Epilogue: A Happy Ending
Hollywood California 2010
“What do you mean they won’t let me have a tank!?!”
“The studio doesn’t want to pay for it.” said the female voice over the phone.
“But it’s in the script!” the director insisted, “the script you and I both wrote by the way.”
“Yes, we did.” The woman agreed.
“If I don’t have a tank, how am I supposed to film the finale?”
“Listen, let me take care of tomorrow, you get today in the can. Deal?”
“Deal. Thanks Rita.”
The director heard a knock as he hung up the phone. “Enter!” he jubilantly said, expecting it to be his 11:00 appointment. As a result, hhe was surprised to see his head makeup artist come into the room with a devil head and a fake piece of glass.
“You look a little frazzled,” the director asked, noticing her facial expression, “everything OK?”
“This glass prop is not working.” the young woman complained. “I’ve been working on it all morning.” Today’s shooting schedule involved a scene where a character named Tommy stabs the Devil with a shard of glass. He wanted as little CGI effects as possible, and knew his young makeup artist shared his love of practical effects.
“Well, let’s have a look at it after lunch OK?” he said. “I got an interview coming soon.”
“Alright.” she said meekly.
“We’ll get it sorted Stella, don’t kill yourself over it.”
“Really?” She said, half laughing at the director’s remark.
Laughing himself, realizing what he’d just said, the director waved his hand and said, “Just go have a nice lunch ya weirdo.”
The director’s appointment still hadn’t arrived, so, sitting in his trailer, he opened his laptop and logged into Myspace. Being in the public eye, the director recalled a conversation he recently had with his Rita, his producer. Interacting with fans on these platforms was cool, but there were downsides too, toxic fans, flame wars, even the occasional death threat. Some sins he himself committed on small obscure message boards years ago were so much more intense on places like Myspace and Facebook, where seemingly everyone was now.
Again, there were of course positives to it as well. Scrolling through his Myspace feed, he smiled as he saw a movie studio picture of his friends Dan and Vicki. Vicki was directing her third film now. George left a comment on this post kidding that she poached his makeup artist from him, referring to Vicki’s husband Dan.
Another knock at the door shifted the director’s focus. A man walked in with a notebook, a press badge, and a corny joke. “You’re not going to shoot me with a water gun are you?”
“Man, I’m never gonna live that one down.” George said, laughing.
The next hour was spent discussing the last few turbulent years of George Kohler’s life. After a self-imposed exile following the death of his sister, George was on the road to a comeback via his next feature film. George and the journalist were on the set of Freddy vs the Devil vs Ash: The Nightmare Warriors, the final film in a trilogy that mixed the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise with Evil Dead and, George’s favorite, Friday the 13th.
“Do you find it difficult working on violent movies after the personal losses you’ve had in your family?” the journalist asked.
“You know, I can understand why people would think that, but honestly, it’s been really cathartic. I’ve put a lot of my own grief and loss into these characters.”
“The characters of Freddy and the Jersey Devil?”
“No, actually,” George paused for a moment before continuing, “well, I guess the news broke already, so I’ll just say it. We’re bringing back a lot of the surviving characters from past Friday the 13th and Nightmare on Elm Street movies. People love the Jersey Devil and Freddy, but I want to show the strength of the people who survived these monsters.”
“That’s no small task you’ve set for yourself. Is this film also a catharsis for you and the fact that your sister’s murderer was never found?”
This question took George back to that cold night in Planfield. He could hear his shovel hitting the hard earth, his breath forming a cloud before him, the stench of death about. “I wouldn’t say that.” George answered quietly. “There’s a lot of things I could say, but I don’t know, I feel like no one ever gets away with anything, you know what I mean?”
“Well said.” The reporter responded. “Relating to that, characters like Freddy and Pinhead have their fans, but so do real murders like Charles Manson and Jeffrey Dhamer. Do you have any comment on that?”
“You’re right they do, and I don’t blame people who have an interest in true crime. When you look back at what happened to my sister, and to my dad, and as far back as my Aunt; all three of those situations were so crazy. If I were on the outside looking in, even now, I’d look at any of those situations and be like ‘Whoa,’ what the hell happened there?” I’d naturally want to know more about it. The difference is, I wouldn’t look at these murders and think “that’s my guy. Ed Gein wasn’t a hero. Milton wasn’t a hero. The guy who killed my sister wasn’t a hero.”
Luckily, the entertainment reporter overlooked that little slip George just made. That oversight didn’t stop George’s heart from racing in his chest as soon as those words shot out of his body,. His body tensed, waiting the next question, but as the reporter’s lips moved, George’s ears blocked out the sound. Remembering those relaxation exercises Franki taught him so long ago, George breathed slow deep breathes; his eyes focused on the blue press bade hanging from the reporter’s shirt.
“You did say in past interviews,” George refocused as the reporter repeated their question, “that in your younger days you were a fan of serial killers.”
George waited, still remaining silent, remembering those days from so long ago. In times long past he would dress up like the Zodiac killer and other famous murders, but those days were far behind him now. “Yes, I did.” George said, now fully present in the moment and focusing directly on the reporter. “I used to think serial killers were cool, but you know what’s cool, the people that survived them.”
The End
Hard Coal Studios 