9. Now Feral FX Part 1

Can you believe all these years later I still have the mask?

Blown-up stills from the original movie and detailed sketches of the Thin Kid in various forms and poses fill one wall of Feral FX Studios. A group of makeup artists buzz the hive, and they tinker with various character busts and mask replicas. I stroll in with my mask inside a crinkled-up paper grocery bag. I lift the bag like it's a lantern, letting its light lead the way. Or maybe I hold the bag like there's a gorgon head inside and no one will be the same after they see it. My walk-through earns leery gawks and whispers. I'm long used to being invisible or being an ooh-there-he-is kind of monster or being, simply, the monster. There are no cameras around and there won't be any for another two weeks, but my performance for the reboot has already started.

Janelle Ko is the head of the team. They're tall, but not as tall as me, wearing a red Fire Walk with Me T-shirt and black joggers. They are in their late thirties or early forties. That decade I have on them is the longest ten years. They clap excitedly at my entrance and say, "I can't wait to see it, but Jesus fuck, please tell me you don't keep it in a paper bag. I'll have you arrested for mask cruelty."

I assure them I don't store the mask this way, that I keep it in an airtight storage box, and I stuff the mask with clean cloth to help it maintain shape. I say, "I only take it out and wear it on the first and third Tuesday of every month."

People can never tell when I'm joking. It's a me problem.

Everyone in the studio crowds to witness the reveal. Janelle dons latex gloves, opens the bag, and removes the mask. I expect expressions of disappointment; a slump of tensed shoulders, a head tilt, a release of breath trying not to be a sigh, a furrowed brow communicating the interior monologue, a debate as to whether they'll ask if this is really it. The mask lacks a presence or essence that is only there when I put it over my head, which is part of its genius. The mask is both vessel and void, and it drudges a vital aspect of the wearer that it lays bare upon its surface.

Janelle and her FX team are not disappointed. There are reverent, call-and-response oohs and aahs as Janelle inspects the mask. Several of the artists reach tentatively toward the holy relic and ask questions about its origin that I cannot answer. I reiterate Cleo's claim about finding the mask in the school, which has become part of Horror Movie's folklore canon thanks to an interview I did with the website Bloody Disgusting in 2019. I also tell the FX team that I've moved eight times in the years since filming the movie, and each time I tried to leave the mask behind. I tell them moving on is important, despite what it is we're doing now with the new version of the movie. I also tell them how after every move I'd somehow find the mask inside some random box when I unpacked at my new place. I tell them that most recently, after I'd relocated to L.A., it was in the "kitchen" box, nestled within a covered saucepan, blank eyeholes facing out toward me. I tell them a found object is always cursed. My embellished (embellished doesn't mean "not true," by the way) addendum chips away at the believability of Cleo's found-mask tale, which is why I now tell it. Belief in that kind of thing should be difficult and should require its adherents to actively overcome doubt.

By the way, I'm not saying Cleo made it all up. She never copped to not finding the mask in the manner she'd described.

The youngest of the makeup artists don't know how to take me, and I don't either. Janelle barely listens to me as they delicately fit the mask over a life cast of a young actor's head, his name I've purposefully forgotten. Without the mask, he doesn't look like me, or like I once did. His nose isn't prominent enough and he has way more of a chin than I ever had. Sorry, but he shouldn't be the Thin Kid, even if for only half the film. I'm sure he's a fine actor, or at the very least looks broodily appealing onscreen. The Thin Kid will be a character name he tries on and wears for a few hours a day, and when filming is finished, the Thin Kid will not be an inextricable part of who he is. The Thin Kid will be as easily forgotten as the unremarkable, aging man he will become.

I say, "It looks better when I wear it."

The line gets a few laughs even if it wasn't a joke.

Janelle leads me toward the back of the workshop, and I can't help but look over my shoulder at the mask, maybe twice.

Showing off the mask wasn't the sole purpose of this visit to the FX studio. I'm here to make a life cast of my own head and upper chest. After I'd repeatedly insisted that I'd never gone through this process before, Janelle's coworkers explain that they'll fit a gum-based bald cap on me before they apply the silicone that will cover me from just below the collarbone and up, leaving my nostrils open so I can breathe. Janelle interrupts to say that they'll be the only one working around my nostrils. They say, "I'm a nostril pro. Years of practice. You're not claustrophobic, are you? Pretend I didn't ask that." Once I'm covered in silicone, they'll apply plaster strips to create an outer shell that will come off in two pieces. The whole process should take a little more than an hour. All I need to do is take off my T-shirt, put on the garbage-bag poncho, sit still, and breathe.

I'd hoped for a changing room, but I wasn't offered one. Maybe it's my imagination, or my increased awareness of the moments to come as I peel my shirt over my head, but the studio's buzz goes quiet, and the lighting lamps turn brighter, colder. I'm handed the poncho and it's too late to dive inside, to hide what they've already seen. I act like none of this is a big deal, that I'm not the real cursed object, and I ignore their stares, gird myself for their questions, as the black plastic baggie slowly parachutes down over me.