Ch 11: The Award Ceremony

{3rd Person POV}

'Halloween's credits rolled, with which, many people stood up and started clapping.

*Clap*Clap*Clap*Clap*

A standing ovation.

Something that is considered a rare occurrence, so much so that any movie that receives it is immediately considered to be amazingly good.

And 'Halloween', a horror movie, had just achieved that. And not just any horror movie, a slasher at that. A sub-genre that was avoided due to how many few good movie there were, was now receiving a standing ovation.

Quite the achievement, no?

Journalists started to write down the juicy news. They could feel the talks about this news, "First time director's film gets a standing ovation!" . It would be worth quite a lot of money.

Critics, too, wrote down what they thought of the movie. They had finally found an actually great slasher film. One that was fun, lighthearted at times, and an amazing thriller with good characters to boot!

In their minds, 'Halloween' had just set a very high bar, so much so that no other Slasher could come near it.

One of these Critics was Matthew Davies, a renowned and respected Critic who was also an independent journalist.

'This is it! This is what horror needed; a good slasher film! And it's the greatest one!' He thought.

He jotted down the strong points of the movie on a notepad.

Many other people had also started to leave after the clapping stopped. And they left with telling their thoughts about the movie aloud.

"Damn. That was a good ass movie! Hey Henry, you should bring Alex tomorrow!"

"I loved Michael Myers! Him being a silent killer was so frigging awesome!"

"They're really teasing us with that ending. Man, now I wish they'll make a sequel quickly!"

Oliver, who was sitting in the audience seating, was listening to the reactions. He was relieved that the people enjoyed his movie, even though it wasn't really his. A sense of accomplishment, if you will.

'One step closer to the Best Feature Film award.' Oliver thought. The chances of 'Halloween' winning the award was now very much possible, but it would still be incredibly difficult.

Soon after, Oliver got on stage and announced himself as the director.

Many were surprised to see such a young man, freshly out of University, direct a movie. It was, after all, Incredibly hard for a graduate to get enough funds to actually even start the production,  let alone finish and release it like Oliver.

Many looked at him with admiration, jealousy, and some were, uh, let's say fanboys. Yeah, definitely that.

Soon, the Q&A session began. At first, the questions were fairly normal, ranging from "How long did it take for you get a distributor", "Why did you make a slasher?", to "What inspired you to make this movie."

Oliver answered the latter questions with "I had a nightmare once. A quite, masked man,  killing everyone in a small town I was living in. Shooting him did in the brain? No effect. Stabbing him in the eye? Nothing. He was relentless. He wouldn't die, but in the end, escapes due to facing too many people."

Now, this wasn't a complete lie, as Oliver did have this type of nightmare in his previous life. But it obviously wasn't exactly like this.

Soon enough, Matthew asked Oliver a question too.

"What are you going to do next with Halloween? A sequel? Or something else?"

To which Oliver responded. "Well, I do plan on making a sequel. Infact, I want this to be a trilogy. However, for now, I'm going to be doing something else, not horror related, however."

Matthew nodded at this, and asked again. "So, what you're saying is that Michael Myers will be eventually beaten? Even though he was shot so many times, stabbed in the eye and the chest, and yet, he lived. So how exactly will the trilogy end?"

Many people agreed with Matthew's question. Because indeed, how can an unkillable antagonist die without some incredibly dumb plot holes?

Matthew wanted to see if Oliver was truly going to be one of the greats or not. Many newbies can't handle tough questions like these, which are direct and way harm their reputation depending on how they answer.

Oliver smiled at Matthew's question. "Good question. But, who's to say that The Shape HAS to die for the end of the trilogy? What if he kills everyone in Haddonfield and, the 3rd movie ends with jus that, and a text on a black background saying "And so, Michael Myers continued his rampage across the Midwestern US."? Hmm? The trilogy, while not fully planned, does have a goal for the ending: To give a proper send off."

The audience and journalists alike intently to Oliver's speech.

"Sometimes, a happy ending or killing the antagonist is not always a good choice." He continued. "Now, I'm not saying that Halloween WILL end like this, because that would be spoiling a movie that doesn't even have a script." He stopped to breathe, and asked. "Any more questions?" He looked around, and this time, a journalist from 'The Hollywood Reporter' raised his hand.

Oliver motioned for him to stand, which he did and then asked. "You said that your next movie will not be a sequel to Halloween, and that it wouldn't b horror either. So, I wanted to ask, what kind of film are you going to make?"

"Well, I can't really properly explain it to you, but it's an R-rated thriller. That's all you're getting out of me."

The reporter nodded and sat back down, and many more questions were asked, mainly related to Oliver's personal life as well as about the actors, which he tried to avoid answering.

And just like that, the 2nd day of the Toronto Film Festival ended.

***

{1stPerson POV, Oliver}

The 3rd day of the Film Festival was here, and this time, the screening for 'Halloween' was PACKED. Far more critics and journalists were here to watch the movie.

The review embargo had been lifted in the night, and the reviews were mainly positive. There were a few negative ones here and there, with the main criticism being that Michael was too strong, and he was defeated in a pretty lame way. But even still, the movie had a 85 on Metacritic, with a 7.8 on IMDB, as well as an 98% on Rotten Tomatoes with an average rating of 8.5/10.

These numbers generated a lot of buzz online, and this brought in many people to the screenings.

And for the 2nd day for 'Halloween', the cast was present for the Q&A. They were thanked me for giving them an opportunity to enter Hollywood, and I was happy too.

However, I wanted to watch the movies being screened here. So, I left all the work stuff to Mr. Noah and just walked aimlessly, till I found the most packed screening.

It was the 2nd parter finale of 'The Secret Service' franchise, titled 'The Secret Service: Nightfall'. It was, as the name suggested, a spy thriller. The poster was pretty interesting, with the main character Alexander Reeves, who was played my Michael Young, holding a handgun and looking down at the ground, with the tag line 'Clock's Ticking'.

It was the last movie in the beloved franchise, and apparently it was the best one too, with an 7.7 on IMDB, 87 on Metacritic and 96% on Rotten Tomatoes with a 8.4/10.

I sat down on any seat I could find, and tried to get as comfy as possible. Soon, the movie started.

The plot was basically that the main antagonist from the last movie, subtitled Twilight, was trying to had kidnapped his family to get revenge on Alexander. And with the agency he worked for destroyed in the last movie, he was now in hiding and trying his best to rescue his family.

The plot was quite similar to Mission: Impossible 3, and that was a negative because I waned to make the Mission: Impossible movies. However, it was still different enough that I could make those movies.

After the movie ended, it too received a standing ovation, and I clapped too. It was an amazing movie, to be honest.

There were far more people reactions who voiced their opinion than in Halloween's screening, which was to be expected, but it still saddened me a bit.

The chances of Halloween winning the Best Feature Film were now 50%. And considering that The Secret Service is a beloved franchise, odds are, it'll come out on top.

The rest of the days went like this too, with me watching new movies everyday.

***

The 10th and final day of the festival was here.

Now, the award ceremony would be held. The venue for the award ceremony was quite large, far bigger than the screening avenues. It was setup as a stage, where the host would announce the winners of the award categories.

The award ceremony went on, till The Best Feature Film award was announced.

I was tensed out, and so were many other. The host looked at the page and smiled. Raising his head, he said out aloud the winner's name. "And the winner of the Best Feature Film award is... "The Secret Service: Nightfall!"

Loud applause erupted from the seated crowd, and everyone's attention was now on George Hill, the director of all four movies. He was a veteran of sorts in Hollywood. Respected and experienced.

I was dejected and quite sad. 'Shouldn't have expected to win such a big award the first time. Oh well.'

George walked to the podium, and took award. He started his speech.

"I'm really happy to have won this great and prestigious award. And for this to have happened, I'd like to thank..." Basically, a normal speech.

The awards were over, and even though Halloween didn't win any awards, the positive reception was still more than enough for Red Fox. Though, Mr. Noah did question me about that R-rated thriller I talked about.

Anyways, the only thing remaining was to release the movie.

...

A/N: Here it is! The delayed ch 11!

Bamboozled you with the title, didn't I? :P

Ngl, I had pretty fun time writing the Q&A part. It was, imo, a good characterisation scene. These types of Novel's MC's don't really have a character. They are bland. So, I tried to give him some uniqueness.

Also, this Novel has hit 20k views and 15k words! And will, hit 100 colections with this chapter! POG!

Anyways, see ya later on Saturday or Sunday!