by Mike Allen
Seriously, though, the sooner we can turn this one around, like ASAP, the better -- I think this one could really break us wide open. If you could get back to me by five with something, anything, I’d be really grateful. Thanks in advance.
See you Sunday, either way,
Soraya.
From: Max Holborn [email protected]
Wednesday, June 25, 4:10 PM
To: Soraya Mousch [email protected]
Subject: Re: Apology followup
s.--
cat-scan wasn’t so great, tell you bout it later. got your file, i’m about to review. i’ll im you when it’s done.
m.
* * *
TRANSCRIPT CHAT LOG
06/25/08 1626-1633
* * *
July 26/2009
“BACKGROUND MAN”, Lescroat,
strangerthings.net/media
(cont’d)
“That original clip? Hands down, some of the scariest amateur shit I’ve ever seen in my life,” says local indie critic/promoter Alec Christian, self-proclaimed popularizer of the “Toronto Weird” low-budget horror culture movement. “A little bit of Blair Witch to it, obviously, but a lot more of early Nine Inch Nails videos, Jorg Buttgereit and Elias Merhige. That moment when you realize the guy’s body is rotting in front of you? Pure Der Todesking reference, and you don’t get those a lot, ’cause most of the people doing real-time horror are total self-taught illiterates about their own history.”
Asked if there’s any way the clip might be genuine, rather than staged, Christian laughs almost wistfully. “Some people still think Blair Witch was real; doesn’t make it so,” he points out. “Anyway, think about how hard it would be to shoot this using World War One technology and logistics, at the latest, which is what we’d be looking at if it was real—and if it was filmed later but aged to look older, then everything else could have been engineered as well. Sometimes you just have to go with common sense.”
* * *
TRANSCRIPT EVIDENCE EXHIBIT #3 51 DIVISION
CASEFILE #332
RECOVERY LOCATION 42 TRINITY STREET BSMT
DATE 8/20/2008
Item: 89.2 MB .MPG file retrieved from hard drive of laptop SONY VAIO X372 s/n 10352835A, prop. M. Holborn, duration 15m07s.
0:00 – (All images recorded in black-and-white monochrome.) Caucasian male subject (Subject A), 40s, est. 6'1", 165 lbs, dark hair, wearing black or brown suit appearing to be 1920s cut, shown sitting in upright wooden chair looking directly at camera. Room is a single chamber, est. 8' x 10', hardwood floor, one window behind subject, one door in right-hand wall at rear. No painting or other decoration visible on walls. Angle of light from window suggests filming began early morning; light traverses screen in right-to-left direction, suggesting southward facing of window and room. Unknown subject has no discernible expression.
0:01-4:55 – Subject A rises and removes clothes, beginning with detachable celluloid collar. Each garment removed separately, folded and placed on floor. Care and placing of garment removal suggests ritual purpose. Subject is shown to be uncircumcised. Subject continues no discernible facial expression.
4:55-5:19 – Subject A resumes seat and looks straight into camera without movement or speech. Enhanced magnification and review of subject’s right hand reveals indeterminate object, most likely taken from clothing during removal.
5:20-5:23 – Subject A opens object in hand, demonstrating it to be a straight razor. Subject cuts own throat in two angular incisions, transverse to one another. Strength and immediacy of blood flow indicates both carotid and jugular cut. Evenness and control of movement suggests anesthesia or psychosis. Review by F/X technicians confirms cuts too deep to have been staged without use of puppets or animatronics. Subject maintains lack of facial expression.
5:23-6:08 – Subject A’s self-exsanguination continues until consciousness appears lost. Subject collapses in chair, head draped over back.
6:09 – Estimated time of death for Subject A.
6:11 – Razor released from subject’s fingers, drops to floor.
6:12 – 13:34 – Clip switches from real-time pacing to timelapse speed, shown by rapidity of daylight movement and day-night transitions. Reconstruction analysis specifies 87 24-hour periods elapse during this segment. Subject’s body shown decomposing at accelerated pace.
7:22 – Primary liquefaction complete; dessication begins. Clothes left on floor have developed mold.
10:41 – Dessication largely complete. Rust visible on blade of razor. Fungal infestation on clothes has spread to floorboards.
13:10 – Subject’s cranium detaches and falls to floor.
13:17 – Subject’s right hand detaches and falls to floor.
13:25 – Subject’s left arm detaches and falls to floor. Imbalance in weight causes remains of subject’s body to fall off chair.
13:34 – Decomposition process complete. Footage resumes normal real-time pacing.
14:41 – Subject B walks into frame from behind camera P.O.V. Subject B’s appearance 100% consistent in identity with initial Subject A, including lack of circumcision and identifiable body marks. Remains of Subject A still visible behind Subject B.
15:01 – Subject B bends down in front of camera and looks into it. Subject B shows no discernible facial expression.
15:06 – Subject B reaches above and behind camera viewpoint.
15:07 – CLIP ENDS
* * *
TRANSCRIPT EVIDENCE EXHIBIT #2 51 DIVISION
CASEFILE #332
RECOVERY LOCATION 532 OSSINGTON AVENUE BSMT RESIDENCE LASZLO P HURT DATE 8/19/2008
AUDIOTAPE PROPERTY OF LASZLO P HURT
(IDENTIFICATION RETROACTIVELY ASSIGNED TO VOICES FOLLOWING CONFIRMATION FROM M HOLBORN AND S MOUSCH OF CONTENT)
V1 (MOUSCH): (LOUD) . . . see, here it is. Never see it if you weren’t looking for it.
V2 (HOLBORN): (LOUD) Shit. He really does have his own place bugged. What’s this for? Legal protection?
V1 (MOUSCH): (VOL. DECREASING) Maybe, but I think it’s really just because he wants to. Like his whole life is a big cumulative performance art piece. Sort of like in that Robin Williams movie, where people have cameras in their heads, and Robin has to cut a little film together when they die to sum up fifty years of experience?
V2 (HOLBORN): Yeah. That really sucked.
V1 (MOUSCH): I know. Just . . . keep it in mind, that’s all I’m saying.
(BG NOISE: TOILET FLUSH)
V2 (HOLBORN): That’s . . . okay, Laszlo.
V3 (HURT): Yeah, you want some helpful input? Try not patronizing me.
V1 (MOUSCH): Laz, come on.
V3 (HURT): Yeah, okay, okay. So I reviewed your file.
V2 (HOLBORN): And?
V3 (HURT): First thing comes to mind is a story I heard through the post grapevine, one of those boojum-type obscurities the really crazy collectors go nuts trying to find. Though this can’t be that, obviously, the clip would be way older, not digitized—
V1 (MOUSCH): People digitize old stuff all the time!
V3 (HURT): Really? Yeah, Soraya, I get that, actually; do it for a living, right? Look, the upshot is that you do have some deliberate image degradation going on here, so—
V2 (HOLBORN): I knew it, I knew it was a fake. Thank Christ.
V3 (HURT): I’m not finished. There is image degradation, but it wasn’t done through any of the major editing programs; I’ve run your file through all of them and tested for the relevant coding, and this thing’s about as raw as digicam gets. I’m betting whoever sent this to you digitized it the old brute-force way, like a movie pirate: Physically projected the thing, recorded it with a digital camera, saved it as your .mpeg, and sent it to you as is. Whatever the distortions are, they’re either from that projection, or they were in the source clip all along.
V1 (MOUSCH): So . . . this could be a direct copy of that original clip you were talking about. The urban legend boojum.
V3 (HURT): Yeah, if you wanna buy into that shit.
V2 (HOLBORN): And when Laszlo Hurt tells you something’s too weird to believe . . .
V1 (MOUSCH): Max, don’t be a dick; Laz’s doing us a favour. Right?
V2 (HOLBORN): Yeah, okay. Sorry.
V3 (HURT): (PAUSE) Way I heard, it goes back to this turn-of-the-century murderess called Tess Jacopo . . .
* * *
8/23/08 1902HRS
TRANSCRIPT SUSPECT INTERVIEW 51 DIVISION
CASEFILE #332
PRESIDING OFFICERS D. SUSAN CORREA 156232, D. ERIC VALENS 324820
SUBJECT MAXIM HOLBORN
D.VALENS: Jacopo. That was in Boston, in the 1900s—she was a Belle Gunness-type den mother killer, right? The female H.H. Holmes.
HOLBORN: Why am I not surprised you know this?
D.CORREA: Mr Holborn, please. Go on.
HOLBORN: The story isn’t really about Jacopo herself. What happened was, this guy who’d been corresponding with Jacopo in prison, her stalker I guess he was, he managed to bribe a journalist who was on-site at her execution into stealing a copy of the official death-photo and selling it to him. Guess he wanted something to whack off with after she was gone. Anyway, a couple weeks later this guy’s found in his flat, dead and swollen up, the Jacopo photo on his chest.
D.CORREA: How did he die?
HOLBORN: I don’t think it matters. The point is, somebody there took a photo of the photo, and that became one of the biggest murder memorabilia items of the 20th century. You know these guys, right—kinda weirdos who buy John Wayne Gacy’s clown pictures, shell out thousands to get Black Dahlia screen-test footage, ’cause they think they’ll unearth some lost snuff movie they can show all their friends . . .
D.VALENS: I’m not seeing what this has to do with your film clip, Mr. Holborn.
HOLBORN: Okay. This is where the urban legend kicks in. See, Jacopo’s mask slipped a bit during the hanging, so you can just barely see a sliver of her eyeball, and the story says if you blow up and enhance the photo like a hundred times original size, you’re supposed to be able to see in the eyeball the reflection of what she was looking at when she died. Like an asphyx.
D.VALENS: Ass-what?
HOLBORN: It’s the word the Greeks used for the last image that gets burned on a murdered person’s retina, like a last little fragment of their soul or life-force getting trapped there.
D.CORREA: And under sufficient magnification, you’re supposed to be able to see this?
HOLBORN: “Supposed to,” yeah. Thing is, everyone who ever tried this, who actually tried blowing up their copy of the Jacopo photo? Went nuts or died. Unless they burned their photo before things got too bad. That’s supposed to be why it’s impossible to find any copies.
D.CORREA: Why? What did they see?
HOLBORN: How the fuck should I know? It’s a spook story. Maybe they saw themselves looking back at themselves, whatever. The point is . . . it’s not about what those people saw, or didn’t. It’s about the kind of voyeuristic obsession you need to go that deep into this shit. And Laszlo said that was what the clip reminded him of. Somebody trying to make some kind of, of—“mind-bomb,” was the term. An image that’d scar you so badly, the mere act of passing it on would be enough to always keep its power alive.
D.CORREA: Uh . . . why?
HOLBORN: Excellent question. Isn’t it?
* * *
From: Liat Holborn
Thursday, July 3, 10:25 AM
To: Soraya Mousch
Subject: Max and me
Dear Soraya,
I was talking to Max last night about how we’re going to try to handle the next few months, and it came out that for whatever reason, Max still hadn’t filled you in completely on our situation. I think he finds it pretty tough to talk about, even to you. Upshot is, the last CAT-scan showed I have an advanced cranial tumour, and Dr. Lalwani thinks there’s a very good chance it could be gliomal, which (skipping all the medico-babble) is about the least good news we could get. Apparently, it’s too deep for surgery, so the only option we have is for me to go into a majorly heavy chemo program ASAP. So I’m going to be spending a lot of time in St. Michael’s, starting real soon now.
My folks’ve volunteered to foot a lot of the bill, which is great, but poor Max is feeling kind of humiliated at needing the help – and of course he totally can’t complain about it, which just makes it gall him even more. The reason I’m telling you all this is because (a) I want the pressure of keeping this a secret to be off Max, and (b) I know how much you depend on Max this time of year, and I don’t want you to think he’s bailing on you if he has to take time out for me, or that he’s finally gotten fed up with you, the Wall of Love, or your work.
(Actually, I’m pretty sure the festival’s the only thing that’s kept him stable this past little while. I hope you know how much I appreciate the support you give him.)
Could you show this e-mail to Max when you get a chance, and apologize to him for me when he blows his top at my big mouth? :) He doesn’t feel he can shout at me any more about anything, obviously. But I really think things’ll be easier once all the cards are on the table.
Thanks so much for your help, Soraya. Come by and see me soon – I want you to get some photos of me before I have to ditch the hair.
Much love and God bless,
Liat
P.S.: BTW, I’m also totally fine with accidentally seeing that thing you sent Max, that file or whatever, so tell him that, okay? Impress it on him. He seems to think it “injured” me somehow – on top of everything else. Which is just ridiculous.
I have more than enough real things to worry about right now, you know?
L.
* * *
8/23/08 1928HRS
TRANSCRIPT SUSPECT INTERVIEW 51 DIVISION
CASEFILE #332
PRESIDING OFFICERS D. SUSAN CORREA 156232, D. ERIC VALENS 324820
SUBJECT MAXIM HOLBORN
HOLBORN: We were on about the third or fourth draft of the final mix when we started splicing in the clip—
D.VALENS: Splicing? I thought you said this was purely electronic.
HOLBORN: It is, it’s just the standard term for—look, do you want me to explain or not?
D.CORREA: We do. Please. Go on.
HOLBORN: We broke the clip up into segments and spliced it in among
the rest of the film in chunks; we were even going to try showing some shots on just the edge of subliminal, like three or four frames out of twenty-four. This was a few weeks ago, beginning of August. And then it started happening.
D.CORREA: What started, Max?
HOLBORN: The guy. From the clip. He started . . . appearing . . . in other parts of the film.
D.VALENS: Somebody spliced in more footage? Repeats?
HOLBORN: No, goddammit, he started popping up in pieces of footage that were already in the film! Stuff we’d gotten like weeks before, from people who never even saw the clip or knew about it. Like that performance art piece in Hyde Park? Guy walks by in the background a minute into the clip. Or the subway zombie ride, you look right at the far end of the car, there he is sitting down, and you know it’s him ’cause he’s the only one not wearing any clothes. This was stuff nobody ever shot, man! Changing in front of our fucking eyes! Christ, I saw him show up in one segment—I ran it to make sure it was clear, ran it again right away and he was just fucking there, like he’d always been in the frame. The extras were fucking walking around him . . .
(FIVE SECOND PAUSE)
D.CORREA: Could it have been some kind of computer virus? Something that came in with your original video file and reprogrammed the files it was spliced into?
HOLBORN: Are you shitting me?!
D.VALENS: Dial it back, Holborn. Right—now.
HOLBORN: Okay, sorry, but—no. CGI like that takes hours to render on a system ten times the size of mine, and that’s for every single appearance. A virus carrying that kinda programming would be fifty times bigger than the file it rode in on and wouldn’t run on my system anyway.