"Monster in the Closet"

Introduction

This is another "Twilight Zone" teleplay, this time original. This episode focuses again on loneliness and isolation (a common theme in my writing) but instead on how such things stem from childhood trauma. Much like Kafka's "The Metamorphosis" this episode is semi-autobiographical such as the protagonist's age and character traits bear many similarities to my own. Unfortunately, I had been suffering the effects of childhood trauma for most of my life now and writing this episode was my way to deal with all the pain and sorrow.

Premise

As mentioned before, I wrote this episode as a way to deal with my own childhood trauma, but the beauty of The Twilight Zone is that it deals with universal themes and that is why I believe the original series is still relevant after almost 60 years. Plus, there were grim episodes and sometimes episodes that were rather touching. My favourite episode from the original series is "Walking Distance" where an ad executive from New York named Martin Sloan walks back to his home and inadvertently walks back into time meeting his parents and his 11-year old self. It's a fondly remembered and touching episode with an amazing score by the legendary Bernard Herrmann.

I became fascinated with the idea of inadvertently meeting my younger self. Would we be friends? Since we're the same person, suffering all the pain I would want to help him. Tell him that even though it seems dark ahead, there will be a light at the end of the tunnel. I would become almost like an older brother to my younger self. Oddly enough, I am an older brother in real life.

That's what inspired the relationship between Anna and her younger self. Anna grew up without any brothers and sisters and thus through taking care of the 9-year-old Anna, she becomes like the older sister she never had. Going back to how the original Twilight Zone is still relevant for having universal themes, I hope the ending is seen as such. It's about finally getting the help we all need. For Anna, it's about her childhood trauma. A viewer might see it as coming out of the closet and another might see it as seeking help with a mental illness.

Logline

A broken school teacher wants to overcome her childhood trauma after she inexplicably finds her younger self hiding in the closet. 

Synopsis

After twenty years of suppressing her emotions regarding a traumatic childhood experience, Anna Farrows finds her nine-year-old self hiding in the closet. She takes it upon herself to care for her younger self and figure out a way to get the little girl home, all the while coming face-to-face with the true monster in the closet. 

Teleplay

Below is a link to view the PDF of my original Writer's Draft for this episode:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ekcHBOpLsaIZ5PcaKZcW2sUn2qb8-_8T/view?usp=sharing

Below is a link to the PDF of my improved revision of my Writer's Draft:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1aidHf1VbVjiVj7Wfb5uHCi5cPOxVs4qe/view?usp=sharing

Playlist

I made yet another Spotify playlist for this episode, the link is below:

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2XhAFcwQeU5x9LO2r1jbNO

Conclusion 

Thank you for reading my blog post. If you did read my teleplay, I hope you had as much fun reading it as I did writing it. Feel free to leave your thoughts below.