Miller / Joyner / Dougherty Hell Comes To Hollywood

An Anthology of Short Horror Ficiton Set in Tinseltown
1. Auflage 2012
ISBN: 978-0-9851295-7-6
Verlag: Big Time Books
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: Adobe DRM (»Systemvoraussetzungen)

E-Book, Englisch, 332 Seiten

Bram Stoker Award® Nominated anthology of short horror fiction set in Tinseltown and written by Hollywood genre professionals.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Miller, Eric

Joyner, Courtney

Dougherty, Joseph

Seeman, Jeffrey

Bitterlin, Shane

Leseproben

Andrew Helm has written for every medium and genre that’s come down the pike because he’s a writer and that’s what writers do… especially if they might get paid. To that end he’s helped create a Hong Kong action script for Jet Li’s first video game Rise to Honor. He oversaw the writing staff for the video game Area 51 that featured David Duchovny, Powers Boothe and Marilyn Manson. He wrote a sequence for TV’s Flash Gordon that referenced both Wile E. Coyote and the poop of the dreaded Ice Worm. He wrote a Western feature that won several writing awards. He got murdered on camera by the Insane Clown Posse in Death Racers, a film he wrote for them. He’s written and acted in the long-running sword-slinging internet vampire show The Hunted. And two of his upcoming film projects feature a family that needs help staying together during difficult times: One is Christmas Spirit (Holiday fun for the whole family!), and the other is Amityville: The Legacy 3-D (Mommy, why is Daddy spending so much time in the attic?). MUSE Andrew Helm THE MONSTER DIDN’T WORK. This wasn’t a surprise to anyone on the set of Blood Beast From Mars!; they were used to the titular creatures being less than fearsome. And since the metal rods in three of the beast’s tentacled arms had bent or snapped two takes into its close-up, it was left to one lowly arm to reach out and grasp the heroine in its blood-seeking embrace. “Looks like a lonely, masturbating octopus.” Huell Graves was the Director of Photography, his voice gravelly from a lifetime of unfiltered Lucky Strikes. He was a good DP in the sense he’d keep the battered Arriflex in focus and framed out Archie’s lazy boom mic, but he knew whatever ‘artistic’ aspirations he might have had were long over. He rarely laughed at his own jokes as the ensuing coughing fit sometimes found him spitting up blood into the ragged handkerchief he kept in his shirt pocket. Griffin Charles chuckled from his post at the rickety card table otherwise known as ‘craft services.’ He knew not to insinuate himself into the process too much. Griffin was a team player. And on this team, he was holding the spit bucket. Griffin had moved to Los Angeles eight months before. He had been bequeathed the title of ‘Most Likely to be the Next J.D. Salinger’ by the Beaverton High School Graduating Class of 1957. He had always been prone to flights of fancy during ‘free writing’ time in his English classes, often reading his work out loud. Hearing his classmates ask him to read one of his stories filled him with a sense of purpose. When Griffin said he wanted to be a writer, his parents weren’t enthusiastic. They were hoping he would attend O.U. for mechanical engineering—after all, his father had been an inventor of some repute during WWII in the Pacific—but it was not to be. He had written for the Beaverton High School paper, then for the local Willamette Press during his senior year; and the writing bug was in him. But journalism just didn’t spark his fire. Griffin had long loved hitting the ornate lights of the Rose City Cinema every Saturday as a kid. Sci-Fi was his wheelhouse. The notion that mankind was destined for flight was tantalizing; the coming space race between the US and the Russkies held so many possibilities it made his head spin. In between stories for the papers, he wrote treatments for the movies he saw in his head, slogging away on a battered Underwood typewriter with a sticky ‘Y’ key. So, the day after graduation, he loaded up his Nash ‘Country Club’ and with the money he had saved he headed south. The timing chain broke somewhere near a town in Northern California called Weed. It was all Griffin could do not to laugh every time he saw the name on a sign or awning. Some miles after that, near a dusky farm town called Chico, he had a blowout, followed by a hair-raising spin out into a ditch. And just like that, Griffin’s moving fund money was nearly spent and what should have been a three day trip was stretched out into a week. But when he finally hit the San Fernando Valley, smelling the sweet summer trees—and the exhaust of more cars than he’d ever seen in his life—it was all worth it. Griffin had set up accommodations with a cousin on his mom’s side named Bill who lived in Burbank. Cousin Bill worked at the Lockheed Skunk Works facility. When Griffin asked what he was working on, a bleary-eyed Bill mumbled something that sounded like ‘U-2,’ but didn’t or wouldn’t elaborate. He would be at work, sometimes for days at a stretch. Griffin would have the place mostly to himself. The day after arriving, Griffin drove over Laurel Canyon and into Hollywood proper. And there his eagerness was fully alight. The city was sprawling and alive, from Griffith Park and the Hollywood sign, to Hollywood and Vine. Griffin had read in the Los Angeles Mirror that the city was going to install stars into the sidewalk to commemorate Hollywood actors. He wondered if they’d ever include writers. As he looked for work, he repeated this trek into Hollywood every day, sometimes heading down Sunset Blvd., thinking he was William Holden on his way to see Norma Desmond. Other times he’d head down to Melrose Ave., sometimes driving right up to the gates at Paramount Pictures. Sure, the guards would shoo him away, but he knew one day they’d let him pass with a knowing smile and wave. It was on one of his forays into Hollywood that a soda jerk at Schwab’s asked him if he’d been up to Bronson Caves. Griffin shook his head, but the kid just smiled. “You like science-fiction flicks, that’s where they shot a bunch of ’em.” The kid reeled off the names and Griffin had just about died and gone to heaven; Robot Monster, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Killers From Space and It Conquered the World. It Conquered the World was one of Griffin’s favorites. He had a not-so-secret crush on Beverly Garland and had seen the film six times. The fact he could go to the very spot where she made such a heroic last stand against the Venusian… he got shivers just thinking about it. The next day, he headed off to Griffith Park, enjoying another sunny Southern California day. He followed the instructions the soda jerk had given him and soon found himself walking up a gravel road. Then he saw the truck. A half-ton job, rusted and makeshift. In the back were a couple of Klieg lights and an assortment of grip gear… someone was shooting a movie up at the caves! He’d been looking for work, but certainly holding out hope of finding the right work. But this was a sign. What else could it be? Griffin started to sweat. How the hell could he parlay this into a script? Or maybe he was getting ahead of himself. What if security would just escort him away? How would he know who to talk to? He just needed a job, maybe they… “Hey, slack-jaw, grab that C-stand.” Griffin looked over at the squat-looking guy, a fedora with a sweat ring all the way around crooked at an angle on his head. Griffin almost replied, “I don’t work here…” But that would have been stupid. So, he picked up what he hoped was a C-stand, threw it over his shoulder, heading toward the set of War of the Spacemen. And like that, his career in show business began. Griffin wasn’t paid that first day, or even the second. By then the guy in the sweat-stained fedora asked him how long he was going to work for free. Griffin blushed, but the guy laughed. He was Henry Bromstein, Head of Production for Atomic Pictures. He seemed to do a little bit of everything around set, even while barking orders. Griffin was awestruck. “So, what is it you want to do?” Henry asked him. “I want to write movies. I want to explore the…” “That’s great, kid, do what I tell you, and don’t get in the way. Then maybe we’ll talk.” Eight months later, Griffin was still schlepping for Atomic Films, this time on Blood Beast From Mars! He’d written a few treatments for potential stories, but they mostly sat unread under a pile of scripts, posters and press clippings about two feet high on Bromstein’s desk. But that day, even as the creature waggled its one limp tentacle, Henry still liked what he saw in the creature. And more importantly what he saw in the sweater of the leading lady. “Hey, Slack Jaw…” Despite Griffin’s half-hearted attempts at a new nickname, Slack Jaw it was. “Yes, Mr. Bromstein?” “This is lookin’ pretty good. You got any ideas for The Blood Beast Returns?” Griffin got that deer-in-the-headlights look that always tickled Bromstein. “Um… I think so, sir… sure.” Griffin swallowed hard, with not a clue in the world how to have the fearsome ‘Blood Beast’ return. “Good, have a treatment on my desk Monday morning. Actually, my desk is a disaster area, put it on my chair. If I don’t like it, I’ll use it to wipe my ass.” And with that, Henry was off to yell at the special effects team. * * * Griffin sat at the counter of the Bob’s Big Boy on Riverside, his regular mealtime spot...