O Horrors!

Hello, you wonderful person who happened to veer this way while looking for other, better blogs on horror! I just wanted to tell you hello and goodbye, because it’s always a little frustrating to me to come across a blog that hasn’t been updated since, oh, 2006. The goodbye is happening because, while I still read lots of horrors, I have too many other things going on to write about them, and besides, when I do the internet thing, I prefer it to be on my other blog, which has nothing to do with horror except of the periodic daily kind. One of these days I might be back to revamp and renew and revitalize this one, but for now, no. There are thousands and thousands of unbelievable blogs out there on the horror genre; it’s astounding. So, happy hunting! Peace.

Boy, I wish I liked action sequences, but I’m missing the gene that kicks the love into gear whenever I encounter one, and that makes it difficult to fully engage with many of the books I read. I just finished Summer of Night by Dan Simmons. I’ve written about Simmons before — I believe that two-thirds of my (admittedly few) posts have mentioned him — because I genuinely connect to his writing style and was blown away by The Terror, his novel about the lost Franklin expedition. That one book has softened  my heart toward him forever and is good for decades of turning a blind eye to his other less interesting books. Less interesting to ME, of course. I realize I’m not the major model of a modern major reader. I have strange tastes (I think). Anyway.

Summer of Night was the prequel to the book I read first, A Winter Haunting–which I read first because I didn’t know of the previous book’s existence. A Winter Haunting was terrific, mostly because the majority of the story takes place in the ice and snow, my favorite horror setting of them all. And once I discovered its prequel, I was delighted to find that it featured one of the main characters, all grown up. I like reading things in order and tend to feel very, very squidgy, and sometimes downright hostile, whenever I encounter events out of sequence, but that said, there is something deliciously satisfying about knowing what’s going to happen ahead of time. It strokes my god-like desire for omniscience. (Anticipation can be far sweeter than surprise in my world.) I don’t know, though… this time I was a little bummed that I knew who was going to die and how it would happen, and I believe that foreknowledge took the suspense out of the action parts and made them even more tedious. The last few chapters of the book were utterly action-jammed and I skimmed over them so I’m sure I also missed the wonder of immersing myself entirely in the story. However, the bottom line is: once the monster shows up, my attention is out the door. Monsters are almost always boring.

I believe this monster/action/detail ennui may be why I prefer short horror stories to horror novels. Short stories can be odd and off-putting and pack a wallop in a few short pages; they are generally long on atmosphere and short on action, whereas novels tend to have to stretch out that one nugget of an idea to fill page after page and still keep the reader’s interest. Only very skilled writers can do this without resorting to a record of every single nose-scratching and hair-flicking action performed by their characters. It’s the details that bog down the story for me. Implied actions keep it buoyant, possibly because I have to supply the details myself, using my imagination — and I can bypass them altogether if they don’t serve the story. A reader’s experience is entirely subjective, and she brings to it whatever works best–for her– to enhance her enjoyment and understanding of whatever she’s reading. My observations regarding heavy-action writers aren’t  criticisms; they’re more about the kind of story that appeals to me most. I truly admire writers who are willing to spend time doing the research necessary to allow them to include the most minute details; I just don’t find those details interesting.

I’m reading a variety of books right now, which slows my horror reading, but next up on the horror docket will most likely be American Fantastic Tales: Terror and the Uncanny from Poe to the Pulps, edited by Peter Straub. I was not at all impressed by Poe’s Children, an anthology Straub recently edited, but American Fantastic Tales is chock full of classics and should contain some savory reading. I’m ready for some meaty short horrors again.

I picked up another Dan Simmons novel yesterday—it had been lying on its side with the other books  I’d ordered from the library awhile back, just waiting its turn. I had just finished Thomas Tessier’s Fogheart, tossed aside a book by Graham Joyce so boring I can’t even remember the title of it, and eagerly lifted the Simmons book from its place. It felt good as I hefted it in my hands: not quite Drood or Terror-heavy, but still substantial enough for satisfaction. When I had seen the cover for the first time, and had noted the title “Fires of Eden,” I’d felt a distinct frisson of distaste that had been difficult to staunch, but I figured that Simmons’ usual storytelling magic would overcome any of my usual qualms about tropical settings, lava-spewing volcanoes, fruity drinks with umbrellas, and golf resorts. Unfortunately, it didn’t. It is a decent story, no doubt about it, and even includes some of what should be delicious references to a (fictional, natch) diary written in 1866 by a woman who had spent some time with Mark Twain during his Hawaiian travels, but even that sideline went nowhere for me. Anyway, this isn’t intended to be a book review, despite the fact that I’ve inserted a photo of the book and devoted the entire first paragraph of the post to it. It’s probably a great read for anyone who likes that sort of thing, and Carnival Cruises.

No, what it got me thinking about is my love for ice and snow, chilblains and frostbitten extremities, and overall survival in the most unforgiving frozen landscapes. In books. Only in books, or movies, because anyone who knows me will tell you that I bawl like a baby rabbit whenever my toes are even the eensiest bit cold, and going outside when the temperature hovers around 60 degrees requires at least ten layers of woolen clothing and a battery-operated neck warmer. I was born in southern California, okay? But for some reason—which undoubtedly is rooted directly in my fears—I am fascinated by people who have to endure what I refuse to. I was wondering this morning about the initial source of that fascination, and my mind went immediately to a sketching of a mastodon stuck in ice that I used to gaze at for hours when I was tiny, in one of my dad’s college textbooks. The look of horror on that giant ancient’s face, as it attempted to pull its huge hairy tree-trunk-of-a-leg out of the frozen tundra, is forever frozen in my psyche. Later, when I was older, it was the delectably creepy horrors of John Carpenter’s The Thing that fueled my imagination, as well as books like O Rugged Land of Gold by Martha Martin, Mind Over Matter by the Antarctic explorer Ranulph Fiennes, Ordeal By Hunger: the Story of the Donner Party by George Rippey Stewart, and my favorite, The Terror by Dan Simmons—among many, many others. In fact, to me, any story that involves people battling freezing elements constitutes “horror,” and wins my heart completely.

Okay, or maybe I don’t like the tropics because the Tiki Hut at Disneyland scared the hell out of me as a child. Six of one, half a dozen of the other she said, as she snuggled down deeper into her robe. I guess I’ll finish this inferior Simmons book now. Next up: Frozen in Time: Unlocking the Secrets of the Doomed 1845 Arctic Expedition by Owen Beattie and John Geiger. ~Kelly

by Maolsheachlann O Ceallaigh

Blacula (1972)

Scream, Blacula, Scream (1973)

Count Duckula. Count Chocula. Count Blacula. Only the first two names in this list are supposed to sound comical.

Probably, the two Blacula films—Blacula (1971) and Scream, Blacula Scream (1973)—wouldn’t have quite as bad a reputation if their villian had been called anything else. But really, if you’re going to make a blaxploitation film about a dark-skinned vampire, what else could you call it? Some opportunities are too good to be missed.

The original Blacula film won a Saturn award for best horror film, but today both films seem to be remembered as either curios or jokes. Which is very unfair; there’s plenty to laugh at in the Blacula films (and most of the humour is intentional) but neither of them come anywhere close to so-bad-it’s-good territory. If they’re bad at all, it’s only in the best blaxploitation sense of the word.

For one thing, the Blacula films are inventive, and in a genre as numbingly repetitive as horror film, inventiveness is a rare commodity. An African-American vampire isn’t the only original element to the films. They bring vampires into the modern world long before Interview with the Vampire or Dracula 2000 tried it. They make a brave attempt to include political and social undertones, and Count Blacula himself is, well, not all that black. This is a vampire with shades of grey. And they’re not only funny when they try to be, they’re scary when they try to be.

Blacula opens in Transylvania in the late eighteenth century, in the auspicious setting of Castle Dracula. Mamuwalde, an African prince, and his princess Luva are having dinner with Dracula himself, evidently in the belief that he’s simply another Central European noble who doesn’t get out in the sun enough. This is where it gets interesting. Mamuwalde (a suave William Marshall, whose performance in both films is praised even by the films’ many detractors) appeals for Dracula’s help in stamping out the slave trade. The good Count is openly amused by the idea, and incenses Mamuwalde further by offering to buy his wife. (“I meant no insult,” he explains. “It is a compliment for a man of my station to look with desire upon one of your colour”.) Our African hero loses the rag, but getting angry with the daddy of all vampires is a bad idea. Dracula not only infects the African prince with the vampiric virus (giving him the name Blacula himself), he gets his servants to wall Mamulda up so that his thirst for blood will go unsated through the centuries. This scene alone could keep a Cultural Studies class going for a whole term.

Cut, after a very stylish credit sequence, to the twentieth century. Two rather camp gentlemen, one white and one black, are negotiating the purchase of Castle Dracula, and they’re simply delighted to learn of the legends attached to it. (Shaft, a blaxploitation classic from the same era, is notable for having a sympathetic gay character. Blacula, for all its racial awareness, isn’t quite there yet; the male lovers are ridiculous popinjays, and later in the film, someone asks the rhetorical question, “Who cares about two dead faggots?”)

The gay lovers open the tomb of Blacula, and soon Dracula’s soul brother is at large in modern day Los Angeles. He doesn’t skulk around in the form of a bat or a fog, though. No, Blacula prefers to stroll brazenly into a nightclub, resplendent in his cape, on the trail of a lady who bears an uncanny resemblance to his beloved Luva, and to sit at the very same table as Dr. Gordon Thomas, a polo-necked and tough-talking doctor who probably hangs out with John Shaft in his spare time, and who soon links the mysterious African noble with a string of strange murders he’s been helping the police investigate. (“Say man, that is one strange dude!” opines a jive-talking brother, after Blacula has left the table.)

Perhaps the greatest bane of the horror film is repetitiveness. Making a horror is easy, or so the thinking goes; all it takes is some tingly music, a half-lit corridor, and a string of jump moments to keep the kids happy. But a one-scare horror is just as bad as a one-joke comedy, no matter how much money it rakes in. Blacula, along with its sequel, rings the changes. The action takes in a variety of settings and atmospheres—Castle Dracula, a funeral parlour, a lively nightclub, a shabby police station (the sort they stopped making in the seventies), a photographer’s darkroom, and ultimately—in a strikingly original climax—a chemical plant.

But it’s not just the settings that vary. Blacula doesn’t follow the all-too-familiar horror film pattern of forty minutes dutiful exposition followed by an hour and twenty minutes of screaming and chasing. The plot, simple though it is, continues to unfold until the very last scene, and scenes of quite thoughtful dialogue are mixed with scenes of pursuit, suspense and horror.

Best of all, Blacula himself has a motivation—other than the deliciousness of human blood, that is—and scruples, and pathos, and a character arc of sorts. In the first film, he’s eager to win the twentieth-century incarnation of Luva (who, he insists, must come to him of her own accord). In Scream, Blacula, Scream, his motivation is even more interesting—he wants a female witchdoctor, played by Pam Grier, to cure him of vampirism using voodoo. A unique twist on the standard vampire story is rare indeed, but surely that must be one?

The Golden Turkeys, a companion to bad movies by Harry and Michael Medved, finds some nice words for Blacula but is scathing about its sequel, and that seems to be the critical consensus. It’s hard to see why, except for the lazy assumption that a sequel must be worse than the original film, or that having the cheek to make a second Blacula outing is taking the joke too far. In fact, Scream, Blacula, Scream might well be the better work. Not only does it have the ingenious addition of a voodoo element, but both the humour (a new recruit to the vampire ranks complains of not having a reflection: “I don’t mind being a vampire and all that shit, but this ain’t hip. I mean, a man has got to see his face!”), and the social commentary (Blacula chastises two black pimps for imitating their slave masters, before sluicing their jugular veins) have been taken up a notch. In this film, too, Blacula commands a whole troop of vampires, and the sight of all those bloodsuckers in the same place—made all the eerier by their hip dress—is quite a nerve-jangler.

All in all, it’s a pity that Blacula never took his cape out for another airing, or that Samuel L. Jackson was never pressed to revive him in the same way he revived Shaft. There are many delicious moments between the two films, both funny (a black undertaker, dropping his respectful demeanour when Doctor Gordon Thomas leaves his presence, cries: “That’s the rudest nigger I ever met!”), and spooky (Blacula’s spread-caped manner of swooping on his victims, shown in slow motion, is always good for a chill).

These are films that deserve an audience way beyond Cultural Studies professors and journalists writing books about bad movies. Check them out if you get the chance. – Maolsheachlann

by Maolsheachlann O Ceallaigh

Hammer House of Horror: Rude Awakening (1980)

It’s easy—far too easy—to get sentimental about the Hammer films. Sure, they seem quaint and comforting when compared to the slashers of today. Who wouldn’t pine for Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed after sitting through one of the Saw films?

And they certainly oozed style. Dracula was always– ahem– dressed to kill, and his understaffed but ever-opulent castle was a million miles from the squalour of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and its many imitators. Stately homes, country villages, homely inns, top hats, cravats, bubbling vats of richly-coloured liquid in makeshift laboratories….the Hammers seduced the eyes as effortlessly as the Count seduced his heaving-bosomed victims.

The Hammer horrors are more than just films. Just like cricket and pantomime, they’re a great English institution. But we tend to forget that they’re even more boring than cricket, and rather less challenging than panto.

With a few exceptions, like the spooky and stylish Plague of the Zombies, the Hammer horror films are period pieces at best. The plots are as simplistic as a game of noughts and crosses, the dialogue serves no purpose other than to keep said plot creaking forward, and the “Made at Pinewood Studios” logo flashes up as soon as Dracula/Frankenstein/the werewolf has been dispatched. It’s a pretty good bet that the term “denouement” was rarely mentioned in Hammer’s creative meetings, unless it was in the context: “Let’s not have a denouement this time, either”.

The irony is that, if Hammer’s fame as a film studio is undeserved, they haven’t been given the credit they deserve for their achievements on the small screen. Hammer House of Horror ran for thirteen episodes in 1980 and nearly every one of them was better than most of the studio’s big screen efforts.

The jewel in the crown, though, was “Rude Awakening”, a surreal story starring Denholm Elliott as a lecherous estate agent who finds himself trapped in a series of apparent nightmares.

The word “surreal” tends to make us think of Salvador Dali, Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Dadaist artists wearing deep-sea-diver helmets. But the surrealism of “Rude Awakening” is English all the way through; suburban, workaday and comfortably dull. The wonderful paradox of this episode is that it’s both startling and sedative at once. But that’s the genius of all the best English horror; it makes the familiar world otherworldly, and the other world familiar.

Denholm Eliot’s performance is a perfect example of this paradox. His character, Norman Shenley, finds himself trapped in a succession of lethal situations, but most of the time he seems bemused rather than terrified. He behaves exactly like someone trapped in a nightmare would behave; detached, curious, never entirely buying into the deal. But another layer of ambiguity is laid over the situation by the fact that we’re never quite sure how far Norman is aware of his situation, at least not until the final scenes when he begins to revel in the unreality of his experiences. Or what he thinks is their unreality…

Norman is having an affair with his secretary, who wants him to get a divorce. (His marriage is spectacularly loveless—the pillow talk between him and his frumpy, resentful wife is devoid of even the last afterglow of romance or camaraderie.) He’s called out to represent a stately home called Lower Moat Manor, inhabited by a dotty dowager. That’s when the weirdness begins in earnest; a suit of armour comes to life, and Norman wakes up just as it’s about to strangle him. The reassuring reality he wakes to soon gives way to another nightmare, and in the course of the episode, Norman gets trapped in: a condemned building just as it’s being demolished, a telephone box that fills with gas, the table of an operating theatre (with his wife as one of the surgeons), and a mortuary.

The dreamy atmosphere of the film is heightened by several recurring motifs; Lower Moat Manor, the house that Norman is asked to sell, which exists in some dreams but not in others; his secretary Lolly, who has a radically different look in each story; Friday the thirteenth, which stubbornly continues to be the day’s date no matter how often Norman wakes up, and is indicated by an oh-so-seventies page-a-day office calender;  a distinguished-looking gentleman called Mr. Rayburn, who drifts through the story as a customer, a surgeon and a policeman; and, most notably, a voice that keeps repeating the words: “You shouldn’t have done it, Norman. You shouldn’t have killed your wife.” It’s all a long way from Transylvania.

Of course, there isn’t much suspense in a story where every situation turns out to be a nightmare, over and over again. And yet, for my money, “Rude Awakening” is much more gripping than any watch-out-he’s-behind-you slasher flick. This is horror poetry, not horror porn. After all, horror is remembered most of all for its moments; the little girl walking through the television screen in The Ring, Jack Nicholson hatcheting down the hotel room door in The Shining, Regan’s crabwalk in The Exorcist. “Rude Awakening” succeeds by pretty much throwing plot and logic out the window, and concentrating on spooky vignettes. Plotting was never Hammer’s forte, anyway.

That said, the story does come to a climax, and a satisfying one at that. Reality returns with a vengeance, and the final image we’re left with is that zeitgeisty calender showing that it’s still Friday the Thirteenth.

But the story is really beside the point. Rude Awakening is a poem, and it’s wonderfully appropriate that, at one point, mention is made of Shakespeare’s lines from The Tempest:

We are such things

As dreams are made on, and our little life

Is rounded with a sleep.

Just like The Tempest (though on a rather less exalted level), this episode of Hammer House of Horror dances between reality and fantasy, playing on our deep-seated anxiety that there’s ultimately no telling them apart. What a pity that an imaginative, adventurous work like this is forgotten while all the boobs-and-fangs clunkers that Hammer inflicted on the big screen are still presented as their legacy.

Maolsheachlann

If you tripped and accidentally stumbled over this blog, then hello! I haven’t figured out what I’m going to do here yet, so you won’t find anything interesting, but check back every so often, if you like, to see if there’s progress. There should be, little by little, and January should find it pretty well complete. In the meantime, read The Terror by Dan Simmons. It’s one of the best books I’ve ever read. Peace. – Kelly