HOLLY’S HAUNTED HAVEN

CHAPTER ONE

WEINER & WEEMS

It became clear to me early on in my career that Hollywood is run by monsters. Not monstrous men, but actual, literal monsters – vampires, werewolves, demons. 

Not only have I seen them with my own eyes, I’ve felt their touch. 

You may think you know the culprits of whom I speak, but they and their ilk are simply sacrificial pawns in a much larger game, MeToo fodder protecting the real kings and queens. 

The truly powerful don’t end up in the news. 

They are truly feared. 

Truly feared. 

Exposing a bloated old gasbag like Harvey Weinstein (allegedly) or a dork like Bryan Singer (allegedly) might engender some level of backlash in terms of your career; a vampire, on the other hand, will simply kill you and your family and your friends and your friends’ friends and your dog. 

You’ve never heard about such things happening for the simple fact that such things have happened, and they don’t have to happen often. 

One bite. Everyone knows the rules. 

So, you might be wondering, why would the silly little actress from Faerylights Flux – the Disney Channel for weirdos and perverts – risk speaking out on such things in her dumb little podcast? 

The answer is simple: I’m a monster too. 

I, Holly Darnell – the Faerylights Flux Icon from Alexis Necromancess and Daisy Hutch: Werewolf Duchess – am not human. I am a witch, of sorts.

Specifically I’m what you would call an Eidolon Weaver: a sower, shaper and splitter of souls. I can create independent, fully functioning psyches – whole other people – in my own mind. 

And it’s even stranger than this sounds. 

Suffice it to say that I am a monster of monsters, a multitude of one – I am legion. 

But perhaps I’m getting ahead of myself. 

Let’s start near the beginning. My first real job – my big break – was the Faerylights Flux original series Alexis Necromancess, which is generally regarded as low-class supernatural bullshit. 

Don’t get me wrong – I love it, but I also have a realistic understanding of my place in the pecking order, i.e. I make genre junk for chronic masturbators. 

My people. Bless their hearts. 

I wanted the role of Alexis so badly. I absolutely loved her with all my heart.

At that time I still had not figured out who I truly was, had not realized that the voices in my head were real voices, real beings.

I just thought I was crazy, perhaps schizophrenic?

I was afraid of myself, what I might do to myself or others.

It was Hell, to be honest. 

With Alexis, a death witch who sucked souls into herself and then used that energy to conjure monumental magiks, I felt I’d found a kindred spirit. If she could manage the exigent ghosts inside of her, perhaps I could too.

Or perhaps she could do it for me?

Somehow I had the intuition that playing Alexis could be my salvation far beyond boosting my career and my finances. 

She could save my sanity – my soul! 

But first, I would have to show Jodi Price my tits.

Jodi was more than just a showrunner at Faerylights Flux, she was responsible for some of their biggest hits thus far – Mighty Maddy, Brianna Banana and Claw Club.

It was an era redolent in alliteration. 

Let’s also note for the record that a bizarrely high percentage of the young actresses involved in these programs met suspiciously tragic ends.

It wasn’t just the typical Disney Channel or Nickelodeon sloppy-slut meltdowns. These girls were dying. Disappearing.

Did this knowledge give me pause?

Fuck no.  

They cast a wide net to find a fresh face for Alexis, and I attended an open cattle call in New Orleans.

My mom dropped me off at the dingy little offices of Weiner & Weems at around 9.30am. They were the local casting agency that had worked with Faerylights for decades. 

There was a trio of dummies standing to the side of the entrance catcalling all the girls. Two black guys and a white guy.

Where I’m from, in St Francisville, we call such creatures “couillon”. Worthless layabouts who could be dangerous if you didn’t keep your psychological windows rolled up tight. 

“Hey! Hey girl! Lemme get a bite o’ yo’ sammich!” said the first black guy.

“My what?”

“He said yo’ sammich’, dummy!” said the second. 

“Yo’ pussy,” said the white guy.

As I was buzzed into the building I answered, “PB&J.”

They all laughed, which I thought was rather nice.

Upstairs, the other girls and I were held in a long hallway with posters for movies I’d never seen with actors I’d never heard of.

A Midsummer’s Naughty Dream starring Orlando Grooves. BMX Banshees starring Gilda Rotunda. 

The place smelled of mildew and you could see the patches where they just painted over it.  

My nose twitched. 

There were maybe a hundred other dumb Southern belles there looking for their big break.  

In the casting announcement they said they were looking for soft gamine 18- to 20-year-olds who appeared stern yet vulnerable, like a first-time dominatrix. The phrase “unnervingly fuckable” was also used. 

One must give Faerylights Flux full credit for frankness.

But even though the competition was strong – even here in pokey NOLA – I felt a rush of confidence as they called my name and number.

Literally no other girl would have the same strange connection to Alexis that I felt. 

There were two women and two men behind the Ikea table at the far end of the smallish, mirrored audition room. They had set up an iPhone to record me. 

As I’d walked in one of the guys said “Lucy Fucking Hale,” which I took as a good sign as the Pretty Little Liars star was and remains unnervingly fuckable.

But then one of the women responded, “Ya, short,” in a tone I thought maybe wasn’t so good.

They had me perform a scene I’d memorized from the script excerpt they’d sent to all the pre-registered wannabes earlier in the week.

My scene partner was the woman who called me short. Who was, incidentally, fat.

Her name was Candice. The character she was playing was named Chelsea.  

“I don’t want to die,” she said, with all the enthusiasm of a middle-aged casting agent who had come to truly despise helping pretty girls make their dreams come true.

“Hush, my dearest, it will be completely painless,” I replied. Already I could feel Alexis emerging in me, taking control of my hands, my face, my voice. She came up into me with the facility of a demon possessing a ventriloquist’s dummy in an 89 minute horror film. As Alexis continued I merely observed her, a bystander in my own body and mind.

“You said you loved me,” Candice/Chelsea stated blandly.

“I do love you, I love you more than anything, that’s why I want to possess you completely, take you so deeply into myself that you and I become one.”

“But I’ll be dead and you’ll go on living.”

“That is where you are wrong: you will live on inside of me forever, you will never be forgotten, not even in a million years. Once I have transmuted you into your eternal essence, you will possess an undying energy that can never be destroyed. You will be magic, quite literally, and will sparkle and shine as you skitter through my infinite inner universe, still you, but free of all earthly concerns.

“I, Alexis Necromancess – Enchantress of Entropy, Suzerain of Cessation – cannot be bested by mere Death, who is my bonded slave. I shall live forever, and so too shall you! 

“You don’t want to die? You don’t want to die?! Then take my hand, Chelsea, and together we will spit in the face of God!”

As the scene ended and I started to become aware of myself once again, Alexis’ powerful physicality lingered in my chesty breaths, my clawed fists, my regal stance, my wild eyes. For one delicious moment I came into possession of Alexis’ body – the body of a maniacal, all-powerful necromancer – and I felt the rush of her power.

I savored it, tried to make it part of me even in the tiniest way, but the feeling retreated almost completely and I was merely me again. Not bad, but not great.

But wait. 

The first thing I noticed as I engaged once again with the real world was the look on Candice’s face.

It was a look of shock. And then there was a smile of surprise. Appreciation? Excitement?

She began clapping and the others joined in.

“Wow, thanks,” I said.

“No,” said Candice. “Thank you!” 

“You’re going to Atlanta,” said the Lucy Hale guy. “You’re going to Atlanta to-mor-row.”

“I have no money,” I said. “I have thirty dollars. Thirty-five dollars.”

Candice said, “We’re paying. Where are you staying?” 

“The Quisby.”

“Yeesh,” said Candice. “Tonight you’ll be at The Waldorf. Tomorrow you’ll fly out to Atlanta. You’ll be meeting with Jodi Price. She’s the showrunner.”

“Atlanta?”

“It’s our Hollywood. Think of it as Hollywood South. You can make the arrangements with Barclay.” Barclay was the Lucy Hale guy.

“My mama will be coming too,”

“Your mama?” said Candice.

“She travels with me. I can’t go to Atlanta without my mama.”

Barclay whispered something to Candice, which even in this overwhelmingly exciting moment I clocked as not just rude but a little weird. 

Candice whispered back in Barclay’s ear, then Barclay whispered back to her. Before that moment I don’t think I’d ever seen adults whisper like that to each other ever in my life. In retrospect it should have been a red flag.

People who whisper, by definition, have secrets. Secrets are dangerous.

Barclay finally got up from behind the foldout table and led me by my arm out of the audition room, “Let’s get you and your mama set up nice and cozy,” he said. “It’s gonna be a fun day.”

I could tell immediately that he was gay, and that his touch was meant to be reassuring and not insinuating. He wore Tom Ford perfume. I didn’t recognize the scent, of course, but later I asked him and he told me, following up with Tom Ford’s life story.  

As we were leaving Candice’s expression had returned to the practiced indifference it had first evinced, tinged with a subtle increase in hostility. She never said good-bye, never said another word, and I never saw her again.

This complete stranger had completely changed my life, and it meant nothing at all.

CLUB VORTEX

EPISODE ONE

AN AFFRONT TO FRONTERIES

Welcome to The Club Vortex podcast with me, your host, Faerylights founder J. Francis. 

Honestly, I don’t know where to begin.

With the totally fraudulent criminal charges?

The avalanche of frivolous lawsuits? 

The impending bankruptcy?

The painful separation from my wife of three decades?

Whatever. 

I understand the very reason most of you are here is that I’ve been in the news a lot lately, and apparently I’ve become something of a meme.

My assistant Casey showed me some of the Youtuber videos.

Grifters she calls them. I call them something else, a word Casey says I’m not allowed to use in this podcast.

She made me a list.

Anyway, I’d rather just talk about movies. I mean, I own an entertainment empire — Faerylights Inc.

You’ve probably heard of it? We make low-grade horror bullshit for undiscriminating weirdos and perverts.  

I’m the Walt Disney of degeneracy.

When I first started Faerylights back in the 70s, converting my family’s ancestral plantation into a film studio, it was a different world.

For the first time in the history of planet Earth, artists had been set free. 

For thousands of years, since the very origins of civilization in ancient Sumeria, creatives had been forced to submit to lesser men who imagined they were somehow qualified to dictate the limits of aesthetics.

We’re talking government officials. Religious leaders. Whatever sort of loathsome busybody you can imagine. 

The irony being, of course, that the ones most responsible for oppressing the perfectly healthy instincts of artists always allowed themselves the greatest leeway to indulge their own peccadillos. 

Hear me now, and I mean really listen to me: every single person with any form of power abuses that power to the limit his power affords. Without exception.

But more on that later.

Let’s go back to 1973, when a miracle happened: Miller Vs. California.

This one landmark Supreme Court decision basically afforded American artists the right to do whatever the hell they wanted to do without the fear of legal persecution.

Men of previous generations were lucky to see a few pairs of fronteries and or backeries in their lifetime. After Miller Vs. California, the world became a dazzling kaleidoscope of flesh for all.

Of course by the early seventies playboy had been around a couple decades, and there were always stag films floating around, but this was different.

Audiences for such pleasures no longer needed to be furtive, shy, scared and alone.

Perversion became public. 

You no longer had to be brave to indulge; sex became mainstream and it percolated through every facet of society.

Let that sink it. I mean, really think about it. 

Suddenly it was possible for the common man to vicariously experience the sort of decadent excesses that had been the sole purview of the wealthy and powerful since time immemorial. 

Gay sex. Threesomes. Cunilingus and fellatio. This orifice, that orifice or yes even that other orifice.

A man who had known nothing but the missionary position his whole sorry life suddenly saw things he could have scarcely even imagined.

Sex became full of possibilities, but more importantly LIFE became full of possibilities. 

I myself was so elated with the development that I decided on the spot to create Faerylights. On June 22nd 1973, on the back of a titty bar napkin, I wrote down The 7 Guiding Stars of Faerylights:

1. Elvis Pressley, He Who Started the Fire
2. Hugh Heffner, He Who Engorged the Fire
3. Andy Warhol, He Who Mastered the Fire
4. Eartha Kitt, She Who Stole the Fire
5. Goldie Hawn, She Who Danced in the Fire
6. Jane Fonda, She Who Spoke the Fire
7. Jack Hill, He Who Filmed the Fire

In my defence I was on a three day bender when I thought up the 7 guiding Stars, though I do think it holds up fairly well – I still have it in our archive somewhere.

I’ll have Casey find it…

CASEY (muffled off mic): Titty is on the list.

Huh? What list?

CASEY (muffled off mic): The list I gave you! The list of words you can’t say!

Casey just reminded me that titty was on that list she gave me. I’m not supposed to say titty.

CASEY (muffled off mic): You said it again! Twice!

OK I’ll stop!

Jesus. It’s a long list, in my defence. 

Anyway…You can see my point. 

My point is that the very founding of Faerylights was rooted in the ideals of the time.

Far from being a peddler of smut, or some kind of cinematic pimp – as my many critics over the years have accused – I was in fact a champion of freedom, an agent of liberation.

I made it my mission to expose plebians to the rarified world of the senses historically inhabited by their patrician exploiters.

My thinking was that once people saw what they were missing, they would no longer be satisfied to endure a colourless life in anticipation of a glorious afterlife.

I wanted my audience to know that life is to be lived.

Far from pandering to prurient interests, the titties in my movies are profoundly political.

Casey is giving me a dirty look, guys.

Henceforth titties shall be known by the much more euphonious and elegant term of fronteries. 

Asses will be referred to as backeries.

Though most of you are much too young to remember my early films, you should know that I was steadfastly true to my ideals.

Our very first picture was A Midsummer’s Naughty Dream,  an erotic reimagining of A Midsummer Nights Dream, by Shakespear. It was the first of many erotic Shakespear adaptations. 

Another standout was Theseus and the Amorous Minotaur, featuring a female minotaur, which I thought was a strong feminist statement at the time.

The fronteries on that minotaur, let me tell you!

Throughout the 70s Faerylights built a strong brand on pillaging the past for non-copyrighted stories, just like Walt Disney did, but with a lot more flare.

With the advent of home video in the 80s and 90s, I will admit that the quality of our output dipped a smidge, perhaps reaching its nadir with BMX Banshees.   

Then there was the great fire of 1999, which saw much of Faerylights Studios burn to the ground, including a large section of our film archive.

Over the past 25 years it’s been a long slow climb back to the middle.

The recent success of our streaming service, Faerylights Flux, is close to putting us once again in the black.

It’s the same old Faerylights formula – monsters and mammaries – but with a newfound focus on the integrity we had in our early days.

The guiding star of this new Faerylights Universe is a true icon, Holly Darnell.

A smalltown girl from St Francisville, Louisiana, Holly has infused the company with her passion for creation and her willingness to share every inch of herself in the service of storytelling.

As I always say, sharing is caring.

The hypocrisy of the mainstream movie industry has opened up a wonderful opportunity for young artists like Holly who are willing to work in the wild borderlands where Faerylights has always thrived.

Bold, smart, wise beyond her years, a girl like her would never be satisfying manning the IP meat grinder at Disney or Warners or Universal – can you imagine any truly creative person wanting to work within those sorts of limitations?

You want to bow down to some ivy-league faggot just so you can pick over the slaughtered remains of Star Wars, Star Treck, The Lord of the Rings or, god forbid, Marvel?

Bitch please. I mean, really.

Obviously, the f-word was on my list. So I apologise for that.

Holly literally threw her clipboard at me and left the room.

She’ll be back. 

Casey! I said I’m sorry! 

Anyway, where was I?

I was talking about Holly, correct?

At Faerylights, Holly is not treated as a corporate cog-drone, but as a goddess.

She is Alexis Necromances, a death witch feeding off the power of the innocent in her battle against corporate, religious and political corruption.

She is a South High Succubi, a crippled girl who makes a deal with the devil in order to fulfill her dream of becoming a cheerleader.

And finally she is Daisy Hutch: Werewolf Duchess, an uber killer who flips her powers against those who demand genocide.

Holly not only bears her soul in these landmark titles, but her body as well, fronteries and backeries both.

I can already hear the lamentations about the male gaze and metoo.

Let me tell you, kids, I’ve been hearing this bitching and moaning for half a century.

You didn’t invent censorship; you just put a new liberal spin on it.

You call yourself progressive, but you’re the exact same prudes and killjoys I’ve spent my entire career defying.

I defy you.

I defy you.

The humanitarian mandate of Faerylights will never be compromised by the torches and pitchforks crowd, whether they be religious fanatics or so-call feminists.

As god is my witness, for as long as Holly Darnell’s fronteries hang true, Faerylights will proudly champion flesh for fantasy.

It’s about three simple words: LUST FOR LIFE.