Seeing in Darko

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Having seen it I have to wonder why I waited so long.  Part of it was timing, of course.  I was still teaching at Nashotah House when Donnie Darko came out, and I didn’t watch as many movies then.  My loss of that job started me on my horror-watching spree, but Donnie Darko is more than horror.  In fact, it’s usually labeled a thriller instead.  Another reason I avoided it is, alas, the title.  It’s actually the name of the protagonist, and one of the other characters in the movie remarks that it sounds like a superhero name rather than a regular person.  What’s it about?  Well, that’s where it gets interesting.  Donnie has mental health issues, but those issues are tied in with time travel and philosophical discussions about the existence of God.  The high school Donnie attends, although not explicitly stated, seems to be Catholic but there aren’t priests and nuns about, and one of the teachers is seemingly evangelical.

Donnie has trouble distinguishing reality.  Instead of allowing the audience to get away with labeling him easily, the question of reality itself is left unanswered.  The movie is deep like Brazil or The Matrix, and is often considered one of the greatest independent films of all time.  It’s the story of Donnie’s October 1988.  He sleepwalks and sees a guy in a bunny costume who tells him the world will end in 28 days.  Of course he’s medicated and sent to see a psychologist, but what the guy in the bunny costume tells him ends up coming true.  The story is intricate and doesn’t bear a brief synopsis.  It is a movie that will make you think.  It’s become a cult film and I think I’ll be joining that crowd on this one.

Films that manage to put philosophical reflection in the spotlight are rare.  Even more uncommon are those that do so with high production values and convincing acting.  Movies that do this aren’t often cheerful—philosophers in general don’t tend to be a jovial lot (some are fun, of course, but they’re not the majority).  Thinking is serious work, even if those who do it aren’t really paid for their efforts.  Donnie Darko is a movie that will make you think.  Is it horror?  Some classify it so.  Others say sci-fi, but it didn’t really seem like that to me.  In fact, it’s very difficult to classify at all.  Many of the best movies are that way, in my experience.

One Another

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Like much of the other information that I’ve managed to pick up in these six decades of wandering the planet, my knowledge of horror is self-taught.  In truth, I’m an eclectic reader—my various, periodic obsessions generally stem from books I’m writing.  For my unwinding time, however, horror stories seem to do the trick.  Nobody I know in person reads horror, so my recommendations are generally the results of other books I read.  That’s how I found Thomas Tryon’s The Other.  Although I’d only learned of it recently, it has been a classic in the field for many decades.  After having read it, I can see why.  And unlike many fiction works with an afterword, this edition has one worth reading.  Maybe you’re unfamiliar with the novel?  If so, in brief, it’s about twins.  It’s about twins.

Identical twins.  Holland and Niles Perry were born over the cusp of midnight, giving them different birthdays while still being the same age.  Unlike stereotypical identical twins, however, Holland is evil and Niles is good.  As the novel unfolds it contains some twists that, if like me you haven’t heard the story, really do work.  They live in a small town in Connecticut with their widowed mother, older sister and brother-in-law, maternal grandmother, and a couple of domestics.  An aunt and uncle, along with a cousin, settle in.  (It’s a large house.)  Family dynamics are strange and the locals grow increasingly impatient with Holland’s antics.  The Perry family is, however, long established and well respected.

Doesn’t sound very scary, does it?  That’s the genius of the work.  It’s a slow burn but when the fuse reaches the powder it leaves you trembling.  Nobody taught me how to find and read horror.  I’m still pretty much a novice and it seems that novels these days tend to have weight problems.  I was glad to find The Other wasn’t excessively long.  It shows that literary horror is possible as well.  Like Shirley Jackson, Tryon received acclaim for his work.  (And like Jackson, his novel doesn’t balloon out to over four hundred pages—something of a rarity these days.)  I guess I’m just a bit surprised it took so long for me to find out about this one.  I don’t want to give any spoilers because this is a beautifully constructed novel and knowing what happens might deter other readers.  I wouldn’t want to do such a disservice to a book I wish I’d known about when I was younger.

Mind Echoes

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One of the things that must be frustrating about making movies is that so much competition exists.  Even when you hit on a great idea, such as using a Richard Matheson novel for a story basis, others might be producing something similar.  This isn’t unique to movies, of course.  Some of us have had the experience while writing books.  For those of us who watch movies online, rather than in theaters, the timing differential can still warp perspectives.  I’d not heard of Stir of Echoes until I stumbled onto a website that lists horror movies that have a little something extra.  While watching it I couldn’t help but think of The Sixth Sense, which I also saw at home, but quite a few years earlier than Stir of Echoes.  The acting in the latter is quite good.  The haunted kid pulls this off effectively.  And Kevin Bacon and Kathryn Erbe do a great job as parents (actor-wise).  Spoilers follow.

If you’ve intuited that the child sees dead people, you’re not far off.  It’s actually only one dead person and it’s not a Shyamalanian counsellor.  But the spooky part is his dad begins to see them too, after he’s been hypnotized by his sister-in-law, who’s an amateur.  At its heart the story follows the traditional trope of the undiscovered murder.  It does a good job of hiding the perpetrators until near the end.  The build-up is good also, with Bacon portraying Roy Neary-like obsession (interestingly, they’re in similar professions) quite well.  

The scary part, for me, was the sense that you’re not in control of your own mind.  There’s perhaps just a little too much possibility here.  We tend to think we own our minds, but what if they’re really just on loan?  I remember reading, as a high schooler, that religious people are difficult to hypnotize.  Hypnosis is still not well understood.  The larger fish in the pond is consciousness itself, which we really can’t even define.  We do know that memories are altered with time, and we can demonstrate this to ourselves by rewatching an old movie and seeing what we got wrong.  I suspect that’s why Stir of Echoes is so effective as a horror film—taking us into the realm of mind exposes us to so much that we really don’t understand.  And since ghosts seem to be pretty believable, well, the combination works.  Stir of Echoes is unsettling and a cut above much of what’s available for free streaming.  So if you’re in the mood for a ghost story, this might just fit the bill.

Out There

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While Amazon Prime includes a few A-list horror movies, those that it does I’ve already watched.  Since I can’t afford to pay for this habit, I watch what’s free.  That brought me to the horror comedy There’s Nothing out There.  Written and directed by a twenty-year-old guy, it’s kind of what you might expect.  Its main claim to fame, apart from being a low-budget monster flick, is that it anticipates Wes Craven’s classic Scream.   The latter is famous for being so self-aware.  One of the characters keeps telling the others what happens in horror films and, of course, those things happen.  Although There’s Nothing out There is silly, one of the characters does exactly that.  In the funniest moment in the movie he looks directly at the camera and says “It’s a distinct possibility” in response to one of the girls asking “So you’re saying we’re in a movie?”  Craven didn’t borrow that, but then, Scream is a landmark.

So what’s it about?  There are seven young people who head to a cabin in the woods.  Actually, it’s a regular house, and quite a nice one at that.  The three couples are there for sex but the single guy (Mike) is the horror expert and gets on everyone’s nerves.  He’s right, of course, that there is a monster on the loose.  A slimy green thing with a huge mouth full of pointy teeth, has fallen from space into the neighborhood and it slimes the guys, digesting them, and tries to mate with thee girls.  And if it shoots lasers into your eyes you become its servant, helping out with its mission.  The kids are picked off, of course, with Mike surviving along with one of the couples.  Before they can stop the monster a plumber also gets eaten.

Horror comedy is a strange genre.  It tends to work because there are elements of humor in much of horror.  It’s not all blood and gore—the best examples use that sparingly, in any case.  And horror comedy doesn’t really frighten since it’s pretty clear that it’s being played for laughs.  Sometimes such movies venture into the bad realm—there’s a reason some movies are free on Amazon Prime—but at times they actually have quite a bit to offer.  There’s nothing scary about There’s Nothing out There.  It’s the kind of movie that tends to grow into a cult classic over the years, however.  And while it’s not A-list material, it’s still worth watching for free.

First Stories

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I won’t say more than that her first name was Tina.  She lived next door to us in the earliest boyhood home I can remember.  She was a few years older than my brothers and me and, according to my mother, grew into quite the delinquent.  She ended up in jail, I’m told.  Still, even in a childhood full of scarring memories, I remember Tina as being the first person who told me a scary story.  Funny how these things stick with you.  We lived in Franklin, Pennsylvania, a town on the edge of the woods.  Indeed, Venango County is largely wooded and populated by some of the most avid hunters I’ve ever seen.  There were woods across the street from our house, climbing one of those ubiquitous hills that make the area so beautiful.

There was a man in those woods, Tina told us, who’d been kidnapping small boys and cutting out their hearts.  She was telling it as the truth and well over half a century later I remember the fear that story instilled in me.  Of course, Mom told her to stop telling us scary stories.  I was only five or six at the time.  Maybe four.  My path to watching horror movies wasn’t straightforward.  We were a religious family, but taking care of three young boys and an ailing mother with no husband around eats up all your time.  Mom was content to let the television babysit us in the next room at times.  And as late monster boomers, we watched monster movies on Saturday afternoons.  They gave me a cozy feeling.  Things could be worse than not having a father.  Much worse.

After high school I gave up monsters for the Gospel.  Went to college to become a preacher.  I ended up teaching in a seminary and didn’t want my daughter to grow up scared, like I had done.  Then my world collapsed.  Fundamentalists fired me from my first and last full-time teaching position.  I dealt with it by watching horror films.  Perhaps I was reverting to childhood coping strategies.  Over the years, however, I never forgot that story that Tina told us when my brothers and I were little.  It is a scary world out there, and you’ve got to learn that one way or another.  Many people don’t understand my fascination with horror.  In times of trouble, however, we go back to those self-soothing practices that we associate with good feelings.  For some of us it was watching monster movies on Saturday afternoons and knowing things could be worse.  

Nun too Soon

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Following a horror franchise from the beginning is a rarity.  At least it is for me.  Now that I’ve seen The Nun II, I’m caught up on the Conjuring universe, for now.  I’ve written an article, still awaiting publication, on the Catholicism in this cinematic universe, and The Nun II has me wondering: how hard is it to find out the basics about Catholicism?  The movie is okay for big-budget horror, but not great.  The Catholicism in it feels like it’s imagined by writers who speculate on what it might be without ever, say, attending a mass to find out.  And the demon Valak isn’t exactly rank and file either.  The idea of using St. Lucy’s eyes as a relic was, however, pretty creepy.

So, after The Nun, Sr. Irene has gone to a convent in Italy.  A series of bizarre clerical deaths sweeps across Europe and all the Vatican can think to do is send the one young nun who’s faced this demon before.  No priest this time because Fr. Burke is dead, rather laconically stated.  Sister Debra sneaks along and the two nuns find themselves facing a demon that immolates priests because it can’t find a relic it wants that will make it even more powerful—the eyes of St. Lucy.  Said eyes are buried in a ruined chapel in a Catholic girls’ school in Aix-en-Provence.  This is the school where Frenchie (from The Nun) now works as a handyman.  We all know he was somehow possessed at the end of that film.  The girls’ school used to be a winery and Valak is defeated when the nuns consecrate a pool of wine that banishes the demon.

At this point in time, the Conjuring universe has grossed over two billion dollars.  All of the films are explicitly religion-based horror.  Putatively in a Catholic setting, they feel like Protestants trying to guess what Catholicism must be like.  At least they feel that way to me.  The Nun sequence in particular, has demons responding to defenses that would not, in a Catholic world, work.  As much as I may disagree on the theology, nuns can’t consecrate wine.  And it turns out that Sr. Irene is a descendant of St. Lucy, one of the virgin martyrs.  Although that title is sometimes given as an honorific, it does generally mean that such saints had no progeny.  Death by thurible is fairly clever, though.  Like all the films of the franchise, The Nun II is worth watching, but it fails to convince on the religion front.  It just doesn’t feel Catholic.

Don’t You Sleep

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Sleep is pleasant but it’s such a vulnerable time.  Something deep in our animal DNA tells us to find a sheltered place to do it.  That vulnerability is compounded by demons.  So claims Slumber.  While not the most original story, it’s pretty effective for a while, but then holes begin to appear in the plot and you find it difficult not to keep asking why the problems weren’t addressed.  Let’s take a step back.  Doctor Alice Arnolds lost her younger brother to a demon when they were children.  This demon, called Mare, causes, well, nightmares.  These nightmares lead to sleepwalking and ultimately death.  As a doctor specializing in sleep disorders, Arnolds helps others scientifically.  She’s come to believe that her brother’s death was because of natural causes—the supernatural doesn’t exist.

Okay, so sleepwalking is creepy, and the idea isn’t a bad hook.  Then Arnolds meets a family of four, all of whom sleepwalk with nightmares.  The demon’s target here is their young son, who reminds Arnolds of her lost brother.  At the sleep clinic the monitors show something odd, but circumstantial evidence points to the father as the guilty party.  But here’s where the big hole appears.  Once Arnolds becomes convinced something supernatural is happening, she decides to handle it herself, at the family’s home.  Even when it’s clear they’re out of their league, nobody calls the police or even an ambulance, let alone a priest.  Instead they rely on a janitor’s father whom they’ve just met.  They try to keep the boy awake until they’re endangering his life, then they fight the demon in their dreams.  There is a kind of twist ending, and the production values are good.  

The demon, which Arnolds researches on Wikipedia, is a notsnitsa.  Why this Slavic demon targeted both her brother and the family under distress isn’t explored.  The connection is made with “the night hag”—a folkloric demon that attacks in your sleep and is generally explained as sleep paralysis.  This is not a possessing demon.  In the film it’s said to be parasitic, and the sleeping victim acts out what the demon tells it to do.  The lack of any religious tension hurts this movie.  As does that lingering question—why not call in some kind of expert?  Either sacred or secular will do!  I won’t ruin the ending of the movie, but I’ll warn those tempted to watch to come armed with a great deal of suspension of disbelief.  You’re gonna need it.

Sequel Pondering

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Of course I’m working on another book.  I can’t say what it is at the moment, but one of the projects I’ve long been contemplating is a kind of sequel to Holy Horror.  The problem is that if the first book didn’t sell very well (the premise is perhaps too academic), a sequel couldn’t be expected to do any better.  I’m still working on sloughing that academy skin.  But I keep watching what we insist on calling “horror” and the more I do, the more I find the Bible in it.  Others have taken up the gauntlet—mostly academics who have jobs that encourage such behavior—of connecting horror and religion.  The Bible’s role, while a subset of the larger field, has its own particular parameters.  In one of my notebooks I have a list of 23 movies to add to my analysis.  I know that there is a twenty-fourth, but it’s only streaming on an exclusive service and still costs a bit too much for something that doesn’t come with a plastic case.

In any case, Holy Horror just scratched the surface.  One of the factors I’ve mentioned before is that there is no database of the Bible’s appearances in film.  It would be an extensive list altogether, and a substantial number of horror films would be on it.  In general, it seems, people really aren’t too interested or intrigued by this fact.  I certainly am.  Our society is a curious mix of sweet and salty.  We want to think we’re too sophisticated for religion, but religion undergirds just about everything we do.  Otherwise it’s pretty difficult to explain how the Bible keeps showing up in horror.  Usually as a mysterious artifact.

I recently saw myself referred to as a biblical scholar.  There’s no doubt that I taught biblical studies for many years.  I even wrote a book interpreting one aspect of the Good Book.  My degree, and my interest, however, has always been historical.  I follow this history of ideas.  Although many people don’t understand my current horror fascination, it’s clear this is another jog down a trail of history.  How did we get to the point that a totemic (the scholarly phrase is “iconic”) Bible became a stand-in for God in movies?  I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to write Holy Sequel, although, if my profession ever permitted it, I’d certainly have the interest in doing so.  There’s a lot to be learned from such explorations.  That’s true even if the books containing the information only appear on a few dusty library shelves.

Through the Woods

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The thing about appreciating bad movies is that it’s difficult to be disappointed.  On a recent weekend I’d watched a horror film that didn’t sit well with me (or maybe it was the last night’s supper), and I decided I needed to see something else.  Something that was free on my streaming service.  I’d read about Transylvania 6-5000 someplace, but I couldn’t remember where.  The list of stars won me over: Jeff Goldblum, Ed Begley Jr., Jeffrey Jones, Geena Davis, Michael Richards—why don’t more people talk about it?  Because even for a comedy it has trouble working.  Well, a horror comedy, to be precise.  Emphasis on the comedy, which tries too hard.  I couldn’t get over the fact that this was a tall guy movie—Goldblum, Begley, Jones, and Richards are all over six feet tall.  Usually other actors literally have to look up to them.

Even though it’s a groaner, it’s not without worth.  It was filmed in what used to be Yugoslavia when it was rare for anything to come from behind the Iron Curtain.  Set in Transylvania, it wasn’t too far off.  (Transylvania is located in Romania, of course.)  Some of the performances aren’t bad, Davis’ vampire nods to Frank-N-Furter in Rocky Horror, and Carol Kane is fun to watch as Lupi.  The male roles are generally the problem.  In case you’re wondering, the plot is that two reporters—Goldblum and Begley—are sent to Transylvania to find a story.  The locals laugh at them, insisting Transylvania’s a modern country with no monsters.

When the classic monsters do appear, they all have rational explanations.  There are riffs off vampires, werewolves, Frankenstein’s monster, swamp monsters, and the mummy.  There’s even a mad scientist.  The problem is the movie really doesn’t give itself over to either comedy or horror.  There are ways to make that combination work.  And, as with C.H.U.D., the title put me off.  I didn’t know until reading about it later that it was also a riff, but from the Glenn Miller song “Pennsylvania 6-5000.”  I’d never heard the song before and was unfamiliar with its title.  Rudy De Luca, the director, had worked with Mel Brooks and perhaps if they’d collaborated on this one the results might’ve been better.  So, it’s a bad movie.  That doesn’t mean it isn’t worth watching.  Movies like this sometimes serve as an homage to the monsters with whom we grew up, and who even met Abbott and Costello in their own lifetimes.  Just be prepared not to take it too seriously and not to laugh too much.

Demonic Night

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There’s a type of film—I don’t have the vocabulary for it—where the action is loud, brash, and in-your-face.  Colors are often lurid and, in horror, gross sounds are emphasized.  I’m not sure what it’s called, but it’s the style used with Night of the Demons.  I didn’t realize until after I’d seen it that it was a remake of an earlier film by the same name.  The one I saw was the 2009 version.  I’d just finished a book about demons, and I was looking over Amazon Prime and what I could watch without spending any more money.  Well, I did learn something.  But first, a little plot reveal: a group of friends are going to a Halloween party in a haunted mansion.  Mainly they’re looking for controlled substances and uninhibited sex.  The party hostess has rented said haunted mansion for the night.

Once they get there the final girl, Maddie (and you can tell from the beginning that she’ll be the final girl) starts to realize that there seem to be supernatural forces at play.  The cops show up and break up the rave, but seven kids remain behind since they’ve been locked in.  They find a hidden room where the bodies of six previous victims have decomposed.  This leads to the possession of the woman hosting the group and these demons are transferred either by bite or sex—they are sexually transmitted demons.  So, naturally, all the friends except the final girl fall victim.  These demons dissolve in the sunlight unless they get seven victims, so when Maddie makes it through Halloween night, the demons are defeated.

What makes this moving interesting is the type of demons on show.  These seven demons are so bad that they’ve been kicked out of Hell—they don’t follow the rules.  This made me think.  Logically, no demons in Hell follow the rules.  The root of the word “pandemonium” means “all demons.”  If none of them obey rules, how can any be kicked out for breaking rules?  Laws and rules are what preserve any civilization.  Those who use their money and power to flaunt the law are, in their own way, demonic.  These demons are kept at bay by spells written on the walls of one room in the house.  Those rules they must obey.  Is this a parable about free will?  It doesn’t seem sophisticated enough for that.  Night of the Demons is one of those fast, loud, lurid movies that need a monster.  Demons, which have no basic form, seem to be purpose made to fill such gaps.

Tall and Slender

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At first I thought she was mistaken.  A friend mentioned, in a litany of horror films, The Tall Man.  I thought she meant The Slender Man.  Then I saw an online post that referenced The Tall Man and I grew curious.  That curiosity almost cost me my lunch.  Not for the reasons you might assume, but because The Tall Man’s one of those movies that seems to think the camera has to be in constant motion.  I have an inner ear condition that makes me extremely susceptible to motion sickness.  It happens even if I watch train cars passing (which is, indeed, one of the images with which the movie starts).  I kept telling myself, give it a few more minutes, maybe they’ll buy a tripod.  I’m glad I stayed with it because it was inspired by the Slender Man urban legend.  Later, The Slender Man was made into a movie, perhaps inspired by The Tall Man.

Although horror, this probably isn’t what you think.  The reason I was glad that I stuck with it is that, although confusing, it has a good message and everything becomes clear at the very end.  Director misdirection is very common, of course, but this one worked on me.  There’ll be spoilers here—so you’re warned.  The common thread behind both Tall and Slender is missing children.  Some mythical or folkloristic creature snatches them away.  There’s no supernatural in this movie.  It revolves around a widowed nurse in a dying town, Cold Rock, Washington.  The children are suffering and the nurse wants them to live a better life.  Here’s a spoiler—read no further unless you want the ending ruined.  I’m serious.  The next paragraph will spill the beans!

Her husband isn’t really dead.  Working together they kidnap working class children and get them to loving, caring, affluent families.  There’s a ton of social commentary in this film.  As the nurse explains, the system is broken.  Too many children are left to suffer and the only way to break the cycle is to break the rules.  The appearance of William B. Davis made me think X-Files, but his role here is a straight-up sheriff.  There is no “Tall Man,” just like there is no Slender Man, but legends do take on lives of their own.  This isn’t one of my favorite movies, but it is better than I was led to believe.  And having a social conscience, while not rare, is always a good thing to see in a horror movie.  If only they could keep the camera still.

Cinematic Demons

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It was because I read The Exorcist Effect.  I realize that there are lots of movies that I could’ve watched for Nightmares with the Bible, but with limited time, limited budget, and limited social contact, I made choices without all the data.  I guess no one ever has all the data, really.  In any case, I could’ve discussed The Crucifixion.  I’ve been taking a bit of a break from exorcism movies, but since this one was based on a true story I’d not heard before Exorcist Effect, I decided to give it a go.  Although highly fictionalized, the movie crew did pick up on significant details from the case of Maricica Irina Cornici, who died after an exorcism in Romania.  The framing story is that of Nicole Rawlins, a journalist who wants to learn the truth.

In fact, the story is really about how Rawlins comes to faith after confronting the demon Agares.  Rawlins has guilt over being an atheist, unable to convince her dying mother to try new treatment and then by letting her die with the knowledge that her daughter has no faith.  In Romania Rawlins drives around a lot and, in one of the most difficult to accept aspects, everyone freely gives information.  Sister Adelina Marinescu, the victim, we’re led to believe, picked up a sexually transmitted demon in Germany.  Her brother, and friends, even the bishop, all freely share their opinions.  Rawlins develops a crush on the local priest, Fr. Anton.  He wants her to regain faith since, as an atheist, she’s an easy target with a demon on the loose.

It turns out that the demon was actually transmitted from a possessed priest, who got it from a possessed farmer.  It then passed to Sister Adelina and from her to Rawlins.  Her possession becomes apparent on the farm of the original possessed man and Fr. Anton performs an unplanned exorcism to save Rawlins from the same fate as Sister Adelina.  Rawlins comes to believe; she saw her mother during a brief moment when, it’s implied, Nicole died.  The film has a rather convoluted plot and many scenes where logic seems to break down, but it is certainly a passable horror film.  Rawlins earns sympathy as the lead, and the Romanian setting is a nice (if historical) touch.  The local festival “like Halloween” adds intrigue.  The movie didn’t rock the critics, but it seems like it works for what it is.  And if I even write a follow-up to Nightmares, it will definitely be included.

Movies, Paused

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Technology breaks the world into bits.  It’s not just pixels, or 1s and 0s, it’s culture.  And we let it happen.  I was thinking this when I should’ve been watching a movie.  I don’t have much time for films, nor do I have money to see everything in a theater.  Or even to pay on a streaming service so that I can watch without commercials.  So like any zombie, I just let it happen.  Recently I was watching a movie—it’s here on this blog someplace—that was uncommonly unified by mood.  Edgar Allan Poe was of the opinion, and I think he was right, that short stories should be brief enough to finish in a single sitting.  Poe opined that such a reading allowed for the continuation of a mood set by the writer.  He was a master at doing this himself.  Breaking up movies with commercials reminds us of his wisdom.

Photo by Ramon Kagie on Unsplash

So I was watching a film where the dread builds up slowly.  The shadows, the music, the unspooling plot—try this new toothpaste!  Here’s a silly television show that you can watch on our network!  What was the mood I was in?  It was shattered by people pushing stuff I’ll never buy.  (I’ve got sensitive teeth, Mr. Commercial, and my dentist has recommended a brand that keeps me from gnawing my tongue off.  And that television show, Ms. Commercial, has no appeal to me.  I won’t watch it.)  Back to the mood you were trying to enjoy.  This isn’t anything new, of course.  I grew up watching Saturday afternoon monster movies and they were constantly interrupted by commercials.  You have to endure the sermon if you want the fun of coffee hour.  But still, but still…

Yes, I know the rules.  Subscribe to a service (I use two) and you can watch what we’ve got.  Only some of it will be interrupted by commercials.  Companies as large as ours didn’t get this way by accident, you know.  We had to show the average person what market research indicates they want—whiter teeth, more entertainment.  Forget what you’re watching at the moment.  Isn’t that mood just a little intense?  Don’t you need a little break just about now?  I don’t know how you see these posts, but I pay extra not to have advertising on my website.  I do hope that’s the case, if you see it from a device other than mine.  Besides

Revisiting the Zone

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Like many people in the early eighties, I heard about the terrifying accident that killed Vic Morrow, Myca Dinh Le, and Renee Shin-Yi Chen during the filming of Twilight Zone: The Movie.  Because of that I steered away from ever seeing it.  I grew up loving The Twilight Zone, and I was probably enough of a self-assured critic at twenty to suppose the movie would never have been as good as the original series had been.  Still, it didn’t leave my consciousness.  Not entirely.  There have been a couple of television reboots of the series—most recently by Jordan Peele—and it seems that those of the present day still see the cultural value in the original.  Peele’s relaunch, although short-lived, brought the movie back to mind and I finally decided to watch it when I learned that one of the segments was based on “Nightmare at 20,000 Feet,” given my recent gremlin kick.

I knew the film was an anthology and those are always dicey.  I also knew I’d be watching an actor in his final role—the scene in which he and the children actually died was not used in the movie, of course.  I didn’t realize how many stars were in the cast, and I didn’t even know what the other three episodes were.  Critics (paid and un) have opined that the episodes increase in appeal as the movie progresses, and the opening segment has been hailed as one of the scariest introductions among films.  So some forty years after it released I watched it.  I actually found it to be largely in the spirit of Rod Serling.  I don’t know what he would’ve thought of the movie, but it seems to have continued his message.  The first segment, the one in which Morrow starred, wasn’t based on a single original Twilight Zone episode as the other three were.  A few “Easter eggs” exist for fans, such as Burgess Meredith narrating and Helen Foley saying she’s headed to Willoughby on the remake of “It’s a Good Life.”  No doubt, “It’s a Good Life” and “Nightmare at 20,000 Feet” are among the most famous of the episodes in the series.

Part of me is surprised that the film was released at all.  Deaths have occurred, of course, in the making of other movies.  Some in which millions of dollars had already been invested.  Still, watching a final performance like this has a haunted quality to it.  At times it seems that acting can be a dangerous profession.  And certain movies may always be difficult to watch because of it. But should we expect anything different from this Twilight Zone in which we live?

Loving Vampires

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Vampires caught my attention early in life.  I believe, apart from ghosts, that they were the first monsters I learned about.  Apart from the fangs and perhaps an ironically anemic look, they appear to be just like us.  I’ve seen a great number of vampire movies over the years—I can’t seem to resist them.  I don’t care for the blood and gore, but the idea of the conflicted undead is a powerful draw.  It’s this conflicted aspect that brought Theresa & Allison to my vampire radar.  This movie is not for the squeamish, and I have to say up front that it is a lesbian vampire movie, with all that that implies.  You have been warned.  Theresa & Allison is also an indie movie—I’ve been watching quite a few of these lately because they’re often free.  This one is also smart and fairly original and it explores humanitarian concerns as well as vampiric ones.

Said Teresa is “made” when a drunken vampire (they get drunk when their victims are inebriated) decides to turn her (make her into a vampire).  She soon learns that vampires are organized and sanctioned by the government, and there are rules to be followed.  Also, some of the standards for vampire lore, we’re told, are male bovine droppings.   Teresa was lesbian before she was turned, and she’s befriended by fellow vampire Allison.  We learn that two major vampire “families” range about New York City—one graceful and kind, the other brutal and unfeeling.  Teresa has real trouble killing people for blood and she’s confused about what she’s become.  She doesn’t know what to make of it when the kinder vampires offer to let her join.  Instead, she follows Allison and finds herself in a blood-drenched nightmare.

Vampire movies are often full of social commentary.  Especially the spate of movies made available by independent auteurs.  Theresa & Allison asks the question of what makes something right or wrong.  It also explores what it means to accept who or what you are while also having the ability to change some aspects of it.  It reflects, it seems to me, the moral landscape of the young.  In that respect, it makes sense that those of us from older generations (let’s not kid ourselves) may have been raised with very different standards.  Culture, however, has continued to evolve.  The internet sped all of that up immensely.  Still, the acceptance aspect of the young is written all over movies like this.  And the internet means there will undoubtedly be more to come.  Vampires are sure getting interesting.