conversation whilst waiting on line at the grocery store

"Stacie! Hey! How are you?"

"Oh, hey Necrosis. How's it going?"

"Pretty good, pretty good. So...I saw you checking me out the other night so I figured I'd say 'What's up!', ha ha."

"Yeah. Yep. I sure did see you the other night."

"And? Sorry. I don't mean to be overbearing. I'm just wondering, you know, if you liked what you saw."

"Please don't do that with your hands. As far as liking what I saw...well..."

"What? You can tell me. I can take it."

"It's just that...I have a few questions."

"Okay, shoot."

"So...okay. You start out with this...flashback, I guess it is. It's some people from the Donner Party, like, going nuts and eating each other and trying to hack each other up with axes..."

"Well, the Donner Party did that, you know."

"Umm...not really. See, they were stranded in the Sierra Nevada and resorted to cannibalism in an attempt to stay alive, yeah, but...well, I'm sure some of them did lose it, but not in a horror movie-wackadoo kind of way. They weren't killing people to eat them. They ate the dead, you know? Big difference."

"Eh. Po-tay-to, po-tah-to, man."

"Right. Well, see, in the flashback someone talks abut the gates of Hell being opened, and I'm just wondering...how exactly did the Donner Party open the gates of Hell? You mention it, but then it's dropped forever."

"Umm...cannibals and...crazy..."

"I mean, the Donner Party opened the gates of Hell. That's not nothin' you're talking about there. It should probably be addressed and explored."

"That's what you think, but you don't know everything."

"You're right. In the end, I suppose the important thing is that the Donner Party comes back 150 years later as axe-wielding ghosts. Which...I don't know, dude."


"What? What's wrong with that idea? I think it kicks ALL of the ass."

"Ehhh, it just seems a little...tacky or something. Like making a horror movie about the ghosts of Dachau or the vengeful spirits of the victims of September 11."

"I think those sound awesome."

"You're probably not alone in that. For me, though, historical fiction is one thing, but this is...the Donner Party weren't crazy axe-murderers who opened the gates of Hell and ate each other because they liked it. You kind of cheapen what really happened by trying to turn the tragedy into fodder for a typical horror mov--"

"Get off your high horse!"

"I thought you said you could 'take it'."

"I said that, but I didn't mean it. Tell me I'm pretty!"

"Necrosis, look..."

"No, you're right. I'm sorry. I asked for your opinion and I should respect your answer, even you think I wasn't the best thing ever."

"You were terrible."


"That's not fair! I was not. Just because you don't like the Donner Party angle..."

"Necrosis, it's not just that. Even beyond that, when the whole 'six friends go to a cabin in the woods' thing starts, it's...bad."

"WHAT."

"Seriously. The characters...I mean, you try to add depth through lots of 'Remember the time we did that thing?' conversations, but they come off as awkward narrative, poorly delivered. They don't move the story forward or make me care about anyone."

"That's your problem."

"...okay."


"So what else, Miss Know-It-All?"

"Hey, come on."

"Well, you're insulting me. Why can't I insult you?"

"Because you asked me what I thought and I'm telling you. I'm not insulting you for the sake of insulting you."

"Whatever."

"It became obvious that you wanted to be some kind of Shining thing, Necrosis, because ultimately the Donner Party ghosts didn't have much to do with anything. One of the characters goes crazy and starts killing everyone."

"Yeah, so?"

"So...then...you really didn't need the Donner Party angle at all. You have this character who-"

"But without the ghosts, he wouldn't go crazy."

"But you talk a lot about his mental illness."

"Yeah, so?"

"All right, excuse it all you want, but the bottom line is- you're not the fucking Shining, man. Not even close. It should be illegal, in fact, to write The Shining and Necrosis in the same sentence in a 'they are alike' kind of context."

"You don't need to swear about it."

"And then...and then! There are technical issues. Like, someone will say 'The storm is raging!' and you give a shot out the window and the sky is blue and clear. Characters are in ten places at once, time of day changes from shot to shot, and it becomes impossible to tell what the hell is going on."

"But...but...I have Tiffany! And Michael Berryman!"

"I'm not sure why, since they don't really do anything. Michael Berryman walks up a mountain, I guess, even though there's a 'raging blizzard' and then he dies. And Tiffany isn't the lead or anything. Her character is completely pointless. She delivers, like, four lines in a monotone, and then dies. I guess. It's totally unexplained, how she dies or if she's really dead."

"Shhh! People could be listening! Don't spoil it."


"Paper or plastic?"

"Huh? Oh, paper, please. Look, Necrosis, I have to go. I'm not gonna lie- the 90 minutes or whatever it was we spent together were pretty fucking lousy."

"You're hurting my feelings."

"I don't mean to, but that's how it is. I'm sure someone out there loves you, and I'm sure your mom and dad think you're super terrific. I, however, do not. Nothing personal."

"It's totally personal."

"Fine, it's totally personal, then. Go away now."

"But I have CGI blood spatt--"

"Shoo. Shoo, Necrosis, go on now! Git!"