IT(‘S RECORDER)

• Lori Palminteri
• Uncategorized
• September 17, 2017

Kids are not unlike adults in the sense that when you tell them not to do something, they really, really want to do it.  I was not, and am still not an exception to defying what other people think is best for me.  As a kid, I loved both horror and science fiction.  My parents were pretty lenient as far as what we watched with movies and television.  From an early age, I watched a ton of gore and horror, loved The X-Files, and watched a lot of comedy that was definitely adult content.  The only thing that was really off limits was nudity and sex.  We were allowed to watch someone get shot/stabbed/decapitated, but when people were making love, that was horrid to my parents.  Oh Catholics, you really are a fucked up bunch.

Despite night terrors, having “heard voices” coming from my closet, and almost everyone in my house being convinced it was haunted, I still loved horror movies, even though they scared the shit out of me.  I took a “Horror in Film” class in college (haha-screenwriting major bull shit classes) and one of the main topics of discussion was why the fuck are people drawn to horror movies when they are, for a lack of a better word, “horrific.”  The general answer in our “studies” found that there is pleasure in the sense of relief from fear.  So, it’s not actually being afraid that we love, it’s the release of it.  Similarly why people love comedy and laughing.  My favorite jokes to be an audience member for, or to tell, is a topic that makes people uncomfortable, and then you break the tension with a punch line.  Those are the comedians I always loved and aspired to be.  This is also why horror and comedy made a good team.  Tension and release. Tension and release.

But back to my childhood, and no, not the part about the voices in the closet.  We loved horror movies.  And part of the deal with our parents was, “you can watch this, but you have to sleep in your own bed after.”  This was a bit easier for my sister and I, who shared a bedroom, but my kid brother (who suffered severe night terrors) often ran up to my parents room, or jumped in my bed in the middle of night because he was easily spooked.  This may make my brother seem like a sissy boy, but in his defense he was very young, and very afraid of the dark.  Also, again, we were raised Catholic, so we were taught to believe that demons were VERY real.  A demon could visit you in the night!  I wouldn’t touch a Ouija Board at sleep overs for years, because I was convinced “The Exorcist” actually happened (to this day, I think that’s the scariest movie ever made).  And my parents wonder how my brother and I turned out to be atheists.

There’s no person I had more sleepovers with than my best friend/cousin Brittany (who still thinks my childhood home was haunted).  Her dad had a vast VHS collection of action and horror movies.  We loved watching horror movies at sleep overs.  Her dad owned “It,” and because clowns were super creepy, we wanted to watch it.  We were told we were not allowed to watch it.  Naturally, we did anyway.  And we watched it practically clutching each other in fear the entire time.  We were so spooked after watching it, neither of us wanted to go to the bathroom alone.  Our parents said, “damn it! We told you not to watch that movie!  Idiots!”

The following day we were still creeped out, but we dealt with it in the best way to deal with fear: we made fun of it.

Brittany and I spent our weekends and vacations from school filming sketches we wrote that were cheap knock offs from TV shows, commercials, or whatever we found funny.  There were hours of these sketches on a VHS that got damaged when our basement flooded due to a storm.  The tape is lost and  gone forever.  Sometimes I wish I could watch it, as it seems almost fatalistic that a young girl so obsessed with comedy actually pursued it, but at the same time, I’m sure there’s a ton of embarrassing content on there as well.

The only product that remains of my adolescent film and comedy products is a production Brittany and I made called “It’s Recorder,” which is a spoof on “It.”  The plot of “It’s Recorder” (mind you, we were like 12) was that It cursed a recorder (that annoying instrument we’re all forced to learn) so that if you played the recorder, you got possessed by the evil essence of It and became a murderous psychopath.  If you think that plot is both stupid and makes no sense, you are absolutely correct.  I made the short film, and even I can’t follow it.  It’s Recorder stars exclusively myself and Brittany (I’m the evil possessed clown, duh) and a brief cameo of my Uncle’s hand who’s a cop in a POV shot.  There’s a sword fighting scene with spatulas.  It is so fucking stupid, that we felt the need to make a sequel.

Yes, “It’s Recorder” has a part two!  And it’s even more ridiculous than the first.  In the sequel, my character is relieved of the curse of the evil clown, and I am adopted by Brittany’s mom (played by my sister).  My sisters acting was notoriously bad.  We didn’t have editing software, so everything was filmed in sequence, and if someone messed up the scene (ahem, Lisa), we would have to rewind the VHS to the exact right spot (very difficult and annoying) and start filming the scene again.  And yes, the camera we used had a full VHS in it, and it weighed probably as much as I did.

This time, Brittany’s character is tempted to play the Recorder (today, Brittany and I have no idea why we thought getting possessed by a spirit because of playing a recorder was a good idea) and gets possessed by the evil clown spirit.  It never gets better.  Only more ridiculous.  We recruited my brother and  his friend (often we recruited actors against their will, as I was a gem to be friends with) to play murder victims.  Though only about 12 minutes long, this film took us a year to shoot, and it still remains unfinished.  The continuity errors are abundant.  For example, in one scene, it’s cold out so we’re wearing jeans and a sweat shirt, and in the very next shot, we are wearing shorts and tank tops because it’s summer. Hahahahahaha.  Oh man, what a film education I gave myself.

My favorite part of the movie is because of a huge continuity error.  I got braces.  I didn’t always have the dazzling smile I have today.  I had a large gap in my teeth and my orthodontist told me I looked like a rabbit (I really hated that guy).  So, as production of “It’s Recorder II” dragged, we were faced with this problem of the lead/hero (me) suddenly having braces.  But we were clever (or so we thought).  What happens is, Brittany’s character (now possessed by the evil clown, if you’re following along) places a curse on me.  My sister (who is only two years older but is playing my adopted Mom) finds me crying on the floor, head buried in my hands.  She asked me what happened.  I say, “she cursed me with the worst thing you can do to a teenager.”  My sister says, “what is it? AIDS?”  I shake my head.  “Diabetes?”  I shake my head.  Then I turn to the camera and yell, “braces!”  I still think that’s funny, by the way.  And I am proud of my adolescent comedy chops for being a twisted little fuck.

“It’s Recorder: Part Two” makes zero sense.  There’s potions that derive from Merlin.  There’s a bicycle chase scene.  And Brittany never has on creepy clown make up like I did in the original masterpiece.  There was supposed to be zombie fighting scene at the end finale but we could never get people to commit to our vision, and at that point my older sister was “too cool” to partake in what was a clearly genius production.  Sometimes we joke about finishing it now, some fifteen years later, and never addressing that we are all adults in it now.  Anyway, both these movies exist, and they make me laugh hard, because they are so bad.  I mean, they are actually the worst things ever created on film.  But we didn’t make these films for anybody but us.  We were both shy kids outside of the comforts of our families.  We solely wanted to entertain each other.  And we did.  We had a lot of laughs making it and watching it.

There’s two important lessons learned from “It’s Recorder.”  The first is, I was clearly obsessed with comedy from a young age, and even when I’m completely derailed and feel like my career is on life support and I’m going to drown in my depression of being a failure, I remember how proud the girl who made “It’s Recorder” would be for even trying.  The second thing is, even as kids, we knew the best way to deal with fear was to laugh at it.  You always win if you’re able to laugh at what scares you.  Every time.  Life is not so serious.  A lot of times it doesn’t make sense, like the plot of “It’s Recorder.”  But it should be fun.