See You Next Wednesday

Midnight Quatermass 16: Movies, Hush Monsters and Temporal Low-Jinx

Let’s start with an apology. I had to skip the newsletter last Wednesday so despite the fact that we were following two issues in a single week and I felt that we were square I’m still annoyed at myself. This thing now feels like a natural part of my writing routine, but last week I was on a roll with something else and you don’t fuck with a roll. Sorry to leave you hanging though.

The something else was a 120 page graphic novel that I finished late on Monday and proofed yesterday. It’s now with the lovely people at Stormking and will eventually find its way into the real world. I’ll keep you posted. This particular roll quickly turned into a juggernaut that saw me writing til 5am some nights so its nice to be back in a more sociable midnight slot. Returning to old characters, already fully formed who know exactly how to react once I start attempting to fuck them up, is always quicker. Now that’s done I’m back to creating a world from scratch which uses a different slice of head meat and a reset.

Aside from pouring a large drink for myself once I got to the end I also needed a break from this screen so set off with Rob in search of a different one.

My cinema going habits have drastically changed over the last few years. Partly because I’m a miserable old bastard who finds it hard to see value in the modern crop of movies on offer. Partly because a worldwide pandemic made sitting with my fellow germ bags less enticing. And mostly because its become a real treat to go see a movie that is guaranteed to blow me away on the biggest screen in the country even if those outings are few and far between. Not everything is going to be a GODZILLA MINUS ONE or FURIOSA.

But it still doesn’t sit right with me if I’m honest. I’ve mentioned my upbringing and how I devoured everything that popped up in front of me from lavish musicals to video nasties, but I also I took a year off before leaving for university to focus on renting every single movie at my local video store. I was taking advantage of a deal where you could rent five older releases for a quid or so as long as you returned them within twenty four hours. A typical day would see me watching WHO FINDS A FRIEND FINDS A TREASURE (1981) over breakfast before setting in for a double bill of ISHTAR (1987) and THE EARTH DIES SCREAMING (1964) before rounding off the day with THE LAMP (1987) and THE BURNING TRAIN (1980).

I learned as much that year as I did at university.

While in London I practically lived in the Richmond Film House for the three years I studied there and moving from digs to digs became more tiresome as my VHS collection grew. The great thing about that period was that you could go see a John Woo movie at the Prince Charles, meet Chow Yun-fat and then buy the movie on VHS the same week from HMV. You could also nip into the Prince Charles on a Friday and surface the following Monday wrapped in silver foil and filled with hot dogs after seeing a festival.

And now it’s a big deal if I see five movies at the cinema in a year.

I feel mostly vindicated when the movies I skipped fall on to my TV. And yes I understand I may have enjoyed them a little more if they’d been projected on a larger screen with a better sound system, but for the most part I don’t feel that would have saved this stuff. It’s been a good long while since I kicked myself for not seeing a movie on the big screen. It’s more common for me to bemoan the lack of a cinema release for a movie that only two of you out there and myself would go see.

But I also spent a fair few years getting paid to watch movies. If you can get a gig writing about this stuff I highly recommend it. Especially if you get to do it in a city like London that has a fascinating relationship with industry screenings in the heart of Soho just a few minutes walk from where a werewolf killed all those people in a sex cinema back in 1981.

A lot of the movies I reviewed were terrible, but the ones that weren’t tended to be very good. Alas once the 3D conversions arrived and the realisation that the MCU was now airborne and out of control hit I was done. But the screenings themselves had tended to have an interesting story attached to them. Like bumping into the jet-lagged cast of BLOOD DIAMOND (2006) in the lobby of a hotel that was hosting their screening at 8 fucking am. Or getting into a lift/elevator that I had no business getting into simply because I wanted to ride a few floors with Sigourney Weaver and tell her that ALIEN had been my favourite movie since I was 8 years old (I stretched the truth of course. I have a lot of favourite movies). I also got invited to the World Premiere of AVATAR (2009) and somehow found myself on the blue carpet behind Cameron and his cast then later tossed onto the floor of the paparazzi’s dark room as ‘that fucking annoying guy behind Giovanni Ribisi’.

But that was all gravy. I was there for the movies and these days I feel like the movies aren’t there for me. But that’s okay because I’m old as fuck and am far happier watching Lee Majors fight piranha fish for heisted emeralds than bear witness to Hollywood wasting the GDP of a small county so Ryan Gosling can deliver a joke flatter than the movie’s box office.

Which is a very long-winded way to say that this week I begrudgingly dragged my feet to see A QUIET PLACE: DAY ONE with expectations lower than dirt.

And here’s the kicker. It’s really good.

I know how rare it is for a third movie in a series to be even nearly as good as the first - EXORCIST III (1990) and what? - and I’ve seen some lukewarm reviews from people who know what they’re’ talking about so there is a quite large caveat attached to my opinion.

First thing you should know is that I don’t really care for the franchise at all. The first movie was fine and the second struck me as a cash grab with a pretty decent flashback to help fix the mistake of killing off… well, I’ll avoid spoilers even for a six year old movie. Mostly though I didn’t like the main characters and couldn’t wait for them to get eaten. I just wish the monsters had been better developed because then I’d really have had someone to root for.

Also I fucking hate the title and can never remember it. I’ve been calling the thing HUSH! MONSTERS! which is way better, but has now devolved into its final form minus the exclamation points (“Hey Rob, do you want to go see HUSH MONSTERS?”)

I like that title so much I’ll probably steal it from myself.

So while I do get why people enjoyed it I still had to file it away under ‘not for me’.

Another thing is that I did have quite a few problems with the movie. There are two set pieces, one involving the subway and another a construction site, that felt like placeholder cards in the plot deck that survived the last shuffle when they really shouldn’t have. Both could have been replaced with similar scenes that raised the stakes rather than just (literally) tread water. They were fine as is, but felt like a missed opportunity to elevate the movie rather than settle for the generic.

And there’s at least one ‘jump scare’ that was just stupid as fuck, treating the audience like they’re as dumb as a bag of hammers and needed waking up. I hate that shit.

So what did I enjoy? The cat for one. Or two as the onscreen Frodo is credited as Nico and Schnitzel. Best actors I’ve seen for a while.

But it’s Lupita Nyong'o’s movie. It’s a long time since I saw the camera fall in love with an actor to this extent. She’s fabulous and I’m puzzled why she’s not in everything. The character she portrays here, Sam (I’ll forgive the LOTR nod) is really interesting and roots the story in if not quite the opposite of survival something close to it. I love a character who is determined to live on their own terms no matter what. But there’s also an element of schmaltz in the script - no bad thing as I love schmaltz when it’s done well - that could easily have derailed everything. Thankfully Nyong'o makes you fall in love with Sam and even though you have a very good idea of where she’s going you become invested enough in her journey that the destination still has the power to move you.

A quick word about Joseph Quinn, by far the best thing in that season of Stranger Things that aired 150 years ago before the kids all got hip replacements. He’s not as good as Nyong'o, but who would be? To be fair he does more than hold his own here. His Eric is initially a fun foil to Sam (he also takes a good while to show up which extravagantly allows us more time with the lead) and then he becomes the one thing she simply won’t allow herself to have, which of course is the one thing she so desperately needs.

A puppy.

A friend… I meant to say a friend. They are great when on screen together and in a world of contractually obligated invincible action morons it was quite refreshing to see a stupid Englishman out of his depth. The Kent line is a keeper.

So as that rare prick that doesn’t like the franchise much and hasn’t got any time for dumb CGI monsters and has been watching New York City get fucked since DELUGE in 1933 I still think this thing is worth your time.

Just watch GODZILLA MINUS ONE and FURIOSA first.

Story time!

Fuck! Said The Time Traveller

The expert pushed the book back across the table.

“No.”

“What?”

“It’s very good. The paper, the print… I’ve never seen such a vibrant copy. The illustrations threaten to fly right off the page.”

“But you said no.”

“That’s the problem. Time fades everything no matter how meticulous we try and protect an object. Art especially. It’s delicate. Fleeting. That it survives at all in near perfect condition is what gives it its worth. But this copy is perfect. Too perfect.

“For fuck’s sake!”

“I had it dated of course. It’s few years old at best. A fake, albeit a very good one.”

“Fuck!” said the time traveller as he picked up his book and left.

~

This wasn’t going well.

His first trip he had withdrawn a portion of the little money he had left and taken it backwards just a tad. Not far, but far enough that it immediately tripled its value. He was smiling on his way into the bank, but had to run out before the police arrived.

In his rush to make money and keep the lights on he forgot that his notes had the wrong person on them.

He got back and Googled how to buy old currency. It hurt his head trying to do the math so he asked his AI app if there was a way to buy enough to make a profit once you added a fully functional time machine into the equation.

“No,” said the AI app.

“Fuck!” said the time traveller.

~

But the app gave him another idea. He looked at his screen and then used it to see when the smartphone company’s stock was at its lowest.

“Interesting,” he said.

He then read the Wikipedia entry for the company.

“Even better, he said.

This time it would work he thought to himself and smiled.

Then he remembered he was all out of cats.

“Fuck!” said the time traveller.

~

The guy he was looking for was a bespectacled nerd working out of a shitty garage because of course he was.

“I’d like to invest,” he said.

“In what?” asked the nerd.

“In you,” he said and pulled out a small pile of period currency and a simple contract.

The nerd had his parents look over the contract while he drank an ice cold lemonade.

He coughed into his hand as the nerd came running out of the house.

He swallowed the ice, which numbed his sore throat for a moment, and then they shook hands.

“This time!” he said as he pushed the button.

But when he got back nothing had changed.

“Jesus fucking Christ”, he said looking at his bank balance which was now much lower than when he’d started. Then his smartphone ran out of charge.

He fumed all the way to the Banana Store.

But when he got there all the bananas had changed to apples. He looked at the back of his own phone as it charged and yep. An apple. Weird.

“Hey,” he asked one of the nerds walking around in a stupid shirt. “What happened to Godfrey Banana?”

“Who?” asked the geek in the stupid shirt.

Waving him away he opened up the browser on his partially charged smartphone and asked it what the fuck all this apple shit was.

“Who the fuck is Steve Jobs?” he said out loud as he Googled Godfrey Banana.

A single entry on a page about the history of viral respiratory disease. Godfrey Banana in 1976 was the first person in the world to contract a then unknown disease, very similar to more modern and often viral diseases. Because he had no friends this particular strain died with him, but his preserved cells have become a medical curiosity and are still studied today.

“Fuck!” said the time traveller.

~

“Third time’s the charm,” he said as he absently rubbed the fresh cat scratches on his forearm and pressed the button.

But it wasn’t.

Turns out the amount of gold you need to get rich is too heavy to carry when you’re being chased by a posse and don’t know how to ride a horse.

Jump number four saw him lift the most valuable and arguably most expensive piece of art in the world while the paint was still wet. But when he got it home it had never been seen by anyone but him and was effectively worthless.

Meanwhile some idiot with one ear that he’d never heard of had paintings of crappy sunflowers hanging in the place he’d first seen ‘The Grinning Cow’.

He left the painting on the sidewalk outside of his house.

Jump number five should have worked.

“Crypto is fool-proof as long as you know what you’re doing,” he said.

It turned out it wasn’t and that he really didn’t know what he was doing at all.

When he got back the electricity had been turned off.

“Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!” said the time traveller.

~

He withdrew the last of his cash and bought four things.

A cheap ass Chinese generator from that one website.

A jerrycan of gas.

And a pretty expensive vintage bank note along with a suit that was too small for him and smelled of moth balls.

After fuelling the time machine he checked all the duck tape was still in place. One of the more important strips holding the microwave together was frayed so he replaced it just to be on the safe side. The wooden dining room chair still wobbled a little, but it had done that since he found it sticking out of a garbage can five years ago and figured it was fine.

Under the sleeves of the suit jacket both his arms were bleeding. The problem was one of volume. His microwave was small as he lived alone, but each trip took at least three fully grown cats. Getting the last one in always involved a certain amount of risk.

Also the local street-smart strays were wary of him now that he’d used up all the friendly neighbourhood pets.

But he was broke so this was going to be his last trip. All or nothing.

He fired up the generator, nuked the cats and pressed the button.

It went well. He bought a copy of The Birds of America by John James Audubon just two years after it was published and brought it back. He nervously checked Google on his Apple phone - he was never getting used to that shit - but it was still there.

The same book had sold at auction just a few months ago for over eight million dollars.

He’d done it. He was rich.

“Fuck!” said the time traveller. This time with a smile.

~

A few hours later he was sat in his kitchen, stone broke still, and looking at the most rare book in the world that had turned out to be too perfect.

He looked up how to age objects to make them appear older than they were, but it was pretty complicated and he’d have to buy ingredients he couldn’t afford.

He stood at his kitchen window drinking the last of his coffee and watched the tourists downstairs queuing to get into the old pharmacy next door. He’d never been in himself. Looked boring as fuck. What was so great about a building built in the 1830s? His building had been built in 1993 and didn’t even have fucking air conditioning so he had to keep the windows open all the time.

He spat out his coffee. That was it. And he wouldn’t need a dime.

Just two tabbies and that fat ginger tom that had shat on his doorstep last week.

That night with a bandage on his arm, a loaded time machine and a boring ass book about birds that was going to make him a millionaire, he made his final jump into history.

What he didn’t see was air rushing into the space he had previously occupied, combined with the evening breeze coming in through the perpetually open window, blow the candle on the cheap ass Chinese generator from that one website not out but rather on to the jerrycan which still had a little gas in it.

If the time traveller had been there to see it we know what he would have said.

~

This time it was a breeze. Work on the new pharmacy building was almost complete and the labourers were taking their lunch in the sunshine. No one saw him nipping inside with the book now wrapped in his old leather jacket with the Iron Maiden backpatch.

He knew there was a slight risk that if the jacket was found in say 1854 that it may fuck up forever his chances of getting the cut-to-shape picture-disc version of The Trooper he’d always wanted since he was 12. Right now though he was willing to risk the very existence of the greatest heavy metal band in the world if there was even a small chance that he’d get rich.

The floor in the back room was almost complete, but there was just enough room for him to slip the leather bundle into the foundation and leave again without being spotted.

He grinned as he sat on the wobbly chair and pressed the button for the return trip.

Nothing happened.

Sighing he checked under the chair seat and sure enough he was completely out of hamsters.

“Fuck!” said the time traveller.

~

He couldn’t find a single hamster in 1835 so had to make do with mice. There was a shit ton of the little bastards available so he kept placing them under the seat until he was out of staples.

This time it worked like a charm and a few seconds later he was back home.

Unfortunately his apartment was on fire.

The floor was on fire. The ceiling was on fire. His kitchen was on fire. The stairs were on fire and the door was on fire. Then his time machine was on fire and finally he himself was on fire.

He jumped through the window which, small mercies, was already open and hit the pavement with a blazing thud.

A paramedic worked on him as he watched the historic building next to his own also go up in flames. Hearing his last words she later thought that he must have really loved history.

“Fuck!” said the time traveller and died.

~

A few days later the chief fire investigator was examining the rubble of the still smouldering buildings. Not much was left, especially of the historical structure. There was a shit-load of what seemed to be animal bones in the place next door, but seeing as a man had died here he didn’t give two fucks about cats.

He was leaving when something caught his eye in the partially collapsed floor of the pharmacy.

He bent over and picked up what turned out to be a slightly singed but otherwise perfectly intact leather jacket.

“Score!” he said.

He was even happier when he held it up to discover that it was just about his size and also had a discoloured, but still sweet, Iron Maiden backpatch on the back.

A book fell out of the sleeve and landed in a dirty puddle of water open on a slightly faded illustration of Carolina parakeets. He almost tried to save it but it looked really old and boring so he stood on it on his way back to the car.

What a great day, he thought as he pulled on the jacket.

“Fuck yeah!”

See you next Wednesday!