Ghost Town

Okay, so I read it, and I dug it!...until the end.

I didn't get it. I mean, the gost was his dad. I got that. But why did he thank him, and why the whole setup for the shooting? It would have been a better ending if it was all in his head and he killed the horses. I am going to reread this when I get home, but for now the ending makes no sense to me.

The rest of the story is gnarly. Good cross-genre action there. Horror and Western...I DIG!
 
Thanks for the compliments...

The ending is signifying that the whole thing was a set-up for John Ray to scare off Robert and keep the money for himself. He didn't want to kill his partner, he just wanted him out of the picture so he could keep both shares for himself. So, he got the the help of his ghost father.

I was hoping that wouldn't be confusing.

I was going to do the "all in his head" ending but I've seen that in a lot of horror movies lately and felt like going for the double-twist instead.

Hope that makes sense now.
 
NOW! I get it and dig it. I had that thought that it was a setup, but there wasn't anything to clearly steer me that way. Good job though!
 
Hey hey!

Yeah this was quite an amusing / action/horror script that i could see working (especially if the black humour/humour was intentional here!)

At first I was reading it as a serious horror western script and thinking that it was coming across as a tiny bit hokey. Taking it less seriously (with a bit of fun) was just the remedy though hehe.

Now that said I think you could actually make the 'supernatural occurences' a little scarier! The 'demise' in water on the floor (is there maybe an easier way of that occuring?) While the killing of the horses i might have thought would get some notice! I mean who cares really - in a film it works easier than a scrutinising review hehe.

I was confused with the army of ghosts though - I mean where did they come from and go? The metal vest was cute - but you know what they say - what if the guy was shot in the head. etc.

So I think it would improve if the supernatural occurences were a little bit more plausibe (as part of a conspiracy). Maybe also reduce the length of the action lines a little - and maybe grittify the dialogue a little?

The ending (and double twist) did work but i think it would seem 'more right' if the preceding events made it more plausible in 'hindsight' u know?

If that sounds like a lot of crit (its not just ideas/suggestions) then i just also want to add that this was a really fun horror adventure that is entertaining!
 
lawriejaffa said:
Hey hey!

Yeah this was quite an amusing / action/horror script that i could see working (especially if the black humour/humour was intentional here!)

At first I was reading it as a serious horror western script and thinking that it was coming across as a tiny bit hokey. Taking it less seriously (with a bit of fun) was just the remedy though hehe.

Now that said I think you could actually make the 'supernatural occurences' a little scarier! The 'demise' in water on the floor (is there maybe an easier way of that occuring?) While the killing of the horses i might have thought would get some notice! I mean who cares really - in a film it works easier than a scrutinising review hehe.

I was confused with the army of ghosts though - I mean where did they come from and go? The metal vest was cute - but you know what they say - what if the guy was shot in the head. etc.

So I think it would improve if the supernatural occurences were a little bit more plausibe (as part of a conspiracy). Maybe also reduce the length of the action lines a little - and maybe grittify the dialogue a little?

The ending (and double twist) did work but i think it would seem 'more right' if the preceding events made it more plausible in 'hindsight' u know?

If that sounds like a lot of crit (its not just ideas/suggestions) then i just also want to add that this was a really fun horror adventure that is entertaining!
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Hey man.

Yeah, I was definitely going for some black comedy elements - I'm glad it was noticed.

As far as the army of ghosts, I just kinda thought it would be a cool read to imagine two-hundred ghosts of dead cowboys with bullet holes through their heads haha. I don't really know much about ghosts but the way I saw it they can just appear/disappear when they want to.

True about the metal vest but I just thought "hey... what if?". I was going to include a line earlier about how Robert could never shoot anyone in the head because the family would have to have a closed casket but I decided to do without.

Thanks for reading!
 
Yeah the metal vest is fine really - you'd have to be pretty anal as a viewer to bring that up really (so scratch that comment hehe) I think definately if your going to make the thing a hoax - then the army of ghosts can't actually appear (unless old grandpa has aftereffects and has created them to trick everyone hehe)
 
Well the whole thing about the spirits being condemned to the town is true. They were great gunslingers who died and are trapped there but the part about another spirit joining and some being freed is BS. That was just a ploy to get Robert to think he's killed John Ray and set the plan in motion. John Ray was just utilizing his father's situation to his advantage.

I suppose I didn't really put in any clues to make that apparent so that's my bad. :Drogar-Dum(DBG):
 
Yep if it clarifies that just a weeny bit better then you got a great idea on the go - particualrly i like the place being where the gunslingers are condemned - very nice.
 
Well you made me think. In this case, I'm not completely sure that's a good thing. :)

When the story opened up, I thought, oh, great, another bank (or train) robbery. Then you got a little clever on me and landed them in a ghost town. I was kinda diggin' the whole ghost situation until the end when the Outlaw Ghost turned out to be John Ray's father. Completely lost me there. No lead up to the possibility. And while the metal vest explains how he survived the shooting, there was not logical reason in the context of the story to allow for this. We only find out what has happened at the end and are never given enough information to have any kind of hint that this could happen. It feels like a cheat.

I'd like to be able to look back at the story and perhaps put the clues together in the aftermath and say, "oh, yeah. of course." But they're just not there.

One funny thing....
OUTLAW GHOST
Me? I live here, son. What are you
doin’ here?
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Kind of counterintuitive.

It reminds me of a time when I was in Germany and asked directions. The 20-something German told me to go past "where the dead man lives"... (it was a cemetery) :)
 
Blaine said:
Well you made me think. In this case, I'm not completely sure that's a good thing. :)

When the story opened up, I thought, oh, great, another bank (or train) robbery. Then you got a little clever on me and landed them in a ghost town. I was kinda diggin' the whole ghost situation until the end when the Outlaw Ghost turned out to be John Ray's father. Completely lost me there. No lead up to the possibility.
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Hey, well at least I made you think, right? :beer:

About the ending - Yeah I was a little afraid people would feel that way. But, with a twist ending, the last thing I wanted is for people to be able to see it coming. So I guess I errored a bit on the side of keeping people in the dark until the very last moment.

Blaine said:
And while the metal vest explains how he survived the shooting, there was not logical reason in the context of the story to allow for this. We only find out what has happened at the end and are never given enough information to have any kind of hint that this could happen. It feels like a cheat.
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That's surpising to me that it feels like a cheat. I know there's nothing in the story before that would make the ending obvious but I think there is a logical reason for the ending - money.

Blaine said:
One funny thing....
Kind of counterintuitive.

It reminds me of a time when I was in Germany and asked directions. The 20-something German told me to go past "where the dead man lives"... (it was a cemetery)
Click to expand...

Haha, yeah I agree with you on that one.

Thanks for the response, Blaine!
 
Hi Tim, I really enjoyed the read, thanks.

I think this is a good ghost story, as stated previously it could have been made a little more jumpy and scary. It has good dialogue and good scare sequances, but does lack a bit of tension here and there. I thought the ghosts were good and did picture a town full of their damaged froms.
The ending was a nice twist, if a little far fetched. I did like it when I thought it was all in his head and he had mutilated the horses (a nice flashback of him actually doing it would have been nice), but I do understand what you were trying to do. It does raise more questions than answers though.

I really enjoyed the read though. well done.
 
I enjoyed this story a lot. You did an excellent job crossing genres.

A technical nitpick. There are some long blocks of action that would definitely benefit from being broken up a bit. This would make for an easier read. That said, I did feel however that you're action was written well.

The dialogue was believable and I especially liked the banter between the Outlaw Ghost and Robert.
When the Ghost revealed that one of the gunslingers had to kill the other, I liked this idea and didn't expect it.

I hate to say it, but I didn't get the ending either. I was right with you til the end and then I was lost.
Not to say that I think its not a good ending, I like the idea of the twist. I just agree with some of the previous posts. If we had something to clue us in on his motivation, it would help.

Maybe something little could help. We see JR counting the money with greedy delight or something simple, he just mentions he can't believe how much money they got away with. Something to indicate his greed.

While I think this would give us some question about him, I don't think it would in anyway give away that the whole thing was a setup. The reader may think, we can't trust this guy, but be surprised/happy when Robert kills JR and then the reversal comes with the Outlaw Ghost father and its like....Ooooh that greedy bastard did have a plan afterall.

But I don't want to take away from the fact, I really enjoyed the story and thought it was a well written script. Well done!
 
@timcollins

you told a great story within 10 pages. certain scenes were very effective, namely when robert is on guard and then leaves the room, and is walking down the pitch black hallway and you hear the creaking noise from the floor. this = creepy, good job.

you described the action very well, i didn't get confused anywhere.

one thing though, in the beginning theyre in the western town right? then they enter a wide open desert, but this is still under the slugline WESTERN TOWN, and the next slugline is SALOON. i wouldve inserted one inbetween these like EXT. DESERT or EXT. GHOST TOWN OUTSKIRTS. not that it wasn't easy to follow, i followed it very easily.

i really liked the story you told here, a tip of my hat to you sir.
 
Hey, thanks DarkElastic, conlanforever, and nouou for your responses and your kind words!

DarkElastic - I agree the consensus of the ending has been pretty hit-or-miss... mostly miss actually which doesn't really surprise me all that much in hindsight - I added it on later because I felt the first ending was weak. But I was hoping that even though there weren't many clues leading up to it, it would still shock people...

conlanforever - About the blocks of action, yeah when I originally wrote the script on MS Word I stupidly was writing in 11pt font and I was so wrapped up in the story that I didn't notice until I was at 10 pages. So when I went back and changed the font to 12 it jumped up to 11 1/2 pages. And not wanting to part with my action sequences, I just condensed them. Won't make that mistake again!

nouou - Yeah, after reading everyone elses scripts, they made me realize how scattered my sluglines were... definitely something to fix in the future! Glad you liked it!
 
Well TimCollins all I can say is that this one was right up my alley! There were so many great scare moments in here I could really see how amazing this would be as a short. I like the idea of killing one to free twelve. Awesome motivation for the Outlaw Ghost to use there. Seems to me like tightening up the end twist to clarify the whole thing was a set up could be done in a number of easy ways so you really ended up with great piece of work here!
 
Mark C said:
Well TimCollins all I can say is that this one was right up my alley! There were so many great scare moments in here I could really see how amazing this would be as a short. I like the idea of killing one to free twelve. Awesome motivation for the Outlaw Ghost to use there. Seems to me like tightening up the end twist to clarify the whole thing was a set up could be done in a number of easy ways so you really ended up with great piece of work here!
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Thanks very much my friend! :)
 
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