“Good night, sweetheart.”

Midnight Quatermass 11: Bruce Willis and no spoilers for a 25-year-old movie

I was feeling rough earlier today and joked that this newsletter would be the equivalent of Andy’s final sign in DAWN OF THE DEAD (2004):

But here we are thanks to a large batch of strong coffee and over the counter medication. May still be a short one. Let’s see.

I was thinking earlier today about Bruce Willis. I first saw him in Moonlighting and was entranced. By the time he jumped to DIE HARD (1988) and all that followed I was on board with everything he did. I don’t think I’m exaggerating by saying without HUDSON HAWK I never would have written Caper - the crew gave me a battered old VHS copy of the movie on the last day of shooting and its one of my most prized possessions.

Despite this affection I can’t claim that it’s a good movie. But I’ll tell you what is… THE SIXTH fucking SENSE (1999). I first saw it at what I believe may have been its world premiere, but certainly the UK one. It was on the bill of a 48 hour film festival at the Prince Charles in London and aired on the second day when most of the audience were sleep-deprived, wrapped in silver sheets and bloated with coffee and hot dogs. During a break in the movies we were approached by the world’s press to talk about our reaction to M Night Shyamalan‘s debut and the other big word-of-mouth movie THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT (1999). Now that one I didn’t care for - it doesn’t matter you lost the map because you VIDEOTAPED it earlier, idiots - but I digress.

Shyamalan‘s movie got under my skin and I watched it a few times over the next week or so when it was properly released. Obviously it’s a different movie on repeated viewings and there are a few stand-out moments that everyone discusses for very good reason. But I think everything that makes the movie remarkable also helps to overshadow this scene which I think is the best few minutes of cinema I saw that year:

Bruce Willis and Haley Joel Osment are so good together throughout the movie its always a pleasure to revisit it, but again people tend to focus on the killer line and not Willis’ reaction and follow up questions. On a first viewing he’s a child psychologist with a difficult case that hasn’t yet, for him at least, strayed into the supernatural. On a second viewing, well… you know. But this is the scene I tend to rewind and watch a few times and as much as I love John McLane and think his action movie is a perfect script, I also believe that Willis doesn’t get enough recognition for what he’s doing here.

If Cole is the reluctant knight then Malcolm is the mentor who prepares him for the quest ahead. Told you I have a weakness for that stuff.

And while of course they help each other overcome the darkness it’s here that Malcolm trusts the kid with his own story - the ultimate unreliable narrator as Cole knows more than does at this point - and that’s the breakthrough moment. Cole even says to him after their first meeting in the church where they discuss medieval Europe and sanctuary, “I’m gonna see you again, right?” and we, the dumb as hammers audience, think he’s talking about having seen other doctors before, but of course Cole doesn’t see Malcolm as a doctor then. But during the “I see dead people” scene, because of the way he’s been opened up, to he does finally see an ally and a friend.

It’s beautiful.

Even if you’ve only a passing interest in Shyamalan I can heartily recommend the book, The Man Who Heard Voices: Or, How M. Night Shyamalan Risked His Career on a Fairy Tale by Michael Bamberger. The author is a golf writer who stumbles into complete and open access to the director as he tackles LADY IN THE WATER (2006) - another flawed movie that I’m terribly fond of.

~

I believe you can now preorder this year’s Tales for a Halloween Night in which Dave, Pete, Janice and I have a little 13 page homage to Amicus Productions:

Can you believe that cover by the indomitable Tim Bradstreet?

A little Fetch Book 2 update. Some of you in the UK will have been given a vexing delivery date by Amazon for which I apologise. A victim of our own success, my understanding is that the distributor ordered the title based on sales of Book 1 which sold out faster than they could reach the online distributor. New stock is on the way from the States and shouldn’t take as long as Amazon suggests.

Right. Story time.

B.T.W.

The Writer is irritated as he answers the door. His to-do-list from yesterday is still sitting on his desk and he hasn’t even opened his laptop yet, because he can’t find his fucking glasses. He knows he had them last night and swears he put them on the nightstand as usual, but are they there now? Are they fuck. Maybe they’re in the kitchen, he thinks as he goes to the door. So whoever is ringing the bloody doorbell at 9am on a Sunday morning can go fu--

‘Oh. Roger! Jesus. It’s been years!’

At least ten, he thinks. Some awards ceremony in London. Christ. What’s he doing here?

‘Come in, come in!’

They walk into the kitchen and the writer reboils the kettle.

‘You look good. Sometimes I think I’m the only who’s getting old and fat. Then again I’m not an actor. I just rot behind a keyboard all day. Hobnob?’

The Actor takes the drink with a biscuit balanced on the saucer and follows the Writer into the living room.

‘Sit! Sit! Tell me what you’ve been up to and what brings you all the way out here?’

The Actor sits, still holding the saucer awkwardly, unable to return the Writer’s smile.

‘I wanted to ask you about the accident.’

The Writer is puzzled.

‘Accident?’

‘The train crash. Christmas Eve, 1981.’

The Writer blinks. Then laughs, sipping his tea.

‘Oh that accident! Jesus, I thought you meant a real one for a moment. Well, let’s see… I mean… it’s over forty years ago, Roger. What exactly do you want to know?’

‘Why? That’s all. Just why?’

Another sip.

‘Ratings, of course. I mean it was the Christmas episode and Coronation Street was fucking us as usual. All my fault of course. You know what they used to say… ‘BTW’. Anyway, we’d heard they had a storyline in the works with Albert Tatlock and figured they were finally gonna kill the old fucker off so we needed something bigger than that. Funny thing is that when it aired the main plot revolved around Stan giving Hilda an air freshener as a Christmas present and they kept Albert on for another three years. Wait… I read somewhere a while back that you were working on a book. Autobiography? I can call Marie, my assistant, tomorrow to dig out my old notes if you like.’

‘Why didn’t you kill me?’

This catches the Writer mid-biscuit and it takes a moment for him to knock it back with another swig of tea. He notices the Actor hasn’t touched his own.

‘Are you kidding? You were at the top of your game, Roger! Kill you off? Impossible! People laugh about soap operas these days, but back then… there wasn’t a housewife in the country that didn’t want to fuck you.’

‘My family…’

‘Ah, now that was all me. They never said BTW when things went well though, did they? But I have to say I was proud of that. I mean you remember the trouble we’d had with Christine. Stroppy cow. And the youngsters were far form the best, too precocious. Killing them off was a stroke of genius even if I say so myself. And if happy you was sexy, it was nothing compared to devastated you. Now they wanted to comfort you and then fuck you. It’s an absolute crime you didn’t get a BAFTA, Roger. I said so at the time.’

The Actor looks down at his drink.

‘We were in first class. I’d got a Christmas bonus and wanted to treat them. Take them to see their gran in style. We’d only been on the train for fifteen minutes and…’

The Writer puts the cup and saucer down with a grin.

‘Got to hand it to the special effects guys there. That little model train hitting the little toy van and coming off the rails. Wasn’t like Thunderbirds where you could tell the flames were the wrong size. And the editors of course. The cutting between the models and Christine and the kids screaming. Best acting she ever did!’

‘Her name was Sandra.’

The Writer is bemused now.

‘That’s right. Sandra Eccleston played by Christine Moran. What is this? Method acting? Your drink’s getting cold.’

‘Sandra. And Emily. And John. They were only eight and twelve. They all burned to death. I was thrown out of the carriage. Broke my arm. I couldn’t get to them. I tried, but I couldn’t get to them.’

‘Oh I remember! And then the theme music kicked in. Merry fucking Christmas, viewers! Do you know that scene is a massive hit on YouTube? Kids who have never even seen the show just watch that bit. Even got on the Beeb’s Classic TV Moments with Graham Norton a few years back.’

The iPhone on the table starts to ring.

‘Bollocks. One sec. I can make a fresh brew if that one’s dead.’

He crosses to the window and takes the call.

‘Hey Marie. We were just talking about you funnily enough. What’s up?’

The Actor leans forward and puts the cup and saucer on the table.

‘News? What news?’

The Actor stands as the Writer turns towards the small TV in the corner with the remote in his hand, pressing it.

‘What? Well that’s a colossal fuck-up. He’s here with me right now!’

The TV is now on. He brings up the volume as the newsreader speaks solemnly in front of a publicity shot of the Actor.

‘…famously known for his role as affable widower Ben Eccleston in the long running soap, Briarwood. Roger Warren then, found dead at his home in Wiltshire yesterday. He was seventy-four. Tributes from…’

The writer turns the TV off and drops the remote, spotting his glasses in front of the set.

“What the fuck is going on? Ah, there they are…”

He puts the glasses on and everything comes in to sharp focus as he turns and looks at the Actor.

But this isn’t an actor.

He’s too young for one thing. About forty years too young. And the suit. He remembers that suit. The cuffs are scorched. The knees are filthy from the location stint they did near the railway tracks. And the face… it’s not exactly moving, but rather rippling ever so slightly.

He suddenly remembers as a kid getting far too close to the TV so that the information lost its form and began to pixelate back into the colourful raw dots of the hidden cathode ray.

And then he sees the Gun.

He knows which gun it is. They wrote it in for the new year episode cliffhanger. Ben Ecclestone, not coping without his family, rings in the new year with a bottle of whisky and his father’s old service revolver. The episode finished on a gunshot. Fade to black and a cliffhanger. And then in January he’s fine, of course. Shot the wall and killed his next door neighbour’s Toby Jug. And that was the beginning of the path to recovery for the character. An intervention of friends and neighbours and a year later and he was courting again.

‘You’re not, Roger…’

‘No. I’m the man whose family you took away.’

He’s angry now. This makes no sense. It’s bad writing.

‘Fuck off will you? You’re not even a ghost! Pure nonsense! It’s not fucking possible and even if it was it’s not my bloody fault! It was the ratings!’

Ben Ecclestone smiles grimly for the first time.

‘Took me a minute… BTW.’

And now the Writer is finally scared.

‘No…’

The TV-thing pulls the Trigger.

‘Blame the writer.’

I’d love to blame last week’s typos and the ones I’m missing now on being under the weather, but it really is my fault. Don’t shoot!

See you next week.

Mike