Midnight Movie: A Novel (32 page)

Why? Because it was, relatively speaking, empty.

There were only a couple of flicks in production: a romantic comedy with Matthew McConaughey and my old pal Jessica Alba—okay, she wasn’t my old pal, but I did interview her once, and I bet she’d remember me … or maybe not—and a family drama with Jeff Bridges, Meryl Streep, and Michael Cera, which, considering the cast, had a ton of potential. But that was it. No hustle, no bustle, nobody zipping around on golf carts, nobody running from one building to the next balancing five lattes, no assistants getting chewed out by douchebag execs. Just a few people wandering around dazedly, looking bummed.

When we got to Dick Gregson’s office, his unbelievably hot assistant told us that Dick was running late. Tobe said, “That’s the best news I’ve heard all day,” then plopped down in a chair and promptly dozed off.

I asked the assistant why the lot seemed so dead. She said, “Because everybody’s dead.” When I didn’t answer, she gave me a
look, then said, “You
do
know what the Game is, don’t you? Or are you one of those screenwriter guys who doesn’t get out much?”

I said, “I’m well aware of what the Game is.”

I must’ve accidentally shot her some attitude, because she said, “You know what? Fuck you. My boyfriend is a fucking zombie, and I’m waiting for my pussy juice to turn blue, so there’s no need for you to take a tone with me. Got it?”

I said, “Um, yeah. Got it.” I gave her what I hoped was a heroic look, then said, “We’re here to help.”

She said, “Great, sure, fine. Whatever, fella. Good luck with that.” Her phone buzzed; she picked it up and said, “Yes,” then she gave me a fake smile and said, “Mr. Gregson will see you now.”

I couldn’t think of anything to say, so I woke Tobe’s ass up and dragged him into Gregson’s office.

If you ran into Tobe Hooper at a party or a screening, you wouldn’t think,
This guy made one of the bloodiest flicks in movie history
. You’d think,
This guy looks like my high school English lit professor
. He’d generally be wearing a sport coat with a T-shirt, his hair and beard neatly trimmed. He looked the part.

That day, not so much.

He was wearing old, ratty jeans and a wrinkly button-down shirt that I’d wager had been slept in a few times. His eyes were red and baggy, as if he hadn’t had a good night’s sleep in weeks. His hair was disheveled, and he was exceptionally pale. This didn’t bode well for his pitch.

He introduced me to his co-producer, Erick. I said to Erick, “I’ve never heard your name before. What’s your background?”

Erick said, “I don’t really have one.”

I said, “You don’t have a background?”

He said, “Let’s just leave it at that.” Then he said to Tobe, “Go.”

Tobe asked me, “Where the fuck is everybody, Dick? This place is a morgue.”

I said, “Gamed.”

Tobe said, “I figured. Good news, though. I’m here to help.”

I said, “Yeah? How so?”

He said, “Okay. So back when I was a little shit in Austin, I made a movie.”

I asked him, “Really? How old were you?”

He said, “Sixteen or fifteen, or fourteen, or seventeen, or something.”

I said, “I’d love to see it.”

Erick said, “You most definitely do
not
want to see it.”

I said, “I wouldn’t go in expecting
Casablanca
or anything. I’d be curious for historical purposes. What’s it called?”

Tobe said,
“Destiny Express.
”

I said, “Great title.” And I meant it.

Tobe said, “I’m glad you dig it. Because you’re going to give me the money to remake it. We need cameras. We need sound shit. We need old-school editing equipment. We need transportation money. Hundred grand ought to do it.”

I said, “Well, Tobe, right now we’re not making anything scary. The marketplace is already scared. Nobody’s going to pay fourteen bucks to get freaked out. They can look out their front door to do that. But maybe when things get back to normal, I’ll consider it. Send me a print and a screenplay, then we’ll talk.”

Tobe stood up and roared, “You’re not getting a print. You’re not getting a screenplay. You’re going to give us one hundred thousand dollars to make this movie, and every cent is going toward production, and me and Erick aren’t taking a dime for ourselves, and you need to get your numbers assholes to cut the check before we leave here, because we need to get started, like,
yesterday, and we’re going to have it done in three weeks, and there’s going to be one screening and one screening only, and
that’s … the … fucking … deal.
”

I said, “Tobe, please sit down, and please stop yelling.” I wondered if he’d caught a case of the Game; after all, over-the-top aggression was one of the many symptoms. I opened the middle top drawer of my desk, reached in, and released the safety on the handgun I bought right before I came back to the office, after my daughter’s funeral. I didn’t like guns, but the times had changed. You have to play it safe.

Tobe said, “Sorry, man. I’m sorry, really.” He sat down, then said, “It’s been a rough week. But listen, I’m serious, Dick. I’m broke. Erick’s broker. You
have
to give us the bread. You
have
to green-light us. This
has
to happen.”

I said, “It’s not going to. Now I have another meeting. Thanks for coming in, guys.”

That Erick kid said, “Bullshit you have another meeting. There’s nobody on this fucking lot except for Matthew motherfucking McConaughey, and Jeff motherfucking Bridges, and a bunch of tech people, and none of them want to meet with you. You’ve got the dude who made one of the greatest, most profitable horror films in history in your office, and he has something important to say, and you’d better damn well listen to him. He deserves that. You owe him that much. Hollywood owes him that much.”

Nobody had spoken to me like that since I became head of production, and I didn’t appreciate it. I was about to tell this little pisher he’d never have lunch in this town again—I’d always wanted to use that line; thank you, Julia Phillips—but Tobe piped up before I had a chance to talk. He told Erick, “That was really nice of you to say, man. Thank you.” Then he turned to me and said, “The kid’s right, Dick. You have to listen. And come on, don’t bullshit me: You’ve got nothing else going on. So hear us out. Ten minutes. Fifteen tops.”

They were right. I didn’t have a meeting. I didn’t have jack shit to do, except sit around and try not to burst out into my daily crying jag. So I heard them out.

Tobe was tired and frustrated, and it showed in his pitch. Such as it was.

He said, “This movie, this little shitbag movie of mine, this juvenile piece of crap I made before I knew what a shot sheet was, well, there’s a possibility that it caused a whole heap of trouble. We showed it in public once—one goddamn time—and that one goddamn time might’ve caused a catastrophe. It might’ve caused the Game. Now, if you back us, Dick, if you give us the bread, if you give us your support, we might be able to
unhappen
it. We might be able to fix things.” He paused for dramatic effect, then said, “We might be able to change the world, brother.”

Dick said, “Tobe, that’s a great sentiment, but if I may be blunt, each week, twenty-some-odd people sit where you’re sitting and tell me how they’re going to change the world. I appreciate that your heart’s in the right place, but—”

Tobe cut him off right there and said, “Listen, Gregson, here’s the fucking deal:
Destiny Express
started the goddamn Game, and we think that if we remake the goddamn thing, there’s a chance—just a goddamn slight chance—that we can figure out how to put this goddamn disease, or syndrome, or whatever you’d goddamn well call it, to bed. Don’t you think that’s worth a one-hundred-K gamble? Don’t you?” He was practically in tears.

Dick said, “Okay, before I shut down this meeting, answer me this: How could you possibly think that a movie could do this? If I may be blunt again, you sound insane.”

Tobe sprang out of his chair, then jumped across Gregson’s desk, grabbed him by the lapel of his expensive-ass suit jacket,
and shook, and shook, and shook. He yelled, “It’s narrow-minded assholes like you who are
killing
this industry, just
fucking
killing it. First you’re killing art, now you’re killing people. How does that feel? Does that feel good knowing that you’re the death of dreams, Dickie boy? Does it?
Does it?!
”

I pulled Tobe off Gregson before any serious damage was done. After I calmed him down—which took some doing, I should note—I asked Gregson, “Can I show you something on your laptop?”

I think if Gregson were in a better state, he probably would’ve told me to fuck off. But Tobe’s attack took him off his game, so he motioned for me to come around the desk and said, “Fine. But be quick.”

I showed him Andi’s blog, which, for some reason, had survived the great Internet sweep. I showed him some stuff about Aaron Gillespie, that psycho suicide bomber. I showed him as many of Scary Barry’s tweets as I could find. I told him about Janine getting the shit kicked out of her. I told him about my nighttime strolls. I told him about Gary going zombie. And then I played my trump card: “Each one of these people was at the
Destiny Express
screening. You do the math.”

Gregson watched and listened respectfully, and for that, I give him credit. At one point while he was checking out Andi’s blog, it even looked like he was about to cry. After a bit, he said, “What guarantee do I have that this project will have any effect on the Game?”

I said, “You don’t. Neither do we. But from what I can tell, nobody
anywhere
has been able to come up with a way to fight this thing. I mean, think about all that H1N1 business. There was a vaccine that was being used up faster than they could manufacture it. And it was all over the news, even before it was widely available. I haven’t heard shit about a Game vaccine. Have you?”

Gregson said, “Of course I haven’t.”

I said, “That’s right, you haven’t. So if there’s even the
remotest
possibility this would work, wouldn’t it make sense for Warner Bros. to be all over it?”

Gregson didn’t move or say a word. Finally, after probably a minute of dead silence, Tobe said, “Listen to me, Dick: If you say no, the second I get out of your office, I’m calling Connie Borelli over at Fox, and me and Erick here are going to give her the exact same pitch we gave you, and if she says yes, and this works—if this redux of mine does what we hope it’s going to do—word will get around about you passing on this, and you’re going to look like the biggest idiot in Hollywood history. You’ll be forever known as the moron who passed on the opportunity to kill a disease. You want that on your record, brother? You want to be the guy who blew off the chance to keep your son, or your cousin, or your best friend from shooting blue shit from his cock? Hunh? Do you?”

Gregson put his head in his hand and said, “Guys, you have to go now.”

I said, “Seriously? You’re sending us away?”

He said, “Yeah. I don’t want you in the room while my boss is tearing me a new asshole for okaying this … this … this
pipe dream
. Leave your address with my assistant. I’ll deliver the check myself.”

My boss indeed tore me a new asshole. That’s all you need to know. I don’t care to discuss details.

After that meeting, I left the studio, drove to my house, and grabbed my checkbook. When I showed up at Tobe’s doorstep and handed him the check, he gave me a bear hug that damn near collapsed my lungs.

I didn’t know if I’d be the hero of the story or the fool who
pissed away $100,000 of his own money. But if I was going down, I was going down swinging. Celia would’ve wanted it that way.

I don’t have the kind of job that allows me to up and leave without any significant notice. The buck stops with me. I’m
Vanity Fair
’s final line of defense. If an article has a factual error, it’s my fault, even though the author, or a junior editor, or a fact-checker should’ve caught it. So when Tobe Hooper’s friend Erick called and told me there was a first-class plane ticket to Austin waiting for me at LaGuardia for a nine-thirty flight, I laughed. I couldn’t help it. The thought of me bailing on my coworkers just like that was, well,
laughable
.

I told him, “Absolutely not. And even if I had sufficient time to prepare, I wouldn’t do it. It’s ridiculous.”

Erick said, “Don’t you think it’s ridiculous that the undead are wandering around Times Square?”

I said, “There aren’t zombies wandering around Times Square. There hasn’t been a word about it on the news. And I’m in Times Square every day.” I was lying to him, and he knew it. I mean, my car took me through Times Square each morning and each evening. I knew the score. Maybe not the
whole
score—I never looked out the window—but maybe I didn’t want the whole score.

He said, “Do me a favor. Are you by your computer?”

I said, “Yes.”

He said, “Go to YouTube and do a search on ‘zombies’ and ‘New York City’ and ‘eating.’ ”

I asked him, “What will I see?”

He said, “Just do it.”

I said, “I really don’t have time—”

He interrupted me:
“Just … fucking … do it
. Please. I’m begging you, here.”

I said, “Fine. If it’ll get you off the phone,” then I surfed over to YouTube and entered Erick’s search terms. Fifteen videos came up. I asked him, “Is there any particular one you want me to watch?”

He said, “Do you see one with the header ‘Day of the Living Dead’?”

I said, “It’s the first one.”

He said, “Good. Click on it.”

I did. I wish I hadn’t. I had the score.