Page 13 of All That Glitters

Chapter nine

The Perils of B-Movie Productions

The desert air was a blast furnace, the sun a relentless white disk in a bleached-out sky. For as far as the eye could see, there were only jagged, rust-colored mountains, saguaro cacti, and dirt.

And then there was Carrie Thompson.

She came racing down a dusty hill, her blonde hair flying behind her. She wore what the costume department had optimistically called a “post-apocalyptic warrior outfit” but was, in reality, a skimpy leather loincloth and matching bikini top that left little to the imagination.

Close behind her lumbered a robot.

It was, without question, the least intimidating robot in the history of cinema.

Where the script had called for a “gleaming metal death machine with glowing eyes and hydraulic limbs capable of crushing human bones,” the budget had delivered what was clearly made of cardboard boxes spray-painted silver, with dryer vents for arms and a spaghetti strainer for a helmet.

Duct tape was visible at every seam, and one eyehole was noticeably larger than the other, revealing the sweaty human face inside.

It looked less like a killing machine from the future and more like a third grader’s art project that had gotten a C-minus.

The robot cornered Carrie against a pile of sun-baked rocks.

This was the dramatic climax, the moment when the huntress, having lost her weapons in the earlier quicksand scene (a kiddie pool filled with mud), would face certain death before being saved by the mysterious desert nomad who had been tracking her since scene twelve.

Carrie threw her arms in the air, her face contorted in what was meant to be a look of pure terror.

Her eyes widened, her mouth formed a perfect ‘O’ of horror, and she let out a gasp that sounded more like a hiccup than a blood-curdling scream.

She held the expression for a full five seconds before her composure broke.

A snort escaped her, followed by a full-blown peel of laughter.

“I’m sorry,” she gasped, wiping a tear from her eye, leaving a streak in her dust-caked makeup. “It’s just… it’s not scary. It’s a guy in a box. With a pasta strainer on his head.”

“It’s a colander,” muttered Stan from inside the robot costume, his voice muffled and miserable. “And it’s really hot in here.”

From behind the camera, Philip Winters, the self-described ‘visionary director’ of this straight-to-DVD masterpiece, threw his hands up in exasperation. “It’s called acting, Carrie! Pretend it’s scary! That’s literally your only job in this scene!”

The man inside the cardboard box, a struggling actor named Stan who had taken this role only after his agent had threatened to drop him, sighed.

He’d been in the robot costume for four hours now, with only a small fan wedged between the cardboard layers providing any relief from the heat.

The cardboard was beginning to sag with sweat, and he was fairly certain that heatstroke was imminent.

He was supposed to grab her, to menace her. That’s what the script said. He reached out with his dryer-vent arm, pulled her toward him, and, following the director’s off-camera instructions for “more intensity,” clamped his silver-painted hand firmly on her butt.

“HEY!” Carrie shrieked, her amusement instantly turning into outrage.

WHACK!

Her hand smacked the side of the colander-helmet with a satisfying thwack.

Stan, the robot actor, lost his balance and tumbled backward, rolling down the dusty hill in a clumsy, clattering heap of cardboard and duct tape.

The colander flew off, revealing his flushed, sweaty face and the look of a man reconsidering his career choices.

“CUT!” a voice roared from across the set.

A small village of lights, cameras, and bored-looking crew members stood in the heat. From the exasperated looks on their faces, it was obvious the crew had given up any pretense of enthusiasm for the project.

Philip Winters, the artsy, ponytailed director whose greatest claim to fame was a music video for a one-hit-wonder band a decade ago, leaped from his canvas chair and slammed his megaphone onto the ground.

“That’s it!” he screamed to the desert at large, his face reddening to match the surrounding rocks. “Preston, you get me a new star, or you find yourself another director!”

He turned to his assistant, a nervous young man who had taken this job hoping to make connections in the industry and was now considering a career in fast food. “I’m going to my trailer. When she’s ready to actually act like a professional, let me know.”

Nearby, Preston Jordan, last seen fleeing his own home under a barrage of shotgun fire from his wife, watched the scene with something other than artistic appreciation. His eyes were glued to Carrie in her skimpy loincloth, and he wondered if there was a way to snip off even more fabric from it.

He saw his director storming off — the third director in as many weeks — and hurried to intercept him.

“Wait! Philip. Let’s not do anything rash,” Preston wheezed as he caught up. “Just let me have a talk with her.”

“What’s to talk about?” Philip snapped. “The girl’s the devil. She can’t act, she can’t follow directions, and she’s assaulted half the cast. I’m an artist, Preston. I have standards.”

The irony of claiming artistic standards while directing ‘Cyborg Huntress 3’ seemed lost on Philip, but Preston was too desperate to point it out.

“Just ten minutes,” he pleaded, hands clasped together in desperation. “That’s all I’m asking. She listens to me.” This was a blatant lie, as evidenced by the previous seventeen times Carrie had ignored his suggestions, but maybe Philip had forgotten about that.

Philip threw his hands up in surrender. “Fine! You have your ten minutes. But if she breaks another robot, I’m out of here. My vision can’t survive this... this travesty.”

He stormed off toward his trailer, with his assistant scurrying after him with a bottle of water.

Preston scooped up the megaphone and headed toward Carrie, who was now dusting herself off. The makeup artist hovered nearby, trying to touch up Carrie’s face between takes, but Carrie waved her off.

“Carrie,” Preston began, twirling the megaphone like a cheap baton. His voice took on a smoothness he reserved for difficult actresses and IRS auditors. “Can I have a word with you?”

He walked up to her, adjusting his stance to present what he believed was his most flattering angle. “Look, Carrie, honey. You can’t just go around beating up the cast. The union’s having a fit, and it’s killing me in worker’s comp.”

“Screw your worker’s comp,” she shot back. “That jerk grabbed me.”

“He’s supposed to grab you,” Preston explained, as if to a small child. “It’s a B-flick. That’s why people rent them.”

Carrie crossed her arms over her chest. “I don’t care what kind of movie it is. Nobody touches me without my say-so. Are we clear? Good.”

Preston considered pointing out that her contract explicitly included ‘moderate physical contact of a menacing nature during action sequences,’ but thought better of it. Plus, he valued his life.

“Okay, okay,” he said soothingly. “You’re right. Absolutely right. We’ll make sure Stan knows the boundaries. Professional boundaries. Very important.”

Carrie let out a long, slow breath, which Preston took as a sign that she was calming down. He patted her on the shoulder in what he hoped was a fatherly, non-threatening manner.

“That’s a good girl,” he said, his voice dropping to what he imagined was a seductive purr. “Now how about you and I go back to your trailer and work off some of that aggression.”

Slowly, hopefully, he slid his hand down the smooth, tanned skin of her back toward her butt. So much for valuing his life.

A few yards away, near the base of the hill, a grip wandered over and helped Stan, the robot actor, to his feet. Stan’s robot costume was now more of a conceptual art piece than a functional outfit, the cardboard crumpled and torn, most of the silver paint scraped off in the tumble down the hill.

“Bad move, man,” the grip said, handing him his dented colander. “The chick’s got a temper. She put the last guy in the hospital.”

“How come no one warned me?” Stan asked, rubbing his bruised face.

“We thought everyone knew.”

Just then, a loud, pained yelp echoed across the set.

“OUCH!”

They both looked over. Preston was staggering away from Carrie with the megaphone shoved completely down over his head, its cone resting on his shoulders. He flailed blindly, arms pinwheeling.

“I want that girl out of here!” his muffled voice came from inside the plastic cone. He collided with a light stand, sending it crashing to the ground in a shower of glass and sparks.

Philip, the director, emerged from his trailer at the commotion. He simply shook his head. “See. What’d I tell you,” he called out. “She’s the devil.”