Flicker

Jonathan Gates doesn't set out to uncover the secret history of the movies - a tale of intrigue, deception and death that stretches back to the fourteenth century...and beyond. He simply loves going to the Classic, a legendary little art house cinema in West L.A. and there he falls under the spell of film critic, Clare Swann, who becomes his mentor and lover. And there he succumbs to what will be a lifelong obsession with the mysterious Max Castle, a nearly forgotten genius of the silent screen who later became the greatest film noir director...only to vanish in the 1940s, at the height of his powers.

Now twenty years later as Gates seeks the truth behind Castle's disappearance, the innocent entertainments of his youth - the sexy sirens, the screwball comedies, the high romance - take on a sinister appearance. His tortured quest takes him from Hollywood's Poverty Row into the shadowy lore of ancient Cathar and Templar religious heresies. He encounters a cast of exotic characters, including Orson Welles and John Huston, who teach him that there's more to film than meets the eye. And he journeys through the dark side of nostalgia, where the Three Stooges and Shirley Temple join forces with an alien god whose purposes are anything other than entertainment.

From the golden age of art movies and underground cinema to X-rated porn and splatter films and midnight movies, Flicker, is a breathtaking tour de force of cinematic fact and fantasy, a thriller and a metaphysical mystery that will haunt the dreams of every moviegoer. After you follow Jonathan into the void on the far side of the silver screen, you will learn why movies have such a powerful, hypnotic hold over us. And you will wonder whether Flicker is really fiction...or an eerie revelation of a truth beyond reason.