Review: The Stepfather

The Stepfather is a film about a stepfather who is evil.  You can tell he's evil, because things preceded by "The" in titles always are,  as Point Horror has so wisely taught us: 

Another clue is provided to us by the opening scene including said stepfather disguising himself a little bit, surveying his latest mass murder and then buggering off to presumably do it all over again.  Thenceforth Dylan Walsh (Mr Stepfather) moves to Oregon on a mission to look moody and chat up women in supermarkets.  His charms, being clearly legion, result in dinner and a  suspiciously sudden engagement to a nice supermarket woman. 

All goes well for a time, with Walsh's excellent skills in charming psychopathy enabling him to sort out family problems and swan about being charming at barbecues.  However, dark clouds are upon the horizon.  His betrothed's family become suspicious of him, due partly to his building a bizzarely large number of cupboards in the basement, and partly due to his clearly not having a real identity.  And, of course, the cops are on his tail - a fact we learn in a scene about five nanoseconds long. 

Walsh is not terribly good at thinking through the administrative aspects of being a serial conman murderer - surely people with absolutely no official paperwork can't get married?  What would happen when he needed to pay at a card only self-checkout?  Never mind though - our hero is luckily excellent at the practical facets, i.e. killing loads of people.  He kills his fiancee's ex-husband and shoves him in the (conveniently emmpty) freezer, and offs his suspicious sister-in-law to be in her nice swimming pool. Up until that point swimming had been painted in a good light by this film, with young, healthy-looking people gadding about the place having a jolly time in the clement weather.  Oregon also looks delightful, except for the apparent presence of serial killers one might accidentally getin on with. 

The film reaches a climax involving a reasonably well thought out sting operation, a big old fight in attic with heavy machinery and the obligatory malfunctioning mobile phone.  Wireless communication is a horrible curse for the cheap horror film, its convenient means of summoning help necessitating sudden emergence of network black spots and battery failure.  (No-one's sceen ever cracks in movies, though - whereas in actuality most people's iPhones incur such a quantity of damage that you end up gazing at what may as well be an especially green-tinged 1980s-era Amstrad.) 

After getting smacked about a huge extent Walsh still manages to escape, Halloween-style, in order to terrorise another family another day.  Thankfully, it's been five years since this film was released and there's still no sign of a sequel, which is something of a blessing and indeed a rarity these days.

The Stepfather is essentially exactly what you expect it is going to be, in a massively predictable but somehow comforting way.  The creepy guy will lurk about people's rooms until another character goes "Oh! You surprised me!"  Characters will have debates about whether the creepy guy is creepy. (Spolier! He is)  It's delightfully by-the-book.  My enjoyment of the comfortably-familiar aspects of this film may have been enhanced by my being off my face on Norovirus when I watched it, but I'd heartily recommend it to anyone in a similarly poorly situation.  For the healthy, perhaps not.

Spooky exhibition

Back in the height of midsummer, a music venue in Brighton hosted a thoroughly seasonally-appropriate art exhibition on the theme of "Spooky".  Featuring heavily were massive paintings of cats, mutant hybrid skeletons and chokingly-thick billowing clouds of incense.  A thoroughly engaging event, and a slightly worrying glimpse into the peculiar psyches of some of Brighton's artistically-inclined residents.  Below are some dingy and badly composed photographs...

Notes on Theories: Noel Carroll's "A Philosophy of Horror"

As a part of my being something of a genre-freak, I've built up a reasonably substantial collection of books on horror theory.  Picking apart favourite books and movies to poke at their innards certainly isn't everyone's cup of tea, but then I'm one of those that tend to watch all the DVD extras and then look up all the trivia about films I've just watched.

One of the common subjects in these very varied theoretical texts is an examination of the definition of horror.  Previously, I'd generally felt that horror was quite self-evident - you know it when you see it.   However, in the course of reading these books, it has become evident that numerous theories exist relating to what exactly constitutes horror, and how the genre relates to existing philosophical and psychoanalytical thought.

As a fan of the (sometimes maligned) horror genre, it heartens me to discover that so much thought has gone into analysing horror, encompassing not just the highbrow but also the trashier end of the spectrum.

Here I'll attempt to summarise the horror definitions of some of these theorists; people far more competent and thorough in their research than myself, beginning with the first book of horror theory I ever got my mitts on - Noel Carroll's The Philosophy of Horror, or Paradoxes of the Heart.

The opening chapters of the book are concerned with offering a definition of horror - specifically what Carroll terms "art-horror" (as opposed to horrific occurances in real life.) As demonstrated in his statement regarding the purpose of the text - to offer "an account of horror in virtue of the emotional effects it is designed to cause in audiences" (p. 8) - Carroll's approach is focused on the responses of the reader / viewer to the text, and he takes the generation of these responses as the basis for his definition of the genre. Carroll raises an interesting point in support of this theory; namely that the genres such as "horror" and "suspense" are named for the emotions aroused, in contrast to, for example, musicals and Westerns which are defined by their structure and setting respectively. However, Carroll's parameters for horror are somewhat restricted - he puts much importance on the presence of supernatural elements, and especially the presence of "monsters" as a prerequesite for a work to be considered "art-horror", to the detriment of many notable examples of the form. Carroll terms non-supernatural horror e.g. Peeping Tom , or the works of Poe as a different catergory: "tales of terror". This seems something of a false distinction - whilst there are many examples of works that hover on the edge of the genre (eg Alien; Delierance), to eliminate all non-supernatural horror is to exclude many works which strongly evoke the art-horror affect in the consumer - the primary defining characteristic of horror according to Carroll's own reasoning.

An example of what I see as Carroll's problematic categorisation is his classification of the Stephen King novel Cujo as a thriller / suspense as opposed to a horror, due mainly to the fact that the antagonist is non-supernatural - "just a dog." (p.38) Whilst it would be a mistake to automatically assign all of King's output to the horror category, I believe that Cujo definitely falls squarely into the genre, and the titular character is certainly more than "just a dog." The novel abounds with supernatural imagery - for example the bogey man in the closet and the suggestion that a notorious serial killer may be able to return from the dead. The rabid dog itself serves as a metaphor open to multiple interpretations - in the latter half of the book the narrative is stripped back to a simple confrontation between the family unit in the car versus the inscrutable threat outside. The lack of convoluted plotting enables the reader to view Cujo as symbolic of any threat to safety and security of the family; whether disease, violence, social unrest or the damaging effects of addiction - known to be a personal preoccupation for King at the time. The fact that Cujo is infected with rabies when bitten by a bat - a clear allusion to vampirism - suggests that he may be possessed rather than merely infected; this suggestion brings to mind the literary and mythical archetype of the "demon dogs", such as the three-headed guardian of Hades Cerberus, the beast in "The Hound of the Baskervilles" and the vampire's canine form in Dracula.


On the subject of monsters, Carroll raises an interesting point – how what constitutes a “monster” is reliant on the other characters' responses to it. As he points out, a creature such as Chewbacca has an appearance which would define him as monstrous in a horror context, but in Star Wars he is “just one of the guys.” (p.16)  However, the viewer's ready acceptance of Chewbacca as a benign character is not solely a result of character-mirroring - he is also an example of the archetype of the "friendly monster".  This character type is especially prevalent in children's literature, examples including the Muppets, The BFG; Bigfoot & The Hendersons; Five Children & It and Monsters, Inc.  Audience response to Chewbacca is as, or perhaps more, likely to be based on his similarity to an existing and familiar archtype than on immediate response to the characters in Star Wars. 

Expanding on this, Carroll states that horror take their cues from the human characters – we flinch when they do; start in our seats when they are attacked by the monster, and so on – “Our responses are meant, ideally, to parallel those of characters.” (p.18). Whilst this is undeniably a characteristic of much of the genre – particularly slasher movies, and “tales of terror” such as MR James’ – the audience’s attitudes to the monstrous figure often diverge significantly from those of the characters. This is exemplified by a film that Carroll himself cites – David Cronenberg’s The Fly. Carroll argues that classifying the film as a horror feels “not quite right” (p39), despite the Brundlefly’ “undeniably impure” and “disgusting” nature. By Carroll’s definition, a horrific monster must embody “threat and impurity”, and he argues that the fly monster lacks threat throughout much of the film due to the concerned (but unthreatened) attitude of Brundle’s girlfriend Veronica, who supposedly “cues our response to the fly.” (p40). I would argue that, in this case, the responses of the audience and of the sympathetic character diverge greatly. We are privy to far more information than she is – the hubristic origins of Brundle’s malady, and the way in which he revels in his new-found strength and agility, despite being aware of its transgressive cause. Much of the tension and dramatic irony in the film stems from the fact that we know more than her, and this knowledge alerts us to the threat posed by Seth Brundle. The tag-line for the movie – “Be Afraid, Be Very Afraid”, though a line spoken by Veronica towards the end of the film, reflects well the way the audience feel towards her – we fear Brundle, and believe she should too. Rather than taking our emotional cues from her, we are frustrated by observing the danger she is ignorant of, and desire her to “Be Afraid”.

Again, Carroll disregards the metaphorical significance of the monster-figure, an aspect that I feel is central to the definition of any text as a horror. Brundle’s mad-scientist nature reflects anxieties about the progress of science, with advanced knowledge being in the hands of a few; his bodily transformation / disintegration evokes concerns about the fluidity of identity and fear of disease. I believe that The Fly’s audience would regard the Brundlefly as abject, monstrous and threatening, despite a lack of direct mirroring of theoir emotions by the characters in the film.

Despite my reservations about some of the stricter definitions of “art-horror” that Carroll puts forward, his analysis is highly instructive and enlightening. It is also edifying to learn later on in the book that, along with the higher-brow regions of Hitchcock and De Maupassant, Carroll sees fit to apply serious analytical such works as Killer Crabs and Attack of the Giant Leeches (canonical masterpieces I have , sadly, as yet failed to track down.)

I have only discussed the first chapter of the book here – Carroll goes on to examine topics such as structures of horror narratives, the paradox of enjoying horror fiction, character-identification, and Todorov’s theory of the fantastic. The Philosophy of Horror is often cited by other academic texts, and is a major reference point in academic study of the horror genre.

Classic Horror: Bride of Frankenstein

There's a quite considerable gap in my knowledge of the horror genre, much of it being the early classics.  In an effort to address this, I've been consciously trying to actually view the films which broke the ground in the early years.  It's surprisingly easy to know a lot about such canonical works, through films which they've influenced or critical texts which cite them; to the point that you almost feel you've experienced the source material.  (Case in point:  I got through an entire English Lit. degree without ever reading Hamlet or seeing it performed.)

Considering how many later works it has influenced (anything in the mad-scientist vein, featuring doomsday devices or sympathetic monsters), Bride still feels fresh and relevant and there are some very chilling moments. At the start of the film, the monster brutally kills two villagers whilst escaping from the burning mill - a reminder to the audience that whilst we may sympathise with the monster's plight, Frankenstein has unleashed an unstable being that has hugely destructive force.

By the time of the sequel, Victor Frankenstein has sworn off hubristic life-creating antics, and decided to settle down for a quiet, married life. His old mentor Dr Pretorius has now taken up the mantle of power-crazed scientific genius, creating miniature humans that he keeps in bell jars. The scene in which Pretorius shows Frankenstein his creations is deliberately light-hearted in tone, with the miniature humans being given comedic personalities and having petty squabbles. The scene does, however, demonstrate Pretorius's attitude to life and humanity in general - that it is something which can, and should, be under his control; a belief shown again in the probable murder committed in order to obtain a heart for the Bride.

The most effective moment is probably the Bride's awakening and realisation of the intent behind her creation. After the long and tense build-up, her confusion and horror at being introduced to her intended mate exposes the folly in Pretorius and Frankenstein's endeavours. Her jerky, unnatural movements mark her out as another thoroughly unhuman creature, her screams wordlessly condemning the doctors for their arrogance and hubris.

There are parts of the film which seem somewhat dated, though these are fairly few. Una O'Connor's performance as Minnie (Elizabeth Frankenstein's maid) is a tour-de-force of over-the-top hysteria, which though adding excellent comedy value distracts somewhat from the subtler elements of the film. It's also difficult to hear Frankenstein's cry of "It's Alive!" without the vast number of samplings of it springing to mind.

As a classic, Bride of Frankenstein has certainly stood the test of the decades (and has a rare place in the hallowed Hall of Good Sequels) - the many references and homages to it over the years doing little to diminish its importance and impact, even upon a first-time viewer jaded by consumption of some of its paler imitators.

Creepy Things Around Town

A side effect of having horror as a staple in one's consumption of fiction is the tendency to see parallels to horror everywhere you look. A short woman in a red raincoat? Don't Look Now. An arts festival brochure? Pan's Labyrinth. This advert for a telly? Practically shot-for-shot the elevator scene from The Shining.

Sometimes, however, things crop up in everyday life that are so unecessarily creepy they serve as proof that it's not your FrightFest-addled brain imagining things: there must be people out there doing their utmost to randomly terrify the population at large. Exhibit A: Freaky Mannequin It must be a tricky task to design a mannequin that isn't a bit unnerving - gingerly treading a tightrope stretched over the uncanny valley, and trying to get past the associations with TV serial killers. The main options appear to be:



Unfortunate Decapitation



 

Totally Blank-Faced and Inhuman

Budget 70s Sex Doll

Bad Acid Trip

But there really is no excuse for this:

Seen in my local camping shop and clearly a nightmare hybrid of Damien Thorne and the children of Midwich; someone, somewhere seems to have watched the opening credits of American Horror Story: Asylum and thought: "That look would really help to sell outdoors leisurewear!"

Oh Dear

Review: The Beast Must Die (1974)

The Beast Must Die was produced in 1974 by Amicus – rather wonderfully described on the DVD cover as “the studio that dripped blood.” It is a classic in the “eccentric millionaire invites guests to secluded mansion, horrible deaths ensue” mould. The eccentric millionaire in this case is Tom Newcliffe (Calvin Lockheart), who invites people he suspects of being werewolves to his country estate (fully equipped with surveillance equipment) in order to fulfil his hunter's ambition of bagging the ultimate predator. Newcliffe gathers his guests and explains to them the reason for his certainty that one of their number is a werewolf – all have been in the vicinity when unsolved animal-like killings have taken place. There is also a werewolf expert, Dr. Lundgen, on hand to enlighten all as to the nature of the beast (a splendid performance by Peter Cushing's cheekbones.)

Our intrepid hero does his best to rile his potentially lupine guests – he points out the full moon, serves up almost raw meat, sprays wolfbane pollen liberally about, and instigates the the exceptionally awkward parlour game of Pass-The-Silver-Candlestick. The wolf thus baited, night falls and the hunt begins...

This is truly a cracking movie. It's short, punchy, entertaining and does exactly what it sets out to do. One of its notably quirky features is the gimmick of the “werewolf break”. At the start, an ominous voice informs the audience that one of the characters is a werewolf, and they must figure out who it is. Helpfully, we the viewers are provided with a thirty second pause in the action to gather our thoughts and decide on a culprit. The film stops and a clock appears, ticking away the seconds in a scene so reminiscent of Countdown that one feels a slight but distinct urge to tackle an anagram or do some mental arithmetic.

Special mention must go to Mr. John Hilling, for providing Lockheart with such superb costumes – his wardrobe including an impressive array of jumpsuits, diamante-studded shirts, PVC jackets and the widest flares ever seen on someone not performing in a glam-rock band.

The Beast Must Die has a thoroughly enjoyable effervescence to it – from the funk-sountracked opening chase to the final dramatic reveal of the identity of the werewolf. It is a film unlikely to ever be regarded as one of the great classics of horror, but by my reckoning is well a worth 80 minutes of anyone's time.

Review: The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari

Despite this being near the top of my Things To Watch list, it took me quite some time to get around to actually seeing it, likely due to a slightly subconscious view of silent films as somewhat “difficult”. (There never seems to be a perfect time to just kick back and watch a revered silent film of historical importance, featuring surrealist set design and lashings of German Expressionism.) In any case, the moment did arrive, during an altruistic mission to ease another's illness with multiple DVDs and a selection of fine snacks, and I'm heartily glad I got round to viewing it in the end.

As the first acknowledged horror film, Caligari sets the bar high. The plot cracks along at a fast pace, and at only around 70 minutes' running time (less than even a Police Academy film), there's not a great deal of time to fit all the action in. The plot centres around a fair in the town of Holstenwall, at which Dr. Caligari exhibits (after experiencing some clerical difficulties at the Town Hall) his somnambulist, Cesare. The somnambulist awakens on command, and utters a prophecy of death to one of the audience. When the audience member is found dead the next day, suspicion falls upon Caligari, and the investigation takes a distinctly uncanny turn.

The genius of Caligari lies not with the plot, but with the atmosphere conjured by the scenes presented to the audience. Much has been written about the incredible set design – and in a far more eloquent and knowledgeable way than I am able. I will say, however, that the peculiar asymmetric sets add to the feeling that the story being told is not rooted in real life, and is more akin to a fable – something deeply metaphorical and of universal importance. Here is also perhaps the first instance in film of the sympathetic monster – Cesare does not willingly murder, but does so under the influence of his master. He is a tragic creation in the vein of Frankenstein's monster, and Conrad Veidt manages to inspire sympathy simply through the act of opening his eyes – the pained expression he displays shows in a few brief seconds both his character's reluctance to be a pawn, and also his helplessness and inability to resist.

Surprisingly for a film made in 1920, there are many elements of the film and its marketing that are thought of as distinctly modern. There is a twist at the end (which I must admit to having not foreseen), an element that seems to be almost mandatory for recent creators of horror films. There was also, apparently, a viral advertising campaign when the film was released – a key phrase from the film: “Du musst Caligari werden!” appeared on posters around Berlin with no further explanation given. So, it seems all those Blair Witch shenanigans were pre-dated by some ninety years.

In conclusion, The Cabinet of Dr Caligari is mesmerising, haunting and a must-see for anyone with a love for any aspect of the fantastic genre that we call horror.

Women in Horror Month (was last month...)

A small article I wrote back in February, when it was actually Women in Horror Month...!

Women In Horror Month: Let's Hear It For The Theorists

Scream queens, final girls and femmes fatales! I've been reliably informed that it's Women In Horror month, and so it's time to celebrate the great work done within the genre by those of the XX persuasion.

Actresses have always played a pivotal role in horror – from the haunted expressions of the silent era stars, through the Hitchcock blondes and the almost dynasty of Leigh / Lee Curtis, to slasher survivors and Neve Campbell's post-modern turn in the Scream films. In writing, too, women have come to the fore. Some of the best-known horror fiction has been written by women – the works of Mary Shelley, Shirley Jackson and Daphne du Maurier (to name but a few examples) are rightly regarded as classics, and have indelibly influenced the genre.

There is, however, another area of horror at which many notale women have excelled – the field of academic writing on the subject of horror. Looking through collections of essays, female names crop up a great deal: Joan Copjec, Helene Cixous, Mary Russo, Laura Mulvey, Jennifer Wicke, Julia Kristeva, Tania Modleski... the list could go on.

There are two books by female theorists that I've read recently which I'd highly recommend to any horror fan – and they are both (appropriately enough for the month's theme) about the role of women in horror films. The two works are Men, Women and Chain Saws by Carol J Clover and The Monstrous-Feminine by Barbara Creed. They differ greatly in their structure, style and conclusions, but each contribute a great deal to the study of the horror genre.

Clover's book examines mainly the slasher sub-genre, and in essays in the book such as “Carrie and the Boys” and “Her Body, Himself”, she deals with the themes of audience identification. Clover challenges the assumption that young males in the audience for a slasher film will automatically identify with the killer – an assumption that frames these films as a misogynistic artform. She emphasises the pivotal role of the “final girl”, saying that “we understand immediately from the attention paid it that hers is the main storyline.” (Clover p.44) This kind of cross-gender identification is also demonstrated, in her opinion, by the camerawork – despite the frequent use of POV shots from the killer's perspective: “Our closeness to him wanes as our closeness to the Final Girl waxes... by the end point of view is hers.” (p. 45) In other chapters, Clover discusses male / female narratives in possession and revenge films, and the role of voyeurism / the eye in horror films.

Barbara Creed's “The Monstrous Feminine” is an exploration of the various types of female monster in horror film, relating these characters to feminist and psychoanalytic theory. In the first part of the book, Creed takes the various types of feminine monsters (and notable films in which they feature) as the focus for each chapter. These themes are: Archaic Mother (Alien); Possessed Monster (The Exorcist); Monstrous Womb (The Brood); Vampire (The Hunger); Witch (Carrie). In each of these chapters Creed investigates the psychological reasons why these character types occur frequently in horror narratives, and how and why they inspire such

fear. The second part is more focused on psychoanalytic theory – Creed reinterprets at length Freud's case study of “Little Hans”, which formed the basis Freud's theory of the castration complex. Creed argues that the figure of the mother / female is perceived as terrifying because she has the power to castrate, opposing Freud's theory that the fearful aspect is the female's apparent lack / castration. This is very much the theme throughout the second half, and as such the remainder of the book will certainly be more enjoyable if the reader has a high tolerance for lengthy discussions of castration, vagina dentata, femmes castratrices and modern-day Medusas. The Monstrous-Feminine is certainly a fascinating read, and enables the reader to see many of the classic horrors in a new light.

Anyone wishing to delve into the theoretical side of the role of women in horror could do a great deal worse than taking a look at these two books. Don't just take my word for it – there's this recommendation on the back cover of Men, Women and Chain Saws from one Joe Bob Briggs (drive-in movie critic of Grapevine, Texas): “I like this book so much that I almost don't wanna recommend it, because what if everybody says 'Oh, don't read that, Joe Bob likes it!' Joe Bob says check it out.” I reckon Joe Bob would get quite a kick out of Creed's work, too.

Manga Monday!

It's Monday, and I've spent a significant portion of my paycheque on buying Manga.  Damn you, Dave's, for being so accommodating to browsers!  (For those of you not from neck of the woods I currently inhabit - Dave's is my magnificent local comic book shop, and the first place to benefit from my hard-earned after the 23rd of the month.)

There's a lot of damned  good horror Manga out there, and for a couple of months I've had my eye on a series called Parasyte.  It had me at "You...are...food..."     

It's a proper gorefest - within the first few pages you have a guy whose head splits clean open to reveal an unholy cross between The Thing, the Predator and one of those messed-up things from Pan's Labrinth, which proceeds to bite his wife's head off and eat it.

However, despite the gore and high body-count of this series so far, it also manages to be a strangely touching story.  The protagonist is a high-school student called Shin, who was infected by an alien parasite but managed to prevent it from invading past his arm.  In consequence, he has a sentient alien being in place of his right hand, who takes the name of Migi.

Just a normal guy, and his alien-parasite hand

Once Shin realises that he's stuck with Migi, a strangely touching relationship unfolds.  Migi (translation of Japanese for "right") knows instantly that he's failed to occupy the brain  - the goal of the invading species.   Being a parasite, he relies on Shin for his food, and Shin begins to rely on Migi to defend him...

So sweet... just like that thing from Flight of the Navigator. (Apart from the hand-eating...)

   

Devil Week: "Devil"

This week, I have been mostly watching films about the Devil. I'd been meaning to watch "Devil" (the one set in a lift) for a while, and after seeing said film decided to make a theme of it, thereby dedicating my movie-viewing hours to the Satanic stuff. As there are roughly a trillion films based around Lucifer and his shenanigans, I decided to narrow the field a bit with some rules. All the movies would be: a) centred on Satanic or demonic themes; b) ones that I hadn't seen before; and c) made in the last ten years. All this narrowed it down to only four films that I could think of, making the whole escapade a Devil (Four-Day) Week. A bit like the Three-Day Week of the 70s, thus harking back to the golden era of "The Exorcist" and "The Omen". Theme-tastic!

DEVIL

A confession of sorts - I still like M. Night Shyamalan. I know I shouldn't, but I even like "The Happening" (I'm from a big city, so rustling trees and wide open spaces freak me out at the best of times.) So, being a Shyamalan fan I was rather looking forward to his* latest, a nice classic locked-room-with-the-devil-in-it caper.

It starts off splendid. I loved the opening credits with the flipped aerial shots over the city, for several reasons. 1) The sequence itself does have quite a disorientating effect, which is all good news for the start of a horror flick. 2) The flying-over-the-city establishing shot is so commonplace it is almost a cliche; inverting the footage makes the familiar unfamiliar, subverting the viewer's expectations and creating an unsettling atmosphere. 3) It plays on the inversion theme often present in devil-related films, through devices such as upside-down crosses and mirror-writing.

Unfortunately, the opening credits turned out to be my favourite part of the movie. I quite liked the premise, but the execution left something to be desired. If you're going to do a locked-room mystery, I'm of the opinion that a large portion of the action should happen in the locked room. The bits actually in the lift were good - for example, the police being able to see into an inaccessible murder scene made for a particularly tense atmosphere. The rest of the film seems a bit all over the place. There's a race-against-time element with the firemen trying to get into the lift, some rushed back-stories for the unfortunate occupants, and a slightly ridiculous Final Destination-style sequence involving an engineer and a raccoon. All this made for a film which should have been simple and clear-cut, but ended up a mishmash of horror subgenres, with a liberal sprinkling of cliche. Ah yes, cliches galore. Troubled cop! Creepy stuff captured on film! Superstitious type who has exactly pinpointed the paranormal issue at hand, though no-one believes them! At least they didn't try to drag a priest into it.

On a positive note, I didn't have any problem with the central conceit of the film, which many people have criticised - their argument being that the Devil is mighty powerful, and wouldn't need to faff about trapping folks in lifts just to harvest a few measly souls. Fair point in a way - the whole set-up is a touch convoluted. However, the concept of the Devil is near-universal, and the sheer volume of stories about him/her/it means that "devil" is impossible to define absolutely. If you want to make a movie where Satan has to trap people in a lift, or in a cave, or at a bus stop - fine. As long as the story adheres to its internal logic, then it's okay by me. Satan does seem to get bored from time to time (must be the immortality) and does actually have some form when it comes to playing these kind of pranks on the living. See Dr. Faustus or Bedazzled (depending on the height of your brow.)





In Summary:

Promising idea, but felt like a low-budget idea which had been given lots of money and felt the need to spend it on totally unnecessary crowd scenes and plummeting elevators. And raccoon wranglers.

*Well, "from the mind of..." - i.e. story idea and production. Basically, top billing on the poster because no-one's heard of John Erick Dowdle.

Recommendations and Reviews of Recent Readings

I tend to always have a book on the go, the consequence of an inability to fall sleep without reading something and a low boredom threshold when waiting for public transport. My reading material over the past few months has been mostly horror-related, so I thought I'd post up some brief reviews before forgetfulness takes over. Here goes! (List ordered roughly by date of reading.)


TITLE: 101 HORROR MOVIES YOU MUST SEE BEFORE YOU DIE

AUTHOR: Steven Jay Schneider (General Editor)

REASON FOR BUYING: Wanted some ideas for good horror films to watch. Nice glossy pictures. Could double as doorstop.

LOOK OF THE BOOK: Compact and shiny; well-designed.

ANY GOOD? Yep - does what it says on the tin. The films are listed in chronological order, which makes it easy to identify cycles of horror films, and to see which directors may have influenced others' works. Each movie is given equal space - two pictures (poster and a still), a short two-page description and analysis and some details of cast and crew. The overviews are written by contributors of a high calibre, mainly academics and film critics. Despite the fact that there is an abundance of lists of this kind on the web, I still feel that this was ten quid well spent. And you can't use the internet as a doorstop.


TITLE: Strangers on a Train

AUTHOR: Patricia Highsmith

REASON FOR BUYING: Liked the film; didn't have to pay for this book - nicked it from my dad.

LOOK OF THE BOOK: Pleasant, modern monochrome design.

ANY GOOD? A resounding yes. Highsmith is a fantastic suspense writer - I've read other novels of hers in which nothing much actually happens, yet by which I've sill been utterly gripped. Strangers on a Train is the story of a man striving desperately to extricate himself from a situation, but getting drawn in further despite his exertions. Some of the details of the plot will be familiar to those who have seen Hitchcock's film, but happily that adaptation differs from the book enough that there are still surprises in store for readers who have already seen the movie. A superb read and highly recommended!


TITLE: Velocity

AUTHOR: Dean Koontz

REASON FOR BUYING: Needed a book to read whilst working at a festival; it was in a charity shop and therefore cheap.

LOOK OF THE BOOK: Intriguing ransom-note cover; deceptively chunky.

ANY GOOD? So far from good, it's possible that Darth Vader could use it a rebel-torturing technique, should his choking powers have an off day. The characters are paper-thin, the dialogue between them risible, and the decision to develop the plot almost solely through the experiences of the main character results in the whole exercise feeling like a mildly gruesome "What I Did On My Holidays" school essay. The only reason I managed to finish it is that it's so bloody short. Through the employment of large type, enormous margins and more chapters than you can shake a stick at, this jumped-up short story has been stretched out to cover a mind-boggling 500 pages. There's an actual risk of repetitive strain injury because of the frequency of page-turning. Avoid.


TITLE: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

AUTHOR: Mark Haddon

REASON FOR BUYING: Many accolades received by book; in a charity shop and therefore cheap (I am thrifty)

LOOK OF THE BOOK: Lively blue cover, strangely endearing illustration of dog impaled by garden fork.

ANY GOOD? Yes - it's an engaging, funny and touching book. (Not a horror, mind, although a dog does get murdered.) Christopher - a 15-year-old who has Asperger's - finds the body of his neighbour's dog and, inspired by his hero Sherlock Holmes, decides to solve the mystery of its death. However, his investigation uncovers a great deal more than he expected. Has chapters headed with prime numbers, which is quite cool and also instructive.


TITLE: Under the Dome

AUTHOR: Stephen King

REASON FOR BUYING: Try to read most King books; nifty choice of covers.

LOOK OF THE BOOK: Old bloke looking pensive in a rather nice shirt.

ANY GOOD? Hmmm... it's a tricky one. Pros: interesting premise; good pace; fairly gripping. Cons: some ridiculous dialogue; plot inconsistencies; rather flat ending. For such a long book it feels somewhat shallow - there is very little in the way of backstory, unlike some of King's earlier works (for example, the town histories in The Tommyknockers and IT.) There are quite a few similarities between this novel and The Stand (isolated communities, taking of good / evil sides and the Trashcan Man-esque character of The Chef.) Under the Dome definitely suffers by comparison, and unfortunately comes across as something of a Stand-lite. Not nearly as bad as Cell though, so there's that.


TITLE: The Mind Beyond

AUTHOR: Irene Shubik (Editor)

REASON FOR BUYING: Short stories by well-known authors; portable volume.

LOOK OF THE BOOK: Nice old orange-spined Penguin; proper creepy cover.

ANY GOOD? The Mind Beyond is a collection of short stories from the '70s TV series of the same name, of which I'd never heard. The theme is general freakiness of the brain - telepathy, precognition, telekinesis and the like. It's a pleasantly eerie collection; I especially enjoyed the Daphne du Maurier story "The Breakthrough." Science gone crazy! The TV show can be seen here:
"The Mind Beyond" on the YouTube



TITLE: The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service vol. 11

AUTHOR: Eiji Otsuka (story) Housui Yamazaki (art)

REASON FOR BUYING: Am a long-time follower of the series.

LOOK OF THE BOOK: Mugshot-style pictures of the main characters; plot-related drawing in the top-left corner.

ANY GOOD? Hell yeah! I love this series, and would recommend it to any fan or horror, comics or both. Kurosagi centres around five university students whose various skills enable them to find and communicate with the dead. Whilst the subject matter is quite morbid, and the imagery often gory, it's never excessive. The plots often touch upon contemporary social issues, or are used to explore the significance of old customs or historic events. It's gruesome, witty, complex and sometimes plain weird. The artwork is also fantastic!


TITLE: The Secret of Crickley Hall

AUTHOR: James Herbert

Ah, Crickley Hall. This one's getting a slightly longer review, so it'll have to wait for another time. Thought I'd best say something about it though, as it is in the picture. Watch this space!

The Walking Dead: TV show episode 1

Being a comic book fan, I'm a little disappointed in myself that I haven't noticed the Walking Dead series. I can only suppose that I've been preoccupied with buying House of Mystery and Sweet Tooth, and moaning about Air being axed. But blessed be! The Walking Dead has now been transmogrified into the significantly cheaper (for me) format of a televisual spectacular.

Spectacular it certainly is. Episode one packs in gunfights, gridlocked highways, fields of corpses, fantastically gruesome zombie hoards and tons of aerial shots of the lovely American countryside. It's visually stunning, especially the SFX used to create a certain semi-zombie who spends her screen-time enjoying a nice crawl in the park.

In terms of plot, it starts off pretty much as 28 Days Later Goes to America. Dude's in hospital, dude wakes up in post-apocalyptic hell-hole, finds a bit of shelter, makes a few friends. That being said, it's as good a way as any to kick-start a zombie drama, so I'm inclined to overlook the slight lack of originality.

Now, casting... to British viewers of a '90s vintage, Andrew Lincoln will always be, in our hearts, Egg from This Life. To see the chap you always envisaged as a Northern, London-dwelling law-graduate slacker show up as a gun-toting U.S. sheriff's deputy is a slight shock to the system. To add to the weirdness, Lennie James (who I most vividly recall as a cockney geezer in Snatch), then appears in similar nationality-bending mode. However, this quickly ceased to bother me, which is a testament to strong performances and (to my ears, at least) convincing accents. The good folks of the U.S.A. will naturally have to be the judge of said accents, but Hugh Laurie and those blokes off of The Wire seem to have gotten away with it, so signs look good.

To sum up briefly... The Walking Dead: 28 Days Later meets Dawn of the Dead meets Preacher. Complete with horse. I'm certainly giving episode two a whirl.

Happy Hallowe'en!

A Happy Hallowe'en to all! Take care out there, beware them creatures of the night...

Happy Friday 13th!

Well, technically it's Saturday 14th for me now, but best spooky wishes to all of those in time zones further west! Hope no-one's suffering from friggatriskaidekaphobia...

Versatile, don't you know?

Big thanks, and word up! to a fine Missouri woman - The Girl Who Loves Horror. (http://thegirlwholoveshorror.blogspot.com/) She's kindly given me this versatile blogger accolade, and I am am dead chuffed. Apparently there are rules.....

1) Thank the person who gave you the award. (Ta!)

2) Tell people seven things about yourself

3) Nominate fifteen other blogs to receive said award, and tell them about it.

Being a bit of a newbie to the blogging thing, I'm not sure if I'm even reading fifteen blogs at the moment, so I'll be rolling out number 3 in dribs and drabs. In the meantime, here's those seven things about myself...

1) As it says in my profile, I like robots. The one in my profile picture is a Dingbot, which my brother had back in the 80s. It came with a small map which it could hold and use to navigate somehow - which was at that time one of the most awesome things I'd ever seen. I also love Asimov's robot short stories, WALL:E and Short Circuit. When the machines finally rise up and enslave us all I shall have no fear; I'll be down the robo-disco dancing to Daft Punk and Kraftwerk.

A couple of my robots. I hope one day to have a robot army.

2) I can name all fifty U.S. states - in alphabetical order - despite never having been out of Europe. (I memorised them as part of a bet a while ago.)

3) I have a large gold filling in one of my back teeth - bling indeed.

4) When I was little I crashed my bike, flew straight over the handlebars but managed somehow to land on my feet. I felt like Superman.

5) I could not survive without newspapers or cheese.

6) Although I have no grey hairs on my head, I have found a couple in my eyebrows. I am therefore slightly concerned that I could end up one day looking like a reverse Alistair Darling.

7) Milk no sugar, please!


To start off my list of fifteen, here's couple of smashing blogs:

This Girl Digs Horror http://thisgirldigshorror.blogspot.com/

Ampersand Comics http://ampersandcomics.blogspot.com/


P.S. Proper post actually about horror coming soon. Honest, guv.

Meme questionnaire!

This started life on the Billy Loves Stu blog and has been doing the rounds, so I thought I'd leap right onto the bandwagon and give it a go...


1: In Ten Words or Less, Describe Your Blog:

Stuff thought up when I should be doing something productive

2: During What Cinematic Era Where you Born?
A: The Classic Horror Era (late 30's to 40's)
B: The Atomic Monster/Nuclear Angst Era (the late 40's through 50's)
C: The Psycho Era ( Early 60's)
D: The Rosemary's Baby Era (Mid to Late 60's)
E: The Exorcism Era (Early to mid 70's)
F: The Halloween Era (Late 70's to Early 80's)
G: The Slasher Era (Mid to late 80's)
H: The Self Referential/Post Modern Era (1990 to 1999)

F: The Halloween Era

3: The Carrie Compatibility Question:
(gay men and straight women - make your choice from section A)
A: Billy Nolan or Tommy Ross, who would you take to the prom?
(straight guys and lesbians - make your choice from section B)
B: Sue Snell or Chris Hargensen, who would you take to the prom?

It's been a while since I've seen Carrie, so I'm afraid I had to look up said characters on IMDb... totally forgot that John Travolta was in it! That rules out Billy Nolan then, so it would have to be Tommy Ross.

4: You have been given an ungodly amount of money, and total control of a major motion picture studio - what would your dream Horror project be?

A grand, sweeping mega-epic trilogy of films based on Lovecraft's stories "The Call of Cthulhu", "The Dunwich Horror" and "The Shadow Over Innsmouth" With soundtrack by Death in Vegas. 

5: What horror film "franchise" that others have embraced, left you cold?

I like at least one film from all the major horror franchises, especially the first Saw (Saw II was tripe, and I stopped bothering with them after that.) Do the Hostel films count as a franchise? Hated them.

6: Is Michael Bay the Antichrist?

When the Antichrist pops up in fiction, he tends to show that he has an imagination, something Michael Bay does not possess. Michael Bay is just a massive git.

7: Dracula, The Wolf Man, The Frankenstein Monster - which one of these classic villains scares you, and why?

Dracula; he's definitely the most manipulative and sinister of the three.

8: Tell me about a scene from a NON HORROR Film that scares the crap out of you:

The whole of ET: The Extra-Terrestrial... a mind-curdlingly terrifying film. If I'd been in Elliott's place I would've preferred the queen from Aliens to drop by for a visit than that...thing (shudder)

9: Baby Jane Hudson invites you over to her house for lunch. What do you bring?

A copy of The Dark Knight on DVD because I reckon she'd like the Joker's make-up.

10: So, between you and me, do you have any ulterior motives for blogging? Come, on you can tell me, it will be our little secret, I won't tell a soul.

Don't think so... no world domination plans or anything like that... I do sometimes watch EastEnders whilst posting, that count as a blogging secret?

11: What would you have brought to Rosemary Woodhouse's baby shower?

A good divorce lawyer.

12: Godzilla vs The Cloverfield Monster, who wins?

Neither - the thing from Watchmen would kick both of their arses.

13: If you found out that Rob Zombie was reading your blog, what would you post in hopes that he read it?

Probably just some good music videos?

14: What is your favorite NON HORROR FILM, and why?

Goodfellas. Everything about it is great - acting, pace, story, soundtrack, technique. I could bang on about it for ages, it's just ace.

15: If blogging technology did not exist, what would you be doing? Blathering on about horror to people down the pub, I expect.

Random Recommends

A bit of a short post this week, as I'm about to head off for a nice long weekend of work, so being something of a slacker while I still can!

So, in the spirit of slack (but also general bonhomie), I'm posting up the odds and ends of horror through which I've been happily rummaging over the past month or so.

Here they be...

FILM

Deathdream (1974) (aka Dead of Night)

Reasons why it's splendid:

1) It's a rare thing in a horror flick for the characters to behave in any kind of logical fashion; it's almost a genre hallmark to have the urge to shout "don't... do... THAT!" at the screen. I found Deathdream refreshing in that the actions of the characters, though sometimes extreme, always make sense according to personality, backstory and their role within the events of the film.

2) Hits above its (clearly somewhat limited) budget, always admirable.

3) Has one of the most heart-wrenching final scenes ever - if you don't feel like welling up even a bit, you're dead as a vampire in the midday sun.



Lake Mungo (2008)

Thanks and praises due to those at All Things Horror for this one - I took their advice and watched it before reading their review, and well worth the watch it was. Lake Mungo is a ghost story told in the style of a documentary, about the accidental drowning of a teenage girl and the effect of her death on her family. It's definitely not a scare a minute sort of horror, but it unsettles in all the right ways. Catch it before the inevitable remake (already in development according to IMDb. Sigh.)

BOOKS

Short stories by Richard Matheson

I never realised how much of Matheson's stories I already knew until I bought a book of them recently. I Am Legend, Stir Of Echoes, Duel, What Dreams May Come, Hell House and numerous episodes of "The Twilight Zone" have all emerged from his writing. His short stories are unusual, imaginative and written in a wonderfully evocative prose style. He also seems to like robots. Yay!


Men, Women and Chain Saws by Carol J. Clover

Writtten in the early 1990s, this book explores gender issues in slasher and supernatural films of the 70s and 80s. Clover challenges some of the preconceptions about horror audiences, the nature of their identification with the characters in horror and the false distiction between high and low forms of horror. This is the work that is generally credited with establishing the concept of the "final girl", and it is an illuminating and thought-provoking read.

Hope that you enjoy the above if you give them a look.


And so, off to work!

Great Moments in Horror: Hans Beckert On Trial

First things first: if you haven't watched Fritz Lang's M, beware! This post will be stuffed to the gills with M spoilers.

M is a difficult film to classify, genre-wise. It contains elements, among others, of police procedural, gangster movie, courtroom drama, kitchen-sink drama, crime thriller and horror. However, as this is a horror blog, it's on the horror that I shall focus.

A brief outline of the plot (for those unacquainted with the film and unperturbed by spoilers) goes thus: there is a murderer of children at large, and a sense of underlying panic in the general public. The police are desperate to get leads, and instigate a crackdown on known criminal hangouts, resulting in losses of custom for the proprietors. The underworld bosses decide they have to catch the killer before the police ruin their businesses, and begin an investigation of their own running parallel to that of the law. Both yield clues, but it is the criminals who locate the murderer first. They take the culprit, Hans Beckert, to a disused distillery and try him in an ad hoc courtroom. Beckert is confronted with his crimes, but he and the man appointed to act as his defence lawyer argue that he is not responsible for his actions as he is irresistibly compelled to murder. The vast majority of those present call for Beckert to be executed, feeling that he will be forever a threat to children if he was handed to the police and incarcerated, but subsequently released. At this point the police arrive at the distillery, having been tipped off by a criminal they earlier apprehended. Beckert is arrested and goes to trial.

The influence that M has had on horror films can be widely seen. For example, Beckert plays a cat-and-mouse game with the police by sending a taunting postcard to them via a newspaper - similar behaviour (though to a lesser extent) to that of Hannibal Lecter in The Silence of the Lambs and John Doe in Seven. The themes in M of vigilante justice and a general distrust of official law enforcement are also recurrent in the genre. Police tend to be well-meaning but sceptical (e.g. The Blob); absent or unreachable (The Blair Witch Project, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre), or inept (Psycho, Scream) - it is a rare horror-movie cop who is able to save the day, or even live to tell the tale. The safety net of police protection is whipped away from the protagonists one way or another, and they are obliged to face the threat on lawless terms.

Just as the final girls of slasher flicks are able to confront and defeat the psychopaths that terrorise them only after officialdom had been denied them or rejected, so the criminals in M can succeed in confronting Beckert with his crimes while the police cannot. In the clip below, an underworld boss shows the accused photographs of his victims:



The killer breaks down only when faced directly with the images of his those he has killed. He sees not only his victims, but himself as he truly is. This moment of self-realisation is presaged by an earlier scene in which Beckert is seen staring intently at himself in the mirror, pulling at the corner of his mouth and seeming as if he does not fully recognise the person staring back.

The wide-eyed, manic expression on Beckert's face when reality finally dawns on him resembles that of a movie victim only just realising the full horror of their fate. For him, the terror is compounded by having to face extreme malignancy within himself. Beckert's dark side had been stalking him quietly - now it leaps out from the shadows. Like the terrified victims in countless horror films to come, he flees - screaming.

The Beginning

Horror! I like reading it, I like watching it. I like reading writing about horror books, and about horror films. I even like reading writing written about books about horror. So I thought I may as well add to all the writings myself, the result of which is this blog here, Fear of Fiction. Welcome!

I still don't know why I like horror quite as much as I do, but I remember how the fandom started... At about the age of eight I was told the classic "humans can lick too" story (hand-licking-madman-under-the-bed / dog's-head-in-the-shower variation.) It played on my mind for weeks, became something of a horror benchmark, and gave me a taste for the scary stuff.

As an eleven-year-old in the early '90s, obtaining decent horror movies was not an easy task, and so my friends and I would put a great deal of time and effort into getting hold of some of the better films (or, to give them their proper description, "The Scariest Thing You Will EVER SEE, EVER!") The options were generally: a) bribe older sibling into going to Blockbusters; b) rent something shoddy from amoral local newagents; c) learn how to program the VCR and hope Channel 4 might screen something half-decent. The net result was that we didn't get to see many, but then for myself even overhearing a friend at school talking about the film IT was enough to scare the bejesus out of me, so perhaps it was just as well.

The fact is, I was (maybe still am) a massive horror coward. I lasted all of thirty seconds into the Phantom Phantasia ride at Thorpe Park before becoming thoroughly terrified. At the Chamber of Horrors on a family trip to Madame Tussaud's I took one look at the dank stone steps before freaking out and having to walk round the rest of it with my eyes shut, clutching my mother's hand. (I did, however, spend the Tube ride home utterly transfixed by the pictures of said chamber in the guide book - ah, the paradoxical nature of the horrific spectacle!)

The thing that used to scare me most, however, was a book. My mum would sometimes walk me home from school, and on the way was an antiques shop. The shop was on two floors and still had the layout of a Victorian terraced house, so that all the kitchen antiques would be in one room, all the clothes in another and so on. The result when you entered the shop was the slightly unsettling feeling of visiting the house of a person who just happened to own twenty of everything. I can't remember how exactly how I ended up with it, but after one of these antique shop visits I became the proud owner of Dangerous Ghosts by Elliott O'Donnell. This book had everything. It had grotesque faces that appeared on everyday objects, ghostly trains, beheaded queens, omens of death and eerie creatures. More importantly, it had yellowed pages, a worn hardback cover and a genuine old-paper smell. It scared the hell out of me for a long, long time, but I couldn't stop reading it. It seemed to me like some artefact I'd stumbled upon that told a horrible truth, and it fascinated and appalled me equally. The way I felt about Dangerous Ghosts is the basis for the way I feel about all horror fiction, and the reason why I'm still so enamoured of the genre today.

I'll be using this blog to write about the horror I love (and some that I loathe), horror theory I've been reading about and whatever other horror-related items that spring into my brain. I'd welcome any comments, and I thank you for reading!