Rough Cut
By
ML Kennedy
Joyce’s high heel stayed in the muck, but her foot kept
going. When her bare toes squished into the soft ground she let out a disgusted
grunt, and stopped running. She looked over her shoulder and threw her arms up.
A few yards behind, Steven commanded her to “use it.”
Joyce started to run again, a lop-sided attempt. With only
one shoe, she was surprisingly fast and unsurprisingly awkward. She made it
about thirty feet more before she came crashing to the forest floor. Mud splattered
all over her pleated skirt and white blouse. Was she supposed to be dressed
like a school girl? If so, why the heels?
Steven yelled, “You’re not supposed to fall yet! The spot is
over there!” Steve was tired of actors, and all their changes. He brushed a
strand of auburn hair behind his ears and finished the last sip of his energy
drink. “Should we do it again?” he asked
his pudgy camera man Pat.
Joyce held her knee and tried to separate the mud from the
blood. She began questioning the value of the whole project. A tiny rock had
found its way into her palm. Joyce tried to scrape it out from under the skin
with a bright red fingernail.
Pat lowered the camera against his soft belly and said, “I
think we should use it. That fall looked way more real than the practices.”
“Yeah, but the lighting here is all wrong.” Steven crushed
his empty can and shoved it into a pocket of his backpack.
“Why don’t we use the fall, move her, and then just shoot
from a different angle.” Pat looked around and scratched his patchy beard. “I
don’t think anybody will notice.”
Joyce shouted, “Can you guys hand me a wet-nap or something?
I’m bleeding over here.”
Pat reached into the back pocket of his jean shorts. “I have
a hankie.”
“Don’t get too clean, though,” Steve insisted. “
Continuity.”
“Yeah. Cuz that’s why people watch serial killer movies:
continuity.” Joyce sneered as she pressed the small monogrammed handkerchief to
the wound on her leg and tried not to think about any of the horrible
infections she learned about in her immunology class.
Steven corrected, “This is a slasher movie, not a serial
killer movie. And you’ve got to respect the art.”
“Art matters, Joyce,” Pat added.
Joyce folded the handkerchief on her knee. “Where is the
art, guys? You’re doing the same movie everybody has already seen like a
billion times since the ‘80s.”
“It is life affirming. Watching somebody die makes you
remember that we all die alone, and makes you appreciate your time on earth
that much more.” Steven had read something like that somewhere on some highbrow
review of some lowbrow movie. He remembered how the writer of the article kept
talking about that girl who sang “Smooth Operator”.
Pat intervened, “but you’re not dying alone if you’re being
murdered. By the nature of murder, there is usually going to be somebody else
around.”
Joyce added, “If you die in a fucking hospital, there’s like
a billion people around.”
“What about 9/11? That was like thousands of people,” said a
voice behind the trees.
Steven’s frustrations grew. “Look, it took us forever to get
us all together to shoot this; let’s just shoot this.”
“I just want to know what we are doing out here.”
“Hey, guys. This is helmet is hot. Can I take it off for a bit?”
Jeffrey had walked over to the group from his hiding place behind the trees. He
was looking forward to being a monster, but things weren’t going like he
imagined. He was hoping for a cool costume or makeup, but instead he was
dressed in a hodgepodge of old dirt-bike gear and a lacrosse helmet that barely
fit over his head. Steven had also insisted that Jeffrey wear these homemade “lifts”,
which were really just a pair of old work socks shoved into the heels of his boots.
They made the boots a half-size too small. It was all worth it though, as they
made the nimble six-foot-three Jeffrey into a monstrous, if less nimble, six
foot three and a quarter Jeffrey. Steven insisted that that quarter inch made
all the difference when standing next to leading lady Joyce. Joyce was, herself,
a quarter inch over five feet.
“Keep the helmet on. We’re going to go!”
“Well wait.” Pat stopped a moment to consider. “What if it
were the killer who was filming everything?”
“I’m the killer, and you guys said I was bad at shooting!”
Jeffrey was irritated and just wanted to remove the lacrosse helmet.
“I told you before, we are not doing found footage!” Steven was
sick of everybody. He pondered the possibility of portraying each part in this
movie and making it by himself. He’d be
Eddie Murphy and Orson Wells at the same time.
Joyce spoke up, “But the killer is filming it. That would be
a little different. Maybe he makes snuff films.”
Pat intervened, “Snuff films are fake ninety-nine percent of
the time. It’s hard to make a living filming your own crimes. It’s a bad
business model.” Pat had a horrible tendency to patronizingly reject his own
ideas when they were re-worded by women.
Joyce retorted, “Preternatural slashers are realistic to
you, but a man making money off of snuff isn’t?”
“I’m supposed to be preternatural?” asked Jeffrey. He had no
idea what the word meant, but thought it sounded bad ass.
“Yes.”
“No.”
“It’s ambiguous.”
The responses all came at about the same time. Jeffrey
couldn’t determine which person said which part.
Joyce continued, “He won’t be selling VHS tapes out of the
back of his van. He’ll broadcast in online. You know, it’ll be like internet Videodrome!”
Pat looked excited. “Videodrome
is pretty great.”
“We are not making a
video dome!” Steven insisted.
Joyce adjusted her bra strap. “I still think we need an
angle for all of this to be worthwhile. Maybe it’s a fake documentary, like
‘The Office’.”
“Joyce, you’re Hispanic,” declared Steven. “That’s our
angle. Final girls in slasher films are never Latinas. That’s what makes us
unique.”
“I’m Chinese.”
“You’re Chinese?”
“I thought that it was survivor girl,” Jeffrey stated to
nobody in particular.
Pat replied, “That was only in Leslie Vernon. Everybody else says final girl.”
Joyce looked upset. “Shit, Leslie Vernon. Slasher mockumentary has been done.”
Steven took off his backpack and kneeled in front of it.
Pat took a bandana from his other back pocket and patted it
on his forehead. “Yeah, but they drop the mockumentary angle in the final act.
What if we kept it going? Like, kept it the whole movie? That’s never been done
before, right?”
“You want to know what’s never been done before?” asked
Steven, pulling a handgun out of his bag. “This.”
He shot Joyce through the heart and Pat through the eye. Then,
Steven turned the gun on Jeffrey.
Sweat flowed from Jeffrey’s armpits. He stared at the gun,
but could only think about whether or not he put on deodorant that morning. “Look,
man, I, I, I didn’t see anything. I just want to go home. Okay?”
“What’s a matter, Jeff? You afraid?”
“I just want to go,” Jeffrey said, as though he were a prom
date with sore feet.
“You shouldn’t be afraid. You’re on ‘Prank the Monkey’! It’s
a TV show!” Steven smiled, but kept the gun trained on Jeffrey.
“Really? It looks so real.” Jeffrey went down on the ground
to check on the blood pouring from Joyce’s chest. Where could all this blood be
coming from?
Steven shot Jeffrey in the back. Blood trickled from the
dirtbike chest protector. “Idiot.”
Jeffrey tried to stand, made a half turn and fell backwards
into a tree. “Steven, you’re a fucking asshole!”
“You got any last
words, or are you happy with the fucking asshole bit?”
Jeffrey held his ribs with one hand and stood up defiantly. “Shooting
people in the woods has been done before. It’s been done to death.”
“It’s an homage!”
screamed Steven as he pulled the trigger.
Black.
***
The room darkened as the Steven shut off the projector.
Joyce, Pat and Jeffrey all squinted when the lights went back on.
“So, what did you think?”
Pat responded first. “I don’t understand your character’s
motivation. Like at all.”
Joyce’s only words were, “Too meta.” This time, Joyce was
dressed more modestly in jeans, sneakers and a Ramones T-shirt.
Veins protruded from Jeffrey’s neck. “I was supposed to be
the killer!”
“Man, you shot the movie with us. Did you remember filming
any scenes where you murdered people?”
“I’ll remember this!” shouted Jeffrey as he stood up. He
calmly walked over to the kitchen and pulled two large knives from the wooden
block on the counter.
“That’s not funny,” said Joyce. “Don’t play like that.”
Steven reassured her, saying “He’s not going to stab me or
anything.” Subsequently, Jeffrey stabbed Steven in the gut with a butcher
knife. “Huh” was Steven’s last word.
Pat tried to run away, but Jeffrey drove the meat cleaver
into the back of his head. The rotund cameraman made a terrible noise as he
fell face first onto the hard wood floor. Blood trickled in straight lines
between the wooden slats. Jeffrey stepped on Pat’s neck and pulled the cleaver
out.
As this was happening, Joyce twice smacked a chair against
the window. On the second try, the glass shattered. She dived through the window, glass scraping
her body. She landed awkwardly in a rose bush.
The thorns tore at her as she tried to untangle herself from
the bush. She had a massive cut on her left arm. A small spot of crimson grew
larger on her pant leg. Blood poured from her clenched right fist. By now,
Jeffrey’s attentions were surely pointed her way. She threw herself forward
with all her might, and managed to get to her feet, tearing off most of her
shirt in the process.
As she glanced down at her exposed bra, Joyce protested,
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”
Jeffrey knocked away bits of glass with the cleaver, and
pushed his large leg through the window.
Joyce looked left. That way laid the forest preserve, a
thick grove of twisted trees with leaves wet and sagging from the recent rainfall.
To her right, there was a road, civilization, motorists and people with cell
phones.
Joyce ran to the street for help, waving her arms and hopping
in the air. There she was nearly killed on a road, in civilization, by a
motorist with a cell phone. The car swerved at the last minute, jumped the curb
and came to a complete stop around a fire hydrant.
“Call 911,” she yelled!
The driver replied, “You’re damn right I’m calling 911 you
crazy bitch!” She only managed to hit the 9 before blood streamed into her
eyes. The butcher knife had sliced into her forehead, taking off part of her
left eyebrow. Jeffrey dragged the motorist out of her car by the hair. He
placed her jaw over part of the fire hydrant and shoved a knee into the back of
her head.
Jeffrey did this again and again, so distracted by his flair
for violence that he didn’t see Joyce creeping up behind him. He didn’t notice
her at all, until she shoved the piece of glass clenched in her right fist into
his inner thigh.
Jeffrey fell to the ground. The butcher knife slipped from
his hand and skid on the concrete, stopping in front of Joyce’s sneaker. She
picked it up.
“HHP 4460. I just cut your femoral artery, bitch! And do you
know what happens to be behind and slightly to the left of the breastbone?”
Joyce stabbed Jeffrey in the heart.
Black
****
The room darkened as the Steven shut off the projector.
Joyce, Pat and Jeffrey all squinted when the lights went back on.
“So, what did you think?” asked Steven.
Pat responded first. “Am I really that fat?”
“I got to kill people!” said Jeffrey with delight. “But, I think that you shoulda used the take
where Joyce starts crying and I do a zombie sit up behind her.”
“I shouldn’t be crying. Jeffrey, that reeks of sexism.”
Joyce added. “But you really shoulda used my karate kick scene. That was my
favorite part!”
“You’re Chinese. You told me that was racist!” Steven
pleaded.
Joyce Karate kicked Steven in the face. “Karate is Japanese,
racist.”
Joyce stood behind Steven and snapped his neck.
Black.
*****
The room darkened as the Dracula shut off the projector. The
Wolf Man, The Mummy and The Gill Man all squinted when the lights went back on.
“So, what did you think?” asked Dracula.
“That was disgustingly vulgar,” said the Wolf Man. “Do
people really talk like that? So blue.”
“I don’t think all that gore was necessary either,” added
the Mummy. “You’ve got to leave some things up to the imagination.”
The Gill Man thought that the only reason Dracula invited
him to this thing was because the Frankenstein Monster RSVPed in the negative. “I
don’t think I get it. Is this how all land movies are?”
“It is supposed to be meta!” Dracula screamed. He dropped a
match onto the film stock. The flames tickled the ceiling as the vampire shut
and locked the monsters in the room. The Mummy and the Wolfman screamed,
terrified of the growing inferno. The Gill Man, however, was merely despondent.
“It’s so childish,” the gill man said. “Can’t you take a
little criticism without murdering everybody? You’re gonna burn up too.”
Dracula turned into mist and escaped beneath through a crack
in the door.
“Aw, fuck you Dracula!”
Black.
******
The room darkened as the Steven shut off the projector.
Joyce, Pat and Jeffrey all squinted when the lights went back on.
“So, what did you think?” asked Steven.
“Why was Dracula such a jerk? Weren’t those guys his
friends?” Jeffrey was upset by the casual manner with which Dracula murdered his
peers.
Joyce crossed her legs and pushed a finger into the rubbery
bottom of her Converse. “Lighten up.
It’s only a movie. It doesn’t really matter.”
“Doesn’t it?” questioned Pat.
“Of course not,” Joyce responded. She walked over to
Jeffrey, took off a high heeled shoe and held the pointy heel in front of
Jeffrey’s tear duct. “See, just a moment ago I was wearing sneakers. It’s a
movie; it doesn’t matter. So it wouldn’t matter if I did this.”
Joyce punched the insole of the shoe. The heel pushed into
Jeffrey’s eye. She twisted the shoe by the vamp and his eye popped out. “See”
“What is wrong with you!” screamed Pat.
“What the hell?” screamed Steven.
Jeffrey screamed something too. It was probably about his
eye.
“No, no guys. Listen. Any minute now, were are just going to
fade to black.”
“What?!”
“Any minute now.” Joyce waited. She had already dropped the
heel. It held onto Jeffrey’s eye which was still attached to his face by ugly
red strings. The shoe and eye swung slowly like a hypnotist’s watch.
“Any minute now. In three, two, ONE!”
The shoe swung back and forth.
“Five, four, three, two, ONE!”
Back and forth.
“Sorry. TEN, nine, eight, seven, six-“
Black.
“Oh, thank Jesus.”
*******
The room darkened as the Steven shut off the projector.
Joyce, Pat and Jeffrey all squinted when the lights went back on.
“So, what did you think?” asked Steven.
Jeffrey was the first to respond. “I think I’m being
incepted.”
Joyce looked around nervously. “I shouldn’t have brought up Videodrome. I think we’re in eXistenZ now.
Pat was concerned. “If I start killing you guys now, will it
be real or just part of another movie?”
Steven didn’t know anymore. He said, “Guys, I don’t know
anymore.”
Pat stammered. “I think it is my turn to kill you guys. I
don’t want to, but we might be stuck in this movie forever if I don’t.”
“Wait,” Steven shouted. “What if this movie is great? What
if it is better than all our lives would have been. What if it’s a big
Hollywood movie where everybody has six pack abs and perfect teeth? Where you
never have to go to the bathroom and girls always wear matching underwear
sets!”
“Where the sex is always PG-13.” Joyce added.
“We got to get out of this movie!”
“Maybe we aren’t even in a movie anymore.” Pat asked, “Did
you even think about that?”
Jeffrey had a moment of epiphany. “Guys, I got it! We need
to find Joyce’s shoe in the mud! That will complete the cycle, and all the
movies will end!”
Joyce responded, “That doesn’t make any sense! It’s
perfect!”
“Yes!”
All four of them died moments later when the house was
crushed by Gappa, the Triphibian Monster.
Black.
