How to Survive a Horror Movie
How to Survive a Horror Movie by Scarlett Dunmore
Rochelle, Gabrielle and Annabelle. The Elles. They’re Harrogate all girls boarding school’s version of The Plastics. Because mommy and daddy can throw enough money at anything to make it go away, they pretty much run the school. Charley isn’t jealous, well maybe of Gabrielle’s blue Zara blazer, she just wants to see them being put in their place for once. Charley joined Harrogate last year after ruining her academic future in the months following her dad’s death. She was popular at her old regular school, even had a girlfriend. At Harrogate, she doesn't have much. She only has one friend, Olive, their shared love of horror movies, and their weekly candy purchase from the school shop.
Charley and Olive share a room at Harrogate, and from the first day, they’ve been best friends. It was through a shared love of horror that they bonded: reading horror, talking about horror, and initiating Slasher Saturday with Charley’s extensive horror movie collection. Charley’s ex, Sadie, tolerated it but Olive got it. Unfortunately there is no time for Stephen King now, there is a school assembly to talk about safety measures because a storm is coming in. The school has cancelled all outdoor activities, which devastates Charley, she needs her daily walk outside in the fresh, salty air. Worse still, the power might go out which will stop Slasher Saturday. This will drive Charley to kill someone! Luckily, Olive points out, there is an emergency axe just gathering dust behind them.
It’s Slasher Saturday, Charley and Olive have their butter popcorn with Skittles and Lost Boys ready to go when the storm hits. Ah, the perfect weather for horror. Not three minutes into the movie, Olive needs to pee. Charley, being a staunch believer in the rules of horror taught by the sages Craven, Romero, and Cunningham, makes to go with Olive, but some other girls heading to the bathroom too have Olive covered. Back in their room, Charley looks out the window and suddenly sees a lone figure in the darkness. The jump scare makes her scream, but she keeps watching, not sure if her eyes are playing tricks on her. Then the figure moves, slow at first then running. It looks like they are desperate to get away from someone. Charley screams, the lights flicker, and then she’s plunged into darkness.
The next day, the storm has finally passed, meaning non-denominational church for those who want to attend. Charley doesn’t, she is not interested in religion or the other Harrogate pastime, ogling the students from Eden School for Boys who come to share service with them. Olive though loves to look and sigh and pine. They walk past the old church, talking about all the random stuff teens stuck in an island boarding school have to talk about, when Charley spots her crush, Saoirse, and tries to nervously smile at her. They stop their walk, Charley to enjoy the fresh air and Olive to feed the birds; however, they spot something over the edge of the cliff. It’s a body, and going by the crab that’s just scuttled from the girl's mouth, she’s definitely dead.
At a hastily put together memorial in the courtyard to honour the dead girl, Hannah Manning, Charley and Olive are not so silently whispering about the supposedly accidental fall Hannah had and that it isn't being treated as suspicious but self-inflicted. They get a lot of dirty looks from school staff and their peers; subtle they are not. Before they part ways for class, Olive tells Charley not to say anything about the figure she saw Saturday night. Of course Charley immediately spills the beans to her entire class and teacher and police officer next period. It’s not taken seriously as Charley is the girl who loves horror so she obviously imagined it and wants it to be a murder.
During the evening vigil in the church for Hannah, Charley starts to hear a cracking, twisting, popping sound that no one else seems to notice and that continues the next day. During PE, one of the two lessons Charley and Olive share, she can hear it while they warm up with a run around the school before heading inside for doubles tennis. Charley and Olive are extremely unfit and the last to arrive, which means they’re paired with Rochelle and Gabrielle. Uggggh, great. Because the two Elles thrive on humiliation, they rile Charley up during the serves. The cracking, twisting, popping sound gets louder and with the Elles’ bullying, Charley is mad enough to actually hit the ball in the serve and straight at Gabrielle’s face. Ha! This does mean their teacher, Ms McDonald, makes them tidy everything up and put it away into storage. Great. As they head down the two flights of stairs loaded with tennis equipment, Charley and Olive bump into sullen Woodworking teacher Mr Gillies. And then they find the dead body of fellow student Sarah Keenan hanging in the storage room.
Because Charley clearly hasn’t had enough trauma for one day what with doubles tennis, an English project on Jane Austen due and finding another dead body, in the library that night, the cracking, twisting, popping sounds get more persistent because she’s being haunted by the half-broken body of Hannah and Sarah Keenan. But they weren’t ghosts, they were definitely in the library with her. In their room shortly after the spooky encounter, throat sore from the screaming, Charley tries to explain to Olive but her bestie is having trouble believing two dead girls are following her, even though they are standing at the foot of Charley’s bed, watching. They do this all night. By morning, Charley is convinced she has a brain tumor and visits the school nurse. The nurse believes it’s not ghosts, they aren’t real, but it's just all the recent trauma affecting her. She prescribes movies in bed for the rest of the day and hands her a chocolate bar.
Because Harrogate doesn’t like fun, all students are expected to take part in extra activities. Charley and Olive have zero athleticism, creative writing club kicked Charley out for being too gruesome, and Olive never gets picked for the school productions, so they both settled for painting props for Theatre Club. This Saturday, Charley and Olive can’t catch a break, it’s too hot for the paint and glue so they decide to take things outside in the fresh air and hopefully better temperatures. They see the gardening club working on redoing Headmistress Blyth’s herb garden with fences and a lockable gate after it was picked clean for Hannah’s memorial service. The fence coincidentally makes a lovely landing spot for Meghan Fraser to be impaled on after her “jump” from the roof. After being questioned by the teachers, Charley and Olive head to the showers. When Charley opens her eyes after letting the hot water wash over her, she sees an impaled Meghan in the corner of the shower.
On Sunday morning at breakfast, the school is whispering about Charley and Olive being the supervisors of some secret suicide pact, so Charley has decided to go to the church service. On the way she not only sees her crush, Saoirse, but they talk! Eeek! They head inside, Saoirse to her friends and Charley to the back pews. After the service, the minister stops Charley as she’s a new face. Charley takes the opportunity to talk to him, after all Rule #11 of surviving horror movies is ‘if still in doubt, seek religious advice.’
The minister makes a lot of sense. Charley was thinking everything was her karma for what she did after her dad died: the parties, the drinking, the drugs, the lies, the stealing. She saw her dead dad when she was in a juvenile jail cell. The minister doesn’t think so, instead he says that if ignoring the ghosts hasn't helped, then maybe she should talk to them. Alone, save for the three dead girls, Charley asks them what she can do to help them.
After a frustrating debate with Impaled Meghan that the prop department is part of Theatre Club, Charley manages to find out a few things. Rochelle is Impaled Meghan’s understudy as the (male) lead in The Crucible. Impaled Meghan was in the cooler empty stairwell practicing because she’d noticed the hall was far too hot too. Also, Impaled Meghan has never seen a horror movie so she has no survival instincts in creepy isolated situations as she investigated the weird noise by going up to the roof where she was pushed to her death. Impaled Meghan also confirms that Half-broken Hannah and Strangled Sarah were also pushed. They can’t talk, but they can grunt and moan. It also seems that none of the girls can go too far from Charley, Half-broken Hannah and Strangled Sarah are just in the hall because their deathly visage is making Charley feel sick. The irony of the horror lover being grossed out by ghosts… Also, rude. Anyway, time to take it to the top, to Headmistress Blyth…
…Who doesn’t believe Charley that the three recent deaths were murders. Clearly they’re all suicides, and their deaths shouldn’t be used as an opportunity for Charley to try and escape the island. Yes, Blyth knows about Charley’s history. Instead, Blyth hands her a phone and tells Charley to call her mum. After, this leaves Charley no option but to figure out the murders herself. Back in her room, Charley interviews the dead girls. All remember seeing someone of average height with a black hoodie and gold face. Communication is slow and a bit gross considering Hannah and Sarah’s deathly state. Impaled Meghan believes it’s a Harrogate student, but were Meghan, Hannah and Sarah random or targeted? Frustrated that the Suicide Squad (Blyth informed Charley that’s what the three girls have been dubbed by the Eden Boys) do not know the fundamental rules to horror survival, Charley puts on her Scream DVD. Time to educate the already dead girls. They aren’t convinced. This is when Olive comes home and sees Charley’s murder notes. Setting aside her concerns for a moment, Olive sits down to help but insists they need to try and convince Blyth or call the police. Fine, they’ll solve this and be the Final Girls.
After Meghan’s body was shipped back to the mainland, things started to go back to normal including planning for Halloween formal and participating in the academic challenge with Eden. After another call with her mum, this time in a phone booth crowded with her ghostly entourage, Charley sees Saoirse and totally embarrasses herself. Smooth Charley is not, but at least they talked! Back to the Harrogate versus Eden challenge. Charley is in the geography challenge, her only remaining option because horror trivia wasn’t one to sign up for. It goes terribly, and it gets worse when Charley sees the golden masked killer at the back of the hall. She hysterically presses her buzzer and screams that the killer is here but no one is there when everyone turns. It takes a lot for her to convince Blyth that she’s not crazy and shouldn’t be shipped back to the mainland.
It’s Saturday but no Slashers, at least the movie kind, for Charley and Olive. They are going to an actual pool party at Eden with actual people. They plan on covertly interviewing people. Charley is convinced that she and Olive knowing horror movies so well will help them figure the murders out. After all, the killer is always part of the main cast: the Prom Queen/Cheerleader, the Jock, the Best Friend, the Love Interest, or the Loner/Transfer.
Eden is a contrast to Harrogate, modern, landscaped, lots of glass. There is definitely money here, but what the school doesn’t seem to have is any signs of the party. How do they get to the pool? Luckily Impaled Meghan knows how to get in. Inside it is as hot as a sauna and most people are in their swim suits. It also has their potential cast of potential killers. Charley and Olive are not subtle nor skilled in the art of investigative interviewing. They discount their Loner/Transfer suspect, obviously Charley, but possibly also Kirsten, the other most recent transfer, and meet Strangled Sarah’s boyfriend who also dated Rochelle, and yes, as he’s giving all the dramatic details of the breakup, of course Rochelle is standing right behind Charley with the other Elles.
Olive sidles up to Charley and manoeuvres her away. She’s terrified of Rochelle who has made her life hell for years. She perfectly fits the Prom Queen/Cheerleader which makes her dangerous and their potential killer. Just then Charley spots Saoirse and gets all swoony, Olive says what we’re all thinking: just ask her out already! and pressures her to talk to her. Just as Charley has her opening to ask Saoirse to the Halloween Formal, the lights go out. Someone has turned the lights off at the mains. Things feel off. Horror movie off.
They check everywhere for a body while impaled Meghan whines not another one and Rochelle and Annabelle catch them looking. No luck in any bathroom or storage closet. It’s not until Charley, and only Charley, hears a scream, do they really know something is going on. In the kitchen she finds Impaled Meghan, Half-broken Hannah and Strangled Sarah with another dead body. The scream was Meghan, of course, because Half-broken Hannah and Strangled Sarah can only grunt. Leading up to the refrigerator is a pool of blood and inside, between the reduced-fat mayonnaise and the oat milk, is Gabrielle’s head.
The next day Charley is interrogated by Blyth. Apparently Gabrielle’s head wasn’t in the refrigerator but Blyth does admit she is missing. It's too bad no one else can see Gabrielle’s headless body tottering and bumping around the room. A little too easily, Charley changes her tune about there being a serial killer and Gabrielle’s missing dead body and head being somewhere on the island. She agrees it must be her overactive imagination and books it out of the room with Olive. With renewed vigour, Charley decides she is going to be Jamie Lee Curtis in Halloween, but without the sequels… they hate sequels. As they leave, they bump into Dr Pruitt, Eden’s Principal, who is looking for Blyth. His vibe is off. Horror movie off.
Back in the room, Charley and Olive evaluate their suspects. Obviously Rochelle, she’s linked to too many of the victims, and Dr Pruitt for the vibes, and Mr Gillies because he lost the tip of his pinky in Woodworking class because of Gabrielle. Olive suggests they get the dirty on the students and faculty by breaking into Blyth’s office and looking at everyone's files. A great idea! Dressed in green jersey polka-dot pyjamas (Olive) and black skinny jeans and a giant black bin bag with cut out arm holes (Charley), they go off to commit crime, the ghostly entourage follows behind.
Thankfully, Blyth’s office is unlocked but the storage cabinet is not, though the keys aren’t too hard to find in a fake succulent. The cabinet reveals a treasure trove of information, Charley’s file is particularly thick and she pushes it down, out of Olive’s view. As they’re looking, a noise outside the office startles them. Charley and Olive hide under Blyth’s desk for what feels like hours. When they come out, they find the bottom cabinet drawer open and Charley’s file gone. None of the ghosts saw who it was, only their black hoodie.
During breakfast, Charley is wondering why it was only her file taken and what damage the information inside could cause if it got out. After, and before first period, Charley heads back to her room to lie down, brood and think. On the way past Blyth’s office, she overhears Blyth and Mr Gillies talking. Blyth can tell someone has been in her office but not that something was taken; Mr Gillies suggests it was Pruitt, but that would mean he’s getting desperate. Interesting. After some quick thinking when she’s spotted, Charley makes it to her room and finds a note. I have your file. Meet me at the friary at 8:30p.m. Come alone.
Of course Charley goes to meet the mysterious note sender that night at the friary. Of course she is only accompanied by her cohort of ghostly companions. Of course it’s a cold and misty night. While they wait for the mysterious person, Charley and Meghan see the body of Gabrielle fall over the cliff. It’s okay though, she pops back straight away. Half-broken Hannah, however, doesn’t seem right. A blackness is spreading all over her body. She reaches for Charley, the black turning to ash before she crumbles and disappears. As Charley and Meghan try to work out what in the actual fuck just happened, they hear a someone approaching. Clop. Clop, clop. Charley GTFOs. As a horror fan, she doesn’t need to be reminded how many rules they’re breaking. Charley stumbles and is slammed from behind. In the mist, she sees a glimmer of a gold mask. Charley is able to get up again, cursing her lack of cardio as she runs. She bumps into Rochelle who instantly gloats about her intention to tell Blyth that Charley broke curfew.
The next day, Blyth tells Charley she is sick of seeing her, with three and now possibly four accidental deaths lately, it’s not safe for students to be out in the dark after curfew. Four? Yes four. They found Gabrielle’s handbag at the bottom of the cliff. Between Rochelle’s fake outrage and Blyth’s exacerbation, Charley is given detention for a week, but so is Rochelle for also breaking curfew. Sucks to suck, Rochelle!
Back in her room, Charley and the ghosts try to work out what happened to Half-broken Hannah. As none of them have died and been a ghost before, they really don’t know, so it’s time to pool their thinking and come up with some suspects, otherwise they’re never going to solve this. Eventually Olive returns and she helps apply horror movie rules to Charley’s ruminations, trying to think where and when the finale will take place. Of course it will be on Halloween at the dance. Now they just need to get the dance cancelled and find themselves some weapons.
Detention is boring, Rochelle makes a snide remark to Charley about being a snitch before Mr Gillies calls for their silence. Charley is so bored she falls asleep and dreams about the killer violently murdering her. She only wakes when Mr Gillies gives her a nudge, Rochelle is already gone. Feeling awful, Charley heads back to her room, Olive is getting ready for dinner but Charley only wants a shower. Because of their rules, Charley has to wait for Olive to get back, which she promises will be at seven. Burying herself in a Stephen King book in the meantime, by 7:20 Olive is still not back so Charley heads for the showers with only her ghostly entourage.
Inside the communal space, Charley can hear girls gossiping about her recent very public antics. Relaxing into the hot spray, Charley pushes all the noises away, but then realizes all the noises have gone. Suddenly, Impaled Meghan warns Charley the killer is here, making their way down the cubicles dragging their weapon. All Charley can see are their boots. Charley is able to escape the bathroom by throwing her towel on the killer and hears the plastic mask snap in her assault. Frantic, she runs naked through the halls, of course bumping into Rochelle who has the same boots as the killer, before making it back to her room where Olive is sitting reading a book. Charley screams that they have to leave the island NOW.
Olive is able to calm Charley down enough to see reason that they can’t leave now, they’ll have to go in the morning. As they’re arguing, Impaled Megan points to Strangled Sarah, she’s starting to go black like Half-broken Hannah before she went POOF. When Charley basically dismisses her ghostly pals’ Unfinished Business, they all disappear. At first light, Charley wakes Olive and they head to the dock where Terry and his fishing boat will be. It’s very quiet, almost too quiet. As Charley investigates, the ghosts return and she finds the engine absolutely destroyed and a bloody cooler with Gabrielle’s head inside. Gabrielle’s body is happy to be reunited with her head.
All the way to Blyth’s office, Gabrielle excitedly talks, not really understanding she is dead-dead. It isn’t Charley’s intention to tell Blyth she was right about the murder, but she is going to show her by hauling the cooler with Gabrielle’s head into her office and onto her table. Headmistress Blyth screams, vomits, then faints. Once she’s come to, Blyth asks Mr Gillies to take the cooler down to the basement and enact storm safety measures. The school will be divided by year groups and placed in different parts of the school with teachers patrolling until the police arrive. Unfortunately the phone lines are dead. Mr Gillies will go to Eden to let them know what’s going on and use their phone.
Olive takes multiple text books to the library prepared to study during the lockdown, and Charley takes a Stephen King, but she can’t concentrate on it. After a flirty interaction with Saoirse which seemed like Saoirse was hinting about the Halloween formal, Charley spends ages watching the last two Elles as they stare and talk loudly about her. In the end, Charley gets up to confront them. It doesn’t go well as Rochelle loudly tells everyone in the library that Charley changed her name and has a juvenile record of thievery and drugs and only got out because she’s a snitch. This then turns into a screaming match, a chase and a food fight in the kitchen. In the end, Charley tells Rochelle she is done pretending and will just tell everyone the truth. Then Strangled Sarah is overtaken by the black rot and disappears.
It’s Halloween morning. Charley wakes early and everyone else is asleep. She sneaks out to the toilets and as she’s doing her business, a new ghost appears. It’s Rochelle, with multiple knives sticking out of her chest. Impaled Meghan and Headless Gabrielle appear, Gabrielle is pleased her friend is dead too while Meghan is exasperatedly telling Rochelle she's D-E-A-D. Rochelle rejects this information. Well, that’s one suspect down. It takes a little bit to get Rochelle to accept her afterlife reality and that they need to work together before they head to the kitchen to find Rochelle’s body. Rochelle insists Charley take the knives out and as she is doing so, a kitchen assistant arrives to start her shift. Understandably she runs after seeing Charley standing over a very dead pin-cushion-like body, knife in hand.
Charley is locked in Blyth’s office, she looks mighty guilty all things considered. Then the power goes out because of course it does in the final act. Outside the window, Charley sees the killer looking in, hammer in hand. Charley tries to get out of the office as the killer hits the window with the hammer, breaks it, and enters. Between ducking away from the hammer swings, Charley shouts “Mr Gillies, don’t do this.” Mr Gillies answers, sort of, his ghostly severed hand skitters across Blyth’s desk. Thrusting Blyth’s desk at the killer, Charley uses the distraction to escape the killer and runs into Olive. Olive doesn’t look right, she looks unfamiliar and feels off. Horror movie off. Charley runs for it toward the friary and hears blood curdling screams as she gets closer. Saoirse stumbles out, her side covered in blood.
Saoirse screams that the killers are inside. So not Olive then? Charley tells her they need to get to Eden but Saoirse protests it’s too far so they look for a hiding place by the cliffs and find a cave. Saoirse won’t let Charley look at her side, she just wants to know who could possibly be doing this? It takes a lot for Charley to confess she thinks it’s Olive in classic straight-A student goes berserk Carrie style.
They sit for a long while not really talking. Charley is cold, wet, tired and anxious as the tide is coming in, Saoirse is still until Charley suggests they leave since the tide will fill the cave in an hour or less. Saoirse starts talking. She tells Charley how she had a roommate once and fell in love with her hard. But the Elles were (and are) bullies and made her life hell, eventually her grades slipped, she was kicked out of after school clubs and eventually transferred from Harrogate. Saoirse always wrote to her girlfriend even when she was no longer receiving replies.
Eventually her love made new friends and a girlfriend but these weren’t good for her. They got her into drugs and one night the new girlfriend persuaded everyone to steal from an old man’s house. Only the new girlfriend was caught but she snitched on everyone else for a nice few months in jail while everyone else got years. Charley realizes Saoirse is talking about Sadie, her ex. Saoirse then tells Charley that Sadie killed herself in prison and so she’s getting revenge. It’s then that Charley realizes Saoirse is the murderer. Meghan kicked Sadie out of Theatre Club, Sarah took hockey captain from her, the Elles made her life hell, only Hannah got in the way when it should have been Annabelle. Mr Gillies accidentally saw Saoirse’s mask in the workshop, so he died by woodcutter. Well, shit.
Charley tries to get away and fails. Obviously. At Rochelle’s urging, Charley tries to kick a looming Saoirse but it’s pathetic. She does, somehow, through wild feral flailing, manage to escape. She makes it all the way to the school gym which is decorated for the Halloween formal. Orange and black streamers, white balloons with blood splatter, a ‘Happy Halloween’ banner, as well as gory stage props, crime scene photos, and mannequins. Lots and lots of mannequins. Yuck.
The room full of creepily dressed mannequins makes Charley feel sick since she has to carefully walk through them so as not to disturb them, then the gym doors thud open. Saorise is here. Charley drops to the floor and crawls, thankfully Impaled Meghan is there to help direct her to the exit but when a noise distracts Charley, she turns to see a mannequin wearing the golden mask. It startles Charley enough to make her location known. Charley can only look at her ghostly entourage surrounding Saorise and closes her eyes. Suddenly she hears a thunk and a thud. Saorise is on the floor, Olive standing over her, emergency axe in her hand. Olive figured it out ages ago - the love interest! Saorise is still alive and stumbling to her feet, so Charley and Olive run. Saorise follows and catches Charley on the cliff edge. They start fighting, the ghosts watching on, Rochelle telling Charley to get up and end this. Charley swings a rock at Saorise, hitting her mark, then she kicks her over the edge.
Looking over the edge at the splayed body, Olive faints. Charley, however, doesn’t, but makes her way down to the body for a double tap. Which is good because Saoirse opens her eyes as Charley holds a rock over her head before bashing her ex-crush’s skull in and her ghost entourage disappears into the sparkles of the dawn. Together, Charley and Olive start to make their way back to Harrogate. There will definitely be no sequel now, because they hate sequels. Olive hates smug final girls more though and strikes Charley in the back with a knife.
Olive was roommates and best friends with Saorise and Sadie. After what happened with Sadie, Saorise had to repeat year five twice which worked out great, they could pretend not to know each other. They were always going to leave Harrogate with a bang. Then Charley turned up and had a crush on Saorise, it was too perfect! Saorise did all the killing, that’s not Olive’s thing. Olive could have let Saorise take the fall, but that’s too predictable. Wiggling the knife in Charley’s back a bit, Olive heads back to the school.
It’s winter, nearly Christmas, and Charley has been confined to Wexford General Hospital the whole time but is being discharged today. Olive missed her spinal cord, thankfully, but it’s been a long road to recovery. Charley hasn’t seen a ghost since Halloween night and has not mentioned them to anyone. Harrogate has become a crime scene so Charley can’t go back there. She doesn’t know what her options are yet but she’s going home at least. While she tries to avoid hearing about Harrogate, it couldn’t be avoided forever and Charley’s mum explains what happened.
After Olive left Charley to die, one of the wings of the school was ravaged by a fire. Olive was reportedly seen going into the wing of the school with a bomb strapped on her torso, while others say she disappeared into the cliffs. Forensic testing confirmed remains found were Olive’s. Charley heads upstairs for a shower. In her room she finds her curtains drawn tight and the opening credits of Scream on the TV. Lunging for the light switch, Charley sees her reflection in the mirror and in blood-red lipstick is written HAPPY SLASHER SATURDAY.
