Thread: Untitled Strange Horror(ish)

I actually have no title yet. I'm having a little trouble. I was wanting
to call it Shadow Man, but thats the name of some random Steven Segal
movie. LOL!!

WARNING: This is an extreamly rough draft, I just finished it yesterday. I might add some stuff later ( It turned out to be only 61 pages)
apparently this is the first 6 pages. I didn't realize I put that many on here.

FADE IN:


EXT. WOODS - DAY

A young girl SUE TESNI, about the age of 8, is walking along
a path touching the leaves and low hanging branches of the
surrounding trees. the light of the noon day sun is shining
like little golden bicks on the dirt. she is humming a
simple tune. she suddenly stops and bends down to pick some
flowers. she puts some in her hair and holds aa small bunch
in her right hand. she reaches in one more time but stops
and slowly looks at the trunk of a large tree to her right.
there clawling up slowly is a lmedium sized strange looking
bug.it is perfectly round like a globe with porcilin colored
legs. the girl looks at it then reaches out to touch it.

SUE
ooh. pretty.

as soon as her finger touches it, the bug begins to crawl
frantically onto her hand then her arm then on her face. she
makes a whimpering sound as it goes through her hair then
back down to the palm of her right hand, where it stops. she
looks at it closely, an akward smile spreading across her
face. it then slowly crawls over to the top of her hand. It
then lies down, it begins to glow, her whimpering
intensifies, then it dissappear into her hand, leaving
behind a black mark that looks like a stylized sun. she
looks at the mark in awe. she then looks off into space then
starts to laugh for no prticular reason. she picks up the
flowers and continues walking down the path, brushing the
flowers against the trees.suddenly there is a noise in the
woods off the path. She walks through then stops just before
reaching a clearing.

EXT. WOODS - NIGHT

Suddenly she is in some low brush against a tree, she is
curled up into the fetal position shaking and mumbling
strange phrases.

SUE
stay away from the light that
shines from the east.

always trust your fear

stay far away from the shadow man.

people can be heard calling her name from far away. she
hears it as distorted evil sounding voices to begin with,
then it starts to sound normal. when she hears it normally
she perks up.

SUE
Mommy?

she crawls out from the brush and begins to run towards the
voices.

EXT. BACK PORCH 5 YEARS LATER - DAY

Sue is now 13. her parents sit on fancy deck chairs drinking
expecive drinks, her MOTHER is holding a baby in her arms,
both her mother and her FATHER watch their daughter with
great concern.she is sitting near a little man made watrfall
with tubs of colorded water all around her. she pokes her
fingers in them pushing around coffee filter. her hands are
deep purple from the dyes. she is wearing a faciful outfit,
almost fairylike, with a pair of old worn out jeans
underneath. she is also wearing a pair of home made fairy
wings. she pushes one of the tubs aside and poes at some
colored coffee filters lying flat on the rocks surrounding
the waterfall.

SUE
yeah, these flowers are ready.

she then peels them off one by one and stacking them to one
side. she then takes a few coffe filters out of some of the
vats and places them flat on the pavment shaped to look like
a stone path.

INT. DINING ROOM - DAY

Sue is sitting at the table putting together her paper
flowers. her father sits down across from her a magazine in
hand. he looks at her a little concerned then opens it
up.pieces fall out onto the table cloth.

FATHER
Sue-Sue. how many times do i have
to tell you not to cut up my
reading material before i get to
look at it?

she continues to work on her project. her father just stares
at her, then she speaks without looking at him.

SUE
I'm sorry daddy, I forget. it's
just that i have to hurry so i can
replace the old ones on my walls.

FATHER
your colloge? why? what is it
supose to be about anyway?

SUE
It's for protection from the
Shadow man.

FATHER
How many times to i have to tell
you, there is no Shadow man!
you're to old to be scared of
things like this!

SUE
How do you know? He's never come
after you or mom. and i sure won't
let him come after Davie.

FATHER
I got over the boogeyman fear when
I was 11. you know how? I knew he
wasn't real.

SUE
He's not the boogeyman daddy! and
he is real!

she looks back down and get more intense with her project.
her father just stares at her then shrugs his shoulders in
frustation and walks away.

INT. HOUSE - PRESENT - DAY

There is a knock on the front door, a now grown Sue in
almost the same outfit looks at it from a messy dining room
table.

SUE
Who is it? the voice of LUNA comes through the door and echos through
the now dingy house.

LUNA
It's me Sue-sue. can i come in?

SUE
You may.

LUNA
Well I'm gonna need some help, I
have two full bags this time.

Sue gets an excited look on her face and puts down her
project and walks hurriedly to the front door. she opens the
door,kind of hiding behind it.Luna walks through and Sue
quickly looks around the door, then shuts it by pushing it
away from her. Luna sets the tote bags on the island in the
kitchen. Sue strolls in peeking inside the bags.

SUE
you always know what i want, even
before i do.

LUNA
That's because I'm magic.

Luna smiles at her amused. Sue gives her a kind of side ways
look, then laughs a little.

SUE
I guess I'm that predictable huh?

LUNA
Yes, yes you are.

As Luna gets things out of the bag, Sue puts them up. SUE
Where would I be without you Luna?

LUNA
Probably Starving to death, or in
the looney bin.

SUE
no!

Sue slams a cabinet door. she just stands there her back
turned to Luna.

LUNA
Sorry Sue. It was only a joke. I
actually kind of like what you got
going here, I wish my parents
where able to pay for my house.

SUE
It's okay.

Sue then turns around and resumes taking things from Luna
and putting them up. Luna is a little confused, but manages
to shake it off with ease.

SUE (CON'T)
It's really not that great though.

LUNA
what?

SUE
living here.

LUNA
Oh.

SUE
My parents might still pay for it
but they abandoned me as soon as i
turned 18. better to have a crazy
daughter living on her own then in
the nut house I guess. I don't get
a call, not even a letter or
pictures. I don't even know if
Davie's alright or what he looks
like now. all because he started
to understand what was going on,
he was learning what to do to
protect himself. thats when they
got freaked out.

LUNA
from the shadow man?

SUE
yeah, hopfully they moved far
enough away so that he can't get
him.

Suddenly there is a knock on a window near the kitchen. they
both jump and look in the direction.SID DRAKE, the
caretaker, is at the window.

SID
Hey Luna, Your car is blocking my
truck.

LUNA
and you couldn't have gone through
the front door and told me? you
scared the hell out of us.

Sid smiles mischeviously and shakes his head. Luna sighs and
grabs the now empty totes as she walks towards the door.

LUNA
well, at least since your parents
decided to keep up apperences,you
have a caretaker to keep you
company. he doesn't live in here
with you does he?

SUE
No. He lives in that two story
storage shead over near the far
end of the Driveway.

Luna laughs a little and looks over to the window to say
something to the caretaker, but he is gone.

SUE (CON'T)
Well, I also get the occational
psychiatrist who tries to study me
and find out whats wrong. and we
all know the track history of
that.

LUNA
Yeah, you drive them crazy,
literally. except for that one
that went missing.

Sue begins to space out, her eyes start getting misty. Luna
tries to help by hugging her.

LUNA
I'm sorry Sue-sue. I'm sorry I
brought that one up.

There is a couple of sharp beeps from outside and Lana rolls
her eyes. she gives Sue one last squeeze of a hug and walks
out. yelling out the door as she goes.

LUNA
Yeah,yeah. I know! be patient will
ya!

Sue sighs, then walks back to the dining room table and
resumes her project.

I'm afraid I can't help much with the name, but keep throwing around variations of shadow, evil and whatever and you'll eventually find something that fits.

As for the story itself, the suspense is built up well, though I don't know enough about screenplays to comment on the pace. Good so far, and I'm looking forward to seeing where the story goes.

This draft of dialogue. Good description.

I think the time lapse is too much. One is fine, but two short ones is too much for me.

In my opinion, I would introduce the Shadow man in two ways: himself or show something he is responsible for. But, I wouldn't introduce him with dialogue like you've done. I feel his introduction should be SHOCKING!!!!

Or, if you must choose dialouge. Do it creepily, and don't let up until you do introduce him, then pull away when you think we've had enough of a glimpse.

I have had a great debate with my self with that.

I have a whole thing about who the Shadow man is,which you find out later on any way, but sort of where he comes from and other things. but i was trying to decide if it was something she,and the audience, should see at the very beginning or wait till she remembers it because it was a represed memory ( hence the mental illness.) I chose the latter, but I'm just wondering what would happen if I changed it around.

should I have a flash every time she mentions the shadow man? can you do that? like of different parts of the repressed memory? like when she is scared by the tree in the beginning, she is repeating that whole thing like a mantra. there is a whole "memory" later on about what happend in the woods that day. she mentions the "Shadow man" ALOT through out the whole script.

in the very next scene(s) you kind of figure out who he is anyway. should I post that as well?

I'd cut back on the flashes til a rather plot-specific moment. I'd also put off explaining who the shadow man is for as long as you can get away with it. If you can, try to show what he does more than who he is, get people to start believing that he's there. Not sure if this makes much sense, but if you can keep him out you build suspense, create interest and give yourself some space. That way you stop thinkingabout who and what he is, but more about how he acts around your MC, and how your MC reacts to him.

Actually, I take back what I said about the beetle scene. Keep that in but save the scene with the father for a flashback.

There's absolutely no reason not to flashback/forward or jump around in time as much as she wants to. (You people DO see movies and TV in the last 15 years, right?)

But always keep in mind, that just putting (FIVE MINUTES LATER) in the slugline isn't enough. The audience has to either SEE or HEAR everything you want to get across.
In fact, it's not a good idea to have stuff like that in sluglines. They should include INT/EXT, location, and NIGHT/DAY. There are a lot of reasons for that, but one is that it forces you to realize that if you want it to be later or earlier or whatever you have to write it in.

I was just thinking of split second flashes like in the movie Sunshine or fightclub. kind of like pictures from her repressed memory. I was asking about it because I figured it was a style choice and unnesecery unless it was being made. ( like a shooting script) I did feel uncomfortable putting the time in the slugline, but i wasn't sure what else i could do.

The verybeginning and when she is remembering the repressed memory are the only"Flashbacks" I have in the whole thing.

Originally Posted by lin

There's absolutely no reason not to flashback/forward or jump around in time as much as she wants to. (You people DO see movies and TV in the last 15 years, right?)

But always keep in mind, that just putting (FIVE MINUTES LATER) in the slugline isn't enough. The audience has to either SEE or HEAR everything you want to get across.
In fact, it's not a good idea to have stuff like that in sluglines. They should include INT/EXT, location, and NIGHT/DAY. There are a lot of reasons for that, but one is that it forces you to realize that if you want it to be later or earlier or whatever you have to write it in.

Yeah, but remarkably few do the flashbacks with any success. That training flashback in MI3 leaps to mind here... While the likes of Lost are more flashback with bits of story thrown in as needed.

Yeah, but remarkably few do the flashbacks with any success.

Has nothing to do with this. Sometimes things work, other time they don't. There is nothing wrong or scary about using flashbacks, any more than using nouns. People don't always do that well, either.

So should I just scrap the whole thing about her parents being worried thing and describe the whole thing in dialouge? oh wait, i forgot about the next scene. i think I'll start a whole new thread over that. no flashbacks but alot of one person listening to something.

really i guess what I'm wondering is should i have the whole thing about what happened in the woods at the beginning or save it till the end?

here if you want to you can read it....only if you want. i couldn't get over 61 or 62 pages for some reason.

Screenwriter Community
the password is:
Shadow

See this is where these sacred cows bump into each other. Is it worse to use flashback? Or "tell, don't show"????

Think it out, weight the options. Try our various scenarios. Make your decision, stick with it, and carry it out.

I'm not against flashback, but I admit a downside to using it is halting the momentum of the story. A flashback is like a time-out in the middle of the story where you are filled in and then things start up again. Sometimes, too many flashbacks can feel like stopping and starting over and over again and it feels really jarring. I think you can get away with more flashbacks in the beginning where we are still learning about the characters and the problem. Also, flashbacks should be really necessary in understanding the story at hand. A good example is My Name is Earl if anyone's seen the show. I think most episodes, they flashback to stupid things Earl did and the trouble it caused becuase the rest of the episode will be him going back and righting that wrong.

Lets put the flashback thing to one side for the moment and concentrate on the parent's being worried thing. Do we really need to know about it right now? Could it be held back for a time when she has to deal with her parents or her brother?

Originally Posted by slayerofangels

Lets put the flashback thing to one side for the moment and concentrate on the parent's being worried thing. Do we really need to know about it right now? Could it be held back for a time when she has to deal with her parents or her brother?

she never does. I mean other than the beginning the only other time any of them are even mentioned is at the very end.

I'm not even sure, there are things that I wanted to put in that I didn't so I might be putting those in and I could move things around a bit. thats the point of a rough draft right?