Slasher Cast-A-Thon!

Wendell Ottley is hosting an exciting event for Halloween, The Slasher Cast-A-Thon wherein we get to put together our own casts for a slasher movie. Apparently the "slasher" has already been cast (though Wendell won't say who it is as of yet), and the way it works is that I'm supposed to put together a group of characters I hate. The one exception is the character I pick to fill out the role of the "final girl", which should naturally be a character I like. I really, really wanted to use R.J. MacReady but the catch is that the characters we use cannot be from a horror film.

So naturally this is a perfect opportunity to vent on movies I hate. It's time to get my revenge on several characters who for one reason or another have pissed me off. Unfortunately it seems a lot of the people I hate are men, so there might not be as much gender diversity as I'd like. Also, I have no idea what all these guys would be doing in the woods together.

James Bond (Sean Connery version)

You should all know my thoughts on the Bond franchise by now. If you're following my blog and you don't you're obviously not paying much attention. Connery's James Bond is a sexist, racist, homophobic, perverted, sick, twisted human being that gets away with all kinds of horrible acts. To him, women are just things to have sex with and then discard, so naturally if the typical slasher formula requires that people who have sex be killed... Bond would be the perfect choice for that role. He can finally be punished for that one time he raped a girl and tried to cure her of being gay. Whatever happens, as long as Bond lives I'm rooting for the villain.

Mr. Conductor (Thomas and the Magic Railroad)

Consider this my revenge for this man almost single-handedly ruining one of the greatest shows of my childhood. He stole the spotlight in a movie based on a series about talking trains and turned it into a confusing series of events involving magical gold dust or some other absurd rubbish. I don't care what this man says. The Island of Sodor is NOT an alternate dimension, and I think the Fat Controller can handle the railway just fine without him.

Brian MacAffrey (Backdraft)

Brian MacAffrey serves as the lead to one of the best examples of everything I am fighting against. Backdraft is an offensive and sexist film that despite being made by a man who should know better proceeds to enforce the (false) notion that firefighting is a man's job. Perhaps taking out the lead of a well-known movie like this could serve as a warning to other filmmakers interested in making firefighting films that they'd better put a strong female firefighter into the main cast.

Jar Jar Binks (Star Wars)

Even in my days as a Star Wars nerd I never really liked Jar Jar (although I tolerated him slightly more). At the time I took it to being more closely connected with my tendency to relate better to human characters (same reason I was never fond of Chewbacca, either). However, as I later learned the real reason I never enjoyed him was because he was an annoying and poorly-written character who didn't really add much to the story. His only real contribution to the narrative (providing exposition about the Gungans so we know who they are during the climax) could easily have been handled without him and we already had comic relief in the form of R2-D2.

Billy Madison (Billy Madison)

Technically any Adam Sandler character would fit right into my list, but this particular one stands out as one of the best examples of why I don't get excited about going to see his movies. Meet the whiny, immature idiot who couldn't even pass the first grade, not to mention he is completely useless in every regard and might be a bit delusional. Whoever our mysterious killer is, Billy Madison won't stand a chance because he'll probably be too distracted chasing an imaginary penguin to even notice the impending danger.

Admiral Harriman Nelson (Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea)

This was a ludicrous movie in itself, but the obvious insanity of this one man certainly didn't help. This is a guy who saw the Earth get engulfed in a giant fireball and despite having none of the qualifications to know how to deal with it he concludes the only way to prevent disaster is to get to the deepest part of the ocean by the end of the month and fire a single torpedo. Seriously. By total luck it worked, but odds are against our mysterious slasher he'll have an equally nonsensical plan to deal with his situation, and this time he might not be so fortunate.

Michael Jennings (Paycheck)

This whole movie was one big insult to the dignity of Phillip K. Dick, but it certainly didn't help that Ben Affleck's protagonist completely missed the point of his literary counterpart who, incidentally, ended up in a much better position (in the original story, he gets back into Rethrick Construction as a partner with the implication that he will eventually take over; in the movie he just blows everything up and then goes on to run a plant shop with his girlfriend). Jennings might be the best reverse engineer in the business, but how good are those skills going to do him when he is up against a psycho with a chainsaw?

Lemmy Caution (Alphaville)

This was a bad movie, yes. It was a lazy, terrible, poorly executed mess of a film if ever there was one, but let's look at the main character of Lemmy Caution. He's the most unsubtle superspy the universe has ever seen. He walks around with an extremely conspicuous trenchcoat and fedora waving a camera around in places most definitely not taking pictures that could be useful for espionage purposes. Against our mystery killer his incapability to be subtle would ultimately be his undoing. He would easily stand out and be eliminated.

Final Guy:

David Bowman (2001: A Space Odyssey)

If anyone has a shot at surviving against our mystery killer, it's this man. He is a rational-minded professional who knows how to stay calm even when facing the most dire of situations. While most of the other guys here would be freaking out, distracted, unsure of what to do, or just completely insane, David Bowman is the one man who would keep a level head and rationally work out a solid plan to deal with his situation. He has been through life or death scenarios before in even more confined environments and even faced against a murderous psycho so I think he can handle it.

Don't Do Drugs, Kids: The Lesson to be Learned in Naked Lunch

There is a lot of stuff about David Cronenberg's Naked Lunch I still can’t explain with complete certainty. It is a bizarre movie and at first it is seemingly incomprehensible. However, underneath the giant bugs, the weird aliens, and the surreal international conspiracy, the story is really one about drug addiction. It is certainly an unusual approach to discussing the subject of drugs and how they affect people who take them.

The obvious approach would normally be to clearly show the person's degeneration and how they affect everyone and everything around them. Cronenberg instead opts for a slightly different method by getting inside the head of an addict, and presenting to us how he experiences the effects of taking these weird drugs. The result is a surreal, possibly incomprehensible but strangely brilliant film about just why you shouldn't take any of the weird and unusual drugs people have come up with.

Naked Lunch involves plenty of weird drugs. The whole thing gets started when exterminator Bill Lee (Peter Weller) finds his supply of bug powder mysteriously running short and runs out after starting a job. Turns out his wife Joan (Judy Davis) is the one responsible for its disappearance. She has been injecting the stuff into herself, which according to her produces “a literary high”. It is fitting that something designed to kill bugs is the first of many strange drugs to be introduced. Bug powder is generally meant to kill bugs, and drugs are often known to lead to the deaths of those who become addicted to them.

As Joan describes it “It’s a Kafka high… you feel like a bug.” The reference to Kafka is an early clue to what we are going to be in for with this film. Joan’s remark obviously refers to Kafka’s novella The Metamorphosis, which centers around a travelling salesman who wakes up to find he has inexplicably transformed into “a monstrous vermin.” The result of the transformation is often depicted as a giant bug-like creature, sometimes with a human face. Later on we encounter many large and similarly grotesque bugs, some of which are merged with typewriters similar to how the hybrid creature depicted in some illustrations of Kafka's story.

Bill tries to consult a specialist, Dr. Benway, for help with Joan’s addiction. He gives him a powdery substance called “blackmeat” made from giant centipedes, explaining the interesting idea that it is to be mixed in with the bug powder. According to Benway, it will gradually block out the part of the brain that gets stimulated by the drug which makes the addict cease to be addicted. If only breaking habits was so easy, and as you would expect, it proves to be too good to be true.

All that really seems to be accomplished is that Bill ends up getting addicted to the stuff himself. He begins hallucinating, and things get weird. He gets “busted” by the cops for having bug powder, and they don’t believe him when he explains he is an exterminator. The two of them note that they have “a bug” in the office and decide to see how it reacts to the powder. What they bring out is a giant box containing what looks like an oversized beetle that begins talking to Bill Lee through the mouth on its anus.

This beetle seems to be completely unaffected by the bug powder. If anything, it actually enjoys it and even asks Bill to pour some on its lips. The bug in question tells Bill that he needs to kill Joan, and suggests that she isn’t even human. Bill quickly realises he is probably hallucinating, which leads him to kill the bug with his shoe and make a run for it. Still, he hasn't broken the habit, and ends up trying to do a “William Tell routine” that results in him accidentally shooting Joan in the head anyway. As if that wasn’t enough, to rub salt on the wound, the glass Bill had meant to shoot off of Joan’s head is the one thing that remains intact.

This is about the point where it starts to become hard to tell where reality ends and hallucinations begin. It looks as though the bugs somehow influenced him to do the deed of shooting his wife, but at the same time, he was hardly thinking clearly. Even stranger is how Joan immediately complies with Bill’s statement, as though they had done it before. Neither was in their right minds at the time, however, given they were both high and possibly drunk.

The possibility of it all being coincidence becomes even stronger when you consider the fact that it this scene was inspired by a real incident in the life of William S. Burroughs, the author of the book the film was (loosely) adapted from. The actual incident happened in Mexico City, but like the movie, it involved Burroughs getting drunk and accidentally shooting his common-law wife while trying to imitate William Tell (a Swiss folk hero said to have shot an apple off a child’s head with a bow and arrow).

Bill Lee ends up meeting an alien creature called a "mugwump" who recommends he buy a specific typewriter and travel to “Interzone” (a shady port somewhere on the African coast). This begins a strange pattern in the narrative. Bill is clearly shown to receive a flight ticket from the mugwump, but later when asked to present it, he pulls out a bag filled with drugs, and similar interactions happen throughout. The fact that he is this confused seems to suggest he is hallucinating encounters like this one with the mugwump. Later on, typewriters appear normal one moment and as living creatures the next. It all ties into that theme of the inability to tell when reality ends and hallucinations begin, very much the sort of feeling an addict might go through.

The big question is whether there is in fact any truth to the existence of "Interzone". We did see that the "ticket" he presented was a bag of drugs, not exactly something that could get him onto a plane. We also never see him actually arriving at the port. It is possible (and perhaps even likely) therefore that he never actually left his home. Interzone, like the bugs, is all a product of his hallucinations.

he ends up encountering an exact duplicate of his wife in the form of Joan Frost (also played by Davis), along with her husband, a writer by the name of Tom Frost (Ian Holm). One thing about these two is that while these people may exist (and indeed were based on a couple Burroughs met in Morocco), their interactions might not be what they seem. There is one scene early on where Tom walks with Bill through a marketplace and tells him (and by extension, the audience) to watch his lips and listen to what he is saying. Sure enough, his mouth is out of sync with his dialogue, and it remains that way throughout the film. 

This suggests that what Bill thinks he hears Tom say does not actually line up with what he is really saying. Taking this logic into account, it seems that Joan Frost may not actually be a doppelganger to Joan Lee, but rather the result of Bill projecting her image onto another person. Perhaps something about Joan Frost reminds Bill of his wife, and in turn with all the other hallucinations going around, he sees her as resembling the latter. This would also justify why his “controller” (a weird typewriter-bug hybrid) insists that he complete his “mission” by seducing her.

Bill borrows a Martinelli typewriter from Tom, only to find it getting murdered by his own. They show an image of the two bugs fighting but in Bill’s delusional state, he could have easily smashed the typewriter without realising it, and that is probably exactly what happened. He is then told that it was an “enemy agent”, which appears to be from his typewriter in its supposed bug form when in truth it is simply his mind trying to rationalise a spur of the moment piece of vandalism.

The idea that these bugs are more or less hallucination is enforced when Bill goes to see Joan, who reveals that Tom also has an Arabic typewriter. He talks her into writing something but everything seems normal at first. Nothing actually happens until Joan is convinced to try some of the black meat. It is only after she does that the machine begins to transform into a bizarre centipede-like creature, and as soon as it falls out the window it turns back into a typewriter. Also note how the housekeeper Fadela (Monique Mercure) shows no surprise or confusion about the presence of such a thing or how it got there.  

The real question is why did she feel the need to throw a typewriter out the window? Well, later on, we see Fadela at a stall in the market selling black meat. Perhaps she is the one who really has the power in the household, and only pretends to be servatile. This is supported by the later scene where she is overseeing the distribution of Mugwump juice and the reveal about who she really is.

Tom then arrives demanding his Martinelli, only to find it smashed. What becomes really strange is that Bill’s typewriter is in its bug form throughout this scene, and yet when Tom goes to take it hostage he never seems to acknowledge that fact. He never questions the fact that the typewriter is talking and desperately trying to get away. Either he is used to seeing typewriters that can move on their own, or he is seeing something very different from us. The most likely explanation is that Bill is hallucinating, and Tom is in fact stealing a normal typewriter.

Bill ends up passed out in an alleyway and spending some time with a local boy named Kiki, who helps him “fix” the Martinelli. However, instead of being a normal typewriter, it comes out resembling a Mugwump’s head. The keyboard is apparently in its mouth, and it is not clear how Bill is supposed to fit the paper into it, but that does not stop him. Adding to the apparent hallucination is one scene where the “mugwriter” seemingly comes to life, transforming into a full mugwump, and begins talking to Lee before turning back into the weird-shaped typewriter.

Bill has to go see a strange man named Yves Cloquet and is accompanied by Kiki when they ride in the former’s “wonderful car”. During the ride, Bill relates an anecdote about a man who somehow taught his anus to speak as part of a circus show, only for it to eventually develop a mind of its own and eventually seal his mouth shut. This is a weird anecdote, even for this movie, but it might just explain a few things.

It is not clear if this man was someone Bill knew or if it was just a story he heard from someone else, but either way it would explain where that one detail about the bugs came from. The bugs seem to have mouths on their anuses throughout the film, and if they are hallucinations, that means they were created by Bill’s own mind. Having a story like that would explain where Bill’s mind got that idea.

At Cloquet’s house, we get to one of the strangest parts of this narrative. Kiki shows affection towards one of Cloquet’s parrots, and is talked into going upstairs to “play with” the others he owns. Meanwhile, Bill tries to get information about Dr. Benway. After the two spend some time talking, Bill walks in on Kiki being gruesomely murdered by Cloquet, now taking on the form of a giant centipede inside a bird cage. I still do not have a solid explanation for this scene.

Finally, Bill decides to get his old typewriter back by giving the mugwump typewriter to Tom Frost, which he accepts with gratitude and returns Bill his old device. One thing that is worth noting is that Tom refrains from opening the case containing the typewriter on-screen, so we do not know for sure if what he will pull out is in fact the mugwump head or if it is just a regular-looking typewriter. As noted before, the mugwump head was likely a product of Bill’s delusions.

Unfortunately, when Bill opens the case containing his typewriter, he finds it tortured and apparently dying. If there is no international conspiracy going on, than why would Tom Frost resort to torture in an effort to extract information from a regular typewriter? However, Tom did have every reason to be mad at Bill. The man was responsible for smashing both of his typewriters and showed no sign of remorse. It would not be inconceivable that Tom, who in his frustration might not have been thinking clearly, smashed the typewriter in a fit of anger (or possibly as an attempt at revenge). The mugwump typewriter was supposedly forged from Tom’s Martinelli, so in a sense Bill is returning it to its original owner. This in turn allows the two men to reconcile their differences, and as a result by returning Bill his own typewriter he is coming clean about what he had done.

The climax of the film comes up when Bill arrives at a factory filled with mugwumps who are all chained and hanging from the ceiling. Numerous people are drinking some kind of milky fluid out of the tubes in their heads, including several we have seen at different points in the film. Fadela is shown overseeing the process, establishing that she is evidently the one in control and not the other way around (ironic given she was established as the Frosts’ house keeper).

There is one thing about Fadela that comes up, though, which is that she is actually a man in drag. It turns out she is none other than Dr. Benway, the man behind everything. He gave Bill the black meat knowing it was a highly addictive drug and with the intent of drawing him into all kinds of weird things. Apparently black meat is going out of style and mugwump juice is the new industry. Bill agrees to work for Benway in a place called Annexia as long as Joan Frost can go with him.

At the borders of Annexia, Bill ends up in a strange situation. A group of patrol guards pull over his car and ask for some identification. They demand proof that he is a writer by telling him to “write something”. Bill responds by waking up Joan Frost telling her it is time for them to work on their “William Tell routine”, much as he did with Joan Lee. The results are also the same, he shoots her in the head, while the glass on top remains unharmed. The border patrol guards then welcome him into Annexia.

It is harder to pinpoint exactly what goes on in this final scene, but it is possible that Bill is still delusional. The patrol guards’ outfits do look Eastern European, so it is possible he could have ended up in a real country thinking it was Annexia. The real question is why they let him in after watching him shoot a woman for no apparent reason. I’m afraid I don’t know for sure.

Nash and Tara of the website Radio Dead Air have a series called W.T.F.I.W.W.Y. (I’m not spelling out the full title) in which they discuss weird and bizarre news stories that often leave you wondering what the people involved were thinking. As a result, they have developed a few “rules for life” that make sense when you see their show, and one of those rules is “the old drugs still work”. That’s not to say that they encourage drug use, just that the stuff some people get high off of makes things like weed seem mild by comparison. I’m not sure there is a film that better exemplifies that rule than David Cronenberg’s Naked Lunch. 

Really, though, it is something that is likely to deter anyone with the slightest interest in any kind of drug use. We should stop showing drug PSA’s to the kids and instead just do screenings of Naked Lunch. That will keep them away from illegal and harmful drugs. Don't do drugs or you'll get dragged into a surreal international conspiracy with giant talking bugs.

This post was written for the O Canada Blogathon hosted by Kristina at Speakeasy. and Ruth at Silver Screenings

Thursday Movie Picks Meme: Zombie Movies

Wanderer's Thursday Movie Picks Meme is taking a dark turn into the realm of horror for the month of October. Each week has a different horror-related topic for use to explore. This week, we're going to be looking at movies about malevolent reanimated corpses, which is conveniently something I wrote a whole piece on a few weeks ago. Now there's several I need to see and a few I have watched. I'll start by putting down three that I have watched and add two more as a bonus.

Young Frankenstein (1974)

Here's an interesting irony for you. By this point there must have been at least a couple thousand Frankenstein movies created by Hollywood, and so far this is the only one I've actually seen in full even though I've actually read the original book (well, okay... it was an abridged version, but still...). We all know the story, a mad scientist creates a monster that wreaks havoc on the world as the result of the fear and paranoia of everyone it encounters...

Except that's all in the past now. Victor Frankenstein is long gone and quite a bit of time has passed. Enter Dr. Frederick Frankenstein Fronkinsteen, who inherits his grandfather's old castle (yes, he has one of those now) and finds the secrets to his experiments. Naturally he decides to reanimate a corpse of his own but his assistant Igor accidentally drops the brain they were to use and instead decides to use one belonging to a "Abby Normal" (Abnormal). The newly-reanimated corpse goes out into the world and freaks everyone out despite having no real hostile intentions, which leads to a variety of hilarious situations.

Shaun of the Dead (2004)

Edgar Wright's spoof of zombie films might not have as many explosions as the later films in the Cornetto Trilogy (Hot Fuzz and The World's End), but it has a lot of great little gags. It makes fun of all the zombie movie conventions you can name, right down to poking fun at the absurdity of how zombie movies try to avoid actually calling their antagonists "zombies". Of course, it's not all fun and games, and the dramatic moments are quite emotional, but it's hard not to laugh at seeing several people trying to take out an old man zombie while another guy accidentally starts playing Queen's "Don't Stop Me Now".

Dawn of the Dead (2004)

I still have yet to see the original George A. Romero film, but the remake was still pretty good. Sarah Polley led a large but nicely diverse cast with lots of tension and suspense throughout. It's a very good movie with some good scares and atmosphere. Really, though, it's a story about survival and the inevitability of death (which is itself a theme in a lot of zombie movies). Definitely worth checking out.

Bonus- The Night of the Living Dead (1968)

The ORIGINAL zombie movie. Okay, maybe not technically the first one but it was the film that got the whole zombie craze moving. The plot was more or less what the title described: it took place over the course of a night, and there were living human cadavers. I've had this one on DVD for some time and I have been meaning to see it in full. I've been told it is a very disturbing movie and it should be interesting to see just how this whole zombie craze got started.

Bonus- ReAnimator (1985)

I'm afraid I'm going to have to make a confession in saying that I have not actually seen this movie, though being a Lovecraft fan I have a strange feeling I really should. I'd like to do it this year if possible but given how hectic my schedule is it might have to wait until next Halloween (might be a good blindspot for that month). The story is quite simply a retelling of Frankenstein, in which a mad scientist named Herbert West who develops a reanimation fluid that he tests on as many cadavers as he can find, with horrifying results. To help get into the spirit of things, here is a song about it:

David Cronenberg's Videodrome and the Role of Television in Our World

You might want to savor reading this post, because this is probably the only time on this blog you will ever hear me talk about pornography, snuff films, exploitation films, and other films of the sort. I'm not normally big on pornography for a variety of reasons, but my main justification is that I just don't like the idea of turning on a movie simply to watch two people I don't know have sex. I'd much rather be engaging in it myself than watching two strangers go at it. I'll also go out and say I'm even less inclined to see snuff films for reasons that should be obvious to any sane person.

While David Cronenberg's science fiction/horror film Videodrome doesn't exactly fit into any of those categories, they do play into its main narrative. Beneath the increased blurring of reality from hallucination, the twists and turns, the body horror, and the brown wig worn by a singer from a band called "Blondie", Videodrome is a strange piece of social commentary regarding the role television plays in our society. The technology used might be a bit dated but the underlying message is every bit as relevant today as it was back in 1983, if not in fact slightly more so.

The whole thing begins with Max Renn (James Woods), the producer of a small-time television network somewhere in the messed-up society of near-future Toronto, Canada. He is overjoyed when his technical assistant Harland (Peter Dvorsky) unscrambles a pirated television signal and finds a new show called "Videodrome". The show in question turns out to have no plot or characters, and is in fact literally nothing but an hour of non-stop torture and murder. That doesn't sound like a very appealing show, does it? 

I probably would not be inclined to view such a program, but in this messed-up world Max is quite taken with how "realistic" it is and begins taping it. One thing that is quickly established is that television is a dominating industry, just as it is in our world, but here perhaps even more so. There doesn't even seem to be much regard for quality anymore, and a lot of what is broadcasted is the stuff that we often see as dirty. Pornography seems to be a big thing now, especially evidenced by the fact that even Max is fed up with it and wants to find something new. 

Nicki Brand (Debbie Harry) sums it up early on when she is being interviewed. As she puts it, we live in a world where we are constantly looking for some form of stimulation, and that may in fact be extremely relevant today, perhaps even more than in 1983 with the internet. How many of us have spent hours watching videos on YouTube desperately trying to get some sort of stimulation out of pure and utter boredom? I know I have. 

Later on, we see Max and Nicki hanging out at the former's apartment with the obvious intention of having sex. One of the first things we see her do is rummage through Max's collection of VHS tapes looking for pornography (which she hopes will get her sexually aroused). This in itself seems a bit unusual. While there is no established rule and there probably are women who watch and even enjoy porn, the industry is more commonly associated with men.  You see men depicted enjoying porn far often than women, so the fact that it is Nicki who is actively looking for the porn is an interesting change and in some ways helps to establish how even she is being influenced by television. What she does find, however, is the snuff show Videodrome, which fascinates her to some... unhealthy levels. 

Not only is she captivated by the show, but it gets to the point where she openly decides to "audition" and participate in it. The fact that she wants to get onto a show that features nothing but nonstop torture is troubling enough, but then Max finds out the reason why the show is so "realistic" is because all the violence depicted is happening for real. From this point on, we never get a chance to see Nicki in person again. All subsequent appearances are on a television screen.

This is also about the point where it starts to become harder to distinguish reality from hallucination. Characters on the television (particularly Nicki) suddenly seem to start talking to him in pre-recorded material. Max seeks answers from Professor Brian O'Blivion (Jack Crely), who seems to know what's going on, but matters are only complicated when he finds he cannot get a one-on-one discussion and can only hear from him through prerecorded messages. 

As it turns out, Brian O'Blivion actually died several months before the film began, which makes it all the more bizarre that he was able to talk to Max. Matters are further confused when Nicki arrives during one of O'Blivion's recordings and strangles him, before she begins addressing Max. Even though the whole thing is supposedly pre-recorded, she seems to be aware of Max's presence. This is also the infamous scene where Max ends up having sex with his television, perhaps yet another (really strange) metaphor for how it has messed up his life.

Then of course there's all the body horror which may or may not be hallucinated. At one point, Max finds an open slit in his stomach which he slides a loaded gun into before suddenly finding that hole to have disappeared and the gun nowhere to be found. During the climax one hand alternates between being fused to said gun and appearing normal. Tapes appear to transform in Max's hands. It all gets to the point where one can hardly be certain where reality ends and the hallucinations begin. Videodrome has been affecting his mind from the beginning, but it is now that we can see it really taking hold of him. 

Worse still, as Max eventually discovers, he has become an unwitting test subject set up by a wealthy businessman who was also working with Harlan. One of his hallucinations is recorded, and in a bizarrely sick moment he finds himself on the set of Videodrome, where he repeatedly whips a television displaying Nicki, who still reacts with pain.

In the end, Max becomes nothing more than a puppet controlled by other networks. He is literally programmed to do as he is commanded (to the point where people literally put a tape into him) and he can't break free, much as it is hard for our own society to break free from the influence of television. Even when he is arguably "liberated" by Bianca O'Brien, he is still being manipulated by a television network. While her station seems slightly more benevolent compared to the guys behind the Videodrome signal, Max has been stripped of anything that made him an individual and is only capable of doing as she commands.

The only escape is his own death, and even that is not completely certain. Does he die in the end, or does he continue to live on the same as Nicki and Professor O'Brien seemingly have? The film ends there, on that open note. Whatever happens next, Max Renn is no longer the man we came to know in the movie's beginning. His mind has been distorted and manipulated by the television signal, and there is no definitive way he can set himself free.

We may not quite have anything like the signal used in Videodrome just yet, but one cannot deny that television plays a major role in our society. It does influence our everyday lives in ways we might not even notice. It's hard to break away from the grip of television programming. Even if you don't watch it regularly most of us have some show or another we tune in to see. Like it or not, television may very well be controlling your mind, and like Max Renn, there is nothing you can do to stop it.

This post was written for the O Canada Blogathon hosted by Kristina of Speakeasy and Ruth of Silver Screenings

It is Possible to Have a Female Character Without a Love Story

So I was wandering around the internet when I found myself on the front page of IMDB and encountered a trailer for a movie called Black Sea. It sounded kinda interesting so I decided to take a look and see what this whole thing was about. It seemed alright, but one thing I quickly noticed was that there seemed to be a startling lack of female characters. Worse still, there seemed to be no particular reason why the story necessitated an all-male cast. The film appeared to be set in the present day and involved a group of treasure hunters (as opposed to any military operations or anything that might still be predominantly if not entirely male). Is it just because it is set on a submarine?

Unlike many genres, submarine movies have a small degree of justification for being very predominantly male. A lot of films in this genre are set in very male-dominated periods of history, usually either World War II or the Cold War. Now that hasn't always stopped filmmakers. Plenty have found creative ways to put women into these environments, as is the case with Blake Edwards' comedy Operation Petticoat, but generally in these sorts of movies you can normally expect to see an all-male cast.

That said, not all submarine movies deal specifically with those conflicts, at least not always in that same context. There are plenty that take place in the present day (the above-mentioned Black Sea, for example). Submarine movies can overlap with science fiction in some cases (as in Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea or the far superior film 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea). Sometimes in these areas you do see women, and sometimes even a strong female character such as Lindsay Brigman in James Cameron's The Abyss, but it is still rare.

Bringing us back to Black Sea, I saw no immediate reason why the film's story required an all-male cast, and I decided to voice my opinion on its message board. The first response I got was someone who (perhaps rightfully so) pointed out my concerns were likely my strong feelings about advocating for gender equality getting the better of me. I have been going crazy over these issues lately. Sometimes it seems I can't turn around without spotting something my mind ends up perceiving as sexist in one way or another. Once in a while I can't tell if I'm actually finding something sexist or if I'm just paranoid about everything, so he had a legitimate point. However, what disturbed me was the comment he made immediately after:

"And thank god there isn't. don't want some stupid %&# love triangle during the middle of the movie muddling up the plot."

Really? Is that what you think would happen by writing in a female character? You do know it is possible to write a strong female character into a large cast without forcing in any kind of romance, right?  You don't have to incorporate a love triangle. You could just write one of the characters as a woman and still keep the dynamic with the other men exactly the same. I mean, did this guy really think that adding in a woman automatically meant there would have to be a romantic sub-plot forced into the narrative?

Being a writer myself I know from experience that is not the case. More than half the best characters in my work have been female (in fact I have so many memorable female characters I got excited over the one time I wrote a male character that stood out to my readers), and very few have had any kind of romance at all (and fewer still have been in a heterosexual relationship but that's another matter altogether). This even includes at least three cases where the female lead is the only woman in a cast otherwise composed entirely of guys and in every case I managed to avoid any kind of forced love triangle, though this could be a bit of my own experience (I've never actually had a "girlfriend" in the sense of a romantic partner, but I do have  A LOT of friends who happen to be girls).

I recently had to watch a movie called Desk Set for one of my classes. It was a silly movie in most respects despite the presence of Katherine Hepburn and a handful of somewhat funny lines, but the point was to look at how it envisioned the impact of computer technology. The plot of the movie essentially concerned the relationship between an efficiency expert and a resource department manager who gets worried about hearing that a computer is going to be installed in her office because she and her colleagues think they're going to lose their jobs. 

The part that bothered me was that according to the professor, the makers of this film wanted to appeal to women. Their solution? Write it as a romantic comedy, because as we all know romantic comedies are the only genre that women will go to see in the theater. You would never get any female viewers if you made your computer advertisement as a drama or a thriller or a film noir... oh wait, yes you would because contrary to popular belief there's no such thing as a "women's genre" or a "man's genre".

I've known plenty of women who enjoy a good action or science fiction movie and despite being a man I have enjoyed several great romantic comedies. Bringing Up Baby, Roman Holiday, Some Like it Hot, and Breakfast at Tiffany's are all romantic comedies I love because they are very well-done movies. The jokes in them are hilarious and there is a very solid emotional connection with their characters. The romance in a good romantic comedy is generally an essential part of the film, and therefore in those cases it is fine. 

However, that does not mean that every female character in any movie has to have a romantic sub-plot. Bringing up Black Sea again, I see no reason it couldn't have had a woman in the cast, nor why there would have to be a love triangle if there was one. Why couldn't there be a female treasure hunter there who is just as tough as the men and works with them on a strictly platonic level? 

The sad thing is that even today this notion of associated romance with women is something that is still widespread today even though we should know better. Just look at the whole "Disney Princess" franchise that completely skews children's perspectives of the company's animated films. It markets all the "princesses" (including some who really, really don't belong in there) as lovely women in fancy dresses in front of pink backgrounds and something specifically for little girls. Boys on the other hand are encouraged with the notion they shouldn't have anything to do with princesses, and subsequently are alienated from a number of films that are actually quite decent when you give them a chance.

Even the more progressive images of women in the past have generally been involved in romances of some sort. Howard Hawks often wrote strong female characters but most if not all had some sort of romance with the lead (albeit with more depth than many others of the time). You don't seem to see very many that can have a strictly platonic relationship with the men. The earliest case I know of a film where a female character is able to avoid any kind of romantic sub-plot at all is Alien, where both Ripley and Lambert are treated almost literally as one of the guys (though earlier drafts of the script had a sex scene involving Ripley that was never shot).

Still, I'm starting to feel like we need to see more platonic relationships between men and women. Sometimes love can be a great source of drama to a story, but it isn't always required. You can in fact write a strong female lead into a film without incorporating an unneeded love story. A lot of screenwriters seem to fail to realize that simple truth, and it needs to be understood. The presence of a female character does not mean there has to be a romance. Furthermore, I think it's time we did something about the association between romance and femininity. After all, a traditional heterosexual romance usually requires a male partner so why shouldn't it be associated with men as well? 

Bringing this all back to that one comment made on IMDB, whoever this user was they seemed to be under the misguided impression that writing even one of the male characters in the film as a woman would have automatically meant a forced romantic sub-plot. To an extent I can understand (at least based on what I saw in the trailer) why he wouldn't want a love triangle becoming part of the narrative. I will agree that it would get in the way of the central narrative, but were the writers of Black Sea just incapable of writing female characters without trying to force in a romantic sub-plot of any kind? If that is indeed the case then they're probably not very good writers which also means that this movie probably isn't worth my time.

A Female James Bond

DISCLAIMER: The subject matter tackled in this article may be extremely offensive to die-hard James Bond fans. You have been warned.

James Bond has been a cultural phenomenon since the 1960's, with dozens of movies spanning over several decades and continuing to be made today. By this point you should already know my thoughts on the overall franchise, but if you don't let me put it simply:

• Daniel Craig=YAY! 
• Sean Connery=Misogynistic pervert who doesn't deserve my respect. 
• Pierce Brosnan=Okay. 

So the Bond franchise has come a long way, and one need look no further than the way women are treated. Connery's Bond saw women as attractive things he could have sex with. Craig's Bond actually treats women as human beings. The Bond films have changed with society in many respects. Let's face it, the 1960's was a bit of a messed up time (you know something is weird when Barbarella was one of the more progressive images of women). Still, Bond has traditionally been played by a white male actor. Perhaps it's time to try something a bit different.

I've been talking to a lot of people about this lately, and while there is no specific indication of it happening in the near future (Craig is apparently going to do at least two more Bond films before anyone else takes over), it sparks quite the discussion. Some people really like the idea, and others are adamantly opposed to it for one reason or another. To make a long story short, I'm interested in the idea of James Bond being played by a woman.

Now before you say anything, the biggest problem I've really encountered with this idea is the name. "James" is not usually a girl's name. However, "Jamie" can be either gender, and it could be said that she is often referred to by the nickname of "James" (short for "Jamie"), thus still retaining the James Bond title. There, problem solved.

The second major problem would be the question of what to do about the famous "Bond girls" of the franchise. I've got several solutions to that. One simple solution is to do nothing. Jamie Bond could be written as a lesbian and thus the Bond girls could still keep their usual form (and hey, a homosexual Bond might just be a good way for the franchise to atone for the homophobia in Goldfinger). 

Alternatively, if you really didn't want to go the homosexual route, perhaps it might be a nice change to introduce a "Bond guy". It's like a Bond girl except instead it's a glamorous and extremely handsome man (incidentally, this  part could still work with a male Bond if the writers were daring enough). In other words, turning the usual Bond formula over its head. Now it's a female superspy teaming up with an attractive man to save the day. 

Either of these approaches could work. Personally I'm all down for lesbian Jamie Bond (although a gay male Bond would still be an interesting experience) but I like the idea of turning things around by bringing in a "Bond guy". Story-wise, these films probably wouldn't be a whole lot different from the more recent Bond films: a superspy gets assigned a mission that involves them having to team up with an attractive woman (or man, possibly) which takes them on an adventure through several exotic locations before they save the day at the end. 

Now I know what you're thinking: "Bond is inherently male" or something along those lines. Well, as I've been told time and time again, Bond is a franchise that changes with the times. If Goldfinger was made today, the filmmakers would never have gotten away with putting in the glorified rape scene that made it into the 1964 version. The Bond franchise has changed with changes in society, and now in a world where (most of us, anyway) are advocating equality between genders, it isn't so easy to distinguish "masculinity" from "femininity". 

Quite simply, there's no reason a woman today can't display traits that were at one point in a misogynistic society considered to be "masculine". There is even a bit of this already in the more recent incarnations: M was traditionally a male character until the role was taken up by Judi Dench in the Brosnan Era, which eventually carried on into the Craig films right up until Skyfall.

Also from Skyfall, there is the major change in Miss Moneypenny's role. In the Connery era, Moneypenny was a minor character who would appear briefly for no other reason than so Bond could flirt with her for a few minutes and then forget she ever existed (at least until the obligatory scene where she shows up in the next film). Skyfall gave Moneypenny an actual characterization. It turned her into an action girl (who gets to brandish more than a few firearms) and allowed her to actually have a role to play in the overall story.

Then again, a lot of the detractors seem to be the die-hard Bond enthusiasts, the same ones who point to Connery as the "definitive" Bond. If they had their way, Craig would still be treating women as sex objects and casting them aside as soon as he was through. Instead of deconstructing those aspects of his character and showing how absurd they are, Casino Royale would have continued to glorify Bond's mistreatment of women. You said it yourselves, Bond changes with the times. What was acceptable in Connery's era is no longer acceptable in Craig's and with very good reason.

So ultimately I see no real reason why our present social circumstances shouldn't allow the presence of a female James Bond. Barring the comments made by Connery purists, I've already managed to easily resolve the main story problems with the idea and I personally think it could make for a very interesting twist on the franchise. A female Bond would have been inconceivable in Connery's day, but this isn't Connery's day anymore is it? 

Also, it would be fun to see a female Bond just to see all the die-hard fans freak out over it. I can see them getting into endless rants on the discussion boards and other bloggers ranting about it, but get over it. A female James Bond wouldn't be that big a deal and if you really, really have a problem with it, it's not like the older films with male Bond are going anywhere. They're far too popular to get pulled off the shelves at your local video store. If Bond is supposed to change with the times, than I think we're at a suitable point to try some gender-swapping. 

What Makes a Cosmic Horror Story?

I like a good horror movie as much as the next blogger, but horror comes in all different forms. That's the funny thing about genre, that it always branches off into various subgenres which themselves have subgenres all characterized by specific iconography and patterns.  Horror is one of the best examples of such branching.

One of the most well-known branches would be the slasher film, which is characterized by its formula. The typical plot of a slasher film is a group of teens get stalked by an unnecessarily invincible killer and get picked off one by one. Usually most of the teens are a bit stupid and get killed while having sex, but the virgin manages to survive. The slasher is just the best-known. There are plenty of other subgenres of horror, such as psychological horror, paranormal horror, body horror, macabre or gothic horror (such as the stories of Edgar Allen Poe) and monster movies.

Those in turn often have many divides of their own. For instance the monster movie encompasses a whole other genre in zombie films, along with the likes of vampires, werewolves, Frankenstein's monster and so forth. That's not even getting into the numerous ways those subgenres can overlap and be combined with other genres (Event Horizon, for instance, is essentially a haunted house movie with the "house" replaced by a futuristic spaceship).

What I'm interested in is a particular kind of horror, one which I feel is a bit underrated. It's not normally listed alongside the other types of horror, even though it is one of the most fascinating and has been explored by some of the most iconic names in horror (including H.P. Lovecraft, Stephen King, and John Carpenter). It's even become something of a popular area for video games (Dead Space and Mass Effect). This is a type of horror known as Cosmic Horror.

Cosmic horror works a bit differently from other forms of horror in that it is based on a very bleak philosophy. There are many different places to draw fear from, but this particular one might be one of the greatest sources you can find. While cosmic horror stories can (and often do) have big scary monsters, body horror, psychological horror, paranormal activity, and just good old fashioned fear of the unknown, those are not the primary sources of terror in themselves.

Instead, what happens is that those are used as an agent of sorts by which to convey the greater fear. A cosmic horror story doesn't just try to scare you with blood and gore and scary monsters. Instead it is aims to depress you by forcing you to realize just how meaningless existence really is. The fear in a cosmic horror story comes from the knowledge that mankind is little more than a spec of dust in the grand scheme of things.

As the name implies this means that the horrors are often on a cosmic scale, not actively hostile towards us so much as indifferent. There are things out there that could wipe us out in a second with no effort, and they don't really care what happens. A common analogy is that these... things would see us the same way we would see bugs on the sidewalk.

You know how sometimes when you're walking down the street you might see an anthill and while you don't actively try to destroy it, you don't really bother yourself with the possibility of something happening to it, even though there are plenty of things that could easily end its existence? Imagine that on a cosmic scale, except now with Earth in place of the anthill, and you will get a sense of what cosmic horror truly entails. It is an intriguing philosophy, one that is not always easy to explore.

So obviously if you want to give a sense of mankind's insignificance in the universe you're going to want some means by which to convey that fear. This is where the the other horrors come into play. Often times you will see scary monsters of some sort, or at the very least you will feel their presence. That alone is another aspect of the cosmic horror story: fear of the unknown. Mankind is such a tiny, barely noticeable part of the universe that these horrors are usually things we cannot begin to understand.

Take one of the most famous cosmic horror monsters, for instance: Cthulhu. Part of what makes him such an effective character is how truly alien he is.We never really get into his head, we just know (based on unreliable information) that one day "when the stars are right" he will rise from the ocean, and apparently we will become something like him (the Lovecraft story alludes to massive violence and chaos that would happen when that time comes). His reign of terror is averted when he is struck by a boat, but the story makes it clear that this is little more than an inconvenience that will delay him. The worst part of it all? Cthulhu is actually one of the weaker beings in the overall mythos. If you think he's bad, let's not even get started on Azathoth or Yog-Sothoth.

Even the city of R'lyeh in which Cthulhu lives is beyond our range of understanding, said to be filled to the brim with "non-euclidean geometry". I can't even begin to describe what that word means or how it applies to the city. That's another thing that is common in cosmic horror. A lot of these stories have the monsters as things that are better left unseen. Sometimes they are so mind-bogglingly alien that simply looking at them is guaranteed to drive you to madness... and that's a best case scenario. Images like the one above depicting these beings are little more than approximations because their true appearance is literally indescribable.

There is one creature in Lovecraft's mythology, Ghatanothoa, who is said to be so frightening that anyone who sees it is is transformed into living mummy. I mean that literally, if this being enters your line of sight, you will be paralyzed. Your skin will develop a consistency resembling leather, essentially mummifying you all while your internal organs are preserved for an indefinite period of time. You remain locked in this state, alive and fully conscious, completely aware of everything around you.

That said, sanity-shattering monsters are not essential to a compelling cosmic horror story. The Whisperer in Darkness, The Shadow Over Innsmouth, and At the Mountains of Madness are all stories by Lovecraft himself that feature creatures described in a bit more depth. At the Mountains of Madness despite being very much a cosmic horror story, features some of the few beings that are actually cast in a sympathetic light (not that you'd want to meet them, but their story does leave you to wonder what could eventually happen to humanity).

Prometheus is a movie that has been occasionally labeled as a cosmic horror story, and it lacks any of the sanity-shattering abominations. However, it does still touch on the theme of humanity's insignificance in that we were just some experiment of an ancient race of aliens. Essentially, the universe is just one big construction site to them, and we were one small project. Much like how we might take a wrecking ball to an old building to make way for something new, these "Engineers" believed they needed to "demolish" our species so they could create something else.

Even 2001 borders on cosmic horror at times. While it has a fairly optimistic outlook on humanity's place in the universe, it still emphasizes that we have a long way to go. Those monoliths are also built by aliens so mind-bogglingly complex they couldn't be shown, not to mention we never even get a solid answer to the question of just what the heck those things are. They seem to be in some way designed to inspire humanity to keep going, but how they work or what their purpose was is beyond anyone's capability to understand.

So in the long run, the key to a good cosmic horror story is to look at the fact that the universe is so complex that we still are unable to understand everything. Earth is one of eight planets orbiting one of a hundred billion stars in one of billions upon billions of galaxies. Ultimately we are a very tiny part and while we have not (yet) faced any of the Great Old Ones, there are things that could in theory wipe out our planet under the right circumstances (although none are inevitable). The true terror comes not from the monsters, but from the understanding of that simple idea.

I have divulged the secrets of cosmic terror, but I fear that I may know too much. The cult still lives, and so does Cthulhu. One day they will return. The Great Old Ones shall rule the Earth once more. All will bow down before their might. Yog-Sothoth knows the gate. Yog-Sothoth is the gate. Yog-Sothoth is the key and guardian of the gate. Beware the wrath of the Crawling Chaos that is Nyarlathotep.

They're coming. We're doomed. We're all doomed. Ia Shub-Niggurath. Cthulhu Ftagn. The end is near. Something is coming, I can hear it. OH GOD! THAT HAND! IT'S HERE! IT'S HERE! IT'S COMING FOR ME! THE WINDOW! THE WINDOW! I CANNOT DESCRIBE IT! THOSE EYES! THAT THREE-LOBED EYE! THE MONSTROUS TENTACLES! I SHALL NOT LET IT GET TO ME! I WILL NOT LET IT FIND ME! THE WINDOW! THE WINDOW!

Thursday Movie Picks Meme: Unstable Characters

Wanderer's Thursday Movie Picks Meme is taking a spooky turn for Halloween, with a series of horror themed topics for the next few weeks. To begin, is the theme of unstable characters, or people that seem a bit off. Being a die-hard Lovecraft fan it should come as no surprise that I have a suitable arsenal of such films. I've even written a few pieces of my own that feature mental illnesses, ranging from post-traumatic stress disorder to full-on going mad from the revelation (and don't get me started on that one about the astronaut who got a little bit too attached to her probe...)

You might remember some of these from my "Halloween Horror" series last month. Let's begin.

The Haunting (1963)

From the moment we first meet the tragic heroine of Eleanor Lance, we can tell that she's not all there in the head. She feels neglected by her family, and has a strange longing to find some place where she feels she belongs. Unfortunately when she starts to find that in the form of a house seemingly occupied by... something, it becomes clear that she may be suffering from some form of mental illness. Her obsession with the house grows over time and just gets more and more unsettling.

In the Mouth of Madness (1994)

What better contribution for the theme of unstable characters than a film in which practically the entire cast is a little bit off in some way or another? It starts with smaller things such as Linda displaying some oddly sexual gestures in the workplace, and builds up to all kinds of messed-up horror (don't even get me started on what we see Linda do in later scenes) which includes a mad writer who may or may not have control over reality. The protagonist John Trent goes from an everyday man to an ax-wielding psycho... or is he a madman becoming saner? By the end of the movie you can't really tell the difference between sanity or insanity.

Inland Empire (2005)

If you're in the market to see some mind-boggling insanity, David Lynch is often a very good place to start. If you want true madness, than perhaps you ought to try sitting through the three straight hours of mind-boggling weirdness that makes up the bulk of his most recent film Inland Empire. I have in the past attempted to break down the plot of this film (the term "plot" being used very loosely), and it certainly has a weird production history. By that I mean Lynch literally just made it up as he went, writing a new page for the script each day based on whatever he thought of at the time and then shooting it.

There are a variety of strange characters to be found here, but the one I would bring up is Laura Dern's character of Nikki Grace. She is an actress making her name in a new movie, but the strain of her demanding role starts to get to her mind. Before long she starts to lose her grip on the difference between reality and the fictional world of the movie in which she is starring. At one point she even forgets she is acting and unwittingly breaks character.