5. Now The Director Part 1

I spent a few months chatting with a flurry of prospective directors on the phone about the most recent iteration of the proposed reboot. They tended to ask me the same questions about the original film, the vibe on-set, and Valentina's process. None of them asked me about the—let's call it "the aftermath." None of them asked about Cleo directly, though they would talk about the screenplay and, in broad terms, what they wanted to change. I never scoffed at the suggested changes. Scoffing wasn't my job as an in-name-only associate producer. I knew my role on Team Reboot was to be enthusiastic, no matter what anyone said, and to play the mascot, the living relic from a time that never was. I like to think I performed my role with nuance.

There was one big director briefly interested. He opened the call with, "Hey, brother, it's so great to finally talk to you," as though he'd been waiting his whole life for the opportunity. This strain of faux Hollywood enthusiasm was as common as the fuck-you handshake, and this guy coupled it with unfettered egoism born from undeniable talent grown into a colossus within the hothouse of wealth and power. His artist's ego was not the same as Valentina's. Hers was purer, born from desperation and the will to fight and claw her vision into being. The director detailed what he planned to change, including adding more explication of the how and why of the plot and my character's transformation. Whatever. He told me that buried within all the grim weirdness of Horror Movie was a high-concept conceit that could be as big an idea as a "dinosaur on an island," and that concept was too big for the other potential directors to handle. Throughout the call, he made a point of saying, multiple times, "This was a dinosaur-on-an-island idea." I knew he was referencing the Jurassic Park(s) franchise (I hate myself for many things, but I'm adding my willing usage of the term "franchise" to describe movies to my list of egregious offenses against humanity). To test his patience, willingness to work with others, and sense of humor, or to simply fuck with him, I said I hadn't seen the movie Dinosaur Island, and with my laptop in front of me, I informed him that the IMDb score for the 2014 family adventure box-office bomb was 3.6/10. It would be vain of me to presume I scared that director off the project, but I like to imagine I did.

Today I have my first in-person meeting with our new and contractually obligated director, Marlee Bouton. The Canadian-born Gen-Xer has had a critically successful run of three independently produced and grant-funded supernatural horror films. The latest was an adaptation of the cult classic punk-meets-haunted-house novella Please Haunt Me, written by Elizabeth Hand. The movie had a full theatrical release in the United States. Given the complexity of the material, the film was a surprise hit in the context of the pandemic-reduced theatergoing audience, which placed her name in good standing with the studios. Marlee has a reputation for being somewhat of a recluse, which equates to her not actively pursuing the spotlight and not living in Los Angeles full-time.

Marlee and I are to meet at the house she's renting in Laurel Canyon, a famous suburb within the Hollywood Hills. My winding drive into the Hills is anxiety-inducing. The roads are steep, narrow, and follow a logic-defying, varicose vein–like map. The houses are on top of one another, jigsaw-pieced into the mountains in a way that makes me think of mudslides and earthquakes. My little car's four-cylinder engine groans during the near-continuous incline, and I fear everyone is watching, listening, judging from behind curtains and tinted windows. After ten minutes of strangling the steering wheel, I park on the street and pull up the emergency brake as far as it can go. Parked on such a steep incline, I debate whether I should leave my wheels turned toward or away from the curb. I won't admit my solution in case I got it wrong.

Finally, to the house, which is a modest white, one-level stucco bungalow with a garage sheltering under the front deck. Marlee greets me on the stoop with a handshake and tells me that her partner, Cait, a video game writer and developer, is on a hell set of Zoom calls so we'll have to chat in the backyard. I follow her around the house to a tree-and-shrub-enclosed slate patio. We sit at a glass-topped table for four. The umbrella is up, though it isn't necessary this time of day; the entire yard is shaded thanks to the house and trees, and it's at least five degrees cooler here than at the front of the house. Granted, I am overheated, as though I were the car that had driven halfway up a mountain. I sit and Marlee disappears through a slider and returns with two glasses of ice water. Marlee is a white woman with an avid jogger's build, her graying brown hair kept in a short and neat bob. She wears a black T-shirt and high-waisted jeans and flip-flops.

We open with small talk. Marlee tells me she and her partner live in Vancouver, but they rent a house in this area for two to three months at a time, depending on schedules and work assignments. Cait's asthma is serious enough that the air quality at this elevation compared to the surrounding valley makes a difference. That leads to a brief exchange about AQI and the PM2.5 particulate, and my chest tightens at the science.

After a lull, Marlee asks about what I've been doing, aside from the reboot pitch.

I say, "Two weeks ago I signed a contract to write a book about my experience on-set and off, including what's happening now with the reboot pitches and what may happen next. So, consider yourself as being in the book already. It'll be audio only at first. If it does well enough, then maybe a print version."

"Be nice to me, please. And congratulations!"

"Thank you. Yeah, we'll see. I might've bitten off more than I can chew."

"I'm sure it'll be great," she says. "Not that I know anything about writing a book. Can I ask what you were working on before the book deal? Sorry, I don't mean to sound like I'm interviewing you for a job. I'm genuinely curious."

I say, "Nothing worth mentioning. I've been living off the kindness of strangers. Like a parasite. Speaking of parasites, Producer George tells me that you're officially signed on to direct as of last Friday."

She laughs. It's brief, loud, and unhinged, and I'm reminded of Cleo's laugh. "I've already started working on the screenplay, which really doesn't need much work."

I nod, though I wasn't asked a question that required a yes or no answer.

She continues, "In fact, I only plan on adding some scaffolding, connective tissue between some scenes, bits around the margins, and possibly bulking up the ending. ‘Bulking up' isn't the right phrase. How about something obnoxious like layering in more texture? We'll see how I feel when I get to the ending. I'm not cutting anything, including the parts that you typically don't include in a screenplay. For this film, I share Valentina and Cleo's opinion that it's important for the actors to access those hidden parts of the story too. That's where story lives sometimes, I think, and that's hard for a filmmaker to admit."

I tell her that I agree. And I do agree. "I'm surprised the financers are on board with your take."

"Come for the Canadian director, stay for the grant money."

I tilt my head. Bemused, charmed, and confused.

"Sorry, a joke I've been saying to Cait all week. Initially, the producers were intrigued, let's say, by my track record with securing Canadian grants. But turns out the studio is footing the entire bill. They're convinced the Horror Movie fandom will show and show big for this."

"What do you think?"

"I managed to convince the studio the fans would show but only if we come as close as possible to the movie they never got to see. I insisted on using the original screenplay and, like I said already, any changes would be cosmetic."

"Interesting, and surprising, frankly. I figured if the movie ever got made, it would need all the rough and sharp edges filed off, and bright sunshine and shimmering eyes for the credits roll."

"Not my version of the movie."

"Well, you say that now. Wait until the test screenings, yeah?"

"We'll torch that bridge when we cross it."

"Playing the devil's advocate." I hold up my hands, as though to say nothing up my sleeve; I have no sleeves. "Are you worried you could make something too close to the shot-for-shot Gus Van Sant remake of Psycho?"

"That's not quite apples to apples. If people had had the opportunity to watch the entire movie you all made, I would approach the reboot differently, if I would do it at all."

"You can't replicate a moment in time, especially a lost one, can you?"

"It's not about replicating a specific time. A movie—any movie, even one that fails—is a conversation with the viewer who chooses to engage. This movie will communicate emotional truths that can only be communicated by the language of film and of horror. If we do it right, the movie will speak to us now as it would've thirty years ago and as it will thirty years from now, if any of us are still around, projecting movies onto the walls of ruined buildings."

During her spiel I lean forward, drawn into her gravity, elbows on the table and fists propping up my chin. What she says is pretentious bullshit and I love it. Just because it's pretentious doesn't mean it's not true, or that I don't want it to be true. I lean back and say, "That's heady stuff for a slasher flick."

Marlee sips her water, then says, "That's exactly what Producer George said."

"Oh fuck, I take it back. I take it back!"

She laughs, says, "You better take it back." Now it's her turn to lean on the table. She presses her palms flat on the glass top, spreads and stretches her spider-leg fingers. "If you don't mind my asking, is any of this difficult for you? It has to be."

I could be a wiseass and pretend I don't understand what she's getting at. But she doesn't deserve that. At least not yet.

"Not as difficult as it once was."

"You say that, but what about when you're on-set?"

"At the moment that's a wholly abstract concept. I don't know if I can answer that until it happens."

"To be totally honest..." She pauses and smirks.

"Here it comes," I say.

"I've been obsessed about Horror Movie and Valentina Rojas in particular, but I'm finding it difficult to get my head around working with you."

"I get it. I do. Though you're the one who invited me to your house. Let me walk through your door."

"You haven't actually gone through the front door."

"Metaphorically speaking."

"Of course."

"I don't know what to tell you. I find it difficult to work with me too."

Marlee doesn't respond. She slowly slides out from her crouch over the table and into an imperious sitting position. I can't tell what she's thinking. Or maybe I can. She thinks I'm a terrible person and that associating with me might taint her with my terribleness, but making the movie will be worth it, and this exchange, this barter of terribleness, is necessary for the film to be what she wants it to be.

I add, "When shooting begins, I promise I won't be hanging over your shoulder, offering notes on the dailies. How often or how little I'm on-set is up to you."

She says, "Part of my pitch to the studio—and I think it's what sold them, ultimately—is that you'd be in the film."

I blurt out, "What?" As my brain implodes, thirty years melt away. I'm back at that table in Providence with Valentina and Cleo and they're asking me to become the Thin Kid again. I can't say no, don't get to say no, there is no choice, choice is an illusion. I've never left that table and everything that has happened since has been a dream, one that hasn't ended, and the most horrific thing I can imagine is that the dream will never end.

Marlee says, "Sorry to spring this on you, but I wanted to present this to you face-to-face before we let the producers and managers take over."

I blink and I squirm and I run a hand through my hair and rub my wiry beard. "Wow. Okay. Yeah. I guess I get it. I'd be playing Karson's dad, right? I don't know if my voice is gruff enough. As you know, I didn't get to use it much the first go-round."

"No. You'll be reprising your role. Or part of it."