Come in, come in, out of the rain, please. It’s dry here inside my shop, warm yourself by the fire, I insist. Yes, by all means, take a closer look at the display case. I’m sure you’ll find the, ah, curiosities I have for sale to be exceptionally … unique. On one of these dusty shelves, I’m certain, sits some forgotten charm or bauble that’s been waiting all these years for you to find it. Ah! I see your eyes are drawn to the film canister. A most fascinating artifact, that one: the “Groove” trailer for Kong: Skull Island. Completely authentic, I assure you. Are you familiar with the trailer’s rather … unusual provenance? I don’t mean the legends, my dear sir—islands sinking into the sea, cities swallowed by the desert, heavenly rains of fire—preposterous! I don’t traffic in legends. I mean the verifiable facts.
Press play on the trailer, by all means, take a look. You know, of course, the modern story of the trailer for Kong: Skull Island begins in 1923, when the Earl of Carnarvon’s expedition across the Rub’ al Khali stumbled onto the ruins of Iram of the Pillars. It should have seemed strange to Carnarvon and his men, finding a trailer for a King Kong: Skull Island in an undisturbed burial chamber miles from any known temple complex, covered in hieroglyphics that match no language ever recorded. It should have seemed even stranger that nothing else besides the Kong: Skull Island trailer was in the chamber—no mummy, no sarcophagus, not even a shard of pottery. It was as though it had never been used as a burial site at all, despite being sealed and booby-trapped so well it stayed undisturbed for centuries. And the cross-bracings, yes? The masonry. Look at the photo, the famous one, Carnarvon with his head through the hole in the brickwork, catching a glimpse of the Kong: Skull Island trailer for the first time. The stonework is braced on the outside, as though it were designed to keep something in, not out. But you know all that, I’m sure.
What you don’t know, because it was kept very quiet to avoid a panic, is the fate of the expedition. Carnarvon poisoned by a mysterious insect bite within a week of the trailer’s first screening at the Explorer’s Club in Cairo. Professor Waterson found dead in a taxicab in Morocco a month later. Suicide, they said, but the initial testimony of the coroner was that his hair had gone completely white. Lord Westbury jumped to his death from a hotel balcony, leaving a suitcase containing only a copy of the Kong: Skull Island trailer and a note reading, “I cannot stand any more horrors.” And then there was the tramp steamer that brought the trailer back to England, rolling silently into the harbor, empty, the entire crew completely vanished, no note, no sign of struggle, and a cigar still smoking in the captain’s ashtray. It’s all true, my dear sir, I assure you. And then the fire at the British Museum at the exhibition, all those children gone, no one could keep that out of the news. They thought the trailer for Kong: Skull Island was lost in the fire, but as you can see, some objects have a way of … surviving. A collector of the occult bribed a lab technician to have a copy made before it left Egypt—a very private man, a German. The story of how it came into my hands, all these years later—another time, perhaps.
But now the trailer for Kong: Skull Island has found you. The rain drove you into my shop, out of all the shops in town, yes? It practically leapt into your hands, yes, yes? What a strange coincidence! I recognize you, you know, professor, under that mustache and that ridiculous hat. I know you didn’t just stumble in here by accident. I could keep telling you about the lives this cursed trailer has ruined over the years, but I can see in your eyes you won’t listen. So ignore my warning. Take the Kong: Skull Island trailer, put it in a museum, unleash its horrors on the world again. You’ll have to kill me first, but I’m an old man now, and I suspect you came prepared, yes? Just make it quick, yes? For old time’s sake? To think, after all these years, it would be you. Just remember, professor: You were warned.
Kong: Skull Island opens on March 10.
