Midnight Movie

by Tobe Hooper

It didn’t make sense for me to be in the flick. Spiritually speaking, Theo was about as close to Gary Church as we could find: Gary had been Tobe’s best friend, and Theo was mine. Gary was an aspiring actor and Theo was an aspiring musician. Gary was short, and Theo was short. And, most important, Gary was dead, and Theo was available.

  HELEN LEARY:

  When Erick Laughlin invited me to Austin, I told him I’d come on one condition: that I could bring my family along. And he went ballistic: “No goddamn way, Helen! No goddamn way! I don’t even want you to come, for chrissakes! Hell, I don’t want anybody to come! This could turn out to be a clusterfuck of the highest order! People could get hurt! Seriously goddamn hurt!”

  I said, “I understand that. And they understand that. But they believe in Tobe, and they want to be with me.”

  He was quiet for a second, then he said, “Listen, Helen. You seem like a nice lady. And I’m not a violent person by nature. But I swear to God, if you bring your husband or any of your children with you to Texas, I’m going to drag their asses back to the airport and physically throw them onto the plane myself. And if you don’t believe it, well, just try me.”

  I didn’t want to try him. That tone in his voice was deadly. So I kissed my family good-bye and went by myself.

  DARREN ALLEN:

  I brought the original camera. The original. It wasn’t in Tobe’s locker at the society. It was in my basement at my house. It hadn’t been touched in decades. And I had it. In my basement. In my house.

  It was mine.

  ERICK LAUGHLIN:

  We didn’t fuck around. We couldn’t fuck around. The clock was ticking … or at least that’s how Tobe and I had begun to look at it. We had to believe in what we were doing, and believing it meant doing it, and doing it meant doing it fast. What were we going to do, sit around and wait for another city to go up in flames? Or until we were 100 percent certain this movie would have any effect on anything? We had to roll cameras, and we couldn’t let anything stop us.

  TOBE HOOPER:

  A shot-by-shot remake is a colossal pain in the ass, and it almost never works. You want proof? Check out Gus Van Sant’s version of Psycho that he shot in, what, ’98 or something. Gus is a master, but that thing, it wasn’t one of his finer moments, probably because, well, because a shot-by-shot remake is a colossal pain in the ass.

  But Gus had one thing on his side that I didn’t: a clear template to work from. Destiny Express was a snafu from top to bottom, and even though I’d watched it ten-ish times—which is ten-ish times too many—I couldn’t get a handle on it. Probably because the movie had no point.

  See, Chainsaw was a story. It wasn’t The Iliad or anything, but it had an arc, a beginning, middle, and end. Yes, it was about shocking the audience, but they wouldn’t have been shocked if it was a random series of attacks and murders, because they wouldn’t have been absorbed into the picture. There would’ve been distance. If there wasn’t anything for the viewer to grab on to, they wouldn’t have given a good goddamn what happened to good ol’ Sally Hardesty.

  This isn’t to say that I was planning to infuse Destiny Express Redux with meaning; we were staying loyal to the original, so that would’ve been impossible, because the original was meaningless. But I was a different person come remake time. I had almost two dozen films under my belt, and some of them weren’t too bad. It was ingrained in me to bring a point of view to the table, so divorcing myself from the true creative process and shooting a series of random zombie attacks felt tepid and unnatural. I wanted to give it some semblance of, I don’t know, nonsuckitude. That was my default mode. But a dude’s got to do what a dude’s got to do, and I had to make it as sucky as the original, so I was going to make 100 percent certain it would suck exactly as bad as the original, no more, no less. So before we shot a single frame of film, I sat down with Darren Allen to figure out the perfect schedule for perfect suckage.

  And that was more fun than a barrel of bat guano.

  DARREN ALLEN:

  I had the original schedule. I kept it. Deep down, I knew I’d need it. Deep down. I don’t know how. I don’t know why. I just did. I did. I did.

  TOBE HOOPER:

  I have no clue what happened to Darren Allen. Back when we were kids, he was always somewhat of a misfit, but man, present-day, the fellow was a mess. He breathed heavy, and he stared at you a little too tightly, and he was dressed like a homeless man with a good clothing connection.

  You know how sometimes a guy is so difficult to talk to that you have trouble making eye contact with him, because it’s so goddamn uncomfortable? That was the deal with the 2009 version of Darren. But I had to do it.

  DARREN ALLEN:

  Tobe liked the original schedule. He thought it was cool.

  TOBE HOOPER:

  I hated the original schedule. I thought it was fucking creepy.

  First, there was my handwriting. I always thought I had pretty neat handwriting, even when I was a kid, but that yellowing piece of paper that Darren was holding on to for dear life was covered with the scrawl of a madman.

  DARREN ALLEN:

  It was unreadable. But that’s why it was cool.

  TOBE HOOPER:

  Darren couldn’t read it, so I asked him why he even bothered to bring the damn thing with him. He kept saying, “Redux, redux, redux.” Man, he was one weird dude.

  So I threw him out of my room, called Erick, and told him to act like a goddamn producer and produce me a goddamn schedule.

  ERICK LAUGHLIN:

  I ignored the goddamn schedule. I didn’t think the cosmos would mind.

  Since I was dealing with a bunch of nonacting actors, a cameraman who had problems communicating with anybody who didn’t operate in his bizarre-o orbit—which was everybody—a makeup and effects guy who hadn’t made up or effected anything but computers for the last three-some-odd decades, and an overtired director who, just one week ago, had gunned down and killed his zombified friend, I thought it best to keep things simple.

  So. Day one, we’d shoot Tobe’s intro, then we’d have Claire do her cue card thing, then Theo would kill her off, then we’d send her on her merry way. And we had a very good reason for doing that first. I don’t like using the “C” word, but Tobe was right: That girl was a grade-A cunt.

  Then that night, William, Theo, and I would gather up the roadkill, and Tobe and Helen would steal some leather jackets, then we’d converge at Tobe’s room at the Four Seasons and make ourselves a gator. That was the only thing I was looking forward to: bringing a pile of dead animals in and out of a four-star hotel.

  Day two, the alligator scene. That was going to be a logistical nightmare, no two ways about it. I expected it to be an eighteen-hour day. Good thing nobody on the crew was union.

  Day three I planned to keep somewhat flexible, because there was a chance we’d have to finish off the alligator scene. After that, it would be all Theo and Helen. Attack, after attack, after attack.

  Day four, the car wreck. I hoped Darren could handle all the moving around with the camera. I hoped.

  Day five, establishing shots and actual human interaction. I saved that for last, because by that point, I was sure we’d need an easy day, and since there were only about five minutes of real dialogue in the entire movie, we could knock that out on the quick.

  Day six through who-knows-when, edit this damn thing as fast as possible. Why the need for speed? Because thanks to a sympathetic movie theater manager named Marcus Frost, Destiny Express Redux was premiering at the Regal Arbor Cinema on September 1.

  I took care of all that—the schedule, booking the theater, and some other logistical crap that I don’t remember—in about four hours. Turns out that doing the producing thing wasn’t all that difficult. I don’t know what Scott Rudin’s always complaining about.

  TOBE HOOPER:

  My primary concern about the end product was the gore factor. Even though it was a piece of rat dung, Destiny Express was solidly disgusting. I know I
have the ability and intestinal fortitude to be as repulsive as Tarantino or Roth, but we were on a budget, and it wasn’t like we had the luxury of watching dailies or anything. So I put on my blinders, shot it, and hoped it’d look properly gross on the big screen.

  WILLIAM MARRON:

  Listen, I love Tobe, and I think he’s a true artist, but Destiny Express stunk, and Destiny Express Redux wasn’t going to be any better.

  The first thing we shot was Claire’s cue card intro, and even though she was a beautiful woman, and even though I did the best I could with what I had to work with, she looked ridiculous in that Catholic schoolgirl outfit. Sixtysomething women, no matter how well preserved they might be, should never wear plaid skirts with thigh-high stockings.

  Claire then cooled her jets—which, frankly, needed cooling—while I turned young Theo into a zombie. That was … interesting.

  THEO MORRISON:

  So after Billy put on my ratty-ass zombie clothes and my nasty-ass zombie scars, he tells me to close my eyes and hold my nose, then he dumps a bucket of I-don’t-know-what over my head, and that shit stank to high heaven.

  I was like, “Yo, what’s in this? I’m going to hurl, here. Seriously.”

  He said, “Theo, you don’t want to know.”

  Now, Billy was a nice dude, so I didn’t want to go off on him, but if I was going to have to be covered in this slop for the next week, I had to be aware. So I was like, “Yeah, dude, I totally want to know.”

  He was quiet for a sec, then he was like, “Okay, fine. But trust me, you won’t get sick.”

  I was like, “I don’t know, dude. This stuff smells like crotch, and I seriously feel like I’m going to blorch.”

  He was all like, “Yeah, but blorching from crotch smell doesn’t mean you’re sick.”

  I was like, “I see your point. So what in holy hell am I wearing?”

  Billy gave me a big sigh, then was like, “Grape jelly, petroleum jelly, pickle juice, tomato juice, mashed-up bananas, and …”

  He didn’t say anything, and I was like, “And what?”

  He was like, “And a bit of animal excrement.”

  I was like, “What the fuck, dude?! You covered me with shit?!”

  He was like, “Yes. But it’s safe shit.”

  I was like, “How the hell do you make shit safe?”

  He was like, “You, um, you boil it.”

  I was like, “So you’re telling me that I’m wearing hot diarrhea.”

  Billy was like, “Well, not exactly. After all, it’s not hot.”

  I was like, “But it was hot at one time in the not-too-distant past.”

  He goes, “Yeah. But it’s cold now.”

  I was like, “But it’s still diarrhea.”

  He was like, “But it’s safe diarrhea.”

  I go, “I don’t know if I necessarily believe that, Bill. Do you have any scientific data to back that shit up?”

  He goes, “No. But Gary Church wore it during the original, and he lived.”

  I was like, “Yeah. But he also died.”

  Then Tobe and Erick came over, and Tobe was like, “Theo, my brother, you smell like ass. Perfect. Let’s shoot this fucker.”

  TOBE HOOPER:

  We banged out the first part of Claire’s section in seven takes. If I were trying to make it look good, I would’ve nailed it the first time through—I mean, how hard is it to shoot somebody flipping cue cards, right? But I’d done so many films that shooting a quality shot was ingrained in me. It took all that extra time to make it feel amateurish.

  It would’ve been even more difficult if I’d had a professional, experienced cameraman. Fortunately, Darren was a rank amateur.

  DARREN ALLEN:

  I shot it. And I shot it perfectly. I always shoot perfectly.

  TOBE HOOPER:

  Then Erick’s boy Theo slimed his way onto the set, so he could kill Claire for the closing scene. To be honest, if I had the opportunity, I would’ve killed her myself. My Lord, what a pain in the backside she was.

  CLAIRE CRAFT:

  I’m sorry if Tobe felt I was a distraction, but this wasn’t exactly a walk in the park. First, they put me in these ridiculous-looking slut clothes, then they had me attacked by a kid who was dressed in a ridiculous-looking zombie costume and was stinking like a sewer. It was hideous. While the kid was attacking me, he accidentally scratched my arm, and I think some of that crap he was covered with oozed into my bloodstream. Billy assured me that I shouldn’t worry, but the second I was done for the day, I called my doctor in New York and told him to have a tetanus shot ready to go.

  THEO MORRISON:

  I didn’t attack her, for fuck’s sake. I did exactly what Tobe told me to do, which was circle around her, pretend to hit her, and moan. He said he’d edit it so it’d look badass. I believed him.

  WILLIAM MARRON:

  The fake arm, the spurting blood, making Claire’s death look convincing: It was all easy. It was like riding a bike. It was a blast, and for a brief moment, I thought about taking a leave of absence and trying to get some work in Hollywood. But then I remembered what Tobe had told me—that Hollywood was a ghost town—so forget that.

  TOBE HOOPER:

  And then it was my turn. And I was not psyched. Not one bit.

  Some directors like to see themselves on the screen—Woody Allen and Alfred Hitchcock come to mind—but not me. Me, I like to be safe and sound in my cocoon behind the camera.

  The dialogue was inane: “Good afternoon, dear viewers. My name is Tobe Hooper. You don’t know me. I could be a nice guy. I could be a liar and a thief. I could even be a killer. You can believe everything I tell you. Or you can ignore every word that I say. Or you can burn this film into a pile of ashes. But if I were you, I’d listen carefully. Because I have the camera. And I know the truth.” Come on, man.

  After I wrapped up all that gobbledygook, Theo went after me. I guess I could see why Claire was so bitchy when she said good-bye.

  ERICK LAUGHLIN:

  Tobe was bitchier about the whole thing than Claire was. It was all, “Marron, you’d best de-stink this motherfucker now,” and “Who’s the idjit that wrote this shit … oh, wait, it was me,” and “Erick, be my body double.” It’s amazing we finally got it in the can and finished the day without anybody killing anybody else.

  HELEN LEARY:

  I wish I could describe to you exactly what happened, but it was a blur. I remember getting off the airplane, I remember getting to the hotel, then I remember getting back onto the plane. The four days I was in Austin are a blank.

  The day after I got home, I started seeing a shrink. She believes that I blocked out the whole thing. She said—and these are her exact words—“It was a traumatic experience that recalled another traumatic experience. There’s no reason for you to recall any of it, because you’ll learn nothing about yourself. Put it away inside a safe, lock it up, throw away the key, and move on with your life.”

  So that’s what I did. I never saw the finished product—I had no desire to—and I never spoke to Tobe Hooper again.

  BILLY MARRON:

  Honestly, I didn’t believe it.

  I didn’t believe that Tobe’s childhood movie caused any kind of virus, and I didn’t believe that Tobe’s adult movie would cure anything.

  At least at first.

  When I got back to New York and I couldn’t remember a damn thing about the shoot after I put together that stinking alligator, I believed.

  A little.

  DARREN ALLEN:

  I came. I went. I saw. I conquered.

  At least I thought I did.

  I made it home. My camera and the screenplay didn’t. I was mad. And sad.

  THEO MORRISON:

  Yeah, I don’t remember a damn thing after day two, but I credit that to the fact that I smoked a shit-ton of pot that week.

  TOBE HOOPER:

  It was weird, man. One second, I’ve got Theo making out with Helen, and the next, I’m in m
y hotel, futzing with the footage on the makeshift editing bay that Dick Gregson so graciously paid for.

  And that footage was putrid, somehow worse than the original. Watching it actually sickened me. That’s probably why I don’t remember the specifics about cutting that fucker together. But that was okay, actually. If my brain decided to kick into denial mode, what better time than that?

  ERICK LAUGHLIN:

  I was so wrapped up with the movie that I didn’t notice until August 31—the night before the international debut of Destiny Express—that the streets of Austin were empty. Actually, they weren’t totally empty: There were a bunch of guys in hazmat suits wandering around with these scary-ass guns.

  I wondered, When the hell did this happen? And how the hell did I miss it?

  JANINE DALTREY:

  It happened quickly, so Erick can’t be blamed for not catching it right away. One day, it’s business as usual, and the next, everybody’s hiding in their house, and all these military guys are patrolling the streets. There weren’t a lot of them—maybe one or two teams of two positioned every few blocks—but they were there. We called it the Great Austin Takeover. On the plus side, the fires stopped. It was a trade-off, I guess.

  Austin wasn’t the only city that was on its deathbed. We weren’t completely alone. Erick told me that Tobe told him that Los Angeles was unbelievably quiet. But there was nothing about it online or on television, absolutely nothing, so I didn’t know for sure.

  There was some info out there. Based on a very detailed blog by somebody in Albuquerque that somehow hadn’t been shut down by whatever entity was shutting down huge chunks of the web, they were dealing with the fires, and explosions, and sex crimes, and apparent zombie attacks—and I say “apparent” because I wasn’t totally convinced about the zombie thing at that point—and a heck of a lot of violence. There were hazmat guys on the street, but it sounded like the military presence hadn’t quite reached the level that we were at. But it was getting close.

  I sent an e-mail to the contact address at the bottom of the Albuquerque blog, but it bounced. That didn’t make me feel so hot.

  It was more than a little bit disconcerting that the government, or some powers that be, had the ability to completely shut off a story, and it made me wonder what the hell we were missing … but I didn’t wonder that hard. The fact of the matter was, I was scared, and my body was still hurting, and my heart was broken—you can’t imagine how much I missed my little sister—and I wasn’t in the mood to play investigative journalist. All I wanted to do was cuddle in the sack with Erick and hide under the covers until this all went away.