by Alan Spencer
Dan winked at Janey, and Janey seemed to understand what he was doing. She was drunk enough to talk about Los Angeles and the plastic surgeon who wanted to marry her. Dan couldn't let her do it.
Dan changed the subject. "I remember, we had this scene that didn't make the final cut of the movie. It involved hanging a pregnant woman upside down. Enough said. I plan to put it in my sequel, if I ever raise the funds for Bloody Mask 2. Brian knows about it. It's brutal. Janey knows about it."
Janey chimed in. "I mean, it was so revolting. I had so many nightmares over the pregnant woman scene. I mean, we tried that scene in a public restroom. Me, being your dumb girlfriend, would do anything for you. You tied me upside down from the ceiling, and the prop for the effect, you kept this bucket full of blood and animal fat. So fucking gross. How could a moment like that not end the prospect of a marriage?"
* * *
Andy stopped recording. It was getting very late. He put his equipment away and drove to his hotel for the night. They had another long day tomorrow of interviews and commentaries. When Andy was gone, Brian thanked Janey for giving her commentary.
Dan said, "I bet your husband's worried sick about you."
"He's out with his buddies."
"He's not worried, you hanging out with me?"
"No, he's not the jealous type. And I showed him your movie."
"I take it he's not worried I'm going to sweep you up and make you my Hollywood starlet."
"No, I mean—"
"I'm joking. I know the movie's a hunk of junk. People use it for laughs. I'm fine with that. It is funny. When you've got no money, no talent, and you take it too seriously, funny things happen. Brian might get mad if you take too many jabs, though."
They talked for another hour until Janey was sober enough to drive. Then she drove home. Dan collapsed in bed even with the soundtrack of Brian's snoring cranked to full blast.
Andy was interviewing Brian the following morning. Dan watched them on the front porch as he ate his plate of scrambled eggs and bacon that Brian's mom cooked. Brian was going on about Bloody Mask's plot as if he were talking about Citizen Cane.
"You see, we never tell you where that mask really came from. The mask is a sort of judge, jury, and executioner. The problem, the mask thinks everybody should die and go to hell, and maybe that's true of everybody. If you could break open everybody's skull and look inside, all you'd see is porno, swear words, and cruelty. There's a lot of social commentary in our movie. I guess the moral of our story is everybody out there is, or could potentially become, a big asshole."
Dan was startled by the car that pulled up to Brian's house. His hank sank.
Oh no. Not him.
Mitch the Bitch stepped out of his car. He had his hands up over his head in surrender. Andy rushed to his van.
"No, Andy. It's okay."
Dan called out to Mitch while he was a good distance from him. Far enough away Mitch couldn't taser him again.
"What's your business here, Mitch? You stay where you are. Walk no closer."
Mitch stopped. He understood.
"If you want to make a police report, I understand, Dan. I physically assaulted you. I'm here to apologize for what I did. It was assault, plain and simple. I want to make amends."
Dan didn't want the guy near him.
"That's good enough. No need to make a police report. Just go your way, and I'll go mine."
Mitch wasn't done talking.
"I also wanted to make amends. I'm going to take five hundred dollars off of what you owe me."
"Owe you?" The fire in Dan's belly became a hellacious inferno. "Owe you? Listen, asshole, I don't owe you a penny. You can go ahead and take a trip up your own ass. And while you're at it, I want you to take this message with you. Assault me, or anybody involved in Bloody Mask, you won't come out of it untouched. After you tasered me, I decided to get a gun. I'm not threatening you. I'm warning you. Fuck off, and stay fucked. Got me?"
Mitch's face twitched. The jerk meant he wasn't sure what to think. Then he huffed, got into his car, and peeled out down the street.
Brian growled, "Fuck wad. 'I'm going to take five hundred dollars off of what you owe me.' Mitch is still a bitch. Always will be."
Andy watched Mitch's car grow smaller down the road. "Now you see why I was so eager to hand you a gun? I take physical assaults seriously. If that guy was willing to taser you for his money, what else would he be willing to do?"
Dan didn't like the situation. "If any of you see that guy again, we're calling the police. We're not vigilantes. Let's not involve guns in this situation, please."
* * *
After the shock of the moment wore off, they drove out to Hillsdale Lake. They were meeting Lester "Carp" Carpenter. Lester played a fisherman in the film. Lester was now in his late sixties. The man looked exactly the same, with his thick mustache, skinny body, and hunched back. The only thing that had changed was the man's hair was gray versus the jet black it was back in the day.
Lester was fishing in the lake at the time of filming the movie, and Dan asked the guy to be in the movie on the spot for free. The guy said, sure, as long as his name was in the credits. Andy, today, filmed Lester dressed in the exact same fisherman's outfit as he wore in the movie, as he cast his rod into the waters, reprising him character "Carp".
Carp learned his lesson not to work for free. He agreed to meet here today for a twelve pack of beer. Andy was happy to oblige the man's price.
Andy asked "Carp" to reflect on his role in the film. Carp's hick accent was strong and half the words were unintelligible. He was already on his third can of beer from the twelve pack, it being ten in the morning. Carp wasted no time getting down to beer business.
"Well, I turned forty-one the day before these two long haired, trouble maker looking fellas approached me at the lake to be in their movie. If it wasn't for that pretty blonde with them who asked me pretty please, I wouldn't have done the movie at all. And my daughter was friends with that lady, so I decided why not.
"Dan, you told me to fish. Cast my rod, act like I've caught a real whopper. A big enough fish to feed my entire family. So I made goofy faces. 'Hot damn, I got a real beauty hooked!' And that's what I said. I pull up on my reel, and up comes a severed foot. I put the severed foot down next to my tackle box, and what do I do? I don't run and scream and call the police. I cast my rod again, and seconds later, I reel in a severed hand. I do this six times, until I catch a female breast that looks like a white balloon painted like skin. There was even a gummy candy glued to the balloon to make a nipple. It looked ridiculous, but who I am to say anything? I'm not a filmmaker."
Andy was following Dan and Brian with a camera as they walked through Hillsdale Woods on the poorly marked trail. Thick woods surrounded them. They hadn't seen very many animals, only the long garter snake that skirted over the trail and continued back into the woods.
Andy wanted them to touch on the ending of Bloody Mask with the filmmakers.
Dan was describing their thought processes. "We were out of money, and the people helping us make the movie were either sick of staying up late at night when they had to work the next day, or they started seeing through our amateurish ways. To them, this wasn't a real movie anymore. We were two jokers with a camcorder throwing ketchup at shit."
Brian scoffed. "And I say fuck them. This isn't their dream. So it was Dan and me left standing. Our leading lady in this particular scene opted out of the film. She was funny. She knew we needed her for this final scene, but she wanted money, and she thought she could get it, but guess what, bitch? We're broke. Even now, we're broke, so fuck you still, bitch.
"Anyway, the movie must go on. We don't have to show this woman's face, right? Our killer and leading lady are already in the woods in the scene. So Dan follows me with the camera. I put on a torn up dress, and I put on a blonde wig. I had my little brother steal it from me from the high school theatre department. So I'm running, and screaming—"
Dan butted in. "And you sounded like a caveman trying to scream. It's awful. Imagine if someone put Barbie through a lifetime of Jim Beam, cigarettes, and throat jobs, that's this guy trying to scream like a woman."
"Yeah, yeah, fuck you," Brian said. "Look, it's like this. I was willing to slap on a wig and a dress at four in the goddamn morning and wrap up this thing. You got off, easy, mister director. Joke all you want about Barbie and throat jobs. I know it's funny, so shut up about it.
"So anyway, I couldn't turn around or show my face in any way, so there was only one thing I could do, and that's run into a cave. Once I'm in the cave, you don't see me again. Dan puts on the mask, and I take the camera, and Dan, as the killer, runs into the cave after the woman. And what happens next pisses off a lot of people."
"It's an abrupt and nonsensical ending," Dan said. "Both our heroine and killer are in the cave. We don't know what they're doing in the cave. They could be playing darts for all we know. You hear screams and then horrible laughter. Then the scene cuts to the moon in the sky. The cave caves in. I added really bad sound effects to establish that, even though most people on the first watch had no idea what the fuck just happened, because you don't actually see the cave-in occur. Brian, you came up with the end shot. You tell them about your method behind the madness."
"Yeah, sure. I decided to throw our mask into a stream. The end shot shows it going downstream. The idea is the mask will go to another town, someone else will wear it, and they'll kill again. Simple as that. The mask from hell will kill again. Bam. Our movie was in the can."
"More like in the toilet," Dan said. "It's a miracle our movie finally found an audience. Admit it, Brian."
"Our movie doesn't suck that bad, man. Quit saying that."
"I'm just being honest."
"I'm being honest too. Shut the fuck up."
"Let's agree to disagree. First round of beers are on me."
"Now you're talking, buddy boy."
Andy was filming Dan and Brian standing in front of an empty section of the only strip mall in town. The empty slot still owned the faded sign for Mom and Pop's Video Time. Andy wanted the two of them to reflect on the movies they rented there as kids.
"I actually sold my first copies of Bloody Mask to Mom and Pop's," Dan said. "Most people think Blockbuster killed off their business, but it's not true. When Jim Crowder's wife died, the guy retired and closed the shop down. I guess the strip mall isn't owned by anybody now, so it sits here and rots. When the place was still open, Brian and I would go in and take turns watching each other's back. You think it would be about taking a gander at the horror movies, but it wasn't."
Brian said, "It was about sneaking a look at the porno corner, what I liked to call the pink cave, because the walls were painted this ugly shade of salmon vagina. And it smelled fishy in there. One year, there was a roof leak, and Jim Crowder was too cheap to have it replaced. He shampooed the carpet, but that mold smell never left the building."
Andy asked a question off-camera. "What's the most influential movie you guys watched as kids?"
Brian jumped on that question. "Anal Sorority 7."
"No, dumbass," Dan said. "What horror movie."
"Oh. Probably The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Danny boy and I even considered writing something called Missouri Hatchet Mutilation Spree. The title didn't quite roll off the tongue, plus we didn't want to limit ourselves to just killing with a hatchet."
Dan remembered another thing. "A little bit of Missouri Hatchet Mutilation Spree seeped into Bloody Mask. There's a scene in Bloody Mask where a woman is being stalked by the mask-wearer, and she unwittingly runs into a hardware store. It's after hours, and the door's unlocked, but hey, who cares about logic? This lady puts up a tough fight, using hammers, nail guns, axes, paint buckets, just anything and everything to fight the bastard."
"Is that the butter throat scene?" Andy asked.
"The butter throat scene!" Brian whooped. "Ah, I remember that shit. Because we wanted the killer to cut off that woman's head in the hardware store with an axe. We were so psyched about getting to film in the hardware store that we forget to really consider the special effects. You had Janey run to the grocery store to buy a tub of butter. Then I said you should fill up a balloon with blood, work butter around the balloon into a throat shape."
Dan remembered the scene. "Brian really wanted the audience to see the axe actually cut through something. We were still trying to get that NC-17 rating. So we placed a wad of butter with a balloon in it on a sheet of cardboard. I pan a close up shot of the butter, that's of course supposed to be a neck, and of course, it just looks like butter, and Brian takes a swing. The blood sure popped, but the way the butter came away, well, let's just say it's not all that convincing. That's your butter throat effect."
Andy stopped shooting. That was when two joggers were going to pass them by on the nearby sidewalk. It was Trisha and her husband, Glen. They were both wearing multi-colored windbreakers.
"Trisha!" Brian called out.
Trisha's face beamed. Glen's face remained stoic. The two met them in front of the video store.
Trisha was out of breath. "You guys doing more stuff for the release?"
"That's right," Dan said. "Are you coming to the reunion party tomorrow?"
Trisha's eyes fell on Glen for a moment. "We'll see. I'm not sure what's going on Thursday."
Dan was going to let her off of the hook, but Brian decided to push the invitation harder.
"Andy's going to be filming. You'll get more camera time. Free food, free beer, and we're showing Bloody Mask at Debby's. Andy brought a special set up and everything to do it. You should really come."
Brian nudged Glen in the side. "You're not jealous your wife is a movie star, are you? We're making another Blood Mask. You both could be in it. And Trisha doesn't have to show any nudity. In fact, I'll have scenes where she'll be putting clothes on."
Dan had to step in. "Don't listen to this guy, Glen. You two can do whatever you like. Trisha was nice enough to let us interview her the other day. If you want to come down tomorrow night, that's fine. And ignore Brian. He's a jerk."
The two kept on jogging after saying goodbye.
Dan said, "You have a way, Brian. You should've been head of public relations at some company."
"Really? You think so?"
Andy returned to his hotel to check over the footage he shot. Brian and Dan returned to Brian's house to relax. There was an envelope taped to the front door. Brian opened it, and Dan wondered what it was. They were both pissed off when they read the letter was from Mitch the Bitch.
"Asshole," Dan kept repeating. "It's like he's delusional. I can't believe he wants to take this to small claims court. There was no contract or work done on Mitch's part. He doesn't have two legs to stand on. He stole a copy of my movie and suddenly wants royalty payments on it."
"It's just a way to scare us into giving him money," Brian said. "Pathetic. Get a life, you troll."
"I can't believe he tasered me. I should've reported it to the police."
"Then there's more Mitch the Bitch you have to deal with. If he gives you anymore shit, then we call the cops. And I kinda don't want to call the cops anyway."
Dan furrowed his brow. "Yeah, and why's that?"
"Because then we can't kick his ass."
"Nobody's kicking anybody's ass. Call the police. Let them do the ass kicking."
"But if he fucks with us, I'm not afraid to flash that gun. I know you've kept it in the car, because you don't want any trouble, but when people are like Mitch, you can't depend on them to play nice. People are crazy."
"Well, let's not be crazy too. I'd like to stay in good standing with everyone in town. That is, if we're going to make a sequel, we're going to be pulling favors. Nobody's going to want to help us if we're known to kick people's asses. And if the police get involved, think about what they'll do when we shoot another movie. They'll show up when we're filming without a permit in places w
e shouldn't be filming. It'd be a headache."
Brian thought it over. "Okay, we'll let it be. You're smart, Dan. You've got a cool head. I wish I could be more like you sometimes."
Andy visited them that night to go over tomorrow's reunion party. Andy said he was going to call everybody he invited to make sure as many people showed up as possible. They had two more interviews to do tomorrow, and then during the afternoon Andy said they could relax, then at nine o'clock would be the mixer, and then ten, would be the special viewing of Bloody Mask, and after that a Q&A with the director and producer.
Brian announced something Dan didn't see coming, nor did Andy.
"Andy, stay with us for dinner. We owe you a big thanks for resurrecting Bloody Mask. Cult Crushers has done so much for us as aspiring filmmakers."
Andy's eyes doubled. "It'd be my pleasure. You guys are horror kings. And it's been so much fun chasing your friends and cast mates down and talking about horror movies. This is the best time I've ever had in my life, period. You guys are wonderful."
Brian's mom had cooked up a nice spread. She made spaghetti and meatballs with garlic bread, Caesar Salad, and for dessert, fresh baked chocolate chip cookies—and leave room for beer!
The three talked about horror movies for hours at the dinner table while Brian's mom watched them talk without anything to add on the state of horror: past, present and future.
Brian was awake before Dan the following morning, for the first time. Brian was waiting upstairs drinking coffee and talking to his mom when Dan joined them. Brian asked Dan to follow him outside. His friend obviously had something on his mind.
Dan tried not to look to much into Brian's despairing face. They were sitting on the porch swing together, each slugging back coffee. Dan knew they'd have a busy day, with the interviews left to conduct and the big reunion party tonight.
"What's on your mind, buddy?"
Brian looked on at the front yard, then out past the road, and into the cornfields off in the distance. "I want to make the sequel, Dan. What I'm trying to say, I'm going to make the sequel. I can't get a read on you whether you're totally committed or not. I bring this up now because after today, who knows what'll happen with the project?