Has your life ever felt like an unbelievable nightmare? I'm not being dramatic when I say my life is literally a horror film. I've seen it. I watched them film it. My husband directed it.
My life is imitating art in the cruelest way.
2 years ago my husband wrote and directed his first feature film. When he told me the concept I thought there would never be a darker topic to cover. I worried it was too much. The world did not fully embrace it. Ironic, since the world did not fully embrace my life circumstances either. Same theme. Stillbirth.
The movie is centered around a family that is pregnant with twins and loses one, but keeps the other. Stillborn, and Still born. The mother experiences postpartum depression. The script played with the concept of mental illness vs mysterious horror demons. Which version is a scarier reality?
Do you know how messed up it is, to have a husband who works in a horror film industry and watch your life slowly repeat it. Let me tell you. Everything in it was scarily accurate. He did his research and it was valid. I am often left letting my mind drift, and it hits a scene in the movie that we mirrored perfectly.
It opened in a hospital room. A knowing look between doctors. A silence.
I've heard it.
The collapse of reality and living a regular life after.
I've been there.
She starred into mirrors angrily, not recognizing herself.
I know that look.
She was awake all night. Seeing things that weren't there. Untrusting of her own mind.
I have felt that.
Her husband had to leave for work. Life just keeps moving.
Mine too.
He checks in on her during his absence, dark humor, using camera's in the house because you no longer trust your spouse with your other children.
We have camera's too, he used them.
A doctor prescribes medication.
Im on it.
So much crying, screaming, trying.
so much.
She kidnaps another baby.
I understand why.
Do you want to know how it ends? How you wrap up the storyline of a mother losing herself in the grief of child loss? She goes crazy and dies.
Its an accurate film.
My life, the life of living after a stillborn, is a true horror.
But it goes beyond the "in your face nightmare" of living out a horror movie. I announced my pregnancy to Brandon with a fake script I made and left on his desk. A sequel had been talked about, and here was the opportunity for a free baby on set. I felt it was too morbid to announce a pregnancy with a title card of "Still/born 2" So instead I wrote out "Definitely Going 2 Be Born" Looks like I jinxed it anyways.
Brandon worked on a sequel script as soon as he found out. I don't even know what would have happened if they hadn't switched gears a few months in and pushed it aside for the current film. I sit here on set and half the crew is the same from Still/born. Half of them know the incredibly weird coincidence I am living. The other half must wonder why the directors wife bounces between supportive and hiding in the corner because I am wondering if we will repeat other horror films in the future.
I told brandon I want to write a script where the trailer can flash "based on a true story" about a director and his family. Who's movies start happening to them. Like Bedtime Stories, but with a hell of a dark side. We've checked off the first film. The current film is about a 7 year old with an imaginary friend. Sawyer told me about a green girl in my room, and wont go upstairs alone anymore...
I found this tag line while I was pregnant and helping on Z's script, the concept of an imaginary friend was my imagination on fire. "Monsters don't sleep under your bed, they sleep inside your head." I thought it was so creepy and true. Our mind is more scary than any created creature on screen. And my mind cant stop thinking about the one horror movie that already came true.
with love, lissa