Scotty’s Horror Short Showcase: ‘Good Night’

Written by Scott Edwards 

Growing up, we all thought that bedtime was nothing more than a suggestion and our parents might be out of their minds to think we would go to sleep before we wanted to. As we get older however, we start to understand that sleep is important and for a healthy life (what the doctors say at least), we need to sleep for eight hours a night. While this may not seem like something that can be achieved every night, we at least have a day off once in a while to catch up on our sleep and we can nap during the daylight hours. Someone once said that there is plenty of time to sleep when you are dead, and while this is one way to look at it, you may find that you feel more alive with the more sleep you get on a nightly basis.
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Not wanting to go to sleep yet, a young boy sits in his bed asking his father to check the closet once again to see if there are any monsters waiting to jump out and scare the young man when the lights go out. With no monsters in the closet, the father is getting a little fed up with his son asking for all of these childish things, but he will do it, nonetheless. Checking under the bed, and finding no monsters, the father is ready for bed and is begging the boy to go to sleep as well. Not feeling tired yet, the boy asks his father to read him just one more story, but in a huff, the father declines and leaves his son to go to sleep on his own.

Sitting on his bed in disgust, the father is having a hard time coping with the loss of his wife and knows that his son is having a hard time as well. Wanting to apologize to his son for acting crass before bed, the father tries to gather his thoughts before he says something wrong once again. Down the hall, the boy is looking around his room for the monsters that are planning to gobble him up during the night. With his main focus on the monkey doll sitting on the chair next to his bed, the boy keeps shining his light on it over and over again, but as the light pans back, the boy is shocked at what he sees. While a woman sits in the chair with rotting skin, she picks up the flashlight and gives the boy exactly what he has been wanting, a story.

A little different than what I expected, as this is more of a drama than a horror short, but it does show that love conquers all. With the boy and his father missing a mother in the house, it is easy to see why they are at each other’s throats in the beginning. While the father is trying to find the way to raise his boy the right way without a mother, he is not willing to bend to everything that the boy wants. While this seems to be the right way in the old man’s mind, the boy needs and wants his mother back and asking for it may just be enough. With an annoyed father, a boy who is afraid of monsters, a flashlight, a story about a train, some wrinkled old skin and a woman who is not willing to let a boy suffer in the dark, this story tells you that your loved ones are never too far away, even if you do not see them every day. Stay Scared.

See ‘Good Night’ on Amazon Prime.

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