Page 27 of All That Glitters
The camera captured the team’s collective expression of horror — pretty much one big ‘oh crap’ moment.
“Okay, so Plan A had some flaws,” Roy admitted as the dust settled over the decimated angel. “But Craig says we just gotta put it back together ‘fore anyone notices.”
Later, the footage showed a tow truck, a real one this time, successfully pulling Carl’s pickup from the grave. The tow truck driver, a burly man with the weary expression of someone who thought he’d seen it all, counted the wad of cash Craig handed him before unhooking his chains.
Craig, his face a mask of frustration, looked over and saw he was being filmed. He shouted something that was thankfully inaudible and made a threatening gesture at the camera that involved several fingers and a promise of anatomically unlikely consequences.
“Craig’s just expressin’ his artistic temperament,” Roy explained hurriedly as the camera quickly panned away to safer subjects.
Later, the camera found Steve and Carl on their hands and knees, diligently gluing the angel statue back together.
The reassembly wasn’t going so well. The once-beautiful sculpture now looked like a cubist nightmare that even Picasso would have found bizarre.
The pieces didn’t fit right, giant smudges of epoxy oozed from the cracks, arms twisted at anatomically painful angles, and, in a stroke of artistic genius, the head was on backwards, the angel’s face now gazing at its own wings.
“Somethin’ ain’t quite right there,” Roy commented from behind the camera, “but can’t quite put my finger on it.”
Carl offered a gesture that was decidedly un-angelic in response.
That night, the production was actually filming.
The camera’s viewfinder showed Carrie and her co-star, Kevin, creeping along the set.
A thick, eerie blanket of fog shrouded the tombstones, creating an atmosphere of genuine gothic horror that was surprisingly effective given the chaotic preparation.
“We’re doin’ the scene where Carrie’s character discovers the vampire frat house is actually usin’ the cemetery as they’s huntin’ grounds,” Roy whispered, apparently having decided that whispering was appropriate even though he wasn’t actually on set. “It’s a real pivotal moment in the story.”
The camera followed the ‘fog’ just off-set, revealing its source: the thick, black exhaust pouring from the tailpipe of Carl’s truck, which was parked just out of frame with its engine running. A garden hose had been duct-taped to the exhaust pipe to direct the fumes more precisely.
“That there’s our fog machine,” Roy explained with evident pride in their ingenuity. “Craig says it’s how they did it in the old days, ‘fore digital effects ruined cinema.”
On set, Carrie coughed violently between takes, waving her hand in front of her face and shouting something about “carbon monoxide poisoning” that the crew seemed to be oblivious to.
Meanwhile, Elvis the dog, ever curious and apparently immune to the toxic effects of exhaust fumes, followed a thick power cable from the lights over to the portable generator humming nearby.
The camera tracked the dog’s investigation as he sniffed the generator curiously, looked at it from a few different angles, then lifted his leg.
“Elvis, no!” Roy shouted from behind the camera, but it was too late.
A shower of sparks erupted from the generator as it short-circuited. The sparks ignited the dry grass surrounding the generator, which went up with a whoosh.
Immediately, half a dozen inmates rushed over with fire extinguishers, spraying white foam on the spreading flames with more enthusiasm than accuracy.
Most of the foam seemed to land on each other rather than the actual fire, creating a scene that resembled a deranged snowball fight more than firefighting.
“Minor technical difficulty!” Craig could be heard shouting in the background. “Keep rollin’!”
In the next clip, the flashing red lights of a fire engine colored the night. A professional fire crew hosed down the smoldering grass with expressions that suggested this was not their first visit to this particular production.
A police officer was calmly writing a ticket, the length of which suggested he was including every possible violation he could think of. He handed it to Craig, who took it with the defeated expression of a man watching his production budget literally go up in smoke.
Craig’s shoulders slumped as he read through the extensive list of citations.
He folded the paper and stuck it in his pocket, then looked up, his eyes finding the red recording light of the camera.
He was being filmed. Again. This was the last straw.
His face contorted into a mask of explosive rage as he came storming right at the lens.
“Roy! I told you to quit filmin’ and help with the—”
And the screen went dark.
The image flickered back to life, with Roy’s face once again filling the entire screen. And then some.
“Hey, folks, Roy here again. After the… uhm, incident in the cemetery the other night, Craig thought we oughta lay low ‘round there a couple days, so we found us this here new location.”
The camera made a shaky pan to reveal they were inside a high school chemistry classroom. Rows of tables, beakers, Bunsen burners, and anatomical charts lining the walls. “Gotta make it real quick though,” Roy added, “before the security guard finishes his smoke break and finds out we’re in here.”
The camera swung over to Carrie, standing behind a long table. Next to her were three college-age boys who looked like they’d just won the nerd lottery. They wore lab coats, thick glasses, and pocket protectors, and looked at Carrie like they’d just died and gone to Heaven.
“Them guys is our science nerds,” Roy explained.
“We put out a casting call at the college and got over two hundred engineerin’ majors wantin’ to do it soon as they found out they’d be in a movie with Carrie.
Bunch of them even offered to pay us. These three won the roles, ’cause they built actual workin’ potato cannons for the audition. ”
The camera zoomed in on the makeshift weapons the nerds were holding.
They were crude PVC pipe contraptions with bicycle pumps duct-taped to the sides and wooden stakes protruding from the barrels.
“This here scene we’re filmin’s when Carrie’s character, Jessica, gets them nerds to build these stake launcher things to kill vampires with.
Ain’t never seen nothin’ like it in a vampire movie. Real high-tech stuff and all.”
The camera swung over to one of the nerds, who was pumping pressure into the PVC pipe of his vampire-killing potato cannon with the bicycle pump.
POP!
The stake suddenly shot out the front of the pipe and hit a glass jar on a shelf.
The jar toppled off the shelf and shattered on the floor, spilling a clear, viscous liquid.
For a moment, nothing happened. Then, the liquid began to bubble.
And then bubble more. And more. A mountain of thick, white foam erupted from the puddle, growing at an alarming rate, like a science experiment gone horribly, comically wrong.
Craig looked over at the growing disaster. “Anyone know what that stuff is?”
“I think it was industrial-grade soap concentrate,” one of the nerds squeaked in terror.
The foam now poured across the floor and expanded upwards, filling the classroom like a washing machine with its lid left open.
“And that’s a wrap, folks,” Craig said, bolting from his chair.
The image jerked abruptly, then went dark.
The image flickered back on outside the classroom.
It now showed the Rif Raf crew, Carrie, and the nerds piling out the classroom window and onto the lawn outside, just seconds ahead of the foam-monster that now filled the entire classroom with a solid mass of white bubbles.
The gang tore off toward their trucks in the dark parking out front, Roy filming the entire scene in footage so jerky it would make the Blair Witch Project blush.
The image then went dark.
After a few seconds of static, a new image appeared — Roy’s face again, but this time filmed indoors, probably back at the Rif Raf clubhouse.
“So that was the first week of production on this here film,” he said cheerfully.
“I’d call it a success, all things considered.
Only one fire, minimal property damage, and no actual arrests.
Plus, got our clothes all washed. Week two comin’ up, where we tackle the vampire transformation scene.
Should be real interestin’, ‘specially since Todd’s been experimentin’ with homemade fake blood using ketchup and somethin’ he won’t tell us the ingredients of. ”
He leaned in closer, his voice dropping to a whisper. “Between you and me, I think our little movie’s gonna be a real classic. Just gotta make sure Elvis stays away from the electrical equipment.”
The dog appeared suddenly in frame, his tongue lolling happily as he dropped what appeared to be a chewed-up piece of camera equipment at Roy’s feet.
“Good boy, Elvis,” Roy sighed, reaching down to pet the furry saboteur. “Least you didn’t eat the actual camera this time.”
A voice called from off-screen, Craig again, apparently having recovered his directorial enthusiasm. “Roy! Get your ass out here! We gotta figure out how to make them vampire teeth look realistic!”
Roy gave the camera a final, knowing look. “Gotta go. That there’s the movie business for ya. Glamour and excitement twenty-four seven.”
And with that, the footage cut out one last time.