In the 1950’s a local company calling itself Tooth&Nail Productions made and distributed 98 films. The movies were your standard grindhouse fare; bad scripts delivered by bad actors, caught by bad cameras on bad film. They were mostly an excuse for gratuitous nudity, foul language and violence.
Given that our town is fairly small and isolated from nearby communities every film made by Tooth&Nail Productions used the same stable of six or seven local actors. Each of these actors was convinced that they had enough talent to make it in Hollywood and that starring in classics such as “VIOLENCE is golden” or “Gold, Frankincense and MURDER” was merely some kind of thespian purgatory that would allow them to move on to bigger and better features.
Of course, none of the actors were good enough to break into Hollywood and they all returned to their old jobs when Tooth&Nail Productions stopped making films. The studio executives said that they stopped making movies due to budgetary reasons and a decline in public interest, but this is not entirely true. The real reason for the company’s demise was the murder of their most popular female lead (a young lady named Charlotte Hughes) and the studio’s inability to find a suitable replacement.
Whatever the reason, the company went bust and their catalogue of tasteless smut was very quickly forgotten by the majority of the townsfolk. The movies have festered in relative obscurity ever since, though they have maintained a cult following among collectors of old, esoteric film. Such is the dedication of said collectors that they have confirmed the whereabouts of 98 of the 99 movies created by Tooth&Nail Productions.
The 99th movie is somewhat puzzling. The people who ran Tooth&Nail Productions admit that the film was made, but have refused to discuss its content. Similarly, the movie catalogue for Tooth&Nail Productions includes 99 entries, though the final entry in the list is nothing more than the films working title, “Masterpiece XCIX”.
There are many theories as to why the executives are simultaneously open and secretive regarding their magnum opus. Some people have suggested it is an experimental film or a comedy, something so far removed from the usual Tooth&Nail fare that releasing it would destroy their reputation. Some people have suggested that the movie is too bad, even by Tooth&Nail standards, to be unleashed on an unsuspecting public. Some people have pointed out that Charlotte died around the time the movie was supposedly being made and have suggested that Masterpiece XCIX is a snuff film, capturing Miss Hughes’ final moments for some twisted purpose.
You may think that the studio blackout would whip the fanbase into a violent frenzy and make them determined to find the elusive footage. You would be wrong. While Tooth&Nail fans freely admit that a 99th film exists, and routinely speculate as to what it is about, very few of them are in any hurry to find it. In fact, with the exception of the people who worked on the movie, it has thus far been seen by precisely one person: Patient 812001-E AKA James Gardner.
The whole affair began when James received a parcel containing an unmarked tin of film. The film was not the only thing that was unlabelled; the parcel carried no means of identifying who had sent it, nor where it had come from. Gardner, a fan of old, underground movies, was intrigued by the anonymity and quickly loaded the film into his projector before sitting back to watch his mystery footage.
As soon as the film began, James sat open-mouthed at what he saw; a grainy, art deco style title card, which proudly declared, “Tooth&Nail Productions presents: Tombstones, Coffins and Tranquillisers”
Gardner knew all there was to know about Tooth&Nail Productions, including an encyclopaedic knowledge of their back catalogue, and since the films title was not one he was familiar with he figured the movie was made by a copycat company trying to make a fast buck from someone else’s popularity. His cynicism quickly vanished, however, when he began to watch the film proper.
Gardner recognised the soundstage immediately; it was a re-used manor house set from several Tooth&Nail films. Not only that, but the movie included Tooth&Nail’s standard group of actors, each wearing costumes that had been seen in other Tooth&Nail movies. With all of these factors combined it was not long before James realised that he had come into possession of the only known copy of a film that had been missing for decades.
As rare as the film was to begin with, it became even more precious when the movie introduced its female lead: none other than Charlotte Hughes. Gardner had seen every Tooth&Nail film multiple times before, so he was familiar with Miss Hughes’ work, but this time he was transfixed. He knew she was beautiful, but this film was something else. She looked more radiant and stunning than she had ever done before, and her voice sounded like a chorus of angels, singing out with every word she spoke.
Before long, the movie ended and it was only when the credits began to roll that James realised he had spent the whole of the film staring at Charlotte, rather than paying attention to the plot. While this was probably what the producers at Tooth&Nail had intended, James felt that he owed it to the people in the fandom to provide a summary and evaluation of the movie. Thus, he reloaded the film and watched it again.
The movie was a slow paced train wreck that could not make up its mind whether it wanted to be a period drama or a murder mystery. It also included a large amount of surrealism: images that appeared for a single frame or hard cuts to pieces of bizarre, irrelevant footage. The film is as hard to describe as it is to watch and the best visual I can give you is to imagine a film written by Agatha Christie and Jane Austen, but edited by David Lynch.
Perhaps the most jarring element of the movie is the fact that the big reveal is missing. Part way through the final scene the audio and video distorted before abruptly cutting to footage taken from the middle of “Bride and DOOM”; an earlier, entirely unrelated Tooth&Nail film.
Of course, James found this ending totally unacceptable. He had waited for years to see this film and now that he had, he was not going to let the experience get ruined by terrible editing. He decided to watch the film a third time only this time he would take notes to try and work out what the ending was supposed to be. He reloaded the film and, with pen and paper in hand, sat down and started the movie again.
As he watched the film again James began to see several things that he had not noticed before. For example, he noticed Charlotte glancing towards the camera a lot more often than he remembered. By itself this would be nothing out of the ordinary, since Miss Hughes was known for looking at the camera, but she was doing it a lot more frequently than she ever did in her other movies.
James also noticed that Miss Hughes looked different the third time round. In the previous airings she had been a radiant vision of beauty with skin that looked like it was as smooth as silk, but this time she looked older and perhaps a little withered. As well as looking older, Charlotte’s skin started to look like it had been cut. It was barely noticeable to begin with but as the film progressed it became more and more apparent: in the final few scenes Charlotte’s face, neck, chest and arms were all covered with hundreds of long, shallow cuts, and it was not showing any signs of stopping. It got to the point where, if James watched closely, he could see more and more cuts appearing along her skin, almost like he was watching some invisible force trace a knife along her body.
It seems strange to have to say this since I am talking about a piece of celluloid, but, with the exception of Charlotte’s appearance and behaviour, nothing else in the film had changed. All of the actors delivered the same lines and followed the same marks as before and you would almost think that Charlotte’s appearance was intentional given the nonchalant way the other actors ignored it.
As the movie progressed James noticed more and more changes that he had not seen before, getting distinctly less subtle over time. Eventually the dastardly murder of Dame Barbara Carthorse was a distant memory in James’ mind as he tried to work out just what was happening to his film.
When the movie reached the climactic final scene Charlotte was an absolute mess. In addition to looking like she had been cut all over, she now had a large bruise around her throat and had lost her right eye. Her character looked blurred and out of focus, and her voice had decayed to the point that her lines sounded like radio static.
Thankfully the movie was almost over. All that was left was for the ‘Lord of the house’ character to deliver one more line and get cut off halfway through. The actor delivered his line, as he should. He stopped halfway through, as he should. But rather than cutting to footage taken from another Tooth&Nail movie, the film kept rolling. All of the actors in the scene remained frozen in place with the exception of Miss Hughes.
Charlotte turned and looked straight into James’ eyes. She was trembling somewhat, clearly very upset. She spoke as she wiped a tear from the one eye she had left, “I am so sorry, James. But this is your fault too.”
As soon as Charlotte had finished speaking the projector turned itself off, leaving James sitting in the quiet darkness of his little screening room. He sat for what seemed like hours trying to figure out what he had just seen, but before he could figure anything out he felt an icy cold hand run up the back of his neck then wrap around his throat.
James was found by the fire department later that evening; some unidentifiable force had started a fire in his house, razing it to the ground. The police were called to the scene, too, since Gardner was found lying in his driveway, covered from head to toe with long, shallow cuts. While the police suspected an attempted murder, they had Gardner transferred to the Hexagon for a psychiatric evaluation. It was not long before the alienists at the Frieda Reagan Memorial decided Garner was insane: James had convinced himself that a long dead actress was punishing him for some untold crime. He was labelled as paranoid schizophrenic and his temporary incarceration was made permanent.
Initially Gardner was categorised as a Class E patient. That is, he was insane, but seen as more of a nuisance than a threat. He was recategorised as a Class A patient when he attacked an orderly some weeks after his incarceration.
According to the orderly, one Alexandria Hughes, Gardner had mistaken her for the phantom that had supposedly attacked him. It seemed that Gardner’s outburst was not motivated by revenge, but by curiosity: he had promised to cease his assault once Alexandria told him the way that Masterpiece XCIX was supposed to end.
Needless to say he never got his wish. He was sedated in order to stop him attacking Alexandria and, since it made it easier to deal with him, remained sedated for the rest of his time in the Hexagon.
While the psychiatric staff at the Hexagon did not believe Gardner’s story about a haunted film, the fans of Tooth&Nail Productions did. The fact that the film was never recovered or identified from what was left of James’ possessions only heightened their interest. At the same time, though, none of the Tooth&Nail fans wish to discuss the film in any great detail, lest the mysterious film turn up on their doorstep.
No comments:
Post a Comment