by Brian Hodge
From Father Mortimer Parrick’s diary:
The bounty hunter was a complete surprise, the toughest case yet. Worked on him for three days. First, in the chapel of the hospital, where he was found semi-comatose by a Dr. Garcia on the morning of Tuesday, October 11. During these early hours, Mr. Quint exhibited classic symptoms of demonic possession, including spontaneous outbursts of gnostic gospel, as well as inexplicable sores and burns on seventy-five percent of his body. The staff psychologist at the hospital turned out to be a former altar boy, and agreed to allow the exorcism team from St. Vincent de Paul to administer the rites. After twelve hours, the subject was moved— via church transport— to the Jesuit retreat in St. Louis, where the rites continued. Mr. Quint was kept as comfortable as possible throughout the process, bound to a gurney, with nourishment provided through an IV. The possession was a text book case of lower demonic infestation, although the rites were discontinued after only three days for several reasons. One, there was no outward sign of expulsion or improvement. Two, the subject had lapsed into a full blown coma with little hope for improvement. And three, the Jesuits lacked the proper facilities to house a long term critical care patient.
NOTE: Must look into similarities between recent unsuccessful exorcisms. Could be something there.
DEAL MEMO
(Note: The following document was found in the vaults of a bankrupt Beverly Hills law firm, on company stationery, on April 12, 2009)
APPLEBAUM STEINBERG & FRISHMAN LLP.
2100 Alameda Boulevard - Beverly Hills, CA 90211
As of October 1, 2004
Mr. Howard Miller, Executive Producer
Icon Productions
34 West Canal
Brisbane, AUSTRALIA 445BT
RE: THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST
Dear Mr. Miller:
The underlying agreement shall heretofore formalize all previous discussions with principal parties in connection with the sequel and/or sequels based on the original motion picture titled THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST (“THE PROPERTY”).
This includes, but is not limited to, all spin-off characters and situations based on the screenplay and/or original source material (AKA “THE BIBLE”), as well as all future ancillary rights and tie-ins based on the aforementioned material, including, but not limited to, computer software, CDs, DVDs, toys, internet programming, action figures, live performances, musical productions, breakfast cereals, icecapades, kids meals, triple-X adult movies, and any other merchandise, product, or artifact that could conceivably be conceived to tie-in with the “Work,” in this universe, as well as the kingdom of heaven and earth, for all time.
This agreement shall be between Mr. Mel Gibson (“ARTIST”) and the entity known as Satan (“THE COMPANY”) (also known as Beelzebub, Lucifer, Prince of Darkness, or the Walt Disney Corporation). The terms listed below shall supersede all other contractual agreements to date, and hold harmless “THE COMPANY” from any responsibility whatsoever in the event of anything whatsoever, including acts of God and/or apocalyptic intervention.
Upon signing of this agreement in human blood, verified by notary public, the above parties agree to the following:
1) The “ARTIST” shall deliver a completed print of the first sequel (the “PROPERTY”) on or before the deadline date 18 months from the execution of this agreement (in human blood) in consideration of the sum of one trillion dollars (American), undiminished sexual prowess, and eternal life.
2) The “PROPERTY” shall be released under the following title in 78-point blood-spatter type font:
PASSION TWO: UNDEAD & MAD AS HELL
3) Further, the “ARTIST” agrees that the content of the “PROPERTY” shall adhere to the story line approved in writing by the “COMPANY” upon commencement of principal photography (*see Addendum/Table 1 for a synopsis).
4) In order to achieve maximum turn-over and concession sales the “PROPERTY” shall be no longer than 78 minutes in duration, and shall contain a minimum of one (1) product placement per minute of screen time (*see Addendum/Table 2 for a list of sanctioned products).
5) The final soundtrack of the “PROPERTY” shall contain a minimum of one complete pop song per scene, each approved for airplay and/or tie-in CD — the net proceeds of which will be split evenly (50/50) between the “ARTIST” and SATAN (or Satan’s agents on earth; i.e., The Walt Disney Company) (**See Addendum/Table 3 for a list of sanctioned songs).
6) The “ARTIST” agrees to embed a minimum of one (1) subliminal message every two minutes within the frames of the completed final print of the “PROPERTY” (***See Addendum/Table 4 for list of approved messages).
7) The final release print of the “PROPERTY” shall be screened only in approved multiplexes owned by the “COMPANY” with a minimum of seventy-two (72) screens, and shall run continuously, 24 hours per day, 7 days per week, with start times staggered every 15 minutes.
8) The advertising/promotion budget for said release of the “PROPERTY” shall be no less than eighty-six trillion dollars ($86,000,000,000,000) and no more than… well, infinity.
9) Further, upon the release of the home video version, the “street date” of the release shall be delayed for a minimum of 12 months (to a maximum of 3 years), during which time a blanket media campaign will profile the forthcoming release as a special “one-time-only” opportunity to “own Jesus” before “He” returns to “the Disney vaults” forever and ever. (Note: All prints and advertising will feature the tag line “He’s baaaaack, and this time it’s personal!”)
This Agreement, upon execution, shall be in full force and effect, and supersede all other agreements and contracts between the two parties (except that previous deal regarding an Oscar for BRAVEHEART… which is okay with Satan if Gibson wants to keep that one in place). The parties hereto indicate their agreement and acceptance of the forgoing by signing in human blood at the places provided below.
ACCEPTED AND AGREED:
ICON FILM PRODUCTIONS LMTD
By: ____________________________
Its: ____________________________
___________________________
Mel Gibson
WALT DISNEY COMPANY LMTD
By: ___________________________
Its:____________________________
___________________________
“The Devil” - President/CEO – Kingdom of Darkness
Gibson Deal Memo (cont.)
ADDENDUM - TABLE 1
APPROVED STORY SYNOPSIS
“PASSION II: UNDEAD AND MAD AS HELL”
After being tortured by psychotic Centurions, crucified and left for dead, the troubled yet sexy young carpenter, Jesus Christ, is sealed inside a moldering cave with nothing left but his wits, a peek-a-boo loin cloth, and some heavy duty mojo. Everybody thinks this is the end of Jesus…but this is only the beginning! Christ is risen, baby, and he’s pissed off! The Prince of Peace becomes a hip, deadly zombie assassin with a taste for fast chariots, fast harlots, and faster revenge. And he’s got the Big Man behind him! Hey Rome – put this in your temple and smoke it! Jesus is baaaaaack!!!
ADDENDUM - TABLE 2
SANCTIONED PRODUCT PLACEMENTS
1. Las Vegas Visitors and Tourist Bureau
2. Cheech Marin’s Big Bootie Bongs and Hash Pipes
3. Lee Press-On NailsTM
4. Sammy Hagar’s Cabo Wabo Resort and SpaTM
5. Kalashnikov Fine Hand-Tooled Assault RiflesTM
6. Philip Morris All-Natural Organic CigarettesTM
7. Grand Theft Auto II for PlayStationTM
8. Girls Gone Wild ProductionsTM
9. National Association of Cosmetic Surgeons
10. Carl Sagan’s Easy Evolution for Children from Crown BooksTM
11. Fredericks of HollywoodTM
12. Branson, Missouri, Chamber of Commerce
13. Chicken Ranch Brothels and SpasTM
14. Binions Casinos
15. ‘E’ Entertainment TelevisionTM
; 16. World Wrestling Federation
17. Hapscolme’s Tractor Pulls and Demolition DerbiesTM
18. Hostess Twinkies
19. “Barely Legal” Volumes 1-23 Collector’s DVDsTM
20. Veal Producer’s Association
21. American Telemarketer’s Association
22. SpiceTM Pay-For-View Systems, Inc.
23. Magic FingersTM Beds and Mattresses
24. Fox Television, Inc.
25. Tony Robbins Motivational WorkshopsTM
ADDENDUM - TABLE 3
APPROVED SONGS FOR SOUNDTRACK
1. “Sympathy for the Devil” by the Rolling Stones (Mr. Richards owes Satan a favor)
2. Anything by Black Sabbath
3. “Pour Some Sugar on Me” by Def Leppard
4. “Smell the Glove” by Spinal Tap
5. “I’m Too Sexy” by Right Said Fred
6. Anything by Prince (up until he converted to Christianity)
7. “Cop Killah” by NWA
8. “Sex and Drugs and Rock and Roll” by Ian Dury and the Blockheads
9. “My Big 10 Inch” by Aerosmith
10. “Sex Machine” by James Brown
11. “I Touch Myself” by The Divinyls
12. “Like a Virgin” by Madonna (also on contract)
13. “Titties and Beer” by Frank Zappa
14. “Let’s Get it On” Marvin Gaye
15. “Son of a Preacher Man” by Bobbie Gentry
16. “Belly of the Beast” by Anthrax
17. “I wanna Rock” by Twisted Sister
18. “Cherry Pie” by Warrant
19. Anything by Iron Maiden
20. “Dr. Feelgood” by Motley Crue
21. “Talk Dirty to Me” by Poison
22. “Highway to Hell” by AC/DC
23. “Super Freak” by Rick James (also owes Lucifer a favor)
24. “Welcome to the Jungle” by Guns n Roses
25. “Symphony of Destruction” by Megadeth
ADDENDUM - TABLE 4
APPROVED SUBLIMINAL MESSAGES
1. “Hail Satan”
2. “Relax, consume, shop – everything’s going to be fine”
3. “Drive SUVs”
4. “Eat more carbs”
5. “The Moral Majority is neither moral nor a majority – discuss amongst yourselves”
6. “Billy Graham wears a thong”
7. “Church is for Pussies”
8. “Jerry Springer for President”
9. “War is good”
10. “O.J. was innocent”
11. “Screw the poor”
12. “Buy Enron stocks”
13. “Sin Rocks!”
14. “Ozzy Osborne is God”
15. “Violence is sexy!”
16. “A Mind is a Great Thing to Waste”
17. “Greed is Good”
18. “What Global Warming?”
19. “Drugs are for Kids”
20. “Shoot Now Think Later”
21. “Play on the Highway”
22. “Drive Faster”
23. “Stop Calling Your Mother”
24. “Reading is NOT fundamental”
25. “Drop the Big One Now!”
MOLE
1.
The last person you would expect to see brushing past the beaded doorway of the Jean-Baptiste de la Salle transient hotel on the corner of Bourbon and Dumaine is Father William Slavatore Buonaserra. Compact, dark, and brush-cut, with an Ivy League air about him, the priest wears the standard collar of the clergy under his London Fog, but he enters the squalid lobby with an almost military purpose, a purpose that speaks more of a highly specialized Jesuit than your average neighborhood pastor. He pauses for a moment in front of the deserted desk with his shiny black attaché at his side and his two good wing-tip shoes gleaming in the dim light, quickly scanning the dilapidated room for any sign of life. The place is vintage French Quarter, its Louis XIV settees and padded chaise lounges now shopworn and weary from years of panhandling and prostitution. The air hangs heavy with must. A ceiling fan squeaks. Father Bill reaches out and rings the bell on the counter, rings it hard, several times.
“Hold ya horses,” croaks a voice within the depths of a cluttered inner office. An ancient black man in a threadbare terrycloth robe shuffles out of the darkness. He holds a small video game in his gnarled, pecan-colored hands. “Help ya with somethin’, Suh?”
“Blake please.”
“What was that?”
The priest sighs and enunciates the words with tense formality. “Here to see a Miss Blake. Cornelia Blake. Understand she’s a resident?”
The old man finally figures out what the priest is saying and looks up the name in a dog-eared register and then mumbles something about that nutty bitch needing a head-shrinker more than a priest.
Father Bill follows the clerk through a battered metal security door and down a narrow reeking hallway bordered with more battered doors missing letters and slathered with faded graffiti. They reach the last door on the left and the geezer pounds on the scarred steel. “Cornelia! Man of the cloth here to save ya soul!”
A mumbled reply from the depths of the room. “Let ’im in, Chauncy.”
The old man fishes on his key chain, finds the skeleton, unlatches the door, and walks away without another word. Father Bill goes in.
The room – a long narrow studio – is a disaster area redolent of urine and burnt tar. The sparse furniture is painted black, the walls festooned with voodoo paraphernalia, inverted crosses, and Satanic bric-a-brac. There are peculiar details that strike the priest’s awareness – seen and unseen – that he will remember later: a light bulb painted Rustoleum black, a broken trombone, something that was once alive floating in a fluid-filled jar on the bureau, an umbrella sprung inside-out in the corner like the corpse of a giant starfish, a sense of decay in the seams of the cabbage rose wallpaper. The single occupant lounges in the corner on a broken-down chaise, an emaciated, tattooed woman in black. She bites down on a small rubber hose, clenched in her stained incisors, and she mumbles as she gets the last drops of a fix into her skinny needle-tracked arm. “You got the scratch with ya?”
Father Bill closes the door, walks over to the unmade bed, and drops an envelope on the blankets. “How long is this going to take?”
“Never can tell,” she purrs as she loosens the makeshift tourniquet, the hose uncoiling with a snap.
“You mind if we get on with it?” He sets the attaché down in the center of the room and crosses his arms across his chest and waits. This is a first for him, and he’s not too crazy about the prospects. Over the years, in the commission of his myriad duties for the church, he has presided over a grand total of twenty-seven exorcisms, some of them more successful than others, some of them obvious visitations by entities known to him, lower demons with patterns and signatures as recognizable as bank robbers, but he has yet to actually summon a specific entity by name. It has taken him months to find a back channel, a denizen of the dark foolhardy enough to serve as a vessel, a liaison.
He watches the junkie as she languidly prepares for the black mass. She stashes the money in a drawer, finds a Mason jar of blood under the bed, and then drips a pentagram pattern across the floor in front her chair. She positions black candles here and there with ritualistic care, and she sprinkles herbs, and she breaks the neck of a dead sparrow, and she burns human hair, and she does a lot of hooey that Father Bill finds ridiculous and pathetic. Why do demons need to torment the innocent when there are so many imbeciles in the world who welcome the attention? The junkie gets comfortable and starts summoning the entity that goes by the name of Malefar.
2.
“Buonassserra I presume.”
The priest hops out of his chair, the newspaper tented over his midsection fluttering to the floor. It has taken over an hour to bring forth the unclean spirit — the girl sitting cross-legged on the floor in her circle of black candles — and now her head lolls forwa
rd, her black, stringy hair dangling across her features as the room is filled with the reek of rotting meat and an alien voice coming out of her. The priest raises the crucifix half-heartedly, a splinter of rage mixing with the repulsion. He knows he’s breaking a sacred rule here – priests are not to address a lower demon directly under any circumstances – but this is not exactly “any” circumstance. “Let me guess. Malefar right?”
“We got a winnerrrrrrr,” the thing inside the drug-addict replies with relish. Then it says: “Okeeeee-dokeeee then….”
The priest stares. “Okay so… all these messages you’ve been sending, the hemography, the child in Arkansas with the letters scourging his body. You got my attention. Now what the hell do you want?”
The girl’s head snaps up as though on a puppeteer’s string. Her eyes are gone. Her lips curl back into a horrible twitching rictus, as the drone of a pipe organ comes out of her: “This is important, Padre, I will not regale you with this more than once.”
“So regale me already so that I can get the hell out of this place.”
The girl’s head lolls again for a moment. “What I am about to tell you… I want you to know I’m putting my immortal soul at risk.”
Father Bill rolls his eyes. Another first – an unclean spirit coming clean. “I’ll be honest with you, Malefar, I don’t give two whits about your immortal soul.”
“AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH —!!” The force of the howling noise makes the junkie’s neck bulge and contort with such alarming force it looks positively amphibious, the swelling of an over-inflated inner-tube, her body shuddering furiously. “You don’t seem to understand what I’m offering, Holy Man – I’m offering you information! You need to know what those letters mean.”
