Making Friends

The short film "Making Friends" was released in 2011 and won an award for the Best Thriller/Horror Movie at the 2011 Canton Film Festival.  "Making Friends" was featured at the Dragon*Con Independent Film Festival, the Horrorfind Film Festival, and the Canton Film Fest.  Directed by Marvin Suarez and written by Greg Bartlett, "Making Friends" is based on the short story by Gary Raisor.  I will copy and paste the short story below as it is relatively short.


"Jack-o’-lanterns smile their secretive, broken-mouthed smiles as they peer out from behind darkened windows. Eight-year-old Denny Grayson hurries down the sidewalk. He is barely able to contain his excitement. Tonight is Halloween.

A hint of chill hangs in the air and the tang of woodsmoke carries. It’s a good smell. The huge yellow moon tags along, floating over his shoulder like a balloon on a string. When he glances up, he sees the man in the moon smiling broadly. Beneath his green latex Frankenstein mask, he smiles back eagerly. He has waited with much anticipation for this night.

A small group of kids pelt by, anonymous in their costumes. Only the patter of their expensive new Adidas and NIKES link them, to an exclusive club; one to which Denny will never belong. He watches enviously as they pound on the door. “Trick or treat,” they demand in high, childish voices. He turns and scurries to the next house.

A quick stab of the doorbell brings a smiling, silver-haired, woman to the door. “My, aren’t you scary looking?” she laughs merrily. “Are you going to say trick or treat? What’s the matter, cat got your tongue?”

Denny shakes his head and asks, “Ccould I hhaff a ddink of, wwatah, ppleese?” Her smile wavers and she blushes as understanding comes. “Oh, I’m so sorry. Of course you can.”

When she goes to the kitchen, Denny reaches into the candy dish sitting so invitingly by the door. He barely retracts his hand before the woman returns with a glass of water. Turning his back, he lifts the mask and takes a short sip. “Ttankk yyoou,” he mumbles thickly, holding out his plastic sack. The woman drops in extra candy. After every house on the block has been visited, he climbs on his bike and heads for home, racing the moon from streetlight to streetlight watching the shadows wheel and dart before him.

Pedaling furiously, he soon reaches the section of town where the houses aren’t so nice. He weaves the familiar route up the rutted street until the small, rundown house comes into view.

Quietly letting himself in, he tiptoes past his mom who is fast asleep on the couch. As usual, the reek of soured whiskey follows him across the creaky floor.

He barely has time to stuff the mask and candy under the bed before he hears Mom’s heavy tread. She enters the room and drunkenly embraces him. “Oh, Denny, I’m so glad you’re home. Momma just had the most awful dream. It was full of blood, and children were screaming and screaming. . .”

Denny pulls away from her and throws himself onto the rickety bed. She stares at him in helpless misery. “I dreamed you went trick or treating again,” she blubbers wetly, and Denny knows she’s going to talk about it. “I’m so sorry, baby. I know I let you down. If only I’d checked the candy. Who’d have ever thought someone would be sick enough to put razor blades in a child’s-”

Denny turns to the wall and stonily ignores her. Stiffly, she reaches a fluttering moist palm toward him that stops short. “I know the kids at school make fun of your problem. But I talked to Dr. Palmer again yesterday, and he says he might be able to help.”

“Hhee ccan’tt hhellp.”

The silence becomes a thick wall between them. For the first time, she notices he is wearing a jacket. Alarm sifts through the alcoholic haze to finally settle on her face. “Where were you tonight, Denny? You didn’t go trick or treating, did you?” She yanks him around, trying hard not to wince as the horribly disfigured mouth smiles crookedly at her.

“Nooo, I wass mmakin’ ssome neww ffriendss,” he utters cheerfully, jumping from the bed and crossing over to the window. He jams both hands into his jacket pockets. His fingers touch a small lump nestled within-it’s a candy bar. For a second, he’d almost forgotten he’d placed one in the candy dishes of all the homes he visited tonight.

As he thinks about the kids who make fun of the way he talks, his fingers curl tightly. A sharp flash of pain causes his hand to fill with sticky red wetness. After tonight, he’ll have lots of friends to talk to. He stares into the night and smiles a terrible, secret smile. The man in the moon is smiling too; only, this time, a river of blood is gushing from his mouth."

Copyright: Gary Raisor. https://garyraisor.wordpress.com/

So am I the only one both disturbed and slightly heartbroken by this short film?  We've all heard the horror stories of "Razorblades in the Halloween candy!!!!111!11 Beware!!!111" but "Making Friends" took it to a whole new level.  You have no choice but to feel sorry for the little maniacal Denny Grayson.  He's young, he's vulnerable, and he's never fit in.  All he wants is some friends, right?  He doesn't understand the ramifications of disfiguring all of the neighborhood kids, making them bleed from the mouth and shriek in terror.  Or does he...?

My only complaint is I feel they could've done way more with Denny's makeup.  They could've made his scar look super gruesome and mangled or even not as gory but still better than what it was which basically looked like some silly putty painted pink.  They don't really explain the stutter either.  I know a stutter can be a result of emotional or physical trauma, but did Denny always have a stutter?  Is it genetic?  Was it brought on by the attack? I do especially love Mom's creepy horrified smirk at the end.  I personally am looking forward to the day when I have children and can impose the standard parental candy tax.  I'll be happy to check for razorblades as I chow down on Kit-Kats and Butterfingers.

-Amanda

The Sodder Children - Unsolved Mystery

It is the most gut-wrenching fear of every parent - to lose your child.  On Christmas Eve 1945, George and Jennie Sodder had this fear come true not just once, but for five of their ten children.  A fire erupted in their Fayetteville, West Virginia home and their five children who slept upstairs, Maurice, Martha, Louis, Jennie, and Betty were not able to escape the fire.

But here's where the creepy part comes in - no body parts or bones linked to these five children were uncovered in the rubble.  And another thing, when George tried to drive his truck near the house to climb on top of it and reach the second floor, his engine wouldn't start.  And another thing - the phones lines to the house had been cut.  The head police chief, Chief Morris, claimed the fire must've been hot enough to cremate the bodies of the children.  The fire was officially chalked up to 'faulty wiring.'

Sadly, this story gets stranger and creepier.  Sometime before the fire broke out, the Sodder family was visited by two odd men posing as insurance salesmen on their doorstep.  Allegedly, one of the men told George (an Italian immigrant) that he would pay for the negative remarks about Mussolini that he had been making around town.  These strange men made very specific threats about their house burning down and their chidlren dying, and I quote, "Your goddamn house is going up in smoke and your children are going to be destroyed.  You are going to be paid for the dirty remarks you are making about Mussolini."  EVEN STRANGER - this exact same 'insurance salesman' served on the coronor's jury that demeed the fire an accident.

 

The more I read about this case, the more my mind is blown to tiny pieces.  There were several eyewitnesses that came forward saying they saw the insurance salesman around the Sodder house carrying a block and tackle, which could've been used to disable George's car.  They also found a strange plastic object in the Sodder yard, which George claimed could've been a Napalm bomb.  So is this truly a case of a mysterious disappearance, an intricately planned attack, an accident gone wrong?  In any case, what happened to the bodies of the five Sodder children?

After some time had passed since the fire, a waitress at a roadside diner and a woman in a hotel in Charleston claimed to have seen four of the five missing children sitting at a table surrounded by Italian-looking men and women who would not let them speak.  Jennie Sodder also received a mysterious photograph in the mail 20 years after the fire of a man alleged to be her son.  The letter was postmarked from Kentucky but had no return address.  On the back of the photograph was written, "Louis Sodder.  I love brother Frankie.  Ilil Boys.  A90132 or 35."  George and Jennie hired a private detective and sent him to Kentucky to investigate.  They never heard from him again.

George and Jennie erected a large billboard, seen below, that was amended over the years and remained standing for over 40 years.  George died in 1968, sending Jennie into a further spiral of depression.  She erected a fence around their property and began adding more and more rooms to their house, building layer and layer between her and the outside world.  Jennie wore black clothing exclusively since the fire and continued to do so until her own death in 1989.  Upon Jennie's death, the billboard came down.

Sylvia is the youngest and last surviving Sodder child.  At the age of 71, she still pores crime sleuthing websites and engages with those still interested in her family's mystery.  Sylvia doesn't believe her siblings perished in the fire of 1945.  Her first memories are of the fire at two years old and she has spent her life asking so many questions and getting very few answers.

-Amanda