J Nel (Cincinnati, OH)

A good script that was like Scream mixed up with Hocus Pocus and a dash of Cocoon.

I want to get this out of the way first, and the reason I gave 4 stars instead of 5. (But please in no way read this in a tone that suggests, "You suck and should never write again." It's a good script.)

***SPOILERS!!!

You were cruising into a 5 star rating until the end, which bothered me as it felt both convenient and drawn out. It started with the basement scene. I think the line of "a pair of victims per witch" should be dropped and have the witches toy with Mark and Anne, saying they're not ready for them quite yet and to throw them in the basement. The way it is now, I really felt like you needed them to stay alive a bit longer so you threw them in the basement with the line "they must still be full" as a cop out. I still think them in the basement is a good scene, but right now it feels more like a convenient tool for you than it does a natural part of the story.

The second part is the whole gas explosion. Anne needs to be more against it or maybe even take an "I don't care" attitude since she's just realized her brother is dead. She needs to fight Mark so there's more of a struggle on burning the house down and possibly dying. (Mark also needs to take her line about suffocating being better than being eaten.) I was also wondering when they lit the fire why it didn't just feed up the pipe and blow the tank outside versus being a torch. This last part I can suspend my disbelief, as it's a movie, but maybe have Anne argue something to that effect.

Now the drawn out part. The other two witches keep escaping stuff too easy, to come after Anne and Madi. Either have them escape the explosion and finish at the house, or have Madi somehow stumble upon the old building and help Anne finish there. Right now I was very upset that the witch with the braids caught on fire from a small fire versus both witches being THROWN from the building in an EXPLOSION that somehow left them alive.

And the small stuff...

Formatting is good, but one suggestion I would make is grouping up action/description. Some needs to be single lines for dramatic effect, but there's a lot of one liners that can be grouped up. (It felt like you were trying to bump up page length in the beginning as everything was a single line, then at the end it was all bunched up like you were trying to wrap things up and running out of pages.)

Lisa and Madi need to be more distinguished from each other. I think Lisa should be the slightly skanky ditz while Madi is the wisecracking talker. I like Madi as a character, but that beginning made her and Lisa sound too much alike.

There were a few typos, none of which hurt you, but there was an instance where you said STEVE and meant MARK. I apologize (as the iPad doesn't include page numbers), but it's right when Mark leaves the copy place and is tripped by the old lady.

Other than that, good work and good luck.

Overall, I liked it. I think for the most part though, you need to beef it up a bit, by adding a scene or two. One of the things I noticed is that some scenes have too much dialogue, a lot of which doesn't add conflict. (Amanda talking with her mother comes to mind. We get it, she loves Nicholas and doesn't want to get married.)

The action scenes are good though and easy to visualize. I think you could have more interactions with Nicholas doing some early fighting (and losing) as he's training though.

That said, here are a few small things I noticed:

Natas and Luther talk to much in the first scene. I'd like to see this tightened up.

Archbishop vs. Archbishop Gabe, are they the same person? Pick one and stick with it.

Page 29, leave out (voice like ...). I understand you're trying to give the different reindeers unique personalities, but this should probably be understood from their dialogue.

The training sequence is too long. Instead of showing so much training, maybe Natas sends a scouting group that Santa defeats. Or break up training with Santa discovering something that goes adds to the tradition of what he is for us, i.e. milk and cookies.

Avoid ellipses. (...) As I've said in a few reviews now, "..." is just a bad substitue for good dialogue.

Unclear genre, comedy or adventure? If it's an adventure of Santa becoming a hero, stick with that, and lose all the cheesy jokes, especially with Natas.

Lastly, a lot of small grammar mistakes. Walk when it should be walks, looks when it should be look. Might want to clear those up in a revision.

Your script needs a decent amount of work. I think it's around 3 stars now, and I feel bad as you've given me such a great review.

One of the major changes I think you need to drop is the ENTIRE beginning with the rabbit heist. The story needs to be set in the genetics lab, or at least most of it should. To set up the back story, have the crew get ready for the heist and refer to getting off easy. The beauty in this is that you've just cut to the chase a lot faster, keeping things interesting, but by limiting your settings, you've also reduced the locations needed to shoot (lower budget).

This works for the cops too, but DROP THE COFFEE SHOP. The few screenwriting professors I've had all HATED setting things in coffee shops. One even went as far to say that production readers will see the words "INT. COFFEE SHOP" and instantly zone out. You don't want this. Give them something odd and interesting to do. (Maybe they all work as dog groomers and are finishing up for the day.) Make it public though, so they can run into Smith and Wesson, but the group acts cocky that they got away with a crime. Keep the scene limited though, with just enough to let us know who these people are.

I didn't like all the paramedics either. I got that their names were supposed to be a joke, but you call the project Corridor of Freaks, so why not incorporate the freaks more? I like Pinhead, and he reminds me of Hugo in Richard Stern's Villian script. Make him more into a stumbling, bumbling henchman, though.

The story as it is right now is all over the place. The plot is hard to follow and there's a decent number of scenes in there that add nothing (like Norman trying to save Dog Face). Some of them even come out of the blue. One book that helped me, was "Save the Cat" by Blake Snyder. It expands on the idea of the 3 act structure, by giving examples of other plot points that are in popular movies. It might help.

Now onto the small stuff.

The corny jokes are TOO MUCH. Smith and Wesson were okay, but combined with the twins finishing off each others' sentences (I think you could ditch them altogether and develop Scarlett more), Chucky/Jason/Freddy as paramedics, and, "Frankly Scarlett, I don't give a damn," it all came across as silly. You need to pick one of these and that's it.

Swearing and sex scenes. I think you can lose EVERY instance of swearing. It didn't add anything to the feeling of what the characters were saying. Also drop the sex scenes. The one with Amber wasn't bad, but the one with the twins was the beginning of a porno. By editing out the swearing and sex, you've just increased the number of places to shop your script, which means a better chance to sell it.

Dialogue and Ellipses. I mentioned it in a review of Steven Kale's project, and although your's wasn't as bad, don't use "..." since it's a poor substitue for good dialogue. If you want a character to interrupt, use "--" at the end of one and beginning of the next, but again this should be used sparingly. If you're trying to achieve a pause, a comma works just was well, and if more is needed, action saying, "Jeff PAUSES." If you rewrite, clean all these up and you'll be in good shape.

Lastly is character development. I like what you did for the characters, establishing their personalities. The problem you have to watch out for is them abandoning those personalities too quickly. The one example that was most obvious is Tod when the cops rush in. He's been a big sissy since the get go, but now he's all, "You can't intimidate me! Come back with a warrant!" Not saying they can't change, but that they need to be more reluctant in doing so.

This was like Interview with a Vampire mixed with Inception. I'm still trying to wrap my brain around it.

Really, really good Trevor.

Formatting was right on (although I'd drop the a, b, c part of the flashback in burning London, just describe it instead), dialogue was great, and the flow was good.

One thing I think people should read (especially newer writers) is the very beginning. It's an excellent example of entering at the middle of a scene. Nothing's wasted, and although with the names it takes a while to get our bearings, we're right into the middle of the action, should we kill the boy or not? Great job.

Now, onto story structure, and why I gave it a 3. I think there's too much talking in the apartment. Like interview with a Vampire, Brad Pitt is giving Christian Slater a recount of his life, but we see most of it. I think if you work that angle into it more (and not by putting the old man and young man into the scene which felt cheesy) your script would be magnificent. I wouldn't eliminate the apartment entirely, because we still have to come back to it every now and then, to see the old man mind f'ing the young man. Realistically though, I think you need a third of what you have now set in the apartment.

I still kept reading it though, and was very interested. I felt like I was suffering through the apartment scenes though as I knew cool flashbacks were just around the corner and I hung in there.

Before I get started, and it's being anal, I know, but an AISLE is the path between seats on an airplane, an ISLE is where you want to be stranded with a sexy, topless tropical woman.

That said, I liked your story.

The beginning took too long to develop however. The best comparison I can make is Jurassic Park the book vs. the movie. The book took FOREVER to get to the island, where the movie had quick backstory, then BOOM we're seeing dinosaurs and into the main plot.

Now I know there's not dinos in your script, but it feels like it takes FOREVER for Prof. Osgood to reach the mountain. Then once we're there it takes even LONGER to get to the bottom of it. Once all the stuff goes on down there, we're RACING through the rest of the plot.

First half of the script made me feel like we're driving 15 mph through a school zone, but once Osgood realizes it's up to him to save the human race we're blazing through at 88 MPH!

Something that I think might help is to have the epidemic more advanced at the beginning of the story. Also, Dr. Goldstein is a pointless character other than him looking down his nose at us. This is something that can be achieved by a random doctor, as you montage all the boys in comas around the world. Maybe even have an announcer on TV tell us. Eliminating most of the epidemic scenes also help Osgood get to the volcano faster.

Second, have Osgood read the file on the plane. He's there for an ENTIRE day hanging out. The military's so concerned they kidnap him from his house, then waste a day sitting back and relaxing with some whiskey? Needs to happen faster.

My last point is the spiraling beats that lead to the end. How did Osgood know what to do? He just rushed back to Washington and everyone seemed to get out of his way too easily. Some more explanation on why things were happening would have been nice. You have him flip through the Bible a bit, so maybe have some clues come up, or reasons for why the different plagues were occuring at certain times. His realization at the end felt too fast and easy.

Last comment is I loved the general. His dialogue was snappy, and it made me think of W.R. Monger from Mosters vs. Aliens.

Hope that helps, and good job so far.

Paul,

Really good work, thank you. Seems you hit the key notes and emotions from the script, which was hard, being that it is very image based and probably really time consuming (expensive) to do. I'm also glad you chose the subway station, that's one of my favorite scenes due to it being the closest modern day representation to what happened in the book.

Again, so glad you took the time to do this.

Jeff Nelson