Short Story Excerpt: “Ghosts of Cleveland”

The following is a story I wrote last year, but with the recent shallow theatrics of former Cleveland hero LeBron James making a national spectacle of himself and his ego, I believe it has even more relevance now. I updated it recently to reflect these events, but it is mostly unchanged from the day I finished it. What follows is roughly the first half of the story. I’ve lived my entire life in Toledo, Ohio, but my heart has always been in the great city of Cleveland ever since I was a boy. This story was written as sort of a love letter to the city, its teams, its people…and anyone who firmly believes in the word perseverance.

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“Is the game on yet?”

Darren Cromwell rolled his wheelchair into Christian Milner’s room at the Park Rest Nursing Home, located on the outskirts of Cleveland, Ohio. Park Rest claimed to be one of Ohio’s finest (and, incredibly enough) luxurious retirement homes. To Darren Cromwell, it was simply another prison to inhabit. For most of his life, he was the inmate of his own body and the domineering, sadistic warden of the penitentiary was a vicious (and often overlooked) disease called diabetes. Warden Diabetes claimed both of his legs well before he reached the age of sixty and had robbed him of his sexual function and – consequently – his self-esteem. Peripheral neuropathy was just now beginning to seize its icy, numbing grip on his fingers, as it did his toes and feet when he was younger, and exerting the effort needed to roll his wheelchair was an exercise in pain and discomfort, but his arms – still fairly tone and muscular – retained a good deal of their old strength. As a young man (in the days before Warden Diabetes passed harsh judgment upon his flesh) Darren was tall and strong. He stood six feet, seven inches and could bench press over four hundred pounds. He played high school football for the Woodward Polar Bears in Toledo, Ohio, striking fear in the hearts of opposing teenage quarterbacks as a terrifyingly speedy and tenacious defensive end.

However, those days were long passed. Many bad decisions concerning his personal health during his twenties (taking up the bad habits of smoking and drinking, for instance) was what led to the monkeys he couldn’t shake off his back until it was well past too late. The loss of both of his legs just above the knee left him diminished in stature. The fading of his cardiovascular system weakened his immunity and prolonged the time for even the tiniest of cuts to heal properly. He was a shadow of his former self; a shadow peppered with the numerous scars of a man who finds less and less reason to live with every subsequent birthday. Like his body, most of those close to him had faded away or moved on like dying leaves weaving their lonely paths through a chilly October breeze. Every night he would lie in his bed and stare out the window, longing for Haley, his beautiful wife, who passed on six years before; he hoped with the thunderstruck wonder of a child that there was an afterlife – and if so – then Haley would be there waiting for him when he finally decided to give up the ghost. He prayed, not to God necessarily, but he prayed to all those lost loves and dead pieces of himself that still seemed to scream his name in the night, like abandoned children crying in the street for their parents to return. On most of these nights, after he resigned his burning prayers to go unanswered yet again, Darren Cromwell simply wanted it to be over. He had no descendants; Warden Diabetes had taken care of that shortly after he met Haley. He helped to raise the two girls she birthed from a previous marriage, but they had moved on with nary a glance back over their shoulders at the man they once called father, if not in flesh but in spirit.

Some of the other elderly men in the Park Rest home were envious of Darren, however oblivious he was of their jealousy. He still had a full head of thick hair (now as white as a snow bank on Lake Erie) and penetrating brown eyes that blazed with the warm intensity from inside a web of deeply carved wrinkles. His upper arms still rippled with thick musculature from rolling himself in his wheelchair for almost twenty years. In fact, if it weren’t for his missing legs, even some of the younger male nurses might have been intimidated by Darren. Although, unknown to them, Darren silently wished they would forget his insulin injections one day so he could finally have a little peace.

But he had a reason to live this year, though, oh you better believe it. Today was the first time the team he admired for most of his long, bitter life was playing the biggest game in team history.

The Cleveland Browns were playing in the Super Bowl.

“No! It ain’t on yet! Goddammit!” Christian Milner replied, a little more harshly than he intended to. Christian (Chris to his friends and Pissy Chrissy to his enemies) Milner was also the inmate of his own particular prison. He was the recipient of not one, but two tyrannical wardens: Warden High Blood Pressure and Warden Heart Disease. Christian was a working man at his core. He worked his first job at the age of fifteen and never stopped working, not even after the first heart attack struck him down with the swift, blinding fury of a lightning bolt at the age of fifty-three. He was a burly man for most of his adult life, hovering at around three hundred pounds. He was a fond admirer of Miller Lite beer and fast-food cheeseburgers, although he never ballooned to the mammoth size of his late father. Unlike Darren Cromwell, Christian found his calling in life with the occupation of airplane mechanic at Cleveland International Airport, where he worked for forty long, satisfying years until he retired at the age of sixty-five.

The years were too satisfying for Christian. For a working-class Joe, he lived damn near a life of excess and decadence. Before settling in with his now-deceased wife, Jane, the ass seemed to cascade into Christian’s lap with the steady surge of the Cuyahoga River. It wasn’t his physique that attracted the ladies; moreover, it was his quiet demeanor and rock-steady confidence that made them all quiver and relax their inner thigh muscles. Christian never felt the compulsion to talk about himself, because he always trusted more in actions than words. He grasped the fact that, no matter what the task may be, he could get the job done and done well. Anyone even remotely associated with him could see it simply by the way he conducted himself. The good money he made at the airport also allowed Christian to indulge himself with Miller Lite and all the delicacies of take-out dining he desired. Even after his first heart attack, he refused to give up these privileges of the palette; it took his second heart attack four years later to finally make him see the error of his ways. A third heart attack at the age of sixty-three further cemented the cruel, maniacal glee that existed in the darkened soul of Warden Heart Disease. Christian didn’t empathize with Darren’s morose view of old age and the fading flickers of life that permeate it like faint and dying candlelight. After being admitted into Park Rest, he plunged headfirst into living the remainder of his days as best as he could for as long as he could. It helped him to think of it as just another job; work he could do and do it well he would. He couldn’t bring himself to look back on his life and pine for the things he could never have again.

But even Christian had to admit that the world around him had moved on. The young are young with their whole lives ahead of them; the old are forgotten relics of bygone eras who are never given proper credit for laying the foundations the young must stand upon. Such is the way of humanity. Christian had three children with Jane, all grown up and scattered at different points of the compass, all with children of their own as well. He received Christmas cards from them but never a visit or even a measly phone call. All he had left was his cousin, Darren Cromwell, and his brother, Ron, who both lived with him in the Park Rest Nursing Home.

And the fact that – very soon now – the Cleveland Browns would be playing in the Super Bowl.

Christian, now only one hundred and eighty pounds and minus the wispy, black hair of his earlier manhood, stared at Darren with eager anticipation through his safety glasses. His goatee protruded from the taut flesh of his chin like fine white grass. Darren was taken aback by how much Christian physically resembled their long-dead grandfather. Not only did he get their grandfather’s unbreakable work ethic, but Christian got a good dose of his genes as well.

“Prick,” Darren said at last, a grin twitching the corners of his mouth.

“Heh, yeah,” Christian agreed, “But no, it ain’t on yet. Besides, we’re supposed to go to Ron’s room and watch it, remember?”

“Lazy-ass prick!” Darren exclaimed. He sounded winded and eager for a long nap. “What’s his excuse that he can’t come down here? I have no damn legs!”

“You have legs, they’re just half what they used to be.”

“Ha! Least my face hair doesn’t look like the pubes of King Tut.”

Christian rocked his head back and roared laughter. Such rude and childish wordplay between the old gentlemen was simply a matter of course; they had been doing it since the days of adolescence. An uninformed observer would think the men despised each other with fervent disdain, but, as Darren once so eloquently put it, “The more we fuck with each other, the more it shows we love each other.”

“Burn in hell,” Christian stated after his laughter tapered off. Darren wiped his nose against the back of his hand and chuckled.

“Can you believe it, Chris? The Browns in the Super Bowl? Remember when we all moved to Browns Town after high school, sayin’ that we’d be old and gray before they finally made it?”

“Yeah,” Christian said, scratching an itchy welt on his chin, “They proved us right.”

“Better late than never,” Darren remarked, with a faint touch of bitterness.

“Well, we should get over to Ron’s room,” Christian stated with a sigh, “The game’s gonna start in fifteen minutes. God, I hope they win. Then I could die with a smile on my face.”

“Me, too,” Darren chimed in, “I remember all of us livin’ in Toledo and seein’ nothin’ but Steelers shit being sold everywhere.”

“Yeah,” Christian said agreeably, sauntering up behind Darren’s wheelchair.

“Big men like us couldn’t easily buy Browns clothes,” Darren continued, as if he didn’t hear Christian’s affirmation, “But Steelers stuff? Oh, they sold plenty of big an’ tall Steelers shit. Toledo was the asshole of Ohio, my friend, and that asshole shit out black and yellow diarrhea.”

“Yeah,” Christian responded again, pushing Darren’s wheelchair out into the west wing corridor of Park Rest. Darren was rambling again, and when he rambled, Christian discovered long ago that the best course of action was to utter the occasional “Yeah.” This always seemed to fool Darren into believing he was being listened to when in actuality his monotonous, droning words were oozing in one ear and being ejected through the other.

Christian looked around the hall as he pushed Darren, who was still ranting about the fact that their hometown of Toledo, Ohio supported the Steelers more than the Browns (at least in terms of merchandise). He took note of the other elderly folk as they sat motionless in their wheelchairs or aimlessly ambled through the corridor like forlorn spirits. He felt thankful that, for today, at least, the three of them finally had a purpose besides waking up just so they could go back to sleep again.

We’re all ghosts of Cleveland here, he thought as they approached Ron Milner’s room. We live in the most haunted city in America.

****

Ghosts.

The city of Cleveland knows all about ghosts.

They swirl through the air and whisper their nearly silent curses like Old Testament prophets announcing doom to those who oppose the will of God. For the most part, longtime Cleveland denizens ignore them as they plod their way through life, doing their miniscule parts to keep one of the poorest big cities in America afloat above the waters of obscurity. “Blue-collar” was a term that was seemingly created with your average Cleveland resident in mind: overworked security guards and humbled food vendors, quiet janitors and overwhelmed substitute teachers, weary factory workers and scarcely-tipped waitresses. They all played the most integral roles in keeping the rusted backbone of the city from collapsing under the strain of its own weight, yet they would never receive the credit they so richly deserved. These blue-collar workers were far more important to the desperate survival of the city than the lawyers, the overpaid city councilmen, or the endless stream of mayoral candidates who promised vibrant change and brought little, if any, once they were in office.

Cleveland, like other fading Rust Belt cities, had seen its fair share of spectacular failure inside and outside of sports. It wasn’t dubbed the “Mistake by the Lake” for nothing, after all; evidence of those blunders still stood in the quiet hulks of numerous closed business buildings and forgotten homes that had For Sale signs jutting from riotous and unkempt lawns. Detroit – another long-suffering Rust Belt city – still hadn’t completely disposed of or recovered from the ruins left in the aftermath of the civil riots of the nineteen-sixties, leaving a plethora of scars upon the flesh of the city. On the other hand, Cleveland’s monuments to mistake continued to stand, more or less intact, like gravestones in a gargantuan cemetery. They were a daily reminder of how badly things can (and will) go wrong aside the waters strikingly gray skies of Lake Erie.

Yet, a heartfelt civic pride continued to flow through the streets of Cleveland like blood still pumping rigorously through a narrowed artery. You could see it decorated on the young mother’s stroller as she pushed her baby down the sidewalk on Prospect Avenue. You could see it on the hats and t-shirts of two strangers who exchange pleasant words and a firm handshake inside of the Harry Buffalo bar downtown. You could see it on the children’s attire as they bumbled and climbed around the jungle gym during recess at school.

They bled the Orange and Brown, world without end, forever and ever, hallelujah, amen. The Cleveland Browns were the city’s talisman against the dismal ghosts which hung in the air above the residents like harbingers of death, eager for new failures to accompany them in their lonesome afterlife.

Not to say that Cleveland didn’t love their other professional sports teams. In baseball, they had the Indians; in basketball, they had the Cavaliers. The city also put all their hopes into these teams, wishing in the back of their minds that if one, just one, of their teams could finally trump the odds and bring the starving city a professional championship, Cleveland could stop eating its own heart out for sustenance. They prayed it could bring renewal to not only their teams and the city’s slumping economy but to each individual life therein. Simply put, they subconsciously believed – with the utter surety of the radically religious – that if one of their teams finally brought home that elusive championship, that if one of their teams stood tall in the face of long odds and slim hopes, then maybe they, as individuals, could do it too. The fortunes of their very lives would turn around as an aftereffect.

But it never happened that way. So-called saviors of Cleveland’s professional sport franchises – who always arrived with high fanfare and left with frighteningly shameful frequency – turned out to be not much more than apostles themselves. Unconditional admiration from the fans, the unfailing support of the city, and even one-hundred foot murals erected in their honor were never good enough to keep some gifted athletes in Cleveland for the long haul. Gods and Kings and everything in between; most of them would inevitably expose their true colors and turn their backs on the city, scrambling like wounded dogs for bigger cities, sunny beaches and brighter spotlights.

Yet love and hope always sprung eternal in the streets of Cleveland, and most of that love and hope was bestowed upon the Browns like sacrificial offerings left at the altar of high expectations; perhaps that was why some athletes developed god complexes and thought Cleveland wasn’t good enough for them. But after years of futility, all those sacrifices and all that adulation finally paid off.

During the season leading up to their unprecedented Super Bowl appearance, the Browns posted a record of thirteen wins and three losses, the best such winning percentage in franchise history. Their defense was incredibly stingy, ranking first in the NFL in yards allowed, points allowed, and takeaways. They crushed the Jacksonville Jaguars 51-3 in the AFC divisional playoff (scoring three touchdowns off Jacksonville turnovers) in front of an explosively raucous crowd in Cleveland Browns Stadium. That set up a showdown in the AFC Championship game with the reviled Pittsburgh Steelers, who posted a record of 12 – 4 and had the number two ranked defense in the league. To get there, the Steelers blanketed the Tennessee Titans 30-0 and the Miami Dolphins 17-0.

On paper, it looked perfect; the Browns vs. the Steelers in Cleveland. Hated rivals would fight near the banks of Lake Erie while the biting winds of Old Man Winter whirled through the stadium, carrying the frantic, enthusiastic cheers of almost one hundred thousand unflinchingly devoted Browns fans – the number one defense in the league versus the number two defense – the winner goes on to the Super Bowl, the loser goes home.

It looked perfect to everybody except Browns fans, who began to hear the faint but intense murmuring of the ghosts as they stirred in their heavy shrouds of heartache. The ghosts started to freely walk the streets in full force and mutter baleful reminders of all those other times the Browns came up short: Red Right 88. The Drive. The Fumble. They spoke of Art Modell, that greedy, heartless bastard, who ripped the Browns out of Cleveland after the 1995 season and moved it to Baltimore and rechristened them the Ravens, leaving the city without the Browns for three hollow and mournful years. The ghosts whispered of those who came to Cleveland in order to help the Browns bring the city a championship but never could, despite their brilliant play: Brian Sipe and the rest of the Cardiac Kids. Hanford Dixon. Bernie Kosar. Webster Slaughter. Kevin Mack. Clay Matthews. Eric Metcalf. Vinny Testaverde. Michael Jackson. Michael Dean Perry. The ghosts spoke of these names as grave reminders to Browns fans that, no matter how far they went or how much progress they made, the team would never get far enough…just like the Cavaliers and Indians.

But, something magical happened on that frosty January afternoon. The continually crushed aspirations and despondent rage of an entire city manifested in the communal spirit of the Browns. It was the day that Cleveland finally forged a new identity out of the ashes of its own inadequacies and truly earned its once-meaningless nickname.

Believeland.

Trailing the Steelers 12-9 with less than five minutes to play in the game, Cleveland scored a touchdown on a fifty-four yard running play (the only big play of the game for the Browns’ offense, as the Steelers’ D played like men possessed by demons up until that point) to go up 16-12. The ensuing kickoff was returned by the Steelers to their own twenty-two yard line, giving them just over four minutes to drive seventy-eight yards for a touchdown and break the hearts of Browns fans yet again.

The announcers of the game began to discuss The Drive of the 1986 AFC Championship that made John Elway, his alarmingly substantial teeth, and the Denver Broncos as hated in Cleveland as the accursed Steelers. Fans watching the game on television at home (or at overcrowded sports bars) vehemently wished the announcers would kindly shut the fuck up. They didn’t need to be reminded, thank you very much. Fans assembled in the stadium didn’t need the announcers to remind them. They could already feel the malevolent presences of the ghosts as they ascended from the waters of Lake Erie and the Cuyahoga, settling upon their shoulders and crushing them with the unbearable weight of towering leviathans.

The Steelers then – predictably enough – marched methodically down the field, chewing up the remainder of the clock and dampening the hopes of Browns fans everywhere with each first down obtained. Then only twenty-four seconds remained and the Steelers had a first and goal at the Browns’ seven.

What happened next came to be known in Cleveland simply as The Stand. It was when the Browns finally decided that enough was enough, and their time would not be denied, not this time, not ever again, forever and ever, hallelujah, amen. Darren Cromwell, Christian Milner and Ron Milner – all watching the game on television with the rapt attention of young boys listening to a riveting campfire story – could see something wash over the faces of the Browns’ defense as they lined up for the first of those dramatic and heart-stopping downs. It was the look of unbreakable determination that comes not from the mind but from the deepest reaches of the heart and the soul. The Browns could sense the ghosts and they could hear them, all right. They just didn’t care about them anymore.

On first and goal, a run up the middle was stuffed for no gain. The Steelers called timeout with seventeen seconds remaining.

On second and goal, a screen pass to the running back resulted in a fumble after a vicious tandem tackle in the backfield by two swarming Browns linebackers. A chaotic scramble for the loose ball followed, which was recovered by the Steelers ten yards behind their previous line of scrimmage, on the seventeen yard line. They called their final timeout with six seconds left.

By this point, the Dawg Pound was making enough racket to awaken any of the remaining entombed mummies of Egypt. They could smell the coppery aroma of blood. The ghosts, shrieking in abject protest, began to lose their grip on the city of Cleveland.

On third and goal, a pass to the two yard line was ruled incomplete when the Steelers receiver was smashed by a streaking Browns cornerback just as he caught the ball, jarring it loose. The fans erupted with the frightening, enthusiastic strength of a nuclear bomb detonation, thinking the game was over and the Browns were off to the Super Bowl. But after their initial jubilation subsided, they looked at the clock in the stadium and realized there was still one second left.

Fourth and goal from the Browns’ seventeen. Neither team had any timeouts left. Barring a defensive penalty, this was the play that would decide which of the bitterly hated rivals would represent the AFC in the Super Bowl.

Out of the shotgun formation, the quarterback of the Steelers dropped back to pass. Heavy pressure by the Browns’ defensive line off the snap forced him to abandon the pocket and scramble to the left of the field. Seeing no good options there, the quarterback ducked a tackle by a speeding Browns linebacker (drawing a collective and disappointed ooohhh from the crowd) and he scrambled back toward the right with both defensive ends hot on his tail. A fraction of a second before they pulled him down from behind, the Steelers quarterback rifled a bullet toward an open receiver in the end zone.

Fans watching the game on television thought that – for a stomach-plummeting second or two – the pass was reeled in by the receiver. The impression was given because the camera panned a sharp right to follow the receiver’s path as he streaked toward the back of the end zone. The Browns linebacker who vaulted into the frame from the right side of the screen and fell to the turf was scarcely noticed by TV viewers. Then the fans in the stadium exploded again, and the announcer started screaming in a raspy voice that grew hoarser as he went on with his excited and frantic babbling.

“INTERCEPTED! INTERCEPTED! IT’S ALL OVER! THE BROWNS HAVE BEATEN THE STEELERS! The ghosts have finally been put to rest! The Cleveland Browns are going to the SUPER BOWL! CAN! YOU! BELIEEEEEEVE IT?”

Then fans – including all of those in the Dawg Pound – charged down onto the field in a state of feverish and blinded ecstasy that was a shared emotion with the Browns players. They ran to meet the flowing mob of their fans; the fans that stayed loyal, the fans who never wholly quit on them, and the fans that were always more like family than followers. They started lifting the players onto their shoulders and parading them in frenzied circles all over the field, chanting SU-PER BOWL! SU-PER BOWL! As the Steelers’ players – who simply stood around for those first few moments, shell-shocked at the fact that they didn’t get their way against the Browns for once – began trickling, dejected, back into the locker room, the fans and the Browns players started singing, “NA-NA-NA-NA, NA-NA-NA-NA, HEY-HEY-HEEYY, GOODBYYYYE!”

In Ron Milner’s room at the Park Rest Nursing Home, Darren Cromwell was openly weeping as he watched the touching spectacle unfold on television, wishing against reality that he was younger – or still just able-bodied enough – to be there in Cleveland Browns Stadium at that moment. The scene also made him think of his childhood, of all those special occasions when Darren’s parents would drive him and his sister to Norwalk, Ohio, to visit his grandmother and aunt. There, in Arlene Cromwell’s modest little home, they all would sit around the television watching the Browns, sipping RC Colas, laughing, enjoying each other and the team they all adored with the exclusive magic that only members of a family can create together. They were all many years in their graves now, and Darren speculated if some of them – or maybe all of them – were able to see the glorious triumph that he was witnessing. With a melancholy that was too deep for any words, he sincerely wished they could.

Christian and Ron – like Darren – were also crying but were slapping each other five and shouting expressions of gratified exuberance, like YEAH! and ABOUT GODDAMN TIME! and WOOOO! Soon all three of them – tears on their grizzled, weathered cheeks and feeling younger inside than they had in decades – sat in a rough circle facing each other. They started their own chant while stomping their feet in rhythm with the words (in Darren’s case, he pounded his fist on the arm of his wheelchair): BROWNS! BROWNS! BROWNS! BROWNS!

Christian, who was never good at displaying outward love or sentimentality, felt a rush of adoration for Darren and Ron that brought on a fresh volley of tears. He glanced back at the TV, taking in the ongoing celebration of the Browns, and looked back at his two brothers: one also from his own mother, one from another, all bonded by blood, spirit, and the orange and brown.

We’re all family, Christian thought. Our teams…and us.

But merely two days later, the collective jubilation of Browns Backers the world over gave way to doubt once more. Sure, they had finally brought home an AFC Championship and were on their way to the Super Bowl (where they would be facing the fearsome New York Giants, who went 15-1 that season), but now the realization was sinking in like coagulating sugar sinking to the bottom of a forgotten jug of Kool-Aid: they had to bring home that Lombardi trophy. They had to. If they didn’t, they might not get another chance for ten, twenty, a hundred years, even. The legendary Stand against the Steelers would mean nothing if they couldn’t go all the way and hoist that Trophy high for the world to see, telling the world that yes, the Browns are finally Super Bowl champions, that they proudly represent the city of Cleveland and every one of its blue-collar citizens and, for that matter, Browns Backers elsewhere in the state of Ohio and all across the globe.

Was it any wonder that the Browns’ unofficial mascot was a dog? That arguably the most noisy, creative and loyal fans in football were those who spent their hard-earned money for seats in the Dawg Pound every single game, even though most of those games – until recently – ended in Browns defeats?

The Cleveland Browns bestowed a voice and an image to the dog in underdog. And isn’t that what we all are as we grow up and face the harsh realities and seemingly insurmountable challenges of life?

****

© Daryl Brownell

10 Simple Rules for Making a Great Horror Movie

Horror movies today have left me disgruntled and disillusioned (or maybe I’m just always brimming with piss and vinegar). Paltry remakes, tedious sequels, and uninspired, formulaic retreads permeate the landscape of big-budget modern horror movies. If you want to see any kind of originality, you’re forced to sift through the independent circuit.

Even the horror masters have faded in recent times. George A. Romero, who merely five years ago proved he still had some of that zombie magic left after a twenty-year hiatus with Land of the Dead, has since released two sub par zombie flicks independently. These movies, Diary of the Dead and Survival of the Dead, contain interesting concepts that are never explored to their full potential, lack of character development (something George has always been well known for), poor CGI effects and silly, physics-defying methods of zombie disposal.

I know that my opinion will invoke the ire of Romero loyalists – who all believe that George can do no wrong when it comes to zombies – but I don’t hold back for anybody on God’s green earth. Hell, I’m a George A. Romero loyalist, but I think I know a classic zombie flick when I see it, and his last two movies left me with nothing more than a sour taste in my mouth.

But at least George is still plugging away; you’ve got to give him that much. John Carpenter – who as of this writing is finally filming another movie – has been mostly MIA since 2001, which was when the mediocre Ghosts of Mars was released. Sam Raimi, who brought horror, comedy, and comic book heroism together in Evil Dead 2, Army of Darkness and Darkman, has recently delivered the entertaining Drag Me to Hell, but will Sony Pictures and the Spider-Man franchise do the same to him?

Those are just a few of the maestros. But never fear, Hollywood; Daryl is here to save you from the kinds of horror movies that only spoiled teenage girls talk about at the mall’s food court. They are called Daryl’s 10 Simple Rules, and – if you obey each rule – the chances are good that you’ll finally make a horror movie that won’t be considered just a great horror movie, but a great movie. Period. Of course, these rules can be bent depending on what type of horror movie you’re making; a horror/comedy, for example, is never limited to any sets of rules. But if you want to make an all-time classic that really scares the bejesus of your intended audience for years to come…then you’ve come to the right place. Daryl’s Boot Camp is in session, and you don’t have to like it.

You just have to do it.

RULE #1: SET THE TONE. Hollywood…stop kicking off your horror movies with music video-like presentations, over-the-top opening credits or no opening titles at all. I love heavy metal music, but even I have to admit that it has its place and that is not at the beginning of a horror movie. A plodding opening sequence with haunting music and disturbing imagery interspersed throughout can do much, much more. A few examples of this would be Seven (1995), Dead Birds (2004), and Land of the Dead (2005). You can even mix up this formula, like the Dawn of the Dead remake did; start off fast, grab the audience by their collective throat, really suck them into the chaos…and then slow it down. Setting the tone for a horror movie is all too often overlooked.

RULE #2: ESTABLISH THE ATMOSPHERE. This is also disregarded by many modern horror movies. Dramatic camera angles that highlight long shadows, darkened crevices, ominous skies, claustrophobic stairwells and hallways, etc. slowly absorb your audience into the mounting tension. If you make your environments seem as menacing as your monstrous catalysts (whatever they happen to be), then the audience empathizes with your characters more and paranoia becomes communal. Examples can be seen in The Exorcist (1973), Halloween (1978), The Thing (1982), Prince of Darkness (1986), The Ring (2002), and Dead Birds (2004).

RULE #3: LITTLE OR NO MUSIC. Throw out the kind of loud music that mindlessly attracts your adolescent demographic and scrap even complex symphonic arrangements. High decibel levels always divert the human senses from the escalating suspense. You don’t want your music to be loud at all; rather, you want your music to be subtle and ambient, something that slithers through the ears and into the viewer’s subconscious. Bass, synthesizers and keyboards can do what no electric guitar, wicked rhyme or orchestra can do. This rule has a symbiotic relationship with Rule #2. When both are done well, they feed off of each other and augment the atmosphere. A shining example of this can be seen in John Carpenter’s incredible The Thing (1982). When MacReady throws the kennel door open and casts his flashlight on the abomination inside of it, listen carefully to the music in the background. As the dog-thing shrieks its rage at the stunned humans, that warbling, droning music crawls under your skin (kind of like the thing itself) and immediately tells you that the end was nigh for the inhabitants of Outpost 31.

However, some scenes demand no music. In The Exorcist (1973), the only music needed during the climactic exorcism was the fearful screams and hollow commands of the two embattled priests.

RULE #4: DEVELOP THINE CHARACTERS. Character development? In a horror movie? What a staggering concept. But did you ever wonder why so many people cheer on the murderous exploits of Jason Vorhees in the Friday the 13^th films? With Tommy Jarvis being the sole exception…IT’S BECAUSE THE CHARACTERS SUCK. They’re shallow, sex-crazed teenagers with no other thought or compulsion but to get intoxicated and screw like rabbits eating whole ginseng roots. Hell, I support Jason as he rampages through Crystal Lake like a homicidal Hulk, because he has more charisma wearing a mask and brandishing a machete than the 1,786 (or so) horny teens he’s brutally killed…combined.

Developing your characters is vital to making an effective horror movie. If the viewer doesn’t care about the main characters or their plight, then how do you expect the audience to ever be scared for them? Total immersion in fear is the most necessary ingredient in a horror movie, and these rules are aimed to cover fear at any and every angle. When Roger is bitten by a zombie in the original Dawn of the Dead, I’m willing to bet most of you were pretty upset; I sure was when I first saw it. Why is that? Because his character was pretty well embellished before that point…but the role was also well-acted by Scott H. Reiniger. Struggling and relatively unknown actors usually have something to prove, which is why I would prefer casting them rather than big-money actors if I were making a horror movie. But well known actors can also surprise you; John Cusack’s role in 1408 (2007) comes to mind. His acting made that movie and gave the character of Mike Enslin a great deal of substance. Pick the actors that can best bring your characters to life and utilize those talents to properly flesh those characters out.

RULE #5: KEEP THE “JUMP” MOMENTS TO A MINIMUM. You want to tease your audience, not desensitize them thirty minutes into your film. If you litter your movie with too many “jump” moments – whether they’re justifiable or not – your audience won’t give a rusty you-know-what when the genuine scares begin. Here’s an example of an effective “jump” moment: Heroine hears strange noise upstairs. Heroine goes to investigate. After a lengthy sequence that’s full of tension and expectation, the heroine discovers…absolutely nothing. The heroine goes back downstairs so she can go to bed. She brushes her teeth. She gurgles mouthwash and spits it into the sink. She looks at her face in the mirror. She puts on her nightgown. She opens her bedroom door. She walks past her closet AND SOMETHING GRABS HER FROM INSIDE THE CLOSET! A successful “jump” moment happens out of nowhere, especially after a sense of normalcy has been established (or re-established) in a particular scene.

Many horror fans fondly recall Jason erupting from the waters of Crystal Lake at the end of the original Friday the 13^th as one the greatest “jump” moments of all time. I agree, but I think I have a better one in mind; anyone who’s seen The Exorcist III will know exactly what I’m talking about.

RULE #6: GET RID OF THE SHAKY CAMERA. Shaky camera shots are fine during a scene of intense action, but I don’t want to get seasick while I’m watching a simple exchange of dialogue. It seems that shaky camera shots are littered across the landscape of both the silver and small screens nowadays. My only theory is that this current trend has been inspired by reality TV…and if you’re turning to reality television for any sort of new ideas to implement in your horror movie, you need to go back to the drawing board.

RULE #7: TONE DOWN THE GORE FACTOR AND CGI. Gore and violence should be kept to the barest minimum possible in a horror movie. Why? Go back up to Rule #5 and read it again. Desensitizing your audience too quickly will make them more apathetic when beloved characters start to get maimed later on. When gore and violence does happen in a movie, it should happen like how it does in real life…short, sloppy, and vicious. Have you ever seen a real fist fight? I’ve seen plenty – and been in more than a few myself – to understand that real violence is not a fluid arrangement of physical sequences; a fist fight is a rough, bloody tangle of flying limbs. Whether it’s a physical altercation or the brutal death of a character, keep it short and simple…like a punch in the stomach.

Now, about CGI. STOP RELYING ON IT SO DAMN MUCH. CGI should be used to enhance tried and true effects and/or cover up flaws in its design. While there are a few exceptions to this rule, it angers me whenever I see sloppy CGI instead of remarkable animatronics or puppetry; I can spot shoddy CGI effects from a mile away…and I’m blind in one eye. CGI can’t replace a good squib when a zombie gets its brains splattered all over the wall. CGI can’t replace the realism of a hideous creature built by a dedicated FX team who adore their dying craft. CGI can’t replace excellent makeup or gruesome masks…but CGI can supplement some – or all – of the above. Construct your effects before you bring in the computer geeks to help out.

RULE #8: AMBIGUITY. Audiences today demand explanations. Let me tell you something: as a horror writer, I hate trying to come up with believable – or, at the very least, halfway plausible – explanations to otherwise unexplainable phenomenon. That’s why I’ve stuck with short stories and novellas recently, because writers are still allowed to make a hasty exit when the reader is expecting complete clarification. In a movie, ambiguity is the best bet. Explain some things but leave other questions unanswered. An example would be to explain what your horrific catalyst is, but never reveal where it came from. Then the question of where becomes the quandary of each and every person in your audience. They will find their own answers, and that kind of interactivity with your intended audience will flourish into loyalty for your creation. When it comes to answering who, what, when, where, how, and why, resolve only half of those queries at the most.

H.P. Lovecraft said it best. “The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown.” All aspiring horror creators should take his words to heart.

RULE #9: END IT ALL. This is horror, and in horror, the good guys rarely win. If they do win, if they manage to defy the odds and overcome the unspeakable horrors they must face, it should always come with a heavy price that’s usually paid with their sanity or their souls. Halloween (1978) has a climax that alarms the viewer even though Laurie Strode and Dr. Loomis survive. The ending troubles you because you know next to nothing about what, exactly, Michael Myers really is, but you know that he’s still alive and you know that he could be anywhere, watching and waiting in the shadows.

Classic examples of effectively disturbing and nihilistic climaxes can be found in Night of the Living Dead (1968), Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978), The Thing (1982), Saw (2004), 28 Weeks Later (2007) and The Mist (2007). The ending of The Mist was the last movie I’ve seen to have a soul-crushing finale that kicks you in the gut. Repeatedly.

RULE #10: TO HELL WITH SEQUELS. Sequels are mostly wastes of time. I liked the first Saw because it was one of the few movies to come out over the last ten years that I couldn’t accurately predict at the 40 minute mark. Saw II, however, was much more predictable, at least for me. I lost interest halfway through Saw III, and I haven’t bothered to watch any of the latter sequels. Some of them may even be good (or have good qualities to them), but my motivation for watching them is nil because I’m tired of the formula. When you make a horror movie, you’ve got to have a balls-out mentality with it. Don’t plan for any sequels or cater your story for a potential sequel. Implement your best ideas and hardest effort now. If sequel opportunities do come along, and if you genuinely care about your creations, you’ll be forced to raise the bar that you’ve already set for yourself. Just try to keep the sequels at one or two, please. When a franchise hits four movies long, you’re asking for creative self-implosion.

That’s it, Hollywood. Obey Daryl’s 10 Simple Rules and horror movies can stop languishing in the purgatory of remakes and unoriginality you’ve put them in. Just mention my name somewhere in the credits.

I’m starving here.