Title: Grindhouse
Author:
rise_your_deadFandom: My Name is Bruce
Characters/Pairings: "Bruce Campbell", Jeff Graham
Length: 533
Rating: Mature/R
Spoilers: For the movie in general
Warnings: somewhat graphic descriptions of zombie-based violence
Prompt: 339. My Name is Bruce - Bruce Campbell - No zombie is going to stop him from making his new movie! (note: I am referring to the very over the top parody of himself from the movie not the real Bruce Campbell)
Summary: Bruce thinks shooting his new ‘independent digital feature’ in Gold Lick’s local dump will be an easy, cost-effective way to replicate an apocalyptic epic. Unfortunately he knows nothing about the local drug testing faculties nearby…and the fact that they’ve sprung a leak.
“I’m telling you, Jeff,” Bruce declared, planting his feet on the sand with a heavy, pronounced tread, sticking his legs akimbo against the treads of the sand. “There’s nothing like going out among the people and getting dirty in the elements.”
Jeff’s eyeliner-clad face peered over a pile of film cans as he staggered beneath their weight. “How dirty are we going to get?”
“Kid, we’re filming every single second of this zombie apocalypse like it’s the last thing we’re gonna do on the planet; so pretty dirty.” He rested his hands against his hips and took a deep breath. “Smell that?”
“It..” Jeff coughed, “kinda smells like hot garbage….”
“It smells like freedom from the studio! The ability to do whatever I wanna do, when I wanna do it.” Bruce took another foot forward and planted his tripod stand in the dirt. “The notion that I can be my own man, even if it’s in a garbage dump.”
“Oh…” Jeff kicked lightly at the pile of dirty newspaper. “So …what’s this movie about?”
“It’s a classic girl-meets boy, boy turns into zombie, eats girls’ brain and has to live with her voice in his head comedy.” He raised his chin skyward. “I call it Zombie: A Love Story.”
“Please tell me you already have a studio….”
Bruce glared at him. “…online distribution is the wave of the future, Jeff…”
“If you don’t want to make money,” he muttered, catching his lip ring on a metal flange.
****
“No, CUT!” Bruce shouted, pushing away the actress in disgust. “The line is grr ahh BRAINS, not arrr Grrr SOUL brains!”
“BRAINS!” She shouted, lunging for his head.
He rolled his eyes dramatically. “Great, a method actor.” Then he shouted as loudly as he possibly could, “NOW YOU’RE A WILLOW TREE.”
She made another lunge for his face and Bruce dodged out of the way, scrambling to a safer seat behind the camera. “You’d never make it in a Raimi picture, kid,” he declared, wiping his goo-spattered face. “How’s the gate look?”
Jeff double-checked the camera. “Looks good…” he gulped and blanched. “But those extras don’t!”
Bruce cackled. “Pretty good read kid. Maybe I’ll put that in the movie.”
Jeff had gone pre-verbal. Pointing his finger and shaking violently, he couldn’t tell his idol what was transpiring a few inches behind him.
Bruce rolled his eyes and turned around.
That’s when he noticed a large group of female zombies ripping an extra into little, tiny edible chunks with their nails.
“RETREAT!”
***
“One accelerant torch, one chainsaw and a bunch of gasoline. Looks like the odds are about even,” Bruce declared, cracking a skull with the foot of his tripod.
“Please stop talking,” Jeff begged, dousing the nearest zombie with a flood of gasoline.
***
“Well, Jeff,” Bruce said, stretching out across the back of the flatbed they’d rented that morning. “I hope you’ve learned a few things. How to safely hold a chainsaw while slicing through a torso; how to handle a union crew. But most importantly: how to survive a zombie apocalypse by blowing things up real good.”
“I learned never to hold an open audition near a medical testing facility that’s right next to a nuclear waste dump,” Jeff said, deliberately driving the truck over a very large speed bump.
“That too man,” Bruce laughed, wiping his gut-covered cheek.
THE END.