Head Cleaner

In this hugely original blend of thriller, sci-fi and horror, a trio of Blockbuster employees discover they may be able to change the endings of popular films and, thus, the world around them.

The last Blockbuster video store in the United States is hanging on by a thread. And after a crazy night attempting to track down a lost VCR rental to collect the record-setting and internet-famous late fee, three employees, idealistic Eva, cinephile Jerry, and their tyrannical manager Randy, discover that this machine may actually have the power to change the endings of popular films, which, depending on the historical basis of the film, might also be changing the real world around them.

Or could this just be an elaborate, increasingly deadly prank?

When they begin receiving videotapes and voicemails seemingly depicting their deaths, Eva, Jerry, and Randy scramble to keep the VCR from falling into the wrong hands. And as one action-packed evening begins to seemingly repeat itself (or does it?), scores are settled and unwanted confessions begin to fly, until a Final Girl finally unravels a grand psychological experiment orchestrated at the highest levels of a crumbling social media empire.

David James Keaton’s award-winning fiction has been widely published. His first novel, The Last Projector, was featured on Kirkus Reviews, and his first collection of short stories, Fish Bites Cop, was awarded Best Fiction Collection of the Year by This is Horror. His second collection of fiction, Stealing Propeller Hats from the Dead, received a starred review from Publishers Weekly. He lives and teaches in Santa Cruz, California.