I am usually a late commentator on films since I watch few at the theaters and prefer to wait until they come out on DVD. This provides me with a cost savings, and enables me to read reviews and commentary so as not to waste resources on bad films. This last weekend I was able to watch a film that came highly recommended on various websites. It was The Mist, an adaptation of Stephen King’s stories. I am usually hesitant to watch sliver screen adaptations of King’s writings, but was pleased that this film can be added to the small collection of good cinematic treatments of King’s work.
I found this film well directed and acted, and the story provided for chills not merely because of the presence of the mist and its crawling and flying entities, but primarily because the main focus of the film involves the social dynamics of a group of people huddled in a store as the mist descends upon them. This social dynamic and its resulting commentary was the most pleasing and surprising aspect of the film that I enjoyed the most. On other websites I have heard comparisons of this film to social commentary in The Twilight Zone. While I would not take the comparison this far, nevertheless, The Mist includes plenty of critique on religious extremism, politics, the military, even as it wrestles with the darker side of human nature. This all comes together in a scene in the film where several of the characters meet in the store’s loading dock to figure out how they are going to respond to the increasingly bad situation in which they find themselves caused not only by the unknown outside the store, but also by the personality conflicts and decaying social dynamics within it:
DRAYTON: You want another reason to get the hell out of here? I’ll give you the best one. Her. Mrs. Carmody. She’s our very own Jim Jones. I’d like to leave before people start drinking the Kool-Aid.
WEEKS: He’s right. Flakier people get the better she’s gonna look.
DUNFREY: No, I don’t buy that. It’s obvious she’s nuts. Look, a few people, maybe, but…
DRAYTON: No, I count four. She’s preachin’ to ‘em right now. By noon she’ll have four more, by tomorrow night when those things come back she’ll have a congregation, and then we can start worryin’ about who she’s going to sacrifice to make it all better. Hmm? You, Amanda? My little boy?
MILLER: He’s right.
DUNFREY: You don’t have much faith in humanity, do you?
MILLER: None whatsoever.
DUNFREY: I can’t accept that. People are basically good, decent. My God, David, we’re a civilized society.
DRAYTON: Sure, as long as the machines are workin’ and you can dial 9-1-1, but you take those things away, you throw people in the dark, you scare the shit out of them, no more rules, and we’ll see how primitive they get.
MILLER: You scare people badly enough and you can get ‘em to do anything. They’ll turn to whoever promises a solution, or whatever.
DUNFREY: Ollie, please, back me up here.
WEEKS: I wish I could. As a species we’re fundamentally insane. Put more than two of us into a room, we pick sides and start dreaming up reasons to kill one another. Why do you think we invented politics and religion?
For those who enjoy horror films that stimulate the gray matter with something beyond the red matter, The Mist is worthy of consideration.
The April issue of Rue Morgue magazine caught my eye at the newsstand recently with an article titled “The Witch Hunter’s Bible,” an article that explored the infamous Malleus Maleficarum. For those unfamiliar with this document, it comes from the medieval period (perhaps the 15th century) as a Christian manual that purports to provide the tools necessary to identify, describe, and proesecute what was labeled as Witchcraft. The Malleus includes three sections, the first identifying witchcraft and connecting it to the Devil and Satanism, the second presenting alleged case studies and evidences related to witches, and the third constituting recommendations on appropriate ways to prosecute them.
The Rue Morgue article notes that the Malleus had “fallen into relative obscurity” until Augustus Montague Summers, an Anglican clergyman, translated and reprinted the document in 1928. This translation has been called into question, and Cambridge University Press has recently published a new and extended two-volume translation with commentary by professor Christopher Mackay.
The article on the Malleus stood out because I recognize that this was an important document in history as it informed Christendom as to its stereotypes of Witchcraft, and helped fuel the dreadful witch crazes and persecutions of the past. I’m not sure why an article on this topic appeared in a magazine that addresses horror in culture and entertainment, although it is not much of a stretch to consider the witch trials and burning times as real-world horrors. A clue to why this article may have been included in the magazine is given later as Mackay comments on the continuing legacy of the Malleus as he recalls the twentieth century’s witch, occult, and satanic panics. I might have taken this article a step further and helped make it more directly relevant to the magazine’s content. It has dawned on me as I reflect on horror films and their depiction of Witchcraft and the occult as to whether this genre of entertainment does not represent yet another area impacted by the legacy of the Malleus and the development of folk and pop culture stereotypes.
Long time readers of this blog might recall my two previous interviews with Douglas Cowan on the topic of horror films and their connection to religion and fear. Doug shared his insights on these topics as they related to his book on the topic Sacred Terror: Religion and Horror on the Silver Screen (Baylor University Press, forthcoming 2008). These popular interviews can be accessed with the first part of the interview here and the second here. Readers might also be interested to know that Doug is currently working on another book, titled Sacred Space: The Quest for Transcendence in Science Fiction and Television, and I hope to have him come back for an interview or two to discuss aspects of this volume as it unfolds.
Here is the description of the volume from Baylor and endorsement statements:
Sacred Terror examines the religious elements lurking in horror films. It answers a simple but profound question: When there are so many other scary things around, why is religion so often used to tell a scary story? In this lucid, provocative book, Douglas Cowan argues that horror films are opportune vehicles for externalizing the fears that lie inside our religious selves: of evil; of the flesh; of sacred places; of a change in the sacred order; of the supernatural gone out of control; of death, dying badly, or not remaining dead; of fanaticism; and of the power-and the powerlessness-of religion.
Available October 2008
Reviews:
“Up to now, horror films have been largely neglected or denigrated by scholars of religion and film. Doug Cowan offers a new approach, arguing that religious elements are central to the success of horror. He effectively debunks the myth that modern secular rationalism has banished the ghosts of the past, demonstrating that religion-related fears of death, damnation, supernatural forces, and religious “others” often support the continuing ability of horror to terrify and create frisson. A book that is both entertaining and important!”
-John Lyden, Professor and Chair of Religion, Dana College
“Proving that the genre of horror film belongs firmly in the interest of religious studies, Douglas Cowan offers an ample map of where any interested, and perhaps somewhat scared, scholar might turn to revisit this ancient form of storytelling. In the end, we learn about what horror might have to say to the human, beyond the death-life divide.”
-S. Brent Plate, Associate Professor of Religion and the Visual Arts, Texas Christian University, and author of Religion and Film: Cinema and the Re-creation of the World
In my previous post I focused on a classic horror film of the 1970s, and in this post I shift to commentary on horror television from the same decade.
Last weekend I watched a series of VH1 programs that looked back at various aspects of the 1970s. Although I was born in the mid-1960s I really grew up in the 1970s, and it is this decade that involves some of my most formative memories. Looking back, while the decade surely involved a number of questionable entertainment options on television, nevertheless this time period also produced some great horror on the small screen. Many readers will be familiar with House of Dark Shadows (1970), and The Night Stalker (1972) from this time period, but perhaps far fewer will be familiar with what I regard as two gems from the period: The Norliss Tapes and Satan’s Triangle.
The Norliss Tapes appeared on American television in February of 1973 as a part of the creative work of director Dan Curtis who was also involved in Dark Shadows, The Night Stalker, and his later effort in Trilogy of Terror (1975). The story (written by William F. Nolan who also wrote Logan’s Run, and Fred Mustard Stewart), was originally shot as a pilot episode for a series that unfortunately never materialized. As the program opens David Norliss, a writer in San Francisco (played by Roy Thinnes) contacts his publisher to report that his original plans for writing a book debunking the supernatural cannot move forward. Norliss has had a change of heart and he is scared. The situation is urgent as Norliss feels he is in danger and he asks his publisher for an immediate meeting over lunch so that he might share his recorded tapes that detail his experiences with the supernatural. When the publisher arrives to meet Norliss the house is empty and the only clues to the writer’s strange behavior are found on the tapes he has left behind which the publisher begins to play. As the narration on the tapes unwind, the viewer continues the journey into Norliss’s strange experiences involving an Egyptian scarab ring with the power to raise the dead, a millionaire’s widow who tells police she encountered the risen body of her recently deceased husband in his crypt, a number of bloodless corpses, and a ritual designed to raise an ancient pagan deity.
This television program was well written and directed, and from its opening scene involving a a brooding and increasingly paranoid Norliss to several scenes of a rainy San Francisco, the visual atmosphere compliments the story of occultic supernatural horror. But while this program is many times recognized for its quality, nevertheless descriptions of certain elements that to this writer seem silly crop up in many reviews of the program. It is not uncommon to see the zombie-like figure in the film who rises from the dead each night described as a vampire. It might be splitting horror hairs here, this is plainly inaccurate. Although the “creature” does have certain vampire-like characteristics it exhibits other important facets that put it in a different category. This walking corpse does not drink the blood, but collects it in order to mix it with clay in order to raise a deity through ritual occultic magic. In this context the creature resembles the zombie archetype influenced by voodoo legends and combined with foklorish and fictional depictions of the occult and the supernatural rather than a vampire or the flesh eating zombie archetype fashioned by Romero and others. The reader should note that while the creature in this film is frequently depicted inaccurately, it is also possible to find more careful and thoughtful writers on the topic.
Programming like The Norliss Tapes and The Night Stalker fit well within the social context of the 1970s that was still dealing with the increased interest in alternative forms of spirituality brought to the surface by the 1960s counterculture, and served as an exploration of the paranormal in the form of entertainment that came alongside more documentary-like approaches (albeit very speculative and with strong entertainment elements as well) in programs such as In Search of… Quality television programming like this also helped lay the groundwork for later programs in future decades such as The X Files.
Satan’s Triangle was first broadcast in January of 1975. It tells the story of two members of the Coast Guard sent out by helicopter to examine an apparently abandoned fishing boat off the coast of Florida in a part of the sea known as Bermuda’s Triangle. One Coast Guard member (played by Doug McClure) is lowered down to the vessel where he discovers a lone survivor (played by Kim Novak) of a fishing trip which was doomed to suffer from a series of what appear to be supernatural deaths including a victim floating in mid-air. Upon closer examination McClure’s character provides completely rational and non-supernatural explanations for the deaths even as he develops an intimate relationship with Novak’s character. At the end of the program the two are lifted off the craft which leads to a surprise ending and a showdown between good and evil.
Like The Norliss Tapes, Satan’s Triangle plays off of interest in the Seventies in paranormal phenomenon such as the Bermuda Triangle and combines it with the decade’s fascination with Christian forms of demonology, and it does so while providing a horror tale that still delivers good frights that can be expected to hold up for contemporary audiences.
For those who would like to add these gems to their horror treasure chests it is now possible to own copies of these Seventies horror television classics. In 2006 Anchor Bay released a copy of The Norliss Tapes on DVD. Interested readers can watch the whole program on YouTube courtesy of 70sHorrorRealm with the first installment here. The DVD can be ordered through the TheoFantastique Store with associated related to Amazon.com and video retailers like FYE. Satan’s Triangle is much more difficult to find and as far as I was able to determine it has not been released by a major company on DVD. However, Satan’s Triangle is now available for viewing on YouTube with the first installment here. It can also be purchased at select locations such as this website. Those interested in quality television writing and direction, particularly in the genre of horror, will not be disappointed by the addition of these programs to their video libraries.
Of course, there are a variety of factors that contribute to the success or lack of success in films as they are received by viewing audiences. Sometimes a film that is not well received is poorly written, acted, or directed, and sometimes all of these aspects are well done, but other factors related to the social and cultural circumstances that provide the context for a film’s release play a part. At times audience receptivity to other films released during the same period can have an impact as well.
With this post I am taking a risk here with readers as I analyze a classic horror film from the 1970s, The Exorcist (1973) with another film from the same year, The Legend of Hell House, that in my view actually provides for more scares (at least in terms of my preferences for such things). It is well known that the former film became a cultural phenomenon, while the latter has not received nearly the attention from fans or film critics. I’d like to explore a few of the dynamics that might account for this curious phenomenon.
A few years ago I watched an interesting documentary that examined the response of pop culture to The Exorcist when it was first released in 1973. People were scared out of their wits as they watched the story of a teenage girl possessed by the demonic spirit of Lucifer himself. Dick Smith’s groundbreaking makeup effects helped contribute to the shock value as audiences waited in long lines to be scared many times to the point of fainting or vomiting in some news reports. But while The Exorcist is well known, The Legend of Hell House from the same year is not nearly as well known by rank and file horror fans. For those unfamiliar with the film, or those who have not seen it in some time, the film is based upon an adaptation of the novel Hell House by Richard Matheson. The story surrounds a group of paranormal researchers brought together by a millionaire who funds an investigation of “the Mt. Everest of haunted houses.” The millionaire wants to prove the existence of life after death, and he believes that the phenomena reported at Hell House is the proof he is seeking. The research team includes the lone survivor of a previous research team, a medium played by Roddy McDowall, and also includes mental medium (Pamela Franklin), a scientist who specializes in the paranormal (Clive Revill) and his wife (Gayle Hunnicutt). As the story develops the team enters the infamous house once occupied by the late Emeric Belasco who was known for participation in a long list of hedonistic excesses and debauchery. As the research team examines the mysterious power in the house they encounter a number of strange occurrences and mounting personal attacks by a mysterious paranormal evil.
The Legend of Hell House is very different from other horror films of the 1970s. Its presentation of horror elements is extremely subtle as director John Hough utilized lighting, shadow, music, and sound effects as a means of stimulating the minds and tapping into the fears of audience members rather than more explicit makeup and gore effects. In this regard the film’s atmospheric treatment of suspense and horror is similar to The Haunting (1963). But even without explicit horror and gore this film is regarded by some as a horror classic. The acting is well done, particularly by Roddy McDowall as his character wrestles with his past experiences in battling psychic forces that he finally comes to term with in preparation for his final confrontation with the evil of Hell House. The top-notch Matheson screenplay, atmosphere, score, acting, and direction all come together to deliver a great horror experience. But if this is the case, why has this film not received the critical praise that I believe it is due?
I believe the answer to this question may be found in two areas. First, as mentioned previously, Legend of Hell House was released the same year as The Exorcist, and the latter film eclipsed the former. I was reminded of this unfortunate phenomenon as it happened in relation to two other films released in the following decade. In an episode of The Directors on Reelz Channel, John Carpenter was profiled and as he discussed his work he commented on how poorly The Thing was received by audiences when it was released in 1982. E.T.: The Extraterrestrial was released just two weeks prior to Carpenter’s film, and audiences fell in love with the idea of a cute alien stranded on earth and befriended by children. By contrast, Carpenter’s alien was no fantasy film for children. It provided a frightening picture of isolation, paranoia, and graphic horror that jumps from the screen courtesy of Rob Bottin’s makeup effects. The public’s embrace of E.T. seems to have had negative implications for their perceptions of The Thing. In similar fashion, I suggest that the release and popularity of The Exorcist overshadowed that of Hell House, and with the continuing reflection on the former as a classic of horror, this has perpetuated the marginalization of the latter.
Secondly, The Exorcist seems to have been released at a time when social and cultural circumstances strongly favored its expression of horror both in terms of its visual presentation as well as its subject matter in how supernatural evil is identified. The 1970s in America was a time of increasing crime and violence, and this was paralleled in many of the popular films of the times such as Dirty Harry. It should be no surprise that a horror film that depicts evil through subtlety and atmosphere would not be as well received as one that explicitly and graphically presents it. In addition to the visual elements the subject matter is also culturally significant. The Exorcist was one of several films released during the late 1960s and into the 1970s that touched on the satanic and the demonic as informed specifically by the Christian tradition. 1968 saw the release of Rosemary’s Baby, and what would become the first of the The Omen franchise was released in 1976. American culture of the 1970s seemed to have a growing preference for a form of supernatural evil connected to Christian conceptions of the demonic. This may be due to a variety of reasons, including the growing dominance of the Religious Right, the establishment of various satanic organizations in this period such as the infamous Church of Satan in San Francisco, the influence of various anti-cult organizations, and the prevalance of pop occult themes in heavy metal music. All of these elements contributed to an environment where Christian demonologies became popularized and helped provide an atmosphere for audience horror preferences. In this context it seems that invisible paranormal evil was not nearly as attractive to viewing audiences as the literal embodiment of ultimate satanic evil.
I have great appreciation for The Exorcist as a film, and to what it has contributed to the horror genre through its continuing influence over the years. But perhaps there’s additional room at the table for other contributors as well. I’d like to see other worthy candidates like The Legend of Hell House receive greater due than they have in the past.
Timothy K. Beal is Florence Harkness Professor of Religion and director of the Baker-Nord Center for the Humanities at Case Western Reserve University. He has published eight books, including Roadside Religion: In Search of the Sacred, the Strange, and the Substance of Faith (Beacon, 2005), which was a New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice and one of Publishers Weekly’s ten Best Religion Books of 2005; Religion and Its Monsters (Routledge, 2002), which was a Reviews in Religion and Theology Editor’s Choice; and The Book of Hiding: Gender, Ethnicity, and Annihilation in Esther (Routledge, 2007). He has published essays on religion and American culture for The New York Times, The Chronicle of Higher Education, The Washington Post, and The Cleveland Plain Dealer. He has been featured on radio shows including NPR’s All Things Considered and The Bob Edwards Show. He is co-editor, with Tod Linafelt, Georgetown University, of the book series Afterlives of the Bible with the University of Chicago Press.
I was impressed with the perspective that Timothy brought to one of his books, Religion and Its Monsters, and Timothy made some time to discuss various aspects of the book with me.
TheoFantastique: Please accept my thanks, Tim, for your willingness to discuss your book. Perhaps we could begin by further introducing you and the subject matter. How did you personally and academically become interested in both the study of religion and monsters?
Timothy Beal: Thanks, John. It’s great to be part of this project. There are a lot of ways to approach this question. But I think this book owes most to my college students at Eckerd College and then at Case Western Reserve University. The core of the book first emerged in a seminar course I taught toward the beginning of my career at Eckerd College. The course was called “Ecology, Chaos, and the Sacred,” which tried to put biblical and ancient Near Eastern conceptions of chaos into conversation with the contemporary science of chaos and complexity theory, especially in the field of ecology. I had long been interested in the relationship between ecological order and chaos in Hebrew Scriptures and other ancient Near Eastern mythologies — especially those places in which it was personified as a “chaos monster” or “chaos god.” I was noticing somewhat similar representations in some contemporary discourse in chaos theory. So I said, hey, let’s read this stuff together and see what connections we can make.
One of the primary personifications of chaos in the Hebrew Scriptures is Leviathan. Interestingly, there is some ambivalence about God’s relation to Leviathan. Sometimes God identified with Leviathan, and sometimes Leviathan represents the chaotic enemy of divine order. From there, we began noticing deeper ambivalence in the divine character in relation to chaos. This is the case in other ancient Near Eastern mythology as well. Anyway, all this opened new questions about the relation between the divine and the monstrous (as well as our concepts of chaos and order, otherness and sameness, etc.).
When I moved to Case Western Reserve, I began teaching a seminar on “Religion and Horror,” and continued the exploration with many more students. I initially imagined that the book would be about the cultural history of Leviathan as a way of reflecting on the relationship between religion and the monstrous. Leviathan is still a major figure in the book, but the book became … well, monstrous, I suppose.
TheoFantastique: One of the criticisms I receive is that many Protestant evangelicals and fundamentalists do not make the connection between Christianity and the monstrous, especially as it is expressed in horror films. Your book begins immediately in the Introduction by making the connection between the Judeo-Christian tradition and horror through the Frankenstein film. How did you come to your understanding of this connection, and why don’t you think many conservative Protestants make this connection or go even further by being put off by the suggestion of the connection?
Timothy Beal: I’m hesitant to generalize about that. I suppose that for many those representations are simply reduced to “evil” and then seen as being radically opposed to religion. It’s clear, in any case, that much of horror literature and film and culture is steeped in Christian theological tradition. It’s really a deeply theological culture at its core. The second half of my book, “Monsters and Their Religion,” is all about that. In fact, the book considered by most to be the first horror novel begins with a biblical question: are the sins of the father visited on their children? Also, the imagery of the monstrous in horror literature and film is often drawn from biblical texts (especially Revelation) and from other, less familiar religious traditions.
TheoFantastique: Some readers might be surprised by your discussion of monsters in the Bible, specifically in your mention of Leviathan and Behemoth in the Old Testament, and the Great Dragon in the New Testament. Can you say a few things about the biblical depictions of Leviathan and its connection to Near Eastern cosmogonies as it relates to chaos monsters as a threat to cosmic order?
Timothy Beal: Chaos gods or chaos monsters, as biblical scholars have been calling them for more than a century, are present in many ancient Near Eastern myths. They are personifications of chaos — threats to order, both cosmic and social. As such they tend to oppose the creator gods in these stories. A creation story is often therefore described as a chaos battle (German Chaoskampf) in which the creator god establishes order by defeating the chaos god/monster. Sometimes, as in the Enuma Elish (and, in a way, the biblical book of Job, chapter 38), the creator god creates the ordered world from the defeated chaos god. Order emerges from chaos, and vice versa. Also, interestingly, the chaos god and the creator god are sometimes intimately related. In the monotheistic tradition of Israelite religion, I think, both elements may be found in the one God. Thus the ambivalence I mentioned earlier. There’s a lot more about all this in my first two chapters.
Leviathan appears to be related to a similar serpentine chaos monster/god in Canaanite mythology. And the personifications of chaos in the Hebrew Scriptures generally has a lot of connections to those of other ancient Near Eastern mythologies (compare Enuma Elish and Job 38, for example).
TheoFantastique: Can you discuss the connection between Rudolph Otto’s notion of the divine as an oscillation between fear and desire in the mysterium tremendum and how the same dynamic is found in the monstrous?
Timothy Beal: Everyone should read the first chapter of Rudolph Otto’s The Idea of the Holy. It has problems from a comparative religion perspective, but his phenomenology of religious experience is fascinating. I encourage readers to take a look at my discussion of him in the introduction. In a nutshell, Otto saw religious experience as a non-rational encounter with unknowable otherness, the wholly other, the unheimlich (“uncanny” or more literally “unhomey”). He characterizes it as an encounter with mysterium tremendum et fascinans, an unknowable that is both terrifying and fascinating. In this he was influenced by Kant’s idea of the sublime. In this light, it’s interesting to see how descriptions of religious experience are often very similar to descriptions of horror: a vertiginous encounter with otherness that is both fascinating and repelling and that ungrounds us in profound ways. Can horror be a kind of mystical experience?
TheoFantastique: Your chapter on the dragon from Revelation is particularly interesting as you trace its unique construction from chaos monsters of the past for the author’s reading audience, and then note its significant impact in Christian culture and then in broader culture to the present day in literature and film. Can you highlight a few of the ways in which this monstrous figure has influenced contemporary popular culture beyond its more obvious manifestations in evangelical “end-times” literature and films?
Timothy Beal: Where to begin? Harris’ The Red Dragon is a good start. That comes via Blake’s watercolor, but Blake is inspired by the biblical figure. More interesting to me is the way this diabolical dragon, whose own ancestry goes back to Leviathan (read my chapter — it’s a somewhat complex genealogy), traces its way into Dracula and his offspring. And of course they have their own endless theological struggles, as Anne Rice well knows.
TheoFantastique: With my background in intercultural studies I was also interested, and dismayed, by your discussion of monsters outside of the Judeo-Christian tradition as influenced by other religions, and how the West, so influenced by Christianity, has tended to demonize other religious as the monstrous. In your discussion you mention these “colonial projections” as “one pole of modern primitivism,” and then discuss Marie-Denise Shelton’s ideas of “‘official’ imperial discourse, which affirms modern western culture ‘as the perfect and ultimate state of humanity’; and second, the ‘poetic’ discourse which identifies with these colonized, ‘primitive’ others as a means of condemning the modern West as ‘deficient and moribund.'” As I read this I couldn’t help but think of this dynamic as applying to the current state of affairs in the struggles between the West and some Islamic nations and terrorist organizations. Without in any way diminishing the significance of the problem of global terrorism, would you agree that this is taking place and that we are still creating our religious and cultural monsters?
Timothy Beal: I certainly do agree. What is Osama Bin Laden if not a monster of our own making? In my “Religion and Horror,” I always begin one class discussion with the statement, “There’s no such thing as Osama Bin Laden.” And we go from there. In fact, he is a monstrous projection more than a historical person. Indeed, we often imbue his figure with supernatural powers like omniscience and omnipresence.
Of course, there are also the monstrous projections of Jewish people within antisemitic discourse. Here too we face a very long and deeply regrettable tradition within both western European and Islamic discourses (the latter inheriting it from the former in the first part of the twentieth century, when the Nazis enjoyed powerful influence in the Middle East).
TheoFantastique: In your discussion of Dracula, one of the aspects you touch on is the aspect of Dionysian religion. You state that “Christian identity has continued to define itself against Dionysian religion, despite the fact that its rival has long since disappeared.” I wonder whether this idea might be nuanced in that while formal Dionysian religion of the ancient past is gone, various aspects of it continue in a variety of religious and spiritual streams, and Christianity in the West with its long embrace of modernity and rationality while downplaying the more ecstatic elements of religious experience, continues to fight against those expressions of spirituality and religion that emphasize such aspects? Would you see any merit in such an idea?
Timothy Beal: I certainly agree, John. I couldn’t say it better than you just did. I would add only that this is especially the case within Protestant Christian tradition, which is especially modernist/anti-“primitive” in its orientation toward the intellectual/doctrinal and away from religion as aesthetics.
TheoFantastique: As you move to a discussion of monsters on the silver screen one of the films you address is the classic vampire film Nosferatu. I was surprised to learn of the influences of Western esotericism and Theosophy, and that the producers were “explicitly interested in making the monster movie into an alternative venue for religious reflection.” Do you believe that horror still functions in this way for many viewers regardless of the intent of film producers?
Timothy Beal: I think that it often does function in that religious way — at least among the makers of supernatural horror (I don’t know about slasher films). It goes back to religious experience as an encounter with otherness. Is that not what supernatural horror is about? I recently contributed an interview on this subject to a new website, http://www.constructinghorror.com/, which is for horror screenwriters. So I gather that there must be some conscious religious interest among many horror movie makers and viewers.
TheoFantastique: In your concluding chapter you discuss the immensely influential work of H.P. Lovecraft, particularly through his monster gods of “Cthulhu Mythos.” You state that for Lovecraft his supernatural horror was designed to elicit cosmic fear which he felt was “coeval with religious experience.” You also suggest that “monster play operations as a critique of more culturally mainstream religious institutions.” I have noted that Lovecraft’s work is very popular in Neo-Pagan circles, and I wonder whether the elements of his work that approximates a religious experience, coupled with modern horror’s frequent critique of Christianity might come together to account for some of Lovecraft’s great appeal in religious circles and other alternative (sub)cultures like the Gothic movement. Any thoughts?
Timothy Beal: That’s right on, John. I was amazed, by the way, by how many college students knew his stuff. And of course Lovecraft’s mythos also gets play among Satanists, and even finds its way into some ritual texts via Anton LaVey.
TheoFantastique: Tim, your book has helped me understand myself and others a little better. At the close of the final chapter you state:
“But in instances of playing monster, in which monstrosity is embraced, even taken on as a form of one’s own identity, something radically different is at work. Such monstrous performance art works against the general tendency to mark the distance between normative and non-normative identity, pushing us to get to know our monsters face to face – and perhaps, like the blind man in The Bride of Frankenstein, to share a good smoke and some new music.”
I once read an interview with director Guillermo del Toro discussing his life and the influences in his film Pan’s Labyrinth. At one point he made the decision to reject formal religion in favor of monsters and myth. I have chosen another path, and as a religious person I embrace religion, myth, and the monstrous. Thanks for helping me to know myself and my own monsters a little bit better. I hope this interview helps promote your work and generates a few more readers.
Timothy Beal: Thank you, John, for such a generous reading of my work and for inviting me to participate in this project.
Steve Biodrowski of Cinefantastique Online asked me if I had seen Beowulf, and whether I had an opinion on allegations he has heard that the film contains anti-Christian bias. Although the film looked intriguing because of its high-quality computer animation, I had not seen the film and was not able to form an opinion, but I used the occasion of Steve’s query to pick up and watch a copy of the film yesterday. What follows in this post is not a review of the film, but rather commentary on differing Christian interpretations of the film as it relates to positive and negative depictions of Christianity or incorporation of Christian ideas.
I searched the Internet yesterday to familiarize myself with Christian interpretations of the film and I found two views at opposite ends of the interpretive spectrum. On the one hand Christianity Today magazine included a review of the film that was very positive, so much so that it makes the claim that, “Screenwriters Gaiman and Avery have actually taken the spiritual imagery even further, heightening Christianity’s clash with the pagan Norse religions and orienting a plot that is shot through with biblical imagery.” The review goes further and states that “the animators’ inspiration was simple—a six-foot-six, incredibly muscular, Norse Jesus Christ.” On the other end of the spectrum National Review Online posted commentary with the title “Anti-Christian Crusade,” and the subtitle “Beowulf the latest installment in Hollywood’s attempt to reconfigure history.” With these radically different interpretations in mind as the film relates or doesn’t relate to Christianity, what are we to think of this artistically and technically beautiful piece of cinema that takes realistic computer generated animation to a new level?
The film, like the ancient folk epic upon which it is based, reflects a sixth century A.D. Anglo-Saxon culture, including the paganism of the time. In my viewing the film only included three direct references to Christianity, including two specific references and one general reference from the Judeo-Christian tradition. The first direct reference comes in the form of a question near the beginning where a query was made of the king which he dismissed as to whether sacrifices should be made not only to the Norse gods of paganism but also the “new Roman god Christ Jesus.” The second reference comes toward the end of the film where Beowulf as king laments the loss of the time of heroes, battles, and monsters. In Beowulf’s view the “Christ god has killed it leaving humankind with nothing but weeping martyrs…” The general reference to the Judeo-Christian tradition comes with a reference to the “sins of the fathers,” an allusion to an Old Testament passage which refers to the sins committed by the fathers visiting their children if they are not addressed properly by the fathers themselves.
With these three references to Christianity, which of the two interpretations of the film’s treatment of Christianity seem most accurate? The positive assessment, or the negative one? I’d like to argue that neither does justice and that another view is in order. Taken in the historical and cultural context of the story itself, the remarks made by the characters in relation to Christianity make perfect sense and seem to be a natural way in which sixth century Norse pagans, steeped in heroes, monsters, and battles, and deities that engaged in such exploits, would have reacted to Christianity and its offer of a new, suffering god and way of life advocating pacifism. Taken in context the remarks seem quite natural to the story and do not seem to reflect anti-Christian bias. On the other hand, in my view it is also a great stretch to see the film as inclusive of biblical imagery, and there surely is no support for the notion that Beowulf is modeled after a “Norse Jesus Christ.” The latter claim is reminiscent of Christopher Deacy’s concern over the frequent and inappropriate appropriation of Christ-figures in films where they do not exist. The reason for these differing interpretations is clear: If film viewers interpret cinema in light of their presuppositions about Christianity and popular culture, then these presuppositions will result in the divergent interpretations we see represented by Christians along an interpretive spectrum.
I’d suggest a third interpretation is more accurate, and that is that the film simply represents a modified form of the ancient story that reflects both the elements of its original historical and cultural context, but with modifications that enable it to communicate to a contemporary audience. The references to paganism and Christianity should be interpreted in this light, with the emphasis placed upon understanding Christianity as interpreted by sixth century Norse pagans rather than by alleged anti-Christian filmmakers in the twenty-first century. Beowulf provides an example of the need for Christians to be more careful in how they interpret film, allowing the film to speak on its own terms before moving to engage it in light of the viewer’s presuppositions.
Cinefantastique Online recently noted that FirstShowing.net has posted the ending originally intended for I Am Legend which will be included on the DVD for the film to be released in stores March 18. If you have already seen the film I would encourage you to watch the alternative ending to see how it compares to the ending included in the theatrical release. After viewing it I posted some comments at Cinefantastique that I have included and expanded here:
I understand Cinefantastique’s concerns about the alternative ending for the film, as well as the theatrical ending, and the constant refrain I hear about the ending and the film version(s) not dealing adequately with the Matheson book. But in my view the alternative ending actually fits better with the storyline where sociological considerations were concerned with Neville’s shift to completely dehumanizing the vampire zombies. His conceptual shift in dehumanizing his antagonists ends up as his downfall as the vampire zombies use their mutated form of intelligence and new social structure against Neville who is suffering from increasing inability to live with a lack of human contact. In the film the “creatures” use their intelligence to track down Neville, and their social characteristics lead them to mount a rescue mission to retrieve a fellow group member taken by Neville for experimentation related to a cure for the “creatures'” condition. In the alternative ending of the film the lead “creature” demonstrates even greater intelligence and social organization in that he communicates to Neville via symbolism, demonstrates restraint in retaliatory violence against Neville for kidnapping and experimenting on large numbers of his fellow mutated humans, and takes the captured female “creature” back to re-assimilate to the vampire zombie social structure. While the zombie creatures are certainly not “normal” human beings, perhaps in some ways they demonstrate not only an alternative form of humanity, but also one which parallels and perhaps even exceeds that of Neville himself as the representative immune human being. Granted the “over the top” CGI vampire zombies detract from this interpretation somewhat and make it far more difficult for the viewer to sympathize or identify with the mutated humans, but the alternative ending appears to me to fit more appropriately with the overall development of the storyline where the mutated humans are concerned.
Concerning the film’s failure to adhere closely to the Matheson book, since no film to day has seriously tried to do a faithful adaptation of it, perhaps we should just deal with each of the three film treatments of the story on their own terms and also recognize that they incorporate cultural elements that speak to their own times and social circumstances. For example, I ran across something recently that compared the “creatures” in the 1970s film The Omega Man with Charleton Heston to the Manson Family, and I had never made that connection. When we consider the social controversy over the new religions and the popular stereotype that they allegedly turned many of America’s youth into zombie-like people at odds with their society and family, this depiction as the “evil social other” makes sense for the time, even though it deviates from Matheson’s treatment.
But whatever version of the Matheson-inspired story we are watching, this film is filled with important social and cultural aspects for our reflection. In its current treatment aspects of the story seem to argue against the dangers of dehumanizing the “social other,” even with the best intentions of “saving them,” which seems especially important in our post-9/11 environment with the continued culture clash between the vestiges of Christendom in the West and radical Islam in the Middle East and Asia.
Arnold Kunert is the friend and agent of Ray Harryhausen, the legendary stop-motion animator and special effects wizard. In the past Arnold was interviewed here in general on Ray’s work and career. In the following interview Arnold made some time to talk specifically about the colorized 50th anniversary edition of Ray’s classic film 20 Million Miles to Earth.
TheoFantastique: Arnold, thank you for taking some time to discuss this new version of the classic film. I’d like to ask a few questions about the background of the film itself, and then ask a few things related to this new 50th anniversary edition. With my previous background in reading about the life and work of Ray Harryhausen I was familiar with his involvement in a great number of areas, from initial concepts to pre-production artwork to the special effects themselves, but in watching this film and the background materials in the extra features I was surprised to learn that the story for this film came from Ray. Can you share a little about how this story came about and moved from story to film production?
Arnold Kunert: Ray’s original story dealt with a creature being brought back by a U.S. rocket from Venus and crash-landing in Lake Michigan, just outside downtown Chicago. As the funding for the film became available, Ray decided to change the location to Italy. He had never been outside the U.S. and decided this might be the best way to get to Europe.
TheoFantastique: This film has been a favorite of Harryhausen fans for decades since its release. The disc of special features in this anniversary edition includes commentary from folks like Rick Baker, John Landis, Tim Burton and other giants of Hollywood in fantasy films. So the film resonated with the well known members of its audience over the decades as well as among many more rank and file fans. It seems to stand out from other science fiction films from the same timeframe as well. Can you discuss some of the elements and features of this film that seem to make it memorable for fans?
Arnold Kunert: The most memorable aspect of the film is certainly the creature design. Of course, the European locations, most of them shot by a second unit before principal photography began, also add to the film’s appeal. Finally, Ray’s stop-motion animation is among the best of his career. Many visual effects artists consider the film one of their two or three favorite Harryhausen films for this reason.
TheoFantastique: I must admit that prior to watching the fiftieth anniversary edition of this film in its colorized version I was opposed to the colorization of classic black and white films, but color in this film is amazing and it has made me a convert to advocates of colorization. I know that in addition to this film Ray has also supervised the colorization of It Came From Beneath the Sea and Earth vs. the Flying Saucers. Can you describe how Ray came to the decision to colorize these films and how Legend came to be involved in the work that resulted in these fine pieces of work?
Arnold Kunert: Four or five years ago, I was contacted by a lady friend in San Diego who knew I was acquainted with Ray Harryhausen. That friend worked for a company called Legend Films, the president of which, Barry Sandrew, was the original inventor of colorization 15 years ago. Legend wanted to colorize one of Ray’s films, but I was originally reluctant to get involved, knowing how Ray felt about colorization and what had been done to 1949’s Mighty Joe Young in the late 1980s. However, after I visited the Legend Films facility, my mind was changed and I convinced Ray to consider working with them. The rest is, as they say, history. Ray personally supervised all three of his black-and-white Columbia films, as well as two of Merian C. Cooper’s RKO films, She and The Most Dangerous Game. Needless to say, Ray is very pleased with the results. Ray always wanted to do his black-and-white films in color, but the budgets wouldn’t allow for color. Now they are in color, exactly where they should have been 50 years ago.
TheoFantastique: How did the colorization process work and what was Ray’s part in working with Legend?
Arnold Kunert: I cannot explain the process beyond saying that it’s simply a matter of determining what colors a scene should have and programming those choices into a computer. Ray was in complete control of all the colors in all of his films, and, working with color designer Rosemary Horvath, made all of the color choices.
TheoFantastique: For me one of the more interesting parts of the extras on the second disc in this set was your discussion of promotional ad artwork during the 1950s that promoted this and other films of Ray’s. How did you come to be a collector of this type of material, and can you share a little with how this material was used in the past to promote films in contrast with film promotion today?
Arnold Kunert: I was given the material by National Screen Service in Chicago during the original releases of the films in the 1950s. I simply enjoyed having mementos of certain films I loved, most of them being Harryhausen films. I don’t know how things have changed since that time. I assume the internet and computers are used more widely today.
TheoFantastique: Arnold, thank you once again for your time and for sharing these great thoughts about this film, made an even better cinematic experience through colorization. Thanks as well for all of your work with Ray through “Ray Harryhausen presents…”
Over the weekend I had the chance to watch several films that have recently been released on DVD. I was especially looking forward to taking a look at 30 Days of Night given that it is vampire film (one of my favorite movie monster icons), I enjoyed the graphic novel by Steve Niles upon which it was based, and I had seen the film positively reviewed in various forums. After watching the film I came away with the general impression that this is a good vampire film with the potential to breathe new life into cultural treatments of the vampire icon, and it is the cultural reconstruction of the vampire through this film that I will touch on with this post.
As horror movie fans and culture watchers know, the vampire has a long history of popularity in film and pop culture, so much so that the vampire has enjoyed great dominance as a horror figure in any number of pop cultural expressions. But the cultural dominance of the vampire has given way in recent years to that of the zombie. Zombie films have been made with increasing frequency, and this may have resulted in the impression by some that the vampire may have lost some of its “edge” as a social and cultural symbol of horror. It appears to this writer that those associated with the cinematic treatment of 30 Days of Night (perhaps those associated with the graphic novel as well) have made a conscious effort to address this phenomenon through the reconstruction of the vampire as a figure that moves far beyond its expressions in the past as a romantic, brooding, and at times comical figure to a fresh embodiment of evil, perhaps a figure reconstructed through this film as a form of opposition to the zombie.
The idea of the 30 Days of Night vampire as oppositional construct occurred to me in various ways. Before the film’s release I read an article in a horror magazine where specific comments were made by those involved in the film’s production noting that the vampires in this film would represent a much stronger sense of horror hubris than that found, for example, in television’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Angel. These comments were bold in light of the great popularity and unique nature of Joss Whedon’s vampire treatments, and it set forth for me the initial idea that the 30 Days of Night folks felt the vampire had been somewhat domesticated of late and was in need of reconceptualizing for contemporary audiences. A second clue came to me in the form of the featurettes for the DVD. One featurette looks at the creation of the vampires and it featuress the director and acting coach working with the actors portraying the vampires in the film. The actors are specifically coached not to move their arms and bodies like zombies, but instead to walk confidently and with attitude as focused, no nonsense killers. On the one hand it is understandable that the actors would need to be coached on how vampire body movements would differ from that of the zombie given the prevalence of the cinematic image of the zombie, however, it appears as if those associated with 30 Days of Night took this one step further in coaching the actors to move in different ways that reflects a deliberate sense of purpose in evil for the vampires that makes them more threatening than the zombie.
The visual look, physical abilities, and social characteristics of the vampires in the film also seem to support the notion of the reconstruction of the vampire icon in oppositional fashion. The creatures move beyond the traditional enlarged canines to sport a mouthful of sharp teeth that function in razor-like fashion as they attack their victims. In their physical abilities the vampires not only have great strength, but also great agility as they leap from building to building and descend upon their fleeing victims. As to their social characteristics, the vampires have their own unique language that moves them beyond their traditional mythological function as lone hunters to bind them together as a social unity creating a viscious tribe that rules the night. All of these elements work together to provide the vampires in the film with the elements necessary to make them far more terrifying than many vampires in recent television and film treatments, and in the process they also contribute to the reconstruction of the vampire icon with features that make them more terrifying than the zombie.
The icons and symbols of horror change like any other elements of culture as society changes. If there is any merit to my idea that the 30 Days of Night vampires represent a conscious reconstruction of the vampire icon, and one developed in opposition to the cultural dominance of that of the zombie, it will be interesting to watch the possible impact of this film and the graphic novel upon the ongoing development of the vampire myth, and whether the zombie mythology, a rapidly evolving mythology in its own right, adapts in response.
I am usually a late commentator on films since I watch few at the theaters and prefer to wait until they come out on DVD. This provides me with a cost savings, and enables me to read reviews and commentary so as not to waste resources on bad films. This last weekend I was able to watch a film that came highly recommended on various websites. It was The Mist, an adaptation of Stephen King’s stories. I am usually hesitant to watch sliver screen adaptations of King’s writings, but was pleased that this film can be added to the small collection of good cinematic treatments of King’s work.
Timothy K. Beal
Arnold Kunert
