"It has be done," demands the icy temptress, "otherwise we can never be together". Her face dives forward to kiss her lover violently, but he shows reservations.
"But what if we are caught!" The man has an unnaturally high voice. "They'll send me to prison! They'll force me to wear those stripy prison clothes, when we both know that stripes always add a few pounds." A look of disappointment which words cannot convey can be observed inhabiting the woman's face, but her savage rebukes are silenced as the cuckold returns with the ice creams. Meanwhile, a bohemian hipster in a flowing scarf is conversing avidly with his neighbour.
"Honestly, the Matisse exhibition is simply to die for! The sheer vibrancy of the colours, and the uncommon textures..."
"I did quite enough collages at primary school, and there is no way you can convince me that that's a snail..."
The man's objections to French art are silenced by a heavenly voice reminding the discontented audience to switch of their mobile phones.
"Here's to another hour of utter boredom," moans the Disgruntled Gentleman. The curtain rises and your phone begins to play Call Me Maybe at an embarrassing volume. Ashamed of both your ringtone and your brazen flaunting of the heavenly voice's commands, you struggle to silence it as the Bearded Stranger ambles to the front of the stage to deliver a heartbreaking soliloquy as....
-Part I-
-The Bearded Stranger Struggles with his Conscience-
"What have I done!" comes a voice from within the undergrowth of the Bearded Stranger's beard. "Sacrificed my liberty, betrayed my friend, all for the sake of facial hair. Oh, what a fool I am!" At this point, the Bearded Stranger's Conscience enters stage left. The Beaded Stranger gasps, turns pale and clutches his beard. He has seen what his conscience is brandishing as it walks towards him. It's a razor!
"But no!" he cries, "There is something...necessary in a beard. A beard is a man's very essence! It is unreasonable to deprive him off it." His conscience advances still closer, and its intent is clear. "Now listen you! I cannot forsake my manliness! I will not! I would rather die, damn you!" His conscience is now nearly upon him. The razor is reaching out towards the verdant beard. "No! No! I won't let you do this! I'll....I'll fight you!" And so the Bearded Stranger begins to struggle with his conscience. He aims a sharp punch to his conscience's left cheek, but he soon realises that consciences play dirty. A well aimed kick is aimed at the Bearded Stranger's groin, and he collapses in agony.
("Good gracious, this is terribly low theatre," mutters a Theatrical Snob. Her husband meanwhile winces in sympathy for the Bearded Strange, who is now being violently pummelled by his conscience)
The Bearded Stranger's screams suggest he never had any manliness in the first place, but in the midst of his agony, he is desperately defending his beard from his conscience's razor, allowing his hands to be slashed instead of endangering his facial growth. The struggle continues. The Bearded Stranger successfully knees his conscience in the stomach, and is now gaining the upper hand.
"I was only trying to help you," wails the Bearded Stranger's conscience, before disappearing in a puff of purple smoke. The Bearded Stranger chokes on the fumes as he continues to breathe heavily. His clothes are in tatters, and blood is pouring from the gashes in his arms. But these battle scars are insignificant to him. He has overcome his conscience.
-Part II-
-Oculus-
"My Hipster Girlfriend's life is in danger, and what do you tell me?" cries the Angry Existentialist (AE) aghast. "You want me to...to review horror films!" The Bearded Stranger now leans in close to AE and speaks in an urgent whisper.
"Listen my friend! Hipster Girlfriend has escaped from her imprisonment, and is currently residing in a safe house, the location of which I cannot disclose to you. Your return to society has been noted, but if you return to your old ways as a cinema critic you will not be perceived as a threat. However, if you attempt to find your Hipster Girlfriend, her cover will be blown and both of you will meet a grisly end at the hands of Jealous Lover."
"But what of the role I must fulfil as Heroic Protagonist?" protests AE.
"There will be time for that later, for now the only reasonable course of action is to lie low until Jealous Lover becomes complacent."
"You counsel wisely," AE sighs, "but why horror films?"
"You must broaden your palate as a film critic. And a horror review is a very simple matter. You just say if it was scary or not."
And so AE did what he swore he would never do again: he walked through the sliding doors of the Odeon cinema. But on second thought, he knew it was never wise to have made such general resolutions, as he could not account for the state of mind of his future self. He trembles a little as he buys a ticket for Oculus, painful memoires cascade over him. Jean Paul Sartre's Being and Nothingness is stowed in his coat pocket for comfort. He wishes he settled on something shorter as there is a noticeable bulge.
AE takes his seat, not knowing what to expect from a film about a haunted mirror with the ginger one from Dr. Who in it. To begin with he is bored beyond belief, and mortified that a boy should be thrown in a mental institution for having the bravery to defy social conventions and shoot his father. But AE begins to grow uncomfortable. The drama intensifies. He wants to turn away, to flee from the cinema, but his eyes are glued to the unfolding action. His heart stops as Karen Gillan accidentally bites into a lightbulb instead of an apple, and his face pulls all kinds of contortions of disgust as she spits out bloodied glass and goes on to thrust a shard of plant pot into her lover's throat. By the time the film meets it's unbearably tense conclusion, AE races from the cinema and rushes towards the toilets, but instead is sick all over a passing punk rocker. Stony eyes glare into the depths of his soul.
"Now," AE begins nervously, "to respond to this dreadful mishap with anger would be to follow social norms...". The punk rocker obviously disagrees. The next thing AE knows he is lying in a hospital bed, severely battered. Social norms are nothing compared to a ruined Sex Pistols T-Shirt. Meanwhile, in another cinema on the other side of town, Hipster Girlfirend is watching...
-Part III-
-Episodes-
"How he would have loved this meta-textual comedy!" sobs Hipster Girlfriend as she tosses yet another tear sodden tissue on an ever growing mound. "But then again, he would have thought the focus on Shaun and Beverly's marriage highlighted a common case of mauvaise foi in our society. Perhaps he'd think Matt LeBlanc was a fellow existentialist in this respect." Even as she says the words, Hipster Girlfriend thinks this is unlikely. A letter clatters out of the door and drifts serenely towards the mat. She rushes to examine it, expecting correspondence from AE. She is not disappointed.
"It's him! Requesting a cinema for a rendez-vous, just like the old days! But his choice of film is certainly unusual. Chef sounds bland and light-hearted."
Bearded Stranger retreats from posting this forged message, uneasy in the knowledge that he has just lured Hipster Girlfriend to her death. Meanwhile, the second part of Jealous Lover's plan is unfolding, involving...
-Part IV-
-Requiem for a Dream-
Moustachioed henchmen storm the hospital in which AE is recovering from the vomit induced violence. Ignoring his baffled entreaties, they drag him from his bed and into a van, where he is promptly blindfolded and tied up.
"You may take my liberty," he screams, "but I have a freedom that you will never have. You are trapped by mauvaise foi! I am truly free!" The moustachioed henchmen ignore his incomprehensible ranting until they lead him into Jealous Lover's torture chamber. As his blindfold is removed, he is surrounded by mirrors identical to the one in Oculus. All of them are whispering to him. Around him whirl lightbulbs and apples, so quickly that he does not know which is which. Overcome by all this, AE collapses on the floor and unleashes an ear piercing scream. His sanity begins to rapidly desert him as he is scooped of the floor and strapped to a chair in front of a blank screen. His eyelids are held open by a contraption similar to that seen in A Clockwork Orange.
"Why are you doing this to me?" he asks with what scraps of humanity he has left.
"You crossed Jealous Lover," smirks the most menacing Moustachioed Henchmen, "no one does that lightly."
Without warning, Requiem for a Dream commences on the screen. The subtext and depth of the film initially encourages the little shred of film critic still left inside Angry Existentialist to resurface. But men of a stronger disposition have been unable to finish watching Darren Aronofsky's visceral thriller. By the end of the movie, all of AE's sanity has deserted him, and images of Jared Leto's arm now swim amongst mirrors and lightbulbs. Although AE has now been conditioned to abandon his flirtation with recreational drugs once and for all, the man he once was has ceased to be. AE is dead inside. Meanwhile, Hipster Girlfriend is bored silly in the Odeon, watching....
-Part V-
-Chef-
As Hipster Girlfriend battles her desire to fall asleep, eager not to miss AE's arrival, Jealous Lover walks to the front of the stage to the side of the scene. Realising once again that the audience are in the dark about his latest ingenious and sinister plot, he commences a soliloquy to fill them in:
"My dastardly plan is almost complete! Knowing that Angry Existentialist possessed the sort of weak constitution that is easily overcome by a good horror film, I have driven him mad. He is currently stowed away in a mental hospital, and unable to stop the unfolding of my final scheme. I have bribed the cinema staff, so that when Hipster Girlfriend made her usual request of popcorn sprinkled with fairy dust, the cinema attendant placed explosives amidst this sweet treat. As I well know, she will never finish the popcorn for fear of expanding her waistline, leaving my explosives disguised masterfully. Soon they will wipe her twee little figure off the face of the Earth." Jealous Lover is about to leave, but then returns to the front of stage as he remembers something. "Oh, and as a final punishment for her cruel rejection of me, the final two hours of her life will be spent watching this appallingly bad film. Oh, how evil I am!" He finally leaves the stage, cackling horrendously.
Meanwhile, Hipster Girlfriend is looking anxiously at her watch. The film is nearly over, and AE still hasn't shown up. Could he have forgotten?
"I thought he loved me," she mutters discontentedly, "why would he make me watch this awful film?"
As the film draws to it's predictable and saccharine close, the man in the seat next to her delivers his verdict to his cinematic companion.
"That was the most dreary two hours of my life," he yawns, "it could only be improved if the entire audience had been obliterated before we endured such trash." Ever eager to please, Jealous Lover does just that, unfortunately after the film though and not before it. A fireball erupts out of the space where Hipster Girlfriend's popcorn once existed, engulfing not only the audience of Chef, but also those people who chose a better film to watch. The Odeon explodes dramatically. Glass shatters and the building crumples in a flaming inferno. A singed piece of popcorn bounces across the car park. Jealous Lover, dressed in a luxurious smoking jacket, smugly picks it up and lovingly slips it between his lips. As he savours the charred taste of popcorn, another taste overpowers it: victory. The curtain falls on Act Three...
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