Is this the most f’d up story of the year?
Genre: Horror
Premise: Back in 1989, a family receives an eerie visitor named Tommy Taffy, who sets up shop in the house, becoming a third parent, and torturing them in a way that only Tommy can.
About: We’ve got another big short story sale from Reddit’s Creepypasta subreddit, one of the most popular horror forums around. You can read the short story yourself here.
Writer: Elias Witherow
Details: 5000 words (about 1/4 of a screenplay)
Matt Smith for Tommy?
No. Horror short story sales are not over.
Remember, horror is the most bankable genre in Hollywood. So it’s the one that everyone tries to figure out. And they can’t. It’s still a genre where some movies hit and others crash and burn.
A big reason for that is that there’s way less IP in horror than in other genres. You’ve got Stephen King, of course. But great horror movies (Talk to Me, It Follows, Heretic, Quiet Place, Terrifier) constantly come out of nowhere.
The thing is, Hollywood is so uncomfortable with that, that they’ll do anything if it provides even a little bit of IP. Enter Creepypasta. Some of these stories have been beloved by hundreds of thousands of people. That’s enough for Hollywood to adapt.
Hence, The Third Parent sale.
Let’s see if it lives up to the hype.
It’s 1989. 6 year old Matt is chilling with his family in their suburban home. There’s Spence, the dad. There’s Megan, the mom. And there’s Stephanie, Matt’s 5 year old sister. There’s a knock on the door. Spence goes to open it. And there’s this… man, standing there. Or some version of a man. Here’s how he’s described.
He was about six foot and had a shock of golden hair cut tight along his scalp. He wore khaki shorts and a white T-shirt that said “HI!” in red cartoon font.
But that wasn’t what caught my eye. It was his skin…it was completely devoid of pores, a perfectly smooth, creamy texture that looked almost like soft plastic. His face was a pool of gentle pink, his mouth a cheerful cut along his cheeks revealing a white strip of teeth…but they weren’t teeth. It was just a smooth, edgeless row, like he had a mouth guard on. His nose was just a slight rise out of his face, like a doll, void of nostrils.
And his eyes…
His eyes were twin puddles of sparkling blue, shining out at us from his flawless, eerie face. They were wide, like he was in a constant state of surprise, and they shifted around the room to look at us in quick, jarring motion.
Matt is both bewildered and baffled by this man’s entry into their home. But his confusion is just getting started. The father is terrified of this thing but simply says that Tommy will now start living with them.
Even though Matt knows something is very off about Tommy, the first real example that this is going to be bad is when Tommy takes Megan into the basement and, for the rest of the night, we hear the most horrifying screams that humanity has ever experienced.
You’d think that Spence would fight back but he doesn’t. He doesn’t even fight back when Tommy takes Stephanie into her room and we hear the exact same screams of horror all night.
Matt finally confronts his dad about why he doesn’t fight back. It turns out that Tommy Taffy lived in his hometown growing up and was present in every single home in the town. They chopped him up. They burned him to death. It didn’t matter. He always came back. And when he did, he punished people with an iron fist.
Poor Matt gets his own dose of Tommy time after finding his first Playboy Magazine. Afterwards, Matt asks his dad how much longer they have to endure this. “Three years,” he says. Tommy always stays for five years total. Sure enough, three years later, Tommy leaves and never comes back. The end.
Is it true what people on Reddit have been saying about this story? That it’s the most f’d up story of the year?
I would have to say…. Yes.
But just how f’d up it is depends on whether you give this story the benefit of the doubt. Is it just a shocking skin deep tale? Or is it trying to say something deeper? If it’s trying to say something deeper, it’s actually quite affecting. But I’m not convinced that’s the case. If I had to guess, I would say that the writer just thought, “How can I write the most messed up story ever and really shock people?”
And you know what? That’s not the worst strategy for a writer. With every project that a writer writes, the ultimate goal is to stand out from the pack. The way you do that is to pick a lane and be faster in that lane than everyone else.
So, if you write something that’s dialogue-centric, your dialogue has to stand above the rest. If you’re writing a thriller, you have to have thrills that stand above the rest. And if you’re writing something to shock people, you have to be more shocking than the rest.
And there’s a lane open for shock-writing right now. For the last 7-8 years, everyone has been avoiding offending people. So the writing has been very careful. Even the stuff that’s been daring has only been daring on one side. Therefore, there’s been this entire mini-generation who hasn’t been offended about certain things.
Enter The Third Parent.
Now, this isn’t total shlock. There is some thought put into this. For instance, there’s a strong core of irony built into the concept. Normally, when you have some evil person doing evil things, they look evil. They’re dirty and smelly and unkempt. When you do that, you’re being on-the-nose.
Tommy is the opposite of that. He’s clean. He’s perfect. He smiles and laughs all the time. That kind of person isn’t supposed to be scary. You’re supposed to trust that kind of person.
Another thing this writer did well was he created a character that wasn’t like any other character we’ve seen. He has clown-like qualities. But he’s not a clown. He’s this weird hybrid of a clown and a full-sized doll.
However, beyond that, this becomes pretty basic. This doll thing rapes three of the four family members in the worst way imaginable. It’s unsettling but this kind of thing works in short story form.
My question is, can it work in feature form? I’m not sure it can. I’m not sure you can have some doll clown thing hanging out and raping children for 2 hours. People are going to be beyond uncomfortable. So they have to make a choice on whether to stop the sexual abuse BEFORE it happens. The story focuses more on the THREAT of that abuse rather than the actuality of it. Of course, if you do that, you take away the one thing about your story that stands out.
What will help is to make the family more active. One thing you definitely can’t do in a movie is have a family that does nothing – that just allows this to happen to them. In this story, that’s kind of what makes it terrifying. They have no choice. But in a movie, the audience will not forgive characters who do nothing. At a certain point, the characters need to attack.
Regarding my earlier statement of, is this surface level or does it go deeper? Here’s my take on the “deeper” storyline. You guys can let me know if I’m off-base. I believe what the writer MAY have been trying to say is that every family has secrets. Every family has abuse. There may not be a physical Tommy Taffy. But metaphorically, there’s always a Tommy Taffy.
Because part of the story is about how they don’t do anything about it. They don’t go to the cops. They don’t bring in the military to nuke the dude. The families are encouraged to keep Tommy Taffy a secret.
If that’s the metaphor, it’s a good one. But, again, this could still be shock shlock. What do you think?
[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[ ] wasn’t for me
[x] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: One of the harder things to achieve in horror is creating a truly terrifying horror character. Someone who REALLY scares audiences. Most horror characters I read are lame. This horror character definitely stands out. So, it’s a good idea, when writing horror, to spend that extra time creating the scariest most original horror villain you’re capable of coming up with.
