Beast Under The Bed

Believe your children, the BEAST UNDER THE BED is REAL.

***Beast Under The Bed*** is a 2020 short horror film written by T.J. Payne, directed by Keola Racela, and released by Crypt TV. It stars Angeleck Richardson, Ellah Rae Linaman-Smith, Jeffery Tendall, Breayre Taylor, Kerstin Porter, and Kamy Bruder.

The film was released on January 31st, 2020.

## Summary

A broken family struggles to revive their bond. It's the only way to keep the monster at bay.

## Plot

A strange black beast is eating the corpse of a man it has just killed. In the other room, the man's phone rings, with the caller ID reading "Maria".

In her own home, Maria and her husband, Tom, are in the living room, waiting for the man to pick up. Maria says that he's not answering, and Tom tells her quite coldly to call someone else, as he wants her out of the house. Maria says she'll try calling her father, and Tom suddenly lashes out at her, asking if she'll tell her father how she betrayed her family. Maria shushes him, telling him he'll wake up their daughters, but their daughters, Lucy and Dana, are already awake and listening to what's going on downstairs. Maria asks to talk to her husband, to which he tells her that he's done talking to her and leaves the room, telling her that when he comes back into the room, she better be gone. Lucy puts her pillow over her ears, trying to drown out the sound of her mother crying.

Some time later, the girls are woken up by a loud banging from downstairs. Their mother, still in her pajamas and bathrobe, runs into the bedroom, frantically telling the girls to put on their shoes and that they have to leave now. Lucy asks where their dad is, but Maria just tells her "now" as she picks up Dana from her bed. Maria and Dana run down to the living room, where Maria grabs her car keys. Maria then notices that Lucy is not with them, as she's upstairs getting her coat. As Maria screams for her daughter, the front doors explode open. Maria looks over her shoulder, and a black-skinned creature enters the house. As it rounds the corner, it sees the girls and roars at them. Maria pushes Dana away and tells her to run and hide as the monster attacks her. Dana hides behind the wall, and screams as the beast kills her mother.

Dana cowers and covers her ears as the monster eats Maria, but Tom comes into the room with a machete. He attacks the monster by slashing it across the back and it runs away. He tries to talk to Maria, but it quickly becomes apparent that she's dead. He looks up and sees Dana hiding, and tells her that they have to get out of the house immediately, and asks her where her sister is. He calls for Lucy, and Lucy, still cowering upstairs, slowly comes out of her bedroom. She comes downstairs and sees her father standing over her mother's dead body with a bloody knife, and tearfully asks him what he's done. Tom tells her that they have to go, and he picks up Dana and runs out of the house. Lucy watches him go, and looks back at her dead mother.

Six months later, the family of three are now living on the road, this time stopping in a forest in Mississippi. The Lucy sets up a barbed wire fence with tin can alarms while Tom starts setting up a stake. In the trailer, Dana is drawing pictures while her father sets up their beds. Lucy is sitting nearby, and takes out a picture of her and her mother. Outside once again, Lucy pretends she's playing baseball and hits a "home run" while her father and sister sit on the sidelines. Tom is sharpening the machete he used to attack the monster, and as Lucy hits two more "home runs", he plunges the knife into the dirt and tells her to watch her form, that her power comes from her whole body. He helps Dana get into a proper position and tells her to do some practice swings, and tells Lucy to go chop some firewood while he helps Dana. Lucy takes the axe and starts to head off into the woods, but Tom suddenly grabs her arm and tells her to stay close. In the woods, Lucy gets some wood to chop, and she hits it with the axe quite forcefully.

Back at the trailer, Dana is setting up rocks for their campfire. Tom comes outside and checks his watch, and he tells Dana that night's coming and she needs to go get her sister. Dana obeys, and as she walks through the woods with her baseball bat, she hears a strange roar echoing through the forest. Terrified, she starts running and screaming for Lucy, and when she finds her, she tells her that she heard the monster. Lucy doesn't react, and Dana tells Lucy that she never believes her. Lucy tells her to not tell their father what she heard, and after a back-and-forth with Dana repeatedly asking why, Lucy slams the axe down on another piece of wood to get Dana to stop. She tells Dana that their father has been getting worse -- he doesn't sleep, he's constantly angry, and that she's scared of what could happen. The girls then hear the car honking in the distance, and Dana says that they should go back since it'll be dark soon. Lucy doesn't say anything, instead taking Dana's bat and giving her a piece of firewood. She then asks Dana if she would come with her if she tried to leave. Dana once again asks about the monster, and Lucy resigns, again telling her to not say anything. Dana tells Lucy that their father is just watching out for them, and Lucy doesn't acknowledge her, playfully saying that they should go back before "the monster" gets them.

As the family sits down to dinner and says their grace, Dana, after a moment of silence, tells Tom that she heard it. Tom asks Dana what she heard, despite Lucy telling him she's lying, and Dana tells him that she heard the monster. Tom jumps into action, getting up from the table and telling the girls to get in the bathroom, that they have to leave right now. The girls don't make a move to get up, and he angrily tells them to go in the bathroom. Lucy tells him no, and Tom tells her that they don't have time for this. Lucy asks why, "because some monster's hunting our family, coming to rip us apart?". Dana tells Lucy that she remembers seeing it, and Lucy says that Dana only remembers what their father tells her to. Tom lashes out at Lucy, and Lucy tells her father that they're not running from a monster -- they're running from the police, who are trying to find and arrest him for what he did to their mother. Tom tells her that they're running because they have to, that there's fights you can win but the one against the monster isn't one of them, to which Lucy cuts him off, screaming that there is no monster and that Tom killed Maria out of anger towards her cheating on him.

The family stands in silence for a moment, and then a low growling echoes through the forest. Tom tells the girls to be quiet, and he goes to look outside. It's dark, save for inside the trailer, until a pair of glowing yellow eyes looks out at him from the other side of the fence. Tom looks to his daughters, and tells them that the monster has found them. He runs up to the driver's seat and tries starting the car, only to hear one of the aluminum can alarms go off. He looks up, and, to his horror, sees that the monster has torn through the chain link fence. He tries to start the car, but the engine won't work. Suddenly, the monster breaks the driver's side window and starts trying to pull Tom out of the car, to his daughters' horror. Tom manages to get out of the car and run away, but the monster breaks into the car and starts to advance on the girls. Tom then runs back into the trailer, now brandishing his machete, and tells them to run. Once his daughters are out of the trailer, he attacks the monster.

Lucy and Dana run through the woods, but Lucy soon stops. Dana tells her that they have to keep going, but her sister is in utter disbelief that the monster turned out to be real. Dana tells her that their father told them to run, and if they don't then the monster is going to get them. Lucy tries again to talk Dana down, but Dana stops her, asking why Lucy never believed her. Lucy apologizes and says that she should have believed her sister, but the monster isn't going to stop chasing them. Dana asks what they do, and Lucy tells her that they're done running -- it's time to fight.

Back at the trailer, the monster has Tom pinned outside. It is about to kill him when it hears Dana hitting a nearby tree with her bat, and is drawn to the sound. A bleeding Tom yells at Dana to get out of there, but she doesn't listen, focusing instead on the monster coming towards her. As Tom gets himself up, Dana starts hitting more things to draw the monster to her. It lunges at her, but at the last second, Lucy comes out from behind the trailer and hacks it with her axe. While the monster is distracted, Dana runs around the trailer to her father, and gives him his machete as she helps him up.

Lucy is still fighting the monster, and Tom and Dana come back and they surround it. Tom runs up and slashes the monster with his machete, and as it staggers to the left Lucy attacks it with the axe. It staggers towards Dana, and she hits it with her baseball bat. The family attacks it every time it turns to one of them until it falls on the ground, presumably beaten. Tom and Lucy share a look and Lucy goes to deliver the killing blow, but the monster rolls away and flees back into the woods. Tom staggers onto the ground, and his daughters help him up. Tom asks them why they didn't do what he told them, and Lucy says that they have to fight for the people they love. Tom hugs them, and they start to cry. They hear the monster roar in the distance, and Tom says that the fight isn't over. Dana says that it's okay, and Lucy says that when the monster comes for them again, they'll be ready.

## Trivia

* This is the first Crypt Monster Universe film to be released in 2020.
* Kerstin Porter, who plays The Nix, previously played Miss Annity in the 2019 webseries *Miss Annity.*

## References

1. ↑  “Beast Under the Bed (TV Movie 2020).” IMDb, https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11696334/fullcredits/?ref\_=tt\_ov\_st\_sm.
2. ↑ 2.0 2.1  Crypt TV. “BEAST UNDER THE BED | "Flesh And Blood" | Crypt TV Monster Universe | Short Film.” YouTube, Crypt TV; January 31st, 2020.