This was the first ever feedback I received on my screenplay for Lock the Doors, and the first feedback I had ever received on a screenplay:
You’ve got a couple of great ideas woven together here – the
effects of not taking the medication and how this creates the
character of The Boy, plus the confusion around the two
identical cabins. It’s darkly comic and a brilliant way to
subvert the idea of home intrusion. It’s also very cleverly
done and you’ve obviously put a lot of thought into how the
circumstantial can be used to create such drama.
There’s something compelling about The Boy’s reasoning and
paranoid but convincing intelligence. It stirs up a mish mash
of Of Mice And Men, the British film Dead Man’s Shoes, Thomas
Tryon’s novel The Other and even Fight Club.
You have some very nicely worked horror set pieces embedded
throughout. My only concern is that on occasion you wander a
little too far into a style of writing more suited to a novel
than to a screenplay. Yes, it’s nice writing and it’s great to
be visual but you need to balance this against the pace and
the flow of the screenplay. Be savvy. Try and find a way to
make the scene direction dynamic. Blocks of prose permeating
each scene can be a slog to get through. Screenplays are not
books; they are meant to mimic the feeling of watching a film.
If something exciting is happening, it should be written in an
exciting way to try to suggest how intense the scene will be
once filmed. There is no hard and fast rule here, but large
chunks of no-frills scene direction are extremely scarce in
professional screenplays.
Consider the number of times you’re referencing what your
characters’ eyes are doing: Eyes lighting up, eyes gleaming,
eyes widening, sweeping, shutting, opening, filling with
murderous fury… things like these feel well overcooked. If
you can address this and tighten things up by focussing on the
germane rather than the superfluous then you’ll turn this from
a good screenplay to a great one.
Great idea which has been for the most part very well
executed.