New Arrival: The Remaking by Clay McLeod Chapman

These days, Hollywood seems to be churning out remakes, and the horror genre seems to be the worst offender, particularly of lackluster remakes. For every IT Chapters 1 and 2, there’s a plethora of rehashes and reimaginings that didn’t seem worth the effort of exhuming. Clay McLeod Chapman’s The Remaking, at first glance, seems like a book that is addressing this trend, and it does. However, it is so much more than a critique of Hollywood’s obsession with remakes. Rather, it is both an ambitious, sweeping narrative which also pays homage to the B-movie horror that many have grown up with.

The story begins with the retelling of an urban legend, that of the Little Witch Girl of Pilot’s Creek. Both Ella Louise and her daughter Jessica are burned at the stake for being witches and the little girl’s grave is buried under concrete and surrounded by crosses. Mother and daughter are forever separated, making this a tragic tale that eventually gets the attention of Hollywood.

Amber Pendleton is a child star who just received her big break playing the Little Witch Girl of Pilot’s Creek in the horror movie Don’t Step on Jessica’s Grave. What was supposed to be her big break ends up her scarlet letter, particularly after she encounters the ghost of Ella Louise, who is still looking for her daughter. Twenty-five years later, Amber is an adult actress whose most famous role is as that little witch girl. Her life is mostly doing horror conventions and maintaining the pharmaceutical cocktail that allows her to function. Once again, another big break comes with a new Hollywood remake of the Little Witch Girl’s story and another opportunity for both Amber to get a big payday and for the story of the Little Witch Girl to take another emotional piece of Amber.

The readers might feel sad for Ella Louise and Jessica, but Amber is by far the clearest case of collateral damage that their story has created. Readers can see that Amber is a tightly-wound spring. The first-person narration, along with Amber’s own actions in the story, reveals how Amber is barely holding it together. As she narrates, she bounces from talking about the drugs she takes, to the status of her life, to illustrating the panic that swells within her as she tries to get through this major acting gig while revisiting the event that traumatized her. The shorter sentences also reveal Amber’s scattered state of mind as she must go back to the place that has fundamentally damaged her, even as she risks her sanity to do it.

This story may be pointing an accusing finger at Hollywood, and there are plenty of people who would take Hollywood to task for its penchant for recycling old ideas or tossing away child actors once they stop being children, but this story is essentially about when stories stop being just stories, when they have power to exist beyond their mediums and allowed to grow (or, in this case, metastasize) within the collective conscious. The imagery on the book’s cover, a celluloid snake eating its tail, is particularly revealing. The first time the readers hear Jessica’s story, it’s told by an old man. Then it’s told through child Amber’s audition for the role and subsequent haunting by mother and daughter, then adult Amber’s slowly fracturing mind as she is called by the remake of Jessica’s story, despite good sense saying it’s a terrible idea. Finally, the book ends with a special podcast where the story once again is revisited. Stories are supposed to capture our imagination, but when they brand people’s soul, that’s when they can be truly dangerous.