Читать книгу Devil’s Cinema. Crypt of the Seven Angels - Natalie Yacobson - Страница 8

Filming began as if delirious. He was impatient to break free to once again go to the abandoned cinema. Well, or almost abandoned. During the morning, Daniel managed to ask many people and, according to the generally accepted version, the cinema, it turns out, was closed and boarded up a long time ago, and, of course, no films were shown there.

He knew something else, but prudently kept silent. In addition, while working, it is better to concentrate on revealing your character, and not on dreams about how he will spend his leisure time. The agent who convinced him to play this role disappeared somewhere. If he had been here, Daniel would have fought with him already. It was necessary to read the script in advance and much more carefully. A horror movie is not an action movie. Here, in addition to harsh phrases and shootings, you need to discuss too complex topics and think about too contradictory things. You will have to learn long monologues, even memorize poetic lines and play a former war hero, who does not yet know who he is in the plans of otherworldly forces. The plot itself touched something painful in Daniel’s mind. As if this was not a horror movie plot at all, but a metaphor for something that had already happened to him in his life. Or about to happen.

“Do you even like it?” The director patted him on the shoulder. The cameras were already preparing for shooting. For some reason, the view of the cameras immediately reminded of the rustle of a spinning reel in the devil’s cinema and Alais’s voice.

“Well, yes, interesting,” Daniel responded bleakly. It is a pity that you do not always have the opportunity to express aloud the opinion that you have in your head.

The name “Queen of Hell” would not hurt to change, if it was not intended to advertise the actress who plays the main role. The script was trivial. It was rewritten many times, but this did not give it originality. Nonsense in the spirit of Anna Rice, Tom Holland, Sheridan le Fanu and a whole list of authors who worked in the genres of historical mysticism. A handsome Russian aristocrat who has just returned from the war for Serbia finds in his father’s estate, who has died in a strange way, an ancient box with an incredibly large ruby on the lid. Of course, some creepy-looking strangers, including a gypsy fortuneteller, warn not to open it. And, of course, in his dreams a delightful woman begins to appear to him, who convinces him to open this box. With great difficulty, he finds a way to break the lock (by the way, for this he has to make a bloody sacrifice). Daniel’s hero accidentally kills a maidservant who was innocent, her blood dripping onto the ritual circle. The ruby ignites with a bloody light, the box opens and the ashes of the ancient fairy queen Medea Shai burst out of it. Once she was burned, now she is alive again, just formed from a column of ash, beautiful, thirsty for blood like a vampire and harboring such anger at the whole world that from her steps the earth begins to ignite, buildings collapse, prints of burning feet streak the pavement. Thanks to the release of Medea Shai from the box, the First World War begins, then the revolution. People are dying, and Daniel’s hero must stop her, but this is almost impossible, because he has already managed to fall in love with her. The scenes of seduction both in dreams and in reality promised to be spectacular. The blood-red lips of Medea Shaya will press against his lips in the frame, bloody wine will pour, the beauty will convince him that she alone is more important to him than the whole world. One should forget the duty to the king, to the fatherland, to the family (after all, she brought his father and many ancestors to the grave, even being in captivity she was very strong and appeared to the members of the chosen family through dreams). Of course, all eternity she waited for him, the main character of the film. But what if she’s lying? Her tongue is like a snake when kissing, during love scenes she inflicts wounds on him with claws, and fire worms start in these wounds.

Daniel never finished reading the script. Probably, the ending will be rewritten more than once in search of something more impressive. The film has only one chance at the box office. You need to impress the audience. And he has only one last chance to succeed. Or oblivion awaits him. Like an old abandoned movie theater.

Ideally, the film should have been shot in St. Petersburg, but it’s much cheaper in the wilderness. Then the scenes will be combined.

Jane, even if she is the mistress of the chiefs a hundred times, does not look at all in the role of Medea Shai. Too vulgar. The queen of hell must have dignity, grace, become… The queen of hell must be Alais.

Daniel closed his eyes dreamily, imagining how he would act in tandem with her. If she becomes his partner on the set, then he will definitely insist on the fatal ending. Let the whole world collapse, let him perish, and she herself will rule hell on the earth left after the revolution. After all, it is impossible to fight it.

Jane is not fit for such an exalted role. Could a woman who stood naked in front of the camera and surrendered herself to everyone behind the scenes play the queen? This is probably why the films suffer losses at the box office. Prostitutes are not suitable for the role of noble persons, the falsity is noticeable to the sensitive public.

Although not for him to judge. Who is he himself? In order to get the first role, he had to give way to many in almost everything. This is the world. Without connections and without money, you can’t get anywhere for one talent, unless people need you for some completely unrelated to professional goals.

Unlike modern actresses, Alais looked like a creature that never slept with anyone. This is probably why she behaved with such royal dignity. What if it’s just a game, just more skillful than everyone else? She can just pretend. Daniel immediately dismissed the thought. It’s incredible to have the talent to play like that. And yet, if he were a producer, he would have spent any money to invite her to the role.

“Do you want to give your soul for success?” voices from the abandoned cinema sounded in his head again.

Such a question could be asked to someone who has not yet had success in life. But Daniel has already experienced his peak of success. When you fall from the top of Olympus, not even the devil can help you climb back. And in general, all these tales about how to sell a soul, it is better to tell starlets and extras from the crowd. Some of them may still buy into dubious promises. And Daniel already knew the cost of the way up. More often than not, it is worth the body, not the soul.

“But your family thought the opposite.”

What did he know about the family? And what demon speaks to him through his mind? Is it possible to pour alcohol into the voice of a demon?

But besides the demon, there was also Cordelia. She played charades and said that she knew about the Rosier family. In Russia, they changed their surname to Rozanovs. She also said that Daniel could have come here to find his relatives’ estate. He knew nothing about the estate. Even if it existed somewhere nearby, it was destroyed during the revolution. Even in troubled times, the first thing they do is begin to destroy the houses of those about whom the notorious sorcerers and warlocks are in the neighborhood.

The Rosier family has surpassed this glory. You could move to different countries and change your surname as many times as you like, but at any time and in any territory the same story was still repeated. The family began to be associated with the devil.

Daniel was not affected by all these family problems. He was born in an era when the ancient curse and dependence on the ancestral line were already considered ridiculous. Try to tell someone in modern Russia, long gone through the revolution, that you are a descendant of a princely family. They’ll just laugh at you and that’s it. There were simply no aristocrats left in the country, and if they did, it was more profitable for them to keep quiet about their origin. Daniel only benefited from this. Indeed, along with the memory of belonging to the nobility or princely families, the memory of ancestral curses was erased.

Until now, Daniel considered all curses to be fairy tales. He was not cursed. He just happened to go through the stages in life through which all the actors go. First, the peak of success, then gradual oblivion. True, he has not yet been completely forgotten, and he still has not had such strong competitors as to be afraid of them. But attention to his films suddenly began to wane. This means that without the next strong work, he will simply fly out of the rating of world stars.

Atenais probably didn’t have such problems. Or did she die before she showed the weakness of her talent? How amazing that she died at the height of her genius. And the film, capable of shaking everyone, never made it to the world distribution. Or the screening for Daniel was preliminary, and the film will eventually be launched in cinemas around the world to make the audience crazy.

How cleverly thought out! There is no psychiatric syndrome in the film, nor any other violations that you can find fault with in order to ban it for wide distribution. However, viewers will be 100% victims. A strong impression arises already when he left the auditorium. You feel that you cannot get out of the world that you saw on the screen.

“Do you want your next film to be the same? Then you will be unmatched again, descendant of Rosier.”

Again voices in my head! Daniel closed his eyes. How to drive them out of consciousness? Voices had lingered on him since he was near the cinema, and now they teased him in every way.

This time they were definitely lying to him. It is no longer possible to shoot something like that film about Egypt. There is something devilish, irresistible in that film, something that you can’t jump higher. You can just bruise your forehead trying to repeat it.

“Alais can do anything,” several voices whispered at once, more like fantasies.

These fantasies need to be distracted. Daniel couldn’t concentrate on studying the script. Thoughts constantly returned to Athenais, from which one charred corpse should have remained in reality. And on the screen, a living and impressive demon remained from her.

Is it easy to cross the line between cinema and the real world? Or is that something only crazy people can do?

Now he’d better think about the scenes with Medea Shai and the director’s growing daughter Eugenia, who will presumably play a young lady who falls in love with the main character, tries to snatch him from the Queen of Hell and naturally sacrifices her life. Unless the scenes with Eugenia are deleted from the script altogether for lack of funds. But it’s up to the producers to decide.

Usually Daniel thought only about his own role, but now he was suddenly very intrigued by the Queen of Hell. Who is she? Where did it come from? There is something serpentine and angelic in it at the same time, as if the writers decided to combine a cobra and a black angel into one. Does she look like Alais? And what would happen to the audience if the dead star suddenly resurrected even for a short while to play this role, and then go back to hell.

“Someone before you already had such thoughts,” whispered again the annoying disembodied voice. “There was a man who called the demon to play a role, and then drive him back. And do you know how it all ended?”

He did not know and did not want to know where these voices were coming from. Even if they are generated by his consciousness, He did not want to discuss this problem with a psychologist. Psychologists exist only to help sort out family problems or get out of depression caused by career breakdowns. You only need to fight demons yourself – this was the motto of all the ancestors of Daniel. But why did he decide that these voices were demonic? Demons have a place near cemeteries, churches, crypts and abandoned chapels, but not at the filming.

Daniel himself did not notice how he fell asleep for the script. For the first time in his life, he dreamed of something pleasant: Jane was replaced by Alais in the role of Medea Shai. Only Alais didn’t play. She performed magic tricks without any special effects. Everything was going well, until some terrible creatures began to crawl out of the darkness behind her.

“I’m not alone,” Alais said to Daniel as if apologetically. “I never come alone. What’s a queen without an army?”