Midnight Movie

by Tobe Hooper

  Intellectually, I realized it wasn’t Tobe’s fault Scott got killed by that red Corvette. And from what I’ve learned after many, many years of therapy, it would’ve been healthier for me to have embraced Tobe right after it happened, to have grieved with him, rather than harbor all that anger and resentment for all those years. But, you know, easier said than done.

  I didn’t know how I’d react when I saw Tobe. Would I be angry? Forgiving? Ambivalent? Scared? I had no clue, and I was nervous.

  TOBE HOOPER:

  First of all, Claire looked amazing. She could’ve passed for forty-five. I’m sure part of it was genetics—I remember her mom was pretty hot—and part of it was many trips to the gym. I’m also damn sure there was some plastic surgery involved.

  Second of all, I was pleased as punch that she didn’t haul back, slug me, and give me a black eye. I knew she wasn’t a fan of yours truly, and I was pretty certain there was no way she would’ve forgiven or forgotten. Not that she had anything to forgive—it wasn’t my fault Scott got killed, and besides, I almost died too. But still.

  Third of all, thank God that Erick was with me. She seemed okay with me, but I’m not sure that would’ve been the case if I were alone.

  ERICK LAUGHLIN:

  The tension was pretty thick, so I skipped the pleasantries and launched right into my spiel: Destiny Express, the Game, Tobe’s fault, blah blah blah. I asked her, “Any thoughts?”

  She stared at me. Gawked is a better word, I guess. Then, to Tobe, she said, “You’re insane. You’re utterly, totally fucking insane. Tell me why I shouldn’t call security right now.”

  Tobe said, “Oh, gee, I don’t know, Claire, maybe because we’re trying to save the world, and maybe you can help.”

  She sighed and said, “Ooh, save the world, such drama. Give me a break.” She took a swig from her massive water bottle, then said, “Okay. Fine. What can I do? What can I say that’ll get you to leave my office sooner than later?”

  I said, “Tell us anything you can remember about making the movie.”

  Claire said, “There’s not much to tell. I was there for one day, and”—she pointed to Tobe—“this one bit my ear off.”

  Tobe said, “I didn’t bite your ear off. Gary did.”

  Claire shook her head, then said, “No, he didn’t. Gary was late that day, and you were all pissy and told your weird friend you’d handle it. What was his name, Willy?”

  I said, “No. Billy.”

  She said, “Right, Billy. Billy Marron. Another piece of work.”

  I asked her, “What do you mean ‘piece of work’?”

  She took another hit of water, then said, “Tobe was a creep, but at least he was a talented creep. Billy was just a creep.”

  I said, “Did you ever see the movie?”

  She shook her head and said, “Tobe never invited me to see it.”

  Tobe said, “Honey, I never invited anybody to see it.”

  I told Claire, “You aren’t missing much, but some of the effects were pretty impressive.”

  Claire said, “Maybe it was all that shit they used.”

  Now, this was interesting. I asked her, “What do you mean ‘shit’? Did they cover you with shit? Because it didn’t look like shit. It looked like blood.”

  Claire gave me a death look. Man, that chick was scary. She said, “Are you serious? It wasn’t literally shit. Do you think I’d let him cover me with feces? No, they put some stuff on me that was made from I-don’t-know-what, but it smelled like, I don’t know, maybe a grave.”

  I asked Tobe, “Do you know what you put on her?”

  He said, “Marron might.”

  I said, “Yeah, that’s what I figured.” I turned back to Claire and asked her, “Can you remember anything else? Anything at all?”

  She said, “There wasn’t much to remember. I was there for two hours. I flipped some cue cards. Tobe cut off my fake ear … during which he gave me a goddamn scratch on my neck.”

  I said, “Was the scratch bad?”

  She said, “You know what? Now that I think about it, it was. I remember putting a bandage on it when I got home, and then when I took it off the next morning, it was all red, puffy, and hard. I remember thinking that the goo had gotten in there, and I caught some sort of infection. It lasted for a while. The day before I was planning to call the doctor, it started shrinking, and it was completely gone a couple days later.” She lifted up her hair to reveal her neck, then pointed right below her left earlobe and said, “It’s tiny, but if you look carefully, you can still see it.”

  Claire was right. I could see it. Easily. It looked like a big zit scar. I think she was in a bit of denial about the size. I asked her, “Does it ever hurt? Or itch?”

  She shrugged, then said, “It itches once in a while, but it’s nothing to cry about.”

  Tobe said, “Are you healthy in general?”

  She said, “Yes, Tobe, I’m healthy.” She checked her watch, then said, “Are we done here? I have a meeting.”

  Tobe said, “We’re done. Do you think I can call you?”

  Claire rolled her eyes, then said, “I’m happily married, Tobe Hooper, and even if I wasn’t, there’s no way I—”

  Tobe cut her off, and said, “I have zero interest in fucking you, Claire. We might have some more questions. That’s all.”

  She said, “Tobe, I’ve told you everything I know. Feel free to see yourselves out. And feel free to lose my phone number.”

  While we were in the elevator, I said to Tobe, “Now, there’s one warm and fuzzy chick.”

  Tobe nodded. “And to think I actually did fuck her. Let’s go see Mr. Marron.”

  CLAIRE CRAFT:

  Okay, fine, yes, we had sex. It was heinous.

  TOBE HOOPER:

  One thing Claire was right about: Back in the day, William Marron was a piece of work.

  I felt bad for the dude. He meant well, but nobody realized it, because all those good intentions were buried under several layers of BO, blubber, and bad attitude. I hate to sound mean, here, but that’s the only way to describe it. He was fat, and he didn’t smell particularly good, so I suppose I could understand why he was such a grouch. But we had a whole lot in common. He was the only cat in the area who was as into the movies as I was.

  The funny thing is, we hung out probably once or twice a week, and we periodically ate lunch at school together, but I never felt like we were really pals. Then again, I don’t know, maybe getting together those few times a month made us friends. Neither of us was a social butterfly, so it’s not like we knew what the hell true friendship was about.

  Billy and I hadn’t been completely out of touch; we exchanged e-mails once or twice a year. Nothing important. Just letting each other know we were still alive.

  He’d started up a software company in, I think, ’97, he and one other dude. Two years after they opened shop, they sold some sort of finance program to Microsoft, and they were set for life. Since then, he’s mostly farted around with games. He’s sent me a bunch of prototypes, but I haven’t touched them. I don’t do computer games. No time, man. No time.

  Billy was cool when I called. Said I should come up to his office in the afternoon, and lunch was on him. Like the Irish say, never refuse a free lunch.

  WILLIAM MARRON (software designer, New York City):

  Destiny Express was one of the defining moments of my childhood. Working with Tobe showed me that I could do something … something … something … I don’t know, interesting, I guess. It made me believe that I could interact with everybody, not just the misfits.

  See, I was a misfit, the typical fat kid that you see on corny TV shows. The football players liked to knock all my books out of my hands, and the basketball players enjoyed sticking my head in the toilet and flushing it—I believe the kids these days refer to that as a whirly—and some of the teachers even liked throwing verbal barbs at me. The only person in the whole school who deigned to have anything to do with yours truly wa
s Tobe Hooper.

  Despite what Tobe might believe, I didn’t particularly care about film. I pretended to dig the medium because I figured it was the best way to keep him as a pal. I grew to appreciate it, and thanks to him, I understood the difference between good movies and bad ones. But honestly, once we drifted apart, I stopped watching them. I have Netflix now, but I use it almost exclusively for documentaries.

  I wasn’t surprised he called during all this Game mess. That’s the kind of mess that’d get even a people-hater like Tobe Hooper to have significant, non-business-related interaction with the world at large.

  TOBE HOOPER:

  I almost passed out when Billy walked out that door. I said, “Jesus Christ, brother, you got skinny!”

  He smiled, then said, “Jesus Christ, brother, you got old!”

  I said, “Billy, my man, if you’d been dealing with the Hollywood bullshit that I’ve been dealing with for the last twenty years, you’d look old, too. How the hell did you get all slim and trim?”

  He said, “Exercise, diet, and a healthy dose of gastric bypass surgery. Probably added twenty years onto my life.”

  I said, “That’s cool, man, real cool. But what Erick here is going to tell you will probably take those years right back off again.”

  Erick said, “I’m going to tell him?”

  Tobe said, “That’s right. You’re going to tell him. Right now.”

  ERICK LAUGHLIN:

  Before we even left the lobby, I launched into the same spiel I gave Helen and Claire: Destiny Express, the Game, Tobe’s fault, blah blah blah. Billy listened thoughtfully, then said, “Let’s go into my office.”

  While we walked down the hallway, I asked him, “Billy, do you know something? Do you have an idea?”

  He said, “Do I know something? No. Am I shocked about this?” He paused for a bit, then repeated, “No.”

  Billy ushered us into his office, which was much bigger, and much much nicer, than my apartment: three sofas, two recliners, two huge flat-screen televisions, a dining table with six high-backed chairs, and a space-age workspace that would probably be a good place from which to rule the world. Billy sat us down on one of the sofas, then his assistant brought us drinks—Diet Coke for me, Maker’s Mark for Tobe—and he started right in.

  He said, “Guys, believe it or not, I think about Destiny Express probably once or twice a month. And I don’t mean from a perspective of Oh, boy, I worked with Tobe Hooper before he became famous. Being with you, being your friend, being your partner, well, I guess you could say it informed my work.”

  Tobe said, “If it informed your work, brother, you need some better information.”

  Billy ignored him and said, “That movie expanded my mind. It opened me up. It helped me overcome my fear of creating. It also taught me what not to do. Like for instance, if I were a special effects artist right now, I probably wouldn’t cover my male lead with a mixture of applesauce, fish food, chewed broccoli, and dog turds.”

  Tobe said, “We didn’t actually do that. Did we?”

  Billy said, “We did.”

  Tobe said, “Christ, what the hell was I thinking?”

  I said, “Pardon me if I’m speaking out of line, but I don’t think you were thinking.”

  TOBE HOOPER:

  I told him, “You’re right. We weren’t thinking. We were doing. Or really, I was doing. Everybody else was following orders.”

  Billy laughed, then said, “Following orders? Jesus, Tobe, you make it sound like you were Hitler or something.”

  I said, “I was a bit of a dictator, Bill. Always have been on the set. I have a vision, and I want to bring it to life, and sometimes I get a bit … a bit … a bit …”

  And then Erick came up with the perfect word: “Myopic?”

  I said, “Bingo. Myopic.”

  Erick asked Billy, “Is there anything out-of-the-ordinary you remember? You know, like the alligator.”

  Billy cracked up and said, “Oh my God, the roadkill alligator. Wow, doesn’t that bring you back, Tobe? Good times, good times.” He thought about it for a second, then said, “Wait a sec, do you remember the car wreck scene?”

  Something tickled me at the back of my head. I fished for it—fished for it pretty hard, actually—but it stayed just out of reach. Shit. I said, “Refresh me.”

  He said, “You wanted to set it up so you could make a bunch of edits back and forth between the car and Gary’s face, so you did Gary’s reaction shot from I don’t know how many angles. It was weird.”

  Erick said, “What was weird about it?”

  Billy said, “Well, Tobe kept yelling at Darren to circle around Gary faster and faster with the camera. Hey, did you guys speak to Darren yet?”

  I said, “He’s next.”

  Erick said, “He’s in Houston. We saved him for last.”

  Billy said, “Give him my best. There was another member in good standing of our merry band of mutants, right, Tobe?”

  I said, “Yeah, you could rightly say that.”

  Billy said, “So Darren was jogging with the camera, and he tripped. Gary managed to catch the camera before it hit the ground. Then Darren stood up and fell right back down. He got a concussion, remember?”

  I said, “No. Unfortunately, I don’t.”

  Billy said, “Yep, he got knocked out, and when he came to, you told him to rub some dirt on the bump on his head and to get back to work.”

  Erick said, “Jesus, Tobe.”

  I said, “What can I tell you? That’s the way us dictators work.”

  WILLIAM MARRON:

  Was I surprised at how little Tobe remembered? Absolutely. But I know that car wreck messed him up pretty badly, so I suppose I shouldn’t have been.

  I asked Erick—who seemed to be an earthbound fellow—if their talks with me, Helen, and Claire were of any use. He said, “I don’t know. I mean, you guys did some weird shit during the filming, but I’m sure Eli Roth has done equally weird shit—if not weirder—and so have Sam Raimi, and John Carpenter, and Wes Craven. I don’t even want to imagine what goes on during a Takashi Miike shoot. But none of those caused any problems. Audition was, like, the most fucked-up movie ever—way more fucked-up than Destiny Express—and it didn’t make blue stuff shoot out of people’s cocks.”

  I said, “Guys, I don’t think Destiny Express did either.”

  Tobe said, “I wish there was a way to find out, man.”

  I said, “You know what? There is. Possibly.”

  Erick said, “Yeah? What’s that?”

  I said, “Make it again.”

  DICK GREGSON (head of production, Warner Bros. Pictures):

  My daughter Celia had just graduated from Stanford—a full year early, I should note—and she was getting ready to go to Japan to teach English for a year. I hadn’t seen her in a few weeks, but that wasn’t unusual; Celia did her own thing, and that was fine. I trusted her to do the right thing. She always had.

  Celia committed suicide on July 1, 2009, right when the Game was in full swing, right in the middle of the summer of hell. She was twenty-one. Twenty-fucking-one years old, and all the potential in the world, and she ended her life.

  I don’t want to discuss identifying her body.

  She didn’t leave a note, and I wanted some answers, any answers, so I hired a private detective. He spoke to a bunch of her friends, and if you’re researching the Game, I’m sure you know more or less exactly what he found out.

  My wife and I had been divorced for ten years, and our relationship was toxic, so there was no comfort there. My friends were sympathetic, but there was only so much crying on somebody’s shoulder I could do before they’d ask for their shoulder back. I needed distraction. I needed an alternate reality, and since Hollywood is the most alternate reality our fine country has to offer, I went back to work.

  The Game was quite prevalent in California, so of course it had a tangible effect on the industry. For some reason, we didn’t lose much big-name above-the-li
ne talent—some said that Marty Scorsese had become a zombie, but it turned out he was just in Aruba without his cell phone or his laptop—but we lost a lot of below-the-line personnel and behind-the-scenes studio people. My assistant, for example, disappeared two days after I got back to the office, and I never heard from her again. One of the big muckity-mucks at Sony—I won’t say who—got a case of the Blue Spew. They caught it early enough that he was institutionalized. He was monitored 24/7. If I may be so crude—and I’m certain you’ve heard worse, so I probably won’t be creeping you out, here—he almost jerked himself off to death. It got to the point that they had to strap his hands onto his bed rails. As I’m sure you know, the doctors never found a cure for the Spew, but this man survived and managed to not infect anybody else.

  So many of our employees were sick or unaccounted for that we almost closed up shop. After what seemed like thousands of meetings, we decided to keep moving forward, albeit in a pared-down fashion. At the beginning of April, we had forty-six movies in production; by July, we’d suspended shooting on thirty of them. And the sixteen we kept alive were all comedies or family movies. It wasn’t the time for us to dive into Dawn of the Dead: The Angels of Death, you know?

  Which is why when Tobe Hooper called and asked me for a bucket of money to remake his very first movie, I laughed my ass off.

  TOBE HOOPER:

  There are few things in life I hate more than begging for money from a film studio. Root canal sans Novocain is far more appealing. So’s a sharp stick in the eye. So’s a sharp stick up the ass.

  Before I go into one of those meetings—meetings where I have to pitch a concept until I’m red in the face, then listen to those executive types tear my idea a new asshole, then discuss ways to cut the budget to the point that I can’t even feed my cast and crew anything but Domino’s pizza, generic soda pop, and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches—I get the sweats something awful, and my stomach gets all fucked up, and I end up in a really, really dark place. I’ve been known to lose my temper at these shindigs. I’ve been known to throw a telephone. I’ve been known to gouge the phrase “FUCK YOU” on a conference room table with the Swiss Army knife I keep on my key chain.