Tales from the Backstage - Director's Cut

August 2067. After a major, career-ending blunder, an unlucky journalist is tasked with filming a documentary about the production of the Schwarzerblitz movie (and its R18 parody).

“It all started with a sticky ad on a lamplight. Looking for rookie actors with low salary expectations for action movie, available immediately, followed by a phone number and an address. You know, the kind of stuff you’d find for student projects and the likes. The kind of stuff you’d just ignore on your way home, yes? But I thought, you know, it sounds fun. Let’s see what the deal is.”

It was dark, in the room. Only the feeble light from a TV set bringing some clarity to a world engulfed in shadows, to the man sitting in front of the display, taking notes, typing something on a dim holographic keyboard. The picture was that of a middle-aged man, with bushy, joint eyebrows and a lantern jaw, of those you’d only see in comic books, usually. His voice, though, felt pretty pleasant to hear, very suave and melodic.

“So, I call the number, get to the place – a heckin’ strip club, I kid you not – and meet with this producer guy, an old sneaky bastard who smelled of lizard. ‘Cause he was a lizard, you know, a space lizard. See, I hope you won’t censor it, the L-word. These days, you can’t call them like that anymore, you’ve got to call them devsk. Well, fuck them! The truth is that they are space lizards, it’s a fact, you know?”

The man in the dark room sighed. He had already lost count of the amount of times he heard the guy on tape say you know. He felt like throwing a shoe at the display, but that wouldn’t have helped him – if anything, it would have caused him to have to buy a new one out of his pocket.

“Anyway, the liz… the devsk hands me a bowler hat and a scrap of paper and asks me to read those lines as if I were the baddest motherfucker alive. So, yeah, I have acted a little when I was younger, you know? I’m like sure, I can do it and I start doing that on the spot.”

The picture flickered for an instant, as digital noise ran through it, before stabilizing again. When it turned back, the man was still there, pointing his finger towards the camera.

“You won’t remember my face, so why should I care?”

Then, he broke into laughter.

“That was the line, yes, the one line I had to play, ‘fore the sca—the devsk told me you’re hired. And that’s how I got the part of Notorious Smithson, the Man with the Hat!”

Cut. The clip ended, the screen turned black. The man pushed a button on his ghost keyboard, causing the screen to come to life again. Now, front and center, stood a man with a moss green tuxedo, wearing a black shirt and a red tie, with a full face, featureless black mask decorated with a red question mark. And, of course, a bowler hat.

“You won’t remember my face, so why should I care?”

The same line, uttered in the same fashion, this time by the character, Notorious Smithson. The man tapped his fingers on his desk, smirked with a little satisfaction. The transition would have been buttery smooth. It was a blessing that Morton Casserella, the actor behind the mask, included that line in his interview. Cut, again, moving to the next clip. The interior of what looked like a pub became clearer, easier to discern. A lighthouse insignia towered in the background, as two ladies drunk something together while wearing only revealing lingerie. Yet, they weren’t the focus of the objective. The main target of the camera was a somewhat annoyed sharkman – or something that looked like one.

“Hello, mind if I sit here?”

“Whatever, pal. Imma not biting ye, but kno’ Imma waiting for a friend. What’s yer business?”

“My name’s Leo Verrand, I’m a journalist of The Clover. I’m writing a piece about a movie called Schwa…”

The eyes of the sharkman had enlarged twice their size, as that question reached his ears.

“Imma not saying anything about that damn movie! For the last time, I just did it for the money, gotcha? I ain’t liking being fondled by tentacles and boned by a fella in a rubber lobster suit, but I had debts to pay, awright? Now, fuck off and go ask someone else…”

The shark bared his teeth, two clean rows of saw-shaped nightmares, showed in all their might.

“… or I’ll chew yer face off!”

Cut. The man cursed. His prospective interview with Gaetano Lagodigarda (alias Joe Jamboli, alias Chazz Altar, alias Gaetano Trasimeno, alias many other aliases) went to waste before even having a chance to bloom. It appeared that said sharkman, the only real mutant on the set, wasn’t fond at all of his role and did everything in his power to erase it from memory. Well, sucked to be him but Leo Verrand had a job to do, if he wanted to keep his job. All because his bosses didn’t like his investigative piece on the private life of Paddy O’Rilley, her drug addiction and her rumored relationship with a shoiga (“a dirtier lizard”, as Casserella would have called him). He had the facts, he had the pictures, but apparently someone high up the ladder didn’t approve of the methods he used to obtain them. In truth, after having been the genius who minted the moniker “Rosenmaester”, Verrand had a hard time living up to his newshound reputation, so he had resorted to the cheapest tactics in order to create some scandals and be there to report on them. After all, being notorious sounded like the better option, rather than being forgotten. Yet, after having to issue a formal apology to the self-appointed phagefucker (despite his article never seeing the light of the day), Verrand was sentenced to a fate worse than death: put together a video on the production story of the movie Schwarzerblitz, and do it in one week – or be fired on the spot with cause. That left him with no resource other than moving around quickly and fishing for ideas on where to find the people who worked on that absolutely forgettable B-movie and its less forgettable (but equally low budget) porn parody.

He pushed a button on his keyboard again, tracking down a new video with his eye. On the black, lifeless screen, though, he noticed a reflection, if only for a second. A man in his early forties, with slick red hair, hazel eyes and random beard buds spread under a face that could have used more sleep. Yup, that was him, Leo Verrand himself, in his dark, lonely two-room apartment in District 5, St. Patrick SHIELD. They said nobody sane would move to St. Patrick, but there were exceptions. He could have lived a quiet life in Shard, except his divorce left him with an asphyxiating bank account and a bad taste in his mouth. Thus, walled city it was, far from everyone and everything. At least, his new place wasn’t far for the local HQ of The Clover. Those thoughts melted into nothingness again, as a new picture filled the display. A woman in her twenties, blond, pretty busty, waving her hands in a wild way with a disgruntled look on her face.

“That costume was horrible, absolutely horrible! I couldn’t move without flashing my nipples! Who in heavens would wear such an excuse of an open tanktop that just falls on your boobs like a drape? But Mr. Daevka said it was what that girl… whattshername, Elen-Mary Yang? Whatever, he said that’s what she wore for real! So, he paid me to dress exactly like her, in the role of Allison Cho, the love interest of Commander Sam Jaguar. And for what? Just fifteen minutes of screen time, most of which spent unconscious on the back of a car!”

The voice of Leo Verrand pressed her forward, asking a new question.

“Do you happen to know who was the actress that got the role of The Naked Night? I couldn’t find her name anywhere.”

Eyes wide open, a dropping jaw.

“N… no! I didn’t act that part! I wasn’t the one covered in black body-paint and nipple pastries! It was someone else… and… and I can’t remember her name. Like, not that we met many times, eh, eh! I don’t think there’s a scene with both Allison and the Night at the same time, right…?”

“In the movie Allison is the Naked Night, though. I thought you might…”

“NO COMMENT!”

“But…”

“No comment! If you air your speculations, I’ll sue your ass to the ground!”

Cut. Black screen again. A scene from the movie recalled, the character of Allison Cho, in her immodest kung-fu outfit with a black drape falling on her bare breast… and cheap cut-outs of birds, cats, bushes, or any other foreground object clumsily superimposed on her chest every time she suffered a costume malfunction due to how idiotic that dress was. Verrand shook his head, wondering who was that desperate perv that even dreamed about such a stupidly horny outfit. Cut again, this time to the Naked Night, who was clearly the same actress as Allison, despite her firm denial. In fact, there were no scenes with the two of them on set at the same time, which was understandable, because putting up that much body paint sounded like a nightmare. He hoped Callie Rivermore (the actress credited for the role of Allison) made a good cut out of the movie’s revenue, because he wasn’t sure it was worth it. If anything, the Night’s subplot was insanely cheesy and full of plot holes, and probably the least memorable part of the movie – which was saying a lot.

In comparison, the story arc of the Squirting Night in Schwanzerblitz was actually well executed – for the standards of an erotic movie, that is. Of course, it was just an excuse to have a hot lesbian threesome on screen (Code Wolfenschwanz, the titular Night and Allin May Pussy, passionately screwing each other, under the eager eyes of Commander Knot Furry – before Allin and the Night became one again after a last joint orgasm). That was the second most replayed scene of the film, according to the stats collected by R18 streaming platform Pornelius. The first was the Yamete, Octopus-chan! sequence, where the character of Chad Harder was “entertained” by no less than eight tentacles at the same time. That turned into an internet meme at the speed of light, causing that quote to pop up with unbelievable frequency in online forums and comment sections, together with a specific close-up frame of Chad’s enthusiastic reaction.

Verrand pushed another button, moved to the next clip. Something that looked like a bicolor talking crocodile took center stage, stroking his beard with his clawed hand.

“So, how much money I’m gonna get, when you air this?”

“Money?”

“Let me be clear: You’re filming a documentary about my movie, where you’ll use clips from my intellectual property and you aren’t going to pay a cent? Good luck dealing with my lawyers, pen pusher.”

“The Clover… will cover for the necessary royalties. I’ll put you… huh, in touch with my bosses.”

“Good, good. You’re finally speaking my language!”

Verrand – the Verrand from this side of the screen – sighed. That reptile was Dkravilest Daevka, also known as simply Mr. Daevka (or that old greedy bastard, according to Gaetano Trasimeno). The man (or, rather, reptile) behind the curtain, the producer of both that accursed movie and its porn parody. A nasty piece of alien work that somehow shat money and was among the hundred richest people of the whole United Kingdom.

“Now then, tell me, youngster! What do you want to know?”

“Well, huh, first off… why? Why Schwarzerblitz? And why a porn parody too?”

“Well, let’s put things straight: the porno was planned from day one. Sex sells, hot lesbian threesomes sell a lot, furry blowjobs sell even more. Heck, tentacles and sharks sell too, but trust me, that surprised me as well. The only reason why I asked for that scene in the first place was because a certain drunken idiot needed some punishment. But, yeah, if anything, the action movie was an afterthought.”

“Excuse me?”

“Listen, you can’t film a porn parody if there ain’t an original, yes? You need to be smart in this line of business! So, after I budgeted for the real movie, I’ve just hired some bottom-of-the-barrel wannabes to film the action flick. Of course it was bad, everyone knew that, but it was all part of the plan! Make a mediocre movie, so that the press roasts it… and then shadow drop the porn version on streaming platforms and home video! Bam! Success!”

What followed was an awkward moment of silence, a moment where Verrand questioned the whole reason why he was still there, and yet was forced to find a way to ask one more question.

“I… see. But you… huh, you didn’t star in the R18 version, while you had a role in the action movie. How so?”

“I dunno, would you watch an adult movie to see an old bastard like me? No, of course! You do that for the dicks and the boobs! Less time spent on myself meant more time for the things the pervs out there pay big bucks for!”

“How… much of your role in Schwarzerblitz was inspired by a real story…?”

“All of it!”

“Even the moment where you destroyed one hundred sixty-eight combat robots, while dual-wielding two plasma railguns and riding a burning jeep on a highway?”

“That was a little – let’s say – exaggerated, but H-168 Brave was real! And so were the one hundred sixty-seven before him! All destroyed by THIS devsk in front of you – with just a little, negligible assistance from Delta Team!”

That was utter complete bullcrap – there was only one robot retrieved in Euterpe and was allegedly destroyed by a spec ops soldier. Yet, Verrand decided to let him do the talk. An amusing lie was way better than a boring truth, after all. To the journo’s delight, the old scaly pal wasn’t finished yet.

“See, Mr. Verrand, in fairness I could have also included the sequence where I killed one of the clones of Donner Badlightning, but that would have put too much emphasis on my prowess. I’d rather have someone else take credit for that. After all, one cannot always save the world.”

“I… see. Then, the sequence where all the protagonists join together to kill an army of Donner clones…”

“Yeah, it felt more satisfying than an old reptile going gun akimbo. Better have my character die in a blaze of glory on a highway bridge, while surrounded by a hundred combat robots in a ring of flames! Boy, what a way to go!”

Cut. The TV displayed such scene. The horribly dated CGI used for the robots might have been charming, in a way, but the the fire effects were so bad it looked like someone searched for “flame animation loop transparent” on Arkitech and slammed it on the clip, without even taking care of removing some of the green screen artifacts. In three words, a complete disaster. Verrand pushed another button, calling the next clip. A dark skinned man with a gruff voice took front and center, smoking a cigar.

“Schwarzerblitz was my biggest mistake. I’ve been paid peanuts to play the part of Commander Sam Jaguar! Filming in a fursuit was a nightmare, a nightmare! And what was my reward? Being fired halfway through the sequel because I dared to ask for a fair compensation. That crooked cheapskate can go die in a fire, for what concerns me.”

“Right. The sequel. Schwarzerblitz 2: Flashback. How come that movie even existed? According to Mr. Daevka, the original was an excuse to push the porn parody…”

“The rich bastard wanted to bank on the popularity of MIRAI Nanami and Mr. Claws, what else? And how do you think he’d do that? By creating a new, original IP? Nah, too expensive for that moron, better reuse everything that was left from the original film and put the lobster in a yellow speedo, with a plastic star hanging in front of his face. Because that’s gonna work wonders, huh?”

Cut. The picture of Salvador Jimenez was replaced by a scene from said sequel, with Shocker the Electric Lobster electrocuting Chazz Altar, before Combat Idol MIRAI Nanami stepped in to face him in their last battle. Verrand gritted his teeth. Interviewing Nanami and Mr. Claws would have made his life easier and his documentary more interesting, but none of them had the time to answer his queries. Mr. Claws was on an AWA tour, while Nanami… well, apparently that Nanami didn’t exist anymore. They were still searching for her underwater, after the explosion that sunk the floating platform she was singing on. A freak fireworks accident, they said. Rumor had it that Tonethorn was going to unveil Nanami V2 in a matter of days, but that was too late and there was no guarantee V2 retained the memories of the original. Still, Verrand had been very curious about that incident, from the very moment Nanami V1 was declared lost. What if there was something else behind? Maybe, something connected with I.N.A.B.A., the robotic pop star topping the charts and absolutely dwarfing Nanami? It could have been a good investigative piece for The Clover, something well suited to his skill. But no, he was stuck on that thankless job instead, only because he dared to put together a well-researched story on a phage-loving celebrity while she was lying on a hospital bed. The most painful part was that she didn’t even do anything. She didn’t sue him, she didn’t even reach out for the journal to have that taken down – no, it was The Clover’s parent company, Salzberg Press, which arbitrarily decided that that was too much and asked for disciplinary actions. That thought made his blood boil.

Whatever, thought Verrand. The night was still long, he had more clips to go through. His finger moved on the holographic screen, selected an icon. A new picture took front and center on the display. A man with glasses and a broad, bushy beard, wearing a weird green shirt.

“Yes, I was the director of the movie. Of the action flick, mind me! I wouldn’t ever direct a porno, that’s just disgusting! Good with that? Good. Then, let me tell you how it went. You might have watched a couple of my best works, yes? Cruise Control, Fanged Metal, the Powerblonde series? I mean, I’m a pretty successful man, right? So, how come everyone threw me under a bus after Blazing Four bombed? It’s one movie, right? But it was enough to destroy my reputation! Jamison Trout is done and gone, burned hundreds of millions and yadda yadda. That made me unhireable, right? So, I’m on my last leg and see this ad for a movie director. I end up meeting with this Mr. Daevka, who first thing first shows me a suitcase full of money. They were props, of course, nobody pays with paper money anymore, right? But his point was clear: I don’t care who you are or what movies you directed, I need someone cheap for my film and I’m strapped for time. So, yeah, I accepted. I mean, what else could I do? After Blazing Four, I wasn’t even considered for pet food commercials. So, huh, I get this script, written by someone named Vida and a list of actors that were already casted for the role. Man, that was so bad I wanted to vomit.”

“Vida? As in Lyon Vida?”

“Yeah, that weirdo that wrote that tasteless lesbian poem. Should be him, yeah.”

“Tell me, Mr. Trout, did you change any of the dialogue or the scenes, compared with what Mr. Vida wrote?”

“Well, I had to remove some nudity and two or three explicit sequences that would have triggered an M rating, but not much else. That guy has some weird kinks, yes? But why are you interested about that, specifically?”

“Well, I was wondering about the Scarecrow.”

“The what, now?”

“That guy that appears on the background in some of the scenes filmed at night, always in the corner of the camera. They call him the Scarecrow, online. There are some discussions about his role, as he just observes without ever doing anything. I thought it was intended to be an Easter egg of sorts.”

“Ah, yes, that creepy guy. No, I didn’t put him in on purpose, he had the misfortune of being there when we filmed some night scenes at the harbor and, somehow, ended up being recorded by mistake. Guess what, it happens, especially when you have no budget for reshoots. So, yeah, no biggie, really. Sorry for all conspiracy wackos, but not sorry.”

Cut. Verrand frowned a little. The Scarecrow was something not many knew about, a sort of freeze-frame bonus that had been probably noticed by just a dozen people. Schwarzerblitz was a bad movie under all possible metrics, not even in the so bad, it’s good category. It was boring and forgettable, with glaring issues and set pieces that failed to deliver. While Flashback had its vocal fans, the prequel wasn’t even worth finishing… which meant that those few who noticed that sinister, bandaged figure walking in the back of the main actors considered him as yet another blunder. Yet, someone didn’t. There were a couple conspiracy theorists that swore that the weird guy was one and the same with The Man Who Shouted Wake Up. Verrand sighed. From urban legend to urban legend. When would his pain end? He wasn’t one for believing in supernatural stuff, and he would have preferred it to remain that way, but he didn’t have that luxury. It happened more than two years before, one day in April 2065. He was watching a stream on his holographic TV, as usual – then the signal became marred with digital artifacts, the screen turned completely red. Only for a bandaged man to appear for a couple frames, framed by a broken camera with a cracked lens. As the image flickered and turned into an amorphous black mass of glitches, two words were blasted at full volume from the speakers of his device.

Wake up.

That was it. Just those two words.

Wake up.

Then, the image flickered back, turning into whatever the original stream was supposed to be. Leo Verrand was a journalist (and a good journalist, if he said so himself), so his first reaction wasn’t fear, annoyance or a plain what the hell. No, it was searching the internet to find out if anybody else saw that, if anybody had any idea of what that weird ad was for. Because it had to be an ad. Pushing a pirate signal through the encoded and encrypted channels of a public stream was something unheard of, so it had to be intentional. It turned out that he wasn’t the only one asking himself that question. And, in a bizarre turn of events, the first source he found was from South Korea. Then, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, India…

It didn’t make any sense, even in hindsight. The Man Who Shouted Wake Up appeared simultaneously, for just a couple seconds, in the transmissions of the entire world, followed by something that many considered even more unsettling.

A picture of a world in ruins, covered in red sends, under a black sky. That was it. Just a picture, for two or three seconds, before the signal got purged from the network. Whatever that was, whoever he was, The Man Who Shouted Wake Up was now part of popular culture, as much as Cicada 3301 and John Titor. Most likely, in ten years, someone would have popped out of the shadows and told everyone how they did it, but, until then, the truth would have remained unknown. So, when someone who allegedly looked like The Man showed up in the background of a bottom-of-the-barrel B-movie, of course interest rose again, but only for the specific clips portraying him. In his heart, Verrand was sure it was a publicity stunt of that darn greedy devsk, to bring even more eyes on his low-quality production. Well, somehow it worked, even if not in the way he planned.

Verrand glanced at the clock, before pushing the next button. Ten PM. He drew a sigh of relief. Only a couple clips left, maybe three at most. If everything went smoothly, he would have been in bed in one hour or less. He lazily touched the holographic surface, moving to the next interview segment. All things considered, it was amazing how he managed to reach out for so many people in just one week.

The display turned on again, showing what looked like rusted machinery, pumps, valves and old electronics. A man was standing among the antiques, a man that couldn’t be older than thirty. Red hair, eyes shadowed by a grey hoodie. Said man was casually leaning on a wall, whistling something absentmindedly, almost without caring about the interviewer being there for him. Verrand’s voice stormed from the speakers, loud and clear.

“I’ve had some trouble finding your place, Mr. Vida. I apologize for being late.”

“Call me just Vida. Mister is unnecessary and unwelcome.”

The man named Vida crossed eyes with the camera, his deep blue eyes burned on the objective.

“Now, ask your questions and get lost. I’m busy. What are them about?”

“You’re credited as the screenwriter for the movie Schwarzerblitz and I…”

“Ah, so you’re here for that? I’ve put together the screenplay in three days. I couldn’t bother more. That film is a farce, the scenes I craved for were cut or watered down. That’s not a Vida movie. It’s a Jamison Trout compromise.”

“About this, I’ve read your original script and… well, some scenes weren’t suitable for general audiences. In particular, having a combat robot strip and sexually assault a female character in the first fifteen minutes…”

“See? This is why this world is rotten. Emotions and cravings are kept under constant control, never allowed to be expressed. Why do you think people go to the darknet? Because they wear a mask in their everyday life. You’re telling me it’s better like this? I don’t wear a mask, Verrand. I’m unfiltered. And ready to pay for the consequences of this. No hiding, no deflecting, just acceptance. This is Vida.”

Pause. Lyon Vida. Such a weird guy. Popped out of nowhere, around five years earlier, when he published a poem called Heaven Denied – a weird story about Adam and Eve reincarnating as two girls in modern times, consuming their love in their new female bodies and being punished by God to have their souls extinguished when they die, as a retribution for being happy in their new physical life. Of course the poem became notorious because it seemed to condemn homosexual love – on the surface. Proponent of a more charitable reading argued that there’s no need to turn to God to be happy in the short life we have, considering it a ode to taking action and break societal conventions anyway. Whatever the case, Vida never confirmed nor denied any interpretations of his very divisive opus. He kept on uploading short stories irregularly, always from a different internet café, turning into an underground microcelebrity of sorts. His works regularly featured violence, explicit scenes, with a vast majority of them being girl-on-girl, and weird esoteric themes. The fact he even accepted to pen the script of a B-movie felt strange in itself. But what to expect from a man who lived in the ruins of a dismissed thermal power plant?

Play.

“Still, that wasn’t the point of the screenplay. That was just window dressing. I wanted to send a message, Verrand. But the message got lost, drowned by a wall of scenes that didn’t convey it. My fault, so… shame on me.”

“What was the message?”

“It makes no sense to spell it for your camera. They’re listening.”

“They?”

“The voices this message wasn’t for. See, I was one of them, part of the collective. It won’t be long before I disappear, though, like the Bigfoot or Nessie. Soon, the world will take care of me, as if I had never existed, Verrand.”

“I don’t think I follow.”

“Remember the sixth of September, Verrand. Remember that date.”

“Huh, well then… thanks for your time, I guess.”

“You guess wrong.”

Cut. Interviewing Vida had been such a chore. No real answers or anything useful. Well, at least he could say he reached out for him – which wasn’t easy at all. Sometimes it felt like Vida was a ghost. He could be found only when he wanted to be found. It was unclear what his job was, if he even had a job in the first place. Probably, he was a junkie or even a pusher. Oh, well, at least he had enough material for the final video. Just adding an excerpt on Heaven Denied, the animatic for the robot scene that was cut and a scrapped piece of paper about a plot point Mr. Daevka himself removed before giving the script to Trout – something about a collective resonance, ominously watching over the characters as a malicious, unexplained presence. A concept that probably felt too hard to put on celluloid and too expensive in terms of special effects. Was that what Vida referred to as his message?

A cracking noise interrupted his chain of thought.

The noise of something on the verge of breaking.

But not from the display, no.

From behind his back.

A shape reflected on the screen, a human shape.

Not his.

Verrand turned in the blink of an eye, gasping for air.

Nothing.

Nobody.

Just…

Just his stupid robot cat Aubergine, playing with a glass bottle and throwing it around near the sofa. Verrand sighed. That thing started acting up a couple weeks earlier, right after that big I.N.A.B.A. concert simulcast on public radio. Sometimes, it felt like it was actively trying to hinder his job, by gnawing at the cables of his expensive equipment or strolling between his legs as he was going to leave his flat. He almost fell while walking down the stairs, thanks to it, and saved himself from meeting his creator just by a sheer stroke of luck. Maybe, that was the stroke of luck he was paying for with that late night montage work – a way to appease karma.

“Aubergine? Switch off, now.”

Right as the voice reached its audio receptors, the mechanical pet stopped moving, slumped on its legs, like a broke rag doll.

Yeah, he had to bring it to a specialist. An emotional support mechanical pet wasn’t supposed to try to actively kill him. With a last sigh, he turned back to the TV set, at least slightly relieved. It was just his dumb defective cat, nothing else. For an instant, he would have sworn to have seen someone else reflected on the display. Fortunately, that was not the case. That inquisitive, violet eye had just been a figment of his tired brain. Satisfied with his own explanation, Verrand went back to his tapes.

The documentary wouldn’t have finished itself.