Narrator of Zach Dinesen's Ghost

Overview

The narrator of Zach Dinesen’s Ghost is the unnamed first-person narrator of “Zach Dinesen’s Ghost.” He is a film-industry acquaintance of Zach Dinesen and recounts Zach’s troubled attempt to make a film about a tortured American bomber crew.

Biography

The narrator meets Zach in 2019 when both are interning at New Doc Management in Beverly Hills. The narrator fills in as an assistant for Jeff Cole, while Zach works elsewhere in the office. The two connect on Instagram after the internship and go their separate ways.

After Zach’s debut feature Not of This Earth succeeds in 2022, the narrator congratulates him and resumes contact. He later meets Zach for dinner in El Segundo, where Zach explains that a dead airman named Dale Plambeck has appeared to him and asked him to tell the story of a B-29 crew tortured in Japan.

The narrator finds Zach’s proposed film too grim and understands why Zach’s manager does not support it. He continues checking on Zach as Zach loses his manager, becomes increasingly consumed by the project, finds financing, and pushes the production toward a Japan shoot.

While visiting Japan, the narrator goes to Zach’s set north of Tokyo and sees a production that appears more successful than he expected. Later, after Ann Jones tells him Zach has disappeared, he follows Zach’s cryptic directions and finds him hiding in a garage beneath an old woman’s house.

The narrator hears Zach’s claims that a prop was supernaturally replaced and that an oni or yokai has been manipulating the film. He interprets Zach’s account as a breakdown or extreme stage fright. When he tries to bring Zach back to the car, Zach threatens him with garden shears and makes him promise not to reveal the hiding place.

Back in Tokyo, the narrator meets Ann and two Chinese financing representatives for dinner. Asked whether the film can be saved with a new director, he advises them not to spend more money. After returning home, he works in the film industry again, where a later Zach Dinesen script titled Concrete Barrel Girl crosses his desk.