Hollywood Hack Job

by Nathan Allen

  The camera reaches her, as does the troglodyte she was fleeing.

  He is THREE FINGER. He is human, but only just. His grotesque face is a twisted abomination molded by generations of inbreeding and exposure to toxic chemicals. A row of sharpened YELLOW TEETH protrude from his festering mouth.

  Air fills the girl’s lungs, and she expels an EAR-SPLITTING SCREAM.

  SMASH CUT TO:

  INT. TEENAGER’S BEDROOM –- NIGHT

  The SCREAM carries over as the girl awakens from her night terror. She sits bolt upright in bed. Her hair is a tousled bird’s nest, her face wet with perspiration.

  She is JESSIE BURLINGAME. She is nineteen, bookish, a straight-A type. There is a marked innocence to her. Despite her distress, her beauty is evident -- in a girl-next-door, pretty-without-realizing-it kind of way.

  A moment passes before she catches her breath. Her ALARM CLOCK tells her it’s 2:34.

  Jessie flicks on her LAMP. Her bedroom shows her to be a typical teenager –- messy clothes blanket the floor, open school books on her desk. Posters of David Bowie, The Clash and Jack Nance in “Eraserhead” adorn her walls. A well-worn copy of “The Catcher In The Rye” sits on her dresser.

  A CALENDAR hangs on her door. 29 June is circled, with “CAMPING TRIP!!” written in the center.

  “Hold on a second,” Cameron said.

  “What is it?” Eric said.

  “Remember what Michael told us about including too many highbrow or esoteric references?”

  Eric used his sleeve to wipe a droplet of blood from the laptop screen. “You think Eraserhead and Salinger are highbrow?”

  “I don’t, necessarily,” Cameron shrugged. “But we’re writing for the audience, not ourselves. And our audience are more or less cultural illiterates. You know how upset people get when they’re exposed to some reference or allusion they don’t understand.”

  “I suppose you’re right,” Eric said, tapping away at the backspace key. “It’s probably safer to err on the side of ignorance.”

  INT. TEENAGER’S BEDROOM –- NIGHT

  The SCREAM carries over as the girl awakens from her night terror. She sits bolt upright in bed. Her hair is a tousled bird’s nest, her face wet with perspiration.

  She is JESSIE BURLINGAME. She is nineteen, bookish, a straight-A type. There is a marked innocence to her. Despite her distress, her beauty is evident -- in a girl-next-door, pretty-without-realizing-it kind of way.

  A moment passes before she catches her breath. Her ALARM CLOCK tells her it’s 2:34.

  Jessie flicks on her LAMP. Her bedroom shows her to be a typical teenager –- messy clothes blanket the floor, open school books on her desk. Posters of Beyonce, The Chainsmokers and Chris Evans as Captain America adorn her walls. A well-worn copy of Amy Schumer’s “The Girl With The Lower Back Tattoo” sits on her dresser.

  A CALENDAR hangs on her door. 29 June is circled, with “CAMPING TRIP!!” written in the center.

  The body of Robert Maxwell Faulkner was placed inside the 9.6 cubic ft. chest freezer that Cameron had purchased in the days leading up to the kidnapping and mutilation. He remained there until frozen solid, at which point he was removed and divided into twelve separate pieces with the aid of a high-powered circular saw. Freezing the body made it harder to move, and much more difficult to dismember, but it also avoided the extreme mess often associated with dividing a corpse into smaller, more manageable portions.

  The various frozen body parts were encased in plastic wrap before being transported late at night to a remote area of desert near Vasquez Rocks. They were taken to a secluded location far from passing traffic or potential hikers, where they were unwrapped and left for the coyotes to dine on. Vultures took care of any remaining forensic evidence the coyotes left behind.

  Police made a few perfunctory enquiries after learning of Faulkner’s disappearance before choosing to allocate no further time or resources to the investigation. They initially suspected him of fleeing town to avoid sentencing, but later dismissed this as unlikely – all his belongings remained undisturbed at his house, and his bank account and credit cards had not been accessed. Even though foul play was suspected, it was ultimately decided that solving the case would remain a low priority.

  Chapter 22

  From: Martin Krauth

  To: Michael Bay

  Subject: I have cancer

  Hey Mike,

  Sorry about the subject line. Its not true, by the way. I just know how tardy you can be when it comes to opening your emails and I wanted you to read this asap.

  Anyway, I bring god news. Your revolutionary plan has come to fruition! The entire cast have all signed on to do Wrong Turn (or they have agreed to in principal, and will of signed on once the ten-percenters are done taking care of the nuts and bolts of the contract negotiations).

  So without any further ado, your cast is as follows:

  (... drumroll ...)

  Jessie: Bella Thorne

  Carly: Vanessa Hudgens

  Lauren: Zoe Kravitz

  Francine: Demi Lovato

  Evan: Zayn Malik

  Scott: Max Minghella

  Hitchhiker: Olivia Munn

  Officer Shannon: Jesse Williams

  Officer Goode: Jessica Alba

  The farmer: Vin Diesel

  I know Ive told you this like a billion times before, but your a genius! A supporting cast made up entirely of ridiculously hot biracial actors? Brilliant! All our diversity issues are solved in one fowl swoop, and without alienating the mainstream audience! If the naacp doesnt award you there highest honor the whole process is rigged!

  We have also secured the talents of Eryk Wiszniewski, the young Polish director, to helm the film. Hes the guy who made that documentary “Gorilla Warfare”, the one about armies in war-torn countrys that use trained baboons as armed soldiers.

  (I havent seen it yet but it won some big award at the Cannes Film Festival. Rex Reed described it as “the most important debut documentary film since Zapruder”.)

  Its such a relief to finally have all these problems taken care of once and for all. For a while there I wasnt sure if we would be able to reach a solution, but in the end you delivered. It just goes to show what can be accomplished once we put our minds to it. Its like what they say about bumblebees and how they are actually physically incapable of flight, but the simple bumblebee doesnt know this so it disregards the laws of physics and takes to the skies.

  You and I are the bumblebees!

  Peace and a bottle of hair grease, M.K.

  From: Michael Bay

  To: Martin Krauth

  Subject: Re: I have cancer

  Hi Martin,

  That’s fantastic news about the cast and director. Super excited about Wrong Turn. I think we could really be on the verge of creating something groundbreaking with the Platinum Dunes Cinematic Universe.

  Still no ETA for the shooting script, but don’t panic. I emailed Eric Haas yesterday and he said they were tearing through it at a rate of knots. They’ll send us the first 20-odd pages sometime in the next few days to give us an idea of where they’re at.

  Regards, M.B.

  P.S. I’m not sure that bumblebee analogy makes a whole lot sense. The bee doesn’t know it’s not supposed to fly but ignores physics and does it anyway? How does that work? A guy tripping on acid doesn’t know he can’t fly when he jumps off the roof of a twenty story building, but no matter how hard he flaps his arms around he still plummets to the ground below, doesn’t he? Or does he?

  Chapter 23

  Days bled into nights, and Cameron and Eric continued to make further progress with their Wrong Turn draft. Their butchery of Robert Maxwell Faulkner had ignited something inside of them, providing that spark of inspiration they desperately needed. They found themselves churning out the pages like never before; act one was complete in less than a week, along with a solid th
irty-page outline for how the second and third acts were to unfold. Their story would contain many of the familiar plot points fans had come to expect from films in the horror genre, but subverted in such unique and original ways to create a singular piece of work unlike anything else in the marketplace.

  They were often dumbfounded by what they managed to come out with. They would review what they had written days earlier and be blown away, almost as if they were reading the work of another writer. They never knew they were capable of this level of excellence.

  But by the tenth or eleventh day, both their enthusiasm and the quality of their work had begun to decline. The elements of the killing – the sights, the sounds, the smells and all the visceral emotions they aroused – were gradually fading from memory. They were finding it more and more difficult to separate the words on the page from the actual physical experience. They tried to recapture the spark by rewatching the video, but after a handful of viewings it felt like they were sitting through just another schlocky low budget found footage movie. The tape was destroyed soon afterwards, disposing of the last remaining evidence of their crime.

  They did their best to plow on through, telling one another that they obviously had the talent to do this and just needed the motivation, but it was no use. The door was closing on their creativity and there was nothing they could do to stop it.

  It wasn’t long before lethargy kicked in, and the two fell back into old habits. They found themselves using any excuse to avoid writing, from complaining of mild headaches to being distracted by the God-awful racket created by the neighbor’s six-hour band rehearsals. Eric spent less time at his laptop and more time in front of the television, frittering his days away catching up on all the quality HBO, Showtime and Netflix dramas he had fallen behind on. Cameron, meanwhile, had taken to loitering in and around various Starbucks outlets, flirting with the clientele and doing his best impersonation of a successful writer, albeit without doing any actual writing.

  Entire days would go by without either one contributing a single word to the screenplay. Their impending deadline drew nearer and nearer, hanging over their heads like an execution date.

  Until one Thursday afternoon, when Cameron rushed home from another unproductive writing session at his favorite corporate coffee hangout. Eric could sense his excitement from the moment he burst through the door. He immediately hit pause on the episode of Stranger Things he was partway through watching.

  “I have a brilliant idea!” Cameron said. “And I think it could be the solution to all our problems.”

  Eric sat up in his seat. His face immediately brightened. “You do?”

  Cameron nodded enthusiastically. “I just ran into Warwick Wilson at Starbucks,” he said, taking off his Bouclé-Check Double Breasted overcoat and carefully folding it over a chair. “He came in for a caramel macchiato. I went over and introduced myself.”

  “Warwick Wilson?” Eric said.

  “Yes!”

  “Am I supposed to know who that is?”

  “You’ve never heard of him?”

  “No. Should I?”

  “He only runs one of the most high profile casting agencies in town. You’ll find his name in the credits of some of the biggest films from the past decade.”

  “Oh, okay. So what does he have to do with our situation?”

  Cameron kicked off his shoes and took a seat on the sofa. “Well, in addition to being one of the industry’s biggest star-makers, Warwick Wilson has quite a reputation. For years he’s been the subject of plenty of rumors and innuendo.”

  “What sort of rumors?”

  “Rumors about how he frequently takes advantage of his clients. His younger clients in particular. And about all the sordid favors he demands in exchange for career advancement.”

  Eric’s eyebrows shot up. “Are you serious?”

  Cameron nodded. “Absolutely. He’s a serial offender.”

  “So how is he still in business? Why hasn’t he been, I don’t know, arrested or sued or something?”

  “I guess, like most predators, he’s fairly selective in who he targets. He preys on the desperate. The ones who are the most vulnerable and will do just about anything for their shot at fame. They know that if they made a complaint it would destroy any chance they ever had of a successful career. Plus ...” Cameron lowered his voice, as if the house might be bugged. “Some say he’s part of that weird Hollywood cult. You know, the Dawn of the Two Divides? If you’re a member you can pretty much get away with anything and the cult protects you from any scandals.”

  “Oh, come on Cameron,” Eric groaned. “You don’t really believe that exists, do you?”

  “Who knows? Maybe it does, maybe it doesn’t. But the stories about him being a certified creep are absolutely true. Ask any young actress who’s ever had to audition for him and they’ll almost certainly have a story. It’s more or less an open secret in the industry.”

  Eric was silent for a moment. “I’m still a little confused by all this.”

  “What part confuses you?”

  “A lot of it confuses me. But mostly it’s the part where you think that befriending a known sexual predator will somehow assist us in finishing our screenplay.”

  “Oh, right.” Cameron chuckled to himself. “Sorry. I got a bit ahead of myself, didn’t I? I was thinking that perhaps we should invite Mr. Wilson over here to discuss some future projects he could be involved in. And then maybe ...” He let the idea hang in the air for a moment. “Maybe ... that will help resolve some of the problems we’ve been having of late.”

  Eric finally caught on to what Cameron was suggesting here. “Oh, no. Uh-uh. That’s not a good idea.”

  “I know. It’s a great idea.”

  “No way. One time was more than enough.”

  “Was it enough? It gave us a good start, but we haven’t even reached the halfway mark yet.”

  Eric lowered his eyes. “We still don’t know if we’re in the clear from the last time. And if we do it again, we double the risk of getting caught.”

  “We won’t get caught, Eric. If someone ever gets caught it’s because they kill in the heat of the moment and don’t think it through. We just have to take all the necessary precautions, like we did last time, and we’ll be fine. We can do this.”

  “I just think ...” Eric took a moment to compose his thoughts. “I think if we can be disciplined about our writing habits and keep working at it, we can figure this out.”

  “Maybe you’re right, but there’s also a chance that we’ll never progress any further than where we’re currently at. Is that what you want to happen?”

  “Of course not, but we don’t have to go there again.”

  “Eric, we have to be realistic about what’s happening here. Whatever mojo that first one gave us is long gone. The buzz has worn off, and if we don’t act soon it may never come back.”

  Eric swallowed. He could feel the nervous tremor returning to his voice. “I ... I understand where you’re coming from,” he said. “But I don’t think it’s necessary. Look at what we’ve done so far. That came from us. We’ve already proven we can write something extraordinary, and there’s nothing stopping us from doing it again. If we stick with it for just a little while longer I’m confident it will all work out in the end.”

  “Hey, I’m just putting it out there,” Cameron said. “But the clock is ticking. Ignoring these problems won’t make them magically disappear.”

  Eric promised he would give the idea some thought, although this was the last thing he really wanted to do. He was adamant they didn’t need to go down that particular path again. Their output from the past couple of weeks proved they had what it took to get the job done. They just had to forget about trying to find shortcuts or quick-fix solutions and do what every other writer had done when they found themselves stuck in a rut. They had to put their heads down and write their way out of it.

  But then two further unproductive days stretched out into five days, whic
h then became ten. Nothing they came up with for the second act was anywhere near as good as what they wrote during those frantic few days of effortless creativity. Every attempted writing session only seemed to make their screenplay worse. Eric had to begrudgingly admit that Cameron might be right, and that drastic action was required.

  Cameron was the one who made the call. He told Warwick Wilson they had been hired to write and direct a remake of the film Bugsy Malone, and invited him over to discuss the possibility of him joining the project. He told him several of the young actresses under consideration for the lead roles would also be in attendance.

  Eric handed Warwick a glass of brandy shortly after he arrived. Ten minutes later, they were hauling his flaccid body down to the basement.

  They wasted little time in getting to work, each one taking turns at smashing Warwick’s right foot in with a hammer until every bone was shattered. Cameron then moved in with the cordless drill to create multiple trepanning holes in his skull. Eric used pliers to extract his fingernails, then took care of the remainder of the fingers with a pair of bolt cutters.