The post-production facility on the Paramount lot. A single editing room. The equipment took up most of the space, a Steenbeck flatbed on one side, a Moviola upright against the wall, shelves of film cans stacked wherever they fit.
James stepped in carrying two canisters.
"Rowan?" a voice asked.
A man in his thirties looked up from the Steenbeck. Short hair, buttoned shirt, the kind of face that looked more at home in a lab than on a film set.
"That's me," James said.
"David Wirtz," the man said, extending a hand briefly before going back to threading film. "Editor. Let's get started."
James set the canisters down. "Positives and sync tape. CFI said everything's clean."
David gave a short nod, already threading the reels through the flatbed's rollers. "Good. We'll begin with sync, then assemble reel one. You sit, watch, and tell me where you want it tight or loose. The machine work's mine."
James dropped into the chair beside him and sat.
On the screen, Linda's slate clapped in front of Craig. Half a beat later, the clap cracked through the speaker. David wound the film back, trimmed with scissors, spliced it with a strip of white tape. He ran it again this time, picture and sound landed together.
"There," David said simply.
James leaned closer, fascinated. No monitors, no timeline, no instant undo. Just hands, scissors, tape, and patience.
They moved scene by scene. The campers unloading bags. Ralph's warning at the shed. Craig's bunk kill, the arrow punching through with a wet crunch. Every shot looked raw, edges rough, but when strung together, it started looking like a movie.
"Hold Sam's reaction half a second longer," James said at one point.
David marked the frame with a grease pencil, cut, taped. "Done."
"Cut quicker on the blood," James said later. "Shock works better if it doesn't linger."
David didn't argue just trimmed. His hands moved fast, practiced, like a tailor sewing fabric.
By late afternoon, reel one was assembled. Twenty minutes of film, jagged but whole.
On-screen, Ralph muttered, "You're all doomed." The campers laughed nervously, then it cut to the cabins, a transition sharper now than it ever felt on set.
James exhaled. "It plays," he murmured.
David leaned back. "Rough cut's always ugly. If it works ugly, it'll work finished."
James gave a faint smile. "Ugly's fine. It's a horror movie."
The next days blurred. James came in each morning, coffee in hand, to find David already threading reels. The Steenbeck whirred for hours, film passing back and forth, scissors snapping, tape pulling taut. James gave notes when he felt it mattered.
By the end of the week, nearly ninety minutes sat spliced across cores and reels. The rough cut was jagged, uneven, nothing like the polished movies James remembered.
David wound the reels off the Steenbeck, hands steady after hours of work. "Rough cut's in the can. Next step's your sound boys."
The Foley stage in Burbank. Just a wide concrete room, cluttered with props shoes, trays of gravel, buckets of water. Two boom mics stood ready, cables running into the sound booth.
James followed Frank Malloy, the lead Foley artist, through the space. Leo, his younger assistant, was already shifting boxes, setting props near the mics.
"You've got picture." Frank said.
James nodded, slipping into the booth behind the glass. The Steenbeck flickered to life, showing Craig's bunk kill in silence. Without sound, it looked theatrical, almost flat.
"Arrow first," Frank said. He held a stalk of celery under the mic and snapped it clean. The brittle crack filled the booth. "Bone."
Leo drove a knife into a soaked sponge. A wet squelch followed. "Flesh."
James leaned forward. "Not bad. Needs more punch. Something that makes people flinch."
Frank rummaged in a crate, pulled out a melon, and stabbed it. The mic caught a sharp crunch followed by juice running. They replayed the scene with the sound layered in.
"That's it," he said quietly.
The first day ran late. They focused on the kills every stab, chop, and arrow. Sometimes Frank's tricks looked absurd plunging a screwdriver into a cabbage, snapping frozen pasta. But each time the sound landed with the picture.
By nightfall, they had a reel of raw effects.
The second day
Footsteps came first. Frank sorted through dozens of shoes until he found the right worn boots. He walked in place on a wooden plank, matching the counselors pacing the cabins. For the dock scenes, he switched to sneakers on damp boards.
Leo shook a bundle of dried leaves for forest shots. For Eddie's prank in the lake, they dragged their hands through a water tub, splashing in rhythm with the screen.
Some sounds were nothing like what they represented. A body dragged through dirt came from a sack of flour pulled across sandpaper. A door slam was really the rusted frame on hinges, mic'd close.
James mostly watched, learning, sometimes asking: "Less layers. Just the crunch." or "Hold the splash a second longer, make it linger."
By the end of day two, the reels held a library bones, blades, rustles, water, doors.
Day three.
They replayed the rough cut reel by reel, layering Foley with the picture. If a step missed or a knife landed soft, Frank adjusted, Leo tried again. Every creak of a bed frame, every rustle of a sleeping bag, every faint bump in the cabins was captured and synced.
James leaned on the booth desk, headphones tight, following the rhythm. He felt the difference. What looked staged on set.
Frank shut off the mic, wiping his hands. "There it's done."
James sat back, exhaling. For the first time since the edit started.
The dubbing stage was dim and clinical. A projection screen stretched across one wall, a microphone on a stand just beneath it. Behind the glass, a mixing board bristled with dials and sliders. James sat with the engineer, headphones on, watching the rough cut reel.
"Keep in mind," the engineer said, adjusting the levels, "nobody nails this first try. Matching lips is harder than you think."
James nodded. "As long as we get it clean. Half the lake stuff is unusable."
The door opened. Craig Bell walked in first, carrying a script and wearing his usual grin.
Craig dropped into the booth, looked up at his own face on the screen, and laughed. "Man, I look better on film."
"Slate him," James said. The reel wound back to Craig's cabin scene. The line was simple two sentences lost to generator noise.
"Action," the engineer called.
Craig opened his mouth, waited half a beat too long, then blurted the line. On-screen, his lips moved smooth and natural. From the speakers, his voice came in late and too loud.
James winced.
Craig groaned. "I sound like a goat trying to talk."
"Again," James said.
The second take was closer, but the sound was wrong. He exaggerated the words, overcompensating. By the third, he finally hit the spot.
The engineer raised a thumb. "Usable."
Lisa was next, She slipped into the booth, headphones on.
Her scene came up whispering to Craig in the bunk.
The original track was muddy, drowned in crew noise.
"Ready?" James asked.
Lisa nodded once.
She watched the screen, spoke the lines in sync. Her voice was steady, low, perfectly natural. When the engineer replayed it, James felt the hairs rise on his arms. Her voice was softer than the Original.
Lisa stepped out, brushing her hair back. "I only needed one take. Unlike some people." She shot Craig a pointed look.
Craig raised his hands in mock surrender. "Some of us were born for comedy, not dubbing."
Sam Loring came last. She slipped into the booth without fuss, pulling the headphones on. The final hospital scene lit up on the screen. James leaned forward unconsciously.
Her first line was the hardest,"The boy… in the lake. He pulled me under."
Sam watched her lips move on screen, waited for the cue, and spoke. Her voice was quiet, raw, matching perfectly. On replay, it slipped under the skin, it felt haunted.
The engineer raised his eyebrows. "That's a hell of a take."
They moved to the scream during Betsy's attack. Sam screamed in the booth, her voice cracking against the mic. It synced perfectly with the flailing image.
Finally, the line James cared most about,"Then… he's still out there."
Sam whispered it, soft as air. For a moment, the room went silent. Even Craig didn't make a joke.
Sam slipped out, wiping her face with her sleeve. She didn't look at anyone, just sat in the corner with her script.
The engineer leaned back. "That girl carries your ending. Don't waste her."
James didn't answer. He was still watching the blank screen.
They wrapped past sundown. The reels of ADR were labeled and stored, stacked with the Foley tapes. For the first time since the shoot ended, James felt the film was whole.
James looked back at the booth, then at the stack of reels. "We've got a movie," he said, almost to himself.