by Brett Reliford
*ed. note – Brett wrote this piece in December of 2025, and it got lost in the shuffle. Sorry to get it out here so late!
I wonder what Hunter S. Thompson would think if he asked ChatGPT a question and gave the command to answer in the style of Hunter S. Thompson. As I prepared for a journey across the state line to Nashville, Tennessee, the idea for a travelogue to capture what would be a first-time experience entered my endorphin-flooded, tangential line of thinking for the day. The prompting for the euphoria and subsequent pondering was an approaching all-night 10:00 p.m. to 10:00 a.m. fiasco that had been dubbed “12 Hours of Terror” by Nashville locals foraging for their fix of cheesy frights, blood-curdles, and all-around Halloween season absurdity in the form of a horror movie marathon at the Nashville art house beacon known as the Belcourt Theatre. Just the title itself had always been enough to rouse my longstanding curiosity about what takes place on the big screen each October at a 12 Hours of Terror; or, what might sound like a saucy club singer moniker for a so-named event would also suffice: “12HOT.”
The event had been on the calendar for several weeks. I had only an idea of what to expect, but being in a crowded movie theater with fellow horror fans who would have no idea what movies were even going to play until they were revealed one-by-one just before each screening was a joyous thought. Having networked with equally energetic genre-film zealots for years through festival connections, this year was to be the year I finally took the plunge. I had taken a shot at messaging an acquaintance known only through the power of pandemic-induced lines of communication in a Chattanooga Film Festival Discord server. Having paid close enough attention over years of observing community regulars on the online platform, I knew that a Nashville resident or two inhabited those hallow[een]’ed halls. Fortunately, people inspired—rather than alarmed—by the whims of a likeminded devotee do exist, and a ticket to the exclusive event was able to be secured through the connection.
Logistics would be the next hurdle. The concept was to be just as described: twelve consecutive hours of movie-watching, a possible endurance fear fest in itself for anyone like me past the age of 40. The part that conceivably made me more of a freak rather than zealot was the two-hour-plus drive to the location it would take to indulge in the activity, as a guaranteed 99-percent of the sellout crowd would be Nashville and surrounding suburban area attendees. I had already calculated the fact that making it through twelve consecutive hours of scares would be quite the rush, but the drive home thereafter would likely be an Elm Street-level battle with The Sandman himself. Round trip considerations included, the thought crossed my mind that this could make for 16 Hours of Terror-ble Idea.
Nevertheless, the horror movie marathon “tailgating” had to begin. And nothing epitomizes the tailgate experience . . . like a mandatory pre-game nap. A necessary strategy in this case.
Reanimated from the illusion of starting the day fresh, having missed out on some of my annual festival experiences previously the same year, the exhilaration of packing, prepping, and final to-do listing followed thereafter: a montage of brain-racking, checking, and double-checking supplies and necessities, which I’m convinced make me some sort of DNA cousin to squirrels in obsessive anticipation of any stretch of time yet to come. Having the cloud of feeling like an outsider attending an affair at which most everyone in attendance would already be a pro, a few of the preparations on the list were modest so as to not draw too much attention to myself. Although I anticipated hunger pains after the nine- or ten-hour mark, a variety of sweets that could be stowed in a Ziploc bag would have to do in order to keep my cover just in case the theater staff there expected militant, traditional patron feeding policies. I did not get my hopes up that my Independent Film Festival Boston handbag would make it in with any contraband, so quick dashes to the vehicle for a sugar rush between screenings was to be the plan. Pain-relief ointment for my back had to make the cut as well since I knew of no chair or seat on the face of the earth that would ever like me for twelve hours straight. A sidebar to the mental quip of not being liked quickly prompted the epiphany that a stick of deodorant must be slung into the bag-of-no-regrets next. Also, caffeine-boosting seemed like a no-brainer. A fresh kettle of tea combined with a tall cold-insulated tumbler would hopefully last the two-hour drive and be a stagnant, but not-life-threatening, boost after the first screening or two, even after sitting in the car that long: ah, the in-the-moment musings of a movie-hyped madman.
Among the new additions to travel planning was a stop by the local general merchandise store for something my childhood self would have never thought I’d see (much less own) in my lifetime outside of an infomercial featured on my—then—three-channel antenna television. On a separate harebrained adventure weeks prior to the current trip, I had traveled over two hours in the opposite direction out of town to Louisville, Kentucky, for a night of bar trivia. When I returned to my vehicle that evening, I found my door handle damaged and marks on the door itself. Residing in a town where one can just leave the car running while making a trip into the grocery for a quick pickup order, I realized instantly upon seeing the damage on this out-of-town visit that sometimes “cities gonna city”: an attempted break-in/theft. Lesson learned and childhood bewilderment now coming full circle, this homage-to-horror trip was hopefully going to limit some real-life terror because, fortunately, the lone remaining knockoff version of The Club left on display was there waiting for me, eliciting a bit of a smirk in the moment as my preparation for purchase mimicked the sense of urgency in snatching it off the rack that the previous perpetrators that had gotten me into this situation must have demonstrated.
Making my way to the parkway corridor that would eventually lead onward to the interstate, I took one last gander at my small town in appreciation of the surroundings ahead of the scene change soon to come. The unassuming and quaint Halloween decorations speckled upon various yards had the feeling of a scary movie lost to time. The contour of the lines of weathered trees in my secluded neighborhood peppered with houses put POLTERGEIST and SLEEPY HOLLOW to shame. My Norman Rockwell meets Haddonfield moment was momentarily underscored by a text received while stopped at a light: a photo of a Super Pac-Man arcade machine purchase my buddy had just made while thrift shopping. All that seemed to be missing from the trapped-in-time mood being set before me was a skyline silhouetted by what would be my town’s version of a STRANGER THINGS Hawkins National Laboratory.
I had already timed the drive to arrive an hour earlier than the doors for the event opened. I would be meeting three friends there: the ticket provider who had secured my ticket purchase, an actor/administrator in the Chattanooga Film Festival hierarchy who lives in Nashville, and a friend that said actor/administrator would be bringing. At a quick pit stop for gas, the first “12HOT” group text rolled in. Because of his proximity to the venue already, one of our fellow marathoners was reporting that a line was already beginning to form. The luck of getting a ticket to a members-exclusive event in the first place was enough, but having the person that hooked me up with the ticket as an OCD “need good seats” kindred spirit was the icing on the HEREDITARY walnut cake. The cauldron of excitement was bubbling.
The two-hour drive was—in part—J. Alfred Prufrock meditations of what I would see as a first rolled into the parking lot. The district in which the theater was located was an affluent section of Nashville, or at least I had always seen a significant number of affluent people each time I’d traveled there for other standard screenings of films. So, the notion of underdressed or appropriately dressed had more than crossed my mind. Regardless, if there were enough true-blue enthusiasts there, I was rather proud of my customized T-shirt of choice that seemed stitched for just such an occasion, the likes of which there are no duplicates searchable on the internet: a vintage rendering of a collage of shots of the original SUSPIRIA, complete with the SUSPIRIA font and a caption. “You can run from it. You can hide from it. You can’t escape from it!” A good reminder to do one final fumble in the bag to make sure the back pain ointment was still there.
As always, interstate traffic was backed up well before entering Nashville city limits. The office of Governor of Tennessee or Mayor of Nashville would be the easiest position in the country to win during election season. If promises were made for more than two lanes of traffic and a subway/train system for what is supposed to be “The Music Capital of the World,” it would be go down in history as a landslide victory.
The destination was a familiar trek for me. The Belcourt Theatre is currently the premier art film and repertory film programming the South has to offer. Prior to that, my escape to find independent cinema on the big screen had started in my late teens and 20s, as I would scour the internet and discover that The Mall at Green Hills had a movie theater that was the only place I could find the rarest titles at the time. This is no longer the case, but the nostalgia in traveling those roads was no less meaningful. If The Belcourt was in an affluent part of town, Green Hills would be considered regal. A financially struggling college student using money he didn’t have in order to travel to Nashville for a movie or double feature felt something fairy tale-like when it came to finding himself in that district. They used to have a Brazilian steakhouse that sat in front of the theater, the theater itself tucked behind a parking garage that was only a parking garage in name because there are not other upscale phrases to describe a place where one leaves one’s car. More than once, I peeped to see what kinds of prices a restaurant like that would charge. During those trips, I always thought that once I had more stability and money in general, I would drop in at the steakhouse before or after an indie film, and it would be a nod to my former self that being undeterred from finding good movies built the kind of character necessary to get me to my final destination in life. That steakhouse closed before I ever got that chance. And the theater still there has resorted to abandoning indie films. In the wake of that—or perhaps the cause of that—The Belcourt Theatre has become the landmark for travelers needing their hard-to-find film fix. However, the roads have still replayed the remnants of that story during each trip since.
Upon finally pulling into the street adjacent to The Belcourt itself, one thing was for sure: I had never seen a line of fanatics that long at any Green Hills movie. Already, the wait to get into the theater was circling around the corner of the building and down the street. Parking was a nightmare. Vehicles had even stopped in the middle of the street in order to do drop-offs at the venue as if this were some sort of red carpet moment for horror geeks. This alone was already worth the price of admission. Not only would my T-shirt suffice and fit in, costumes were adorned by every other person in line. And they were exactly the kind of deep cut movie references one would want from such an event. Making an immediate pull on my heartstrings was a costume that was simply a rental store shelf in human form. Adorning the person like a sandwiching billboard and on each “shelf”(front and back of the person) was a miniature VHS case replica of long lost cult classics that would make Wikipedia’s servers have to grind a bit in order to yield the corresponding search results.
I had arrived an hour early as planned, and much more to my surprise than I had first imagined, the leader of the four-person marathon pack was third in line, already joined by another of our marathon troop members. “Oh my gosh, I saw that person approaching with that cool SUSPIRIA t-shirt and wondered if that was you from a distance, and it totally is!” Upon making my nest in the line queue after the comment, there was only one sensible reply that came to me that seemed to fit: “Love at first fright.”
Around the bend just before the entrance to the theater, one of my other previous concerns was immediately alleviated. The event organizers had the foresight to invite food vendors to the lot adjacent to the theater. A rotation of food trucks would be available through the night, so munchies limited to concession stand popcorn would presumably not be an issue, and the food choices were every bit as hipster as one could imagine. Pickled cucumbers (“not just pickles”), sushi burritos, juices in colors that juices should not have colors for, and anything kale. The entire atmosphere was relaxed, and the vibe was completely perfect.
The entry into the theater itself yielded access to any seat we wanted since we were so far ahead in line. The side sections of seating had exactly four seats to a row. Since this was going to be twelve hours of wall-to-wall people, this proved to be the perfect choice. It was a definitive avoidance of people constantly crawling over, under, and through us during the night; not to mention, it was a surefire way to avoid all of the other unpleasant misfires that could result from being elbow-to-elbow with the wrong personality, or personalities, the entire night. I was happy to take the seat closest to the wall in order allow the others to be one seat closer to center screen than they would have been otherwise.
What’s more, the accessories being brought in by patrons were wide-ranging and an array fit for a slumber party, minus the massacre. Pillows, blankets, seat cushions, onesies, drink tumblers, picnic baskets, it seemed all bets were off on this one night of the year when it came to regulating what people could and couldn’t bring to the movies. This was definitely a mental note made for next year and the night ahead, as choosing a seat closest to the wall allowed for a handy stow area for belongings between the seat and the wall that other seats could not offer.
The pre-show seating entertainment was on-screen music videos provided by a local cheese-laced, horror-themed band called The BooDudes. The amount of synth was thick enough to cut with Michael Myers’ knife. Appropriately enough, when the pre-show seating was complete and the music package had come to its conclusion, the band received a thunderous response of “boo’s” to commemorate the band’s name in conjunction with their efforts.
The night kicked off with what is considered to be the most underseen of the George Romero original zombie trilogy: DAY OF THE DEAD. This was a perfect table-setter for a string of all-night movies. At the pinnacle infestation moment of the film, staffers exploded from the wings of the theater in zombie makeup and attire, rabidly meandering through the crowd in search of brains. The night was never about attending in order to see something I’d never seen before. This was always more of a “come what may, I just want the theater-full-of-people experience of it all.” The experience of the first film had already set the tone for the kind of things I had hoped for.
It also should go without saying, what would eventually be a night of seven movies in a row would prove to be a first in itself. With that said, the pacing of the evening had far less dead time than I had anticipated. Perhaps that was to cram as much literal “dead time” as they could cram into horror movie plots. After the first screening, it felt right to go ahead and visit a food truck. However, the event organizers had already started a between-movie mini-event to keep the party rolling. I vacated and quickly rushed to put in an order. While waiting, I heard commotion from the theater. Overcome with the feeling of being excluded, I managed to jet over to the entryway curtains to get a little taste of the intermission shenanigans: a preview of some events and giveaways that were to come as the evening progressed. After what seemed like just a couple of minutes of detailing the “scream queen” contests, the costume contests, and local musician freebies, the introduction of the next programmer for the evening was already taking place. I raced back to see if my food order might be ready, fully prepared to just take the loss on the food if it meant getting back to the start of the next movie in time. Mercifully, the food was ready, so I tucked it like a Heisman candidate and barreled my way through others who weren’t plagued by the fear of missing out back to the venue right as the title for the second mystery screening was being announced.
The “win” of having food services available came with an asterisk. While I was able to make it back with a set of street tacos, the lights were dimming and there was not a logistical way to make a meal out of tacos with all the delicious sauces and messiness therein without wearing it all while trying to maneuver in the dark as a movie played. So, it would have to nest in the cranny between my seat and the wall until the next screening concluded.
The film was new to me. It was a 1960 Hammer Film: SCREAM OF FEAR. It may have been part of the pre-show commencement to the film that I missed right before the reveal was made, but a less on-the-nose title was also used for the same movie at some point in production or marketing: TASTE OF FEAR. After finishing the screening, I would learn that Letterboxd agreed with the latter rather than the title we were given on the introduction screen to the film. Despite missing out on freshly made tacos, I found myself giddy at the idea of an early black-and-white horror film that I had never seen. This is despite the fact that I can be skeptical when it comes to early black-and-white horror films, as I do prefer a gritty and psychological slaughtering of my mind when it comes to the genre as a whole. The film proved to hit many of the right chords with me, however. The melodramatics were a pill for which I was already braced to swallow, but dirtying up the pristine dialogue and vocal deliveries of lines with scandal and intrigue that pushed boundaries that I was not expecting fit perfectly for the evening. I can name a ton of classic black-and-white era horror films that get praised to the high heavens and benefit from more than their fair share of airtime during Halloween season that I would certainly notch below this one. Not bad for a film company that brought us a film called VAMPIRE CIRCUS.
The plot twists of the film that juxtaposed nicely with its characterization had been thick enough to bite into, which prompted me to remember taco time. Not as delicious as the film, I had discovered a set of now slimy and cold entrees for the evening. Spinning it into a positive, I instantly reassured myself that this was a night of alternative experiences, so it was somewhat poetic that the dining circumstances would also be a bit soggy and grim to match.
I had not much more than lifted my cardboard box of food, and the next presenter was already making his way out. This was going to be both a marathon and a sprint, it seemed. No rest for the wicked. The next film was described as bringing more overt gore to the screen than the film that preceded it. Described as a film not widely seen, but one that deserved more of an audience, we were presented with THE KINDRED from 1987. This was another first-time watch, and it was every bit as bonkers as an audience of our type needed. It was a film in which the word “brother” took on new meaning; that is, it put the concept of “test tube babies” through a real test of that phrase. For no thematic reason whatsoever other than keeping an audience engaged that was now three films into the event, a mid-movie meander from the organizers occurred in which we all got treated to a bombardment of candy being tossed into the crowd as we chomped on the wackiness of the film itself. At this point, it seemed clear that each film being presented for the night was going to benefit from having seen it with a live audience, all participants reacting on a similar wavelength as the person sitting next to them. This was kindred indeed.
Following the closing credits, the relativity of time was also a concept on which I was beginning to ruminate. We were finished with film number three for the night, and there was still a rush that was consuming me. I had to reprogram to even consider that it had to be somewhere close to 3:00 a.m. So that the reality of the actual time spent on movies did not slap me silly, I decided to attempt a trip to concessions for a caffeine boost in lieu of getting hit with a sudden and unexpected need to fade out midway through the next screening. The timing was perfect: the “scream queen” contest previewed earlier in the evening was next on the docket inside the theater. While I appreciate everyone’s right to be heard, I was not going to count this particular intermission as anything that I’d be missing from my life if I opted for a chance to refuel instead.
There were rumblings among a very small few in line that they were considering tapping out due to fatigue. Clearly, being part of this event had been a necessary experience for those tired patrons in order to say they gave it a whirl. For me, overhearing this was a bolstering of confidence that let me know this would be an accomplishment indeed and that I wouldn’t be weak by comparison if the blight of fatigue started to kick in sooner than later.
Making my way back through the curtains, the fourth film was presented by a new face among the organizers and described as an overlooked epic. Furthermore, it was a film from 1990, which I anticipated might be a bit more unnerving or edgy since it was more from “my era.” The build-up and hype was the thing I needed to hear after having experienced three films already. The introduction to the film made it seem like a tonal shift toward something genuinely unsettling that was about to take place. Also, Viggo Mortensen as one of the leads? This was the first star power of the evening.
The film was THE REFLECTING SKIN: a film that made its way through festival circuits upon its release, but never quite bubbled to the surface after being exposed to test audiences. Only briefly into the film, one thing evidently neglected to be mentioned by the programmer during the intro was that it was heavily on the melodramatic side. And this was not the endearing 1960s style of melodrama. Not long after that, it was evident that this was only going to be horror-adjacent. All of the pre-show mentions and hints of getting under one’s skin were actually just plot points that remind us all that we’re human, and human’ing is difficult. Ah, “reflecting skin”—but not a vampire movie; it’s just that the world is a vampire. (Needed more pumpkins being smooshed though.) What was partially true was its description as an epic; however, true only in the fact that its grandiose sweeping cinematography and shot composition resembled an attempt at an epic. Moreover, epics are supposed to have long runtimes, and even though it was just over ninety minutes, it felt like an odyssey-length movie all in its own, so it was perceivably an epic in that sense. While I respected that the film has a target audience out there somewhere, this was likely not the setting to dust off the cobwebs and pull it from the attic.
As if the mid-movie sugar rushes and lineup of food trucks weren’t foresight enough, at around 5:00 a.m. donuts were announced as available in the lobby before the start of the next film. Yes! Were these organizers my new mommies and daddies?
After taking advantage of the brief stretch break, I re-entered just as the presentation of the next film was starting. Coincidentally, I yet again overhead two of the same folks from the concessions line who had been discussing a departure earlier that night as they were now having their previous considerations turn into action when it was revealed the next film would be a foreign film. Even though it was late, calculating minds for those two were still operable because they realized that meant subtitles. They were not the only ones with their limits pushed; so, a once-packed theater was now freckled with some empty seats. What this inevitably unveiled was that it was easier to make eye contact after the vacating of seats and recognize more faces after four movies that were sticking it out to the end. What were once hundreds of attendees was eventually going to become dozens of punishment-glutton family members.
The subtitled film in question was another film I had not ever seen: this one even deeper in the archives of horror than the others. This was THE BLACK MAGIC WITH BUDDHA, from the makers of CLAN OF THE WHITE LOTUS. The style was Hong Kong kung fu meshed with a pantheon of religious/spiritual horror confrontations. The result was a Jackson Pollock splatter of mummies, wizards, the occult, and kicking, but don’t forget Buddhism and brains. In an attempt to pay respect to Buddha by waxing philosophic, the only thing close to an esoteric theme I could conjure was to ask how much sense this movie needed to make at an hour that most witches would consider past their bedtime. It was everything that was required for such a time: ludicrousity, a word I decided just to make up to match the experience itself. In keeping with the motif of buried legends and lore, I would imagine that trying to have a conversation about the film with a normal person would be met the same judgmental eye as hearing a Bigfoot hunter’s pontification about his or her latest encounter.
Another wild ride with more mid-movie candy-catching under my belt, the effects of five in a row were strongly registering at that point. The organizers knew that even the hardest of the hardcore (or the corest of the hardcore—words no longer were making sense anyway) needed a refresher. So, the transition to the next film was temporarily suspended by some zombie calisthenics. Everyone up! The remaining marathon patrons were led in some morning exercise routines to get that blood pumping. The big screen began to illuminate mid-stretch only to reveal one more music video from The BooDudes to provide rhythms for our Jazzercises. The band was an assembly of comical rotting flesh adorned by a wedding dress, a nurse’s outfit, a business suit, all while playing guitars, drums, and keyboards by a pool on a sunny day. Were these hallucinations brought on by fatigue, or was this a full realization of everything I’d hope the night would be?
The faces in the crowd without a name became even more recognizable during the group activity. A considerable number of more seats had been evacuated, so the increases in eye contact and familiarity were swelling an unspoken bond and mutual appreciation for one another, even though the days and weeks to come would eventually scatter some of the minute details like dust. The memory that will forever remain, however, is a shared state of deliriousness and enjoyment that tethered a room not-so-full of people in that moment.
Aside from a group activity between films, one might wonder what could be an effective lure entering the sixth and penultimate film of the night. According to the programming team, that answer would be a Troma film. A collective “No way!” was the audience’s ironic embrace of what was to come as the next presenter introduced DEF BY TEMPTATION from Troma Entertainment: the production company responsible for a large collection of low-budget splatter, goo, gunk, oddball comedy, and farcical pictures often considered an acquired taste for eccentrics by many who prefer their films on the “serious artistic medium” side. In addition to the catalog of potential crazy antics that awaited us, there was the extra intrigue of finding out that Samuel L. Jackson was among the film’s cast members, which was a footnote on the famous actor’s career that I never knew up until that moment. If one is unfamiliar with Troma films, all that person has to do is consider that the aforementioned famed and critically acclaimed actor would be witnessed on the big screen in the hands of a director who once played a pimp in a school play at 8 years old. Not to worry, there had been some progression in the director’s life since then. Take DEF BY TEMPTATION, for example, where the director James Bond III would also play the lead as a devout fire-and-brimstone apprentice preacher getting in his kicks with a sultry New York City part-vampiress/part-demon from beyond.
That sixth film proved to be an easy viewing for our navigation to the seventh and final film of the night. In fact, at just after 8:00 in the morning, I still had enough wits to consider the universe’s timing in aligning the subject matter of the film we had just witnessed with the fact that lots of parishioners outside the venue were getting ready and making their way to church in the same hour it had concluded.
The last presenter of the night provided one last jolt of dopamine by praising the remaining viewers for making it to film number seven and lasting the full consecutive twelve hours upon completion of it. The final selection would prove to be a perfect palate cleanser for the entire night. From director Sam Raimi, we were graced with the reveal of his 1989 supermarket slasher INTRUDER.
The film included everything I needed as a viewer. The time capsule of small grocery stores from the late 80s and early 90s was the nostalgia main course. Then, pair that with characters who mirrored a variety of stereotypes of teens/college age store workers from that age, but with Sam Raimi’s identifiable director sensibilities injected into them. Reflecting off those characters was a middle-aged manager— trapped as being a mediator between the workers and the real boss/owner—too old for his glory days to be relatable among his young co-workers and too late to achieve what former peers had already fulfilled in their own walks of life. Among them walked an intruder after the store had closed. The resulting kills were another checklist item that fit my personal slasher movie thrill guide: inventive and over-the-top, but not sloppily handled. The creativity in putting together a formulaic principle in a way not duplicated elsewhere was perfection. I actually could not believe someone had not already tried to rip off or reinvent some of the action sequences in INTRUDER due to modern movie-making’s obsession with rebooting and watering down flicks from the past for the current zeitgeist.
I may have been feeling the effects of hour after hour of movie-watching up to that point, but the final film was a surge of adrenaline that somehow refreshed me. When the final credits started to hit the screen, it seemed as if the same was true of all audience members. There were no gasps that signified mere survival. No, there were victory roars. In fact, it seemed as though we were all reinvigorated for even more eyeball-to-screen combat.
That was not to be the case, alas. After the initial wave of unified achievement yells, the reality of abandoning ship and leaving the unified experience started to set in. Not allowing the moment to turn dreary, the presenters made one last entrance to offer applause for everyone in attendance instead of the other way around. Additionally, a request from the lead organizer was made for all of us to come to the front of the theater for a group photo along the apron of a stage that housed the big screen. The film-watching war party assembled as a collective unit for the first time that night, no longer confined by our chosen seats for the evening. Now, the group was one.
As the credits were rolling while the photo was being orchestrated, I checked my phone for the time. The event had ended at 10:00 a.m. on the nose. The precision of a night of such chaos and madness gave me even more of a rush. The staff, the programmers, the organization as a whole, all of it was more than I could have imagined.
The drive home was nowhere near as exhausting as I had anticipated. Replaying minutiae that I now attempt to translate outside of the experience was the fuel for my mind on that trip back. True to the formula of the slasher genre, I imagined my role as Jason Voorhees, the audience member: counted out and presumed dead from the overnight experience. Instead, this traveler was inexplicably still ticking, revived, and plotting the next adventure. See you next October – muhahaha.