“From the depths of my heart, I thank you all for being here,” Roger Bowl exclaimed with his usual overdramatic flair. Five years ago, a local entertainment magazine had once been unflatteringly compared the horror director with an obnoxious peacock, and time had only made that description all the more appropriate, as he strutted about at the front of the theatre with the bloated arrogance Hollywood had come to expect from its worst living director. “I know none of you willingly chose to be here, but… I’ve never been able to resist a captive audience.”

Moans of dismay, both at their predicament and at the cheap pun, arose from the six women that occupied his private theatre, the duct tape securing their wrists to the armrests, wrapping around their waists to keep them pinned to the backrest, and binding their ankles ensuring they would remain. More strips of tape sealed their lips and kept their complaints about his cinematography to a minimum, and Roger’s already overweening pride swelled yet further at his success. The studio had canned him, his agent had left, and most of his works had been blacklisted and condemned as indecent, yet here he was, finally displaying his cinematic genius in front of an audience. Who needed an advertising budget or positive word-of-mouth when a panel van and some generous helpings of chloroform did a much better job of filling theatre seats?

One of the attendees, an attractive blonde, buckled and thrashed in her restraints like a caged beast, grey eyes staring balefully at Roger, and with an ingratiating smile, the director crossed over to her, admiring how the plain green shirt and black khaki pants she wore did little to obscure her beauty. “Oh, it’s not like you had anything better to do,” he chided. “Romantic comedies are all boring and stale anyways. I did you a favour, kidnapping you. Now, you’ll see a true creative genius at work!”

“Mmmmppppggh!” the blonde protested, and the rest of the audience took up the chorus, gagged cries reaching a fever pitch. “MMMMMPPPGGH!”

“Don’t you know you’re not supposed to talk in the theatre?!” raged the filmmaker, the temper that had made veteran actors throw up their hands in disgust and driven studio executives away in tears rearing up before them. His works were too disgusting for mainstream release, they said. His characters were too flat and their dialogue unnatural, they said. He constantly went overbudget to deliver films that were barely watchable, they said. Petty complaints from overpaid suits incapable of understanding his vision or unwilling to acknowledge his talent. He’d show them all! “I am the greatest horror director ever to have lived, and I demand your respect! You’re going to sit still when you watch The House Where The Scary Thing Happened, and you will enjoy it!”

At mention of the director’s most infamous box office bomb, the struggles of the six kidnapped women reached a fever pitch, muffled screams echoing throughout the darkened theatre. Sighing, Roger leaned back in the nearest free chair, popcorn in hand and a beautiful woman bound on either side, his mind already racing towards the next showing. It would be interesting to see how many more he could kidnap in one go…