Darren Davis: Blue Water and Forthcoming “Vince Price Presents” Comics Series

Bluewater Productions recently announced one of their latest comic ventures, a “Vince Price presents” series. Following on the heels of the successful “Ray Harryhausen presents” series, this new production looks interesting.

Interview: Miguel Gallego and AAAAAH!! Indie Horror Hits

Within the last couple of months I have been pleased to begin a relationship with Miguel Gallego who is the creative force behind AAAAA!! Indie Horror Hits as well as The Crypt Club. As I reviewed Miguel’s websites and read a few interviews with him on the Internet I noted our overlapping areas of interest and common cinematic influences growing up. Thankfully, Miguel agreed to an interview that touched on his work in independent horror films, as well as his thoughts on Disney and horror, myth, and archetypes.

TheoFantastique: Miguel, thanks for taking time out of a busy schedule to respond to a few questions about your work. To begin, can you talk about how you came to be interested in horror films on a personal level, and how did this translate into a career?

Miguel Gallego: Well, the short answer is that I loved movie monsters and wanted to learn everything about them. This curiosity led to learning about films and filmmaking magic, which led to formal film studies and, finally, working in the film industry. You could say that movie monsters were the gateway drug that led to my life as a film addict.

The longer, more detailed answer is that as a kid the Universal Studios’ monsters fascinated me. Dracula, the Wolf Man, the Phantom of the Opera, et al had a dark appeal. They were outsiders and romantic figures of dread, scorn and hatred. As the son of Spanish immigrants living in Anglo-Saxon Canada I immediately identified with these dark, tragic outsiders. More than the rest of my family I really lost myself in films. My doctor father claimed that I suffered from ‘monster-itis’.

Around this time – in the dark ages long before the Internet and DVDs with special features were common – there was a show on TV Ontario (our educational channel) called Magic Shadows hosted by Elwy Yost, the father of screenwriter Graham Yost who wrote Speed. On weeknights after dinner Elwy would show half-hour of a classic feature film and give background info on it. On Fridays he’d screen a chapter of an old movie serial. I watched the show religiously to learn everything I could about the films and the filmmakers.

Elwy Yost later hosted TVO’s Saturday Night at the Movies, which paired two classic feature films with actor and filmmaker interviews in between. In the era before every college had a film department it was the best film school available.

I entered university to study medicine, but an elective cinema studies course caught my interest. After that course I knew I wanted to work in film. I had no idea how. Toronto was not yet the production hotbed that it would become. I joined the film society and made my first Super 8 film, Washday, about a laundry monster that terrorizes a slovenly guy. The crowds laughed in the right spots, the film won an award, and I was hooked.

After earning a B.A. in cinema studies I found an apprentice position on the nature show Lorne Greene’s New Wilderness. Within the year I was production coordinating and still catching three to five films a week. Then I went to the American Film Institute in Los Angeles to learn more practical filmmaking.

When I came back to Toronto, the city was starting to swell with film and television production and I was lucky enough to catch that wave. I worked on some direct to video films and TV commercials. I worked a few years in corporate video production. The money was good, but I missed working on dramatic projects. I joined the Directors Guild of Canada and got back onto film sets, working my way up to assistant director. There’s nothing like being part of a band of gypsy film brothers working on a show. It’s as close as you’ll get to running away and joining the circus without having to muck out the elephant stalls. And when your work is done you get to join the crowd to experience the show you’ve worked on.

In time I made enough friends and contacts in the business so that I could put my money where my mouth was and produce my first short film, The Crypt Club. It’s a cautionary tale about peer pressure and bullying inspired by the legend of Black Aggie. Again, themes of outsiders and belonging crept in. It’s funny how you never stray too far from what inspired you in the first place.

Since The Crypt Club I’ve met a lot of filmmakers and found that short horror films don’t have legs. They play at festivals and disappear pretty quickly. I came up with the title ‘AAAAAH!! Indie Horror Hits’ and I started licensing these small horror gems to create a collection to preserve and share them. So a second career track has begun thanks to the love of monsters.

TheoFantastique: You are involved in a number of projects including what you just mentioned, AAAAAH!! Indie Horror Hits, and Crypt Club Productions Inc. Can you summarize your work as a filmmaker and as a promoter of independent horror films through these projects?

Miguel Gallego: Well, it may be a little early to summarize because both ventures are still taking baby steps, but here goes.

Crypt Club Productions Inc. is my umbrella company for film production and other horror based projects. The first film is The Crypt Club. It screened at over 45 international film festivals, and won 18 awards. It aired on TV in Canada and Argentina. I’m currently working on the deluxe archival DVD edition. Once that’s on the market I’ll begin refining some feature film ideas that have been percolating in my brain.

AAAAAH!! Indie Horror Hits is the next project from CCPI. It’s a collection of great short horror films from independent filmmakers worldwide. We’ll be distributing DVDs with about 2 hours worth of films per volume starting this summer. It’s like a horror film festival on disc. And we’re always looking for more great short horror films.

And then there are some other projects that are still in the embryo stage. They’re joint ventures with some other horror folks, but I can’t give out details just yet.

TheoFantastique: What attracts you to indie horror rather than that produced through mainstream studios?

Miguel Gallego: Well, a good film is a good film regardless of its origin. For me the difference between indie and studio horror films has to do with the passion and the vision of the filmmaker and the film’s creative process. I think it comes back to the insider/outsider argument.

Studio films often suffer from committee-think. True indie films are auteur driven. Right or wrong the indie films have a singular voice and a point of view. And that’s refreshing. Most studio horror films are cynical economic exercises. These films are not about storytelling but about marketing and return on investment, which is why the studios churn out re-makes of old films or clones of recent indie or foreign hits. hey’re playing it safe. There may be a high degree of craftsmanship, but very little innovation.

If the indie horror formula of low-budget spectacle with a high profit ratio didn’t work, the studios wouldn’t venture into the unsavoury field of horror. But the money’s too tempting and it helps the studios’ cash flow. It helps so much that several studios created indie-style production and distribution units. But here’s the problem: they haven’t been able to recreate the indie horror phenomenon in their in-house laboratories.

Horror is a lone wolf genre. Its purpose is to howl in the wilderness and chill us. The studios have tried domesticating it for their purposes and created a breed of snarling toy poodles in spiked collars. Basho wrote, “Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the wise. Seek what they sought.” Studios are treading in the wolf’s footsteps without a clue what they’re searching for.

Now don’t get me wrong. There is a lot of bad, derivative indie filmmaking too. But once in a while a film comes together where the whole is greater that the sum of its parts. A paradigm shift in any field rarely comes from the people who are entrenched experts in that field. It comes from outsiders with a fresh, sometimes naive perspective. That’s why indie horror films matter. I believe it’s where the creative, thematic, and sometimes technical innovations will continue to originate.

TheoFantastique: As I reviewed your website for AAAAAH!! I noticed several films that you have been responsible for, but out of all of them which ones are you most proud of and why (or is this like asking you to choose which of your children is your favorite)?

Miguel Gallego: Actually, the only film in the collection that I’m directly responsible for creating is The Crypt Club. But I am proud of each film in the collection. Let’s just say they’re my adopted kids and I can’t chose between them. Each one is unique and lovable in its own creepy way.

The reason is that there’s an empathetic fraternity among indie filmmakers because we each wrestle with internal and external obstacles to reach our goal of sitting in the back of a theatre watching the back of people’s heads, waiting for their reaction to what we did months – sometimes years – before that moment. The war story details may vary from filmmaker to filmmaker but we all have similar tales of idealism, struggle, loyalty, heartbreak, and sometimes triumph.

Because of all the moving parts involved, the completion of a film – any film – is a minor miracle. And indie filmmakers are doing it with fewer resources than studio films, and a whole lot of heart. You gotta admire that feat, and support and nurture it because it may be the only reward these filmmakers get for tilting at windmills. And where would we be without these dreamers and creators?

While working on my film I was overwhelmed with admiration and gratitude for the selfless people who were helping me create it. It was, and still is, quite humbling. So I was compelled to work even harder to make the best film possible. It was no longer just for myself, but also to honour the trust and faith that these people had placed in me.

I have the same feeling for the films in the collection. These filmmakers have placed their faith in our idea and we’ve got to deliver for them.

TheoFantastique: I was intrigued by some statements you made in an interview for New Voices in Horror where you listed your favorite horror films and you included early Disney films and fairytales in that collection. This struck me in that my own appreciation for these influences is similar and not everyone remembers Disney’s dark side and that studio’s contribution to America’s Halloween mythos from the early cartoons. Can you provide a few examples of Disney’s work that you would classify as horror and why you found it significant?

Miguel Gallego: I’ve gotten several comments from people for calling Walt Disney’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs a horror film. This whole Disney horror thing started because I meet people who categorically refuse to watch “horror” films, yet they watch films that contain horror elements but that aren’t marketed as “horror”. So I ask these horror adverse people if they like early Disney films. And when they respond, “Of course. They’re great wholesome family films,” I explain to them how they have secretly gotten their recommended daily dose of horror without realizing it.

“See? You like horror. I hid it in the pudding and you ate it. So shut up and eat your scary vegetables.”

People think of Uncle Walt and recall Mickey Mouse and family entertainment. Walt is associated with joy and magic, but Disney’s genius as a storyteller came from his use and command of dramatic elements – including the horrific.

Disney combined comedy and horror to tremendous effect, resulting in a rich, emotionally satisfying catharsis for the viewer. His films alternated bitter and sweet for maximum emotional contrast, but he made sure the sweet was the first taste so you’d settle into the story and identify with the protagonist’s dreams.

Then Disney would introduce the bitter element, and he rarely held back. Disney’s best dramatic spice for family-oriented films was Death itself. Unlike other watered down family fare, Disney’s protagonists faced real and present mortal danger throughout the story.

Walt also made sure that the final taste in your mouth was sweet so you’d come back for a second (and third, and fourth…) serving. The stronger the audience’s emotional experience the more goodwill is generated toward the filmmaker who causes it.

If Walt Disney’s first mark of brilliance was to raise his film’s dramatic stakes to dire mortal consequences, then his second mark of brilliance was to market the films as family entertainment.

You can argue that Walt Disney’s films are not horror because they aren’t presented as such, but I’ll say that the engine that drives several of his animated feature films is pure horror.

Here are some examples to support my nomination for Walt Disney as a master of horror:

Snow White is about a vain queen who orders the murder of her increasingly beautiful stepdaughter. She orders a hunter to bring back Snow White’s heart as proof. When the compassionate hunter confesses the murder plot to Snow White she flees into the now terrifying forest. Learning that Snow White is alive the Queen turns herself into an old crone to deliver a poison apple to the girl. She even has a raven as her familiar. Snow White succumbs and falls into a death-like sleep. The vengeful gang of club wielding dwarves chase the crone through the forest to a cliff where she falls to her death. The happy ending comes when the handsome prince kisses Snow White as she lies in a glass coffin. Surprisingly, no audience has shouted, “Ew! Gross. Necrophilia!”

101 Dalmatians is a cute, cuddly story of a pair of Dalmatian parents protecting their 15 offspring from a witch (Cruella De Vil) who wants to skin the puppies to make a fashionable coat. The puppies are kidnapped and taken to Cruella’s mansion, Hell Hall. The parents find their brood and 84 other puppies in this country puppy mill. A rescue, escape, and chase ensue with the Cruella done in by her bumbling henchmen.

In the original Cinderella story the stepsisters cut off their heels to fit their feet into the slipper to win the prince. Disney omitted some of the gorier elements of the original story, but kept the threat level to his heroine high with a realistic rendering of the cruel stepmother in contrast to the more caricatured stepsisters and secondary characters. This wicked stepmother has a predator’s maternal instincts. She may not want to kill Cinderella, but her cruelty toward her is, perhaps, a fate worse than death.

In Bambi, the mortal danger is presented one third of the way through the film when Bambi’s mother warns him about Man and going into the open meadow. At the midway point a hunter kills Bambi’s mother off-screen in a heartbreakingly stark scene that still chills the pit of my stomach. In the final act Bambi faces Man the hunter, Man’s hunting Hellhounds, and then escapes a raging inferno that destroys the forest. As with many “fairy tales” it’s a story of maturation, which can be both scary and full of wonder. Bambi is born, learns about life, death, love, sacrifice, and in the end becomes a father himself. It’s the circle of life long before it was recycled for The Lion King.

What I find most significant about Walt Disney and his films is that Uncle Walt entertained millions of people, young and old, by making them laugh and by frightening them, proving that horror is an essential part of a balanced dramatic diet. Yet few people consider him a master of horror. And too many people still turn away at the mere mention of a horror film. Pity.

TheoFantastique: I also noted in the interview that you are a fan of mythology and folklore, interests you and I share. How do you explore these elements in your filmmaking and appreciation for the horror genre? And would you agree that we need more filmmakers exploring myth and folklore through film to create dark, adult fairytales much like Guillermo del Toro?

Miguel Gallego: While I studied film in Los Angeles I discovered Jan Harold Brunwand’s books on urban legends and Joseph Campbell’s The Hero With A Thousand Faces. These books opened up in me a new appreciation and interest in myth and folklore as wellsprings for story ideas and story interpretation. I grew up with Bible stories and tales of Greek and Roman heroes, but I hadn’t looked behind the stories to see how and why they worked. And now the mechanics of story craft fascinates me.

The Crypt Club was directly inspired by the tale of Black Aggie, which is an urban legend with its origin in the Middle Ages. I used the urban legend as a starting point and built the plot and characters out of that elemental cautionary tale.

Myths and folklore are either tales of adventure and achievement (do something good) or cautionary tales (don’t do something bad). These classic stories endure because they still speak to us. So, going back to the Basho quotation, I go to these stories to seek what those storytellers sought in the hopes of bringing something worthwhile to my stories.

As far as horror, I think worthwhile horror stories are – at their stripped down basics – cautionary tales. They’re warnings to us about unwise choices. Why else would you revel in gruesome horrors? Sure there may be a macabre fascination with the subject matter. But psychologically it’s not a great place to spend all of your time. Henry Frankenstein didn’t hang out with corpses because he liked them. He had a higher purpose, which was to create life. The corpses were his raw material not his intended end product. Unfortunately, I find too many horror films don’t have a purpose beyond causing shock or revulsion.

In the last twenty years we’ve seen a boom in the number of people teaching storytelling and screenwriting. It seems that everyone who has seen a film is teaching how to write one based on a secret insight into the process. I think it’s a great thing that so many resources exist for potential filmmakers. But the funny thing is that all of these story gurus’ theories stem from the same ancient source material: Aristotle’s Poetics. The principles of dramatic storytelling haven’t changed in over two thousand years. They may have been refined, but not drastically altered.

I think it’s important for filmmakers and storytellers to have a sense of history. In the early days of television you had all these great shows written by guys who read books and plays. They brought that understanding of drama and narrative to television. Now, two generations later, it’s people who grew up watching the tube who write the shows. It’s created an inbreeding of ideas and references. I see the same thing happening in horror films of the past ten years. They all take Night of the Living Dead as ground zero.

Folklore and mythology represent the timeless stories and themes of the human heart. Any current story you can point to has an antecedent, and you can save yourself a lot of time and creative energy if you acknowledge and build upon those stories rather than trying to re-invent the wheel. I think the broader knowledge you have the more it can help you bring up something fresh and understand why it works.

So, I think we need to explore myth and folklore to understand story craft – in any genre. And then use these fundamental principles (not pat formulas) to create new myths because today’s solid stories become tomorrow’s myth and folklore. I’ve heard a Cinderella story referred to as a Rocky story. We need to keep revisiting in order to reinvent. We need to understand archetypes rather than recycle stereotypes. Look to the classic source material to see why it worked and then make it your own. If storytellers go back to the classics and draw from the archetypes to create new characters we’d have richer stories instead of re-treads.

TheoFantastique: You are preparing to launch The Crypt Club Deluxe Archival Edition DVD as well as the AAAAAH!! Indie Horror Hits, Volume One. Can you describe these for folks, and where can they pick them up?

Miguel Gallego: Well, The Crypt Club Deluxe Archival Edition will have a crypt load of bonus features, including behind the scenes photos & footage, and material taped during our screening Q&A sessions explaining how we put the film together from idea through filming, post-production, selling the film, festival strategies, and more. There’s also a companion book in the works, The Crypt Club Chronicle.We’ve even had interest from educational sources to use The Crypt Club as a teaching aid on the topic of bullying and peer pressure. The disc will appeal both to horror fans and to indie filmmakers who want to see how we did it.

The AAAAAH!! Indie Horror Hits, Volume One DVD will have about a dozen great short horror films. It’s a mini international horror film festival on one disc. We’ve gotten film submissions from across Canada and the U.S., as well as Mexico, Australia, England, and Spain. Some are high budget, some are low budget, but each film is a real indie gem. If you missed them at festivals this is your chance to see them. I’m really excited about getting this DVD out there and challenging more filmmakers to send us their best short horror films for future volumes. The plan is to launch both DVDs at our booth at the Rue Morgue Festival of Fear here in Toronto, August 22-24. And we’ll have some other goodies available, including The Crypt Club posters, and samples from our new line of Crypt Wear™ apparel.

After that convention the DVDs and the goodies will become available on-line at both of our web sites: http://www.thecryptclub.com and http://www.aaaaah-films.com.

TheoFantastique: Miguel, it has been a pleasure. I look forward to following your work in indie horror, and if you ever come out to Slamdance as part of the Sundance Film Festival in Utah we need to get together. Thanks again for sharing your thoughts.

Miguel Gallego: My pleasure. Thanks for the chat. I’ve been following your blog for a while, so I’m flattered to be part of it. And I look forward to hooking up with you in Utah in the near future. The first round of chocolate milk is on me.

Feast for Animation Fans

A number of items came to my attention this week that provided sustenance to my animation tastes.

The Ovation TV Channel has been running a week-long series of programs devoted to the theme of animation. This has included Chuck Amuk: The Movie, a look at animator Chuck Jones known for his legendary work on Looney Tunes and The Grinch Who Stole Christmas; Tex Avery: King of Cartoons, a look at career of Charles “Tex” Avery; Ub Iwerks: The Hand Behind the Mouse, that details the contributions of Ub Iwerks to the Disney legacy in animation and film technology; and showings of Spirited Away, the Japanese anime masterpiece. See the Ovation Channel schedule for a listing of programming.

And a visit to my local Barnes and Noble and a perusing of the latest sci fi, fantasy, and horror magazines informed me of the forthcoming Batman: Gotham Knight, a series of six interlocking animated stories that are strongly influenced by anime and The Animatrix. This project will be released on July 8 on DVD and BlueRay in connection with Batman: The Dark Knight film. These cartoons look very promising in delivering good stories, great visuals, and involving the work of a number of noted anime directors. Previews and lots of goodies are available on the official website.

The Loss of Stan Winston

Hollywood, the film viewing public, and the special visual effects industry lost a pioneer and giant when Stan Winston passed away last Sunday at the age of 62 after a long battle with multiple myeloma. Stan hailed from Virginia and at an early age his love for Disney cartoons, Universal Studios classic monters, and Ray Harryhausen’s stop-motion animation creatures led him to pursue a career in special visual effects. Stan’s work included John Carpenter’s The Thing, Aliens, The Terminator, Edward Scissorhands, Jurassic Park, A.I.: Artificial Inteligence, and most recently work on Iron Man. Fans who would like to review Winston’s work can benefit from his website at Stan Winston Productions, and Jody Duncan’s The Winston Effect: The Art and History of Stan Winston Studio (Titan Books, 2006). A story on Winston’s passing from the Los Angeles Times can be found here.

Starfest and Horrorfest: Brad Rusk Interview on Convention(s)

My friend Marc Lougee, producer of Ray Harryhausen Presents The Pit and the Pendulum, attended the Starfest Convention in Denver not long ago, and one of the people he introduced me to is Brad Rusk. Brad helps with the programming for the Horrorfest Convention part of Starfest, and he recently made some time to talk about his contribution to the convention and the convention itself.

TheoFantastique: Brad, I appreciate your willingness to discuss your work with the Horrorfest Convention within the Starfest Convention. Let’s begin on a personal note. How did you come to be interested in horror, and how did this eventually lead to your work through Starfest?

Brad Rusk: I became interested in horror when I was younger. My mom and I would watch Kolchaks Night Stalker and Rod Serling’s Night Gallery on TV and scary movies like the original Friday the 13th, and The Changeling with George C. Scott – as a result I had nightmares about that ghost rolling wheelchair as a kid. I used to have a lot of nightmares so I used to read at look at Fangoria magazine and finding out that the blood and gore was special effects it eliminated the nightmares and I became more interested in horror films.

My first Starfest convention was in 1987 and I didn’t go back until 2002. I did interviews with some of the Starfest guests for my local radio station then established a relationship with KathE and Stephen Walker (who have organized the Starfest conventions for over 30 years) since 2002 and I wanted to help out in some way, make a contribution to help with the convention, so in 2006 I emailed Kathy Josey who is the coordinator of the Horrorfest part of Starfest and wanted to offer my services to help out. By living in Nebraska I couldn’t do much in Denver to help, so I offered to do research and contact horror celebrities and horror related movie companies and help acquire raffle items for the Horrorfest annual fundraiser, that benefits the Diana Price-Fish Cancer Foundation out of Denver, Colorado.

So I have continued to do that since then. And in the process of contacting potential donors, I would come across movie companies mostly independent companies and filmmakers who would have a new film coming out and I would inquire about getting a copy for the fundraiser and they would want us to screen their film and we would end up including it in our weekend programming. And as of last year, I ran across an article on a film called Zombie Farm on a horror website and I emailed the film company about it and the ante’ rose with BLB Movies wanting to come out with some of the actors and the producers and director from Los Angeles and World Premiering Zombie Farm (which has been released on DVD with some Horrorfest/Starfest footage on the Special Features on the disc). In fact when they committed to coming the film wasn’t even done yet. They did a lot of editing and slapped together a great rough cut of the film within a few weeks before the con so they could premiere it in Denver, which was a great honor that they chose Denver to do so.

Last year I went to the Crypticon horror convention in Minneapolis to research and see how other horror conventions are run and met some great independent film companies. So again I asked for screeners of their films to consider our programming and they all wanted to come out to Denver. I continued to send out requests for our fundraiser and ran across Marc Lougee’s Pit and the Pendulum short film on MySpace and we corresponded and next thing I know he came out. MySpace has been a great avenue to finding independent horror films and filmmakers.

TheoFantastique: Can you tell me about Starfest, how it came about and how long it has been in existence?

Brad Rusk: Starfest is one of the very few independently run Science Fiction Media conventions that is organized and run by KathE and Stephen Walker in Denver, Colorado. From what I understand they were went to other Sci Fi conventions and wanted to organize one in Denver, they formed a company called Starland and their first convention was in 1977 and started in a good year. They were a part of the initial Star Wars advertising campaign when George Lucas was advertising the film. Last years Starfest celebrated thirty years. They had one show a year then moved up to doing 2 conventions, Starfest in the Spring and Starcon in the Fall. They went back to one big convention in 2002 which is Starfest in the Spring. Last years Starfest celebrated thirty years.

TheoFantastique: You help put together the programming for the Horrorfest Convention within Starfest? How long has this been going on, and how did the Horror Convention begin to take on its own life within the broader Starfest Convention?

Brad Rusk: Horrorfest celebrated 10 years last year. It started with a video room, where horror movies and horror-based television shows were played. It was primarily a place for people to go to take a break from the sci fi to rest and catch some shows. Then over the years the interest in horror grew and it would progress from a video room the there were additions of panels, and then horror trivia, horror authors, the fundraiser, the annual Rocky Horror Picture Show. We kept adding more and more stuff and we kept taking up more rooms in the hotel and as of this year we took over one third of all of the convention rooms. Starfest gave us all of the convention rooms on the South side of the hotel. Starfest is not just Starfest anymore. Horrorfest is its own convention within a convention if you will. The growth has been tremendous. We are like a rash that is spreading. Spreading enough that there is a possibility in the future that we could break off and have a separate Horrorfest convention. We will see.

TheoFantastique: Can you share some highlights from last month’s Horrorfest 2008?

Brad Rusk: Some highlights were that for the exception of a couple mainstream movies in our programming all of the films we showed were independent horror films. And the response for all of this new horror has been overwhelming. We pretty much have our own independent horror film festival.

We hosted the World Premiere of Attitude for Destruction (which is now on DVD) with the cast and director in attendance. Our good friend Jed Rowen who is in the film was here last year with Zombie Farm. I kept in contact with him after last year and networking with him got us the Attitude screening. He, along with the rest of the crew wants to come back again next year.

All of the independent filmmakers including Marc Lougee are vowing to come back next year. The overall Starfest/Horrorfest experience for them has been astounding and I was told by them all that its been the best convention experience they have had, which is encouraging, because I think the word of mouth will spread and more filmmakers and companies will want to come to Denver, which could lead into bigger things for the convention. We never expec
ted how big this thing has become over the past 3 years. The Starfest/Horrorfest convention is one of the very few independently ran conventions in the United States that has had great success and we encourage people to give it a try next year. They can go to www.starland.com and the Starland MySpace page for more information on the Starfest and Horrorfest convention. They can access past convention information on the links and look on the message board to get information on next years convention which will take place April 17-19, 2009 when it becomes available. They can also email me at bradleyrusk@msn.com if they want more info or to contact me if they have a film they would like us to screen for next year.

TheoFantastique: Brad, thanks again for sharing about Starland and Horrorfest. I hope to make it out to the convention in the near future.

Brad Rusk: Thanks John for the opportunity and you can contact me anytime for a followup and I will fill you in when info for when next year happens. We start really planning about end of the year beginning of January.

Horror and Religion’s Intimate Connection

In the past I’ve mentioned an interesting website that I stumbled upon, Constructing Horror, a website that serves as a resource for horror writers.

One of the perspectives that they address is the connection between religion and horror, an area of research interest for me, and their current e-newsletter touched on this topic with the title “Why Religion is Deeply Connected to Horror.” Although their recent email was brief, it confirmed that I am not the only one who sees such connections in contemporary horror (as well as sci fi and fantasy), and it also raised some interesting issues for me.

As to my seeing a connection between religion and speculative fiction in film, I try not to inappropriately read things into film, but instead attempt to allow the storytellers to convey the aspects of their stories that they want for viewers. My reservations about reading something into films that is not there made me hesitant to see much by way of the significance of the symbolism in the Spielberg remake of War of the Worlds, but as the reader will see below where I have copied the bulk of the Constructing Horror email, those at Constructing Horror saw something significant in one of the film’s scenes as well:

“Hell is overflowing, and Satan is sending his dead to us. Why?
Because, you have sex out of wedlock,
you kill unborn children, you have man on man relations,
same sex marriage. How do you think your
God will judge you? Well friends, now we know.
When there is no more room in hell, the dead will
walk the earth.”
– Televangelist, Dawn of the Dead

“Horror writer, director and producer Clive Barker once said that there are at least two books in every American household: ‘One of them is the Bible and the other one is probably by Stephen King.’ The connection between horror and the supernatural forces are everywhere. Not only in movies like The Exorcist, The Omen, and more recently films like The Reaping. It goes far beyond that and is a powerful tool in creating uncertainty, the doubt of hope and horror.

“Stories are filled with supernatural creatures. The first descriptions of a Land of the Dead where written by Sumerians some four thousand years ago on tablets made of clay from the Tigris – Euphrates Valley north of the Persian Gulf. One of the first stories ever written, The Epic of Gilgamesh, is about the mythical king Gilgamesh’s journey into the regions of the underworld in his quest for immortality.

“It is easy to think that the power of religion has faded away in a modern, secular society – but in the 1950’s a survey revealed that 50% of Americans still believed in “Hell.” In a second survey, 66% of the American population expressed that they believe in the “Devil” (1988).

“While movies like Hellraiser, Event Horizon, and Angel Heart successfully use traditional religious imagery – repetition make clichés.

“How can you use the powers of heaven and hell in your stories?

“Think about it. What building was the first to collapse in the remake of War of the Worlds? What was on the radio during the first few minutes of Jeepers Creepers? Who was the first infected person that the protagonist of 28 Days Later saw in the otherwise deserted London?

“These choices were all conscious decisions made by the horror storytellers. The church is the first building to be demolished by the aliens in War of the Worlds. The God referred to by the crazy evangelist on the radio in Jeepers Creepers will not be of any help to Trish and Darry, and you will definitely not be receiving a good blessing from the contaminated priest in 28 Days Later.

This technique is used everywhere. The unfortunate victims in the remake of The Hills Have Eyes soon realize that their prayers have no effect. Nobody, not even God, is coming to help anyone. Learn to use religious imagery in both obvious and subtle ways and you will have a powerful tool at your disposal.”

For those interested in an exploration of the complicated and often ambiguous relationship between horror and religion I highly recommend Douglas Cowan’s forthcoming book, Sacred Terror: Religion and Horror on the Silver Screen (Baylor University Press, October 2008).

Kids in Horror: Reflections on Why They Get Under Our Skin

Regular readers of this blog might recall that in a previous post I mentioned my involved with LOTT D, a group of horror bloggers committed to excellence as they rise above the all-too-common froth of superficial commentary in the blogosphere. From time to time the members of LOTT D emphasize the community aspect of their work through the collective commentary on a given topic. I found the current topic of interest as it addresses “evil kids” in horror films and why they both fascinate and bother us so much.

TCM Essentials Jr. and 20 Million Miles to Earth

A digital marketing representative of Turner Classic Movies contacted me today to let me know about TCM Essentials Jr. The featured film for June 8 is Ray Harryhausen’s classic 20 Million Miles to Earth. The website includes a number of pages that involve “fun facts” and video clips that will be of interest to those new to the film. I hope this new feature for TCM helps bring classic movies to the attention of young audiences, particularly in the genres of science fiction and fantasy, so that new imaginations can be enchanted through classics such as Ray Harryhausen’s. Interested readers might want to look at my previous interviews with Arnold Kunert, Ray’s agent, producer, and friend, found here where he touches on Ray’s work in general, and here with discussion of the colorized version of 20 Million Miles to Earth.

The Andromeda Strain: A&E’s Miniseries Misses the Mark

Last Sunday night A&E unveiled (with much fanfare) the first of a new two-part television event, The Andromeda Strain, presented as an updated version of the story written by Michael Crichton. As I stated in a post on this topic prior to the airing of this program, the 1971 film version of this story was very well done, and in my view it holds up over thirty years later. Given my appreciation for the earlier movie, and that Ridley Scott had some involvement with this new project, I looked forward to A&E’s program like a dog salivating for a treat from its owner. With this post I’ll share a few thoughts on how my anticipation compared to my post-viewing reflections.

For those unfamiliar with Crichton’s book or the 1971 film version of the story, the plotline involves a satellite that has returned from space and crash lands in a small desert town. When a government team goes to retrieve the satellite they discover that something connected with it has resulted in the death of almost everyone in the town, and it quickly kills the military retrieval team as well. This results in the government’s mobilization of a scientific team who are sent to an underground lab where they discover that an extraterrestrial organism came back on the satellite, and eventually the safety of all humanity is threatened. The film version of the story unfolds like a combined CSI science-detective drama, coupled with an environmental apocalyptic thriller. It was well directed (by Robert Wise) and acted, and it should be on the list of all science fiction fans interested in including a little thought with their enjoyment of speculative fiction.

Setting the film version aside and taking the new television treatment of Crichton’s thriller on its own terms, how well was it done? In my view extremely poorly. I believe the major problem with the television program was its incredible “busyness,” that detracted from the main aspect of the story. Apparently the possibility of the global death of humanity by an extraterrestrial organism was not considered intriguing enough to serve as the main thrust of the two-night television event. I recognize that with the expansion of the depiction of the story from a film to a two-night, four hour television miniseries, and with an attempt to update the material to reflect contemporary issues, that new materials need to be inserted. But so many new elements were added that they seemed to detract from the movement and suspense of the story. In addition, some of the elements seemed almost trivial and gratuitous, as if the screenplay writers felt they had to include certain elements to reflect our contemporary social circumstances and anxities no matter how briefly they were treated, or whether they contributed to the overall storyline.

For example, we are introduced early on in the first installment to the marital and family problems of Dr. Jeremy Stone, the lead scientist who heads up the scientific team. We see the psychological problems of his soon to be ex-wife, and his tense relationship with his teenage son. This story element is picked up again briefly in a couple of scenes, but it is never treated sufficiently so as to connect with the overall story, and as a result it seemed disconnected and thereby a distraction from the thrust of the story.

Another aspect I could have done without involved a story arc surrounding a substance abusing reporter embedded with the military forces surrounding the infected town. He becomes involved in an attempted government cover-up (connected to present anxieties over Homeland Security abuses of power) and survives two assassination attempts, only to survive in the end and meet a girl in the dessert that he walks away with as his shirtless chest shines in the hot desert sun. I appreciate that since the film version the media has taken on greater significance in our lives, and our distrust of the government has taken on new proportions as well, but once again, the way these elements were handled distracted from the main thrust of the story in terms of the possibility of worldwide human destruction through an organism from space.

Beyond this the television miniseries just couldn’t resist connecting the source of the contagion to present environmental concerns. I’m all for addressing contemporary issues through science fiction, but this could have been addressed a little more creatively and subtly in my view. I almost expected Al Gore to make a cameo in connection with this aspect of the series.

From time to time Hollywood produces great pieces of cinema that then become classics. In my view most of these should be left alone. Why try to redo an icon, unless you can revision it in fresh and entertaining ways that help the new version stand up through the inevitable comparison that will come? Despite the risks, this has not stopped people from trying. Remember the very talented Tim Burton’s failed attempts at revisioning The Planet of the Apes. I thought the bar was set very high with The Andromeda Strain film, but perhaps producers thought there was a lack of broad familiarity with the film, and that the subject matter could be presented in dramatic ways through the assistance of folks like Ridley Scott. They took a gamble, and in my view they lost. They had a great story, and an accomplished director of science fiction films as producer, but they couldn’t executive properly enough to produce an entertaining product. I came away from my two-night investment of time feeling like I’d been cheated. I’d give A&E’s The Andromeda Strain one star out of four. Better to have left this one alone. If you really want to see Crichton’s story presented effectively, go to your closest video store and rent the film.

Cylons in America: Interview with Editors of New Book on the Battlestar Galactica Series

In a previous post I let readers know about a relatively recent book titled Cylons in America: Critical Studies in Battlestar Galactica (Continuum Publishing Group, 2007), which won the Popular Culture Association/American Culture Association’s award for Best Edited Collection on Popular Culture for 2008. The book is edited by Tiffany Potter and C. W. Marshall, both of whom teach at the University of British Columbia. Both of these editors recently shared their thoughts on the television series and their new edited volume.

TheoFantastique: Thank you both for your willingness to discuss the fascinating book you co-edited on the current Battlestar Galactica series. To begin, what was the genesis of the idea for you to compile this collection of essays and to edit this volume?

C. W. Marshall: I think that the main drive was the recognition that at the time there was nothing out there yet. The series was getting a lot of press, and there was a growing fan base with fan publications, but there was nothing that was attempting to assess critically the many themes that the series was raising. But there was a selfish reason, too: we were having great conversations after watching each episode, and we wanted to see what others were saying about the series.

Tiffany Potter: It was clear almost from the start that Ronald Moore and the writers of BSG were trying to engage and interrogate American culture on a critical level; what we wanted to do was to bring together a scholarly community to facilitate the fullest possible investigation of those questions.

TheoFantastique: To provide some background for readers can sketch some of the contours of the current series and its connection to the 1970s version? And how has the current series been revisioned?

C. W. Marshall: The basic plot is the same as the original series: a rag-tag fugitive fleet flee the enemy Cylons after their twelve planets have been destroyed in a sneak attack. Character names repeat, the ships are similar, but the new series introduces two significant developments. First, the Cylons are no longer the robotic forces of a reptilian enemy. Instead, they are a human product that has turned against us, and rebelled. Secondly, some Cylons appear human, and so can pass amongst us unrecognized. These two changes fuel most of the “revisioning.” I think it is helpful to see these changes as reflecting the political climate in which each series was produced: the cold-war us-vs.-them scenario of the original series, in which the enemy is relentless, unfathomable, and completely other, gives way to a post-9/11 enemy who is hard to identify, who looks like us and possibly dwells among us.

Tiffany Potter: One intriguing thing about the old series/new series revisioning is the apparently ambivalent relationship that the producers and even actors seem to have with the old series. The most common adjective used about the old series is “cheesy,” and I think that there’s a certain defensiveness about the show’s origins (not just a little ironic in a show that is in many ways an origins narrative). No one reads the current series in those terms, but we note in the book several examples of what seem undeniable allusions to or revisionings of specific episodes or plots from the original series. The most glaring is perhaps the “Starbuck stranded on a planet” plot in the season one episode “You Can’t Go Home Again.” There are what appear to be direct references and borrowings from the Galactica 1980 episode “The Return of Starbuck,” but Carla Robinson, the writer of the new episode, not only denies knowing the original one, but denies even knowing there was a series called Galactica 1980. I’m not sure what the shame would be in a well-crafted homage to a less well-crafted original, but there’s certainly a pattern of discomfort that’s worth noting if you’re discussing the process of revisioning.

TheoFantastique: In your Introduction to the book you describe Battlestar Galactica as inhabiting different aspects of science fiction as it presents its dystopic fiction of the future. Can you touch on how the series incorporates these different aspects?

C. W. Marshall: One of the virtues of science fiction is that it allows an unfiltered examination of contemporary society. Because a story is set in a distant future, or “a galaxy far, far away,” the creators are at liberty to be very pointed about social or political issues that exist in their own time. It separates the audience from their default assumptions about a subject, and can invite new, imaginative responses. Paradoxically, the distant setting allows for a more direct examination of real issues.

Tiffany Potter: No current American television programming can dare comment on socially contentious issues like abortion, genocide, or the possibility of a divinely-inspired president attempting to steal an election because she or he believes it necessary to God’s will. By recontextualizing the narrative into a site where the essential assumption is that content doesn’t matter (which I’d argue is generally the case with science fiction), the genre can say the unsayable in a way that no other current media can do (and that includes the 24-hour news networks and other ostensibly critical modes of large cultural discourse).

TheoFantastique: You also discuss one of the changes in the current series in the development of the Cylons, the “robots” or androids, into “artificially created synthetic beings with living tissue and cells” that are virtually indistinguishable from human beings. How has this development paralleled discussions of posthumanism and how has it impacted the way in which issues are addressed through the storytelling?

C. W. Marshall: Ultimately, I don’t think the series is particularly interested in posthumanism: it isn’t concerned with what our next stage may be. Instead, it uses the concept of the Cylons in a fictional world to examine what qualities define humanity in the real one. It’s a thought experiment. When there is no external, objective way to mark the Cylons as different than us, the labeling begins to seem rather arbitrary. Being Cylon is to be other, which in the series means that one isn’t guaranteed what should be universal human rights and freedoms (this plays into the discussions on torture, for example). The humans in the series won’t practice capital punishment even for their worst offenders (as when Gaius Baltar is put on trial at the end of season three), but tossing a Cylon out an airlock, or even advocating genocide against the Cylons, is viewed by sympathetic characters as morally unproblematic. It’s a real gap in our Western moral compass that the series’ writers have identified and are playing with. Further, the current season is showing the Cylons working hard to become even more indistinguishable from humans (programming mechanisms to enable free will, removing mechanisms that prolong their lives and allow their consciousness to continue independent of their bodies). These efforts to reduce the differences between the humans and the Cylons challenge any attempt to define meaningful difference.

TheoFantastique: One of the reasons the series has been popular, not only among average viewers, but also among academics, is its frequent treatment of various social, cultural, and religious issues. Can you discuss how the series has addressed our post-9/11 context as it touches on terrorism, torture and prisoner rights?

Tiffany Potter: Two essays in the book address those issues specifically, so the first thing I have to do is acknowledge that my thinking on BSG in these areas has been tremendously influenced by Brian Ott and Erika Johnson-Lewis on post-9/11 and torture respectively. BSG’s take on these topics is most important, I think, in its absolute recognition of the requirement of dehumanization for acts of war and mass violence. The surviving humans need to create a language of difference and nearly literal alien-ation of the Cylons in order to do two things: to define the actions the Cylons have taken (monstrous and inhuman); and to confirm that human beings, by virtue of their humanity, are incapable of such a genocidal action (though of course the show makes clear that we are not).

Though the associative metaphors of terrorists and insurgents are intentionally, brilliantly muddled by season three, the humans never surrender their demand for difference from the “toasters” and “skin jobs.” If they’re going to throw Cylons out airlocks without trial (and by extension if Americans are going to throw people into Guantanamo Bay cells without trial or the public presentation of evidence that has defined justice for Western history), then those thrown away cannot be like the ostensible us: they have to be rendered not-us, not-deserving-of-human-rights through systems of language, of laws, and of governance. It’s not just that the president says so; it’s that the community agrees and naturalizes that construction of difference. And that’s a hugely startling assertion for a presumptively frivolous medium like television to make.

C.W. Marshall: Yes. The series is able to manipulate the default expectations most in the audience will have after 9/11. For example, for two seasons we are invited to map the experience of the humans in the show onto middle America: the Cylons are terrorists, attacking our homeland, threatening our security, and so forth. There is then a startling reversal at the start of season three, when suddenly the humans are seen as a nation occupied by a technologically superior military, insurgents fighting their oppressors. We care about the human characters and have identified with them for two years, but it’s really quite bold to ask the American audience to identify with the plight of Iraq in this way.

TheoFantastique: The original series found religious influences in Mormonism, and the new series is not without a religious dimension as well. Can you talk about the religious or spiritual aspects of the current series, especially the interesting dynamic represented in the monotheism of the Cylons and the polytheism of the humans?

C. W. Marshall: For me this is one of the most exciting aspects of the series. While the new series has not pursued the Mormon angle to the same degree, it is very interested in examining a number of theological and religious questions. At a sociological level, we are shown how religion impacts the lives of a number of characters in the fleet. Some pray, some avoid going to services, some believe in active prophecy, and some prefer to take religion as an extended metaphor. It is a realistic representation of the diversity of North American religious experience, which is pretty uncharacteristic for a television world. At times, the commentary is specific to the America of George W. Bush: at one point, the president is seen praying with her cabinet.

Theologically, the series presents a culture, the Cylons, which bases its actions on an extremist monotheism. One true God, to replace the diverse polytheism of the humans. Problematically, we are told “God is love,” but we also see the Cylons using their monotheism to justify their attack on the humans. The series authors have been very careful to blur the lines of how we are to interpret this religious extremism: is it the radical Islam America claims to be fighting, or is it the fundamentalist Christianity that is particularly associated with the American heartland?

The current season is developing both of these dimensions. We see that the human polytheism has had a place for mystery cults (reference has been made to worshippers of Mithras alongside the twelve Olympians), and we see a growing place for the cult of (Cylon) monotheism. In some ways, the picture is evoking the religious world of the first-century Mediterranean.

TheoFantastique: Can you sketch the overall layout and some of the other topics addressed in this book?

Tiffany Potter: We’ve organized Cylons in America according to three different threads of inquiry. In part one our (brilliant) contributors address the way that BSG represents American life through the distorted and sometimes didactic mode of science fiction. They address exactly the issues of post-9/11 questions of identity, violence, and torture in a world suddenly defined by a terrorist Other. This section also addresses how a community responds to this sort of immediate change in terms of military and scientific responses (and the way a culture comes to view its military and its scientists), and also in terms of individual responses like the continuing need for competition, play, and desire.

The second section addresses the series’ big question: what does it mean to be human, and how does the Cylon/human interface illuminate that? The contributors’ essays discuss religion, determinations of personhood, racialized difference and its potential future in ideas of hybridity. This all sounds very critically astute—and it is—and perhaps out of the range of many readers—but it’s not. It’s about what marks Sharon as concurrently human and Cylon, and how conventions of horror genres help us to understand what’s so attractive and terrifying about Six, and how the series plays with those end-of-the-world-movie clichés like all of humanity banding together regardless of race and creed to fight a non-human enemy, and how that suddenly gets more complicated when that enemy can’t be instantly visually identified by physical markers (like the shorthands we use in our usual ideas of race).

The final section looks at the series as television. Essays in this section link the show’s often contradictory politics with contemporary media’s obsessive need for supposed “balanced reporting,” and also look at allusions to other science fiction and cultural texts, from films and music to fan fiction and internet responses to the regendering of Starbuck. We tried to select essays that would talk about BSG not just as if it were a text, but also as a cultural experience at the start of the millenium.

TheoFantastique: How would you summarize your experience in reflecting on these issues and how it informed your editing of this volume?

C. W. Marshall: I think the process made us better viewers of television. Each viewer has particular interests, but by expanding the dialogue in this way we become exposed to a range of critical issues and approaches we might not have considered on our own. The series is a larger and deeper object of study than we originally expected. Like theatre, television is a collaborative medium, where a range of individuals bring their talents to the creative process. As such, it invites a wide range of academic approaches; we are authorized to look for deeper meanings and resonances.

Tiffany Potter: For me the experience of editing the volume made clear how much really astute thinking is going on about elements of our culture that many people regard as disposable and temporary. For better or worse, television is our culture’s
single most pervasive social device: it functions in the way that literature and theatre have done for hundreds of years in that it provides a widely-consumed and thus normative reflection that isn’t really a reflection. It’s aspirational in showing what we perhaps wish we were (morally, socially, economically, or as America’s Next Top Idol Fifth Grader), and what we wish we had (“My Name is Earl” aside, most of television is about highly affluent, often professional people with a lot of expensive things). But I think television is also linked to long traditions of didacticism—satirical or otherwise—in that good television brings into our homes the very things we try to avoid seeing: the dangers and benefits of treachery, corruption, and violence, and what they mean to us as human beings. Children’s television directs by positive modeling, but television like BSG, The Sopranos, and The Wire challenge us to *think* about the world, and that’s never disposable.

TheoFantastique: Thank you again for carving out some time to discuss the book, and for your great contribution to the academic study of popular culture.