Emily wasn't the only one quietly mourning the redhead's death on screen.
But no one had expected much from a film that clearly wasn't shot in Hollywood proper.
"The layout of this cabin is off," Leonard muttered, watching the flicker of candlelight dance across rotting wood.
"Feels like eighty percent of it was designed by psychopaths."
The atmosphere on screen was thick, unsettling, bleeding into the theater like a draft from a forgotten attic.
"Yeah," said Sheldon, seated stiffly beside him.
"That jar of teeth... took me right back to that dental visit in Van Nuys."
He gave an involuntary shiver.
"Pure nightmare fuel."
Dentists in America had a reputation—one that blended horror and economics.
Their drills rattled nerves, their bills drained wallets. It was a different kind of terror, but real all the same.
Still, that wasn't the real horror.
From the moment the four protagonists stepped inside the creaking wooden house, Emily knew they weren't making it out.
She leaned forward slightly, waiting for the carnage.
The movie teased the audience—flickering lights, half-seen figures, sudden silences.
But Emily had seen enough R-rated fare to know where this was headed.
The film had clearly been trimmed for pacing—what once might've been a slow burn now moved like a loaded gun in a trembling hand.
And tonight, in a midnight screening packed with genre junkies, expectations were everything.
This was no slow ghost story. It was a butcher's tale.
On screen, the killers finally made their entrance. The theater hushed. Not a cough. Not a whisper.
Just the crackling tension of a moment everyone had been dreading.
Emily felt it in her chest.
The protagonists hid under a bed just as the killers stepped in.
The camera dropped to their point of view: low, claustrophobic, breath-tightening.
Darkness pressed in. The sound of slow, heavy boots on floorboards echoed like thunder in a tomb.
And then—thud.
The redhead's body hit the floor like a sack of wet concrete.
Her face, half-shredded by a barbed chain, seemed frozen in a grin that dared the audience to look away.
A few gasps and muffled screams rippled through the room. Emily didn't scream, but her breath caught.
Some girls in the front row laughed, tough as nails. Or pretending to be.
Emily allowed herself a small smile. The director knew what he was doing.
Maybe a new master of horror was in the making.
Then came the first full reveal.
"My God," Sheldon whispered, eyes wide.
"They make my school bus driver look like a magazine cover."
Leonard let out a breath. "Industrial waste, right? That was the setup."
"Mutants, basically," Howard chimed in.
"And here I thought my film degree wouldn't come in handy."
Emily kept her eyes on the screen. The bodies, the tension, the quiet before the storm—it was all working. She could feel it in the room.
This wasn't just a horror movie. It was a good one.
It took a generous spirit to stay friends with someone like Sheldon.
Howard, silently stewing, made a mental note to get even later.
Among the four of them, only he held a master's degree—everyone else had a Ph.D. And Sheldon, the eccentric ringleader, held his in theoretical physics.
Even in a room full of geniuses, there was a pecking order.
Not that it mattered during a movie. At least, not to most people.
"You four are louder than a sitcom rerun," snapped a voice behind them.
"Say another word, and I'll personally introduce you to God."
It was Emily—young, sharp, and clearly fed up.
"You're not schoolgirls on a mall trip. Shut up and watch the movie."
The four men stiffened like schoolboys caught whispering in church.
Then came murmured apologies. Emily gave a curt nod, already lost in the film again.
A real moviegoer knows: silence is sacred.
Back on screen, the protagonists narrowly escaped as one of the mutants hacked at the redhead's remains.
Emily, however, was still stuck on the earlier cabin scene.
The moment the girl's body hit the floor, the camera pulled up slowly and deliberately.
Blood spread in branching rivulets, seeping into old grime and forming a shape that made Emily uneasy.
It wasn't just gore—it had intention.
A ritual. Maybe... black magic?
She'd seen something like it before. A pattern, maybe even a sigil. But it slipped through her thoughts like a half-remembered dream.
Whatever it was, I'll catch it next time, she thought, brushing the feeling aside as the story moved on.
In the back row, Christian leaned forward slightly, a faint smirk tugging at his lips.
"Someone noticed," he murmured.
There was a quiet satisfaction in his voice—as if he'd been waiting for it.
"These midnight screenings always pull in the perceptive ones. Some just feel it in their bones. Others remember what they're not supposed to."
Beside him, Charlize shifted in her seat. She'd seen the early cut of the film.
Her expression said it all—she'd noticed it too.
Christian glanced at her. "That was just the warm-up."
He paused.
"The real show is in the second showing."
Then he turned back to the screen, his eyes unreadable.
"This premiere? It's just the opening move."
His smile held no warmth—only the promise of something carefully planned.
A trap, perhaps. Or an invitation.