Midnight Movie Club Ch. 07

X X X X X

"Wait, wasn't the car door locked? That's why she went to get the OH NO-"

Piper's cry was cut short as Michael Myers emerged from the back seat of the car, accompanied by a sharp musical string. She quickly jammed her face into her pillow as Michael reached out to begin choking the teenage girl sitting in the front seat. As the strangulation played out, Lynn let loose with a loud vulgarity, her choice of words being "Fuck me!" Eleanor buried her face in Beatrix's shoulder, while Gwen curled up, pulling her legs onto the couch and hugging herself tightly. Alcide jumped, but immediately afterward he broke out in an embarrassed chuckle. On the far end of the group, Tricia was also recovering from being startled. As opposed to Gwen, who was looking away from the screen while still trying to see what was going on, the raven-haired young woman leaned forward slightly. Her eyes were locked on the screen with rapt interest as Michael brought up the butcher knife and proceeded to slice the girl's throat.

"That's why you always check the back seat," Gwen muttered as the young woman slumped against the car window, her face a mask of death. "He just came out of nowhere..."

"That was AWESOME!" Alcide, an impressed look on his face, softly clapped his hands together. "You had the setup, nothing happened just long enough for us to let our guards down, and then bang! Even had the fogged-up window and unlocked door as a red herring. Wow."

"Can I look now?" Piper asked, her voice muffled by the pillow.

X X X X X

"Linda, you asshole." After checking the cupboard and finding it empty, Bob turned around to face a door on the opposite wall. "Alright, come on out..."

A cloud of popcorn spread through the air, thanks to Eleanor having her hand in the bag just as a musical sting accompanied Michael bursting through the door to grab Bob. While Piper once again studied her pillow from point-blank range, everyone else, Eleanor included, watched intently as Michael choked Bob with one hand. The young man struggled against the masked killer even while he was being lifted off the ground. "OK, that's... difficult to do," Lynn pointed out as the camera showed Bob's bare feet kicking futilely against the cupboard door. "You have to be really strong to... oh shit... ooooooh!"

Lynn's exclamation came as Michael held up the butcher knife with his other hand. It lingered in the air for a brief moment before he drove it forward. The camera cut away to Bob's face just as a sickening thud was heard. Bob's struggles slowly ceased. His hands fell away from Michael's arm and his feet slowly went limp. The camera cut to show a wide shot of the kitchen, showing a side-profile of Michael and the corpse of Bob. The victim was hanging from the door of the cupboard, the handle of the butcher knife sticking out from his sternum. His feet dangled several inches from the ground.

"And you have to be really strong to do that," Gwen pointed out. "Or have a really big knife... oh, that's not right." On screen, Michael was tilting his head, studying Bob's dead body with detached interest. "It's like he hung a painting and wants to make sure it isn't crooked."

From her spot on the floor, Beatrix said, "It reminds me of someone pinning a butterfly. Michael is simply admiring his handiwork. Handiwork that should be impossible by the laws of physics, but handiwork nonetheless."

X X X X X

The blonde, Linda, sat up in bed with a saucy look. Throwing the sheet-covered figure an alluring smile, she lowered the blanket to reveal a pair of perky breasts. "See anything you like," she purred.

Alcide threw his head back and howled towards the ceiling. "Hell yeah, I do!" He looked over to Brian. "Help a guy out," he said, lightly thumping the young man in the chest. "Those were great boobs, right?"

"Dude," Brian laughed, "I am not a credible judge. Right equipment, wrong instruction manual."

From the other side of the room came a disapproving tsk. "And there is the gratuitous nudity," Tricia groused. "Was it really necessary?"

"Oh come on," Alcide scoffed. "That was hardly gratuitous. It was, like, one-and-a-half seconds of a nipple."

Next to Tricia, Gwen leaned forward to look directly at Alcide. "If it was only one-and-a-half seconds of a nipple," she teased, "why did you get so excited? Has it been that long since you've seen one?"

Alcide blinked before shaking his head. "Walked into that one," he chuckled good-naturedly. With a sheepish grin on his face, Alcide leaned back against the couch. "And once again," he muttered, "boobs are a proud man's downfall." Julie flashed him a quiet smile of solidarity, which he returned. From the corner of her eye, she caught sight of Tricia hesitantly extending her hand towards Gwen. The petite young woman eagerly high-fived her. From Tricia's reaction, Gwen's friendly show of affection startled her more than anything she had seen in the movie.

X X X X X

When Laurie collapsed against the wall, sobbing in fear after discovering the dead bodies of her friends, Julie fought the urge to sit on the edge of her seat. What was approaching was one of her favorite singular shots in all her years of watching movies. As Laurie pushed herself to her feet Michael's mask slowly faded into view through the darkened doorway on the right side of the screen. His mercurial appearance brought about a shocked gasp from the crowd of students, one punctuated by several cries of surprise when Michael stepped from the doorway and plunged his knife towards Laurie. The blade tore Laurie's shirtsleeve as the attack sent her sprawling over the railing of the nearby staircase.

With that, the chase was on. Any hint of merriment regarding the movie vanished as Michael descended the staircase in pursuit of Jamie Lee Curtis' character. Even when a next-door neighbor turned off the porchlight, ignoring the pleading young woman on their doorstep, no one said a word. The chase continued into the living room of the family Laurie had been babysitting for. Apart from a few murmured "wow's" and "oh no's," the first comment came when Michael rose from behind the couch in an attempt to stab Laurie. The young woman spun away even as she drove a knitting needle into his neck. "Hell yeah," Eleanor cried, pumping her fist in the air as the dark shape dropped his knife and staggered backward, clutching at the crafting implement before falling to the ground. "You go, girl!"

On screen, Laurie picked up the butcher knife before warily peering over the back of the couch. Her assailant's body lay motionless on the floor, shrouded in shadow. The young woman turned and slumped against the couch. The butcher knife dangled from her hand as the adrenaline of the past few minutes began to wear off. Laurie looked at the knife, studying it in a detached manner before a look of horror overtook her.

As she threw it to the floor, however, a pointed comment came from the unlikeliest of sources.

"DON'T DROP THE KNIFE!"

All eyes turned towards the speaker. Piper's pillow fell to the floor as she gestured vehemently at the screen with a wide-eyed look of disbelief. "Oh my God, keep the knife handy and call the freaking cops! He's probably going to get back up!"

"Damn girl," proclaimed Brian. The young man was leaning away from the agitated Piper, pushing against Alcide in the process. "Where the hell did this come from?"

Piper took a deep breath. "Sorry," she said, gesturing with both hands as she calmed down. "It's just a movie, I know, I know..."

"Seriously. I'm just glad you're not hiding behind your pillow anymore." With that, Brian looked up at Alcide. "Hey," he said, waggling his eyebrows, "I'm scared. Hold me?"

With a wry grin, Alcide patted him on the head. "Ask me again junior year when I'm more open-minded."

Tricia shook her head at the display, but like everyone else, her attention was soon back on the movie. As Piper had predicted Michael wasn't dead, eventually pursuing Laurie as she tried to hide in a closet. The rattling of the slatted door as Michael burst his way through echoed throughout the student lounge. In desperation, Laurie turned a wire clothes hanger into a makeshift shank and managed to jab Michael squarely in the eye, causing him to once again drop his butcher knife. This time Laurie followed Piper's advice. She snatched the knife from the floor and drove it directly into Michael's ribs. He immediately stepped backward, clutching at the stab wound before falling away from the closet door, out of the frame.

"No... no!" Piper's hands balled around her pigtails as Laurie, after carefully stepping over Michael's body, hurled the knife away. "Keep the damn knife! He already came back once!"

"Seriously," said Eleanor in agreement. "You know he's going to get back up one more time."

After sending the two young children she was babysitting to the next-door neighbor's, Laurie collapsed in the doorway. She leaned against the frame, drained from the evening's events, while in the background, out of focus, lay the motionless body of Michael Myers. The camera kept its gaze on Laurie as she slowly came to terms with the deaths of her three friends and her near-demise. A look of quiet resolve crossed her face as she wiped a tear from her eye.

And behind her, Michael sat up.

Both Piper and Eleanor quietly uttered "I knew it" and "Told you so," respectively, while the remaining students inhaled sharply or gasped softly. After a brief cutaway to Dr. Loomis approaching the house, the scene switched back to Michael silently advancing on Laurie and beginning to choke her out. Laurie struggled and fought against Michael as the crowd switched from apprehension to quietly urging her on. As Loomis raced up the stairs, Laurie managed to grab hold of Michael's plain white mask and rip it from his head.

"That's what he looks like," Tricia proclaimed with confusion as underneath the mask was a black-haired young man who appeared perfectly, utterly normal save for the damage to one eye from the coat hanger. Loomis turned the corner as Michale calmly pulled his mask back on.

BANG!

The sound of gunfire split the air as Loomis shot Michael with his revolver, sending the killer stumbling into the bedroom. Laurie was on the floor, weeping, as Loomis pursued Michael. The killer stood motionless in the bedroom, staring at his doctor, seemingly unaffected from being shot. Loomis quickly aimed, unloading five more bullets into Michael. Each shot drove Michael back. The final bullet sent Michael sprawling off of the bedroom porch, landing with a sickening thud. The camera hung over him, showing his motionless body lying in the dirt.

With tears running down her face, Laurie looked up at Dr. Loomis. "Was that the boogeyman?"

He turned away from the window. Looking down at the young woman, Loomis gave her a tired, mirthless smile. "As a matter of fact," he admitted, "it was." Laurie watched as Loomis wandered over to the porch. Instead of peering down a corpse, however, the camera showed the same patch of dirt minus the body of Michael Myers.

"Oh come on," Lynn breathed softly, "this guy's made of fucking iron."

After all she had endured that evening Laurie finally broke down. Her entire body was wracked with sobs as she pressed her face into her hands. The camera showed Loomis one final time, staring in quiet resignation, before cutting to the various locales of the movie in rapid succession, accompanied by Michael's heavy breathing. After the final fade to black and the rolling of the closing credits, accompanied by the familiar musical theme, the first comment came from Eleanor. From her position on the floor, she glanced over her shoulder at her roommate. "1978, right?" Eleanor pointed to the screen where the names of the cast and crew were scrolling back in orange lettering. "For a forty-something-year-old movie, that was pretty freaking scary!"

"I don't know if I'd call it scary," Alcide countered from his spot on the couch, "but I'd definitely call it heart pounding. Nothing happens, nothing happens, nothing happens..." She smacked her hand against her thigh. "...and then BAM! The movie takes off as soon as Annie dies."

"Patient. The movie was patient." Alcide nodded in rapt agreement with Lynn's statement as she continued speaking. "As you said, the first half was all set up. Even then, the daylight stuff was creepy. Not scary but dreadful, with Michael popping up and not DOING anything but playing stalker. The payoff took forever but the setup made it worthwhile."

"That could have been any of us." Eleanor moved one hand in a circle as she tried to find her words. "Aside from the fact that the three girls were totally in their 20's and no one had any cell phones, that could have been us back in high school. Boys, babysitting, the big dance... even if they had cell phones, it wouldn't have made that much difference."

Gwen chimed in a moment later. "Not just that, but the movie could have taken place anywhere. Glasgow, Sandpoint, Coeur d'Alene. You called the movie 'patient,' Alcide. I'd call it 'timeless' as well?" Her statement ended with a hint of uncertainty as Gwen looked around the room, conversationally adrift for the moment. "You could set it any time, any place, and it would still work."

"I believe I understand the point you are trying to make, Gwen." Julie smiled at the petite young woman. "As a general rule of thumb, movies shouldn't rely on specific temporal references for their material. The example I use is the movie Airplane!..."

"That time I heard the exclamation point," Eleanor smirked.

"...which is one of the funniest movies ever made. The vast majority of its humor still holds up years later, however, the ones that fall flat are the ones that rely on specific knowledge of the 1970s or its pop culture, such as jokes about Gerald Ford or Anita Bryant, because who among us today knows who they were?"

"I know who Anita Bryant is." The sentence was spoken in stereo as Brian and Tricia both raised their hands. The two of them looked at each other for a brief moment in surprise before understanding hit them both at the same time. "Yeah," Brian said quietly as Tricia brought her arm down. "I can see why jokes about her wouldn't land today. The only people who care about her are old white anti-LGBTQ+ers and I don't think that movie's their target audience."

Tricia's unspoken reaction was noticeable. Her body tensed up as her fingers dug into the black fabric of her skirt. Julie acted quickly, gesturing towards the raven-haired young woman. "Tricia, you said you weren't keen on horror movies. Might I ask if your opinion has changed now that you've viewed a classic of the genre?"

"It has not," answered Tricia with a definitive shake of her head. "I admit the movie was well put together. It kept my attention the entire time and as... Lynn, correct? As Lynn said the sense of dread was palpable from the beginning. And as I mentioned throughout the lack of blood and the brief, yet still gratuitous, nudity," she said, glancing at Alcide who answered with a friendly shrug, "was surprising. I was expecting nothing more than a breast-soaked bloodbath, not a well-done thriller." After a moment, Tricia leaned forward. She stared at Julie with keen interest. "Why is this considered a slasher movie and not, say, a crime thriller?"

Still sitting on the floor, Eleanor bumped her shoulder against Beatrix's. "Watch this," Julie heard her say.

"I could discuss movies all night," Julie began, "however I will endeavor to keep my answer brief. According to Professor Carol Clover in her book Men, Women, and Chainsaws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film, a slasher movie is defined as 'a film that adheres to a general formula where a past wrongful action causes severe trauma that is reinforced by a commemoration or anniversary that reactivates or inspires a killer.'" She motioned at the television. "This movie fits that definition to a T. There were previous movies that had some of those elements - Psycho had a traumatized young man, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre has a masked killer and the original, and I stress original, Black Christmas took place on a major holiday. Halloween happened, almost by accident, to combine those elements while throwing in a few new ones, and in the process, it created the slasher genre. Carpenter wasn't trying to make a slasher film. He was making his own version of Black Christmas called The Babysitter Murders when the producer suggested Halloween as a title with more punch.

"With regards to Tricia's comment about blood and nudity," she continued, "Halloween was a huge hit so, of course, someone was going to make a similar film. The result was Friday the 13th which was also successful and helped to set the Hollywood machine in motion. Slasher movies required a low budget and had a quick turnaround time, so it didn't take long for there to be a sheer glut of them. And to keep audiences from getting bored, you needed more blood and more nudity, often at the expense of dialogue and character development. You can tell how a horror franchise is coasting on its name when you have a movie where you don't care for any of the characters and female nudity abounds."

"If I could make a case in point," Brian asked, to a nod from Julie. "The Wrong Turn series. The first one's great. The second one has Henry Rollins as a survivalist Marine. It's all downhill after that. By the fifth movie you're cheering for the hillbillies and the sex scenes feel like they belong on Pornhub."

Piper held her hand up to get Julie's attention. "I have a question. If Halloween was a huge hit, why did it take thirty years for there to be a sequel?"

"Hey, everyone?" All eyes turned towards Gwen. The petite young woman was looking down at her smartphone as she began to speak. "Can we put a pin in this conversation? Karen just texted me that she and Alexander are on their way over."

"Absolutely," Julie nodded. "The answer to your question, Piper, is part of my opening speech for the next movie. So why don't we call intermission here? People can stretch their legs and use the restrooms if needed."

"Ain't a bad idea both," proclaimed Cole as he stood up from the couch. "Which direction are the facilities from here?"

"Down off to the right." Gwen's directions were accompanied by a gesture in that direction. "But the men's room was taped off when I walked past it earlier. I think they're working on the plumbing or something."

"Eh," Cole shrugged, "I'll use the one on the third floor then. Just off the elevator if either of you guys need."

Both Alcide and Brian shook their heads. "I'm good," said Alcide. "I'm going to step outside and sneak a quick smoke. I don't think campus security is going to be walking around handing out citations tonight."

Cole headed out the door as Alcide got to his feet. "You mind some company?" asked Lynn as she stood up as well. "I stopped smoking in high school but I miss standing outside in the freezing rain having a random conversation with a handsome young man."

"Who am I to say no?" Alcide even went so far as to hold Lynn's long coat open so she could slide her arms inside. The sound of their shared laughter could be heard as the pair of freshmen left the lounge, heading towards the basement side door of the student union.

Piper sighed wearily. She let her head fall against the back of the couch. "I am not getting exiled again," she groused. "They're going to Alcide's room tonight even if it kills me."

"What are..." Tricia's face turned red. Her lips formed an 'o' shape as she sharply squeaked, "they are not going to have sex!"