Room. Two characters side by side. Field-reverse shot, the camera passes from one to the other. Then back up to film the dialogue. We gradually discover that we are in a hospital room.
“I am going to die my father. If I told you what I saw, you would lose sleep over it, believe me. You would lose your faith in God…
– What do you mean my son?
– Hell my father, I was one of his demons…»
Close-up on the monitor and the screen on which the heartbeats are displayed…
Flashback. Martin Servaz is in his bed, asleep. Close shot of the sweaty policeman’s face. View from above during which the images of a decapitated horse hanging from cables in the frozen blizzard scroll by, a circle of students around a swimming pool where blue-eyed dolls are floating, two sisters in communion dresses holding each other by the hand (1)… A ringtone. He wakes up.
Secluded in the mountains
Shot 3. A long tracking shot to follow the policeman heading towards the crime scene. Entrance sign to the large psychiatric hospital, care pavilion, cafeteria and auditorium on the left, administrative services and admissions office on the right. The rotations of the revolving lights accompany it. Close-up of the mutilated corpse. Dissolve: new shot on a bright mountain road and a student’s car…
We will stop here the attempt to stage (storyboard style) the latest thriller by Bernard Minier, An eye in the night, to be published on April 6, which for the eighth adventure of its favorite hero, Martin Servaz, takes the reader into the nebulous world of horror cinema.
Composed of chapters where several stories intertwine, we therefore follow in parallel the strange mission entrusted to a priest by a dying machinist, the investigation of the policeman confronted with the death of a former specialist in special effects and the visit of a young film student to a brilliant, misanthropic and unhealthy director: Morbius Delacroix. Author of five horror films that have become cults, he decided, after his last feature film was banned, to retire to the mountains with his wife (a former actress with a gothic look).
Creepy backstage
What hidden sequences connect these three stories? The origin of the murder (which will, one suspects, followed by others) would find its source in the ultimate “cursed film” by Morbius Delacroix? Will fiction meet reality?
A conscientious writer who likes to master his subject, Bernard Minier immersed himself “200%” in the universe he intended to describe. “That means I watched over 200 horror movies, usually between 9 p.m. and 1 a.m.”, says the author. Finally, some anthology scenes, the glaucous behind-the-scenes of “snuff movies”, darknet and gore violence, and the opportunity for Bernard Minier to bring new characters to life like this Morbius Delacroix, dark side and tormented by a Tarantino, Kubrick, Dreyer or Polanski.
A novel which, like any self-respecting film or series, ends with a cliffhanger announcing a season 2. This eye in the night is not about to close.
Bernard Minier is participating this weekend in Quais du polar, a festival which welcomes a large number of authors in the heart of Lyon until this Sunday evening.
(1) Scenes from his previous investigations (in Frozen, The Circle, Sisters).