It's Only a Movie

by Mark Kermode

  When I first met Raimi, he was hard at work putting the finishing touches on Darkman, the movie that would effectively herald his move from the fringes of ‘esoteric’ film-making to the very heart of the mainstream market. Like Wes Craven, Raimi was surprisingly eager to talk to some previously unheard-of young hack, and I was beginning to think that Tim was right about the English accent being some form of all-access visa. Certainly I had no way of proving to Raimi that I was worth an hour of his time – for all he knew, I could just have been some time-wasting horror fan who wanted nothing more than to meet his genre idols. Come to think of it, that’s pretty much what I was. Except that when I got back to the UK I did indeed write the interview up for Time Out where it commanded a couple of pages of space, not to mention bagging a front-cover feature (my first) in the specialist horror magazine Fear which – like so many other organisations I have worked for – would eventually go down in flames.

  The ‘curse of Kermode’.

  The fact that Craven and Raimi, both of whom had helmed notoriously ‘nasty’ and ‘obscene’ films, turned out to be such nice intelligent people pretty much set the tone for the rest of my journalistic career. In the twenty years since I did those first stumbling interviews, I have met hundreds, if not thousands, of film-makers, and based on my (admittedly selective) experience I have reached the following conclusion: the nastier the movie, the nicer the people who made it (and possibly vice versa). Unlike the spoiled-brat superstars of mainstream Hollywood cinema, horror films tend to feature hard-working actors like Gunnar Hansen, who played the terrifying Leatherface in the long-banned Texas Chain Saw Massacre, but who came across as a lovely soft-spoken bloke when I interviewed him for the Channel 4 documentary Scream and Scream Again. Slasher cinema’s grisly special effects are dreamed up by painstakingly talented make-up artists like Tom Savini, a thoughtful soul who (it was rumoured) once made a latex severed head so authentic that the police thought it was real and radioed in a murderous decapitation. And the fans who watch these movies are invariably the most innocuous and introverted bunch of misfits you’ll ever meet in a cinema, no harm to anyone but themselves. Even that gore-hound’s bible Fangoria magazine (aka ‘Exploding Heads Monthly’) was edited by all-round New York good guy Tony Timpone who showed up at horror conventions with his equally lovely wife Marguerite, herself a huge fan of Herman’s Hermits and all things quaintly Victoriana. These people are splendidly warm and cuddly company and I would commend them to you unconditionally. Jeffrey Katzenberg on the other hand, the movie mogul behind all those ‘family orientated’ animated hits like Shrek, is … well, not cuddly. Somewhat spiky, in fact. I once did an onstage event with Katzenberg in Bristol at which he was meant to be discussing his deep love of animation, but he sneered and called me an idiot when I told him that I thought Mary Poppins was a masterpiece.

  Sorry, but anyone who doesn’t get Mary Poppins has no soul.

  Anyway, back to my West Coast adventures. By day four I was starting to think that moving to LA might not be such a bad idea after all. Not to be a pop star – although obviously if DAM took off, then so be it – but as an International Film Journalist. I really liked the sound of this phrase, particularly the ‘International’ bit. And the ‘Journalist’ bit too, come to that. It sounded so much better than ‘film critic’. For a brief, deluded moment, I convinced myself that I was actually the kind of person who could pull off this glamorous transatlantic lifestyle, seeing films in the US, filing copy in the UK, jetting back home every few months just to gloat about how fabulous my sun-drenched life had become.

  Of course, this was all just nonsense. I am not that person, and never will be. I grew up in Barnet and my conceptual map of the world goes: Southampton, Soho, St Albans, Manchester, the Isle of Man, Cornwall; everywhere else. Oh, and Liverpool, for personal reasons. And Shetland. And … well, lots of other places actually, but none of them in America. Except for Georgetown.

  Ah, Georgetown. For reasons which I have already explained, The Exorcist (‘The greatest movie ever made’, Mark Kermode, Radio One) has cast a long shadow over my life. So as I gazed out over the smog-filled streets of Los Angeles, with interviews with Wes Craven and Sam Raimi safely captured on my trusty Dictaphone, I knew instinctively what the next step in my International Film Journalist career must be. I picked up the phone, inhaled deeply, and took a running jump into the abyss.

  ‘Hello, my name is Mark Kermode. I’m a journalist from London, working for Time Out and other top publications. And I’d like to interview Linda Blair, please.’

  ‘OK,’ said the ever so slightly waspish voice at the end of the phone.’And what did you say your name was?’

  ‘Kermode. Mark Kermode. I’m a journalist from the UK. And I’m a really big fan of Linda Blair. I’ve seen everything she’s ever made. Not just The Exorcist, ha ha ha. No, no, I’ve seen ’em all!’ And I started to list them.’Roller Boogie, Hell Night, Wild Horse Hank, Sarah T: Portrait of a Teenage Alcoholic, Witchery, Born Innocent (cut and uncut, of course), Up Your Alley, Airport 75, The Heretic (both versions), Chained Heat, Red Heat, Savage Streets, Savage Island …’

  I stopped suddenly, realising that I was starting to sound like a mental case. Or a stalker. Or a stalking mental case. Whatever. Either way, this was not good – particularly since Blair had reportedly been handling death threats from marauding loony-toons ever since The Exorcist made her a demonic child star at the age of fourteen. Hard though it is to believe, some cinema audiences apparently have a problem distinguishing fiction from reality, and thus Blair’s brilliantly convincing portrayal of a possessed child led some morons to believe that she was actually the Devil. Duh!?

  According to legend, at the height of all this insanity the police even sent a special agent round to live with Blair to protect her from the unwanted attentions of whackjobs. To this day, there are still people who believe (and indeed report ) that Blair went mad as a result of appearing in The Exorcist – that she ended up in an asylum and her mother was struck by lightning. So the last thing she needed right now was yet another fruitcake on her case – albeit a fruitcake with an English accent.

  In the silence that followed, I realised that I had almost certainly blown it. Might as well just hang up. Yet Blair’s agent (who used to work in fashion – who would’ve guessed?) was seemingly unaware of this paranoia-inducing area of his client’s past.

  ‘Well, that’s just great!’ he burbled happily.’When would you like to meet?’

  I was thrown. Completely sideswiped. I never expected him to say yes. OK, so Craven and Raimi both agreed quickly enough, but this was different. Blair was … a star!

  ‘Er, hello?’

  ‘Yes, hello. Sorry. What?’

  ‘I said, when would you like to meet? Can’t do tomorrow – busy, busy, busy. How about Thursday?’

  ‘Thursday?’ I attempted to affect an air of casual disregard, like that one Tony Curtis uses after Marilyn Monroe snogs him on a yacht in Some Like It Hot. I failed – I sounded more like Dick Van Dyke.

  ‘Yes, I believe I might be able to “do” Thursday.’

  ‘Well, that’s just great!’ he said for the second time.’Whereabouts?’

  I floundered. Raimi and Craven both just told me to come to their offices. Easy. But now suddenly I had to suggest a ‘whereabouts’. Where does one usually have a ‘whereabouts’? Hereabouts?

  ‘Um, how about Tim and Jenny’s place?’ I blurted.

  ‘“Tim and Jenny’s Place” ? Haven’t heard of it. What food do they serve? Linda’s vegan, you know.’

  ‘Oh that’s OK,’ I laughed.’It’s not a restaurant. It’s just my friend’s flat. Sorry, “apartment”. It’s great – it’s just off Sunset and —’

  ‘Whhhhaaaaat?’ shrieked the man on the end of the phone who had suddenly hit the correctly protective tone towards his client which I thought would have been appropriate about two minutes ago.’I am not going to send Linda Blair to someone’s apartment. Are you mad?
’

  Apparently so. Of course I was mad. What the hell was I thinking? I’d blown it again.

  Damn.

  Bugger.

  Bollocks.

  But no …

  ‘Sooo … how about the Riverside Café, Riverside and Cahuenga? You know it?’

  ‘Oh yes!’ I lied.’Good choice!’

  ‘Well, that’s just great! She’ll see you there at 5 p.m. Thursday!’

  And with that he was gone.

  I arrived at the Riverside Café at 4 p.m., a full hour before the appointed time, terrified that I wouldn’t be able to find the place, and convinced that this was all going to end badly. In an effort to appear less strung out than I clearly was, I drove around the block a few times, hoping to make myself fashionably late, allowing me to rush in as if hot-foot from some equally prestigious assignment, babbling apologies for my tardiness.

  Finally I parked (horribly) and stepped into the restaurant. I looked at the clock. It was 4.03 p.m. Bother. I considered going out and coming in again, but that smacked of Michael Palin in Monty Python’s Spanish Inquisition sketch and that’s not what I was aiming for at all. So instead I just stood there like a lemon.

  The restaurant looked like a set. Everything in that town looked like a set. Those weren’t real customers over there – they were extras. And they weren’t eating. They were just fiddling around with fake lettuce. In fact, if you listened close enough, you could hear that they weren’t even really talking – they were just going ‘rhubarb rhubarb rhubarb’ (you only get paid full SAG rates if you say ‘real words’) in what the script presumably described as ‘background mumbling’.

  ‘Table for one?’ smiled the actress-slash-waitress, who I hadn’t seen sweeping up silently behind me, cleverly cutting off my escape route.

  ‘Er, no. Two!’ I replied, forcefully.

  ‘Two?’ she repeated with smirking derision. She knew I was lying. She knew there was no way that a sad sack like me could possibly be dining with anyone else. She’d got my number.

  ‘Yes,’ I said again, attempting to stand up straight and tall.’Yes, I will need a table for two persons because I have an appointment here with …’ (let’s see how she likes this) ‘with … Linda Blair!’

  She looked at me blankly, still smiling.

  ‘The famous movie star!’ I added, perhaps perfunctorily.

  She kept smiling serenely.

  ‘The famous star of not only The Exorcist (of course), but also of many other hits (some of them straight-to-video) including Roller Boogie, Hell Night, Wild Horse Hank, Sarah T: Portrait of a Teenage Alcoholic, Witchery, Born Innocent, Up Your Alley, Airport 75, Exorcist II: The Heretic, Chained Heat, Red Heat, Savage Streets, Savage Island …’

  She dropped the smile.

  ‘Yeah, I know who Linda Blair is. She’s not here yet. Take a seat.’

  And with that she turned and walked away.

  I really needed to stop doing that.

  I found my own way to a table which was clearly set for at least five people. I figured this was about right. A table for two would be … well, creepy. I wanted to establish right away that I was not a stalker. I was a proper English film journalist with an enthusiastic regard for Blair’s whole cinematic oeuvre. I was polite and well mannered, and I cared only about the work. Which was entirely true. It’s just that I cared about the work a lot.

  My waitress returned, observed the gigantic size of the table I had chosen, and said something indecipherable under her breath. Then she pulled a pencil out from behind her ear.

  ‘Can I getcha anything while you’re waiting? For the other four people.’

  I decided not to rise to this.

  ‘Yes,’ I said firmly.’I will have a bottle of beer please. A cold one, if you have it.’

  The pencil went back behind the ear.

  ‘What type of beer would you like, sir? They’re all cold.’

  ‘What have you got?’

  Bad question.

  ‘Amstel, Heineken, Bud, Bud Light, Coors, Coors Lite, Miller, Miller Lite, Pabst Blue Ribbon —’

  ‘That one!’

  ‘Which one?’

  ‘The ribbon one.’

  ‘Pabst?’

  ‘Yes. Pabb.’

  ‘Pabb …ST.’

  ‘That’s what I said.’

  She really didn’t like me. Also, she was on to me. She knew I’d never drunk Pabst Blue Ribbon in my life. She knew that I only chose it because of that scene in Blue Velvet where Dennis Hopper out-cools Kyle MacLachlan by yelling ‘Heineken? Fuck that shit! Pabst Blue Ribbon!’

  I needed to reassert my authority. I needed to shape up. I needed to start acting like I knew what the hell I was doing. What would Jason Isaacs have done? In a move which I find inexplicable to this day, I decided to take everything I owned out of my bag and place it on display on the table in front of me. By the time my waitress came back, I had effectively occupied the entire tabletop with cassettes, batteries, notebooks, maps and bits of string, like someone attempting to play a swift round of makeshift Risk without pieces or a playing board.

  There was hardly anywhere to put the beer, so she perched it on the far end of the table and then gave me a supercilious smirk. I smirked back, although her smirk was a lot more practised than mine. After she left, I got up from my chair, walked round the vast table to collect my beer, then walked it back to my seat, to the silent hilarity of the restaurant’s few other patrons. Clearly, they were used to this sort of thing.

  The Pabst Blue Ribbon was really very good and was swiftly really very gone . So I ordered another one. When my waitress returned to the table, I did not even deign to look up. I had got the measure of this game. I was not even going to acknowledge her. Ha!

  ‘Mark?’

  I looked up.

  Blimey Charlie, it’s Linda Blair.

  I was thunderstruck. Shocked. Speechless. The last time I saw her, she was levitating effortlessly over a thumping, shaking bed, being doused in holy water by petrified Catholic priests while a packed late-night cinema audience quivered and quaked in awe. And now she was right here. Right now. Right real.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said politely.’Are you Mark?’

  ‘Yes, I am Mark, exciting yet trustworthy international film journalist, working for a host of important publications including London’s prestigious Time Out magazine. How nice to meet you, Linda Blair, versatile and talented actress. I have seen all of your movies and look forward to discussing them with you. Please sit down.’

  This is what the voice inside my head said. Unfortunately, the voice outside my head – the one that everyone in the ‘real world’ can hear – failed to respond, largely because my face had stopped functioning. I looked like a dead person.

  ‘Sorry,’ Blair said again.’My mistake.’ And she started to walk away.

  With gargantuan effort, my brain commanded my mouth to snap to attention, get a grip, and resume normal communications with the outside world. As Blair headed off into the restaurant, I summoned up what it was left of my savoir faire, and launched into the verbal void.

  ‘Isssssaahhmmurkkk!’ I announced in something approaching a yell. She turned round again.

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘Yes, I am Mark,’ I grunted torturously, presumably with the expression of someone solving a complicated quantum physics equation while simultaneously passing a particularly large kidney stone.

  ‘Oh. Hey. I’m Linda Blair.’

  And indeed she was. I gestured wildly at the table in front of me, where I seemed to be having a front-lawn sale of everything I owned in the world. She surveyed the carnage, smiled (ironically?) and took a seat at the far end of the table. Clearly it was a good choice going for the five-seater. She didn’t want to get any closer than that, and frankly I couldn’t blame her. If I were in her shoes, and I had been sent to meet me, I would have gone straight home and fired my agent, before ringing the police department and asking if that nice officer was still available
for house duty.

  But, whether out of pity or professionalism, she settled herself down, ordered a salad from the waitress (‘Oh hi Linda, how ya doin? The usual?’ – all sunshine and light now, the double-crossing bastard), took a deep breath and said, ‘So, whaddya wanna know?’

  And for the next ninety minutes I interviewed Linda Blair. And she was great. Funny, intelligent, self-effacing, full of quotable stories, always ready to laugh at herself, profoundly aware of her own limitations, and just genuinely really nice. Despite my wobbly start, she put me at my ease, and together we meandered conversationally through the highs and lows of her career. With no hint of self-pity she told me about the weird life she had led in the wake of The Exorcist, recalling how people would recognise her in supermarkets and run screaming into the street.’I was a normal kid,’ she said, ‘and I wanted to be pretty. But all people ever said to me was, “Wow, can you really spin your head around and throw up?”’ She talked openly about some of the less than splendid straight-to-video sleaze she had made in the eighties (‘we were filming Red Heat in a sewer and the camera tripod had one foot in the river of poop’) and even apologised for Savage Island – an Italian women-in-chains cheapie for which she had recorded wraparound intro-outro scenes which allowed the makers to market it (spuriously) as ‘starring Linda Blair’. Now she was branching out into comedy, and had great hopes for the forthcoming Exorcist spoof Repossessed in which she co-starred with her funnyman idol Leslie Nielsen, but which, heartbreakingly, would turn out to be utter pants. Hey-ho.

  As the interview drew to a close, I asked her what The Exorcist meant to her after all these years, and she shrugged and said, ‘Well, you know, there isn’t a day goes by that someone doesn’t ask me about that film. So to me, it’s like my left arm – it’s just there.’

  As we parted, she said that she’d really enjoyed the interview and hoped I wouldn’t write another one of those stories about her going mad and being sent to an asylum and her mother being struck by lightning. Then she gave me a signed photograph of herself, in a swimming pool, in an affectionate embrace with a dolphin. She looked really happy in the picture – presumably dolphins don’t care about the bloody Exorcist.