Grimm, Indeed - Snow White: A Tale of Terror (1997)

I'll start by stating that we horror fans owe Germany a great debt for their contribution to the genre. Not only, as I previously discussed in an entry on S.S. Prawer's Caligari's Children, did the Germans bring a rich folkloric and oral tradition of horrific tales into popular culture - namely Grimm's Kinder- und Hausmärchen - but also the lovely chiaroscuro of German expressionism. Not to mention the collective mental scarring the western world suffered under than hands of one particular German, though it would hardly be appropriate or moral to go around thanking anyone for that. But I digress.

It's the Grimm's fairy tales that always seem to capture my imagination the most. It seems I've been rather obsessed with the effect horror has on the child's psyche this summer - maybe I've been reading too much Stephen King. However, I would argue, as others before me, that children's fiction is often a blueprint for adult life: a social road map of negotiating adulthood. Often intertwined with horror tales, or featuring moments of unspeakable terror, myths/fairy tales/folk stories are antiquated horror shows, where issues of mortality and society are played out within the stage of the imagination.

Shuli Barzilai quotes Sandra M. Gilbert and Susan Gubar in her article, "The Ideology of Mothering: Disruption and Reproduction of Patriarchy" in Signs, Volume 15, Number 3: 515-534 by saying

"'...myths are fairy tales often both state and enforce culture's sentences with greater accuracy than more sophisticated literary texts'" (519).

If this is so, then what does 1997's Snow White: A Tale of Terror say about the Snow White mythos? In particular, the portrayal of the Wicked Stepmother? Though my thoughts are hardly yet cohesive - I was hoping a couple of veterans might chime in with some more seasoned opinions - I have a few thoughts.

• I was exceptionally pleased that the film didn't reduce the tensions between Claudia and Lily to the annoyingly superficial "Who's the fairest of them all?" crap.
• I was irked to see Snow White waiting around for her Daddy to come save her - save your own ass, you spoiled brat!
• I liked that Claudia's character was a strange mixture of witch and mentally unstable. Her power didn't make her evil - her break from reality upon the death of her son pushed her over the edge.
  
• On a personal note, I really, really liked that the dwarves were broken men disillusioned and alienated for their refusal to join the Crusades - much more interesting than Disney's bearded miners! And that Lily fell in love with one of them - the incredibly hot one. Sorry, got carried away for a bit. Their romance was a little romance novel-esqu (I don't count that as a bad thing). Gave me a case of the vapors, though. Again, not a bad thing.
  

Can anybody think of anything I might have missed? What are your thoughts? Good movie? Bad?

Bottom line: Entertaining movie for its folkloric and horrific moments, but not anything to write home to Mom about. Shall we say a solid B, in academic terms?

Here's the trailer if you haven't seen it (apparently, you can also see the entire film on YouTube, in segments):

Living Dead Girl, Part Three

And now the final installment...

Towards the end, as all of the protagonist’s friends have been turned into zombies, he’s forced to take out his best friends by jamming his fingers into the ghoul’s eyes, black pus dripping from the empty sockets where his eyes were. It was graphic, it was horrific. It was hilariously funny. A laugh burst from my mouth; I quickly clapped a hand over it, ashamed. What kind of sicko actually laughs when someone’s eyes are gouged out? I was apparently, as I giggled and guffawed my way through the rest of the movie, wiping tears from my eyes. I turned off the television with a wonderful feeling coursing through my blood. Is this what self-actualization felt like? What kind of shallow person gets self-actualized by Evil Dead?

That night, going to bed, I felt light. I smiled, enjoying the feeling of cuddling down into the bedclothes and the anticipation of waking refreshed. Doubts niggled in the back of my mind: would the zombies return? Would they torment me with huge gaping cavernous holes where their eyes had been? Would they moan “self-actualization” at me in mockery?

Sleep came. I was in my childhood home, empty of everything but me. Through the bay windows I could see darkness and fog, enveloping the house like a woman’s arms. Shapes came out of the night, slow zombies lumbering towards the house, arms raised in supplication, a wordless question. Join us. My face is blank, unmoving, my eyes taking in death and reflecting it back. Cold hands scrape at windows, low moans are heard. I stand, go to the glass door. I can feel the internal tremor as my body wars with my mind. Run away! it screams. Run away, you’re strong enough now.

I don’t run away. I stand at the oval of glass in the wood door, looking. Zombies clamor at the movement, start clawing and moaning, the blood from their hands mixing with the fog of their breath. I stare. And finally see.

I reach up, my hand passing over the glass where the dead are grasping, turn the lock on the door. I return to the center of the room, sit down cross-legged. My hands are upturned and empty, accepting. I wait the night out, hearing zombies call for my blood, feeling them bang against the door for my flesh. My heart beating violently against my chest, I fight to maintain my control, the only viable weapon I possess.

Hours pass; I am resolute.

I have won.

~Fin~

Living Dead Girl, Part Two

And the beat goes on....

My eyes opened to the eddy of my mind, into a dark green forest. Gone was the urban panorama, gone was the familiarity, gone were the zombies. My heart lifted, was I victorious? my mind asked, the words traveling on the wind, whistling through the trees. My shoulders relaxed and I dropped to a small pool to drink, cupping sweet water into my mouth, over my head.

I heard a call, birds maybe? I smiled, there’s nothing more charming than tiny songbirds. Closing my eyes and tilting my head, I listened again, hoping it was a cardinal. The underbrush shook, a flash of red! I moved closer, speaking in low tones, cajoling, the breaking sunlight glinting on cold steel, a wink. The bush erupted with grasping, rotting hands. Corpses spilled from the trees, brilliant with color, the vibrant greens blues and reds of death. I couldn’t reach for my machete fast enough, started hacking. The forest darkened with the shadows of the countless corpses, moans filled the air so fully it was liable to split your skull. I turned frantically, fruitlessly, desperately cutting for hours, days. My blade dulled; I was tired, so tired, wanting it all to end. My body rung with dull pain, from my arms to my head, always drumming. Oblivion yawned, hands clutched my neck, and I screamed. The sound echoed through the forest.

I wake up, scrabble at the sheets around my throat. I am in Whitewater, my own room, my own bed, with a cat stretched lazily beside me, one eye slit open in indignation at being waken. I breathe shakily, my resolve gone and the frustration frothing inside me. I am terrified, I am indignant – how the hell do you fight something in your head? How do you fight what’s inside you?

The morning dawns, and I do the only thing I can think of…I start filling my brain with useless knowledge, a skill I’ve honed to perfection during my college days. I sit at the computer, start the search engine, type the word “zombie” into the field. I look at it for quite some time, the shape the letters make, the unfamiliar “z”. I erase it, then enter it again, over and over, until the left pinkie can hit the “z” without trouble. I’m scared to hit enter, not sure what I’m looking for and terrified at what I’ll find. The finger hovers over the enter key, then plunges with resolution. Enter.

I spend my day with the zombies. I learn about their cinema, their literature, their symbolism, their mythos. I look at pictures and try not to let the fear rise in me, and stamp it down. My boyfriend moves in later that day and looks over my shoulder. “What are you doing?” he asks, knowing full well that anything scary during the day can result in a sleepless night, zombies top on the list of frighteners.

I stop. What should I say? Fighting my inner demons, conquering irrational fears, waging battle against the undead? Sounds exaggerated. As my brain works, the words come out of my mouth, “Zombie Therapy,” I answer.

“Zombie what?”

“Zombie Therapy. I’ll put myself through a rigorous program of contact with zombies until I’m not scared anymore.”

He eyes me critically, but says okay.

I write out a plan and timetable. I start with zombies on the internet, work up to zombie pictures on the internet, then the tamer zombie films. Evil Dead was up on the docket. Anxious to test my own resolve, I pop the DVD in alone one sunny day. Talk about death in the afternoon. I sit on the couch, with a blanket in the arms, despite the weather, eyes wide. I remind myself not to throw up at the gross part, vow to watch it until the end, even if I ended up psychologically traumatized. The pencil gets thrust into the ankle, no problem. Then IT happened. The unbelievable.

Tune in next time for the thrilling conclusion...

Living Dead Girl, Part One

I often get asked how I got into horror. I'm one of those cutesy, pinch-your-cheeks type of girl (to my everlasting bane), so I suppose my predilections for guts and monsters come as a bit of a shock.

I wrote this for a class, in explanation to the prompt, "What are you afraid of?" Thought you'd might enjoy it. It's kind of long, so I'll post it in segments, kind of like those old hero movies, "Come back next week to see the thrilling conclusion!"

They shamble towards me, their hands claw at my shirt. I whirl, see them everywhere. Their mouths, deep black holes, spill bile. A low moan fills the air. They come closer, dragging their limbs and twitching their stiffened muscles, leaving a path of blood behind them. The breath is cold on my neck, I smell the rot and my stomach recoils. Nails scratch at my arms, teeth rip into my flesh, tearing out the tender bits: cheeks, voice box, liver, intestine. My mouth opens and closes, as my eyes roll into my head. They will get you, Oh God, Oh God, they’ve gotten me, and I am powerless. Blood sprays everywhere, leaches into the ground. The rage, the terror, rise up in my throat and I scream and scream, soundless, the echo burning inside my brain.

I wake. I throw my head up, take assessment. I am in my room, in my apartment, in Whitewater. The cats patter in the kitchen, playing their late night games. Everything else is quiet, the witching hour. I peek out the window, into the dark, squinting. I wish I had my glasses, I can’t see a damn thing. Through the crack in the drapes, all is quiet and still. The undead zombie horde has not materialized outside my window, scraping at the glass, leaving trails of gore along the smooth surface. I order my heart to calm itself, but my brain reels with images from my nightmare: my family slaughtered before my eyes, only to reanimate as walking dead, my family home invaded, the world turned into a battleground as humanity is slowly turned into a horde of stumbling ghouls, eager for flesh. The zombie apocalypse has not happened, I tell myself, you’re safe, you’re safe.

My favorite zombie movie of all time is Evil Dead. Zombie purists will tell you that it is not a true zombie movie, as the ghouls are often not actually dead before they start terrorizing the living protagonist. I, however, am not so picky (or snobby) as others might be. Evil Dead is a great splatter film, filled with gut-twisting gross-outs, comedy, and chainsaws. I was not always so enamored by the film. Sitting in a dorm four years ago, I only got about fifteen minutes (with my hands covering my face, of course, a skill all true scaredy-cats perfect at a young age) until I had to shut it off or risk yakking all over the floor. I blame my sheltered upbringing. An only child until I was seven, my parents wrapped me in the proverbial cotton wool. Fast forward about fifteen years, and I am just as coddled.

I moved out of my parent’s house when I turned twenty two. I was alone for a week with the zombies until my boyfriend moved in. Every night, as the dark slithered through the windows, I could hear them shuffling, waiting until dark to bully my dreams. I began to dread the night, sleep. This pissed me off. The world sees me as quiet, unassuming. This may be true. But I also possess a raging – if slow-fused - temper and these damn zombies were on the top of my list. Something had to be done; I was an adult for Pete’s sake and I was letting myself be terrorized by the crappiest cultural monsters the horror world had to offer.

I went to sleep feeling like Hemingway, Kipling, The Great White Hunter. I could conquer anything. I had a psychological machete tied to my belt, a bandana across my brow, raw gut courage in my heart. I would slash and burn, decapitate and disembowel; I would napalm the hell outta those zombies.

More to come later....

"Oddly Enough": The Writings of Bruce Coville

So, there seems to be a general outcry (mostly just Eric) for the lack of a Bruce Coville entry, as promised earlier. Mea culpa.

I promise I hadn't forgotten; I had taken the time to dig out my old Coville books and re-read them. It was quite enjoyable, let me tell you. I recommend you do the same - they're even better seen through an adult's eyes.

My best Coville-related moment (and there were many, many) is the heady anticipation of being old enough to read the My Teacher is an Alien series. They were fascinating things: a cover that pictured a glowing, radioactive looking alien peeking out from under its human mask; it's placement in the library in the YA section - big kids territory only! - and that wonderful, salacious title. Coville, if you haven't already guessed or had the pleasure of reading him, has a tendency to take the extraordinary and fantastic and make them tangible enough for children to grasp. He never explained away the otherworldly in that annoyingly cheerful Scooby-Doo kind of way when the zombie mask was pulled off to reveal Old Man Withers who owned the amusement park. No, Coville always made it clear that there were simply strange, unexplainable things in the world. His protagonists, often without of the help of parents (as, we all know, Will Smith put best: "Parents just don't understand"), are often thrown into crazy, dangerous situations with nothing but their good intentions to see them through.

You can see how that was appealing to YA crowd, as pre-teens found themselves deep in a world where the rules of adulthood are only just beginning to be employed and where they struggle to act in a society that is often oppressively acting upon them. His characters aren't without hope, however. Each - male and female - as Coville moves between each gender with ease, are gifted with the best tools a human being can be endowed with: good sense and decency. And, simply enough, that's all you really need to be successful in life.

I've made it no secret that I harbor a deep, unending love for Monster of the Year, sadly no longer in print, as Coville himself pointed out to me. Nor is it as popular, Coville went on to say, as the My Teacher is an Alien, Nina Tanleven, or Rod Albright Alien Adventures series, which is a pity.

But what makes Coville's work so damn entertaining, comes down to two important factors:

1. Coville's creative use of the vernacular.
What still amazes me is that the man can write a book with big enough words to challenge children's vocabularies, but as the same time use such funtastic words as "slopnuggets" (Nine and her father's slap dash cookies), multiple references to boogers (the best is when Grakker yells it when the good ship Ferkel won't enlarge in Aliens Ate My Homework) pooper-mucky, and other wonderful turns of phrase. And you always understand, no matter how weird and inventive, exactly what he means. Remarkable.

2. Coville's use of the fantastic.
I'll just list a few: Aliens, werewolves, witches, monsters of sundry types, taking toads, baby dragons, ghosts, unicorns, goblins, giants, etc. For fans of the fanastic, Coville is not only a treat, it's a well-written, knowledgeable, takes-his-horror-very-seriously kind of treat. It's obvious from his writing that he enjoys the hell out of his work and subject matter, which makes me like him and his writing even more.

Saying all that, it's still a mystery to me why none of Coville's books has ever been made into film. Anyway, if you haven't read him already, pick a couple books up. Also, feel free to drop Bruce a line on his website here. He loves to hear from his grown-up fans and talking about horror. And he's a super nice guy.

P.S. Anybody out there ever wished they lived in a Bruce Coville world? I was desperate one summer to visit Camp Haunted Hills, Elive's magic shop, rocket to planets strange and unknown with Madame Pong and Tar Gibbons, or have Nina Tanleven's ghost hunting skills.

I even named my cat after the man (well, him and Bruce Campbell, and Bruce Wayne, and Robert the Bruce) because he kicks all kind of ass. As of now, he's sitting next to the keyboard, desperately trying to lick me. Ferocious, right?

This is him:

On Thursday, August 16 it will be the 51st anniversary of Bela Lugosi's death.

I'd thought I'd take a little moment for a little fangirl rant. I love, love, love Bela Lugosi.

He was great as Dracula, you'd have to be an idiot to dispute that, but nothing takes the cake like The Black Cat (1934) - Lugosi and Karloff together! That's like a horror movie margarita, goes straight to your head and makes you giddy like a schoolgirl.

If you sit and think about what The Black Cat is all about, it's really very intelligent and subversive. Especially in regards to its portrayal of the aftermath of WWI, its survivors, and the negative social impact.

Oh, and it's totally gross and cool, too. Did I mention the necrophilia, the satanic ritual chants (I would argue THE best satanic ritual chant scene of all cinema), the architecturally crazy house Poelzig lives in, a chess game full of suspense (yes, such a thing exists!), and a truly disturbing skin-flaying scene that's still a little shocking.

I did warn you this was a fangirl rant. Thanks for indulging me.

BAUHAUS lyrics

Sad State of the Union: Vincent Price & The Tingler (1959, 2009) remake

TCM is airing a Vincent Price Marathon today, with special consideration to the Roger Corman's productions of Edgar Allen Poe's writings.

I've just viewed The Tingler (1959) for the first time (taped it too, thank goodness) and I have to say I was pleasantly surprised. Having studied The Last Man on Earth (1964) for my NCUR research on women in zombie film, I noticed that horror text write off The Tingler as gimmicky-William Castle-schlock, most notably for the amazing "Percepto!" effect in which tiny shockers were attached to theater seats to frighten patrons into screaming. What fun it would have been to be in the audience the first time that was used!

Writes David Skal in The Monster Show: A Cultural History of Horror (Faber & Faber: New York, 2001):

"Castle's gimmicks were part of the larger Hollywood movement in the fifties towards expansive presentational modes that could compete with television...Flying skeletons, buzzing seats, and hokey insurance policies had the additional effect of turning impersonal moviegoing into a ritual of participatory live theater, an understandable lure in a decade marked by suburban isolation and personal alienation...Horror gimmicks provided audiences with a needed sense of contact, engagement, and recognition. Even if the dominant sensation was gooseflesh, at least it was a feeling." (259)

Knowing this, a tingle goes up my own spine upon hearing that Feast (2005) writers Patrick Melton and Marcus Dunstan are in the process of writing a remake of The Tingler, due out in 2009. The L.A. Times reports (with a nod to The Tingler) that advances similar to "Percepto!" are being made in 3D technology,

"At a time when theater attendance is threatened by the explosion in home entertainment choices, filmmakers and exhibitors are eager to come up with an experience that can't be duplicated at home."

What does this say about the current social climate? Are we so, as Skal writes of fifties audience, isolated and alienated, that remakes and special gadgetry are all that can shock Americans out their dimly-lit living room malaise and into theaters? It can hardly be coincidental, Hollywood is remaking fifties and sixties horror movies with wild abandon: The Invasion (2007) hearkens back Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956), I Am Legend (2007) to another Price flick, The Last Man on Earth.

Is it any surprise in this age of television infotainment, increasing globalization but decreasing world coverage, a world where everyone knows of Paris and Lindsay's "tragedies" but has to be pushed and shoved into giving a damn about the Darfur. A society so desperate for feeling that the outrageousness of torture porn is all that will motivate horror fans to the theaters in search of voyeuristic carnage and sexuality?

Is America's social psyche so fragile that events like 9/11 and Katrina - as truly horrible as they are, but small potatoes in concern to the thousand unknown atrocities perpetuated in other parts of the world; where soldiers are killed in the line of duty - are enough to throw it into a metaphorical isolation chamber, hungry for any feeling, no matter how distasteful, simply to feel?

I didn't intend to take this post in this direction.

Frankly, it makes me a little sick to my stomach.

Silence! The Musical - Too Strange for Words

I thought this was way too juicy not to pass along, though it's been getting a lot of press.

The Silence of the Lambs (1991) has been made into a musical!

Called Silence! (yes, exclamation point) it is slated to open off-Broadway this September.

Some tracks from the production have apparently been circling the net since Silence! won the 2005 Outstanding Musical award from the New York Fringe Festival.

For those of you about to wet your pants - you know who you are, you're the same people who sqwacked about Evil Dead (1981) being made into a musical - the production is meant to a be a parody.

From the website:

"Silence sings, dances and skewers the idiosyncratic characters from the movie with ruthless accuracy and uproarious hilarity."

Listen to them here. Especially "Quid Pro Quo" and "Put the F-ing Lotion in the Basket".

Apparently, the critics are loving it. It's certainly worth a laugh.

Gothic Horror & Bodice Rippers - The House of Usher (1960)

I have a shameful admission to make:

I haven't always been a horror fan. In fact, quite the opposite. It was only very recently that I got over being a scaredy-cat and could actually watch a horror movie without cringing, mostly thanks to a Gothic horror class I took in college. And Joel Schumacher's The Phantom of the Opera (2004).

One of the more fascinating aspects of the class - one of many - was the figure of the Gothic heroine, a woman who seems oppressed by a patriarchal menace, but manages to subvert that overwhelming force with her own ingenuity. At once sexually conservative and socially subversive, she is a particularly tricky and complex character.

Mary Lambert, female horror director extraordinare (Pet Semetary I & II, "Tales from the the Crypt"), discusses Gothic horror, Edgar Allen Poe, and "bodice rippers" (another guilty pleasure of mine, as well as a fixture in the Gothic) in her commentary of Roger Corman's The House of Usher (1960) over at Trailers from Hell. The first in a series of Poe-related films done by Corman for AIP, it was the first of Corman's low-budget gems to be shot in color, as Lambert says.

The House of Usher plays Friday, August 10th at 5:30pm on TCM for those who'd like to watch it's wonderfulness. I'll certainly be watching. Enjoy!

Useless Crap

Because all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy...

You can't analyze everything, or can you? *cue spooky music*

"Lashings of Malice and a Slice of Humour": Roald Dahl

For those of you familiar with Bravo's "100 Scariest Movie Moments" program - usually aired every Halloween for the last few years, it's difficult to to forget the segment on Guillermo del Toro's The Devil's Backbone (2001). The commentators themselves waxed poetical on the images of the murdered child, "eerily beautiful" as John Landis puts it, in death. Nobody summed up his film better than the director himself (I feel the need to insert a huge DUH here) when he said something along the lines of how he dislikes Hollywood movies where children are portrayed as insipid and dumb, but rather how "dangerous it is to be a child".

Many of us forget the fear and constant insecurity one feels as a child, thrown by the overpowering wills of grown-ups in our incomplete understanding of the world like a ship in stormy waters. Those of us who won't (or are unable) to shake these childhood fears find ourselves at the shit-end of our peer's mockery (No, I'm not bitter at all). I'll admit, I'm still terrified of the dark, of dead things. While it can be a royal pain in the ass sometimes, I think - paradoxically - it allows me to see horror as a child does.

Recently, I had the chance to be re-introduced to some of the literature I read as a kid. I was genuinely shocked by how much of it was horror-related....and how I could ever have ended up studying anything else, no longer a mystery. With this in mind, I wanted to pick two of my favorites: Roald Dahl & Bruce Coville, and dig around to see what I'd find. Dahl is on the docket today, Bruce tomorrow.

Roald Dahl's stuff can be downright terrifying; this coming as no surprise to anyone who's read The BFG, The Witches, James and the Giant Peach, or his screenplay for Chitty, Chitty, Bang, Bang (now THAT's some terrifying stuff!). No doubt because of the horrors witnessed in WWII.




Like the Brothers Grimm, Dahl manages to capture the essence of powerless and vulnerable children are - and how they're often mistreated at the hands of adults. Parents abuse their children (Matilda), orphans are placed with terrible guardians and forced to labor for them (James), children are snatched out of their beds (Sophie), even turned into mice by a coven of witches. Not to mention the other unspeakable horrors perpetrated in the world: plans to kill children, giants that eat humans in sickening detail, marauding rhinoceroses intent on maiming. The horrors in Dahl's work - never imaginary - makes it clear that giants, witches, magic, and talking bugs DO exist, though the silly, unimaginative masses might have you think otherwise. And they are out to get you.

This is, of course, terrifying. And while their are terrible things, there is love and friendship (often found within the realm of the fantastic) and the simple knowledge of knowing evil exits in the world is enough to give an advantage. Texts such as these provide important outlets for children - giving them the psychological tools for dealing with the big, scary world and the powerful adults that populate it (Matilda's torment towards the Trunchbull is still hilarious) with a humor that says, "Laugh. Or you'll never get through it."

Dahl also wrote for adults. One particular short story, "Lamb to the Slaughter" tells the story of a "woman who beats her husband to death with a frozen leg of lamb" and then cooks the murder weapon, serving it to the officer investigating the man's death. One the subject, Dahl says,

"It wasn't nasty...I thought it was hilarious. What's horrible is basically funny. In fiction."

Maybe, as adults, we have the same fears and deal with them in the same way. Only with more blood. And guts. And intestines. But it's all the same.