You kind of invite a little spooky, creepy vibe into your whole

Host: The soundstage was almost empty, save for the faint echo of footsteps and the hum of distant lights. A single lamp swung from the rafters, casting a pale, uneasy glow across the set — a mock Victorian hallway, its walls cracked with deliberate age, its portraits watching from their frames with painted disapproval.

The air smelled of dust, coffee, and the faint metallic tang of fear — the kind that seeps in when art starts to feel too real.

Jack stood near the camera, his arms crossed, his expression unreadable. His eyes, cold and gray, flicked between the monitors and the dark corners beyond the set walls. Jeeny, wrapped in a long coat, sat on a low stool, scribbling notes in her script. Her face was lit by the dim blue light of her tablet, and the shadows made her eyes seem deeper, almost otherworldly.

The shoot had gone late. The scene they’d just filmed — a man waking to find himself in his own grave — had left the crew uneasy. Even the director had joked that the set felt “a little haunted tonight.”

That’s when Jeeny broke the silence.

Jeeny: “Bruce Greenwood once said, ‘You kind of invite a little spooky, creepy vibe into your whole experience of making a movie.’ I think he was right. Maybe you have to let darkness in a little to make something that feels alive.”

Jack: “Or maybe you just start believing your own illusions. Spend enough time in a haunted house, and even the actors start hearing ghosts.”

Jeeny: “But isn’t that the point? That’s what makes it cinema — you blur the line between what’s real and what’s imagined, until the two merge. Fear becomes art. Art becomes haunting.”

Jack: “That’s how madness starts. You invite something spooky into your mind and expect it to behave. But darkness never stays where you put it. It seeps. It spreads.”

Host: The lamp above them flickered, just once, as if the room had listened. Dust drifted through the light like slow snow, each particle turning in silence.

Jeeny: “You sound afraid of it.”

Jack: “I’m not afraid. I just respect it. Fear is like electricity — it can illuminate, or it can burn you alive. Too many directors romanticize the creepy side of creation, as if madness were some noble muse.”

Jeeny: “But fear connects us, Jack. It’s the one emotion that makes everyone listen. When you watch a horror film, you’re not just seeing monsters — you’re seeing yourself, reflected in the dark. That’s not madness. That’s truth.”

Jack: “Truth doesn’t need to wear a mask. Horror is a cheap way to make people feel something. A jump scare in the dark — that’s not understanding, it’s manipulation.”

Jeeny: “Then why do you watch them? Why did you write this one?”

Host: The question landed like a soft blade. Jack’s jaw tightened, his eyes flicked toward the set, where the fake grave still gaped in the floorboards.

Jack: “Because sometimes you need to face what you can’t explain. But that doesn’t mean I need to invite it into my soul.”

Jeeny: “But you already did. The moment you started writing. The moment you said yes to telling this story. That’s what Greenwood meant — that when you make a movie, especially one that deals with fear, you’re not just pretending. You’re channeling something. You’re opening a door.”

Jack: “And you’re hoping it closes when you’re done.”

Jeeny: “But maybe it shouldn’t. Maybe that’s where the magic lies — in not being able to unsee what you’ve created.”

Host: The soundstage creaked — the kind of sound that comes from settling wood, or something else entirely. The fog machine, long turned off, let out one last ghostly sigh.

Jack: “You think every artist needs a little haunting to make something real?”

Jeeny: “I think every artist needs to be haunted — by a vision, by a memory, by something they can’t name. Without that, the work stays safe. And safe art doesn’t breathe.”

Jack: “You romanticize it too much. Some of the greatest directors — Kubrick, Lynch, Polanski — they didn’t just channel darkness, they lived in it. And it ate them. How many geniuses have we lost because they couldn’t tell where the film ended and they began?”

Jeeny: “But isn’t that the price of depth? You can’t swim in shallow water and expect to find monsters.”

Jack: “Maybe you don’t need monsters. Maybe you just need honesty.”

Jeeny: “Then why are you afraid to call your own creation beautiful? You built this world, Jack. Every shadow, every scream — it’s yours. If it feels haunted, it’s because it came from you. And that’s not frightening. That’s authentic.”

Host: The camera light on the monitor blinked, then went dark. Jack turned toward her, his face now lit only by the lamp’s dying glow. There was weariness in his eyes, but also something else — a recognition, quiet and reluctant.

Jack: “You really think art needs to invite the creepy in?”

Jeeny: “Not the creepy. The uncertain. The uncomfortable. The parts of us that make us flinch, but also make us human.”

Jack: “So you’d let fear sit at your table and pour itself a drink?”

Jeeny: “I’d let it talk. Maybe even let it tell a story.”

Host: A long silence followed. The set loomed around them — the fake walls, the grave, the mirror they’d used for that morning’s shot. In the reflection, their shapes stood still, but the light behind them seemed to shift, just slightly.

Jeeny: “You know, Bruce Greenwood was right. You can’t make a movie like this without inviting something uncanny in. But maybe that’s not a curse. Maybe it’s a collaboration.”

Jack: “A collaboration with what? The unknown?”

Jeeny: “With yourself — the parts you’d rather not meet.”

Host: A single lightbulb fizzed, then went out, leaving them in a warm, amber darkness. For a moment, the set didn’t look fake anymore. The walls breathed. The shadows waited.

Jack: “You think we’re haunted by our art?”

Jeeny: “I think we’re haunted by the truth we put into it.”

Host: The soundstage went silent — no machines, no hum, only the faint echo of something unseen. Then, slowly, Jack smiled. Not mockingly, but like someone who’d just realized that fear could be a friend.

Jack: “Then maybe the haunting isn’t what we invite. Maybe it’s what we need to remember we’re still alive.”

Jeeny: “Exactly.”

Host: The camera lingers on them as the darkness deepens, the faint outline of two figures surrounded by the art they made — a set that is no longer a set, but a reflection of something deeper. A world within them both.

The lamp gives one final pulse of light before it dies, leaving only the soft glow of dawn seeping through the studio’s windows.

Host: And there, in the hush between fiction and reality, fear and beauty sit side by side — invited, understood, and finally, at peace.