Youth

[Mobie540]

"Youth"

A terminally ill girl stays with her reclusive great aunt who attempts to heal her sickness.

[Chris_Keaton]

Glad to see you made it.

[Anthony Todaro]

Welcome to Thunderdome... (always wanted to use that)

[Sunk99]

Enjoyed this script a lot. Very scary kids tale, but not too. Well done.
Here are the only minor things I came across.
1) You showed the inside of the bedroom then had the girl walk inside.
Unusual to show the room before the characters walk in.
I wouldn't have even noticed, but later on Amber looks at the clown picture on the bedroom wall.
Because it was shown before she walked into the bedroom, I thought that picture was in the living room.
In an actual film this reader mistake wouldn't occur, but I now see how it might during a read.
Just a mention, actually for myself to be more aware of such potentials.
2) What is that? & What is it? I thought both these lines could be dropped, as Amber obviously can see it is a jewelry box & necklace.
3) Re: Amber gets into the taxi at the end. This confused me. I thought she dead or sucked up into the picture?
I thought, when the taxi blew its horn and she looked out, it would be ... another morsel come to visit ole Aunt Lillian <hee, hee, hee>

Love the use of the scary clown - making more kids phobic are ya? :)
My daughter is terrified of clowns.

[dtroop506]

Mobie,

I enjoyed this weird tale.
I thought your style was very good and your action / description was excellent. Maybe a tad intense for children under ten, but who knows nowadays.

I'm not sure if kids will realize that Amber is cured at the end. At first, I was not totally certain. I thought Liliian was sucking the life from Amber to keep her youth. And the pictures on the dresser were of Lillian through the years every time she found another victim. But then why wait until she was 80 to become 20 again. What I mean to say is, while an adult might appreciate the twist and your misdirection (as I did), I'm not sure that a kid would pick up on it.
Maybe, a goodbye scene before Amber gets into the cab with Amber noticing her cough is gone would clear things up.

Otherwise, a very weird entry. But in a good way.

[DarrenJSeeley]

LILLIAN
(Praying in Tongues)

Isn't dialog. It is an action.

Lillian chants in a unknown language.

Scary clowns are cool. Even in paintings.
Good Grimm-sh tale!

[Rustom Irani]

Ah, I see what you mean by this not being family friendly. J Though in tone it comes close to a Brothers Grimm fairytale and those were literally quite dark but I can see how your visuals wouldn’t work for Family Friendly in the film medium.

The plot left me a bit confused, especially since we never actually see her taste the soup?! So, then how was she poisoned? The necklace?

Why would Lillian steal her youth and then transmit the force to the clown photo? Is she a witch? Did she do it to keep Amber alive since she’s kin?

There’re quite a few questions and I’m not to certain where the pieces fit in, or are there any bigger ones missing?

This is a classic horror tale that has the perfect blend of ominous dialogs and visuals to match but needs another quick re-write to give some clearer exposition.

[Chris_Keaton]

Notes:
- At the bottom of page 1 I was worried this was going to be a body swap story.

Creepy story. I can see this as a PG-13 since there is not terrible violence, sex, or drugs. I nice TV rated scary story.

If you didn't have a reason for hating clowns before, now you do. :) Nice job.

[Sarah Daly]

There's a lot I like about this. The set-up is good. The tension between the two characters is great. We really feel for Amber and we're sucked into (pardon the pun) the mystery which is foreshadowed very well. My main problem, as others have said, is that what actually happens at the end is a little unclear. I say ditch one of the twists. Either she's cured or her youth has been stolen and she's trapped in the picture. I like the second one better :) But maybe a more interesting twist would be that the old lady doesn't realise the child is terminally ill, so that when she tries to steal her youth, she inadvertently infects herself and becomes terminally ill too, thus getting some sort of due punishment for her youth-stealing crimes! :) Maybe a bit dark for a kid's film though :P

Out of interest I'd like to know what you intended? Did the old lady cure all the girls in the photos then? Or did she steal their youth? Am I slow? :)

[Mobie540]

Out of interest I'd like to know what you intended? Did the old lady cure all the girls in the photos then? Or did she steal their youth? Am I slow? :)


Originally, Aunt Liliian was Amber's mother and this was a cyclical thing where she would have a child and grow old and have to suck their youth out of them. Then I was like "yawn", there's so much death in shorts. So I went with a healing thing. So Aunt Lillian actually heals these little girls and is tempted to keep their youth but resists the temptation and cures them.

Being a first draft, I'm sure I could develop it even more. Thanks for the read.

[Chris_Keaton]

I think I was high when I wrote my review.

[Sarah Daly]

Ok cool yeah I really like that premise - just maybe there are some leftover remnants from your original idea still in there that could be cleared out. Or just make it a teeny bit more obvious. It's a great idea.