Flickers

A scream opens the story, and it belongs to Isabelle Thorn, a young silent-screen actress in 1920s Hollywood. She and her twin sister, Beatrice, were born on a lonely prairie ranch, but now they live under the protection of Mr. Cecil, a powerful and secretive filmmaker. Isabelle is about to appear in the first talking picture, a horror film built around her trademark scream, a sound audiences have only ever seen on screen. Beatrice, meanwhile, stays out of sight on the Cecil estate. She passes her days with her books and her insect collection, wearing scarves to hide her birthmarks and her lack of hair. Her thoughts keep returning to Mr. Cecil, to the deaths of their parents, to a swarm of scorpion hornets that should not exist, and to two visitors to the estate who met strange ends. As her suspicions grow, she begins to suspect the filmmaker means something terrible for the picture.