The Devil's Cinema (19 page)

It was several hours into the second day of the
House of Cards
film shoot and aspiring actor Chris was not enjoying the experience. The acting job seemed exciting at first, but after being strapped down for hours he was feeling the cold drip of uneasiness. Chris began to wriggle his wrists and ankles, trying to loosen the tape.

Chris had met Twitchell only once previously, over coffee, and he was starting to realize just how little he knew of the director's filmmaking background. Their meeting had ended with a job offer and no formal audition – just a joke or two from Chris's repertoire of amateur standup. While acting was a newer endeavour for Chris, Twitchell's enthusiasm and promises of future work with Hollywood stars had him hoping the low-budget mystery thriller could be his big break. But when Chris showed up at the film set on
the morning of Saturday, September 27, he found it wasn't a professional studio but a rundown two-door garage. Its cream-coloured doors had been pulled down tight once filming began. Hardly any light could escape it. The air hung heavy with sawdust. And it was freezing cold. Everyone had their sleeves pulled down. Chris was regretting not telling his agent about what he was doing.

It had been a tense morning for the crew. They had taken longer than expected to get organized and continued to stumble over one another. Many of the finer details of the film shoot, from set pieces and props to the script, had been planned weeks in advance, but some of the very basics of filmmaking seemed to have been forgotten, almost treated like an afterthought. Mike and Jay had helped Scott clean out the garage and build set pieces, including perfecting Twitchell's desired table and chair. But the camera Twitchell had rented didn't come with a power adapter, forcing the crew to go hunting for one when the internal batteries died. Joss had to drive to St. Albert at the last minute to pick up a pair of samurai swords that Twitchell had forgotten at home. Disagreements broke out among the crew. At one point, Twitchell became upset because the crew was using too much of his duct tape. He wanted the tape rationed for some reason. He had also snatched one of the samurai swords out of the hands of his actors when they touched the sharpened blade between shots. “Don't put your fingerprints on these!” he snarled. He explained how it was a higher quality blade of folded steel. “The oil on your hands could wreck it.”

With the final prep work for the next scene complete, Chris fidgeted in the metal chair, trying to get comfortable. He had read the script a few times and was worried about how the next scene would play out. Chris was playing the part of a cheating husband who uses online dating websites to arrange liaisons with other women. Only this time when he thinks he's meeting some sexy date, he is confronted by a masked killer. “He's about seven steps from the door when the unmistakable sound of a stun gun being fired explodes from the darkness,” the script read. “Before he has time to comprehend what's going on he gets clubbed in the back of the head and is knocked unconscious.”

Now Chris's character, strapped to the cold metal chair, was awaiting an interrogation by the masked stranger. The killer was being played
by Robert Barnsley, another inexperienced actor who was so excited by the chance of landing a role in Twitchell's next movie that he paid for his own flight from Toronto. Robert was skinny, only twenty years old, and looked young for his age. Some of the crew had wondered how he was going to pull off the performance of a threatening and crazed man. At least his youthful appearance would be hidden behind the modified hockey mask Twitchell had made. Robert slipped on the killer's black mask, tightening the white straps behind his head as his nose pressed against the plastic, cupping his forehead. The lower section of the mask had been cut away, leaving his mouth and chin exposed. Twitchell had outfitted him with a hoodie, which covered his hair and ears, making him look sinister while still hiding his appearance.

Moments before they were to begin shooting the interrogation scene, a strip of duct tape was suddenly slapped across Chris's mouth.

Twitchell disappeared behind the camera.

Joss, the sound man, held up a microphone.

David pressed the camera's record button. “And rolling.”

It was Twitchell's call. The sound of the camera humming, the buzz of the lights, a pause. Twitchell had given both of his actors very little direction throughout the shoot beyond minor instructions. Robert took a breath as he readied himself. Chris could only wait helplessly like a stuck pig, lips sealed tight with the fresh piece of tape.

Twitchell finally spoke: “Action.”

“Boo!” Robert hooted with a fiendish delight reminiscent of Batman's Joker, his opening line rolling into a sadistic cackle. “Heeheeeheehehehe!” The noise startled his captive awake as Robert emerged from the darkness as the film's killer, standing tall under the harsh glow of the light.

“Okay, welcome to a little game of live or die,” the killer declared, greeting his victim as he paced in front of him. “The process is really quite simple, so pay very close attention because I don't enjoy repeating myself and if you make me do that, well …” He pulled out a knife.

Chris snapped himself into character, staring at the killer, a dark shadow falling off the nose of the mask. Remembering his cue, Chris began to whimper. He tried to scream, but the duct tape muffled the sound. He started to sweat. Chris knew it was a real knife taken off the metal table.
And as the killer drew near, the knife's sharp edge was inching closer toward his nose. Chris felt a lump in his throat and he didn't have to feign fear.

“Okay, settle down.” The killer spat like he was disciplining a child, pulling back and twisting the knife in the light. “You have to take stock of your situation. You don't know where you are, and I'm hiding my identity from you.” He spun on his heels, scraping a bit of dirt on the concrete floor. “Now, why would I bother if I was going to kill you?”

He glared and started pacing again. Chris stared back, noisily sucking air through his nose.

“I'm going to ask you a series of questions, and you're going to answer me truthfully,” the killer continued. “I'm going to check your answers while you're sitting here.” He looked over to the laptop on the table. “And if I find out you lied to me on any particular point …” He stopped his pacing and swung his masked face closer to Chris. “I'm going to cut something off.”

Chris tossed his weight from side to side and whimpered.

“Now I don't mess around, and I don't give second chances, so if anything comes out of your pie hole that isn't a polite direct answer to a question, you'll go home missing pieces. And that will be really hard to explain to your wife.” The killer tapped the blade on his palm. “Do you read me?”

Chris nodded frantically. The metal chair groaned and squeaked.

“Perfect. Let's start with the easy one. What's your Cheating Hearts password?”

“Mmmpphhhpmhhh.”

“Sorry, what? I didn't quite catch that?” The killer squinted at the duct tape sealing his victim's lips. “Oh right. Sorry!” He pinched his fingers and gripped the edge of one side, leaning in close to Chris's ear. “I realize this goes without saying,” he whispered, “but I don't want any misunderstandings. If you scream I'm going to cut your windpipe out, which will cause an awfully huge mess and leave you unable to answer any more questions, so I'd recommend you restrain yourself.”

The killer ripped the tape off and threw it on the floor.

“Ugghhh!” Chris grunted in real pain. His lips were stinging and he wanted to rub them, but his arms were still taped to the chair.

Twitchell stopped the scene. David and Scott relaxed and Joss brought down the microphone. The crew would need several more takes as they
tried to make the tape less sticky, sympathetic to the pain Chris was suffering every time it was ripped off his face.

During a break, Joss asked about the dating site in the film plot. “Are there even sites like this where married people can hook up?”

“Yeah, I heard of one,” Chris told the group. “I saw it in the paper the other day. It's called Ashley Madison.”

Twitchell appeared to pick up on the conversation. But he didn't say a word.

A
S THE
S
ATURDAY FILM
shoot stretched into the early evening, the crew moved on to one of the last scenes at the garage. After the killer tortures his victim into revealing his bank PIN numbers, email and dating site passwords, he deletes his fake female account and all the communication between the profile and his victim, then drives to the bank to withdraw his victim's money. Now in this scene, the killer returns, announcing he has changed his mind about letting his victim survive and will instead use the extorted personal information to fool his victim's friends and family into believing he's still alive. The perfect cover.

At Jess's request, Twitchell had altered the film's ending to remove a gruesome decapitation and power-saw dismemberment scene, but she probably wouldn't have liked his new idea any better: the victim would now be brutally stabbed and his body chopped into pieces with a meat cleaver. It was a departure from Dexter's preferred tools, but there were still references to the series littered throughout. The killer remained an employee of the police force in the script, and Twitchell made a “Power-Saw To The People” sticker promoting the TV show that appeared in the background of one scene. The victim's wife also reads a
Dexter
novel in an earlier shot. Throughout the weekend, Twitchell kept saying things were “just like
Dexter
,“ smiling and laughing boisterously.

His new ending required the killer to plunge the samurai sword into his captive's chest. Chris was relieved the crew could film this shot with him freed from the metal chair. As he stretched his legs and rubbed his wrists, the crew finished debating how to film the murder scene on such a low budget. Scott fashioned a fake torso by pulling apart an old couch the crew had tossed into the alley driveway. He ripped at the foam and placed
the stuffing into an extra dress shirt Chris had brought with him, using duct tape to help form the belly and general shape of the actor's body. He dropped the newly constructed torso on the chair.

Twitchell returned from the grocery store with a bottle of corn syrup, red food colouring, and a juice jug. It was the film industry's recipe for fake blood.

Scott poured the syrup into the jug, added a bit of water and red dye, and then mixed it with an attached juice plunger. Within seconds he had created a glorious red liquid that looked just like the real thing. He dumped the fake blood into a Ziploc bag and made a few incisions in the foam chest cavity and inserted the bag inside. At last, they were ready for the final act of mayhem as a container was placed under the chair to stop the sticky substance from pooling on the floor.

Twitchell circled the chair, smiling in satisfaction at the foam torso, before he took a spot behind the camera.

Robert pulled one of the samurai blades out of its sheath and wrapped his hands around the handle. He pointed the long blade at the chair.

“Camera's rolling,” David announced.

“Action!” said Twitchell.

The killer leaped forward and plunged the sword deep into his victim's torso. Grinding his teeth, he twisted the blade into his guts, taking great pleasure in killing his victim.

But Robert missed the blood bag. And the sword he was using, the cheaper stainless steel version, wasn't sharp enough to rip the shirt. On the second try, the sword sliced through the fabric, but it also pushed out foam, making it obvious that the victim was made of stuffing.

The crew gave up on the idea of the fake torso and decided to just hold the shirt in place. Scott and Joss stood on either side of the chair, dangling the blood bag just behind the fabric. “Thrust!” everyone shouted, encouraging Robert to ram the sword through as hard as he could.

The blade cut deep and the blood bag burst open. A pool of blood spilled out from the back of the shirt in a thickened stream. The liquid moved down the length of the sword, reaching the tip and falling off in drips of red.

The crew waited and watched in excitement, letting the fake blood flow for several minutes as the camera kept recording, making sure they had captured the perfect shot.

Chris was smiling, eyes bright. He thought the death scene looked fantastic. David and Scott were pleased with the special effect too. But Twitchell had gone silent, as if deep in thought. Crew members noticed his lack of reaction and wondered if he didn't care at all. After their day of hard work, it looked like Twitchell was unmoved or disappointed by their effort, but if he was, he wasn't saying.

The crew had been filming for two days for what was supposed to be a short eight-minute film, and they still had another day to go. That night, they were scheduled to shoot a final scene at the garage, an external shot showing the killer dumping large garbage bags full of body parts into the trunk of his car. But David was exhausted and looking for an excuse to leave. He turned to Twitchell. “We're not shooting that scene,” he said. “It's too anti-climatic.”

Twitchell listened to his complaints patiently.

“We'll do a really intense closeup of the guy being impaled,” David continued, trying to get Twitchell excited. “And he's screaming from under the duct tape, the music is going to build up and, bam, it's going to cut to the computer typing scene.”

“Okay,” said Twitchell, nodding. “That works.” He remembered the scene well. It had been filmed the night before – with him playing the starring role. For Twitchell, the “write what you know” reveal of the writer being the real killer was just like a major twist renowned film director Alfred Hitchcock would have used in one of his suspense thrillers. And as Twitchell explained years later, the last shot of
House of Cards
also perfectly explained the theme – and an important lesson – behind his work, demonstrating how easily real motives can be hidden from view. “Anyone can turn out to be a psycho,” he wrote, “without being overtly obvious about it.”