Inspiration

I’ve been listening to the Magnus Archives, a narrative horror/thriller podcast that uses the medium in unique ways. I’ve also watched the latest season of Doctor Who, (a lot of complex thoughts on that one…) but the typical “one horror episode” the show airs every season really gripped me this time.

Doctor Who – “The Well”

Spoilers for Doctor Who (2023) Season 2 Episode 3: “The Well”

A deaf woman, Aliss, is found as the sole survivor of a mining operation on a dark, black moon. Surrounding her are the bodies of those she lived with, and she’s traumatized, confused as to how they all could have died and she somehow lived.

However, the Doctor and Belinda just want to help this scared woman, and Belinda begins to provide her with medical care. Dread of the unknown in this scene is palpable, until just one person sees something:

On initial viewing, the audience doesn’t know what to expect, so seeing a figure dart out of sight is terrifying… especially because no one else can see it aside from Belinda.

The Magnus Archives

That idea, of something tricking one of your senses for a moment, tricking yourself into believing it’s not real, is something the Magnus Archives excels at. The story is initially told via the recording of a collection of eyewitness statements to varying horrific circumstances. The stories are typically only creepy in an every day sense, such as being afraid of a dark corner of your bedroom at night, crawling through an increasingly tight space, or not knowing what might be around the corner. Paranoia.

There’s always a moment where these statements shift, detailing an unexplainable circumstance, such as a door appearing where there was not a door before. The characters try to rationalize it, but fail, realizing an adjacent room to it could not exist because the door would typically swing open towards the outside of the house, and that door couldn’t have been missed by the realtor on her dozens of previous showings. That’s the horror that inspires me.

The tricks of the mind, the horror for which a single person describing it might be deemed “mentally unwell,” even “traumatized” by those around them, dismissed with a hand wave or even a chuckle. It is the unknown that is truly horrifying, and the people giving the statements place doubt within the main narrator of the story, increasing his, and the audience’s, creeping dread as we realize these stories are not just conjured up from unwell minds. There truly is something lurking in the dark, waiting for you.

Abandoned

I’ve been stuck attempting to figure out a plot, characters, and purpose for a new tv show currently titled “Abandoned.” Then, the Magnus Archives inspired me, imagining a desolate world in which no other people exist outside of one small community. A perfect circle invisibly overlaps a college campus, silently determining that the people within its borders are shunted to another universe exactly like our own… one devoid of any human life.

The community comes to call this “The Event.” (Also a working title)

This universe is exactly the same, as if the people living in it simply disappeared mid-sentence: Cars crash, planes fall, items are dropped. The story takes place three years later, the people having created a stable community, not spreading far beyond that invisible circle, hoping that it might flash them back home someday, but the one thing that doesn’t change is the desolate world. If everything changed in an instant three years ago, there’s no assurance anyone will be secure ever again.

Cold Open

The cold open for the pilot is clear in my mind. An anthropology student surveys a town quite far from their community, taking field notes into a recording device. She explains that know what she’s doing in the slightest. Because of the Event, she was the only anthropology student taken to this new world, and only had books to learn anthropology as no professors with proper knowledge were taken with them. She’s digging through cupboards, surveying houses, and she stares blankly out of a kitchen window. She regains her sense of place and begins to leave the house, absentmindedly watching her step, only focused on leaving, not noting anything else, when she, and the audience, see a dark shadow move in a doorway. There’s something here.

She gasps and drops the recording device, and stands stock still, needing to push herself forward, her legs shaking as she eventually peers around the corner. There’s nothing there.

Pilot

The rest of the pilot is loose in my head. Right now, I’m only picturing generic world building, an image of the community fencing themselves off to protect from wildlife that wanders the streets, and maybe a researcher throwing themselves at a metaphorical wall to uncover any of what might have caused the Event.

I see crumbling, buckling infrastructure besieged by nature simply doing what it does best as per its biological proclivities. I see tired people, worn and without much hope, as the Event stripped any semblance of security they had. If something as unexplainable as that can change lives in an instant, what else could happen?

Anthology

Another idea spinning around in my head is to do with the creature the anthropologist sees. What are they? When do they appear? Why do they appear? I have a strong rule that I haven’t tossed away: over time, as the community spends more time in this abandoned world, the creatures grow in power, or something like that. Because of this, the further out people may travel from the community, the more likely they are to see one of these creatures. I’m not sure if they’re going to be dangerous yet.

This ties back into the anthology idea. A story I know I’d like to tell is one of a man and his new friend traveling far out from the community for a long time. The man is in search of something very important: the DVD or VHS copy of his favorite movie from when he was a child. His friend travels with him because he feels like he owes it to the world to search out this physical media. This friend pirated a lot of media in his dorm room and is the main reason the community has the entertainment that it does.

As they travel, the friend realizes the importance of individual stories and to savor the intention that every shot, every line, every movement might have in a film. They’re important to preserve, yes, and his pirating was a great thing for their community, but he never really appreciated an individual piece as much as he does at the end of their journey.

However, the man searching for his lost movie is at a loss. He lost everything he knew in the Event and suddenly upended all of his plans, like most had to in the community, but he could never rectify those feelings within himself. He’s obsessed with this movie, forgetting to take care of himself and dismissing his friend, who has travelled all this way in part because he cares for him, just because he needs to achieve this goal. He believes it might fix the lack of direction he has for his life after the Event, so he searches for it with fury.

Along the way, the two of them see more and more of those creatures, peering around corners just in the pair’s peripheries, and dart away at the same pace at which the friends’ eyes glance towards them. The friend ends up confessing his feelings for the man after an emotional confrontation, and they embrace, easing sexual tension and forging a new path in life together. The next morning, for the first time, they both notice a creature at the same time, and stare at each other in disbelief, realizing they’re not crazy.

Thoughts

I want to tell stories. People living their lives and making their way in the world. I want that to be tinged with clear intrigue and struggle, things I enjoy finding in sci-fi or fantasy settings. I think Abandoned has the potential to be a really great vessel to tell a community of stories all featuring people with a unifying trauma that come together and learn to move forward while their situation continues to change around them. I think that’s why the anthology idea has stuck around in my head. I don’t have to confine myself to one single set of characters, though that can also be equally satisfying.

A story of a community of people’s stories after trauma is particularly tantalizing to me as someone with trauma themselves. Right now, I feel very lost in my life, still struggling to remember, or rediscover, or… simply discover, who I am after the hardest parts of my life are over. I think this story will really help me discover who I am.

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Thank you for reading.

What I’ve been listening to: Solitude by M83

What I’ve been playing: The Last of Us Part 2

What I’ve been enjoying: The Magnus Archives

What I’ve been Watching: The Glory

What I’m working on: The Cold Open for the “Abandoned” Pilot