Category Archives: Monsters

Werewolf

by Alan Swyer

Animal Performers, Fiction, Film, Monsters, Short Story Leave a comment

The most desperate and lonely and horrific naturally find a home in Hollywood. 2,547 words. Illustration by Mark Fearing.

This morning, cold and hungry, I approached a woman in carefully torn jeans who was stepping out of her A5B3E0F0-C9C6-486D-B9BF-98B356EAA0EBBentley near the Gucci store in Beverly Hills.

“Madam,” I said, trying my best not to appear frightening in any way, “I haven’t eaten in three days.”

“I wish I had your will power,” she replied jauntily.

For a moment I was sorely tempted to gnaw on her well-toned arm or take a bite of her Botoxed cheek. But having resolved not to give in to my bestial side, even as my skin started to turn to fur and my teeth began to jut out, I did my best to shrug as the woman headed off towards Pilates or perhaps to fight for world peace.

I am what’s known as a lycanthrope, which is a fancy way of saying werewolf. Lore about my problem — or species — or whatever appellation one chooses to describe beings like me — has it that we can only be killed by silver bullets or some such nonsense. For me, a far worse fate than having some yo-yo search from gun shop to gun shop for silver bullets is being ignored. Or ostracized. Or shunned.

I suppose I should blame Lon Chaney Jr, or Universal Pictures, or whoever it was who started making the films that have demonized my breed. Even the medieval legends about creatures such as me, though farfetched and ludicrous, are nowhere near as vile or condescending as those willfully haunting but heinously incorrect movies.

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Hanging Around

by Mark Fearing

Actors, Agents, CGI, Digital Technology, Directors, Fiction, Film, Monsters, Sci-Fi, Short Story Leave a comment

An actor who likes being recognized finds himself playing a 30-foot reptilian alien. 1,847 words. Story and illustration by Mark Fearing.

Decker Bronc was hanging ten feet in the air on a soundstage that was wrapped in green screen material ready for the motion capture shoot. He was wearing a bright green spandex jumpsuit with ping pong-sized white balls stuck all over it. His face was covered with white dots the size of erasers on pencils back when people still used pencils with erasers instead of delete keys. He also wore what could only be described as headgear, consisting of straps that tightened a metal helmet to his forehead and which supported a foot-long rod in front that held a camera lens on the end pointed at his face.

Three bored-looking young men stood hanging onto the wires and ropes and back-up ropes that supported Decker mid-air on the green sound stage. But even with all the discomfort, Decker was still glad he was there amid the grips, gaffers, best boys, computer geeks and one very overworked-looking script supervisor all rushing around. This had been a last-minute job booking and only his second credit in more than two years. It was his first motion capture gig but while his body would be animated at various times, at least he’d be back on the big screen again.

Andy Garcia, seeking to break out of playing stereotypical Latino gangsters, had snagged the part first but then dropped out at the last minute. That’s how the business worked for Decker; he had to wait for the fall throughs, the no shows, the rehab visits and the ego trips. Then he got the job.

Decker had been an almost A-lister once. Now he was probably a B-lister on his best days. And, when guest hosting game shows, definitely a C-lister. But his agent had assured him this massive budget tentpole with the latest CGI could put him back on top. After all, as the tenpercenter had reminded, both Marlon Brando and Russell Crowe had played Superman’s father Jor-El in state-of-the-art CGI pictures like this one.

A guy young enough to be Decker’s grandson who’d introduced himself as the director that morning now yelled up to Decker.

“You okay up there, Deck? Looking great!”

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Snake-Man

by Thomas Roberdeau

Actors, Child Actors, Directors, Fiction, Film, Horror, Monsters, Serialization Leave a comment

A character actor from a hit horror trilogy remembers how good his life used to be. 1,702 words. illustration by John Thomas Carlucci.

Are you ready? Start your tape recorder.

In the movies they used to call me Snake-Man. They did. I was the only one they ever called Snake-Man before or since. I was.

I made three movies, a trilogy. I made them five years ago in the City. Another time, another life. They weren’t bad. They were good action pictures. We made all three of them in about a year and a half. We first did Dawn Of The Snake-Man, then we followed that up with The Thing Called Snake-Man, and the last one was political so we called it Rabooba: Snake-Man’s Revenge. I carried a .44 Magnum in that one.

I don’t carry a gun no more, though. No more guns for me.

They called me Snake-Man because that’s exactly what I looked like, a Snake-Man. There weren’t too many actors who could have pulled it off, I know that. I used to play a lot of foreign spies, just small bit parts, before I got a chance to be Snake-Man in my own shows. Before I got to star.

Oh, I think just about everybody saw a Snake-Man picture. But I don’t go to the movies too much anymore, since I left the business.

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Tickets To The Premiere
Part Two

by Richard Natale

Agents, Assistants, Fiction, Film, Lawyers, Monsters, Short Story, Studios Leave a comment

Two agency assistants attend the same party but have very different experiences. 1,860 words. Part One. Illustration by John Donald Carlucci.

“Where were you, man? I’ve been looking everywhere,” Wade Torville said as he sidled up to Casey Strong out on the street after the Goliath Vs Superfly summer tentpole’s first screening. The two twentysomethings worked at rival agencies.

“We got shunted to Theater Two,” Casey admitted.

“Aww, isn’t that too bad,” Wade said with a smirk. “We were seated right behind Will and Jada and their brats.”

Casey had considered lying but not in front of his date Gigi Mayer, a serenely self-possessed junior attorney in business affairs at Warner Bros. The beauty was way out of not just Casey’s but also Wade’s league despite the fact they both wanted to sleep with her. Gigi, as she’d promised, fell asleep during the movie and actually snored a couple of times. So Casey was relieved that they’d watched the monster actioner in Theater Two before the full-frills studio premiere party.

“So what did you think?” Casey asked.

“Awesome!” Wade said, as if his dad had just given him a new car for his sixteenth birthday.

“Awesome in what way?” Gigi challenged. and Casey opted to nod in solidarity. While his inner geek had enjoyed the film, he found himself counting the number of times – at least twelve — he’d witnessed the destruction of Big Ben and the Golden Gate Bridge over the past five years.

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Tickets To The Premiere
Part One

by Richard Natale

Agents, Assistants, Fiction, Film, Lawyers, Monsters, Short Story, Studios Leave a comment

An agency assistant attending a coveted Hollywood event hopes it’s not the disaster he fears. 1,919 words. Part Two. Illustration by John Donald Carlucci.

“You want these?” the senior agent said, extending a pair of golden embossed tickets like a temptation. His young assistant, Casey Strong, recognized them immediately. They were for the world premiere and after party of Godzilla Vs. Superfly, an F/X-driven super-violent major studio spoof of monster-meets-superhero movies.

“Jeez, thanks,” replied Casey as he grabbed for the tickets before his boss had a chance to change his mind.

To Casey, it was inconceivable that the socially rapacious agent was skipping what promised to be the coolest Hollywood premiere of the summer. Though no one had yet screened GvS (as it was known on social media), that didn’t stop the film’s minutiae from being leaked and analyzed, leading to intense pro versus con factions at this year’s Comic-Con conventions. That also meant an inexplicable outbreak of light-saber duels. Even PETA weighed in with something about endangered lizards.

The studio was touting the movie as a bold step forward in diversity. The multinationally financed $200 million production boasted an Asian superstar as the villainess who controls Godzilla via a mysterious brain-wave device as the creature demolishes the usual suspects – Tokyo, London, New York, San Francisco. How the reptilian giant manages to traverse continents and oceans is never broached, at least not in the trailer. One internet troll initiated a Kickstarter campaign to donate frequent flyer miles to the misunderstood beast so it could city hop. At last count, Godzilla had over 600,000 miles transferred to its name.

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Lost Coast
Part One

by Morgan Hobbs

Actors, Editors, Fiction, Film, Filmmakers, Monsters, Reality Performers, Reality TV, Short Story, Soap Operas, TV, TV Crews Leave a comment

Out-of-work Hollywood types travel to the middle of nowhere to make an adventure show. 2,332 words. Part Two. Illustration by John Mann.

We were desperate. Art. Bruce. Lance. Tony. Scott. The whole lot of us. Desperate for another break. Desperate to make another month’s rent, another phone bill, another car payment. Desperate to make something happen. Tired of waiting tables, waiting in open houses, waiting to get slaughtered at the next cattle call. We’d all had a break or two already – a national commercial, a recurring role on HBO or FX or AMC, a juicy part in a fourquel splatter-fest. Just enough to keep our hopes up, keep us out of real jobs and real money. Only the breaks hadn’t led to bigger breaks. We needed that big roller to take us over the top. And this was our wave machine.

“Can you believe this shit?” said Art, an aspiring film editor scraping by on local commercials and backyard bare-knuckle brawl videos. Believe it or not, they pay people to edit those things. He got four hundred bucks and an eight ball for the last gig, which launched the career of a 380 pound overalls-clad cyclops named Opie Mohammed.

I couldn’t believe the tab as I looked at it, dollar signs burning my eyes. Even out in the middle of nowhere like we were, in some Northern California town where the redwoods met the Pacific, it was possible to run up a four figure bar tab. Before I could react, another round had arrived — bottles of Budweiser and whiskey backs, although you could have them in any order you liked. I could already feel the hangover and I knew a couple of the others were half blind. Somebody had to pay for this. The credit cards were maxed. We didn’t have the budget for this bill. I hailed the waitress and ordered another round of whiskey.

As soon as I said it I got hit in the eye with the flash. “How come every time I order a whiskey, you take my picture?” I asked.

Scott slipped the phone back in his pocket. “Because in Argentina they say ‘whiskey’ instead of ‘cheese’. Picked it up on a shoot in Patagonia.”

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Back From Forest Lawn

by Mark Fearing

Assistants, Executives, Fiction, Film, Horror, Lawyers, Moguls, Monsters, Oscars, Short Story, Studios Leave a comment

Is he a fierce Hollywood mogul or a fearsome studio zombie? He’s still deadly. 2,476 words. Story and illustration by Mark Fearing.

Mo Merkleman was buried at Forest Lawn on an unusually warm and rainy day. Funeral guests got mud on their shoes, but that didn’t stop the throngs of agents, producers, real swear-to-god movie stars and studio executives who showed up in the rain. There were whispers that he was buried with his Oscars.

Mo was a legend. A small in stature guy who appeared larger. It was an optical illusion; his charisma radiated out like heat waves off hot asphalt. He was a throwback to the golden days of Tinseltown and yet totally modern. He went from running the largest talent agency to opening his own shingle and producing box office hits. Then he spent 25 years in charge of the largest studio. The reams of dirt he had on everyone in the industry were pure Old Testament.

But he was dead now. Or that’s what everyone thought.

Exactly eight months later on an unseasonably humid and rainy day, Mo Merkleman showed up at Gate 2 in his Bentley. It didn’t take long for him to talk his way past the guard. And when Annabelle Lee looked up from her reception desk and saw Mo’s identifiable gait lilting down the hall, she almost screamed. But instead she put that energy into withholding belief in what she was seeing.

As the figure came closer, Annabelle could plainly see it was Mo carrying a box of some weight because he struggled with it. He was pale with saggy skin. His grey hair was a bit thinner than last she’d seen it. Then she looked into his eyes. They were different but not in a bad way. There was something so hypnotizing about them that she found it difficult to look away.

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