Midnight Movie: A Novel Read online

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2011 by Tobe Hooper

  All rights reserved.

  Published in the United States by Three Rivers Press, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York. www.crownpublishing.com

  Three Rivers Press and the Tugboat design are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Hooper, Tobe, 1943–

  Midnight movie : a novel / Tobe Hooper with Alan Goldsher. — 1st ed.

  1. Motion picture producers and directors—Fiction. 2. Supernaturals—Fiction.

  I. Goldsher, Alan, 1966– II. Title.

  PS3608.O5955M53 2011

  813′.6—dc22

  2010040358

  eISBN: 978-0-307-71702-3

  Cover design by Kyle Kolker

  Cover photographs: © Julian Andrew Holtom/Flickr/Getty Images (zombie);

  © Roger Charity/Getty Images (brunette screaming);

  © Peter Dazeley/Getty Images (blonde screaming); © Ting Hoo (back)

  v3.1

  AUTHOR’S NOTE: Some wise guy dubbed it the Game Changer, which, as you undoubtedly know, was shortened to the Game. It was a flip, dismissive way of referring to an ugly, unexplainable situation, but I suppose that’s the way America rolls; the cavalier way our public dealt with it was the only way they could deal with it. If you turn something awful into a joke, you can trivialize it, and if you trivialize it, you can convince yourself it isn’t real.

  Many researchers still contend the Game was not an actual virus, but rather an event. An event? Seriously? The Super Bowl is an event. The Game was … fucked-up. To me, tagging it as an event was another way of making the horrible palatable.

  In some areas—most notably Texas, Southern California, and the northeastern seaboard—it oozed through the populace like lava, whereas the northwestern and midwestern sections of the United States (save for Chicago) went all but unscathed. The international ramifications have yet to be fully determined, but aside from the outbreak that practically wiped a tiny town in Italy called Montciano San Galgano off the map, it appears that the rest of the world got off easy. Fortunately, as of this writing, there have been no signs of a second outbreak either in the States or abroad, and experts are confident that the Game will remain dormant. Nobody, however, is saying that the Game is definitely over. How could they? They barely know how it started.

  I guess the media didn’t want to really, truly face it. The mainstream outlets reported on the effects—of course they did; laying down the facts at hand is easy—but nobody went after the cause. There were plenty of websites that spewed out theory after theory, but, as is often the case, the overwhelming majority of Netheads were dismissed as hysterics, or conspiracy nuts, or crazies looking for attention. Listen, it’s 2011, people; yeah, the blogosphere and the social networks have their fair share of oddballs, but there’re also hundreds of thousands of people who’re plugged into reality, who know what they’re writing about. You have to pay attention. I did, and it was a damn good thing, because if this book didn’t exist, I honestly believe the Game would be forgotten, and that would be really, really bad, because those who don’t remember the past are condemned to blah blah blah, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, and next thing you know, welcome to Outbreak City, population: you, your family, your friends, and your lover.

  The fact is, if the media and/or the scientific community had looked even just a little bit harder, they’d have figured it out. In this day and age, anybody can figure anything out … if they want to. If a pissant journalist like me could find answers, imagine what a real reporter could’ve done. Shit, I tracked down a journal by a guy who was practically a real-life Jack Bauer with three phone calls and a discount plane ticket to Chicago. You mean to tell me there wasn’t a G-man or a New York Times scribe out there who could’ve done what I did? Give me a goddamn break.

  Yes, it was a scary situation, scary as all hell. But, as my new friend Tobe Hooper might say, “Nut up, you pussies, and do your fucking job.”

  —Alan Goldsher, March 2011

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Author’s Note

  Part One

  Part Two

  Part Three

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  Bonus Material

  A Conversation with Tobe Hooper

  About the Authors

  PITCHFORK.com

  March 15, 2009

  SOUTH BY SOUTHWEST FESTIVAL SCHEDULE

  FRIDAY, MARCH 31 @ MIDNIGHT

  TOBE HOOPER’S DESTINY EXPRESS

  Screening and Q & A

  The Cove

  121 Third Street

  (512) 343-COVE

  We’re not going to lie here, folks: This is one weird-ass booking, probably the weirdest-ass booking of this year’s extravaganza. We loves ourselves some Leatherface, no doubt, but do we really need to see a film that the auteur behind The Texas Chainsaw Massacre slapped together when he was still using training wheels? Apparently the SXSW brain trust is also concerned about the turnout, because they stuck the sixtysomething-year-old director off in a club just north of the boondocks, way far away from Sixth Street, at a bar that is arguably the diviest dive in Texas. Not just Austin. Texas. And that’s saying something.

  No idea what the flick is about. All the press release said was, “Who knows what lurks in the young heart of Tobe Hooper? Find out Friday blabbitty blah blah, bullshitty bull bullshit.” There’s a chance that Destiny Express is good—Hooper is Mr. Chainsaw, after all, and it’s possible that he had chops even as an adolescent—but the guy was sixteen when he made it, and it was 1959, so we’re skeptical. Sure, he could’ve been Herschell Gordon Lewis before there was a Herschell Gordon Lewis … but he also might’ve been Richie Cunningham dicking around with daddy’s neat-o video camera.

  The Decemberists are playing at the exact same time. So we’ll wait for the DVD.

  TOBE HOOPER (film director):

  I wasn’t anywhere close to awake when the guy called. It was first thing in the morning, like eight o’clock, and I’d been at the studio editing that remake of Carrie for Fox until well after midnight, and I didn’t hit the sack until after four, and I was in deep REM sleep, and having some fucked-up dream about bowling, and then there’s the ring, ring, ring, and I’m awake. Sort of.

  Nobody ever called me on my landline, so I’d never bothered to get my answering machine fixed, so that fucking phone just kept ringing, and ringing, and ringing. My first instinct was to kill it, to shoot it dead, to send it back from whence it came. But my gun was in the safe in my office in the coach house, and the thought of getting out of bed, then going downstairs, then going outside, then jimmying open the door—no way I’d find the damn key before the phone stopped—then trying to remember the combination of the safe, then opening the safe, then grabbing the Colt, then putting bullets in the chamber, then going back upstairs, and then shooting the phone seemed like a lot of effort. So I picked up the receiver.

  I coughed and cleared my throat right into the mouthpiece, then said, “What.” That’s all. Nothing good could come of an eight-in-the-morning phone call, so I figured the quicker we got down to business, the better. Screw pleasantries.

  The dude said, “Mr. Hoopler? Toeb Hoopler?” He said “Toeb” rather than “Toe-bee.” An eight o’clock phone call with a mispronounced fi
rst name and a butchered last name. Fuck, man.

  I said, “Can I help you with something?” I kind of disguised my voice, deemphasizing the Texas accent. I don’t know why, really. It’s not like he would’ve recognized me or anything—if he didn’t know how to say my damn name, it’s doubtful he would’ve known my damn voice—but you never know. If he didn’t know I was me, maybe I could tell him he had the wrong number.

  The dude said, “Toeb, my name is Dude McGee, and I’m calling from the South by Southwest festival in Austin, Texas.”

  I was a fan of South by Southwest, so I decided to not curse him out and hang up. I said, “Hold on,” then I put the phone down, went to the bathroom, took a leak, flushed, washed, squirted some Purell on my hands, then picked up the receiver again. I asked the guy, “Your name is Dude?”

  He laughed a little bit, then said, “Nickname. I’m a big Big Lebowski fanatic. Big, big, big.”

  Eight o’clock in the morning. Mispronounced name. And a Coen brothers obsessive. I again considered getting the gun, and again decided it was too damn much work. I said, “How can I help you, Mr. McGee?”

  He said, “Call me Dude.”

  I said, “I’ll call you Mr. McGee.”

  He was quiet for a sec, then said, “Okay, Toeb”—still mispronounced, mind you—“here’s the deal: A guy who knows a guy who knows a guy came across a print of Destiny Express.” He gave a weird laugh, then said, “Remember that one?”

  It took me a second. Or two. Or three. Or a hundred. And then, lightbulb. I said, “Mr. McGee, where the hell did you get a print of Destiny Express?”

  He said, “I didn’t get it. It was a guy who knows a guy who knows a guy.”

  I said, “A guy who knows a guy who knows a guy.”

  He said, “Yeah. A guy who knows a guy who knows a guy.”

  I said, “So you’re telling me that the guy who knows the guy who knows the guy broke into my mother’s house? Because as far as I know, the only print was in my mom’s basement.” It actually wasn’t my mom’s house anymore. It was mine. I’d been renting it out on and off since I moved out to Los Angeles ten years back. Free money for those dark days. See, when you make the kind of films I make, and when you write the kind of screenplays I write, and when you hate dealing with major studios as much as I do, you have a lot of dark days.

  Dude said, “Toeb—”

  I said, “It’s To-bee.”

  Dude said, “Sorry, To-beeeeee,” all sarcastic-like. Prick. He went on: “I can assure you that nobody broke into your mother’s house. The fact is, I don’t know where the guy who knew the guy who knew the guy got it. But it doesn’t really matter, because everybody at South by Southwest is excited about it, very excited. We’d like you to come down to the fest and screen the film.”

  My initial reaction was, No way. Yeah, it would’ve been nice to go back to Austin and check out the fest, but I didn’t even recall what the hell Destiny Express was about—I was pretty sure there was some zombie sex involved—and I didn’t want to get up in front of a room full of horror geeks (geeks such as myself, mind you) and sound like a dumbass. But I was curious, so I decided to let the conversation play itself out.

  I said, “Where would we be doing this dog-and-pony show? The Performing Arts Center?” The PAC, which was smack in the middle of the University of Texas campus, was just about the coolest auditorium in Austin. They staged musicals, and big concerts, and film festivals, and the like. Sometimes the goddamn Wiggles performed there, but I couldn’t hold that against the PAC bookers. You got to pay your employees, because everybody’s got to feed their family, and a Luis Buñuel retrospective wasn’t going to rake in the dough like goddamn Greg, goddamn Jeff, goddamn Murray, and goddamn Anthony. And don’t ask me why I know all the goddamn Wiggles’ names. I’d rather not discuss it. Suffice it to say that if those Aussie freaks ever show up at my doorstep, I’m getting my Colt.

  Anyhow, Dude said, “Nope. Not the PAC. We wanted it to be more intimate. We were thinking about the Cove.”

  I said, “The Cove? Man, I guess you guys don’t think much of me.” You don’t go to the Cove to watch a movie. You go to the Cove to shoot pool on what is undoubtedly the shittiest pool table in Texas, and get into a fight, and find a girl who’ll let you put it where your girlfriend won’t let you, or buy some shitty skunk weed, or get royally fucked-up on warm beer and watered-down whiskey. If you’re keeping score, I’ve done all of the above.

  Dude said, “Yeah, sorry about that, Toeb—”

  I said, “Toe-bee.”

  Dude said, “Right. To-beeeeee. I know it’s a shithole, but it was the only venue that wasn’t booked. But it doesn’t matter where we do it. We could do it on a bedsheet tied between two phone poles, and it’d still be great. You’ll lead a discussion. You’ll sign autographs. You’ll shake hands. You’ll hang out. You’ll have a few Black Straps. We’ll fly you down, and put you up, and feed you, and get you onto every guest list on Sixth Street. And we can pay you, I don’t know, ten grand?”

  If I’d have been drinking something, you’d have seen the biggest spit-take you can imagine. I said, “Ten grand? You’re shitting me.”

  Dude said, “What, ten’s not enough? How’s fifteen sound? Or twenty?”

  I said, “Insane. Twenty sounds insane. Hell, even two grand is insane.”

  He said, “Insane good, or insane bad?”

  I said, “Insane insane. Listen, Dude, I know for a fact that you can only fit about sixty people in the Cove—”

  He interrupted. “Actually, they did some remodeling. It’s way bigger now.”

  I said, “How much bigger is way bigger?”

  Dude said, “Like, the capacity is ninety. They’ve expanded by a third. Pretty awesome, right?”

  I said, “Okay, let’s you and me do some simple math here, Mr. McGee. If you were going to break even on this, you’d need to sell the place out for about one-fifty a ticket. Nobody’s paying a buck fifty to see a movie that some smart-ass kid did. Maybe they’d pay one and a half bills to see, I don’t know, Leatherface fuck up Dick Cheney live onstage. But not this. Not some teenage vanity film. Seriously, Dude, why in God’s name would you fork over five figures for this?”

  Dude said, “Prestige. You’re Toeb Hooper—”

  I said, “I’m not Toeb Hooper, man, I’m Toe-bee Hooper.”

  Dude was quiet for a second. I heard some papers ruffling, then he said, “You sure about that? I’m pretty certain it’s Toeb.”

  I almost hung up on him then and there, but—and I’m not proud of this—I wanted to hear him out, because I needed the bread. My last two movies had tanked, and I was still paying out the nose for that goddamn divorce—which I’m sure you read about in the papers, and I’m not going to get into it right now—so my bank account wasn’t in any shape to finance a film. Plus, the last payment for Carrie hadn’t come in yet, and the Fox accounting department wasn’t known for its speed, so who knew when the hell that would show up. Twenty grand could get me to Greece, where I was hoping to shoot my new flick, which I was going to finance myself—it was a splatterfest straight out of 1975, and even with the Saw flicks doing their thing and putting asses in seats, there wasn’t a studio in town that’d touch this one—and I could scout locations and start putting together a crew. That way, when the Carrie money showed—and when I got another investor or three on board—I could get started immediately.

  So I told Dude, “First off, I can promise you that it’s Toe-bee, not Toeb. And second off, have you actually watched Destiny Express?”

  He said, “Yes. It’s brilliant.”

  I said, “Thanks, man. Now, what the hell’s it about?”

  ERICK LAUGHLIN (weekend film critic for the Austin Chronicle, lead singer and guitarist for Massacre This):

  The Destiny Express press release showed up on February 27. I immediately thought about doing a long profile on Hooper, but that moron Dude McGee couldn’t, or wouldn’t, schedule an interview quickly e
nough for me to hit my deadline. He did, however, invite me down to his office to watch the movie, with the proviso that if I wrote about it, I wouldn’t give away too much of the plot. I told him that professional reviewers and spoilers don’t mix, so he said I could drop by whenever I wanted to. I told him I’d be there in an hour. Or less.

  We critic types are supposed to be unbiased, but I have a major affinity for old-school horror—give me some Hitchcock, some Hammer flicks, and some George Romero, and I’m a happy boy. But I’ve always had a special place in my heart for Tobe Hooper, thus the moniker of my lame little punk trio. All of which was why the second I hung up with Dude McGee, I MapQuested directions to that moron’s office, hopped onto my bicycle, and sped across town.

  Turned out his office wasn’t an office. It was a basement. In his parents’ house. Where he was living.

  Dude looked like a low-budget Harry Knowles—big and bearded, but without Knowles’s charming sense of self-deprecation. He was of indeterminate age—maybe twenty-five, maybe thirty-five—strident, and obnoxious, and the close confines amplified both his loudness and his loutishness. He asked me if I had any trouble finding the place, then he belched. It smelled like salami. Actually, the whole place smelled like salami. I told him no, I found the place just fine, then I asked him if we could get started, because I wanted to turn this article in by the end of the day. That was a lie. I just wanted to see the movie, then get out of there, because the scent of luncheon meat was seeping into my pores.

  But he insisted on giving me the grand tour. To the right, there were his five wide-screen monitors that enabled him to simultaneously play five different video games or watch five different DVDs. To the left, his, quote, astoundingly valuable comic collection, unquote. Now, I know very little about comics and even less about collecting, but one thing I am aware of is that you’re supposed to put each book in a plastic cover, then store them in a condition-proof container of some sort, like a file cabinet or a safe. Dude had his books in bales of one hundred, tied together with twine, sitting inside of moldy, battered, uncovered cardboard boxes piled up to the ceiling. My younger brother Arthur collects comics, and I knew he’d be appalled if he saw Dude’s casual, uncaring method of storage.