[_____V_____]

As he is calling we can once again see the old man walking slowly down the hallway in the background. Fred stays behind the boxes for awhile trying to calm himself down until once again he thinks he hears the old man. He leaps up screaming leave me alone but the old man is gone again. Fred thinks that he is going crazy. He walks down the hall towards the stairs but gazes at the room where he found the old man’s body. He feels compelled to go in but desperately doesn’t want to. Finally he is able to pry himself away.

For awhile he tries to find a way out but without any luck. He finally decides to break a window but the only thing he remembers seeing that is heavy enough is the chair in the room where he first found the old man and he does not want to have to go back in there.

Unfortunately he decides that he has to. He slowly walks back upstairs. He hears a creaking noise before he enters and when he looks in he knows why. The old man is now sitting in the chair rocking back and forth. Fred shakes in fear unable to move. The old man suddenly stops leaving them in silence. Slowly he turns his head towards Fred staring at him with the large gaping holes where his eyes should be.

The old man suddenly begins screaming and Fred does the same. He runs away from the man and down the stairs again. He runs into the room on the left and hides again. He is so afraid he starts to cry. The old man enters the room but doesn’t seem to see Fred huddled in the corner behind the boxes and so he leaves. Fred stays there for awhile trying to get his phone to work. He talks to himself about Adam and his friends and about Rose.

Finally he gets up the nerve to leave the room. The front door is closed again and he tries to open it but it doesn’t budge. He punches the door and yells but quickly regrets it as he doesn’t want to warn the old man. He looks around but he is met with only silence. Suddenly he remembers the door by the staircase, the one directly in front of him when he first walked in. He hasn’t checked it yet.

Carefully he makes his way to the door and opens it. It leads down into a dark basement. He hopes that there is another way out down there or at least something he can use to break the windows. He walks down the stairs. As he reaches the room, the door behind him slams shut filling the room with darkness. Fred screams out from panic and breathes wildly. Shuffling and heavy breathing is all he hears for awhile until there is a click and a dim light appears. Fred has found a swinging light bulb hanging from the ceiling and pulled the string.

He grips above the bulb and tries to direct it around so he can see but he can’t really make anything out. His hand slips and he grabs the bulb burning his hand. He yelps in pain and the bulb swings away from him illuminating the figure of the old man on the other side of the room. Fred yells and falls to the ground. The bulb continues swinging first showing Fred scared on the ground, then the old man getting close and back and forth. Just as the old man is upon him, the light goes out and Fred screams.

The movie skips ahead to the next day. It is a beautiful day showing no signs of the storm from the night before. Rose is driving down the road. She looks worried. She picks up her phone and goes through her phone book. She finds Adam Stein’s number and calls it. Adam answers and Rose says who she is. She tells him that she hasn’t been able to get a hold of Fred. The scene switches to Adam who is also driving down the road. He tells Rose that he hasn’t been able to get a hold of him either and has gone looking for him. Adam tells her that Fred told him where he was last night and is searching for him.

The scene switches back to Rose and she says that she is on that road and very close to Adam. They agree to meet up and look for him together if one of them doesn’t find him first. Rose hangs up and continues down the road very upset. She is driving for awhile and then she comes around a turn and sees Fred’s totaled car. A young man who she can only guess is Adam is standing over it and looks upset. He sees her and more alarm shows on her face. Rose pulls over and jumps out of the car.

Adam yells her name to stop her and runs forward. Rose runs towards the car but Adam runs up and stops her from reaching it. She screams at him to let her go but Adam won’t and tells her she doesn’t want to see it. He says he sorry. The scene begins to move away from them towards the car as Rose asks him what he’s talking about. The camera gets to the driver’s side window and we see Fred’s mangled dead face lying against the steering wheel at the same time Adam tells her that he’s dead. Rose begins screaming and crying.

Off in the distance, you can catch the blurry image of a dead old man in one of the windows. It is something that you might miss. The screen fades to black and the movie ends.

Judge #1's verdict -

I give Villain a C+. Very well thought out. Definitely a movie I would see!

Judge #2's verdict -

Effort was put into this. It seems plenty cinematic in its telling. I can't say I'm especially impressed with this work, but work was certainly done. I would have liked to have seen more of your process on this. I don't know why you picked the story and to be honest don't remember this particular piece of fiction all that well.

I know there isn't anything in the assignment that says you must describe your process, but I don't know the why and wherefore about this piece, so can only give it a C, as there is nothing distinctly inferior in the work.

Judge #3's verdict -

Even if you based this on an old story by a classic writer, this film would not play well today, simply because the ending is clearly telegraphed from the very beginning. There are absolutely no surprises. Additionally, there's not enough here for a feature film. As written it would play, at the most, about an hour. Good for an anthology TV series, but not a complete feature.

Grade C-

Overall Grade - C