positive than not.

Another part of the script that might be played up more is Terrel’s dad’s story. I love the tie in with the department, but a little more details around that might help tie in the significance of it. I don’t mean going so far as to have dear ol’ dad be involved with the vampire in the past, but a little more detail about Pop’s personality/character might give us a stronger sense of who Terrel is destined to be. Why did T’s dad have to be the first one through the door? That’s unusual for a detective, even 30 years ago. Why wasn't Mac? What was is about him that put him in harm’s way? This could tie in with Terrel now.

The last thing deals with the ending and Terrel’s character. He’s obviously a man who is looking for something in his life, otherwise why be so careless with his own safety, procedure and take so many extreme risks. Maybe this comes from his history with his dad, but in his time with Malachi he/we should get some insight into this. I don’t know… this could get really cheesy and too “pat” really quickly, but if it could fit, it’d make the ending a lot stronger and give the audience the sense that Terrel is going to change because of this. We like to see our protagonist change.