There is one single person among us all who believes they would “crush it” in a zombie apocalypse. A few of us think we’d survive with a big enough group. 30% of us think we’d be the first to die.

The vast majority of us, a whopping 41%, believe it is zombie-dependent. Night of the Living Dead? No problem. 28 Days Later? Totally fucked.

The community watchlist category is: best films movie nerds never shut up about. Submit a movie for a chance to win our annual mystery prize.

In the summer of 1991, two teenage best friends spend the season running their small town’s public swimming-pool snack shack.

→ Crude, coming of age humor. Snack Shack is, above all else, a coming of age story about two teenage boys.

→ Percussion-led scores. The film’s narrative is propelled by a heart-thumping percussive score. A smart way to underline the twitchy, up-against-the-wall energy of the lead characters.

→ Parents that just don’t get it. This trope never gets old, and it’s done quite inventively here.

→ Unexpected sweetness. The same way Adam Rehmeier's Dinner In America (a previous TNMN headliner) did it, Snack Shack balances rough edges with endearing character work that pays off in the end.

A few summers ago, my wife and I took a trip to Sedona, Arizona. On the first afternoon, we spent laying by the pool, tired from flying, drinking margaritas and reading. Well, we’d planned to read. Within earshot were two mop-headed teenage boys.

One mop-head wore a thin gold chain around the part of his body where his neck was supposed to be. His frame, swollen and triangular, made it such that he didn’t have much of neck at all. He was a confident kid. He talked like no one else was nearby. Loud and unfiltered. The other mop-head, he was thin and pale. An intent listener. A squeaky, hairless, prepubescent disciple of the triangle kid.

Heather and I, heads buried in our books (but not reading a word), we listened. Perhaps it because the triangle was loud enough that we didn’t have a choice. But the truth is, we listened because we were interested.

“Dude, did I tell you I got head the other day?” the triangle said.

“No way, man,” the disciple replied. “Really?”

“Pshhhht,” the triangle answered. “It was easy. I asked Chloe if she was ready to fuck. She said no way, I knew she would. Then, I said I had blue balls and she had to do something for me if she wouldn’t fuck. And she was like, well what am I supposed to do? And I just pointed to her mouth, and then my dick.”

“That’s it?” the disciple asked.

“It’s not that hard,” the triangle stood tall. “You gotta follow my lead more. I know this kind of shit, man.”

Heather and I could barely contain laughter. I’m convinced every sunbathing, reading, texting adult out there was teetering on every word, while pretending not to listen so as to appear like a respectable adult. But all of them, like us, must have been giggling on the inside.

As I overheard the lude conversation, I imagined myself back when I was a teenage boy. I was the prepubescent one, by the way, not the triangle. I remembered when all I could think about was sex. When my loyalty to my friends was constantly at odds with a fleeting crush. I remembered the impossible coexistence between the stupid simple life of a teenager, and how big and complicated it all felt.

It’s this magical feeling that you’ll experience when you watch Adam Rehmeier's Snack Shack. And you’ll find yourself, too, laughing and awing at the absurdity and beauty of it all.

A fact or two about the production that makes you say "oh, neat."

→ The director shot it in Cinemascope in his hometown. Rehmeier’s words: “You can’t go into your hometown and not shoot Cinemascope.”

→ It’s semi-autobiographical, based on the writer-director’s childhood. “Snack Shack for many, many years was just an accumulation of one- or two-line descriptions of something that we were doing in that period of time, like things that I would remember. Real Beer, gambling at Bluffs Run, jumping bikes in the pool, shit like that. As time passed, I would just meditate on that period of my life, and at a certain point, maybe at the 20-year mark [when] I’m in my mid-thirties, I’m starting to think about it more. Like, “God, that would be kind of cool to do a movie about that summer.”

Every other edition, we conclude with a special feature — an original work of fiction completely unrelated to this week’s film.

By Blake Levy

Because that’s what people do. They avoid the truth. The questions they really want to know the answers to, those are the ones they never dare to ask. Maybe facing the facts doesn’t always feel good. And, maybe, if you asked why he put his hand in there in the first place, you’re admitting that you may have done the same thing if you were in his position. Asking, it forces you to acknowledge that you are vulnerable.

Jerry worked in professional gutter services. He’s the guy on your roof. Helmet on, carabiner clipped to his harness. Flushing your gutters clean three or four times a year as your dog barks incessantly at his thumping, disembodied footsteps overhead.

Jerry’s been with the company for 28 years. His parents were tradespeople. Their parents, too. The family was overjoyed when Jerry got the job with Zed’s Gutters.

Jerry, sixteen years old, voice still cracking, came home from the interview. His father, grinning through a hug. Slapping his back, shaking visible dust particles loose from Jerry’s back and into the living room.

“My boy’s got a job!” he yelled.

His mother, she walked up to him, quiet. She didn’t talk much.

“Every house has gutters,” she said. “Every homeowner needs them cleaned. And none of them like to do it for themselves. You got yourself a roach, son.”

This was how his mother thought. If you’re going to get a job, get a roach. The job that’ll outlast anything. It doesn’t matter if the world is coming to an end. Cell towers collapsing. Planes crashing. Daily geo-electric storms. No matter what, everyone left with a house would still have gutters. And they would still get annoyed when the downspouts stopped draining. Jerry’s job, it would always be there.

…

28 years passed by without an incident. Jerry graduated high school and got married and had a kid and, all the while, worked the same job at Zed’s Gutters.

Today, on the roof of 1862 Jasper Way, Jerry stood tall on a black shingled roof, his old knees locked tight. The wind blew noticeably, whispering white noise in his ears. He glanced down at his left hand, the wedding ring, yellowing on his index finger. Then, to a thin gold bracelet around his wrist with a small charm dangling. Tears held back behind the whites of his eyes, Jerry yanked on his harness and slipped on two work gloves.

“All good!” Jerry yelled down to his partner, who in turn gave a go-ahead nod.

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) strongly recommended workers never go it alone. The buddy system, they called it. The buddy system wasn’t a hard requirement. Only that you install fall protection at heights of 6 feet or more. But Zed’s Gutters prided itself on going above and beyond OSHA-required safety measures. If you worked at Zed’s Gutters, you were family. And family doesn’t go it alone, the owner said.

Jerry walked the roofline with his gutter scoop, spot cleaning any major pieces of thick, black sludge. Usually a mix of leaves and squirrel shit and pollen and rainwater. His partner, following along the perimeter with the gutter vac, clearing downspouts from the ground.

“Holy shit!” his partner screamed. “I got somethin’ down here, Jerry!”

“What is it?” Jerry looked off the edge of the roof. Paxton, gloved and gagging, it was the boy’s first day on the job. The company liked pairing newbies with Jerry, who was now the longest tenured worker on staff. Jerry was, more or less, the company grandad. Down below, Paxton stood still, holding a bloodied, dead bird. Neck and wings bent unnaturally from the pressure of the gutter vac, pulling it through the downspout like lips on a straw.

“Take it to the bin. Some of the shit we find up here,” Jerry yelled down. “Did I ever tell you about the time we found an old vibrator?”

“Like, a vibrator vibrator?” Paxton chuckled.

“The kind that makes ‘em go OOOOO-EEEEEEE!” Jerry cracked. “Never figured out how it ended up here.”

The boy chucked the limp animal into the trash and returned to his gutter vac. On went Jerry about all the strangeness he’s uncovered over the years in the town’s gutters. More dead animals. Old creepy plush toys. Used condoms. A severed finger. 

Before long, they were onto the last downspout. That’s when the gutter vac tripped.

“Jerry?” Paxton shouted. “Can you take a look at this one?”

Jerry walked to the far corner of the black roof. To the very bottom of the roof pitch. He laid on his belly, head over the downspout, clearing a few leaves from the top. In the downspout, he saw nothing. Deep black emptiness through the rectangular opening. But the gutter vac, it tripped again and again. There had to be a blockage. So, Jerry reached his gutter scoop into the spout. Nothing.

“I’ll try the wand,” Jerry instructed. “Hit the water, Pax!”

Jerry pointed the wand at the spout. Nearly immediately, water pooled at the top of the opening. Not an ounce of drainage flowing through.

It happens sometimes. Some of the sludge just needs to be worked out by hand. And this sludge, it must have been at the top, given how quickly the water pooled around the opening of the spout. Jerry, he removed his glove. Easier to know what’s in there without a glove. He stuck his hand into the downspout. It felt clear, and so he pushed in further until he was near elbow deep in the gutter. 

And that’s when he felt it.

A hand. A whole human hand. In the downspout. It was unmistakable, because the hand, it wasn’t lifeless. It was warm. It was reaching out. It grabbed Jerry. Its fingers, they clasped tightly around Jerry’s hand. Jerry yelped and yanked his hand from the gutter, on the way out cutting his wrist open.

“You okay, Jerry?” Paxton asked.

“I think I got it,” he replied, unsure what to say. “Try it again.”

Inexplicably, the downspout flushed. Jerry patched up his arm with the first aid kit in the back of the truck, and they finished the job a few minutes later.

…

That evening, Jerry was troubled. How in the world did that drain clear when he didn’t pull anything out of it? And what the fuck was that in there? The hand, it felt familiar. He’d held it before. Jerry, he didn’t want to admit it. But he knew that hand. It was a soft, delicate hand. Reassuring. The kind that makes you forget. The kind that makes you feel unconditionally loved and cherished.

In bed, Jerry laid eyes wide and arms limp. Like the bird Paxton fished from the gutter. He tossed until he couldn’t take it anymore. The red numbers on his old radio alarm clock read 02:14 AM, but he knew he had to go back.

The evening was black and the sky dotted with faint stars as Jerry pulled his old, grumbly brown Chevy up to 1862 Jasper Way. Jerry pulled his ladder from the bed of the truck and propped it up against the house for the second time today, this time as quietly as he could.

As he climbed the ladder, his heart began to race. He thought of the hand in the gutter. The way its fingers clasped around his. He walked, quietly as he could, to the downspout.

From above, it looked like a perfectly normal downspout. A little dirt already caked around the edges of the opening despite the cleaning. He laid belly down again, mouth directly over the downspout.

“Hello?” he whispered. “Anyone in there?”

Nothing. Of course there wasn’t a response, Jerry thought. How would a living person fit inside of a 4x5 downspout? Just go home. Don’t be a fucking idiot. You’re going to lose your job.

Yet, he couldn’t leave. He knew what he felt, and even if it couldn’t talk, he knew how to reach it. He plunged his hand into the downspout, careful not to cut his bandaged arm open again. 

Jerry’s hand descended deeper into the pit, again, fingers outstretched this time, until he was elbow deep. He wiggled his fingers around, searching for something. Anything. Please, let there be a hand in there. Please make it so, otherwise Jerry was sure he was going insane.

And then, just like that, he felt a tug on his gold bracelet. And then another. His eyes, they welled up with tears. 

“Is that you?” he mumbled.

Another tug on the gold bracelet and Jerry was a puddle.

“I’m sorry,” he wailed. “I don’t know what to do without you.”

Tears streaming down, Jerry’s hand began to lose sensation when the hand in the gutter clasped around it again. 

It was the same hold as before. Soft, delicate, reassuring. The kind that makes you forget. Makes you feel unconditional love.

The unmistakable hold of a child. Jerry’s only child, the one he and his wife thought they’d never see again. The one they’d never gotten to say goodbye to after the accident.

Jerry weeped and weeped and the hand clasped tighter and tighter. Beneath him, the lights of the house aglow, the bark of a dog, and very confused homeowners. He’d lost just about all feeling in his arm by the time he’d realized, he’d reopened the wound on his wrist. He must have done it when he was searching in the downspout.

Blood from Jerry’s wrist, it poured through the downspout to ground level. The night grew far colder than he had remembered when he was getting out of his truck. At the bottom of the downspout, a decorative extension. The spout fed through the extension, a garden gnome with an open mouth. Warm red blood trickling out, dripping from its faux stone chin into an unweeded mulch bed.

The homeowners called the police. A noise complaint. Some strange man, perhaps the gutter cleaner, was on their roof, screaming, bellowing, scaring the dog. He’s laying there, hand shoved through the top of the downspout. It didn’t make any sense, but it was frightening.

Sirens blaring, the police came just in time. Neighbors waking up, outside in bathrobes to see what the fuss was about. A young police officer stood beneath a floodlight, yards away from Jerry’s downspout.

“Sir,” the policeman spotted blood pouring from the garden gnome. “Are you doing okay up there?”

Jerry looked at the policeman, then back to the downspout. He closed his eyes and felt his son’s hand around his, and for a moment, he felt unconditional love.