Mixed with the music of Muse, this cerebral thriller plays on suburban fears and superstitions. A young war veteran honorably discharged after losing his leg returns home to find his community torn apart by the death of a young girl. As he deals wit...
They loaded into Nathan's Buick. The grey hunk of metal badly needed a paint job. It still had windows with manual cranks and the backseat didn't have seatbelts. Nathan told Lacey to take shotgun. As the engine turned over, the Buick shook and got warm like it was coming to life. Nathan backed out of his driveway and took off down the road, tires kicking up gravel.
"No CD player?" Lacey complained as they were pulling out of the neighborhood.
"It's an old car."
"How old?"
"87."
"Jesus."
She sifted through his cassette tapes. After criticizing him for owning anything by Coldplay, she tried to throw his Bob Dylan tape out the window. Tom had to hold her down from the backseat until Nathan could take it away from her. Finally Lacey decided the soundtrack to the David Lynch film Lost Highway was "totally cool." Trent Reznor took control of the musical ambience.
Nathan always got an eerie feeling when he drove out to Asbury Park. The whole town was rumored to be cursed. In the 1930s, a cruise liner called the Morro Castle wrecked just off the beach. People came running out onto the boardwalk, too far away to do anything to save them but close enough to see the flames and hear the screams as the passengers burned alive.
The fires died down eventually, the bodies washed ashore and the ship was abandoned there. It became a tourist attraction that boosted the local economy. Asbury Park was a hit. People started making day trips and would pay to go aboard the burnt out shell of the Morro Castle, where they would walk around and steal pieces off the ship or even jewelry left behind by deceased passengers.
The ship was eventually removed, and the town suffered a series of economic depressions. People said it was because of the Morro Castle. When the 1970s riots left Asbury Park in ruin, nobody cared enough to fix it for years. It was coined the Dark City, because the lights had gone out, and nobody cared.
Nathan parked a few blocks from the pier amidst the posh beach homes. Nobody actually lived here. Only now were there inhabitants due to the season.
The shiny steel side of a police cab passed up ahead at the intersection.
Nathan opened his car door and climbed out. He told his crew to "stay frosty," which they probably didn't understand.
They crossed the boardwalk and went down the stairs onto the beach. Tom and Lacey kicked off their shoes, while Nathan cursed under his breath, not quite ready to take his chances in the sand. The tide rushed in and pulled on the earth.
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"Nathan?" Tom said.
"The sand is too much for me."
"It's okay. We can just hang out here."
Nathan looked out at the black waves as they crashed against the shore.
"I guess I should just say some stuff about her, right?" said Tom.
