Employee file: G. Sitterson

[honeytoes]

           In an underground government facility is the heart of what makes the world tick. It's purpose is to please The Ancient Ones, the gods of old that live in the earths core and allow humans to live another year providing they have at least five sacrifices a year in the form of young people in their teens or early twenties.

The background for these sacrifices is that of a horror movie type scenario. They are manipulated into acting like your stereotypical horror movie characters (The whore, the jock, the fool, the virgin etc.), whilst a supernatural monster that gets summoned kills them one by one in a gruesome manner.

This is where Gary Sitterson comes in. Gary and his co-worker Steve Hadley are two technicians at the heart of the facility control room, manipulating events via a complex computer system and the before mentioned supernatural monster.

Gary is a man who has been consumed by his work. He looks a lot older then he is and comes across as a man who has very little of a personal life outside of the workplace. There's very little reference to what his life is like outside the facility, what friends or family he has in his personal life or even how he dresses. The only thing that has been established in the movie that he has an outside friendship with Steve Hadley when Hadley remarks in the movie that he should come over to his home Monday night to help him do work on his cabinets.

That's not to say he doesn't take comfort in his work. He believes that the ends justify the means in what he does. It might be murder but the lives of five young people a year are expendable when weighed up against the lives of seven billion. Gary likes the importance of his work. He likes knowing he makes a difference to the world. When talking to security officer Daniel Truman about the system there’s an element of pride in his tone, pride at being a part of it. There’s also pride in the track record of the numbers involved and the success rate of the American branch (There are other branch’s around the world involved with their own scenarios and sacrifices). Some might mistake the pride for arrogance though.

He can be a pleasant enough individual around the workplace and people he's familiar with. He jokes with security guards and Dr Amy Lin (also a subject of light flirting.) in the movie and arranging the betting pool each year on what monster the teenagers will summon. So whilst he is consumed by his work he's also not a lonely man. In his eyes his co-workers are all the family he needs.

There are also times however where can be grating and inappropriate. On more then one occasion he gets raised eyebrows from security officer Truman (e.g. when the betting pool is in full swing, and when they're observing Jules and Kurt in the forest.) His main self defence mechanism is to make jokes and inappropriate comments. One such comment comes after Dana summons the Buckner family zombies where he states they may be zombified, pain worshiping, backwards idiots, but they're our zombified, pain worshiping, backwards idiots.

Professionally he's the best in his field. You don't get to have the responsibility he does...the literal weight of the world on his shoulders without such skills. He knows the monsters inside and out (For example when he explains the difference between zombies and a zombie redneck torture family to a co-worker) and highly experienced at working with computer systems. He was able to release a gas that changed Curt's mind in order to split up the group and, when the tunnel failed to collapse, he was able to get it working again and collapse it. During both of those events the younger of the technicians Hadley shows his frustrations yet Gary calmly knew what to do.

His look is one of professional...yet ordinary. He looks like a paunchy old man, the type of individual you wouldn't look twice at in the street. His glasses are big and thick, his shirts short sleeved. One might say he looks like a poster boy for health and safety in the workplaces dress code.

Not much actually scares Gary except for the old gods and displeasing them inspires true terror. Out of all of the staff in the control room he is the only one of them who kisses a pendant with the ancient ones symbol on it and says a prayer after The whore Jules is killed. This shows that the gods clearly have a strong influence on his life.

Events during the movie such as invasions of creeping monsters, crawling creatures, and set backs with killing the teenagers are more likely to encourage sighs and groans of frustration. He is reasonably skilled with a gun, but he's never had to use it. His strengths lie mainly with the knowledge of monsters and computer expertise.

In the end he does fall during the monster invasion. Thankfully he doesn't fall to anything quite as gruesome as the Doctors or the Wolf man but instead to The Virgin Dana...who accidently stabs him as he comes round a corner.

His last act is to look her in the eyes and plead with her to "please kill him" (referring to the fool Marty…whose presence was stopping the ritual from being complete.

In the end he sounded like a man that didn't want his life’s work to amount to nothing