by Bark, Jasper
It wasn’t just that it was going to be edgy and daring, walking that line between fantasy and reality, using footage of an actual murder. Making the viewer wonder how much of the torture is real. Few of them would realise.
He also felt there was an important statement to be made about the genre as a whole. This film was going to either damn or redeem him, both as an artist and a human being. This opportunity for salvation or damnation had a specific gravity, and Jimmy’s soul was caught in its pull. Like the glowing end of his spent cigarette as it tore towards the towpath
He had to get Sam on board. He needed a hook. Something that would get Sam as personally invested as he was. He thought about Sam’s reasons for making horror films. The things that drew him to the genre and made him such a passionate proponent. Then he recalled a conversation they’d had, shortly after they met in film school. They were round at Sam’s apartment, hitting the bong, talking about the films they loved and the films they wanted to make.
Neither of them admitted to liking horror at first. It wasn’t the done thing at film school. You had to pretend you were into Fellini, or arty 60s films like Antonioni’s Blow Up and crap like that. The closest you could get to admiring anything that was actually enjoyable were Hitchcock’s films. It was okay to say he was: ‘a great auteur who transcended his sensational subject matter.’
Jimmy had mentioned Romero in passing and Sam had sheepishly admitted he had all his movies, even Survival of the Dead, which they both agreed was like an extended episode of The Walking Dead but with about a third of the budget. That opened the floodgates.
They both admitted to being hardcore horror fanatics. They’d watched so many of the same movies, some so obscure they couldn’t believe anyone else had seen them. The discovery that they shared a love of the obscure and extreme was the foundation of their relationship. Jimmy had never worked so well with anyone, before or since.
That night, Jimmy told Sam he believed modern man finds things too comfortable and easy. “Too many of the everyday threats our ancestors used to face have been wiped out,” he said. “But we haven’t changed much as a basic organism. We’re still hardwired for conflict and adversity, we just don’t face it much these days, thanks to all our modern amenities. We still need someplace to channel those primal urges, that’s what horror is for. I mean, I bet the stories that cavemen told around the fire were all about gruesome fights with cave bears or vengeful spirits and stuff. The ancient Greeks certainly liked a bit of gore, if I think back to my classics lessons.”
“That’s what I’m talking about,” said Sam, putting down the bong and blowing out a big cloud of smoke. “The sort of people who think horror is little better than porn, are also the sort of people that think tragedy is the ultimate creative endeavour. What they don’t realise is they’re exactly the same thing. Tragedy and horror revolve around supernatural events, Hamlet sees his dad’s ghost, Macbeth gets a prophecy from three witches, and Cassandra can see a dire tragedy for the future of Troy, but no-one believes her. And you’re right, the ancient Greeks and the Jacobeans used to love their gore. Loads of blood was spilt on stage. They had special effects and everything.”
“Like Hamlet stabbing Polonius in the arse?”
“That was an arras dumb-ass, but yes, that’s exactly what I mean. Look at Euripides, too, Orestes killing his mother because she slit his dad’s throat in the bath. Oedipus kills his Father on the way to Thebes, Medea murders Jason’s sons because he cheats on her.”
“Wait, Jason Voorhees had a wife and kids?”
“Fuck off, I meant Jason and the Argonauts and you know it.”
“Now that was a cool film.”
“Agreed, but the original Greek play was a hundred times more hardcore than anything Ray Harryhausen came up with. Tragedy has the same themes as horror, they’re all about what happens when you challenge the natural order, or societal norms, or whatever. It always goes tits up, whether you’re Doctor Faustus summoning demons or Mocata in The Devil Rides Out.”
“They’re both pretty fatalistic aren’t they, tragedy and horror I mean.”
“Yes, horror is the only modern genre that’s as fatalistic as classical tragedy. But one is considered by critics to be the pinnacle of fiction and the other is considered the nadir.”
“You know you get the cutest little furrow in your brow when you get all serious.”
“Blow me,” said Sam chucking a zippo at Jimmy’s head.
“Only if you furrow your brow for me.”
Jimmy took a hit from the bong and said, “You’ve thought quite a bit about this haven’t you?”
“Yeah, I have. It means something y’know. The ancients used mythology as a way of exploring a lot of important, unspoken things about their lives. The closest thing we have to that is horror, it’s our way of exploring the unspoken matters in life.”
Looking back on the conversation, Jimmy was struck by how well Sam had summed up what Jimmy wanted to do with this project. As though he knew all along they were going to work on a film like this.
Something he’d read about Ancient Mesopotamia came back to him. He’d been doing some research on line the past few days. He hadn’t thought, at the time, that it had anything to with the film, but he realised now that of course it did. Everything you read or watch, while you’re engrossed in a project, ends up having something to do with it. At the time it feels like coincidence, but afterwards you realise it was fate.
Jimmy knew exactly how to get Sam excited about this film. He pulled open the french doors and strode into the living room.
“Have you ever heard of the ancient goddess Inanna?”
Sam looked up from the notes he was making. “Should I have?”
“You’re about to,” said Jimmy. “She was worshipped by the Sumerians more than five thousand years ago. She’s also the subject of one of the oldest myths known to man.”
“This is a bit left field.”
“Actually it’s not, in fact it’s totally pertinent to our film.”
“Okay, this I’ve got to hear.”
“One of the oldest written stories in existence is Inanna’s Journey to Hell, it’s even older than the Epic of Gilgamesh. It tells how Inanna, a fertility goddess, travels into the afterlife . She descends through all seven levels of Hell, and then her sister Ereshkigal, an ancient, sex mad crone who rules the underworld, captures and kills her. Because she’s a goddess she comes back to life and her lover, the shepherd king Dumuzi, sets her free. It’s like the forerunner to lots of later myths about rescues from the underworld such as Orpheus and Eurydice, Demeter and Persephone and even this one Japanese tale, about the goddess Izanami-no-Mikoto and her husband Izanagi-no-Mikoto.”
“Say that again.”
“Izanagi-no-Mikoto.”
“Fascinating.”
“I know.”
“I’m more blown away by the thought of you reading about ancient myths online. I didn’t know you were into that sort of thing.”
“I’m not normally, but that taxi driver got me thinking. Didn’t you think it a bit weird that he just offered us that lift out of the blue, even though we were dripping with blood?”
“Not really, it’s a cut throat business driving a mini cab. Some of those guys will give anyone a lift.”
“But this guy was more like a mystic with all his talk about mysterious ‘ancient beliefs’ that are too old to have a name. I wanted to see if I could find out what he was talking about online. Ancient Mesopotamia is like the cradle of civilisation, it contained one of the oldest organised religions in history.”
“But what does any of this have to do with the film?”
“What if Nadine is a professor of Sumerian culture. Let’s say she’s studying a bunch of cuneiform tablets, that’s how they used to write things down in those days.”
“Yeah, I know, on little clay tablets. Cuneiform is the oldest form of writing we know about. You’re not the only one who watches the Discovery Channel you
know.”
“Okay, glad to see you’re keeping up.”
“So these tablets tell the myth of Inanna, only it’s not a version anyone’s read before. It’s an older one that’s even more gory.”
“Is this Inanna myth a gory one then?”
“Oh man, it’s the original splatterpunk. If you think Greek tragedy is a blood bath, wait till you hear about this. When Ereshkigal captures Inanna, she impales her on a spike like that infamous scene in Cannibal Holocaust.”
“The one where they find the native girl with the stake up inside here and coming out her mouth?”
“Yeah, only Inanna is a goddess and doesn’t die easy, if at all. Plus she has her guts hanging out and spends all her time screaming out to the other gods how much her entrails hurt.”
“Seriously?’
“Seriously. I looked it up in whole load of places. Anyway, maybe it’s the tablets that trigger her prophetic dreams and she becomes convinced this basement she sees in her dreams, where all the tortures occur, is part of the ancient Sumerian underworld. The myth starts repeating itself. Nadine is possessed by Inanna and taken to the underworld so Harlow has to take on the role of Dumuzi to come and rescue her.”
“So everything that happens is like a reoccurrence of this ancient myth cycle.”
“Exactly.”
“Or, as our mini-cab driving friend would have it, the Inanna myth is the really old story that lies beneath the surface of our new one.”
“Totally, now you get where I’m coming from.”
“So how does it end?”
“I told you, I haven’t worked that out yet.”
“No, not our story, this Inanna myth. I was thinking if we know how that ends, maybe it’ll give us an idea of how to end our film”
“I didn’t actually read that far,” said Jimmy, stroking his beard. “I’ve got no idea how it ends. But you’re right, I’ll do some reading up before we start the script.”
“Great.”
“That’s exactly where we should look for help with the ending though. You know how you’ve always said before that horror is like a modern myth, a contemporary equivalent to ancient tragedy? Now you’ve got a chance to work on a film that really makes that clear. This film could say something about the meaning and purpose of horror, do you get me?”
“I’m beginning to.”
“It covers every aspect of the genre, from the worst excesses of modern snuff, to the ancient roots of horror in the mother of all myth cycles. This is our grand statement about the state of our art form. Are you in on this?”
Sam smiled and nodded his head. “Okay,” he said. “You sold me. I’m in.”
Jimmy sighed with relief. “Thank fuck for that.”
“Of course our biggest problem now is going to be casting.”
“Do you think?”
“Definitely, where are we going to find a strawberry blond that’s a match for the one in the footage?”
“Oh, I’ve got a pretty good feeling about this. I’m pretty sure someone will turn up.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
Jimmy hated auditions. They were an exercise in mutual humiliation. You sat behind a rickety table, in a musty rehearsal room, and pretended to be interested in the resumes of a dismal procession of drama school drop outs, who pretended to be interested in your film.
Because it was an Indie horror film, none of the agents they contacted sent their brightest or best. The guy they’d just seen had nothing but extras work on his resume. The highlight of which was a Swedish advert for haemorrhoid cream in which he’d been: “at the front of the queue of people who pushed their way out of the lift at the end.” This gave him a “full second close up in the lengthier cut.” The saddest thing was that, although abysmal, he wasn’t the worst person they’d seem that day.
The next two actors pulled a no-show.
“Maybe that’s a blessing,” said Jimmy. “Let’s just knock it on the head and go down to the pub.”
“No,” said Sam, ever practical. “We’ll give them ten more minutes then we’ll go over the resumes again. I’ll contact a few more agents and we’ll do another round of auditions.”
Jimmy threw himself back in his chair and groaned. “Okay, if you insist.”
That’s when she walked in.
Jimmy sat bolt upright. She walked up to the rickety table and placed her hand on it. Jimmy had never felt envious of an inanimate object, until now.
She had strawberry blonde hair, high cheekbones and the sort of full lips that looked moist no matter what make up she wore. She was wearing a pair of faded men’s jeans and a baggy Tommy Hilfiger t-shirt, neither of which hid her curves or the relaxed sensuality of her walk. Only her pale blue eyes belied this sensuality. They were full of pain, the sort of pain only a saint or a martyr ought to know. Jimmy didn’t know why, but he instantly felt protective of her.
“Is this where the auditions are?” she said.
“That’s right,” said Jimmy.
He and Sam exchanged the same surprised look. It wasn’t that she’d appeared out of nowhere. Nor was it the way she seemed to dominate the space with her presence alone. It was the fact that she was identical in every way to the woman in the footage. They could have been separated at birth. Hell, they probably were.
She was carrying a handful of black and white photos. She put them on the table and sat down without being invited. “I’m Melissa, these are my head shots.”
“Melissa . . . ?” said Sam glancing through his list, fishing for her last name.
“That’s right,” she said, without giving it. “So this is going to be a horror film, right?”
“Yes it is. Melissa, I don’t seem to have you down for an audition. Who sent you?”
“Oh no one. When I found out you were doing this auditions, I thought I ought to drop in.”
“How did you find out about them?”
“You can never keep these sort of things secret, you must know that.”
“Indeed.”
“So is it going to be a ‘found footage’ film?”
“Erm, what makes you say that?” said Jimmy.
“Just about every horror film is these days isn’t it? I thought it was the vogue.”
“There is going to be some . . . err, footage . . . which we did find, but we’re going to go for a mix of styles.”
“Sounds interesting.”
“Have you had much experience in front of the camera?” said Sam.
“Well, I’m probably the only actress in London who hasn’t done an episode of Casualty. Though I think I could play a really good victim, don’t you?”
You don’t know the half of it, thought Jimmy.
“Would you mind doing a camera test?” said Sam.
“Not if you were behind the camera,” Melissa replied, leaning forward and looking Sam right in the eye, head tilted, a single finger resting on her chin. An intense intimacy passed between them that made Jimmy furious. It was typical of Sam, who only thought with his cock when it came to actresses.
“Of course, we must impress our director here,” she said turning towards Jimmy, her hand stroking her chest, her lips curled in a provocative smile. Jimmy felt the sweat break out on the back of his neck. “You are the director aren’t you? You look as though you have a talent for it.”
“I, err . . . oh, yes, I erm, write and I direct.”
“We both write,” said Sam. “It’s a collaborative effort.” Jimmy caught his eye and saw the same envy and resentment on Sam’s face as he’d felt a moment ago.
Melissa sat back in her chair and Sam and Jimmy leaned forward in unconscious unison. “I have a few conditions if I’m going to work with you,” she said. “I can’t work with more than one person on the set. That means no cast, no crew, just me and the person behind the camera, that’s all.”
“That’s going to make directing you a bit difficult,” said Jimmy. “Not to mention recording sound and dialogue with the other actors.”
“Well I haven’t actually worked out a shooting schedule yet,” said Sam. “We’ve still got to finalise the script . . . ”
“Let’s say Thursday the thirteenth then.”
“Erm, okay . . . can you make an eight o’ clock call?”
“I’ll be there at ten.”
With this Melissa got up and walked to the door. “Wait,” said Sam. “We don’t even know the location of the first shoot. How will you know where to go?”
“Oh, I found you once. I’m sure I can find you again.” She shot them a smile that made their fillings ache and slipped out of the room.
Jimmy let out a deep breath. Sam shook his head in disbelief.
“What the fuck just happened?” he said.
“I think we just found our leading lady.”
“Seriously, just like that?”
“She’s perfect. You saw her, she’s a dead ringer for the woman in the footage. She could be her exact double.”
“But we don’t know anything about her. We’re not even certain she can act.”
“C’mon, after the performance she just put on, I think it’s safe to say she’s a natural.”
CHAPTER NINE
“Here he is,” said Alfie, as Jimmy walked into the tiny front room of Alfie’s council flat. “George Jung, famous coke smuggler.”
The comment was a reference to the real life character Johnny Depp played in the film Blow, one of Alfie’s favourites. It was also a dig at Jimmy over the coke deal, that had gone spectacularly wrong.
“More like cock smuggler,” said Tim, a tall fat bloke with a huge beard, who took up more than half the sofa he was sprawling on. He was usually round Alfie’s when Jimmy called.