I once had a film professor tell our class that making horror movies was like the old western prospectors that would pan for gold. He’d queued up a clip from some black and white cowboy movie that showed a skinny, raw-boned, shrunken little monkey of a man in overalls and a flipped-brim hat tugging a mule up to the edge of a river before getting out his metal pan. He’d said, with a derisive sniff, that people made horror movies because they were cheap to make, expectations were low, and if you hit it big…well, they were very profitable. The reality, of course, was that most never found more than a few gold flakes.
His point was to convince us that horror was a creatively bankrupt and shallow genre, and that wasting time on it was a fool’s errand. What he actually accomplished, at least as me and my friends in the class were concerned, was simply to reconfirm our opinion that he was an out-of-touch, pompous ass.
Horror movies could be made cheaply, that’s true. And depending on the script and the crew’s ability to do less with more, you could make a really cool movie for a fraction of the cost of say…fantasy or period drama. But besides all that, there was one simple fact that caused our little film-making group to make our first post-graduation project a scary movie.
Because horror is badass.
We threw around different ideas for weeks. Production needed to be…aggressively economical. We didn’t want to do any of the tired subgenres without a fresh approach, and we had none. So no demonic possession. No film crews as characters inexplicably trapped in the woods. And no fucking haunted houses.
Initially we were trying to avoid using the found footage format entirely, but…look, it’s just a lot cheaper and easier for some things. You still have to do your best, of course, but if there’s a rough edge here or there…well, audiences are a lot more forgiving of sloppy camera work and bad lighting when you’re a found footage film. And we had a decently cool idea that seemed like it might actually work.
The cursed film genre isn’t anything new, right? Aside from big ones like “The Ring”, you’ve got more and more smaller films popping up all the time. Some are found footage, some are mockumentaries, and some are just…well, they’re more experimental. I had gone with Jacob, our group’s unofficial leader and director, to a couple of underground film festivals and seen some pretty weird shit. He’d agreed with me that he didn’t want to get too extreme—the film needed to be marketable and have a chance at film festivals that didn’t take place at an abandoned bottling plant—but he did think he had a neat twist.
We’d make a found footage movie about making a found footage movie. Okay, pretty standard stuff so far. I’ve seen dozens of these “the crew is the victim” kind of things, and they usually leave me pretty cold. Maybe it’s just because I’m in the business, but I usually find their acting and their “work” on the film they’re supposedly making pretty inauthentic, and it just takes me out of it.
And I get it. You’ve got to work with what you’ve got. You’re not going to get the best actors in every role. But still, we were supposed to be moving away from cliché, not running into its arms.
But wait, he said. There’s more.
The cast (which would also be most of the crew) would only be aware of the surface plotline. They’d all think we were making a found footage/cursed movie about a film crew that runs afoul of…whatever. An evil skinwalker or the reincarnated soul of a serial killer. They’d have scenes where they filmed the movie, and they’d have scenes where they were picked off one by one. What they wouldn’t realize is that there was a third layer, a deeper story, below the movie they were making and the movie they thought they were starring in.
One where they got picked off for real.
Our sound editor, Katie? She’d get snatched in the parking lot after a midnight shoot. The writers, Paul and Sara? They’d get taken in their apartment and then a cryptic video of their abduction would be sent to me. Jacob said it’d be part of this third, realer story that I’d show the video to him and we’d agree it was just them throwing a weird tantrum because of some of the changes he was making to the script. I’d be the next to go, followed by our cameraman Brad. At the end, only Jacob would be left.
We were drinking when Jacob first told me his idea, but the intensity with which he was telling me all this cut through most of the alcohol. He wasn’t kidding. And yeah, it was an interesting idea, but…
“Are you talking about like…really hurting them or something?” I shouldn’t have had to ask the question. And I should have known that something was deeply wrong that I felt I needed to. I’d known Jacob for nearly three years, and while he could be very arrogant and hard-to-deal with at times, he wasn’t a bad guy. I’d never seen him do anything violent or physically dangerous to anyone. But at the same time…I considered him my friend, but I didn’t trust him. He had a hardness underneath his big ideas and driven enthusiasm that...well, it made me question exactly how far he was willing to go. My stomach knotted as I said the words, and I felt a rush of relief as his eyes widened in shock.
“What? Jesus, of course not. Fuck man. I’m not crazy.”
I gave a relieved laugh. “Yeah, I know, I know. But how would that work? How are we going to make them all disappear if they aren’t in on the joke? I mean, we could just tell them as it comes, but it’s kind of lame if we’re just having a series of conversations about ‘gosh, I wonder where Katie went?’ and there’s no action.”
He grinned, his eyes taking on that hard twinkle I didn’t like. “Oh, we’ll have footage. Plenty of it. Look, here’s the deal. I’ve gotten us some backing…not just money, but a couple of guys that are trained professionals. They’re the real deal—they do bodyguard jobs, hostage rescues, the whole thing. These are the types some rich guy hires when his kid gets snatched during spring break.” I tried to break in, but he just looked away and kept going. “Anyway, this Asian company my dad does a lot of business with…they have a small film division. They don’t want to come into the project as a full producer or anything, but they are willing to invest some cash and a couple of their top security guys to do the extra scenes.”
My stomach began to twist into another knot. “You’re joking again, right?”
Jacob frowned. “No. This is awesome. Why would I be joking? It’s not like they’re going to get hurt. They’re just going to be taken and secured in a location long enough for me to explain what’s going on. No big deal.”
I sat back in my chair. “No big deal? They’ll be terrified! Some strange dudes grabbing them and carrying them off somewhere? And you’ll have them in some costume or something, right? What if they fall or run into traffic or…what if one of them has a gun? I don’t know that Katie or Paul does, but I’m pretty sure Brad goes deer hunting and Sara already gets panic attacks and…”
He raised his hands. “Slow your roll, man. These are professionals. They’re going to get them in safe spots. They pick the time and the place. The only rules they have is that they cannot hurt them or let them get hurt, and they have to keep their bodycams rolling until I say cut.”
“But…even if that’s true. It’s still a fucking dirty trick to play on your friends. They’ll hate us. Maybe sue us. And they sure as hell won’t finish working on the film.”
Jacob grinned. “Won’t they? See, the money I’m getting from the investors…it’s not going into shooting it. That’s already covered well enough. Instead, it’s going into $25,000.00 completion bonuses for each of us. When they get taken…safely taken…I’ll immediately go to them and tell them what’s up. That we wanted their real reactions, their raw emotion. That everything is fine, that they just need to stay in the nice hotel room they’ve been given for a couple of weeks while we wrap up principal. After that, they go back to whatever work they have left on the film, and when it’s all done, if they’ve stuck it out, they get 25k.” He snickered. “Let’s see any of them hate me then.”
He studied my silent stare for a moment before pressing on. “Besides, when we get to looking for a distributor, think of all the press we can generate! Interviews, whole articles about how the movie was made. We’ll all be fucking horror rock stars before we’re done.”
I shrugged. My head was aching and I didn’t know what to do. It was a lot of money, and we could all use it. And as pushy as Jacob could be, he was also very competent and professional when it came to work. If he said it was safe and legit, it probably was.
“I…just…Look, we have to be really careful with this, okay? These are real people. Not characters in a movie. And they’re our friends. If either of us decides to pull the plug, or if any of them aren’t cool once you explain everything, we stop, okay?”
Jacob’s eyes lit up as he nodded. “Of course, of course. I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
We started filming the next week. My primary roles were assistant director and editor, and I spent my time between being on set and reviewing the prior dailies. Everything was going just okay…the surface story was pretty bland, but we’d had good luck with locations and the weather had cooperated so far. Everyone’s acting was…well, it was passible, but everyone was too stiff and self-aware. Maybe it was because I was watching and rewatching the footage, but it became increasingly clear that there was no real danger, no real stakes. Just amateur filmmakers playing at being amateur actors.
That’s when Katie went missing.
Jacob had told me he wouldn’t tell me exactly what was going to happen when so it would be easier for me to hide what I knew to the others. I’d been expecting her to go early, but not quite so fast. Brad or I could cover basic sound capture, but it wouldn’t be anywhere near as good as what she could do. Still, when she didn’t show up or answer her phone, I guessed that Jacob’s secret third movie had started.
Everyone was worried about Katie at first, but then we got a mass text from her number saying she’d had to fly out to be with her mother in Colorado. Emergency surgery or something. It was easy enough to fake, but no one was suspicious at that point.
The next ones to go was supposed to be Paul and Sara, but it wasn’t. It was Brad. He’d been on a lunch break that he never came back from. We were shooting at a rest stop at the time, so there weren’t a lot of places to look, but there was no sign of him at all. No answer from his phone either. Brad had ridden out with Jacob that day, so his car wasn’t left behind, but when Sara went by his house the next day, it was sitting in his driveway. No sign of Brad though, and she couldn’t get anyone to the door when she knocked, despite the fact that it was early in the morning and he lived with his girlfriend.
It was at this point that I started getting really worried. Jacob had said that we needed to keep radio silent about the secret movie while we were filming to avoid any slip-ups or arousing the others’ suspicion. After each abduction, he told me he’d just text me their name and a thumbs up emoji after he had talked to them and everything was cool. He’d done it for Katie an hour after we’d broke for the night. He did it for Brad the evening after we spent hours “searching” for him around the rest stop, Jacob filming all the time.
I didn’t have any reason to think he was lying, but I also couldn’t be sure he wasn’t. What if they had gotten hurt? What if they were super-pissed and wouldn’t agree to anything? Would he force them to stay somewhere anyway, just to keep the movie going? I didn’t think so, but by the third day after Brad’s disappearance, I couldn’t take it anymore. I needed to talk to him. To talk to them. When I approached Jacob about it, he just glared at me.
“You know that’s not possible. We have to keep this shit tight. We’ve already wasted half this week petting up Paul and Sara just to keep them going. I need their last three scenes done before we can move on to you and then the finale.”
I frowned. “And that’s another thing. Why did you do them out of order? Brad was supposed to be last except for me. As it is, I’m having to do video, audio, and editing now.”
He snorted. “Brad’s camerawork sucks, so that’ll be an improvement. And I had to mix it up so you look tense too. Not being mean, but your acting is balls. But since Brad…you’ve gotten a lot more organic. A lot more real. All of you have.”
He wasn’t wrong. There’d been a palpable tension since Katie’s disappearance, and it had only grown with Brad missing. It was all starting to feel like something powerful. Unique. And that was exciting, especially if we could keep the wheels from coming off before we were done. Still…the gnawing in my belly demanded I try one more time.
“Can you have them call me at least? Let me see how they’re doing?”
Jacob raised an eyebrow. “I told you they’re all fine. Thumbs up, remember? If you don’t trust me, then you’re free to quit the film. I’m sure everybody will be happy to split up your share of…well, everything that’s going to come from this.” He stopped and just stared at me until I dropped my eyes and shrugged. “Okay then. Let’s get back out there while we have some light left.”
Four days later, I was standing outside of Paul and Sara’s apartment building. The sixth through the eighth floor was engulfed in flames, and I knew from experience that their home was on the seventh. Jacob was beside me, screaming and crying, shouting to the firemen to please save his friends. Maybe to a passerby it would have seemed genuine. Jacob’s a much better actor than I am.
When he turned to look at me, his face a drawn “O” of despair, I saw that same glinting hardness in his eyes that I’ve always feared deep down because I didn’t understand it. Now I was beginning to. It was the gleam of unrelenting, terrible will that could shed mercy and morality when it suited. It was a cold and reptilian drive that said that nothing mattered but the chase and the kill and the feed. I’d just thought he was driven, but Jacob was far more than that. He was a monster.
And as I recoiled in horror from him, from what he had done, his expression didn’t change, his eyes didn’t alter. The only reaction he had to my stepping away was to subtly tug at the place that the bodycam nestled on his shirt.
Apparently I’d stepped out of frame.
I’m writing this now, months after Katie and Brad went missing and Paul and Sara’s bodies were found melted together in their bathroom. I didn’t write this before, tell anyone about this before, because I’m a coward. After the day of the fire, I drove home, packed up my shit, and went to the other side of the country. Aside from emailing my parents periodically, I haven’t had contact with anyone from my old life.
My hope was that, if I stayed quiet and out of the way, Jacob would just leave me alone. That he’d likely be unable to find me given the steps I’d taken to secure anonymity, but even if he did, he would see that it wasn’t worth the risk and exposure to come after me now.
That’s the very argument I made when he called me this morning.
I told him I had a detailed account of what had happened written and ready to be sent to the authorities if I went missing or turned up dead. That I didn’t want any trouble, and I knew I was implicated in some of it, but if he started coming around he’d leave me no choice but to expose both of us. He’d listened to my rambling threats patiently, and when I was done, he just gave a short, hard laugh.
“That’s okay, kid. You tell whoever you want to. Like they say, there’s no such thing as bad publicity.”
“But…I’m out. Just leave me out. It’s over with. Done.”
His voice was rougher now, any trace of humor gone. “Nothing is over until the film is finished.”
“Th-then let me stay on and help you. We can finish it together.”
Jacob paused a moment as though considering the offer before responding. “Eh, I appreciate the thought, but it just won’t work. Your contribution to the film is meant to be onscreen this time. And besides, you know my rule.”
“What…what rule?”
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