by Leah Konen
There’s a marked trail, and we walk down it, Jake’s arm falling away from me as we make our way deeper into the woods. It’s a beautiful day, the sun far from setting, the air warm, the leaves fat and green. It doesn’t seem at all like a day for shooting something awful, and yet, as we get closer, another scream pierces the air.
We follow the curve of the path, and then suddenly, as if we only happened upon it in the woods, the trees open up, and we’re at the edge of the clearing. There are two people who must be actors in the middle, a man lying among the dirt and leaves, a woman standing above. They’re both covered in what looks like blood, surrounded by three different crew members. Jake’s aunt stands to the side, not in a director’s chair or anything—just standing. A guy on the edge yells, “Quiet on set.”
We freeze, not wanting to cause so much as another leaf rustle.
“Rolling,” another person yells.
“Action!” Jake’s aunt Mona says.
And then, it happens. The actress drops to her knees, so quickly you’d think she should be wearing kneepads, and maybe—beneath the skinny jeans that are speckled with fake blood—she is. “No,” she says, lifting the man’s head almost frantically. “No, no, no.” She lets him go, his head dropping to the ground, and jumps up. “Help!” she screams, and I know the cries I heard earlier were definitely hers. “Help!”
She sinks again to the ground and rips open the man’s shirt, and I can’t see exactly what’s there, because the camera is closing in, but it must be some sort of fake wound, and she presses her hands to his chest, and as her head drops, she says, more quietly, but still loud enough for me to hear: “I’ll kill the psycho who did this to you.”
“Cut!”
Immediately, the mood changes. The woman, who was pretty convincingly distraught just a second ago, smiles. “How was that?”
“Better,” Jake’s aunt says. “But I still think you can push it a little more.”
The man props himself up and starts re-snapping his shirt.
“Come on,” Jake says. “I think we can get a better view from over here.”
He leads us around the edge to a smattering of wooden boxes tucked among the trees. He grabs one, and Katie and I follow suit, me next to him, her next to me.
Across the clearing, his aunt smiles, giving us a wave. Jake waves back. “You’re sure it’s okay that we sit here?” I ask, leaning closer to him.
He nods. “This is out of the line of sight of the camera. Don’t worry. If we were in view, I definitely would have doused you with some fake blood first.”
I laugh, then turn to Katie. To my surprise, she’s captivated; and for once, I don’t think it’s a part of her act. “The acting’s not so bad, huh?” I say under my breath, nodding toward the set.
She turns. “I’m more interested in the horror elements,” she says, eyes practically twinkling. Girl’s not one to break her role. “But the actors are pretty good, I have to say.”
I knew it.
“Quiet on set!” the guy yells again.
And then, “Action!”
They go through the scene five more times, to different effect with each take. Sometimes the woman is more desperate than angry; other times, she’s seething, the rage completely taking her over. I wonder how she doesn’t get hoarse from so much screaming, but she delivers her cries convincingly each and every time.
When they’re not rolling, the grim veil comes off completely. The actress becomes a regular person, despite her cries of terror only moments earlier; the guy on the ground re-snaps his shirt; and the makeup artist adds a bit more fake blood. It’s so relaxed, so chill; people working, messing around on their phones to pass the time, only springing to action when they have something to do. It’s not so different from the way Tennyson and I hang around the check-in office, waiting for the next group of zip-liners to arrive. After all, they’re just doing their jobs.
But as soon as Mona calls, “Action,” the mood changes. The blood feels suddenly real as the actress delivers her lines. The pain, anger, and fear are almost palpable in the air. Katie wasn’t wrong. I, as Carrie, have always been more interested in the horror elements than the acting—post–Dracula auditions, at least. Maybe I always was, even if I didn’t realize it back then. The jump scares and quick cuts, the sense of foreboding and the twists and turns of every story, even the campy scenes and occasionally comically bad lines. Acting always seemed secondary, but seeing it now, like this, I get why it’s so important, why someone like Meryl Streep is Katie’s everything. Because when you get right down to it, all the fake blood is nothing without someone to convince you it’s real.
There’s something else, too, something I know surer than I ever have before:
I want this, I really do. I have to stop being so scared of failing that I don’t even try. I have to go for it. Look at all you can have when you do.
“What do you think?” Jake asks, and I know he’s talking to Katie, but for once, that doesn’t stop me from answering.
“I think this is the coolest thing I’ve ever seen.”
Carrie vs. Olivia: Part Three
They wrap at sunset, having successfully completed two more scenes.
As the crew packs up equipment, and the actors use baby wipes to clear away the fake blood, Mona comes over.
“Hi, Olivia,” she says, wrapping me in a quick hug before turning to Katie. “And you must be the famed auteur of The Bad Decision Handbook.”
“In the flesh,” Katie says, sticking out her hand. “I’m Katie.”
“Mona.” She pulls Katie into a hug, my heart beating fast with jealousy. When Mona pulls back, she clasps her hands together. “You guys have fun? You sure picked the day for it. You definitely got to see some of the more exciting scenes.”
“We loved it,” Jake says, briefly glancing to me. “We all did.”
“Great,” Mona says. “Let me just clean up, and then we’ll all go to dinner. I hope you’re hungry, because shooting all day makes me starving.”
Mona agrees to meet us at the restaurant, and the three of us drive to the Italian place off the highway that is a favorite of hers, as well as my parents’.
They seat us at a table in the corner, and we wait for her—Katie to my right, Jake to my left. Beneath the table, his feet reach slowly, cautiously toward mine, eventually resting against them, and again I feel a thrill, an awe, that this is normal now.
And then the Carrie part of me feels that other thrill—that I’m about to speak to a real horror director about my screenplay.
I grab a piece of bread from the basket in the middle, and pick at it with lightly shaking hands.
“You okay?” Jake asks, squeezing the top of my knee.
I nod, dropping the uneaten bread onto my plate and finding his hand under the table. “Just excited for Katie,” I say.
But as Jake’s hand squeezes mine, my mind can’t help but spin. What if Mona says she hates it and wants to tell me everything that’s wrong with it before I even think of showing it to anyone else? What if Katie flubs up everything, and we both embarrass ourselves in grand fashion?
I look to my right, but Katie is dunking her bread in olive oil, apparently not nervous at all.
That’s when Mona walks in. She looks so normal in her black jeans and T-shirt, you’d never know she was a director at all.
Jake moves to get up, but she brushes him off. “Please, sit, sit,” she says as she grabs a chair and peruses the menu.
“Can I get a glass of pinot noir?” she asks the second the waiter comes over. “Whatever you have that’s driest.”
She turns to Jake. “So you guys had fun?”
Jake nods, his hand not leaving mine. “Thanks so much for letting us crash the shoot.”
Mona smiles. “Anytime. I’m just glad it was when something exciting was happening. I’d have hated for you guys to see the day when the main character is sitting in her office for practically every scene.”
Katie clears
her throat. “What part of the movie were the scenes we watched from?”
“Actually, fairly near the beginning,” Mona says.
“The inciting incident?” Katie asks, making use of one of the terms I used to explain my screenplay yesterday.
“Close,” Mona says. “Actually more of the break into act two. But I like the way you’re thinking.”
The waiter comes back with Mona’s wine and details the specials, and for a few minutes, all talk of the shoot wanes as we explore the menu and put in our orders, Mona adding fried calamari for the table.
“So,” Mona says, turning to Katie as soon as the menus are cleared. “Jake told me about The Bad Decision Handbook, but I’d really love to hear about it straight from the horse’s mouth.”
Here we go, I think. Time to act your heart out, Katie.
I steal a look at Jake, and his eyes connect with mine, his mouth stretching into a smile before turning back to his aunt. He’s happy, happy to be with me, happy to be helping my friend.
He leans in, voice low. “Mind if I nerd out about horror a bit?”
I laugh. “Of course not.”
Katie takes a deep breath and a sip of water. “Well, I got the idea because there are so many bad decisions people make in horror movies, right? As I’m sure someone as seasoned as you knows.”
Mona nods. “Oh, believe me, I do. To a certain point, characters need to make some missteps to move the plot along, but some are just ridiculous.”
“Exactly,” Katie says. “You know, splitting up when it would be much safer to stay together. Leaving your one weapon behind when you go out to face the killer. Purposely entering a bad situation. That kind of thing. But I thought, what if you could really call them out, play off of them, you know?”
“Kind of like Cabin in the Woods plays with all the different genres and tropes,” Jake says.
Mona nods. “Exactly what I was thinking.”
“Right,” Katie says. “Only I wanted the characters to be really aware of what was going on. So I thought, if I make it kind of meta, have the bad guy be a director using this whole setup for his next film, it would be a really fun way to explore these tropes. My characters have to use what they know about the director’s movies, and horror movies in general, to stay one step ahead. They make some bad decisions, of course, but it’s all intentional. Like, what if one day, you actually found yourself in a horror movie? Not in one of the settings of a horror movie, but the movie itself? How crazy would that be?”
Jake leans forward. “It’s really a brilliant idea, if you ask me. So fresh and original and just, I don’t know, cool. That’s why I wanted to tell you about it.”
Across from me, Mona takes a sip of wine, then sets it down, turning to Katie. “I agree with Jake. I have to say, these are very astute observations for an eighteen-year-old.”
Katie smiles. “I’m actually only seventeen.”
Mona laughs. “Even more impressive!”
I chug on my water as Jake smiles. “I know, pretty brilliant, right?”
It’s all going so well. Katie is pulling it off beautifully. And yet . . .
“I have to admit,” Mona says, twisting her wineglass on the table, “after Jake told me about it, I only had the chance to read a couple of scenes, but I can say this: Your ear for dialogue is fantastic, and you’ve got a great sense of pacing. Of course you have learning to do, as anyone your age would, and as all of us do to a certain degree, but I really just recommend keeping at it. The best way to improve is to keep writing.”
“Thank you,” Katie says with a smile. “Thanks so much for reading.”
Mona demurs. “Oh, of course. Always happy to pay it forward. And I really do think the crux of your idea is special.”
“I told you,” Jake says. “I told you it was a great idea.” His hand is still in mine, but he suddenly feels far away. I know he’s talking about me—the boy I like likes something I wrote—but it feels . . . it feels again like that damn Dracula stage. Like I put in all the work and Katie is killing it while I fade into oblivion . . .
Katie smiles. “I wanted to do something that was a classic killer scenario but had a really strong psychological component as well.”
“I mean, don’t we all,” Mona says. “I feel like you used to get away with just slashers, gore for gore’s sake, all that. Now, most horror movies that really take off are very smart and clever. It’s a different world. On the plus side, there are more voices than ever, more stories being told by people who have been traditionally left out of the discussion. On the negative side, it can be very hard to get funding for yet another movie about a killer that takes place in the woods.” Mona shrugs. “But this is the business we’ve chosen, I suppose.”
Katie beams. “The Godfather.”
“Yes, dear,” Mona says. “I can see you’re well-versed in cinema even outside of your genre of choice.”
The waiter brings out our food, chicken parm for me, a steaming plate of spaghetti for Jake, steak for Mona, and a chicken Caesar salad for Katie.
Katie digs into her salad. “I mean, that’s part of why I wanted to get into horror, you know, because there’s so much crap out there, right? So much of the genre is just dumb.”
I cringe, shaking my head. Stop it, Katie. Just stop.
“I wanted to make smart horror,” she goes on. “You know, horror that’s just as good as anything that Coppola could make.”
Jake lets go of my hand, twisting a bit of pasta on his fork. “I’ve never heard you be so hard on horror,” he says.
“Yeah, me neither,” I say, maybe a little bit bitterly. She’s getting it all wrong. I love horror because so much out there inspires me, not the other way around.
“I’m just saying,” Katie continues. “I want to make the kind of horror that would attract an actor as serious as, say, Meryl Streep.”
Mona cuts into her steak, listening, and I hack away at my chicken parm, but I can tell she disagrees. “There is certainly some bad stuff out there,” she says finally. “But there’s a lot of good stuff, too.”
“Tons of good stuff,” Jake says, taking a bite of pasta.
“Of course,” Katie says, before rattling off a few directors I plied her with yesterday. “But what’s interesting is that so much of it is one-note. A creature feature or a ghost story. It’s important to add another layer, I think. To not do something that’s been done a million times before.”
My knife drops to my plate. This is just too much. “Oh, like other genres don’t do the same thing a million times over?” I say. All right, to be totally honest, it comes out more as a snap.
“What do you mean?” Katie asks.
I tick off my fingers. “Rom-coms, family dramas, oh my goodness . . . boxing movies. People act like horror is formulaic, but it’s really not at all. It’s got some of the most inventive work in all of film.”
Jake laughs, but it comes out almost nervous. “I told you there was a horror fan in there somewhere,” he says, twisting together another bite of pasta. “But I honestly didn’t expect you to come around so quickly!”
“I’m sorry,” I say, hands dropping to my sides. “It’s just that everything she’s saying is wrong.”
Mona nods. “I have to agree with Olivia a bit. I do think the genre leaves the door open for more experimentation, not less. Traditional cinema has gotten extremely formulaic, especially in recent years. And you didn’t even mention superhero movies!”
Jake’s eyebrows shoot up. “Don’t get me started on superhero movies.”
I can’t help myself. “That’s why I think, with The Bad Decision Handbook, it’s kind of honoring what’s been done in horror, more than making fun of it,” I say.
“It is making fun of it, though,” Katie says firmly. She eyes me, all, I got this. Just back off.
For once, I don’t care. I can’t let her steal the show, not when it comes to this, not when she’s so wrong about everything I care about so deeply. “Not like that,�
� I argue, tugging at the bottom of my shirt. “The intention was never to hate all over horror and be snobby.”
Katie scoffs. “It’s my screenplay, remember? Perhaps I know the intention a little bit better than you? If you want to write your own, go ahead. But, it’s kind of like a photograph, know what I mean? It’s a reflection of the person. You can’t just take someone else’s and then suddenly have an opinion about it.”
Jake and Mona exchange a look of confusion. Then Jake sets his fork down and clears his throat. He scoots his chair just a little closer to mine, and under the table, he takes my hand in his, lacing his fingers through mine. “It sounds like two sides of the same coin, if you ask me,” he says, quite obviously trying to keep the peace.
“Sometimes the only way to elevate a genre is to make fun of it,” Katie says, pursing her lips.
“It’s not about elevating the genre,” I say. “Horror doesn’t need to be elevated.”
“Nothing wrong with adding a little subtext,” she snaps back.
I shake my head. “No, sometimes a monster is just a monster. Like Jake said.”
Jake sits up straighter in his chair and attempts to laugh it off. “Hey, leave me out of this argument. Any more heated, and Mona’s steak is going to overcook!”
He turns to me, forcing a smile, but I look away. I don’t even have time to focus on his cheesy jokes now.
Katie taps her fork on the plate. “Well, that’s not the sort of screenplay I intended to write.”
I shake my head, my heart thrumming drumbeats and my chest tightening with anger. I can’t take it anymore. I can’t listen to this. “That’s because you didn’t write it!”
There’s silence, heavy as a corpse.
I’ve given myself up. I’ve given it all away.
Mona looks from me to Katie, staring, confused.
Katie glares at me, taking in my look of embarrassment, of hurt, of shame. Then, in true show must go on fashion, she, at least, attempts to pick up the pieces. “I’m so sorry,” she says with a light, bubbly laugh. “Olivia’s a great writer as well. She cowrote a few scenes with me. As you can see, we can sometimes get a little combative when discussing our writing process!”