The professor says, In Huguenot, the police searched for Agatha in surrounding homes and buildings, and turned up nothing. They brought in dogs in hopes they might discover something. Two of the dogs pissed themselves, then started fighting with such ferocity their handlers needed help separating them. A third dog went into the mine a hundred yards, sat, and started to howl. The police had dismissed the bloody hand- and footprints on the wall as some kind of red herring; although they hadn’t been able to explain why the false lead had been placed in such an outlandish place. Now, they decided to search the mine. They broke out the flashlights and set off into its tunnels in pairs.
The interviewer asks if they found anything. Professor Price says, They did. In one of the mine’s side passages, the police came across what was left of a straightjacket. It was stiff with dried blood, and had been ripped open by its wearer. More officers were brought in to assist in the effort. Several reported hearing sounds ahead of or behind them, footsteps, mostly, though one pair of officers described something growling close to them. The police said they were concentrating their efforts on the mine, which was where they were reasonably certain their suspect was hiding. And then… nothing. The search was called off.
Called off? the interviewer asks. The professor nods. Why? the interviewer asks. The professor says, No one knows. The mine remained the best lead. There was no trace of Agatha Merryweather anywhere else. When they heard about it, the local papers tried to get to the bottom of what had happened, but the police stonewalled them. It didn’t take the papers long to move onto other stories. Since that time, no more has been done to determine Agatha Merryweather’s fate.
Really? the interviewer asks. The professor says, I’ve made a pretty through search. There are stories the local kids tell, legends, but nothing in the way of formal investigation. Oh, Professor Price says, but I did learn one more odd fact in the course of my research. The bodies of the murdered men that were left at the mine’s entrance? Three days after they arrived at the county morgue, they were claimed, by a John Smith, of Manhattan. The interviewer says, An alias? Professor Price nods. She says, I haven’t talked to every John Smith who was living in the city at that time, but I’m pretty confident whoever came for those corpses did so under a fairly blatant pseudonym. Why? the interviewer asks. The professor says, That question comes up a great deal, doesn’t it? If we’re going to answer it, then I think we need to start with the place where Agatha Merryweather was last seen. We have to go to the mine.
The second scene occurs two-thirds of the way through the movie. By this point, we’re well into the mine. In addition to Isabelle Price, we’ve met Carmen Meloy, the director; Kristi Fairbairn, the cameraperson; George Slatsky, the sound person; and Ben Rios and Megan Hwang, the interns. We’ve passed the entrance, with its remnants of parties past, its scattered garbage, beer cans, and bottles, random articles of clothing, and graffiti, including the warning about “Bad Agatha,” a name everyone in the film crew, with the exception of Isabelle, picks up. Following the old map of the mine Isabelle has folded into her knapsack, we’ve descended the main tunnels, running across strange, rusted pieces of machinery, shovels and other tools, a dusty copy of Playboy that’s been a source of temporary amusement. Along the way, we’ve had snippets of Isabelle recounting the story of Agatha Merryweather, as well as moments of the crew reacting to the tale. We’ve encountered the portrait of Agatha’s face, split between a normal right and a cadaverous left half; we’ve flinched when Ben touches it and jumped in our seats when he starts screaming, only to laugh with nervous relief as his outburst dissolves into laughter, and Megan calls him an asshat.
We’ve worked out some of the relationships among the crew, as well. Ben and Megan are involved; she’s worried about how her parents will react to her dating someone who isn’t Korean. We catch the tail end of a couple of heated, whispered exchanges between them. George is short-tempered, preoccupied with his ten year old daughter, for full custody of whom he’s locked in legal combat with his ex-wife. Kristi is unhappy from the start with this project, a sentiment exacerbated by a mild case of claustrophobia. Carmen spends much of her time checking in with the others, consulting on technical matters, touching base on personal ones. Isabelle is focused on searching the mine with an intensity that’s unnerving; she gives the strong impression of being in possession of additional information she has not shared with her companions.
(A pause here to say that Isabelle Router deserves credit for a remarkable job of acting. Granted, her part is based to a large extent on her actual background, she nonetheless delivers an exceptional portrait of a woman struggling to maintain her composure in the face of pressures external and internal.)
On the soundtrack, sounds that started as background noise, barely distinguishable from the clamor of the crew proceeding, have increased in volume substantially. Some are identifiable: a low, weak sobbing, the kind that comes at the end of hours crying; the rattle and click of a small rock being knocked across the floor into another rock. Some are harder to place: a metallic ping, and a sudden, deafening roar that sends the film crew into wide-eyed panic, racing headlong through the tunnels as the sound goes on and on.
This is what brings them to a low opening on their left, into a small cave where they spend a solid minute shouting, cursing, and screaming, until the noise drains away and we’re left with their mingled panting. Only now do they notice the chamber they’ve entered. Overhead, the ceiling slopes down into darkness. To either side, walls that are marked with rows of unfamiliar symbols stretch to join it. Directly in front of the crew, a narrow trench bisects the floor, running away into blackness. The bottom of the trench is streaked with blackish-red liquid. Despite the warnings of the others, Ben Rios kneels and extends a hand to the substance. When he raises his fingertips to his nostrils, he pulls his head back, lips wrinkling in disgust. “Blood,” he says, as we knew he would.
While the others digest this news, Isabelle Price is on the move, sweeping her flashlight over the weird figures on the walls. Geometric shapes—mostly circles within circles—punctuate long lines of characters that appear almost hieroglyphic. She directs her light to the floor, and picks out something scratched on the rock, a rectangle the size of a dinner tray. YES is incised in its upper left hand corner, NO in its upper right hand corner. The letters of the alphabet line the inside of the rectangle, beginning with A below the YES and Z under the NO. A series of lines, some more recent than others, loop from letter to letter to the flat stone positioned at the rectangle’s center. The lines seem to have been drawn in blood. Isabelle lifts the flat stone and turns it over, revealing its underside smeared with shades of red. Rock in hand, she crosses to the trench, where she kneels to dip the rock in the blood there. As the crew members exclaim and ask her what she’s doing, Isabelle returns to the primitive Ouija board and replaces the stone within it. She beckons Ben and Megan to join her, but Ben refuses. After a brief debate, George says he’ll take part in the professor’s little séance. Passing his equipment to Ben, he lowers to his knees to Isabelle’s right; Megan is on the left. There’s a whispered exchange off camera, Kristi asking Carmen what the fuck is going on, Carmen telling her to keep shooting.