At ArcLight Cinema, in the saw screening room, Eric and Gadot, disguised, sat in the last row.
Eric didn't care, as few people recognized him on the street anyway, but Gal Gadot was different.
After the cast list of transformers was announced, her information was dug up, and paparazzi started appearing in twos and threes around her apartment.
Although the number wasn't large, it already showed signs of a celebrity, and Refaeli also appeared in several magazines because of it.
By the end of November, Frank Darabont finally completed the preliminary preparations, and the walking dead also began filming.
The reason for such speed was mainly Eric's willingness to delegate authority, entrusting everything to Darabont, who then brought his entire old crew over.
Except for a few roles that were determined through open auditions, most of them were his former partners; after all, it didn't matter who was used, and familiar actors were more efficient.
By early December, the crew had already started filming, beginning with simple studio or indoor scenes, with large-scale scenes to be shot after the holidays.
Especially scenes involving road closures, MGM was going through the government application process, and it was estimated to take over a month for approval.
"You mean Refaeli got scolded?" Eric asked with interest.
Gadot sighed, "It's gotten better these past few days. When she first joined the crew, she was scolded terribly by the director. Every night she came back, she would pour out her grievances to me."
"'The director scolded me today for not knowing my blocking and not finding the camera,' 'The director scolded me again saying my expression was wrong,' 'The director is still scolding me for not knowing how to cry.' She thought she was the laughingstock of the crew, looked down upon by everyone.
"It annoyed me so much. Why didn't she study seriously back then? Judy clearly arranged opportunities for us, but she just stood there dumbfounded."
"I don't know what she was thinking, she even hoped I'd talk to you to ask the director to be more lenient with her, but I didn't agree, and as a result, she didn't speak to me for several days."
Eric was also speechless, "Seventeen years old, and she's even worked as a part-time model, is she still so immature? Ask me to intercede with Darabont? I bet Darabont has cursed me countless times behind my back. Everyone else had to audition, only she was forced into the crew."
"If Refaeli makes any more unreasonable demands, relay my message to her: if she doesn't want to act, she can get out! I don't want one bad apple to spoil the whole barrel!"
"Never mind, your relationship is so good, it's not appropriate for you to say such things. I'll have Judy clean up her mess."
Hearing this, Gadot frowned, "Is that okay? Will Judy have an opinion?"
"Haha, you underestimate our friendship. Judy Newhouse and I have known each other for over four years. I know her personality very well. When a decision needs to be made, she will decisively make the first cut!"
At this moment, the lights in the screening room suddenly went out, and the previously noisy sounds immediately disappeared.
"Ooh!"
A large brown-haired lion shook its head and roared a few times, and the movie officially began.
Cold water filled his nasal cavity, and Adam, the male protagonist played by Patrick Wilson, woke up in a bathtub. The suffocating feeling of drowning made him involuntarily kneel on the ground, gasping for air, his distressed expression immediately revealing his state.
"See? That's acting!"
Gadot nodded, her attention focused on the big screen.
Then the lights came on, and the dirty, confined environment made people uncomfortable. The doctor Lawrence, handcuffed to a pipe opposite, and the corpse in a pool of blood on the floor made the scene even more eerie.
After the tape recorder finished playing Jigsaw's voice, Adam found a saw in a black plastic bag, and the two tried to saw through the chains, but to no avail.
"I think this isn't for sawing chains, but for sawing legs!"
"Oh!"
After this line was spoken, the white guy sitting in front of Eric couldn't help but lean back.
The audience also understood the director's intention, and their previously scattered attention began to focus on the big screen. This plot is interesting!
As the flashbacks began, the first victim appeared, a man named Paul who liked to fake wrist-slitting suicides for attention, so he was imprisoned in an iron cage full of razor blades.
To live, he had to crawl out of the blades, enduring the pain of slow torture, and he only had three minutes.
With more funding and the cooperation of MGM's prop department, James Wan's designed torture devices were significantly more impressive.
The sharp, cold glint sent shivers down people's spines, and Eric had already heard many groans from the audience.
And as Paul struggled to survive, the blades cut into his obese body slice by slice, his painful roars accompanied by the dripping blood caused many to exclaim.
Looking to the side, Gadot was squinting, looking as if she was only watching through a slit, so it wouldn't scare her.
Eric reached out and pulled her into his arms. Anyway, they were the only two in the last row, so he just let her sit on his lap.
Just as the audience breathed a sigh of relief, the second victim appeared.
A naked man, covered in grease, had been injected with a slow-acting poison, and the antidote was in a safe nearby.
the room was dark, the floor covered with broken glass, and the walls were covered with strings of numbers that might be the safe's password.
The man had to carefully hold a candle for light, while enduring the intense pain of glass piercing his body, trying the password again and again.
Eventually, the pain made the man break down, and he accidentally knocked over the candle, setting himself on fire.
On the screen, watching the burning man scream wildly and roll in agony on the broken glass, almost every audience member felt a chill deep within their hearts.
"Charlie, I can't watch anymore, let's go." A girl wanted to pull her boyfriend away.
But the boy, as if he had found a treasure, pleaded, "Honey, this movie is absolutely amazing, I don't want to miss it. Please, can we finish it?"
The movie continued, and Amanda, the Piggy, appeared, along with Jigsaw's iconic puppet grimace.
Amanda's task was relatively simple, but it tested humanity: she needed to kill another person, cut open their stomach, and retrieve a key to a mechanism.
She ultimately chose to kill the other person, and after being rescued, she subtly showed symptoms of Stockholm Syndrome, becoming grateful to Jigsaw.
Then the fourth torture device appeared. A man was fixed in a chair, with a drill approaching his head from each side. In one minute, the man would be decapitated.
The key to activating the switch was in a box, but the box contained dozens of keys. Jigsaw also revealed his true form for the first time, hidden in a robe, allowing only his aged voice to be heard.
Soon after, as a pig-faced man suddenly jumped out, screams erupted one after another in the screening room, and Gadot burrowed deeper into Eric's embrace.
Then Adam and Lawrence tried to trick Jigsaw with fake smoke, but their overly exaggerated acting caused laughter to erupt around them, easing the tense and terrifying atmosphere for a moment.
But before their mood could relax for a few minutes, Lawrence suffered a mental breakdown due to his wife and daughter being killed. He ultimately took off his shirt to tie his leg, and in Adam's desperate screams, sawed off his own ankle.
The gushing blood mixed with Lawrence's agonizing screams made the audience's hearts pound.
Many people chose to close their eyes; they finally understood why one of the posters featured a severed foot and a saw.
The plot had now reached its climax. Just when the audience thought Jigsaw was the twisted orderly from the hospital, Adam searched the orderly's corpse and found a similar tape recorder, revealing that the orderly was also part of this game of slaughter.
At this moment, John Williams's score began to play, accompanied by a rapid flashback of the plot, and the corpse that had been lying in a pool of blood in the room slowly stood up.
He tore off his disguise and uttered the words that drove Adam to despair: "The key is in the bathtub."
But Adam had already drained the bathtub, and the key had flowed into the drain.
"Game Over!"