THE BLACK ALBUM: A Hollywood Horror Story
Page 9
“So, you met Lizzy hitchhiking,” the young mother deduced instantly. Before Loveless could fumble up a lame defense, Charlotte added, “My daughter doesn’t accept rides from most men. She must think highly of you. Have kids?” The young mother was thinking he must be a family man.
“No. It’s just me.”
The mother's eyebrows furrowed. “Only people up here are rich retirees and small town hicks. You’re young, single, and city. Talk about a fish out of water. What the hell are you doing on this mountain?” Charlotte was bold and theatrical.
Loveless decided to be just as bold and theatrical. “I came here to make a horror movie.” Charlotte giggled seductively. “You do know I’m an actress, right?”
The conversation was quickly cascading into a delightful little Rom-com, the filmmaker decided fleetingly.
“Have a script?”
“As a matter of fact, I do.”
Three days after Loveless had given Charlotte a hard copy of the screenplay, she showed up on his doorstep while he was replacing the last few rungs on his deathtrap of a staircase. Charlotte was clutching the manuscript to her chest.
“Can I buy you lunch?”
“How’d you know where I live?”
“Small mountain.”
"So I've heard."
The filmmaker had written enough screenplays in his time to know that you never knew how it was going to go. Sometimes you pour your heart and soul into a script you think is an opus to all mankind, and people slam it as tripe, boring, blasé. Other times you pull some piece of shit out your ass for a hard nose indie producer and they think it’s “Gone With the Wind.” You just never knew, especially with women readers. That’s why Loveless sat down with some trepidation at the table in the restaurant diner across from Charlotte. He couldn’t read her poker face as she sat back in the booth.
“I loved it,” Charlotte said earnestly with some emphasis as she laid the screenplay on the table. She was bursting to get that out.
“Wow,” was all the wordsmith could come back with.
“Really. I even got Lizzy to read it, and you know kids these days. They never read anything. Not only did she read it, she loved it. And that girl's a harsh critic. She’s been telling all her friends.”
“Your daughter gets a lot of credit. It was inspired by local urban legend. Lizzy turned me on to it.”
“I know. That’s what’s so great about it. Those sonovabitch studio assholes are always knocking indie films, complaining, ‘It’s artistic and brilliant. It’s just not very commercial. Won’t play well in theaters.’ Well this will.”
“You know about the industry?”
“My ex is a talent manager. Know all about it.” Charlotte shook her head. “Man, it’s such a good script. Such a simple story with such a complex and compelling leading character. Grace Lynn. I love her. Creating a hero who has leaned closer to Hell than Heaven throughout her whole life is so different. A woman who was always just a little bit evil. Then, when she inadvertently releases Hell from the album and the forces of evil think it’s a given that she will side with darkness, Grace chooses goodness. The light. And that line she says to the demon Jeremy at the end, before she sends him back to hell: ‘I know the truth now. And all evil really is, is weakness.’ Oh my God. I love that line!”
“Wow.”
“For a writer, you sure don’t have much of a vocabulary. Just kidding. Please tell me you haven’t cast the Grace role yet.” Charlotte giggled when she was nervous.
“I just finished the script a few days ago. You’re actually the first one to take a look at it.”
“Incredible. I’d love to read for the role of Grace.” Charlotte read the filmmaker’s sudden apprehension, “Don’t worry. I studied in LA. And I’m good. It was just- Lizzy came along. My priorities shifted.”
At that moment, Loveless’ directing vision kicked in. He took a long hard look at Charlotte. It made her momentarily feel like a bug under a microscope. Well, she was the right age range for the character. Physically she was what the filmmaker saw in his mind's-eye when he envisioned Grace. Actually, truth be told, she was perfect. Her life seemed in many ways to mirror that of the character's history in the sense of putting away her dreams to return to humbler beginnings. That would help her identify with the role. She was also innocent and worldly at the same time. Both good and evil. Charlotte was perfect for the character, if she could act.
“Audition me. I won’t disappoint.”
“Here?”
“Of course not. And not at my place either. My daughter’s friends are always over.” Loveless wanted to suggest his place, but he didn’t want to come off like a sleazy Hollywood scum bag.
“What about your place?” Charlotte piped in.
They ran dialogue all afternoon at the filmmaker’s cabin home. He was not disappointed. Charlotte threw the dialogue away naturally, didn’t indicate (the overuse of hand movements that was the telltale sign of the amateur actor) and was extremely direct-able. Her insight into the character from a women’s perspective even had Loveless making notes for dialogue tweaks. Lastly, she had that one final ingredient casting directors search high and low for. Charlotte had an it factor, that indescribable quality that makes people want to watch an actor or actress. This quality had nothing to do with acting ability. It was just an inherent something. Emma Stone had it. So did Brad Pitt and Keira Knightley.
With the script done, Loveless went into producing mode. He was more comfortable in the role of artist, writer, director. But he had learned the hard way from various short films he had directed, that if you didn't have a big hand in production, it would effect the end product. When he wasn't breaking down the script from a production point of view, shot-listing, and storyboarding each and every shot in each and every scene, and scouting potential local locations, the filmmaker spent every waking moment trying to raise money for the film. His ideal budget was 100K. That budget wouldn’t go far in Los Angeles, where everyone was overly savvy and wanted top dollar. But here he knew he could get locations and local cast and crew dirt cheap. These were the mountains after all. Some of the key actors he would cast out of LA. He needed experienced players. The filmmaker was happy he didn't have to go through the Hollywood name game (trying to find recognizable actors who would play a cameo or supporting role in a tiny film). Those days ended with the straight-to-video DVD era and foreign market pre-sales. Nowadays, you had to create a tiny little micro-budget gem and either get into a film festival like Sundance or attract a studio whale to get behind your movie as an executive producer and have your film released theatrically. An example of this was the movie "Paranormal Activity," which had spawned a number of sequels and imitators. Loveless disliked the 'found footage' and video film crew documentary style horror movies. To him they were all shock value, improv, little artistry, and never had a satisfying pay-off at the end of the movie. But the studios loved them. Small investment, big profit. "The Blair Witch Project" was made for north of fifty thousand dollars and made over a hundred million. "Paranormal" was made for even less and made even more. In Studio Hollywood, success was equated with box office dollars. Which was understandable. At the end of the day, movie-making was about making money. Who was Loveless to argue with this hierarchy? It was a marriage of art and commerce. He just didn't like the way commerce had so fanatically strangled the life out of the art in the business today. That's why today there were two hundred million dollar films being released that were total pieces of shit. The suits were running the show now and telling the artists how to make movies. The filmmaker once had a manager who would get him meetings with veepees of development at studio companies. The filmmaker would become frustrated when referencing movies to them and receiving blank stares. They didn't know what the hell he was talking about. They had never seen Fellini, or Keaton or brilliant old classics like "Casablanca," "The Grapes of Wrath" or "Sunset Boulevard." Their film knowledge went back no further than "E.T." These young snot-nosed execs, wh
o were running movie companies and making decisions about which films would get made and which films wouldn't, knew nothing about movies.
Loveless gradually drifted away from these meetings. He was interested in making art with little compromise. If that meant he also had to take on the role of producer to get his films made, so be it. And this meant raising money. Loveless went to all his sources, including one he was positive would have jumped at it. Nobody bit. It had nothing to do with the quality of the script. It was the economy, which had taken a nasty downswing. The filmmaker went into severe depression. It just wasn’t fair. Here was the perfect vehicle for his freshman outing as a full-fledged filmmaker and he couldn’t raise the money. Loveless remained in this funk until he heard a knock on his front door. It was Charlotte and her daughter Lizzy.
“Haven’t heard from you in awhile. Just making sure you’re still alive.”
“Hey, Charlotte, Lizzy. Come on in.”
Lizzy wandered around, making herself at home, while Charlotte studied Loveless.
“What’s wrong? Figured you’d be busy making preparations.”
“I was. Truth is, I’m having trouble raising money for the film.”
“Oh no,” Charlotte said with genuine concern.
“Had this one little horror distribution company I was sure was going to fund it. I know the owner well. He knows my work. He’s seen me shoot. We had been talking about doing a small art house horror film together for awhile now. But he just sunk a lot of money into a project shooting in South Africa that’s going way over budget. Now they're stuck putting more money into it. They're in too deep to cut their losses. So they have to keep throwing gasoline on the fire.”
"Sucks." Charlotte thought for a bit, “How much do you need?"
“One hundred thousand is what I’ve been looking for. That would take care of everything.”
“Well, no promises, but I do have a cousin in Palm Springs who just inherited a bunch of money from his grandmother who passed away a few months ago. He’s looking for things to invest in and he’s interested in movies. The only thing is that he recently got out of rehab. But he’s clean and sober now and I think if he had something to focus on, he’d surprise people with how well he could do.” Charlotte wasn’t a drinker or a druggie, although she did smoke cigarettes when stressed.
“I have no problem with recovering addicts. They make up about seventy percent of the film industry. You think he’d want to invest?”
“I think he’d love the script. He and I have the same tastes. He might invest if he was a hands on producer and he knows I’m playing the lead.”
“Does he know anything about producing?”
“He’s a sharp businessman and good at negotiating, like me.”
The filmmaker thought out loud, “I've produced enough short films that I know what I’m
doing. A producing partner who brings the finances and knows how to haggle might not be a bad thing. Should we go see him?”
“Hell no! He’s a snowboarder. Passes through this way on the way to Big Bear every other week. We’ll get him to stop here. I’ll set it up. But it’s going to be up to you to spin the spiel and seal the deal.”
“What’s his name?”
“Donovan.”
Donovan arrived three days later with short hair dyed bright blond and a deep fried tan. A snowboard was sticking up out of the sunroof of his late model Beamer. Donovan was good looking, friendly, smart, and gave off an affable vibe. All the key ingredients of a successful Hollywood producer. Charlotte was good at matching the right person to the right job. The three of them met at the filmmaker’s place. Loveless made the pitch over drinks. Charlotte added color commentary.
“Sounds good. I like the concept. I guess now it just all comes down to the script,” Donovan concluded as he downed the rest of his Coca-Cola.
“You can read it now.” Loveless tossed Donovan a fresh screenplay. The filmmaker wasn't fooling around.
Charlotte, surprised by Loveless' aggressiveness, stood up. “We’ll leave you alone, Donnie. Be back in a bit.” Charlotte pulled the filmmaker out the door.
“Where we going?”
“I’ll show you.”
The actress drove Loveless deep into the woods. She stopped alongside a stream. “We walk from here.”
The filmmaker looked at the shrinking sun with some apprehension. He didn’t want to be in the woods after dark, even with a small town beauty like Charlotte.
Charlotte read his expression, “Don’t worry. My daughter and her friends showed it to me. It’s not very far.”
Loveless trailed behind Charlotte as they trekked into the woods, trying not to look at her ass in the tight jeans. But it was an ass worth looking at.
“Here,” Charlotte said as she came to a stop at a clearing.
“What the fuck?” the filmmaker said as he saw what was in the clearing. It was a thick stone slab, thin vines growing up all sides of it. An altar. On the top of the slab in each of the four corners were rusted metal hoops sticking up halfway out of the cement. The filmmaker kept getting a momentary whiff of something familiar. He took a closer look at the hoops. Shackle rings. “For restraining unfortunate virgin sacrifices,” Loveless thought out loud fleetingly before reasoning, “More likely something left over from a movie location decades ago.”
"I don't think so," was all Charlotte said in a hushed tone.
The woods immediately around the clearing were different from the rest of the forest. Unnaturally different. The foliage was brownish, full of thorny bushes, overgrown with hanging vines. These vines reminded Loveless of skeletons. The ground seemed scorched. The dirt was a strange reddish color. It was as if the altar had tainted this area, stained it. There were strange symbols and markings etched deeply into the gnarled and unhealthy looking trees directly around the clearing. The filmmaker could finally place the salty smell that was assailing his nose: blood. The place reeked of blood. Loveless disregarded that notion. It had to be his imagination. Still, the place made his heartbeat quicken, his breathing become shallower.
Above the slab was a larger than life life-sized gray gargoyle statue with horns, scaled skin, and hoofed feet. The filmmaker had the impression that he had seen this before once, in a book or magazine. But he couldn't remember where. The stone creature was obviously a throwback to pagan religion. Or at least patterned after a nightmare from that time period. It was a demon, or maybe even a god. Oddly, the expression on its face was benign, not malevolent. Even though it was clearly a monster, it exuded intelligence. The goatee on its chin was twisted and pointy. The scales that ran over its entire body were like chain-mail armor. Oddly, there was a touch of Christianity to the art piece. The demon worn a crown of thorns on its lumpy, bald head. Its gnarled, taloned hands were placed together in prayer. Around the right wrist was carved a bracelet of thorns, which ran up the forearm. All along its furled wings were veins. The monster's feet gripped the altar tightly. No matter where you went in the clearing, it felt like the stone monster’s eyes were following you.
“It’s been here a long long time. Nobody knows who built it for sure. They say it was used for Black Masses and Satanic ceremonies. Supposedly, this is where Mathaluh sacrificed the young runaway who, by the way, my Lizzy would be perfect to play.”
“You angling for the position as my casting director now too?” Loveless smiled wryly.
Charlotte giggled shamelessly, “And location scout. You can’t pay for production value like this. Nobody owns it. We can shoot here for free.”
“True dat. Definitely too good a location to pass up.” Loveless looked at the thick forest all around. "We’ll never get a generator out here. But I’ve got an idea. Power inverters."
"Power inverters?"
"They plug into car lighters and have outlets on them. Our cars engines will act as generators. We'll run stingers from the inverters."
"Stingers?"
"Crew lingo for extension cords. They'll give us juice o
ut here in the woods for the lights.”
“What do we need lights for?”
“Can’t shoot a horror film during the day. Anyone still come here?”
“Randomly. Just kids who like to party.”
“And the occasional Satan worshipper,” Loveless joked. As he took another look at the statue, a weird mood was washing over him. “When the Catholic church wanted to convert the people and scare them away from the pagan religions they had grown up believing in, they began portraying the Devil with horns and hooves to resemble the pagan gods.”
Dusk was falling rapidly. Charlotte didn’t seem to notice as she continued to explore. The filmmaker looked around as the shadows grew long all around them. He suddenly felt like he was stoned. Whenever he blinked, he saw a flash of images. These images were over-exposed, with a red tint. Loveless couldn't get a good look at them. They were near subliminal. He couldn't tell what they were. When he looked at Charlotte, she had a strange expression on her face too.
“We should get back,” Loveless suggested looking out into the woods and having no idea what direction they had arrived from.
“You scared, city boy?”
The filmmaker glanced back to find Charlotte staring at him wide eyed, suggestive. Loveless felt strange, as if he was standing outside his own body. Charlotte closed the gap between them. She reached up and ran her hand down the side of the statue’s leg behind him.
“Do you just like partying out in the woods with teenagers? Lizzy told me about the case of beer at the rock. Lizzy tells me everything, you know.”
Loveless didn’t know what to say. Obviously Lizzy hadn’t told Charlotte about the party in his cabin home, if it had really happened. Otherwise, he’d be in handcuffs by now.
“I wasn’t partying.”
“Well?” Charlotte exclaimed.
“Well what?” the filmmaker felt the less he said the better.
“Or do you like partying with someone closer to your own age?”