Calling all Screenwriters. I need help on this scene. What do you think?

Question

FADE IN :

INT. LARRY DOUGLAS' HOUSE - DAWN

BEDROOM

The room is dark and quiet. LARRY DOUGLAS is asleep.

Suddenly, a noise echoes through the house --

BANG

Larry is undisturbed and remains asleep. Moments later --

THUMP-THUMP-THUMP-THUMP

Larry's eyes burst open. He stares aimlessly at the ceiling, unsure what he heard --

A clamor of voices MURMUR in the distance.

He turns to his side and glances at the clock on the nightstand --5:04 a.m.-- too tired to care, he immediately rolls back over, pulling the covers over his head and disappearing into a ball of blankets.

For a moment there is quiet, but --

Agonizing GRUNTS Ruckus bellowing bellows now holler, cry out.

Larry lies motionless. He tries desperately to ignore it but his curiosity is just too much. He hurls the covers off and creeps into the --

HALLWAY

======================================...

There it is. It is the opening of my script and it is the only thing giving me trouble. The rest of the script is done and I feel comfortable about. But it is just this opening scene that I keep coming back and feel I am missing something. I think it is the sounds that are throwing me off. How would you write it.

PS. (I want it to seem like it is a killer or someone is breaking in his house but in reality in the next scenes it is really just movers. The script isn't meant to be a horror or suspense it is just that opening scene to trick people then goes into drama.)

Thank you all for your help you will really be doing me a huge favor!!

Answer 1

Two problems. First of all, he doesn't seem worried enough for it to be burglars. You need to create the false pretense that he too thinks that it is burglars, even though he knows that they are movers.

Secondly, the noises do not seem dramatic enough. If you want it to seem like a horror, you need truly horrific sounds, such as screams or loud cackles or something like that. This can be done if say, someone drops something on their foot, and another older beefy man cackles back at their clumsiness which you could explain in the next scene.

I hope I have helped.

P.S. The other thing you could do is open it in a more conventional way. While this may seem more boring, it won't play the audience along, and will not take away from the drama side of the plot. Otherwise, your beginning could have the audience expecting a horror play, even though it is clearly a drama. This is bad for two reasons.

1) The story isn't taken in as well, as people expect the opposite story line and neglect the parts which, to them, makes no sense.

2) The audience could get annoyed at the sudden change in plot. This could become confusing and frustrating

I'm not saying that you can't have a twist in the plot line. I'm just saying that changing what the lot lines theme is can be detrimental to what you are trying to achieve in your screen play.

Either way, I'm sure you'll do fine.