Shocktober Revisited: Theory, Audiences, and Horror

 This critical essay originally appeared in 2009.

Greetings, Blogorium readers! Tonight I thought I'd share with you part of a large-ish paper I've been working on.

The paper is on movie-going as a ritual activity, which in and of itself was fun researching, but a healthy section is devoted to Horror films and the role they play in group catharsis, so I'll drop that knowledge on you, followed by a section devoted to the question: "Why do horror fans like $1.50 movie theatres?", in which I think you'll find the Cap'n comes to a reasonable conclusion.

Just a tiny forewarning: this is from a first draft, so if anything reads as dodgy or the sentences are awkward, I'll be adjusting them in ensuing drafts.

Horror Films

“Each of us experiences a film individually, and our different tastes in films demonstrate how unique our individual reactions are. Yet, what are we to make of those films that seem to have tapped in the collective fears of an entire generation?” (Phillips, 3)

Horror films repulse and terrify us, yet they remain financially, if not critically, successful. Noel Carroll poses the question “But – and this is the question of ‘Why horror?’ in its primary form – if horror necessarily has something repulsive about it, how can audiences be attracted to it?” (33) The answer may be that the genre presents us with escapist variations of real life anxieties. The genre of horror taps into our deepest primal fears, and coupled with the venue (total darkness), collectively audiences must overcome individual terrors.

Consider the 1968 film Night of the Living Dead, which tapped into mounting tensions about race relations and the Vietnam War through the lens of a zombie film. Kendall Phillips describes the reaction to Night thusly, “for many contemporary critics, the film was ‘cathartic for us, who forget about the horrors around us that aren’t, alas, movies’” (93). Similarly, films like The Exorcist or The Texas Chain Saw Massacre tapped into apocalyptic concerns of the mid-1970s, though less literally than atomic holocaust films. “Apocalyptic visions… need not express a literal end of the world but may entail a sense of the inevitable decay and demise of broad social structures and order” (Phillips, 111).

Horror manages to, in the words of critic Robin Wood, “respond to interpretation as at once the personal dreams of their makers and the collective dreams of their audiences, the fusion made possible by the shared structures of a common ideology” (30). Its role as a societal release is a more extreme version of cathartic theatre, one designed to explicitly face our fears in dark spaces, with the comfort of being able to safely walk away when we choose to. Linda Williams, in learning to scream, identifies a similar mechanism in horror films designed to help audiences gasp and scream together:

Anyone who has gone to the movies in the last 20 years cannot help but notice how entrenched this rollercoaster sensibility of repeated tension and release, assault and escape has become. While narrative is not abandoned, it often takes second place to a succession of visual and auditory shocks and thrills.” (163)

Despite its role in tapping into our collective experience, the horror film is not highly regarded by critics. Robin Wood describes the phenomenon:

The horror film has consistently been one of the most popular and, at the same time, the most disreputable of Hollywood genres. The popularity itself has a peculiar characteristic that sets it apart from other genres: it is restricted to aficionados and complemented by total rejection, people tending to go to horror films either obsessively or not at all. They are dismissed with contempt by the majority of reviewer-critics, or simply ignored. (30)

Horror is regarded as a “lesser” form of cinema, one that is frequently associated with “low culture” and is beneath contempt for cultural critics. Audiences, however, flock to this ritual of being scared half to death and walking out at the end. The ways that horror films function as a dual ritual of “movie-going” and “date” are also related to cultural norms. In her discussion of horror marketing during the “classic” monster-movie era, Rhona Berenstein notes the ways that male / female reactions during this ritual are performative:

Just as social mandates invited women in the 1930s to cling to men while screening horror movies, thus encouraging them to display conventionally feminine behavior as a means of garnering male attention, so, too, did the male viewer… use female fear, as well as his own traditional display of bravery, to disguise his terror behind a socially prescribed behavior. (137)

In fact, women were frequently the target audience during the “classic” monster movie era, for reasons that solidified gender roles in American society. Berenstein continues, “women were classic horror’s central stunt participants because they were thought to personify the genre’s favored artifact: fear. The upshot was that if women could survive the viewing or a horror film, and moreover, if they could respond bravely, then other patrons, meaning men could do the same” (143).

The horror film provides a number of valuable roles in maintaining the movie-going ritual: in addition to reinforcing cultural norms, it taps into collective fears and faces taboos, even at the chagrin of most critics. At the end of a horror film, no matter how traumatic or cathartic the experience, the collective returns to the daylight, capable of functioning as members of society. As we will see, the horror film provides for a different kind of engagement in the movie-going ritual based on what theatre an individual chooses to visit.

[...]

For many critics, the reputation of Horror as a “low culture” genre comes from these second run houses. Conversely, many Horror aficionados will also attend the Sedgefield of Blue Ridge Road theatres because they replicate the “Grindhouse” experience, based on one-screen cinemas in large cities, most of which no longer exist. The Grindhouse theaters were permissive of rowdier behavior, much of which is considered by aficionados as “augmenting” an otherwise marginal film. The most famous example of a Grindhouse film or “Midnight Movie” turned ritual experience is The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

[...]

Throwing the Baby Out with the Bath Water

For almost twenty years, possibly longer, but certainly as long as the "director's cut"* of Blade Runner has been available on home video, a long standing debate exists as to whether Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford) is a replicant or not.

In fact, any iteration of the boxed set (the four disc set or the five disc "briefcase" edition) has a ten minute featurette titled "Deck-A-Rep: The True Nature of Rick Deckard" where both sides make their case (Ridley Scott says Deckard is, Harrison Ford says he isn't, and a number of people involved in or admirers of the film weigh in). One of the contributors is director Frank Darabont (The Shawshank Redemption, The Mist), and his impassioned defense of why Deckard isn't a replicant is embedded below:

What I've always found interesting about Darabont's argument is how many people I know simply dismiss his entire reading of the film because of the last sentence. Because he "rejects" the "Deckard is a replicant" argument out of hand, they accordingly reject the points he's making. One professor suggested that his unwillingness to consider the alternative automatically invalidated his position, which seems problematic to me.

Darabont's point - that Deckard's evolution in the film is meaningless or at best ironic if he's a replicant - is a valid reading of the film. His reading that the film being about Deckard's slow return to humanity is a valid one, a point that has plenty of thematic evidence in the narrative. If Deckard was a replicant, the character arc is somewhat rendered moot because his sense of humanity is totally artificial; the film ceases to be a "human" story and instead a clinical study of manufactured morality played out by pawns.

Now, I'm not saying that's not also a valid reading of the film: Blade Runner opens itself to a myriad of interpretations, beyond whether the protagonist is actually what he hunts or not. What I find fascinating is the willingness to completely ignore a perfectly valid reading of the film based on the last part of one sentence. Darabont rejects Deckard-as-replicant, and therefore several people I know summarily reject his argument, not on the grounds of the argument itself but because Darabont makes a sweeping claim on personal grounds.

It's fine to disagree with Frank Darabont that the "theme" of Blade Runner might not be the emerging humanity of its protagonist, or even that the idea Deckard might be a replicant undermines that, but to simply disagree with his point simply because he disagrees with one reading of the film is actually performing the exact kind of sweeping claim he closes the argument with. He rejects the "Deckard replicant" argument, ergo you reject his argument; the baby out with the bath water. It doesn't matter that he might have a point (or that "Deckard is a replicant" proponents might have a case), because you disagree with his disagreement, everything is nullified. In a manner of speaking, the whole dialectic collapses for almost comical reasons: I disagree with your disagreement, therefore you are wrong, regardless of your evidence.

Not to put too fine a point on this, but this is an academic equivalent of internet "comment wars" between two opposing sides: your valid claim and argument is eradicated because you misspelled one word in your argument, therefore I am correct. While that may sound ridiculous taken out of context, consider that many people are ignoring the almost everything Darabont says in order to focus on the word "reject" in order to invalidate his position entirely.

He's taken not on the grounds of his argument, but the perceived imprecision of his closing, coupled with what I will concede are sweeping claims about the sophistication of the theme, which can either be applied to Darabont himself or to the editor who chose this particular thirty second clip from the entirety of an interview. Regardless, the contention I've found almost never stems from the "theme" argument, but from the word "reject." I'm not going to reject your rejection, but I will say that it confounds me that spirited academic (or cinematic) debates collapse so easily.




* Contained in quotations because the 1992 re-issue was not overseen by director Ridley Scott, who was filming Thelma and Louise during its construction, thus necessitating his "Final Cut" in 2007.

Follow-up Part Two: True Grit, the Coen Brothers, and the Rhetoric of Racism

(repeat of preamble: Today I thought I'd follow up on some reaction I've been getting about recent reviews / articles. Two threads have been met consistently with strong reactions - one of which I'd hoped to have closed the book one, and the other that continues to bother people I mention it to, so much so that it stopped a conversation dead the other night. )

Okay, I have been getting some serious grief for the suggestion in my True Grit review that the film - and by proxy, the Coen brothers - is "racist" towards Native Americans. Explaining what I saw and the reaction it had with a packed auditorium stopped a conversation dead in its tracks the other night. Fans of the Coen brothers - of which I consider myself and most of the people I know - are bristling at the mere mention of "racism" and the Coens in the same zip code.

I understand why, and why people are oversimplifying and thereby misinterpreting what the actual point I'm making is. I am not accusing Joel and Ethan Coen of being racist by constructing two scenes where Native Americans are clearly the butt of the joke; my problem is that they've taken their fondness for ironic detachment too far in True Grit, and it was totally lost on the crowd I saw it with. I don't make my point blindly or out of ignorance - I spent the better part of 2010 studying their films in depth and writing about the themes and undertones within, so I do feel that I have a case here, just as I feel the point is being wildly misread because of how loaded the term "racism" is.

The Coen brothers have a long history of including instances of casual racism on the part of their characters, particularly in "period" films. They consistently point out cultural norms that are outdated, often while mocking them - the KKK in O Brother Where Art Thou, the casual homophobia in The Man Who Wasn't There and Miller's Crossing (not to mention the ethnic stereotyping of "wops" and "micks"), or the "Uncle Remus" of The Hudsucker Proxy. They don't always use the prevailing attitudes of the time for comic purposes; at times, like the anti-Semitic neighbor in A Serious Man who only stands up for Larry when a Korean appears to be threatening him, is used to highlight overlooked forms of outdated racism.

And yes, I'm going to continue to use the term racism, which is where the bulk of this harsh reaction comes from, because it is a wholly adequate descriptor for much of what the Coen brothers like to highlight in an ironic fashion. "Oh, look how backwards we were then, isn't that funny?" I'm sorry if the terminology makes you uncomfortable, but this is a consistent, if under-represented, thematic device used in their films. It doesn't always work for them - in fact, it fails miserably in The Ladykillers, which presents two extremes in the spectrum of "caricatures of Black America" without any clear purpose, and I truly feel that True Grit represents a massive disconnect between their devoted fans and the casual audiences that flock their films every few years.

There are casual Coen fans, the kind of audiences who appear when the brothers tap into the cultural zeitgeist (or, to be honest, tend to briefly create it) - Raising Arizona, Fargo, O Brother Where Art Thou, and No Country for Old Men are examples of films that seem to inexplicably catch on with a wide audience, allowing the kind of success that permits films like A Serious Man, Miller's Crossing, Barton Fink, and The Man Who Wasn't There to fill in the gaps for devoted Coen fans. True Grit is the latest example, and it is being met with a fairly robust audience turnout, for whatever it is Joel and Ethan tapped into this time.

True Grit is also a film that takes place in post-Civil War Arkansas, where two of the three main protagonists served for the Confederacy. Rooster Cogburn has a heated discussion with LeBoeuf about whether Cogburn's service as one of Quantrill's Raiders counts as true service to the South, but the cultural framework the Coens are presenting (coming from Charles Portis' novel) is one where casual racism abounds. They choose to direct this racism towards Native Americans in the film, in what can only be read as another example of their pointed critique of outdated norms. And that would be fine, but I sincerely feel they overestimated their audience.

As I pointed out in my earlier review, both instances are structured for comedic effect. The first is a classic set-up of two long speeches followed by an abruptly shortened one from a character no one likes. The second is an over-compensation gag where the hero reacts to someone doing something bad by punishing them, allowing the punishee to reset, and then punishing them again. If there are technical terms for these, I'd be happy to hear them, but you can find both examples in most comedies, and the second example in nearly every Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton film. They are designed and executed on film for a laugh, period. Both scenes in True Grit are constructed for laughs, period.

My discomfort came from the audience I saw the film with that howled with laughter at both "gags," completely missing that the Coen brothers were commenting on racist attitudes towards Native Americans in the film's setting. The Coens have that track record, so I must take them at precedent rather than assume they thought this was funny at face value. The audience, on the other hand, people that honestly don't have the same exposure to this thematic trend, are laughing AT the joke, and not the commentary behind the joke. The commentary behind the joke isn't funny - it's sobering.

I can't bring myself to laugh at the audience that doesn't understand what they're seeing, and are becoming complicit in racial stereotyping for reasons contrary to its inclusion in the film. Instead, I became very uneasy. The fact that the actual "joke" is lost on audiences actually implies that there is a divide between the culturally backwards masses and the witty, erudite Coen brothers "cineaste," which made me feel more self conscious. I should have been laughing at the audience for playing out culturally scripted stereotypes, but I couldn't, and that troubles me on a number of levels.

For that, I must reiterate that while I enjoy True Grit as a film, I have difficulty reconciling the intention of the filmmakers with the experience of seeing it with an audience. The Coens were presenting yet another example of racism; the audience was responding to a joke set-up, and ne'er the twain shall meet, I fear.

The Curious Case of David Cronenberg

I have a pet theory; it's based on discussions over the years, one about certain directors and their bodies of work, but invariably I've noticed one trend consistent with one film maker / auteur / visionary (if you will): David Cronenberg. More than any other director I can think of, Cronenberg's films elicit a visceral reaction from their audience, and I happen to know several fans of his films - what this says about them (or me) is the subject of another discussion - and as time goes by, while in discourse about the Canadian, body-fixated, sometimes horror but not really, always shifting in subject matter, one consistent thread is visible.

There is one film for every person that doesn't "work" of Cronenberg's. The fascinating intangible in that for each of them, the film is different. One person hates Spider; another finds Videodrome's ending too "over-the-top"; yet another was underwhelmed by A History of Violence. For me, the clinical, dispassionate tone of Crash loses me every time. I have several ideas that may account for this theory, but let's look at the strongest case I can discern based on Cronenberg's oeuvre.

While almost all of Cronenberg's work deals with the body in some form or fashion - particularly with changes in the body and the abject horror / fascination that accompanies the changes, his approach varies considerably from film to film. Some are explicit: the mutant STD of Shivers, the transplanted / transformation in Rabid, whereas others are subtle in their approach - the schizophrenia of Dennis "Spider" Clegg, the visions of The Dead Zone, or the gender fluidity of M. Butterfly. Then there are the films that split the difference and hybridize the body with technology - identical twins and their custom gynecological devices in Dead Ringers, the literal "plugging in" of eXistenZ, and the auto-fetishism of Crash. Some are almost parodic in their bluntness: Videodrome's "New Flesh," or The Fly's Brundle metamorphosis. His work with Viggo Mortensen fixated on the idea of men who are not what they seem, who have undergone radical physical (Eastern Promises) or psychological (A History of Violence) changes in order to "fit in" or "start fresh."

Cronenberg also has a habit of adapting the "unfilmable," most famously by semi-translating William S. Burroughs Naked Lunch, but many would argue that J.G. Ballard's Crash was equally difficult to translate from novel to motion picture. He is a filmmaker who divides his time between original concepts and adaptations: including A Dangerous Method and Cosmopolis (Cronenberg's next two films) - 10 adaptations (one of which is a remake of The Fly), 5 original works, and two films written by someone else (Eastern Promises and Fast Company).

In total, this is a wildly varying body of work, from low budget shockers with graphic violence to quiet character studies to hallucinatory visits to the Interzone. There is certainly room for his fans to find a movie that doesn't "fit" or simply disengages them from the experience, but we need to take a step further. Is it a visceral response that turns them off? Not always - in the case of Spider, at least two people I know don't feel that the film is consistent with Cronenberg's thematic trends, whereas others - including, in the interest of full disclosure, myself - find the film to be a bridge from his literal body explorations to the figurative echoes in his recent work.

At time, I wonder if the emotionally distant approach evident in many - if not most - of David Cronenberg's films occasionally registers with his fans when it normally might not. Naked Lunch's mixture of biography and adaptation is, on first viewing, virtually impenetrable. Crash has no character with which to "enter" the story; James and Catherine Ballard (James Spader and Deborah Kara Unger) are wholly inaccessible throughout the film, even during the supposed "awakening" of James to the car crashing fetish. Naomi Watts' Anna is the entry point to Eastern Promises, but quickly vanishes into the background so that the stoic, reserved Nikolia (Mortensen)'s admittedly more intriguing story takes precedence.

The Fly comes the closest to to having two sympathetic, relatable characters: Seth Brundle (Jeff Goldblum) and Veronica Quaife (Geena Davis), but the films graphic, disgusting transformation sequences building towards Brundlefly keeps conventional audiences at a distance. However, The Fly is the only film I've never heard listed as anyone's "least favorite." Some point to eXistenZ, a few Dead Ringers, and Naked Lunch is mentioned as one of the less viewed films. Th availability of They Came from Within / Shivers, Rage / Rabid, and The Brood limits their exposure to fans. And then there's Fast Company, a movie I suspect might alter the theory slightly, if only more people knew it existed or had any interest in watching the film. Cronenberg's curious side-trip into the world of stock car racing, devoid of almost anything fans would recognize as "Cronenberg-ian," remains for hardcore fans and completists only, which actually applies to the audience addressed in this essay.

In any event, it seems that for every David Cronenberg fan, one film simply doesn't fit in / "work" / "do it." If the reason(s) aren't apparent or consistent from fan to fan, I feel comfortable in asserting that the theory itself is consistent. It also seems to be at least partially unique to Cronenberg; with many other "cult" directors, one finds a considerably more varied approach towards their filmography, with "ups" and "downs" not tied to one specific film - a trend that is trickier with Cronenberg (and some would argue, David Lynch) as the varied output is nevertheless tonally and thematically consistent.

As a final note, I turn the exploration to you: is this true? Is there one David Cronenberg film that means less to you than others? Why do you feel that is?

Re-Adapting and the Tainted Discourse of "Remakes"

In the last few years, it's become increasingly fashionable on the part of the critical community - not to mention the writers, directors, and producers - to, whenever possible, insist that their film is not a "remake," but instead a re-adaptation of the source material. This is nowhere more evident at this moment in the reactions to Joel and Ethan Coen's version of True Grit. The reviews are split, almost evenly, not along lines of quality, but in what to refer to the film as.

A cursory glance at Rotten Tomatoes provides the following descriptions: " new adaptation of Charles Portis' novel True Grit" (Pete Hammond), "remake of the 1969 classic Western" (Emmanuel Levy), and "the Coen brothers' back-to-the-book remake" (Pete Levy). There are plenty of mentions of John Wayne's Oscar winning* performance as Marshall Reuben "Rooster" Cogburn, but even among those who write about film, there's some debate how to handle remakes vs. re-adaptations. While I begin topically, True Grit exists in this essay to launch a broader discussion about what re-adaptations are, how they discursively differ from "strict" remakes, and the ambivalence surrounding the distinction exists.

From an audience perspective, it's doubtful that any such distinction matters, which further complicates the matter. As far as casual filmgoers are concerned, True Grit - like a number of other films "of the same name" - is merely a remake of the 1969 film, assuming they've seen or heard of the "original" in the first place. From at least one anecdotal case, it's clear that audiences of a certain age are refusing to see True Grit because it draws too strong a comparison to their memories of John Wayne. Trying to explain that a) this is not strictly a remake of that film, and more importantly b) that the "original" was actually based upon a book that this new iteration is drawing from is an exercise in futility.

This does not, however, render the discussion moot; audience reaction is a component of understanding film and film history, but of one steps back further, it is also clear that critics struggle with the dichotomy, one which is harder to ignore when the creative personnel behind any remake, re-imagining**, or re-adaptation insist that their work not be compared strictly to its cinematic ancestor. Why the sudden shift to stress that this "new" film is not merely artistic repetition, but is instead a wholly revised take on the "first" incarnation of the story (which, as a professor of mine was quick to point out at any occasion, was strictly the case with True Grit***).

The answer, functionally, is that the term "remake" has such a negative stigma attached to it that filmmakers feel shoehorned or lessened in their artistic goals by re-making a film. This is not necessarily a new phenomenon: when Steven Soderbergh was interviewed in 1995 during the release of his film The Underneath, based on Criss Cross (a novel by Don Tracy that was adapted in 1949 by Robert Siodmak), he was quick to point out that his version of Criss Cross was not to be viewed as a remake but as a re-adaptation of Tracy's novel for the modern era****. John Carpenter made a similar argument thirteen years earlier with The Thing, which was to be understood as an adaptation of John W. Campbell's short story "Who Goes There" and not a remake of The Thing from Another World.

Until the advent of the "Blockbuster Era" following the success of Steven Spielberg's Jaws, the practice of remaking a film was considered the norm in Hollywood. Studio chiefs thought nothing of the concept of revisiting familiar stories, favoring a style of artistic repetition that mirrored theatre: one story could (and should) be told in varying fashions by differing talents over the years, and very few films were considered sacrosanct or un-remake-able. The Maltese Falcon (adapted three times), Ben-Hur (twice), The Ten Commandments (twice), The Man Who Knew Too Much (twice), The King of Kings (twice), and Gaslight (twice), to name a few. Technically speaking, The Maltese Falcon acknowledged today as the "definitive" version - John Huston's 1941 film - is the third adaptation of Hammett's novel.

After the success of Jaws, one could argue that the rise of "pastiche" cinema - films which borrowed directly from several sources but were not technically remakes (for example, the synthesis of Buck Rogers and Kurosawa's The Hidden Fortress to make Star Wars) - replaced the concept of strict artistic repetition. Films were no longer always directly based on one film, and direct remakes tended to be limited to foreign films re-crafted into English language versions*****. This changed to a large degree in the early twenty-first century, when a wave of remakes of easily recognized horror titles (Dawn of the Dead, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre) were met with success at the box office. Audiences, perhaps unfamiliar with the film but certainly aware of the title, flocked to see remakes, and the floodgates opened.

With success comes excess, and if one remake works, the easiest solution for a studio is to simply green light more remakes, often with little concern to whether the film is any good or not******. However, that excess also draws harsh criticism from audiences who feel an affinity to the original and writers who study film and film history. The discourse becomes something along the lines of "why is this necessary to remake?" or "is this simply artistic laziness on the part of writers, directors, producers, and studios?" which, in the amplified echo chamber of online reviews, blogs, and "instant reaction" websites, is detrimental to any claims of "artistic integrity" on the part of "serious filmmakers", a term I put in quotations because of the ongoing debates by members of the critical community about what that means and who qualifies.

Enter the return of the claim of re-adaptation, a method by which directors like Steven Soderbergh (Solaris), Brian Helgeland (Payback), Steven Spielberg (The War of the Worlds), or Tim Burton (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory) can leapfrog a highly recognized film and instead lay claim to adapting the source material - almost always a novel - without the taint of "remaking" a classic film. This is not to claim any disingenuous-ness on their part, but it does distinguish their attempt at artistic repetition from the highly criticized practice of crassly cashing in on a recognizable title. It's certainly become a way for critics and professors to distinguish a "quality" remake from "standard Hollywood fare."

The problem with using re-adaptation as the preferred discursive term is that it often places a value judgment on "classes" of remakes - i.e., "remakes" are made for commerce and "re-adaptations" deserve serious critical assessment - which is not always the case. It assumes, and not always correctly, that the "auteur" theory is somehow linked to the intent behind artistic repetition, and accordingly some directors ought to be left off the hook or excused when they claim to be re-adapting from the source material whereas others should not. This, I suspect, is the reason that explaining re-adaptations to the broad movie going audience is so difficult for critics: while there is some merit in the distinction, its use discursively is still up for debate, and until the terms are disentangled from value judgments, one continues to see a schizophrenic approach in writing about remakes.

Hopefully, this has been helpful in some capacity, at least in demonstrating that there are differing schools of thought on remakes, both on the part of the people who make films and the people who write about them. If nothing else, it may ease navigating reviews of True Grit, which are likely to continue struggling with the ramifications of arguments listed above.




* His only, by the way, which is why 1969's True Grit casts such a long shadow for many viewers of the Coens' 2010 version.
** This term, while used almost as frequently as re-adaptation in circumventing the term "remake" is nevertheless easier to put aside for the time being. Technically speaking, it's an argument over semantics based on the "intent" of the filmmakers.
*** He also refused to show The Ladykillers during a class on the films of the Coen brothers, arguing that the other "official" remake they've done didn't merit studying.
**** The interview is available in the book "Steven Soderbergh Interviews" from The University of Mississippi press.
***** Another curious practice I'd like to return to at some point, as it replaced the idea of releasing a foreign film to an "art house" audience on its own merits somewhere between Amelie and Let the Right One In, and includes The Ring and The Departed as high profile examples.
****** Perhaps this is a cheap shot, considering that the same argument could be made about ANY film green lit of any medium: 3-D being the latest "gimmick" du jour.

From the Vaults: Remakes

editor's note: this earlier post, while unsophisticated in its writing, sets the stage for an essay scheduled to appear on Thursday.

Last week I was asked how I felt about remakes in general, and to some extent the over-reliance on them to prop up the film industry in the last few years. I thought I'd share my answer with you folks, plus a few other thoughts:

I don't know that I have an opinion on remakes in general, to be honest. I guess it depends on who's remaking the movie, why, and what they're planning to do with it.

The Maltese Falcon, for example, is a remake of a remake of an adaptation, but I really like that movie.

John Carpenter's remake of The Thing is among my favorite of his movies. Remakes of his films haven't been so successful, however (Assault on Precinct 13, The Fog, I'm assuming Halloween, and certainly Escape from New York aren't going to work).

What sets his remake of The Thing apart from The Thing From Another World (or the story both are based on, "Who Goes There?") is that while the plot outline is basically the same, Carpenter does something very different with the movie. It's the same reason I enjoyed Zack Snyder's Dawn of the Dead remake.

It's all the rage to remake horror movies from twenty years ago right now, which I guess isn't anything new (like I said, Falcon had three incarnations before 1945), but sometimes I can't help but think "why remake that?"

There's no reason to remake The Day the Earth Stood Still. I can't see how modern cgi is going to make Gort more imposing, or how the story is going to work considering how much the media and technology have changed in the last fifty years, but there's money to be made from it, so I guess more power to them.

There are some directors I wouldn't mind being able to see remake their own films, like Don Coscarelli. I really would have no problem with him remaking Phantasm, because as much as I like the original, he had very little to work with and the film suffers for it. Not just in the effects, but the editing and the sometimes jagged plot leaps.

But overall, there are some movies that stand well enough alone, and there's no point re-doing them. Remaking The Third Man, which isn't currently happening but certainly could, is an awful idea. I'm so glad the remake of Casablanca with Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez fell apart. But I'm not a soulless Hollywood executive looking for a lazy buck, so who knows what's coming next?

Some additional thoughts:

* Part of my reticence to see Rob Zombie's Halloween comes from Zombie's reason for re-making Halloween in the first place: I just don't care how Michael Meyers came to be The Shape, or whatever you want to call him. The thing that's really effective about Carpenter's Halloween is that there is no reason for why he does what he does (or, in several instances, goes out of the means of an average slasher to do it, specifically the way he kills Lynda, but also the drawn out stalking of Annie and Laurie), he just does it. Both times you actually see Michael's face (as a child and again towards the end), he's a blank slate, totally emotionless. I don't need to know that his step father beat him and that his mother was a stripper that didn't love him. Who cares? And one of the things I never really liked about Halloween II that Zombie felt the need to retrofit into his remake was the "Laurie is Michael's sister" angle. The less you know about the killer, the better. Freddy was scarier before he was the "Bastard son of a hundred maniacs"; Jason was more effective as that hillbilly survivalist freak that crept around the woods.

* I realize that several of the movies I mentioned in the initial answer were based on books or stories, and as such it's a little dodgy calling different versions of them "Remakes". I mean, Peter Jackson didn't really remake Ralph Bakshi, did he? Or Rankin and Bass, for that matter. I suppose that's trickier territory, but the film's do have an attachment for people who've seen another version. For example, I think it's fair to assume when the Peter Pan movie came out a few years ago that folks were at the very least thinking of the Walt Disney version while watching it.

* Why are horror remakes so prevalent right now? Well, for one thing, most of them can be made on the cheap. Since the originals weren't made for much, it only stands to reason that you throw a few reasonably recognizable faces on the screen, make it for a few million dollars, market the shit out of it right before it comes out, and turn a profit on opening weekend. It worked for House of Wax. It's working for Halloween. It worked for The Hills Have Eyes, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and Dawn of the Dead. Is it going to work for April Fool's Day? Probably not (future Cap'n interjecting here: it didn't), but even if they just barely perform, there's dvd and foreign sales to at least recoup the loss. They're certainly cheaper than something like Escape from New York or The Day the Earth Stood Still, both of which are being remade as I type this, and will no doubt have more substantial budgets than the Troll remake, for example.

* As I've said before, remakes are really nothing new. Go to any place that sells or rents dvds and poke around for a while. How many versions of Ben Hur are there? King of Kings? The Ten Commandments? Other than the name, what's so different about and Double IndemnityBody Heat? How many King Kongs are there (hint: more than two)?

* Hitchcock and Ozu both remade their own films, for instance. This isn't really anything new, it's just easier to pick up on because of the availability of the films being remade nowadays, especially if a particularly savvy (read: greedy) company decides to re-release the film on dvd right before it comes out in theatres.

We don't have to like it, even if it is nothing new, and you can do something about it by not going to see it. Or maybe you do want to. They're not all bad, no matter what the reactionary tells you. And believe it or not, there are some movies that could benefit from a remake. Consciously or not, I believe that when Sam Raimi made The Evil Dead, he did the movie Equinox a great favor, by taking a similar premise and giving it a proper shake. As it is, Equinox is an interesting student film, but The Evil Dead, with almost exactly the same concept, is a cult classic.

Do remakes have their place? Yeah, maybe; just like any other genre of film, there'll be good and bad ones, and accordingly, it's difficult to make blanket statements about them. The ones I like don't replace the originals, they just sit alongside them. The ones I don't just kind of sit off to the side, forgotten with all the bad original movies that clog up the cineplex every year. C'est la vie.

Blogorium Review: Singles

I have a pet theory about Cameron Crowe's Singles, a movie the Cap'n initially avoided in the wave of "90s movies about 20-something existential angst" - a list which includes, but is not limited to, Slacker, Reality Bites, Before Sunrise, Clerks, Empire Records, and, even though it doesn't directly address "Generation X," Dazed and Confused. The theory goes like this: Singles is Crowe's attempt to replicate French cinema from the 1960s, creating a sort of "Grunge New Wave."

Upon first viewing, it's immediately apparent how "not" like other Cameron Crowe films Singles is: Most of his films (before and after Singles) focus on a single character - Lloyd Dobler, William Miller, and, well, Jerry Maguire. Each protagonist navigates their way through life, and generally finds "the one" early in the film. By comparison, the sprawling, interconnected storyline of Singles deviates from Crowe's body of work.

There are, arguably, four main characters in Singles: Linda Powell (Kyra Sedgwick), Steve Dunne (Campbell Scott), Janet Livermore (Bridget Fonda), and Cliff Poncier (Matt Dillon). Their interactions with each other forms the core of the film, and while Crowe begins the film with one character and ends with another, it's easy to see that one could say Singles is, in fact, a film about the travails of two couples. But where does one draw the line with story lines being "less" important.

For example, is Debbie Hunt (Sheila Kelley)'s story less important because it occupies the middle of the film? Debbie's quest for love through video dating happens during a segment while Janet and Cliff and Linda and Steve are on rocky territory, but its resolution seems no less important to Crowe's overall exploration of single life. Is Andy (James LeGros) any less important to Linda's story than Steve is? Does Dr. Jeffrey Jamison (Bill Pullman) factor into the decision Janet makes to break up with Cliff?

How do we factor in the many (many) cameos in Singles: Eric Stoltz (The Mime), Jeremy Piven (Doug Hughley), Tom Skerrit (Mayor Weber) Paul Giamatti (Kissing Man), Xavier McDaniel (Himself), Debi Maza (Brenda), Soundgarden's Chris Cornell (Guy Listening to Cliff's Stereo), Pearl Jam's Stone Gossard, Jeff Ament, and Eddie Vedder (Cliff's "Citizen Dick" band members), or my personal favorite Tim Burton (Brian, the Dating Video director), identified as "the next Martin ScorSAYZ."

Singles is filled with overlapping story lines, characters who hover in an out of the narrative, and while the Steve and Linda plot adheres closely to the standard "romantic comedy" tropes we're used to, it also retains much of Crowe's layered, relatable, human characters. Even if audiences can see where Singles is going, the film is imbued with heart and never rings a false tone.

But all of these elements still don't meet the "Grunge New Wave" descriptive I suggested at the outset. What does is a number of small, relatively unorthodox - even for 1992 American cinema - storytelling techniques that echo various entries from the French New Wave. To begin with, let's address the way Crowe tells the story of Singles, or rather the way his characters do. Cast members (specifically the "central four") at times speak directly to the camera, as though the audience is a participating observer in the story. It disappears for a while in the movie, but returns near the end when Dillon's Cliff begins tying ancillary stories up, and provides us with insight into the mind of the film's least developed character*. When characters don't directly break the "fourth wall," audiences are privy to non-omniscient voice-over narration, limiting our access to our immediate protagonist. But still, this doesn't point us directly to the French New Wave. Let's push further...

I draw my curious theory from two specific elements of the film, both of which seem to derive from specific Jean-Luc Godard films: dialogue often begins in one scene and continues into another**, reminiscent of Breathless. The more direct reference is based in the way Crowe punctuates Singles - with title cards loosely (or specifically) related to the vignette to follow, which seems to me to be directly lifted from Vivre Sa Vie's "12 Tableaus." Since Crowe directly references Breathless, Truffaut's Jules and Jim and Resnais' Last Year at Marienbad in Vanilla Sky, I don't think my instincts are far off.

The "Grunge" element, if not already evident, comes from the film's setting (Seattle in 1992), the soundtrack (featuring Mother Love Bone, Pearl Jam, Alice in Chains, Soundgarden, Screaming Trees, Mudhoney, and Tad) and featuring a score by Paul Westerberg with additional music by Chris Cornell (including an early version of what would become "Spoonman"). My only impression of Singles prior to seeing the film was "that's the grunge movie," one that seemed to be tapping into the Generation X zeitgeist, and 18 years later, while it's not just a "grunge" movie, it certainly feels like Crowe's take on New Wave cinema through a distinctly American lens.

If you've never seen Singles, or avoided it for reasons similar to mine, I hope this review / critical analysis helps dissuade your misgivings. To this point I'd only ever missed two Cameron Crowe films (the other being Elizabethtown), and in many respects, it's better that I waited so long. A little perspective goes a long way, and if the film holds up on its own, then the experience is that much richer.

* Cliff is nearly a caricature of "grunge" culture for most of the film, and I feel like Crowe makes the right decision in handing the closing exposition to him, paving the way for reconciling with Janet. ** I saw at least two reviews of Scott Pilgrim vs. the World that cited this exact technique as proof that the film was "ground breaking," which even without Breathless and Singles sounded absurd.

Plans for the Year(s) to Come

As promised last week, here is an excerpt from my "personal statement" designed to lay out some research plans for the future. Additionally (and because you're such nice people), I'm going to include some extra "deleted" ideas, along with plans for the Blogorium in the coming year:

Intertextuality in film has always fascinated me; following the connective tissue from one film to another - homage, imitation, discursive elements, or direct references – I followed the influences of Fritz Lang on Ridley Scott or of Preston Sturges on Joel and Ethan Coen, developing a lexicon to express trends apparent in my research. Accordingly, I consider furthering the development of intertextuality in film history to be a crucial component in my graduate studies.

I am also interested in pursuing research into theories of authorship, particularly in the “post-auteur” and “anti-auteur” positions taken by filmmakers like Steven Soderbergh and the Coen brothers. The development of the term auteur and its subsequent backlash is a movement within film theory that is fascinating to me, and exploring the usefulness of “director as author” in a contemporary setting - one removed from “auteur” as catch-all phrase in the 1980s – seems to have been largely abandoned in the twenty-first century. Is the auteur theory still valid? Has the term lost all meaning, or has its mutation rendered directors afraid of being “branded” the author of their films? Alternately, there are a number of “authorless” or minimized directorial presences in cinematic “mash-ups” like Miike’s Sukiyaki Western Django.

One field of research that appeals to me is the idea of artistic repetition; this is not limited to direct remakes (although the trend towards those merits investigation), but also the presence of virtually identical stories that appear persistently over a period of time – Yojimbo / Fistful of Dollars / The Warrior and the Sorceress / Last Man Standing – and the differences between recurring themes in literature and film compared to direct repetition of title, plot, and marketing. For example, how is does the 2009 remake of The Last House on the Left differ from the intertextual relationship between The Virgin Spring and Wes Craven’s The Last House on the Left?

The horror genre, which is often considered a barren field for critical study, remains a point of focus I hope to expand on during my studies. Over the last five years, I made a concerted effort to collect and research the various theoretical approaches to horror, from Carol Clover to David Skal to Robin Wood and Barbara Creed. I am particularly interested in the way that gender and violence are portrayed in horror, from the “slasher” era to the present, with particular focus on the way that “Final Girl” variations are portrayed in French horror films like High Tension, Martyrs, Them, and Frontier(s).

Horror films are often undervalued in critical theory because the volume of low quality releases often overwhelms films with something to say. Does a high profile flop like Cursed overshadow a feminist reinterpretation of werewolves like Ginger Snaps? In order to combat the assertion the genre is “lacking,” I have hosted annual horror festivals in the summer and autumn to expose audiences to films lost in the “white noise” of aggressive marketing for sequels, remakes, and gimmick releases.

With regards to film history as a social movement, I have a long-standing desire to pursue the history of independent cinema from the 1950s to the 1980s through the venue of the Drive-In, where distributors showcased non-studio pictures outside of major cities. Until the advent of home video effectively killed the Drive-In, I suspect one can trace the movement of independent cinema from smaller territories across the U.S. by following Drive-In “culture,” despite James Naremore’s doubts that such a thing ever existed (based on a passage in More Than Night: Film Noir in its Contexts).

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Meanwhile, as the blogorium moves into year three on Blogspot, I've been making plans to improve on the existing weekly layout. It's becoming increasingly obvious to the Cap'n that I'm running out of "readable" posts for the "From the Vaults" on Tuesdays. Starting in January, I'm planning on replacing that feature with alternating "Four Reasons" and "Five Movies" posts in order to incorporate their presence back into rotation. I'll also open up Tuesdays to what I call "retro reviews," based on films I've seen in the past but never reviewed, or expansions on existing reviews from the Myspace era*.

I'd also like to invite readers to help pick a section tentatively called "Best of the Blogorium," built from your suggestions, votes, and picks for favorite reviews, features, essays, and other random posts. The "Best of the Blogorium" would then appear as a tab on the right side of the screen, allowing new readers to see the Cap'n at his best without being overwhelmed by the sheer number of posts to wade through.

Down the line, I might consider adding direct links to help readers find copies of Thankskilling, Coen brothers text books, and other horror films featured during Horror and Summer Fest, but that's a bit off yet.

That's what I've been working on, and hopefully the first signs of new directions in the Blogorium will appear in the coming months and years. Keep reading, and I'll keep writing.

* It turns out that most of the "reviews" in the old Blogorium were barely a paragraph and only gave the tiniest amount of information possible, something I feel I can adjust.

Winnebago Man vs. Best Worst Movie

As I alluded to yesterday in my review of Ben Steinbauer's Winnebago Man, I'm slightly perplexed why none of the reviews I've seen have compared the documentary to another, very similar type of film, Michael Stephenson's Best Worst Movie. While they differ in the medium addressed, Best Worst Movie and Winnebago Man are functionally about the same thing: a long-forgotten piece of media has taken on a new life, separate from the people principally involved with it, and a filmmaker sets out to connect with one specific person and build a documentary around their reaction to new-found fame (or infamy).

Both films begin with an introduction to the "cult" following, including interviews with critics, media personalities, other people involved with the production, and then set about focusing the film on one person who the director feels is impacted most. Both films feature directors who are personally involved in the narrative of the documentary and both feel they have a stake in their subject. Best Worst Movie and Winnebago Man also deal in the culture of "to be laughed AT," a relatively popular phenomenon in the age of the internet and of "viral videos," where the subject(s) of mockery are largely removed from their audience, especially in the case of Troll 2 and Rebney's Winnebago outtakes.

Where they differ is on two key distinctions: the type of media (and the way it is /was disseminated) and the reaction of the film's "subject" (in Winnebago Man, Jack Rebney; in Best Worst Movie, George Hardy). These differences are critical in the success or failure of each film, in part because they frame the "subject" of the film and their audience well before the two ever meet on camera.

The first distinction is an important one, and it explains to some extent why Winnebago Man stumbles in its mid-section. The "viral video," and specifically Rebney's outtakes, are generally speaking viewed on an individual level. One person watches the video on Youtube (or videocassette, as is explained in the film), and passes it on to someone else. We watch them alone, we enjoy them alone, and don't tend to think of these videos as a truly "shared" experience. Gatherings to view the footage, like the Found Film Festival which is featured in Winnebago Man, are fairly rare events.

Troll 2, on the other hand, expanded from an initial home video run to appear regularly in theatres as a "midnight movie" like The Rocky Horror Picture Show. The experience of Troll 2, unlike the Winnebago outtakes, is inherently communal. In nearly every instance during Best Worst Movie, it's clear that fans enjoy watching the film together, laughing at the film together, and sharing the experience of Troll 2. The audiences also seem much more invested in the idea of meeting a George Hardy or a Michael Stephenson than a Jack Rebney, who the founders of the Found Film Festival assumed was dead.

This brings us to our second distinction, and the one that benefits one film and seriously undermines the other: the subject(s). I understand why Ben Steinbauer was interested in finding Jack Rebney: it's a fascinating project to track down the "lost" star of one of YouTube's most popular videos, and to find out how he feels about his indirect fame. The problem is that once it is apparent Rebney has no desire whatsoever to interact with Steinbauer on those terms, Winnebago Man struggles to move forward. Jack Rebney offers no insight into the questions Steinbauer hoped to answer, and moreover, he refuses to interact with the fan base the director planned on connecting him to for almost three years.

George Hardy, on the other hand, is a relatively benign subject who has fond memories of making Troll 2 and an inkling that people seem to like the film now, partly because Stephenson was also in the film. Michael Stephenson lucked out, in some ways, by choosing Hardy to expose to the screenings of Troll 2 he'd been observing prior to making Best Worst Movie. Hardy is easygoing, gregarious, and clearly a little struck by the sudden popularity he encounters, and he has the benefit of knowing the director as they experience Troll 2's resurgence together. Best Worst Movie can then accordingly document Hardy's rise and fall as a quasi-celebrity, complete with a narrative arc right out of classic Hollywood: the humble hero who brushes with fame, becomes consumed with it, and then realizes that it isn't all it's cracked up to be. Stephenson has a willing participant and Best Worst Movie becomes something more than a document of a twenty-year-old stinker's "cult" status, and as luck would have it, no one needs to be prodded to make it happen*.

Trying to manufacture an event with the mercurial Rebney moves the film out of the realm of "what would happen if" and make it a "let's see what happens when I drag someone who clearly isn't interested in what I want to do out of his comfort zone and put him face to face with people he doesn't want to meet for reasons he has every right to express. It reminded me of something that hasn't happened yet - but could - tied to Best Worst Movie.

During a post-screening Q&A, one of the producers indicated that Fragasso wanted to make a Troll 2: Part 2 (in 3-D), and if that were to happen, they would certainly document it for a Best Worst Movie 2. And that's a horrible, misguided idea, I have to say. It's not simply trying to catch lightning in a bottle again; the concept as presented is trying to create it, and that never works. Troll 2 isn't the endearing train wreck it is because the writer, director, cast, and crew set out to make the "best worst movie": it was simply the accidental byproduct of their efforts.

By making a Troll 2: Part 2, everyone involved (and especially the people making Best Worst Movie 2) is going to have the reputation of Troll 2 in their minds, and many of them will be trying to replicate it - or worse, play it up. The documentary crew is certainly hoping for this (and if you doubt me, they also expressed hopes for a reality series with George Hardy and The Room's Tommy Wiseau that fortunately never came to pass) and the result will be a film trying so hard to be bad (on a conscious level or not) that it lacks the necessary "it" that makes Troll 2 the "best worst movie." It's like expecting Jack Rebney to show up at a screening of his Winnebago outtakes ready to spew profanity and swat at flies.

Winnebago Man dances around the nature of Rebney's "fans" by portraying them exactly as he suspected while waiting in line but then soft-pedaling the Q&A and post-screening. Only one person expressly states their perception of the "Angriest RV Salesman in the World" was way off, while other people exiting the theatre substitute for earlier interviews (who sometimes appear taking pictures with him but saying nothing, thereby neither asserting or refuting their earlier opinions). Best Worst Movie doesn't directly address the fan reaction with Stephenson, but the film certainly shows you the ugly side of how the "laughing AT" audiences regard Fragasso, Hardy, and Troll 2 in general. The fans move from genuinely enthusiastic near the beginning to partially hostile (or at least incredibly judgmental, as with the case of the "how come it's called Troll 2 when there are no trolls?" question) to the people involved. There's an ugly undercurrent to the fan relationship in Best Worst Movie that Steinbauer avoids addressing during the second half of Winnebago Man**, much to the latter's disadvantage, in part because the film struggles to find its footing at that point.

I do feel that Best Worst Movie is successful in ways that Winnebago Man is not, but I would like to point out that this is not the fault of Ben Steinbauer: he found himself in the unenviable position of changing a documentary midway through his search with a subject that continued to throw him curveballs and refuse to meet him halfway on almost every decision. Winnebago Man is a well constructed documentary that lost its sense of purpose and has to push onward. Best Worst Movie has the tremendous benefit of everything falling into place in a compelling manner, but this is not to belittle or undermine Stephenson, who put together a consistently entertaining, endearing, funny, and disturbing documentary. It takes just as much work to make either film, and I think they both handle their subject manner in the best way possible. One has a better go at it for me, but I understand why the other one exists, and more importantly, deserves to be seen.



* It doesn't hurt that Best Worst Movie is also populated with a host of interesting supporting characters, from the rest of the cast of Troll 2 to its egotistical director, Claudio Fragasso. Winnebago Man ultimately rests on Jack Rebney's shoulders, and he's clearly less interested in being the subject of that particular documentary than anyone in Best Worst Movie.
** Early in the film, he interviews two hosts of a "found video" cable access show that state upfront they have no interest in ever meeting Rebney or anyone else in the tapes they receive. To meet the person associated with the injury or embarrassment would remove any joy taken from their suffering, they explain, which is a telling comment the film never again explores.

From the Vaults: Night of the Living Dead

Note from the Cap'n: I wrote this in October of 2006, so it's a long way away from my normal "style," such as it is. It's a recap / brief analysis of Night of the Living Dead and (partially) Dawn of the Dead.

Film Report:

George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead

While considered the godfather of the “zombie” film, it is interesting to note that in the combined running times of Night of the Living Dead and Dawn of the Dead, George Romero only uses the term once. In fact, in Night of the Living Dead, the common terms used are either “ghoul” or “thing” (in Dawn of the Dead, this is further simplified to “they”). While Romero addresses the abject as dominant plot points in all of his “dead” movies, they are merely decoration for his larger commentary on society in general.

Both Night of the Living Dead and Dawn of the Dead are set in confined spaces (as is Day of the Dead, and to some extent, Land of the Dead). Although the spaces grow larger in each film, the point remains the same; presenting the space as a microcosm for the larger world. While both films present racial and sexual diversity, the intended effect changes as the series progresses. In Night of the Living Dead, we are introduced to Johnny (Russell Streiner) and Barbara (Judith O’Dea), brother and sister who drive to a remote part of Pennsylvania to visit their father’s grave. Johnny is almost immediately killed, and Barbara escapes to a nearby farmhouse, pursued by the ghoul who murdered her brother.

Shortly thereafter, we meet Ben (Duane Jones), who, when realizing his chances of driving to safety are slim, barricades himself inside the farmhouse with a shell shocked Barbara. It is important to note at this point that Ben is black, although at no point in the film is this ever drawn attention to, a somewhat radical notion considering that Night of the Living Dead was made during the height of the civil rights movement. To have a black man as your lead actor and not make any distinction between him and the rest of the cast is in and of itself a statement (Romero would continue this trend with Ken Foree in Dawn of the Dead). Ben is a voice of reason, using the radio to give context to this experience, and boarding up windows and doorways to keep the growing numbers of undead outside.

What Ben and Barbara cannot know is that they are not alone in the house. Hiding in the cellar are Harry Cooper (Karl Hardman), his wife Helen (Marilyn Eastman), their daughter (Kyra Schon), Tom (Keith Wayne), and Judy (Judith Ridley), who also arrived at the house as a result of the living dead. Note that none of the people hiding inside of this house are the people who live there. Ownership is not the issue in Night of the Living Dead, but rather the reactions and tensions between people trapped in a situation they don’t understand.

There is little information to draw on initially in the film; until identified by radio broadcast, the audience is unaware that the dead have returned to life (although the first appearance of a ghoul in a graveyard is a subtle hint) or the nature of these killers. The flesh eating aspect of the living dead, one which exists to further the abject nature of these creatures, goes wholly unaddressed when Johnny dies (he is killed from striking his head against a gravestone). The concept of the dead rising to eat the flesh of the living is a terrifying one; in our minds, we do not see them as the dead, but rather as reflections of ourselves. How can people we know return from the dead and want only to consume us?

Because the specific nature of their threat is unclear, each person has a varying reaction. Harry wants to lock his family in the basement and hide out until the threat subsides; his wife, upon the discovery that there are stations offering medical assistance, demands they leave to seek help for their injured daughter. Tom and Judy are confused, but come to believe Ben’s ideas are better than Cooper’s. Ben, who, to the consternation of Cooper, becomes the informal leader, first insists they stay inside the house, and then, learning the gas pump outside is accessible, formulates a plan by which they can all reach safety. Barbara, on the other hand, is an unintelligible mess, constantly talking about Johnny and incapable of taking any actions on her own.

When their plans go awry, inadvertently killing Tom and Judy, Ben returns to the house to find the power structure changed; Cooper’s paranoia leads to a final splintering as the dead close in on less fortified doors, and the siege of the living dead will effectively destroy their temporary union, leading, in all cases, to death. Cooper, in an act of defiance, takes Ben’s rifle, and as a result of the ensuing struggle, is mortally wounded. He returns to the basement to find something wholly unexpected; his reanimated daughter, who kills him and Helen. Barbara is finally reunited with her dead brother, only moments before being consumed in a mass of zombies. Ben escapes to the basement, and killing the reanimated Cooper family, he finds sanctuary at last.

While this narrative mounts, a second narrative begins off-screen, introduced on a television we find in the house, that of Sherriff McClelland (George Kosana) and the local police / militia efforts to subdue this undead uprising. The two storylines intersect with tragic consequences; after a long night in the cellar, Ben hears the sound of McClelland’s men outside of the house and comes upstairs, only to be mistaken for a zombie and killed, his efforts to stay alive subverted by one bullet.

It is easy to see how this film is a reflection of its time; after all, the undead could stand for any (and perhaps all) forms of social upheaval taking place in the late 1960’s (Vietnam, civil rights, etc), and the reactions of each character a reflection of how people dealt with shifts in society. Ben dies not because he chooses to adapt to the changing environment, but because he is mistaken as part of the problem. The unspoken nature of his race is now evident; Ben is mistaken for the living dead not out of malice, but ignorance. As a result, his death is more potent than that of the other characters, and cannot help but be linked to the bigger picture. Just as Romero attacks rampant consumerism in Dawn of the Dead, he approaches racism, war, and social upheaval in one fell swoop. Is it so difficult to imagine the living dead as severely wounded Vietnam veterans? (In Dawn of the Dead, it seems they stand for the have nots in the class system) While the fear of death and the abject is enough to keep us startled and aware of our protagonist’s plight, Romero has greater aspirations, which he continues in each of his zombie films, his saga of the living dead. The dead are a mirror with which to view ourselves, what we become and how we behave in the world. Whether greed, feminism, science versus the military, or reacting to terrorism by closing ourselves off, Romero will point the finger at humanity and the dead will rise again to bite it off.

Blogorium Review: Splatter University (Re-visited)

Once upon a time, the Cap'n reviewed Splatter University, and in my younger and less critically astute days, I wrote the film off as a cheap knock-off slasher flick, looking to cash in on a craze already waning. Now that I've had some time doing serious film criticism, I can clearly see the error of my ways: Splatter University is a sly condemnation of religious extremism and Reagan-era politics disguised as an undistinguished, dispassionate entry into the horror omnibus. It disguises its own apparent inspiration from the Italian giallo film in order to "pass" as "just another slasher film," but when the right eyes view Splatter Universtiy*, it can be understood as the subtle masterpiece it is.

Do not be misled by its lurid artwork or relatively inane title; Splatter University is, in fact, the real deal. First time director Richard W. Haines, who co-wrote the film with John Michaels, Michael Cunningham, and Miljan Peter Ilich use the tropes of the "slasher film" to craft a rich and layered cinematic text which simultaneously serves and criticizes the subgenre of horror it is "categorized" in. (For my money, it exists in a higher echelon, but to this point Splatter University has been almost wholly ignored by the critical community).

On a surface level, the plot seems benign: At the outset, we begin our story in a mental institution (shades of Halloween or The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari), where a patient escapes by murdering one of the doctors and assuming his identity. Three years later, a Sociology professor is brutally murdered at St. Trinian's College, and the following semester her replacement, Julie Parker (Francine Forbes) arrives to take on a campus of indifferent, sexually active eighteen-to-twenty-year-olds. Parker immediately runs afoul of Father Janson (Dick Biel), the conservative head of St. Trinian's, but finds an ally in fellow professor Mark Hammond (Ric Randig). Meanwhile, the killer is still stalking the campus, picking off students one by one. Can Julie discover who the campus slasher is before it's too late?

This reasonably innocuous plot synopsis would suggest that Splatter University is nothing more than a so-called "whodunit," but the details that fill in the story are indicative of a film fully aware of what can be done in the confines of horror (an oft maligned genre). For example:

The murder weapon in Splatter University - a knife - is concealed within a crucifix, hinting at the duality in Christianity between preaching peace and practicing war. This is one of many damning references to religious hypocrisy in Splatter University: during her first class, Julie asks the class to identify something they feel strongly about as a way of weaving sociology into their daily lives, and when a Priest observing the class reports to Father Jensen that the student - not Parker - offers up the subject of abortion, she is ordered into his office and given a proverbial "brow beating" for deviating from the "tried and true curriculum" at St. Trinian's. The jab at Reagan-era conservatism and religious intolerance of "hot button" issues is unmistakable, and Father Janson's attitude is consistent with that of a man unwilling to adapt to a social environment that no longer reflects his "traditional" lesson plans.

It is no coincidence that Haines places Janson in a wheelchair, symbolizing his inability to take action and be a "real" man of God (something that will be addressed below). Similarly, another Priest is noted by the students for having sexual "flings" with his students under the guise of "confession," and during one conversation with a amorous teen, the camera (from the priest's perspective) wanders up and down her body, a classic example of film as voyeurism. Another Priest is slyly named after Anthony Perkins, an intertextual nod to his role as Norman Bates in Psycho. The institution of faith is corrupt, potentially psychotic, or riddled with infirmity.

The critique of Ronald Reagan's "Happy America" in the 1980s - which in no way reflected the reality of unemployment, inflation, and increases in diseases like HIV - continues throughout Splatter University. It's simply easier for characters to ignore things like unexpected pregnancies, infidelity, teenage drinking, cheating, and even murder. Half of the characters are blithely unaware that their significant others are being killed, and their disappearance from the narrative often goes totally unnoticed, particularly by the students. A police presence, while occasionally referred to by Father Janson, are physically nonexistent in Splatter University. For Father Janson, the death of students and teachers is an "inconvenience," but should not disrupt the upright appearance of St. Trinian's.

It is worth noting that Splatter University was produced by Lloyd Kaufman (founder of Troma films), who is no stranger to incorporating relevant social commentary into films that, on the surface, appear to be little more than cheap exploitation. For example, The Toxic Avenger and The Class of Nuke 'Em High - which Kaufman co-directed with Haines - deal with growing anti-nuclear hysteria in the mid-to-late eighties, and similar critiques of war appear in Combat Shock and Troma's War. That Splatter University is not openly identified as a "Troma Team Production" is an attempt to allow its social commentary not to be tied to gratuitous nudity and extreme violence - which are generally absent in the film.

Other examples of social commentary tied to the "Me Generation," appear in smaller, visual gags, like a girl involved in a love triangle being murdered and dumped into a garbage bin marked "Consumer," where her corpse is pelted with beer cans by passing students. Similarly, Julie's attempts to quit St. Trinian's are met with indifference by Father Jensen (conveniently, Julie is seated near a trash can marked "Waste" in a similar graffiti stencil to the "Consumer" bin). Julie has failed the traditionalist Janson, and is no more use to him than common street trash. Another victim dies because she fails to notice the killer is "in the closet" ("AIDS Kills," anyone?). Clever sight gags like these make it clear that Haines knew exactly what he was doing, despite the apparent "crudeness" of Splatter University's mise-en-scene.

Splatter University also turns the frequently misogynistic slasher film on its ear by exposing the practice to a nearly parodic degree. Save for the doctor killed in the beginning (who is, for all intents and purposes, castrated by the killer), all of the victims in the film are female. Their punishment for sexual promiscuity does not, under any circumstances, extend to the equally culpable young men, who are portrayed as callous and indifferent. One student, upon discovering he impregnated his girlfriend, at first disbelieves her, and then leaves his car (they are at a Drive-In), and becomes angry that she won't "make out with him" when he returns. Despite sitting within three feet of his girlfriend, he fails to notice that her "coldness" is due entirely to being dead.

Additionally, Splatter University bucks the trend of having a "Final Girl" - already a well established trope in the "slasher" genre at this point - by killing off Julie before the film ends, leaving Mark to discover Father Janson is, in fact, Daniel Grayham, the escaped mental patient. The dual Janson / Grayham makes a half-hearted attempt to blame Mark for Julie's death, but in his haste to hide his own sin, he neglects to clean the knife before returning it to his crucifix, and the resulting blood - shades of the sin of Judas and the "blood of the lamb" - damns him to return to the insane asylum, where Grayham continues to rant about "those dirty, dirty whores." The critique of religious fundamentalism is unmistakable by the end of Splatter University: when the major religious figure in the film is equated to mental instability, we can draw no other conclusions.

Despite attempts to marginalize Splatter University as "just another slasher film," as though it was somehow devoid of merit, it is evident that the film is rife with subtextual commentary for audiences with well developed critical faculties. While it lacks the substantive body of scholarly work that The Texas Chain Saw Massacre or the Friday the 13th series, one need only sharpen ones observational skills to dig beneath the surface, where a rich and untapped example of cinema-as-social-critique awaits, in Splatter University.



* Mine, clearly.

Hint: If you ever see me use the words "clearly" or "definitely," I am almost certainly lying. This essay is designed to gently mock a series of reviews I've been reading on another blog - which I choose not to identify for the sake of its author - that read like someone programmed "critic speak" into a computer and asked it to generate a series of reviews. It reflects, I'm afraid, a style of film criticism that is more concerned with sounding "educated" than actually saying anything, and totally lacks personality.


This little exercise exists too prove a point: I deliberately chose a film that could, if one wanted to try hard enough, make a mountain out of a molehill. It doesn't hurt that a film titled "Splatter University" has almost no shot of being taken seriously, and with good reason. While all of the elements listed above are in the film, the cumulative effect of their presence seems to be more accidental than deliberate, particularly because of how sloppy the climax of Splatter University is.

Since the other writer doesn't read this blog, I feel no need to link to it, as he wouldn't get the joke. The actual film falls... no, I wouldn't even say it falls between the original review and this one. However, to prove I'm not pulling this analysis out of my ass, here's a footnote that seems very close to what I wrote (and I didn't find this until after the review was finished).

From the Vaults: Frankenstein

editor's note: continuing with the past two weeks, here is another critical essay from Hollywood Horror and Beyond.

Film Report:

James Whale’s Frankenstein

Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein, it could be argued, has little in common with James Whale’s Frankenstein (and, indeed, this is James Whale, not Universal’s, picture). Granted, the core of the story remains the same: Frankenstein defies the laws of man and creates a “monster” designed from cadavers and given life through electricity, but the similarities end shortly thereafter. Shelley’s is a tale of science gone awry; Whale’s a veiled commentary on persecution.

James Whale was perhaps most famous for being a homosexual at a time when it was not considered wise to be open in such matters, and his films are infused with a perspective unlike that of many horror directors, and in time would come to be identified as “camp”. With subsequent pictures The Old Dark House and Bride of Frankenstein, Whale’s wicked sense of humor grew more refined, but Frankenstein is nevertheless infused with his unique outlook on the world.

After a prologue William Castle would be proud of, Frankenstein begins proper with two title cards. Whether the art on these cards was the conception of Whale or of Carl Lammele Jr., we are unsure, but they speak some volume of what is to come. The first such image, superimposed by the film’s title, is of an ominous half-face peering above a wall, eyes casting beams below, and hideous claws outstretched. Clearly, this is meant to set about unease in the 1931 audience’s mind, but the second image is less clear. As the cast, crew, and director are identified, a series of disembodied eyeballs rotate on the screen like some hypnotist’s wheel, and in the center, a bodiless head which resembles nothing so much as Nosferatu himself, with its bald head and elongated ears and chin. This image has nothing to do with the film to come, does it?

From the outset, Whale begins toying with his audience. The camera begins on a coffin, panning up and around to a series of grieving and pious villagers, and as it moves past them, to a statue depicting Death as the Grim Reaper. Then, behind an iron fence, the hideous face of Fritz (Dwight Frye), who cannot contain his enthusiasm and must be reined in by Henry Frankenstein (Colin Clive), who is only just visible behind Fritz. After the funeral ends and everyone leaves, Frankenstein and Fritz dig up the body frantically, and one subtle joke passes almost unseen: as Frankenstein hurls dirt with his shovel, he quite literally throws dirt into the face of Death.

As we follow Frankenstein and Fritz along their path of grave and gallows robbing, something seems off. Clearly, this is supposed to be outdoors, but by shooting these sequences in studio, Whale creates an “unnatural” sensation using the artificial as an exaggerated version of reality (he will continue to play on expressionistic influence as we move into Frankenstein’s refuge, with high ceilings and curiously angled stairways and walls).

A major point of contention in Whale’s adaptation is the inclusion of a sequence where Fritz is dispatched to find a suitable brain for Frankenstein’s creation, culminating in his break in of the village university. Immediately preceding this, Dr. Waldman (Edward Van Sloan) lectures his students on the danger of the “abnormal” brain, and explains that the specimen on display there belonged to a brutish, violent man. When Fritz accidentally destroys the “normal” brain specimen, he is forced to take the “abnormal” sample. Some point to this is a prime example of shifting the cause of the monster’s actions later in the film, but perhaps, knowing what we know about the director, there is an alternate reasoning behind the “abnormal” brain.

Running concurrently with this is a side plot involving Henry’s fiancée, Elizabeth (Mae Clark), and her increasing concern over Frankenstein’s “experiments”. She appeals to his friend Victor (John Boles) to contact Dr. Waldman and bring some sense to Henry, who she fears is increasingly becoming distant from her. When Elizabeth, Waldman, and Victor discover Frankenstein’s “secret”, their reaction is shock. Frankenstein has created a man from the cadavers of other men, and intends to bring his creation to life using the power of a heretofore unknown ray.

The monster himself, played with nuance by Boris Karloff, is conceived in a womb of electrical pulses and birthed in a flash of lightning, to the awe of Frankenstein’s spectators, who are unsure what to make of Henry’s obsession, a being he “created with [his] own hands”. Waldman urges Frankenstein to destroy his creation, viewing it to be an aberration of God and Science, a viewpoint which, with some subtle word shifts, could mean something entirely different. (The elder figure disapproves of his protégé’s choices, and urges him to recant.)

As Frankenstein welcomes his creation into the world, Victor and Elizabeth return to Baron Frankenstein’s home, concocting a story to distract the Baron (Fredric Kerr) from the truth about his son. Here, for the first time, Whale’s sense of humor comes out through Baron Frankenstein, who is nothing so much as a cantankerous old man with disdain for authority figures and being duped. He is convinced Elizabeth is disguising Henry’s infidelity under the guise of “scientific experiments”, and that there is “another woman”, who he will root out. In a sly twist, there is, of course, no other woman, but rather another man, whom Elizabeth and Victor are willing to lie about for the sake of Henry.

We are introduced to the monster in a dimly lit room, coming through the doorway backwards, and turning around to maximize the effect of his appearance to the audience (indeed, Whale cuts to his face with three successive close-ups). The monster, however, is little more than an oversized infant, unsure of his ability to walk erect and bent in angles that seem to accentuate the set. But the monster with the “abnormal” brain is not a brute initially; in fact, he seems confused and susceptible to directions like “sit down”, and only becomes physically active in response to the sadistic torture from Fritz, who delights in tormenting him with torches.

Eventually, through conditioning, the monster becomes hostile in defending himself, killing Fritz and attacking Henry before Waldman is able to sedate him. Not coincidentally, the struggle occurs immediately before Elizabeth and Victor arrive, with The Baron in tow. Waldman hides the monster, and Henry is taken back to the village with his fiancée.

If the first act of the film is an expressionistic world of high angles and long shadows, then the second is one of stark contrast, with well lit, formal interiors and natural location shooting of villagers and forests. Henry is seen rehabilitating with Elizabeth, who seems relieved to have the man she loves come back to her, and for his part, Frankenstein is happy to be in the care of a woman. A wedding is arranged hastily by Baron Frankenstein, who frequently references his desire for Henry to have “a son”, blissfully unaware of the “abnormal” son in the laboratory.

Waldman, ever the skeptic of Frankenstein’s experimentation with humans, dies trying to dissect the creature, and the monster, free for the first time, enters the world. We see the monster interact with nature, where his rigid stature begins to loosen, but he remains in stark contrast to the “natural” world, a being of vertical angles primal grunts. He ventures closer to the village, meeting the first (and last) true stranger shortly thereafter.

Universal demanded two key alterations to the film before release (numerous local censors made more drastic changes): one, that the line “I know what if feels like to be God” be removed, at it was considered blasphemous, and two, the shortening of a scene that considerably alters the monster’s storyline. The monster, upon meeting a young girl, is amazed and curious about this strange creature, who casts no judgment upon him. In fact, she wants to play with him, and casts flowers into a nearby lake. The monster also throws his flowers into the water, and squeals in delight as they float. But he runs out of flowers, and not capable of differentiating, throws the girl into the water, accidentally drowning her. He tries to help, but only makes things worse, and panicked, flees. At least, this is what Whale shot. Universal insisted the scenes of the monster throwing her into the water and trying to save her be removed, deeming it too horrific. As a result, prior versions of the film simply have Karloff reaching for the girl, followed by a scream, and then we next see her dead in her father’s arms. The alteration renders the monster more horrific; instead of accidentally killing her, the audience has no idea what he did prior to her death, and the mob revenge is more apropos. Because of the removal of two shots, the monster goes from misunderstood and confused to brutish and violent.

Of course, the third act of the film takes curious directions which support both possible interpretations, for the monster’s actions from this point on alternate wildly from scene to scene. Elizabeth is attacked by the monster while locked inside of her room, perhaps because she stands between Frankenstein and his creation, or is it because the monster has developed a predilection for killing females?

While Elizabeth survives, Henry is convinced he must destroy his creation, and joins the mob growing outside. Armed with torches (which, although they have no notion of this, is the only thing the monster fears) the mob splits up and searches the forest, marshes, and mountain trails. After taking considerable effort to show the audience both the forest and the marshes, Whale once again takes us into the realm of the “unnatural”, returning to his false exteriors for Frankenstein’s final encounter with his doppelganger, his automaton, where both men must meet their fate.

As Henry once again comes face to face with his “experiment”, his ability to scare the monster with fire is met with failure. He is unable to exert control over his creation, and the monster overpowers him, taking an unconscious Frankenstein to a nearby windmill, as the mob closes in.

The final sequence, taking place with the monster and Frankenstein in the windmill and the angry mob outside (using a heretofore unseen battering ram to breach the door - how curiously phallic) culminates with the monster rejecting Frankenstein and throwing him to the mob below. The villagers react by setting the windmill ablaze, taking Frankenstein back to the village to recuperate, and leaving the “deviant” monster to burn in his figurative funeral pyre. Surely this is reminiscent of the practice of burning witches, also considered to be unnatural and deviant, and with little stretch of the imagination could be applied to the persecution of homosexuals.

Whale’s film, which is finally available in its uncut form, uses the Frankenstein story as a springboard to address what is perceived as unnatural by people (the villagers) and frowned on by respectable people (Dr. Waldman), but is, in the end, something a person decides to do, regardless of how much “experimentation” he or she does. The Baron Frankenstein ends the film reiterating his desire for a grandson to the “House of Frankenstein”, and with Elizabeth and Henry together, perhaps all’s well that ends well. Of course, Whale would have the last laugh with Bride of Frankenstein, but that is a different matter altogether. Perhaps the monster is not some murderous brute, but rather a confused young man who has no conception of what he is here for; condemned as “abnormal”, and punished for being only what he was created to be.