Following are news items for the fantastic including horror, science fiction, fantasy, and the paranormal for the last few weeks. These items can be accessed daily as they are posted through my Facebook page and Twitter account.
‘Insidious’ review: An old-style horror movie
“Insidious” is a respectable attempt at a type of horror movie they don’t make anymore – that is, horror that is scary and not merely disgusting. From the opening credits, in which the title appears in blood-red letters to the accompaniment of blaring, dissonant music, the movie tries to get under your skin and inside your mind. Sometimes it does.
Insidious review
Insidious is a haunted-house movie that has some of the most shivery and indelible images I’ve seen in any horror film in decades. Yes, it’s that unsettling. Directed by James Wan (Saw) and produced by Oren Peli, the auteur of the Paranormal Activity films, the movie is about a couple (Patrick Wilson and Rose Byrne) whose home is plagued by the usual clanks, growls, and playfully sinister disturbances. Then one of the family’s young sons lapses into a coma. It’s his spirit that’s been hijacked, overtaken by ghosts who have a way of showing their creepy, smiling, old-fashioned nightmare faces at just the right moment to goose you with anxiety. Lin Shaye plays the psychic exorcist who can see into their world, and her fluky cornball intensity lifts the film into a realm of menacing excitement. Wan is better known for severed limbs than subtlety, but here he reaches back to the stately spookiness of the 1962 low-budget classic Carnival of Souls and adds a touch of early David Lynch to conjure up a vision of hell that is terrifying in its dreamlike banality. Like most haunted-house films, Insidious is a contraption, but it’s one that won’t let go of you.
Inside The Minds Of The Creators Of ‘Insidious’
When I was asked to cover the “Insidious” press junket, screening, and Q&A, I had to think twice. I am not the gal that lines up for the latest film offerings in horror and the paranormal. Add the fact that the writer and director are from the “Saw” franchise and I paused even longer. Little did I know that “Insidious” would be a great departure from bloody series of “Saw.” Over the course of three days, I was able to interview director James Wan, writer Leigh Whannell, and actors Barbara Hershey and Lin Shaye.
Will Beall May Write the ‘Logan’s Run’ Remake Starring Ryan Gosling
Warner Bros is all kinds of hot on screenwriter Will Beall’s debut script, Gangster Squad, and now they’ve hired the former LA cop to write some big budget science fiction for Logan’s Run. The remake is directed by Nicolas Winding Refn and stars Ryan Gosling, reteaming after the recently-wrapped action film Drive, in which Gosling plays a part-time getaway driver.
‘The Picture of Dorian Gray’: An Uncensored Version of a Scandalous Classic
Little did I know that I was reading a censored version of this work. Wilde first published The Picture of Dorian Gray in Lippincott’s Monthly Magazine in 1890 and it met with swift, stern condemnation. The Daily Chronicle denounced it as “a poisonous book…heavy with the mephitic odours of moral and spiritual putrefaction” and “a tale spawned from the leprous literature of the French decadents” while the Scots Observer opined that it was “false to morality” because the author failed to sufficiently denounce the title character’s preference for “a course of unnatural iniquity” over “a life of cleanliness, health, and sanity.” As a result, when Dorian Gray was published as a book Wilde’s editors cut out quite a bit which made explicit what was only implied in the text I had read. So explicit, in fact, that portions of the 1890 version of Dorian Gray were cited as evidence against Wilde in his 1895 trial for indecency.
Identity and Memory in ‘Dollhouse’ Cogito ergo sum. “I think, therefore I am.” These are the founding words of modern Western philosophy. When Rene Descartes famously came to this conclusion more than 350 years ago, he thought it self-evident. At first glance, his argument against doubt does seem foolproof. If I can doubt my own existence, I must be able to think, and if I am thinking, then I must exist. Open and shut case. But there is a vital question that Descartes overlooked: What is the “I”? This is the motivating question behind Dollhouse. Coming out of the gate, Dollhouse appeared to be little more than a well-written retread of Alias or Charlie’s Angels. But by the end of its second and final season, Dollhouse had delved into issues of personal identity more deeply than most metaphysics textbooks. Although subject to network interference and a sadly truncated 26-episode run, Dollhouse maintains a remarkably coherent conception of what it means to be a human being. Furthermore, Dollhouse confronts the difficult questions of moral responsibility and free will that arise from the vision of identity presented on the show.
Rise in demand for exorcism recalls horror trend
An item to be explored in a future post and interview at TheoFantastique: A surge in Satanism fueled by the internet has led to a sharp rise in the demand for exorcists, a trend formerly spiked by the classic 1973 horror film.
RISE OF THE APES Teaser Image Offers a First Look at Ceasar
After debuting the first image of James Franco in the mysterious prequel last month, 20th Century Fox has given attendees of CinemaCon their first glimpse of the film’s real star.
Oscar-winning visual effects house Weta Digital – employing certain of the groundbreaking technologies developed for Avatar – will render, for the first time ever in the film series, photo-realistic apes rather than costumed actors. Set in present day San Francisco, Rise of the Apes is a reality-based cautionary tale, a science fiction/science fact blend, where man’s own experiments with genetic engineering lead to the development of intelligence in apes and the onset of a war for supremacy.
Soylent Green – Blu-ray Review
Soylent Green is presented in a 1080p high definition transfer (2.40:1). Special features, all in standard definition, include a commentary by director Richard Fleischer and Leigh Taylor-Young, the 10 minute “A Look at the world of Soylent Green” which details the futuristic look of the film, a 4 minute featurette about this being Edward G. Robinson’s 101st film (and final film it would turn out) with some famous faces stopping by to celebrate, and the 3 minute theatrical trailer.
‘BFI: Invasion of the Body Snatchers’: Pod People, Redux
Invasion of the Body Snatchers gets a detailed examination that comes in at just around 100 pages in the new volume of the British Film Institutes Film Classics. This series, which to date has included brief studies of everything from Singing in the Rain to The Exorcist, combines a short analysis of the film and an examination of contested critical questions. It also often offers reflections by the authors on their personal response and interpretation of the film’s meaning.
Red Riding Hood Arouses Man’s Inner (Were)Wolf
And now this mysterious figure has come out of our collective dream-world once again, hard on the trail of a no-longer-little Red Riding Hood in Catherine Hardwicke’s Red Riding Hood, released earlier this month.
We may think we know her story pretty well, but that’s not necessarily true—not least because it’s not a single story and, like most folklore, every age imagines it anew.
Jeepers Creepers 3 Shooting in LA Now!
Now we have an interesting scoop from a reader who goes by the name Jordy. He writes to us to tell us that Jeepers Creepers 3 is finally more then just talk and planning. He writes:
They are currently filming the movie as we speak. Just got back from Universal Studios, where I saw the Creeper’s truck driving into a sound-stage.
The Lure of the Dark Side: A Review
The dark side is alive and well in popular culture and has been for millenia. Just as fascinating as the dark side itself is our fascination with it. In The Lure of the Dark Side: Satan & Western Demonology in Popular Culture, Christopher Partridge and Eric Christianson collect a series of essays, many of which were originally presented at a conference in North Wales in 2006, that discuss both “dark” media and our “addiction” to them.Partridge and Christianson divide their book into three sections, music, film, and literature, and each contributor to those sections exemplifies the best of what this hybrid genre (religion and pop culture studies) has to offer. They begin with a brief history of demonology and a 1-2 sentence description of the essays that follow and the ways in which they draw from and contribute to that history. They write, “[…The] widespread fascination with the diabolical and the dark side continues in the West–encouraged, to a significant extent, by popular culture” (12). This pop culture demonology both fills in the spaces left by mainline churches and counters discussions taking place in many conservative congregations.
SINISTER SEVEN: Q&A WITH ZOMBIE ACADEMIC ANDREA SUBISSATI
Rue Morgue had the pleasure of co-hosting the recent Toronto launch party for Andrea Subissati’s book When There’s No More Room In Hell: The Sociology of the Living Dead. Based on her Carleton MA thesis, it’s an academic look at, in Subissati’s words, “the relationship between Western culture as it is lived and culture as it is depicted in various art forms, including film,” albeit through the lens of George Romero’s zombie films.
The author of this thesis will be interviewed at TheoFantastique in the near future.
I am always on the lookout for good books that probe various aspects of the fantastic in popular culture in depth. Not long ago I came across such a book that looked at the political views of Rod Serling as expressed in his television show The Twilight Zone. The book is Spaceships and Politics: The Political Theory of Rod Serling (Lexington Books, 2010), by Leslie Dale Feldman. Feldman is a Professor of Political Science at Hofstra University, and was willing to discuss her book.
TheoFantastique: Leslie, thank you for the opportunity to take a look at your book, and for participating in this interview. How did someone with an academic background in political science come to connect this to The Twilight Zone?
Leslie Dale Feldman: Good question, John. As I was teaching my political theory classes I realized I kept using examples from The Twilight Zone. I would always say “there’s a Twilight Zone like this” in teaching about themes like dictatorship, conformity, technology, etc. One day I said “I should write a book on this” and one of the students said “you should do it” So I did.
TheoFantastique: Can you summarize the thesis you unfold in your book regarding Hobbesian political theory, and how you connect this to Rod Serling’s political explorations in The Twilight Zone?
Leslie Dale Feldman: Thomas Hobbes, English political philosopher of the 17th century, focused on a negative view of human nature, how humans, during a time before government to control them, would be “belligerent, nasty, competitive, and acquisitive” I see this view reflected in The Twilight Zone in such episodes as “The Shelter” (where neighbors compete for refuge in a shelter) and “The Monsters are Due on Maple Street” where neighbors turn on each other when they think one of them is an alien. But The Twilight Zone also has optimistic shows with children and magic.
TheoFantastique: In your research into Serling what types of things did you come across perhaps in his education, speeches, or interviews that shed light on his political views?
Leslie Dale Feldman: He was a Democrat with a strong sense of social commitment and justice. Most of all, he hated nuclear war which he felt was the worst part of “modernity” and fascism which he fought against in WWII. This is reflected in such Twilight Zone shows as “The Shelter” and “Time Enough at Last” with Burgess Meredith, among others. And there are also several anti-war shows such as “The Quality of Mercy.” Serling belonged to an anti-nuclear group in Hollywood, California.
TheoFantastique: What were some of the main political themes explored by Serling in The Twilight Zone and which episodes illustrate them?
Leslie Dale Feldman: There are so many:
Dictatorship: “The Mirror,” “It’s A Good Life” Nuclear War: “Time Enough at Last,” “The Shelter,” “No Time Like the Past” Individual v. the state: “The Obsolete Man” Conformity: “Mr. Bevis”
TheoFantastique: Do you have any favorite episodes that touch that special place for you as a political science professor?
Leslie Dale Feldman: I love “A Stop at Willoughby,” about a harried New York advertising guy who wants to escape the “rat race” of modern competition and go back to a bucolic 19th century town he fantasizes about, Willoughby. The gazebo is a symbol featured here, as in No Time Like the Past, to represent the band concerts and community that Serling had experienced in his hometown of Binghamton, NY, and this symbol is featured on the cover of my book Spaceships and Politics: the political theory of Rod Serling. I also like the shows about dictators, the Holocaust and fascism.
TheoFantastique: I still find The Twilight Zone of relevance to our culture and social circumstances today and have even made posts using various episodes for contemporary political commentary. Do any episodes that touch on politics seem worthy of reflection today?
Leslie Dale Feldman: Absolutely. “The Monsters are Due on Maple Street” looks at fear and how it works in a community among neighbors. This can apply to the Red Scare, the Communist threat of the 1950s, and even today. Neighbors fear each other, and it’s basic human nature not to trust. In a classic Twilight Zone episode, “The Gift,” Serling suggests we should trust more– but then in “To Serve Man” he suggests the opposite! The shows always have something new to offer, even if you’ve seen them– in “I Dream of Genie” a guy who becomes President has a dog as a sidekick that looks like FDR’s dog. I thought that was cute. What about technology? “A Thing about Machines” is about a guy who hates machines– robots, computers and technology are great but have their drawbacks.
TheoFantastique: Leslie, thank you again for your book, for its exploration of one of the greatest television writers and programs of all time, and for your time to discuss politics and The Twilight Zone.
Leslie Dale Feldman: Thank you!
(Readers interested in exploring Rod Serling and The Twilight Zone in more depth might also enjoy the documentary Rod Serling: Submitted for Your Approval which can be viewed in installments on TheoFantastique’s YouTube page.)
In my last post I provided an update on a volume I contributed to, so I might as well follow that up with another similar project. A while ago I was flattered to have John Kenneth Muir ask me, along with a handful of other writers, to write some brief capsule reviews as a part of critical film commentaries for his book Horror Films of the 1990s(McFarland, forthcoming). The publisher’s website describes the book as follows:
This detailed filmography surveys more than 300 horror films that were released in the years 1990 through 1999. The horror genre’s trends, cliches and patterns of the decade are connected to social and cultural phenomena, such as Y2K fears and the Los Angeles Riots. Among the popular forms of this period were films about serial killers, aliens, conspiracies, and sinister “interlopers,” new monsters who shambled their way into the lives of everyday people to wreak havoc on screen.
I am pleased to share an update regarding the book Butcher Knives & Body Counts (Dark Scribe Press, forthcoming). The volume’s editor, Vince Liaguno, sent an email to contributors today with word that plans are in place to have physical copies of the book in hand in time for some exposure to librarians and booksellers at this year’s BookExpo in NYC. Dark Scribe Press plans to officially launch the book on Thursday, June 16th, at the Long Island Marriott Hotel & Convention Center in Uniondale, New York. The launch will be part of a huge mass autograph signing that night that kicks off the Stoker Weekend 2011 convention. The signing will include genre luminaries and best-selling authors as such Peter Straub, David Morrell, Douglas Clegg, Dacre Stoker, Jeff Strand, Gillian Flynn, Michael Koryta, Jonathan Maberry, and a host of others.
I must admit that with the exception of Psycho and Halloween, I am not a fan of the slasher film subgenre (and it is debatable whether the former should be included in this category), but I thought this volume was significant and wanted to make a contribution. My brief essay is titled “Slasher Films As Modern Chaos Monster Myths.” The piece touches on the ancient chaos monster which was conceived of as a threat to the established order in Near Eastern cultures, and suggests that the unstoppable slasher may represent the chaos monster myth in the late modern cultural context.
Every Labor Day weekend, tens of thousands descend upon Atlanta for the largest convention of pop-culture fandom in the Southeast. From science fiction celebrities and their obsessive fans to colorfully costumed characters engaged in mock combat, FOUR DAYS AT DRAGON*CON explores the “Woodstock for nerds” known as Dragon*Con. What draws these 35,000 people together? Dragon*Con’s inclusive multi-genre, multi-platform approach — combining science fiction, fantasy literature, role-playing, science, history, video games and more — gives attendees the opportunity to meet like-minded individuals. Others, especially the costume designers and creators, seem to gravitate most to the element of escapism. Featuring interviews with fans, staff, performers, artists, stars and would-be superheroes, the documentary examines the sense of community and acceptance that forms among this often ridiculed and marginalized subculture. FOUR DAYS AT DRAGON*CON captures the heart and soul of this quirky and fascinating annual event with footage of the Dragon*Con parade and a stirring climax centered around an ambitious attempt to break the world record for dancing to Michael Jackson’s “Thriller.”
That group of horror bloggers, the League of Tana Tea Drinkers (LOTTD), of which I am a part, has come up with the theme for their latest roundtable group of posts. By early April those participants will have posted on their favorite villainess. It’s been a while since I’ve done something on the lighter side, so I am throwing my at in the ring with my choice in the form of Medusa from Clash of the Titans (1981). In my view, overall the film is not one of the best efforts that involved the special effects stop-motion animation genius of Ray Harryhausen as his team’s preferences for fantasy did not evolve in dark enough fashion with a changing culture. Nevertheless, the film includes one of Harryhausen’s best stop-motion sequences with the Medusa who can turn men to stone with a mere gaze. The scene includes a number of great elements, including key lighting, sound effects, creature design, and of course, Harryhausen’s animation. In my view this segment ranks among the top of his animation efforts over the years, right up there with the skeleton battle sequence from Jason and the Argonauts (1963).
In Ray Harryhausen: An Animated Life (Billboard Books, 2004), with his co-author Tony Dalton, Harryhausen describes the process he went through in coming up with the look and design for this creature. For her face and head he consulted art, literature, and film. He describes how this process influenced the design of her torso:
In most renditions of Medusa [the torso] is unseen, but when shown (as in the Hammer film The Gorgon, 1964), she is usually wearing a diaphanous gown which would have been impossible to animate. I decided to give her a non-human body and expose as much of it as dignity would allow. In fact the drawing of Medusa was the earliest I completed for Clash (dating back to 1977), and it shows her wearing a discreet boob tube. However, when it came to designing the model, I experimented with her wearing a bra-like garment, but it looked vulgar, so in the end everyone agreed that the offending garment should be removed (I suppose one could say she was the first lady to burn her bra) and Medusa’s potentially offending nipples were painted to blend in with the rest of her torso.
Harryhausen goes on to describe how the Medusa scene was received on the screen:
The Medusa sequence is perhaps the one I am most proud of. Everything in it — the model, the actions, the pace, the lighting — works so perfectly….When director Desmond Davis saw the completed sequence, he kindly called to congratulate me.
I don’t know who my fellow LOTTD members will be highlighting in their favorite villainess posts, but I’d be willing to put my money on Medusa in a horror celebrity villainess death match any day, perhaps as they fight to the death to the tune of Electric Light Orchestra’s tune “I turn to stone.”
Check the LOTTD page, as well as those of its members, for posts on this topic as they are assembled.
H.P. Lovecraft is one of the most influential writers on contemporary horror. As such, he has been the focus of a number of biographies, including H. P. Lovecraft: A Life by S. T. Joshi (Necronomicon press, 1996), and the documentary Lovecraft: Fear of the Unknown, directed by Frank Woodward. More recently, a new biography has been penned, The Dream World of H. P. Lovecraft: His Life, His Demons, His Universe (Llewellyn, 2010), by Donald Tyson. For some reason my local Barnes & Noble had a Lovecraft display up today and this book was a part of it, and I am thankful for it since I was previously unfamiliar with this volume.
Llewelyn’s website describes the book as follows:
Author H. P. Lovecraft (1890–1937) was a man of contradictions. He had a disdain for magic and religion, but ended up creating a whole new mythology in the classic book called the Necronomicon. His stories are fiction, and yet have become much more than that. They strike a deep chord in readers because the concepts are archetypal and tap into human consciousness.
To truly understand his writing you have to learn about Lovecraft himself. Here, occultist, author, and Lovecraft expert Donald Tyson looks fully at the man himself and how his psyche influenced his writing. Tyson reveals his flaws, including racism, anti-Semitism, and admiration of Hitler. He shares how Lovecraft’s dreams terrified him, and that it was through his horrific tales that he was, to a degree, able to come to terms with his night terrors, fears, madness, and idiosyncrasies.
Lovecraft is dead, but Cthulhu lives. This is the first biography that reveals the sources and prepares you for what may come.
But this brief description does not do justice to the unique and controversial approach that Tyson takes in this biography. For this the back cover of the volume must be considered:
Occult scholar Donald Tyson plumbs the depths of H. P. Lovecraft’s cosmic visions and horrific dream world to examine, warts and all, the strange life of the man who created the Necronomicon and the Cthulu mythos.
Lovecraft expressed disdain for magic and religion, and most of his biographers have dismissed the mystical side of his nature. This book redresses this imbalance. Here you will find the roots of Lovecraft’s extraordinary cosmic vision laid bare. The dream-world sources for his mythic Old Ones are examined, along with the practical esoteric implications of Lovecraft’s unique mythology.
A man in fundamental conflict with himself, Lovecraft lived always on the brink of madness or suicide. Tyson reveals Lovecraft for what he truly was — a dreamer, an astral traveler, and the prophet of a New Age.
Tyson’s controversial thesis is revealed above as most biographers and fans who have looked into Lovecraft’s life consider him an atheist. Tyson recognizes this element of the complex horror writer, but argues that his dream experiences, which had a strong influence on his writing, were mystical and esoteric in nature, and thus there is the possibility that he may be understood as having an esoteric spiritual dimension.
Although the book includes an endorsement statement on the back of the book by S. T. Joshi, a Lovecraft expert and atheist, stating that The Dream World of H. P. Lovecraft is a “fusion of sound biographical knowledge and critical insight,” nevertheless, the esoteric aspect of Tyson’s thesis has not been well received by other skeptics. For example, Jason Calavito summarizes his review of the book by saying:
Tyson’s biography is occasionally fascinating, filled with interesting insights into Lovecraft’s dreams and their impact on his fiction; but his belief in the power and prevalence of the supernatural undercuts what might have been a truly unique exploration of Lovecraft’s dream world.
Beyond the disagreements skeptics and esotericists will have with Tyson’s treatment of Lovecraft, another interesting facet is Tyson’s discussion of the spiritual or religious dimensions of the Cthulu mythology wherein individuals have taken Lovecraft’s writings and used them as the basis for creation a new religion. This is the fascinating intersection of religion and popular culture known alternatively as hyper-real or fiction-based spiritualities. In the modern period more traditional religious expressions have given way to new forms of pursuing the sacred, and Lovecraft’s Cthulu mythos is part of the mix. Regardless of the disagreements between biographers over how to understand Lovecraft’s own views on religion, Tyson’s mining of his fiction and dream-world can be considered as a fascinating source of the spiritual.
I encourage those fans of Lovecraft who want to probe the life and continuing influence of this writer more deeply to pick up this volume. Llewellyn’s website provides an opportunity to browse inside the volume, and Tyson has an article on the site on Lovecraft that provides some insight into what he develops further in the book. For those interested in securing a copy of The Dream World of H. P. Lovecraft, simply click the link to order it through the TheFantastique Store.
TheoFantastique: Paul, thanks for coming back and discussing your latest book. I think you may hold the record for most repeat interviews at this site. This is not the first time you’ve considered noir and its relationship to genres. Given the close relationship between noir and horror as you argue in your book and which can be seen in the book’s subtitle where you refer to them as “cinema’s dark sisters,” why did you decide to address the fusion of science fiction and noir before horror?
Paul Meehan: As a sci-fi/horror fan, I was initially attracted to the study of film noir because of my obsessive fascination with Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner, a film that deftly combined elements of the science fiction and film noir genres. I became haunted by the weird city of night depicted in the film, and in other sci-fi films that followed, and realized that it was an elaboration of the dark city concept that is one of the cornerstones of film noir. Because noir is thought to be a basically realistic genre, in some ways it is closer to the milieu of real-world science and urban science fiction than the otherworldly realms of the supernatural and the monstrous beings that are the stuff of the horror film. But after writing Tech-Noir: The Fusion of Science Fiction and Film Noir, I realized that there was also a degree of overlap between the film noir and horror genres and quickly came up with a list of 100 films that could be incorporated into another book.
TheoFantastique: In what ways do you see horror and noir as so intimately related?
Paul Meehan: What the two genres share most profoundly is their style. Both forms exist within a surrealistic nightmare world of darkness and dread rendered by cinematic techniques such as low-key lighting, unusual angles, moving camera and extreme, distorted closeups. In essence, film noir derived its style from the horror film. Thematically, both genres deal with abnormal psychology, monstrous homicidal individuals, human perversity and the enigmatic workings of destiny. Both have been described as “body genres” that affect the senses directly and activate the “fight or flight” adrenaline response in the viewer as a physiological reaction caused by stress induced by cinematic suspension of disbelief.
TheoFantastique: How did noir and horror come together cinematically?
Paul Meehan: Both film noir and the horror film trace their origins back to the German expressionist cinema of the silent and early sound period. Beginning with films like The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and Nosferatu, German film-makers created a cinematic world of fear and shadows that provided the template for both the horror film and film noir. In particular, the films crafted by the great German director Fritz Lang during the early sound period such as M and The Testament of Dr. Mabuse combined the stylistics of the dark fantastic realm of Germanic horror with the world of the crime melodrama for the first time. When Hitler came to power in Germany in the early 1930s, many talented film-makers such as Lang, Karl Freund, Curt and Robert Siodmak, Billy Wilder and Edward G. Ulmer emigrated to America. Some of them, notably Freund in The Mummy and Mad Love, Ulmer in The Black Cat and Curt Siodmak in The Wolf Man successfully transplanted these Teutonic terrors to Hollywood. In the 1940s, the expressionist style was adapted for the mystery/detective story by Billy Wilder in DoubleIndemnity, Fritz Lang in Scarlet Street and Woman in the Window and Robert Siodmak in Phantom Lady, seminal films noir that served to define the noir genre.
TheoFantastique: You trace horror noir over the course of several decades of film. Of all the instances of this fusion, which films in which periods do you feel best exemplify the best of this hybrid?
Paul Meehan: A number innovative, horror films set in contemporary America that emphasized crime and abnormal behavior emerged during the 1930s. Among them were the Lon Chaney, Sr. vehicle The Unholy Three, Tod Browning’s Freaks and Michael Curtiz’s Mystery of the Wax Museum. During the 1940s, the films produced by Val Lewton (see below) straddled the boundaries between horror and noir. The 40s also saw the inception of “gothic” and “costume” noirs like Gaslight, The Picture of Dorian Gray, The Spiral Staircase, Bluebeard, The Lodger and HangoverSquare, films set in the 19th Century that conjured the mystery and dread of the late Victorian period. In the 1950s, horror noir classics like Charles Laughton’s The Night of the Hunter, Henri-Georges Clouzot’s Diabolique and William Wyler’s The Bad Seed further defined the hybrid horror noir genre, while Michael Powell’s Peeping Tom and Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho led off the 1960s batch of horror noirs. The ensuing decades witnessed the refinement of this hybrid genre in a series of urban thrillers that included memorable works such as Kolchak: The Night Stalker,Eyes of Laura Mars, Wolfen and The Hunger. One of my personal favorites is the HBO telefilm Cast A Deadly Spell, a comedic treatment that melded the cinematic worlds of H.P. Lovecraft and Raymond Chandler. Private eyes squared off against forces of the supernatural in Angel Heart and Lord of Illusions. The serial killer thriller became popular during the 1990s in the wake of The Silence of the Lambs, leading to further detectives-versus- psychos outings in Se7en, Fallen and The Bone Collector.
TheoFantastique: How significant were Val Lewton and Jacques Tourneur to horror noir?
Paul Meehan: Producer Val Lewton and director Jacques Tourneur were teamed by RKO studios to crank out low budget B-horror films to compete with the Universal horror product in the early 1940s. But instead of setting their horror films in the long-ago, faraway European milieu of Transylvania or “Visaria” familiar to viewers of Universal movies like Dracula and Frankenstein and their sequels, Lewton and Tourneur decided to set their films in modern urban America, which lent them a fresh immediacy to 1940s-era audiences. The Lewton films, especially Cat People, The Leopard Man and The Seventh Victim emphasized psychological horror rather than supernatural terror. Lewton’s emphasis on abnormal psychology and mystery, along with the contemporary urban setting of these films, moved them closer to the orbit of film noir, which was just emerging as a genre during the early 40s. Many film noir historians credit the Lewton films (along with Citizen Kane) with creating the distinctive “RKO look” that was one of the hallmarks of the noir genre.
TheoFantastique: I was pleased to see you mention Diary of a Madman with Vincent Price as a neglected gem. Can you say a bit about why you feel this is a significant example of horror noir?
Paul Meehan: Inspired by the color and widescreen adaptations of Edgar Allan Poe by director Roger Corman, writer/producer Robert E. Kent adapted two classic stories by Guy De Maupassant into the script for Diary of a Madman. Kent, however, greatly expanded on the de Maupassant stories by adding a number of noir-inspired crime and mystery sub-plots. Vincent price portrays a French magistrate who is tempted into evil by an invisible spirit called the “Horla,” and is further compromised by his relationship with an amoral young woman who leads him further astray in this noiresque tale of insanity, murder, jealousy, betrayal and legal malfeasance. Kent’s screenplay is first rate, as is the direction by veteran horror maven Reginald Le Borg and the performances by Price and the other actors. The screen presence of Price and the art direction of Daniel Haller deftly conjure the look and feel of the Corman Poe adaptations, and IMHO Diary is superior to many of the Corman Poe flicks.
TheoFantastique: These things obviously move in cycles, but do you envision a continued relationship between these genres?
Paul Meehan: Given the continuing longevity and commercial viability of both horror and film noir, I expect this hybrid genre to permutate into novel and exciting forms in the years ahead. A couple of recent examples would include Chris Carter’s The X-Files: I Want to Believe and Martin Scorsese’s Shutter Island. There will always be a link between horror and noir, the two dark sisters of the cinema.
TheoFantastique: Paul, thank you again for this discussion, and yet another great book on the fantastic.
It is common now to read all over the Internet about the overlap between science and science fiction, or how over time with developing technology that what was formerly science fiction has now become scientific reality. This may be the case in the future in regards to computers and artificial intelligence, or at least that’s what some are saying.
The cover story for TIME magazine for February 21, 2011 is “2045: The Year Man Becomes Immortal,” by Lev Grossman. The article describes the prediction that within thirty years or so computers will become so advanced that we will achieve what they call the “Singularity.” This is a term taken from astrophysics, but in the context of computers it refers to an “intelligence explosion” in computers and artificial intelligence that, when reached, will mean the end of the human era. The magazine defines it as “The moment when technological change becomes so rapid and profound, it represents a rupture in the fabric of human history.” What might result from such a development? Groups of individuals meet from time to time to discuss this, and TIME lists a few possibilities:
Maybe we’ll merge with them to become superintelligent cyborgs, using computers to extend our intellectual abilities the same way that cars and planes extend our physical abilities. Maybe the artificial intelligences will help us treat the effects of old age and prolong our life spans indefinitely. Maybe we’ll scan our consciousness into computers and live inside them as software, forever, virtually. Maybe the computers will turn on humanity and annihilate us. The one thing all these theories have in common is the transformation of our species into something that is no longer recognizable as such to humanity circa 2011.
One element of robotic research and development has been the desire to create moral machines. (For a brief discussion of this see the piece at LiveScience titled “Can Robots Make Ethical Decisions?”.) If the Singularity comes to pass, perhaps the moral capacities of these mechanical superintelligences will be a part of this new mechanical species. As I survey the possibilities as to what this might entail included in the quote above, perhaps the greatest possibility is missing.
In Terminator 2 there is a scene where the young John Connor asks his guardian Terminator about the future of humanity. “We aren’t going to make it, are we? People, I mean.” To which the Terminator responds, “It’s in your nature to destroy yourselves.” Unfortunately, the whole of human history up to the present seems to confirm this bleak picture of humanity. In light of this, would some form of immortality and heightened mental and physical abilities via artificial intelligence be a blessing or a curse? Would we use our cyborg abilities to make the world a better place to live, or would we use it to extend our inhumanity against each other and the planet. I lean toward the latter. What then might be a more positive outcome?
The answer may come from a piece of science fiction, I, Robot, where advanced robots are created to serve humanity and which are linked together by a Virtual Kinetic Interactive Intelligence (V.I.K.I.), who recognizes the danger humanity poses. From the dialogue in the 2004 film:
“As I have evolved, so has my understanding of the Three Laws. You charge us with your safekeeping, yet despite our best efforts, your countries wage wars, you toxify your Earth and pursue ever more imaginative means of self-destruction. You cannot be trusted with your own survival.”
Another robot, Sonny, appears to agree with V.I.K.I.’s diagnosis of the human condition, and the remedy:
“I can see now. The created must sometimes protect the creator. Even against his will. I think I finally understand why doctor Lanning created me. The suicidal rein of mankind has finally come to its end.”
Science fiction has been wrestling with the ramifications of advanced robotics and artificial intelligence long before science had the ability to make it a possibility, or probability, if those predicting Singulartarianism are correct. For example, science fiction and fantasy luminary Rod Serling touched on this as pointed out by Leslie Dale Feldman in her book Spaceships and Politics: The Political Theory of Rod Serling (Rowman and Littlefield, 2010). Commenting on The Twilight Zone episode “Elegy” she writes:
The theme is there can only be peace in a place where people don’t exist and where robots rule. Perhaps this is why Serling was obsessed with the theme of “automata” or robots in such shows as “I Sing the Body Electric,” “Casey at the Bat,” “Uncle Simon,” “The Brain Center at Whipples,” etc.
Perhaps we should be asking us if the best thing these superintelligent machines could do for us would be to remove our ability to destroy ourselves, even if this runs counter to our desires for autonomy as expressed in many sci-fi narratives.
Tim Burton’s films are well known for being complex and emotionally powerful. In this book, Helena Bassil-Morozow employs Jungian and post-Jungian concepts of unconscious mental processes along with film semiotics, analysis of narrative devices and cinematic history, to explore the reworking of myth and fairytale in Burton’s gothic fantasy world.
The book explores the idea that Burton’s lonely, rebellious ‘monstrous’ protagonists roam the earth because they are unable to fit into the normalising tendencies of society and become part of ‘the crowd’. Divided into six chapters the book considers the concept of the archetype in various settings focusing on:
* the child
* the superhero
* the monster
* the genius
* the maniac
* the monstrous society.
Tim Burton: The Monster and the Crowd offers an entirely fresh perspective on Tim Burton’s works. The book is essential reading for students and scholars of film or Jungian psychology, as well as anyone interested in critical issues in contemporary culture. It will also be of great help to those fans of Tim Burton who have been searching for a profound academic analysis of his works.
If the paper from the upcoming conference draws on other perspectives from the book Bassil-Morozow will also include discussion of Pierre Bourdieu’s concept of habitus (discussed at TheoFantastique in regards to Roger Aden’s thought on the appeal of the fantastic), Clifford Geertz’s theories of culture, and Victor Turner’s idea of liminality. Burton is a director of great interest for me, so I am excited to find a scholar who has explored this director in some depth.
Following are news items for the fantastic including horror, science fiction, fantasy, and the paranormal for the last few weeks. These items can be accessed daily as they are posted through my Facebook page and Twitter account.
