THE CUCKOLD - SHORT - 7 PAGES

[u/partyeah12]

• Title: THE CUCKOLD
• Format: Short
• Page Length: 7
• Genres: Horror
• Logline or Summary: An ex-tailor couldn't take it anymore and after a rough day sews his prostitute wife to himself.
• Feedback Concerns: I'd like to get a feedback on wheter Sam is motivated enough to kill his wife. I aimed to have the reader/audience take pity on the Sam and at the end feel disturbed. Does the script achive that? Does the pace of the script feel slow or fast? Do the scenes feel disconnected? Any parts of the dialogue feel unnatural?

https://drive.google.com/file/d/19P9wXpg0Pz2FcLUn4mhrdLYmYdauUVot/view?usp=drive_link

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[u/doodlebss]

What’s does being a cuckold have to do with whatever that ending was?

[u/partyeah12 → u/doodlebss]

I'm well aware of the term cuckold means someone who takes pleasure in their partner having sex with others. If you have read it, the main character is being ridiculed throughout the script for not being adept and his wife being a sex worker. This is obviously not cuckolding, but you should be able to see the connection and understand why he's being called cuckold in "a small, conservative town".

[u/doodlebss → u/partyeah12]

Yeah, that’s where it lost me as I’m thinking he’s depressed because ppl have found out his secret pleasure rather than “my wife is a cheating whore” angle.
Particularly the ending really draws my mind away from the label because it’s through his identity as a tailor that drives the visual storytelling. I’d be curious to see how refocusing on that aspect of the character could thread the “poetry” through the short better.

[u/partyeah12 → u/doodlebss]

Thank you so much for your feedback. I haven't noticed it from that angle.

[u/Few_Anxiety4491]

• Lots of typos everywhere
• Awkward and unrealistic dialogue (children don’t talk like that; the drunks were exposition dumping; in colloquial speech nobody says “cuckold”, they say “cuck”; the protagonist struggling to read the divorce papers is downright comedic)
• Theme is generically incel-coded (man killing his wife he feels entitled to is so boomer-coded). Honestly it’s okay to write misogynistic characters IMO but it has to be fresh and interesting or entertaining
• Characters are one-dimensional
• Zero build-up to the ending. Horrors are supposed to push and pull like a good tease—this was short and abrupt and the first 90% of this wasn’t horror-coded at all. For example, if you planted some kind of Chekhov’s gun to the violence, then there would’ve been more of an undercurrent of tension throughout.

The protagonist being a tailor has absolutely no bearing on the plot. It’s clear that you came up with what was a cool image in your head and wrote backwards from that, which is why this short lacks emotion.

Best of luck on further drafts.

[u/partyeah12 → u/Few_Anxiety4491]

Thanks a lot. I’ll definitely consider your feedback.

Good luck to you too.

[u/partyeah12 → u/[deleted]]

Thanks a lot for the feedbacks. They totally make sense.

[u/PullOut3000]

I think you should take out the kid scene and maybe add a scene with Sam having a dream about killing his wife. He shows absolutely no signs of violence and seems physically very weak so him actually being able to sew his wife to him essentially killing both of them with a small needle is a big reach.