Some, though, credited the extraordinary performance of Jennifer Drummond, the lanky Southern girl with the long blond hair and the cornflower eyes. She’d come from nowhere, like every other actor in the movie, but unlike the others, she seemed to possess a natural talent for the job. Where the others moved woodenly, conscious of the camera, she was indifferent to its presence; while others looked as though they were waiting tensely for their cues before lurching into awkward speech, she seemed in easy conversation with the world. As the movie accrued its cult following over the years, she was sometimes compared to Mia Farrow in Rosemary’s Baby, or Isabelle Adjani in Possession. She was the kind of person you fell in love with on sight.
Her defining moment was the midnight scene in the barn. The lights were placed outside so she was lit only by hard white beams sliding in through the wood slats. The horses huffed and whinnied in their stalls. As the scene progressed they reared and panicked, slamming their back hooves into the wood. Drummond’s jittery depiction of a woman inhabited by the devil mesmerized, even terrified. Naked, she shuddered and spat, undulated like something underwater. And then that godawful, howling, throat-ripping scream. Alan felt a happy thrill thinking about it. The scene displayed none of the obvious special effects enhancing Linda Blair’s more famous performance a few years later; but there was a sense of taboo about it, leaving the audience feeling as though it had witnessed something it shouldn’t have. Something genuinely evil. The scene wasn’t the climax of the movie—just a throwaway scare, the second-act demise of a supporting character—but the rest of the movie dragged on in a predictable series of ridiculous plot points. Drummond’s performance in the barn became the foundation for the movie’s cult status. You could find echoes of it in the bigger, better films that followed, and it was still referenced by horror movie junkies as the possession scene yet to be topped. Naturally, rumors circulated that the possession was genuine. A fun bit of urban legend, which only heightened the movie’s appeal.
Despite its flaws, Blood Savage could have made Jennifer Drummond into a star—a bona fide scream queen—if she’d been at all interested.
“How’s that, Miss Drummond? Are you comfortable?”
“I’m just fine, thank you.”
Alan went back to the camera and checked the positioning. He came around once more and tugged gently on the bottom of her shirt, straightening a wrinkle near her shoulder. He didn’t know why he was fussing with this part so much. Inevitably, she would move and shift as she spoke; but the process was a kind of ritual, and it helped him settle into his role.
He positioned himself in the stiff-backed chair, which had been arranged opposite her, taken from its place in front of the hearth. He hunched forward. It didn’t matter what he looked like; he wouldn’t be in the shot. They’d try to edit her answers so they wouldn’t even need his questions in the finished cut, but he’d be careful to articulate anyway, just in case.
He fixed his own mic to his collar. “I figure we can get a good twenty-five or thirty minutes to start, and then we’ll break for lunch. Does that sound okay?”
“It sounds fine.” She didn’t seem nervous or impatient.
“Mark, how’s the sound?”
“You’re both coming through loud and clear,” Mark said.
“Well, Miss Drummond? Shall we begin?”
She smiled and sat up a little straighter in her chair. “I’m ready,” she said.
“So, I’m going to start kind of generally, hit the basics, and then as we go we’ll focus on particular topics. There are some points I definitely want to touch on—Lionel Teller, the barn scene, your life afterward—but really I just want to see where the conversation takes us. I think these things always turn out better when there’s an organic quality to them. Okay?”
“Sure.”
“Okay. So. What were you doing before you were cast in Blood Savage? Did you have any acting experience at all?”
“Christ, no.” She laughed. “Have you seen the movie? None of us did!”
Alan smiled encouragement.
“I wanted to be a painter. I’d dropped out of college years before and was just kind of drifting. I was apolitical, which sounds terrible, but it’s true. No protests for me. I had this idea I was going to have a show in Dallas and get discovered by some fancy New York art dealer. Me and some friends were renting out this big house, sharing all the costs. None of us ever had a real job, we were always late on rent. It was a miracle we didn’t get evicted.”
“So, how did you get involved with Blood Savage?”
“Lionel was over at the house one night. He was dating one of my roommates. It was the usual stupid thing. We were all stoned, he and I hit it off. We spent the whole night talking about art. I wanted to talk about Warhol and Picasso. He was into the surrealists and Grand Guignol theater.”
“Did he talk about Satanism?”
“Not right away. That came later.”
“Okay. I interrupted you. Please continue.”
“Well, there isn’t much more. He started in about the movie he was going to shoot, and all his high talk about art went right out the window. It was just a cheap horror flick. A chance to show naked girls and a lot of blood.”
“What did you think about that?”
“Well, I thought it was all very silly and childish, but I was hoping he’d ask me to be in it.”
“Really? Even though you thought it was childish?”
Drummond smiled. “I was silly and childish myself. Why wouldn’t I be interested? Besides, it was a movie. Everybody wanted to be in the movies.”
“Did he ask you that night?”
“Yes he did. And I said yes right away. I thought I was going to be a movie star.”
“What about your dreams of being a painter?”
“Why couldn’t I be both?” She didn’t seem wistful or sad. She spoke about those old feelings as if they belonged to someone else, someone she’d been assigned to observe, and she was making a field report.
“A lot of people think you could have been a movie star, if you’d wanted to be. Me, for example. I mean…I’m sure you get this all the time, but a lot of us think you gave one of the all-time great performances in horror cinema. You could have been up there with icons like Barbara Crampton and Jamie Lee Curtis.” He realized he’d phrased that tactlessly, and he felt himself blush. “I mean, I think you already are, but…”
“I don’t know who those women are,” she said. “I don’t keep up with the movies. But I’m sure it’s a flattering comparison.”
“It is!”
“Well, thank you. But I think you’re full of shit.” She smiled when she said it, but it was clear she meant it. “I didn’t invite you here to blow smoke up my ass.”
Despite the rebuke, Alan was thrilled. She was no washed-up relic. She had a sharp tongue and she wasn’t afraid to flash a little steel. The classic Texas no-bullshit personality. He began to wonder if there might be more to this interview than simply press-kit material. Maybe he could turn this into a book, or a documentary even. Maybe this was the beginning of something.
“You’re not talking about my acting,” she said. “My acting was terrible. We were all terrible. None of us had a future in the movies, including Lionel. You’re talking about the barn scene.”
He cast a glance at Mark, who looked up from his place at the sound board. This was what they’d come for.
“Yes,” Alan said. “I guess I’m talking about the barn scene.”
She looked out the window. The day had just crossed noon. The rolling hills and the brush were bathed in light. There was nothing around them but open land for as far as he could see. Nevertheless, the black energy of that scene intruded into the room. Goose bumps rippled over his skin.
When she didn’t speak, Alan pressed her. “The rest of the movie has plenty of charm, but
that scene seems like something spliced in from another project altogether. There’s a rawness to it, a realness, the rest of the movie doesn’t have. And I’ve tried to figure out what it is. It’s not like there’s anything inexplicable happening on-screen. No rotating heads or impossible contortions. It’s just, I guess you’d say an eeriness. A sense of transgression.”
She watched him while he fumbled through his thoughts. It made him nervous, which surprised him; he’d done a million of these things, sometimes with big stars. What should he be nervous about?
“And like, it’s iconic for so many people of my generation.” He said like. He was talking like a fucking teenager.
“So many men, you mean,” she said.
He paused. He cast another glance at Mark, but Mark was now focused solely on the sound board. “That’s true. It’s a very sexual scene.”
“Why do you think so?”
Nothing in her inflection had changed; her expression was neutral, not hostile. And yet Alan felt as though the balance had shifted, and his footing was unsteady. He tried to get it back. “Were you uncomfortable performing the scene naked?”
“Of course. Who wouldn’t be? But there was nothing squalid about it. Everyone was very respectful. What I think is interesting is how uncomfortable you seem.”
She watched him for another moment and then reached over to an end table and fished a pack of cigarettes from a drawer. She leaned back in her seat and lit one up. All his careful compositional arrangements came undone, but there was no stopping that, and he didn’t care. He was on the verge of getting something good.
Fuck it, he thought. Be candid. He could always edit this later. “You were a sexual fantasy for a lot of boys my age,” he said. “Maybe that’s why I’m uncomfortable talking about it.” Heat crawled up the back of his neck. He feared he’d crossed a line. Some people like to ambush their interview subjects with sensitive or intrusive questions, making them uncomfortable in hopes of getting at some emotional payoff. They didn’t care if it upset the person or embarrassed them. If it was for an in-depth feature, that was one thing; but for press-kit material like this, he’d always considered it a cheap move. Alan did not consider himself one of those guys. And he liked Jennifer Drummond; he respected her. The thought of putting her in a bad position appalled him.
And yet.
“Of course,” she said. “A lot of teenage boys like to look at naked girls. There’s nothing wrong with adolescent libido. Girls have libidos, too, it might surprise you to know.”
He accepted the chastisement with a smile and a shrug. “I know, but—”
“Fantasies are normal, and as long as they’re kept in context, they’re usually healthy, too. You can let them go too far, though.” She paused and took a pull from her cigarette. He noticed nicotine stains on her fingers. “It never occurred to me to think people might find the barn scene charged in that way, but it wouldn’t have bothered me very much. We filmed it in 1969. It was a wild time.”
“It never occurred to you? Forgive me, but that seems a little hard to believe.”
“You can believe what you like.”
He paused to regroup. “Let’s talk about Lionel Teller and his obsession with Satanism. Obviously, at this point, he’d already started talking about it openly. Can you tell me about that?”
She looked down at her hands, fidgeting in her lap. The cigarette burned between her fingers, untouched. “What you have to know about Lionel is that he was an egomaniac. He had to have the first and last word on everything. He was obsessed with black magic—reading everything he could get his hands on about Anton LaVey, Aleister Crowley, who knows what else. We all thought it was a bunch of nonsense, but God forbid he heard you say such a thing. He’d fly into one of his tantrums, and it could last a long time. He could hold a grudge like you wouldn’t believe. He’d host rituals and séances at his house, and he’d expect the cast and crew to come. He’d feel personally slighted if someone didn’t attend. I made that mistake once—he didn’t talk to me for a week.”
“What were those sessions like? Does anything stand out?” He glanced over at Mark, who was watching her intently. Seeing Alan’s glance, he flashed him a thumbs-up.
“They were boring, mostly. Lionel was impossible. We got stoned, we drank. But there wasn’t much fun to be had. A few of the others took it seriously, I suppose. Jake McDonell, the leading man, was so scared one night he drove away in the middle of it. Lionel had to meet him the next day and convince him not to quit. But most of us just did it to go along.”
“I’ve never heard that story,” Alan said. “Have you, Mark?”
“Nope. New to me.”
“McDonell was going to quit the movie?”
“He did quit it. For a night, anyway. Lionel was very persuasive, though. That man could talk anyone into anything he wanted.” She paused, thinking. “Jake was convinced something had come to the house. Even after Lionel talked him into coming back, he asked us all, at one time or another, if we’d heard it.”
“Heard it doing what?”
“Walking. Breathing.”
“Did you believe it?”
“No. Not then.”
“But…later?” Alan felt his excitement ramping up. Was she going to cop to believing in black magic? On his featurette?
“When it came time to shoot the scene, Lionel believed filming a real ceremony would give it—and the whole production, really—a sense of legitimacy. Something genuine the audience would respond to, even if it was just—you know, subconsciously.”
“Did anybody object? Jake?”
“By that time, no. We knew what he was like. And Jake, well. Despite his tough guy attitude, he was meek in his heart. He always did what he was told.” She seemed to remember she had the cigarette in her hand and brought it up for a deep draw.
“Do you know the rumors circulating around the movie?”
Silence stretched between them. She took another pull before she said, “No.”
Alan had the strong sense she was lying. But if she’d been as reclusive as she claimed, he guessed it was possible. “An urban legend has grown up around the movie, specifically around the barn scene. You were so good, and the scene is so creepy, some people say you were actually possessed.”
“Oh. Well, yes. I was.”
Alan and Mark exchanged a glance. “You’re saying Lionel used actual summoning rites to film the scene?”
The question irritated her. “Lionel didn’t do anything, except give us the script and stand behind the camera. We did it. We said the words and made the motions. And I opened my heart to it. Please don’t give him credit he doesn’t deserve.”
“I’m sorry.” He took a breath, watching the sunlight move across her face as she turned her head. “But I want to be clear. You’re saying you actually summoned a real demon onto the set.”
“I’m saying more than that. I’m saying I was physically possessed by a demonic entity, and that same entity has not left my body in almost fifty years.”
Alan was stunned. How to respond? His new ambitions for a book about her shifted; she was either a crank after all, or she was exhibiting some late-life William Castle–style showmanship. Either would be a compelling subject.
“Are you, um—are you possessed right now?”
“We can talk more about it after lunch,” Miss Drummond said. “I’m feeling a little tired. I could use a break.” Her enthusiasm seemed reduced from its former high; she looked distracted, almost sad.
Alarmed, Alan said, “Maybe we can push a little further? We’re just getting into the good stuff.” If they stopped now, she might never come back to this subject. Or she might be more circumspect about it.
“I don’t know…”
“Another few minutes. I don’t want to lose momentum—”
Mark spoke up. “Alan. Let’
s get some lunch. I’m starving anyway.”
Alan kept his mouth clamped shut; it was everything he could do not to tell his partner to shut his goddamn mouth. This was his interview. Mark was just the fucking tech support.
Jennifer Drummond smiled at him, arching one eyebrow. “You wouldn’t push an old lady when she’s tired, would you, Alan?”
He flushed. “Of course not, Miss Drummond. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be rude.” Recognizing the interview was at an intermission whether he liked it or not, he removed the microphone from his collar.
She patted his hand. “Call me Jennifer,” she said. “I don’t stand on ceremony. Now look, you boys go into town and get yourselves something to eat. I recommend Paco’s. I would have prepared something for you myself, but frankly I wasn’t up to it. I’m sorry to be such a poor host. I’m out of practice, you know.”
He leaned over, unclipping her mic, too. “Please don’t say that. You’ve been more than gracious. I wish you’d join us. My treat.”
“Heavens, no. I’m going to have myself a little siesta. I don’t believe I’ve talked this much in one sitting in ten years. If I’m asleep when you get back, just knock on the door. I’m a light sleeper.”
“If you’re sure.”
“Don’t ever ask an old Texas lady if she’s sure. If she said it, then that’s how it is.”
Alan smiled. “Yes, ma’am.”
“Good. Well, that’s it, then. Go fill your bellies and come on back in a couple hours. Say three or four?” When they agreed, she headed back to her bedroom, leaving them by themselves. Alan and Mark stepped out into the heat. The sun burned in a thin blue sky. Wind billowed over the land, smelling of sagebrush. They regarded one another quietly for a moment. Then, despite his irritation with him, Alan broke out into a smile. “Holy shit, dude.”
Final Cuts Page 9