Chapter 36: Discussion
The director’s Weibo didn’t have many posts and he even b.u.mped this one to the top.
Su Min scrolled down and saw that the director had received a lot of questions about the islands past in an old post, so he took the initiative to make a new post explaining it.
This post was a long article. At first glance, all the basic explanations were listed.
Su Min picked out the ones he wanted to read and read through them.
The director himself filmed it so he naturally knew of the background of the story and the characters that didn’t have a name in the movie also had their own backgrounds and set ups.
For example, the one screaming pitifully in the bathroom. Su Min didn’t know what it was, but the post explained that he was an islander that was killed in the bathroom and was even cut into pieces.
The two dark shadows crouching on the floor were the murderers.
The post didn’t mention the water from the showerhead, but Su Min guessed that it was probably something the movie did to make things a little scarier.
The one in the sea was also an islander. There originally weren’t many islanders and females accounted for half of that. The remaining male islanders were all killed.
The most important thing was naturally the explanation for the skinning.
Su Min had always thought that it was Uncle He and the others who had that ability to changes skins but unexpectedly the director said that it was originally something the islanders possessed.
The islanders have had this method pa.s.sed through the generations, but they rarely used it. Because every time it is used they would need a sacrifice and the blind granny didn’t allow outsiders to be harmed, they could only do it if one volunteered.
There were cases of couples volunteering for each other or parents doing it for their child.
The blind granny was the one responsible for the handling of this skill, but she had pa.s.sed away several months ago.
Uncle He and the others had only stayed on the island for a week when one of the villagers relapsed. They didn’t want to harm themselves so they wanted to use the outsiders, but they didn’t’ expect Uncle He to overhear them.
He later secretly learnt the method and even used it on the islanders in a successful act of counterattacking.
The islanders wanted to harm the outsiders but was eventually killed by them.
The director explained this very simply and allowed the audience to guess the rest. Afterall, it’s more interesting if you thought about it yourself.
“So, this island met its own retribution?”
“I think that this set up is unnecessarily complicated. What’s with all the changing skins and the like? Killing people directly is much simpler and easier to understand.”
“Although I don’t get it, it seems pretty amazing.”
“I was confused after watching the movie but fortunately I saw this post. If I didn’t, I would be thinking about it for the rest of the week.”
Su Min read through some of the popular comments and then exited Weibo.
He still had a cla.s.s at night. When he just placed down his book and sat down in his seat, he received a message from Li Wenxin: “How was it? Have you come out? I saw the reviews outside.”
Su Min replied: “I’m out.”
Li Wenxin: “Don’t tell me you reached the ending again? You’re really amazing. What was the ending like?”
This time he had invited a junior sister to watch the movie with him, so he knew about the movie’s plot. What he didn’t know was how Su Min had changed it.
Su Man answered him casually.
Li Wenxin sent him a link: “I thought it was just people from school that remembered you but I didn’t expect people in the forums to still remember you.”
Su Min instinctively sensed that there was some hidden meaning behind his words and proceeded to click on the link.
【Question: To the master who lived until end of University Thriller, did you experience Murder Island?】
Below that were many responses. In fact, this post was almost overloaded.
“I don’t know but I went to experience it myself. I was lucky enough to live a day, but I died the next day. It was really thrilling.”
“I now realise that it isn’t easy experiencing horror movies. I originally thought that there would only be ghosts but I didn’t expect it to also include humans. The scariest part of it was that even if you bite your tongue to try and kill yourself, it doesn’t count. After all that pain and suffering, you still didn’t die.........”
“I also want to know if the great master went to experience it. I want to see what happened this time.”
“There aren’t any notices from the cinema. We might need to wait a few days to know. They should send out a notice if it was successful.”
“I just want to eat sugar......”
The cinemas would naturally actively promote it if a horror movie experience was successful.
Su Min also didn’t know if he achieved the required score for the movie to be rereleased this time. He was fine even if it wasn’t achieved.
Afterall, no one could guarantee that he would succeed every time.
Watching a movie like this was nothing more than a thrilling experience that’s more interesting that watching it normally.
Su Min placed down his phone and started to pay attention to cla.s.s.
His two cla.s.ses finished very quickly and the bell signalling the end of cla.s.s rang.
His cla.s.smates still remembered Su Min’s earlier incident and they quickly rushed over to ask: “Su Min, did you watch the movie?”
Su Min said: “Watched it.”
His cla.s.smates were curious: “How was it?”
Su Min said while holding his books: “It’s okay.”
His tone was dull. This made his cla.s.smates think that he has had a bad viewing experience. Not wishing to rub his sore spot, they voluntarily left him alone.
Su Min himself didn’t expect them to have such a different interpretation of his words.
****
The cinema was very efficient. Three days later, Su Min received a message.
Again, it was while he was doing his evening self-studies.
Su Min quickly logged onto the website and checked the line-up for the upcoming movies. There was another suspense movie and a romance movie in the line-up that was being rereleased because of successful audience partic.i.p.ation.
This time the name was still “Murder Island” and his name appeared in the partic.i.p.ating audience column.
Su Min noticed that the movie synopsis was a little different.
The original synopsis spoke about the consecutive deaths but, because he had changed the ending, this time it was the complete opposite.
After his evening self-study, Su Min received a call from the person in charge: “Mr. Su, have you received the text message?”
Su Min said: “I have received it. I will go.”
The person in charge said: “It’s like this. Because the ending is completely different to the original movies ending, the cinema wanted to use that aspect of it to promote the film and attract more viewers.”
Afterall, horror movies were originally not very well received so they would want to make use of anything that could potentially attract viewers.
The contrast between no one surviving and everyone surviving was too strong.
Su Min had no objections. He only had one request: “It’s okay to promote. Just don’t promote me.”
The person in charge said: “Don’t worry about it, Mr. Su. I will discuss it with the cinema to make sure it won’t happen.”
This was an audience who had survived through two horror movies!
The person in charge didn’t usually go experience a holographic movie but everyday he would see the data detailing the number of viewers selecting the holographic viewing experience as well as their outcomes.
Yesterday, there were more than 500 people across the country who had experienced “Murder Island”. Apart from this person, the longest record the other audiences managed to achieve was to survive for two days.
The record made by that audience was even celebrated greatly.
Returning to his dormitory, Su Min was ambushed by Li Wenxin and w.a.n.g Di.
Li Wenxin looked extremely regretful: “If I didn’t see the news, I wouldn’t have known. Su Min you’re really amazing. If I knew, I would have also gone to experience it.”
Su Min placed down his books, “You can go experience it now.”
Whilst the movie is out, they can always undergo holographic viewing. There was one time when a school drama rereleased three versions of the movie due to successful audience partic.i.p.ation.
Originally, the amount of tickets sold for that school drama wasn’t a lot but it quickly attracted a wave of pa.s.sers-by.
Li Wenxin is aware of his circ.u.mstances: “I know the story now, so I won’t feel much if I go experience it. If I died even after watching it then I’ll be very miserable. I wouldn’t even dare tell anyone else.”
w.a.n.g Di made a sound of surprise: “It’s blowing up online.”
Su Min was curious. He logged onto Weibo.
Sure enough, “Murder Island” had become a hot search word. The contents were similar to what the person in charge had mentioned – the two endings were completely different.
A unique plot was created.
One side of the movie was trying to let people know why no one would survive while the other attracted audiences there were curious about how someone managed to reverse such a hopeless situation and even allowed all of them to survive.
This method of theirs was very good.
“It’s my first time seeing something like this. I saw the posters. The two posters are different. I have already seen the original movie so I will go watch the new one tomorrow.”
“Should I watch the one where they all die first or the one where they all live?”
“I am more curious about this audience called Su Min. If I didn’t remember wrong, he’s also the one from last time?”
“Are horror movies so easy to survive through now? Why did I die so easily? I have to see how he managed to survive!”
Su Min thought inside: The more you want to see it, the more I will earn.
Last time the number of tickets sold from both the original and the rerelease was only a small amount. Compared to the other movies that sold several billions, it could be considered as almost nothing. In the end, his share was very little.
That was the limitation for horror movies.
The cla.s.smate who asked him a question last time sent him a message: “Su Min, is that newly rereleased movie yours? I saw the name.”
Su Min didn’t hide it: “Yes.”
He had thought that he would be attacked by a succession of questions but unexpectedly, the reply was: “I understand now. You must have wanted to hide it!”
Su Min: “.........”
What does the movie have anything to do with him hiding something?
..........
On the day of the rerelease, Su Min went alone.
Before leaving the dormitory, Li Wenxin and w.a.n.g Di were still lying in bed unwilling to get up.
It was the weekend so there were many people in the cinema.
Although you didn’t need to sign an agreement for normal viewing, you still needed to queue up to buy the tickets.
Su Min naturally is a special case.
The staff member Xiao He recognised him immediately and brought him over to the other side. He even gave him a free bottle of c.o.ke.
Someone in the queue was dissatisfied: “Why doesn’t he need to line up?”
The person next to him agreed: “That’s right. People are becoming more and more out of line these days. How can someone do this just to watch a movie?”
Xiao He had already returned from the other side and, after hearing those words, he responded expressionlessly: “Pardon me, this is our cinema’s VIP guest.”
The first person said: “Why haven’t I heard of this?”
Xiao He laughed and said: “If you can have your holographic experience of a movie be successfully rereleased consecutively, you can also become out VIP guest.”
That person responded with disdain: “It’s just two movies. It’s an easy feat, I’ll do it tomorrow.”
Xiao He didn’t say anything. He moved to help another customer.
But the man next to him pointed at the ticket machine on the side and reminded him kindly: “I think he might be referring to this.”
His finger was pointing at the posters for “Murder Island” and “New Murder Island”.
On the poster for the new movie, a group of people stood in a room looking out a window. It was the scene when Hong Rui had pressed his face against the gla.s.s.
The faces of the group of people were revealed, including Su Min’s.
The people in the queue fell silent for a full minute.
Someone then sighed: “If you want to successfully experience two horror movies, you should just obediently line up.”
.............
When Su Min entered, the theatre had just darkened.
He searched for his seat in the dark and noticed on his way to his seat that there were quite a few people this time. They were probably attracted here by the marketing online.
As the t.i.tle played, more viewers entered sporadically.
Next to Su Min sat a pair of sisters. He could hear them talking about a spoiled child in the theatre room.
But soon, their conversation topic changed.
The girl sitting closest to him said: “I also watched that last rereleased movie. Although I don’t remember who that audience member is, I still remember the story. I really wanted to lock them together in a room with only a bed.”
She said it very simply and seemed to be very regretful.
Su Min silently side-eyed her. This sister really has a strange taste.