Now I Scream

The black screen fades to a wide shot of a suburban house. It holds still for ten seconds before zooming in. As it does so, the sounds of frantic breathing grow louder and louder, but their source is not visible.

Professor Valen Vale leans back behind the connected desk of the third row of seats in Lecture Hall 308, his impressively toned and lightly tattooed arms crossed in front of his chest. His cheeks and forehead, seemingly chiseled from Greek marble, are relaxed but disconcertingly firm. To the average man, it would be difficult to tell if he was indifferent or seething with rage.

One row behind him and two seats to his right, Carlie Hayes is attempting her best impression of the professor. Her trembling hands are clasped on her lap; beneath them, her left knee trembles far more erratically. But, being the only other person in the room, Carlie does not worry about anyone seeing her.

Back on the screen, the two-person audience watches a close-up of a screaming middle-aged woman. Her slightly wrinkled face is hideously contorted by rage, all directed at the off-screen presence of her son. Still, a first-time viewer might not have predicted seeing his face covered in open wounds, dripping blood down to his cleft chin.

The sight of the blood brought a prideful smirk to Carlie’s face. Over the past seven years of her film studies, she had dedicated a disproportionate focus to the art of creating realistic visual effects, especially blood. To Carlie, verisimilitude (the illusion of a cinematic world being “real”) was the essential ingredient in creating a meaningful motion picture, and the blood was a perfect demonstration of this principle. To Valen, it was just a decent effect.

Now, a new face is on screen: a teenage girl no older than the boy with the bloody face. The camera focuses on horizontal scars that run down both her wrists. For the first time, Valen sits up in his seat. Carlie notices, biting down on her lip.

Minutes later, the girl and the boy are meeting in a park. Her hands are shaking his shoulders and she is screaming in his face. Resting in the boy’s left hand: a 12-inch chef’s knife. A close-up of his face, revealing dull and hollow eyes that stare one thousand feet through the person who is yelling at him.

A bead of sweat sneaks down Carlie’s forehead as a muffled curse sneaks out her mouth. If Valen hears, he shows no reaction. The way he watches the thesis, it is hard to tell if anything could provoke a reaction from him.

Suddenly, there is a close-up, quickly followed by a medium and a long shot. The girl is running, desperate and terrified. Her feet are bare and scarred, yet that’s the furthest thing from her mind. A crash zoom on her left eye reflects the destination she needs to reach: the suburban house from the first scene.

With each passing second, Carlie’s heartbeat hastens. Another sweat bead escapes from the pores on her forehead. The climax is fast approaching, the make-or-break moment that could validate or nullify the past fifteen years of her life. Her nascent film career could come crashing down before it even started.

Valen is calm.

A close-up of the boy. For the first time, a blissful, arguably euphoric expression covers his face. His face is again covered in blood, but it is not his. Just off camera, the girl screams as the screen slowly retreats from the boy’s face. When his right hand becomes visible, it is clutching the same chef’s knife as before, now caked in the same blood that was seen on the boy’s face.

The film smash-cuts to its title card, “Now I Scream”.

“That’s it?” The words march out of his mouth with swift alacrity as they shatter Carlie’s soul.

Her response is equally utilitarian yet infinitely despondent. “Yes, Professor.”

“82%.” 

“Professor, would…. would you like some time-”

Valen turns around, looking her in the eyes. Or rather, glaring into her eyes. “82%.”

Carlie’s clasped hands, so calm in the preceding seconds, twitched and tensed. Her fingernails dug into the skin beneath her knuckles. She blinked once and opened her mouth ever so slightly. “I think with more time-”

His unraised voice cut her off. “Eighty. Two. Percent.” 

She exploded out of her seat as her fists slammed down in front of her. “No, God damn you! Think harder!”

Nonplussed, Valen’s eyes glance down for a second before he lightly nods his head. “I don’t have to. ”

“I am not some dead-last incompetent screw-up,” Carlie hisses through gritted teeth. “I just showed you the future of cinema.”

“Then ChatGPT can’t replace us fast enough,” he says with a smirk.

Though her rage is already boiling through her pores, Carlie recalls breathing techniques from therapy and uses them to restore a veneer of composure. “I’m sorry for my overreaction. I respect that you have an opinion, but I wish to present my own.”

Try as he might, Valen’s stoic facade becomes too costly to maintain. The professor bursts into the most unprofessional fit of howling laughter, something unimaginable to the rest of his students and colleagues. 

Hot as Carlie’s rage may burn, it is overwhelmed by the utter confusion that envelopes her body. 

Not quite calming down but seizing a free moment between his laughs, Valen says “You did. We just watched it. That was the entire point of the friggin thesis!” It is all he gets out before the laughs start spilling out once more.

Carlie sits back in her chair, hoping her professor and last hope for a better grade will regain control. Unfortunately, she did not anticipate that it would take a full two minutes. The second he petered out, Carlie began her argument. “The themes of abuse and revenge are common in cinema, so in my screenplay-”

“You know you passed, right?” Valen quipped.

“The minimum grade to pass,” Carlie responded.

Valen shrugged his shoulders and held up his hands. “Guess you’ll have to make better movies.” Before any more words could be exchanged, he rose from his chair and made his way to the door, exiting the room.

All alone, with her failure and her rage, Carlie envisioned a different film. In the opening scene, a young woman sat at a bar counter, her drink undisturbed. Turning around, she glimpses an older man with bulky arms and a severe expression sitting alone at a booth. A close-up of her mouth: cold and neutral. Slowly shifting to a wicked smile.