Horror Core: Great Genre Film Themes

I've written about music before. Not that I'm at all qualified to do so, but still. And now here's more on the subject. Specifically about theme songs for genre films. Which I've also posted about in the past. Sort of. But this time I'm talking song songs, like with lyrics and stuff.

It's not so unusual for a movie to have a theme song--in fact, it's often expected. More so if a singer is cast in the film. Witness Men in Black or Battleship. Or Dark Floors, the Lordi movie. Heck, Bobby Brown laid down a track for Ghostbusters 2 and he was hardly in it. And then there are the genre films that have no good reason for a theme song, but still one exists. For reasons that escape most of us, someone decided these movies needed a theme tune, something to sum up, in verse, the films' themes and/or plot. I've scoured my memory, my friends' memories, and the Internet to bring you a few choice selections.

Shocker as heard in Shocker



Shocker is not a great film, by any standard. But it's still kinda fun to watch, even if Wes Craven was just plagiarizing himself for most of it. A lot of work went into the soundtrack, and a super-group of sorts was assembled to produce and sing the theme song. The Dudes of Wrath include members from KISS, Whitesnake, Motley Crue, and Van Halen.

Green Slime as heard in The Green Slime



I haven't actually seen this stinker from 1968, but I'm told that those who have remember it for its theme song. Or from the first ever MST3K. Anyway, The Green Slime boasts a rocking theme that includes both a sitar and a theremin. Written by award-winning composer Charles Fox, and sung by Richard Dalvey, who pioneered surf music. (Special thanks to Andrew Barr)

Zombeavers as heard in Zombeavers



If you haven't seen Zombeavers, you should. Also, the song is full of spoilers. Sung by crooner Nick Amado, and written by Jon and Al Kaplan, the Zombeavers theme is exactly what you'd expect from the guys who brought us The Thing musical. Incidentally, the guys who wrote the movie's theme also wrote the movie.

Looker as heard in Looker



Looker isn't a bad movie, even though critics didn't like it very much back in 1981. Written and directed by Michael Crichton, the movie touches on themes of beauty and perfection and the plot could totally be remade today. Complementing the film is its theme song sung by Sue Sadd and the Next, which was later covered by Kim Carnes. Looker has an entire soundtrack album that recorded but never released. (Special Thanks to Don Guarisco)

Dream Warriors as heard in A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors



The Nightmare on Elm Street franchise is a fascinating study. No less interesting is the third movie's theme song by Dokken. This rock power anthem probably wasn't the band's crowning achievement, but it was remixed and released on what became their best-selling album. Rumor has it the band's internal conflict helped fuel their sound. Whatever the case, Dream Warriors is so awesome that it defeats Freddy himself.

Burn as heard in The Crow



The Crow is legendary for a lot of reasons, its soundtrack being one of them. The movie is full of '90s rock and metal, and the soundtrack sold over four million copies. Initially, no label would produce it until Trent Reznor got on board. The soundtrack is crammed full of new songs and covers, but Burn by The Cure became the movie's theme. It's haunting and gothy, capturing the essence of the film.

Stage Fright

To begin, an overdue congratulations to Telelfilm for pulling its head out of its ass. This is the second film I've seen inside a week that was high caliber genre made with Telefilm money. And to think all it took was a boy from Halifax winning an international, high profile movie trailer competition.

Now, onto the show!

I used to really like musicals. I'd fall asleep listening to the Cats soundtrack and I knew all the words to every song in Phantom. Then I kind of aged out of musical theatre. Of course, I'd see a musical or two at Stratford--it is Stratford, after all--and I made a point of seeing Giant Killer Shark: The Musical, but I never bothered with Lion King or War Horse. I've not seen Les Mis, to this day.

Genre musicals were/are a different matter. Once More With Feeling, Evil Dead, Dr. Horrible, Dead and Breakfast. Seen and loved them all. I think it has to do with the horror/comedy opposition. As Noel Carroll points out, horror and comedy exist on the same spectrum; both deal in absurdity but it's the presentation of that absurdity and our reactions to it that differ.

Stage Fright is a horror comedy musical, which is just about as absurd as you can get. Set at Center Stage, a  musical theatre camp, the camp director, Roger McCall, decides to mount The Haunting of the Opera. This particular musical has special significance because McCall produced Haunting ten years ago when the star, Kylie Swanson, was murdered on opening night. McCall took in her orphaned children who now work as kitchen staff at the camp. Camilla Swanson, Kylie's daughter, auditions for her late mother's role hoping it will bring her closer to her mom.

She kills it, of course.

As the camp prepares for their rendition of Haunting, a masked madman prepares himself for a killing spree that he hopes will prevent the show from taking place. But the show must go on!

Stage Fright pokes fun at both the horror and musical genres. Admittedly, I don't know much about musicals, but I know enough to recognize a satire of schmaltzy, overblown, Andrew Lloyd Weber-style musicals. Haunting, of course, is a take on Phantom of the Opera which is then mounted with a Kabuki theme by the kids at camp. Within the world of the film, this is a misguided attempt at further dramatizing a melodrama.

"What is at the heart of Haunting?" asks the director. "It's about covering up who you really are."

Of course that's not true, but it's his way of introducing his own misinterpretation of Kabuki as a way to showcase the "themes" of Haunting.

Within Stage Fright the film, covering up is exactly what's happening in one way or another. Kabuki also hinges on the spectacle of performance, and a horror/comedy/musical about a musical is truly spectacular. The delightfully fluffy and cheerful musical numbers sung by the kids at camp are offset by the killer's rock soliloquies. Dressed in a black and white mask, the glam rock Metal Killer echoes Kiss and was inspired by Ozzy and Metallica, and he spouts punny one-liners for the benefit of the audience.

Without getting too postmodern, Stage Fright knows its a movie and what's more, understands its heritage. In the same way the film's musical aspects draw from and satirize musical theatre, Stage Fright pays homage to Carrie, TCM, Halloween, ANOES, and Hellraiser. As a further tribute to classic horror, most of the gore effects are physical effects, and there's very little CGI.

The mystery of the Metal Killer isn't especially hard to figure out, but the Stage Fright experience is really more about watching the show. The film is both an accomplished musical and horror movie, funny and violent with good gore and clever kills. Drawing on operatic traditions, the lead is a soprano and her patriarch is a (sort of) bass; listen out for a joke about the secondary status of altos. Everything is overdone, from the lyrics to the kills, reveling in the shared ambition of spectacle and performance.

Machete Joe

Or, why you're not smart enough for postmodern horror.

The late '90s were a big time for horror.  The genre underwent a huge paradigm shift, ushering in a new breed of film: the hip, postmodern horror movie.  Now, nearly twenty years later we're at the risk of drowning in a quagmire of mediocre pomo--the result of an unchecked growth in independent, do-it-yourself horror.  Easy access to increasingly easy-to-use video production equipment created an opportunity for all would-be filmmakers.  Once the floodgates opened, out poured a torrent of cheap and cheerful horror movies, films that payed hommage to, referenced, and mimicked the favourite films of years past.  And one of those favourites was Scream.

Scream was not the first postmodern horror movie, but it was certainly the first to draw a lot of attention from critics and mainstream audiences.  Success breeds imitators, and Scream's legacy is a glut of self-referential horror films.  Some are better than others but few if any have been able to recreate or recpture the cleverness of Scream.  And Machete Joe is definitely not one of those better imitators.

The easiest way for a horror movie to be postmodern is for it to be a film-within-a-film, a movie about people making a movie; you get all the recursiveness of a self-referential film without even trying.  Machete Joe does this.  It's about low-budget horror filmmakers making a low-budget horror film.  And it's got all the low-budget horror stereotypes you'd expect: bitchy cast members, an uncompromising director, and a creepy location with a hidden threat.  To give credit where credit's due, Machete Joe does feature Ernie Hudson in 1.5 scenes, and the film-within-a-film has a castmember who's sole purpose is to class up the film--a talented and respected actor who is inexplicably slumming it.  But that's about as clever as it gets.  The rest of the film is a pedestrian slog through a swamp of horror cliches.
The film under construction in Machete Joe is "Machete Man", a based-on-true-events tale about a machete-wielding killer who witnessed a rape and then murdered the rapists.  The filmmakers have secured the location where the rape took place, hoping the place will inspire an ending for their unfinished script.  Unbeknownst to all, the killer is still skulking about, and it's only a matter of time before he starts offing the cast and crew.

What made Scream so great, apart from its witty dialogue bantered about by pop culture savvy teens, was its complete and total lack of self-consciousness.  It's hard to be self-referential without also being painfully aware of the dramatic irony you've created in your film, but Scream pulled it off.  Machete Joe, by contrast, is too caught up in the conceit of postmodernism to create an interesting subtext on the subject of horror movie realities.  Moreover, once the characters realize they're living out a horror movie, they fail to extricate themselves from the scenario they've created.

To make matters worse, one character is filming a behind-the-scenes documentary for Machete Man, but the possibility of layering realities through the use of both cameras--movie and documentary--is never explored.  Rather, the documentarian just films a lot of boobs.  Nor does Machete Joe entertain the notion of distancing its subjects from its subject matter.  Multiple in-film cameras that carry out different functions can be used to remove or distance characters from events they witness in the movie.  But Machete Joe doesn't do that.  Scream briefly uses film-within-a-film to recreate the audience/movie character dynamic within the film itself.   All Machete Joe is able to do is have a guy film his own death.

Truth be told, nearly everyone is smart enough to piece together a postmodern horror movie, but few have the talent to make that a satisfying film.  Machete Joe takes everything that's great about postmodern horror, all of its potential for insight and commentary, and squanders it.  Instead of layered subtext it gives us tired cliches, instead of cleverness, fart jokes. 

The Horrors of Advertising

As far as I'm concerned, using horror to advertise product is always a good idea.  Even if you're not a big fan of the genre, you can still appreciate the sentiment and creativity in a horror ad.  The commercials are always funny, riffing on horror tropes.  This list below is hard exhaustive, but includes some of my favourite ads as well as others that garnered a surprising amount of controversy.

Toyota



Toyota caught a lot of flack for their zombie ads, which is unfortunate.  The ads, which appeared in print and on TV, let consumers know that Toyotas are well equipped to deal with a zompocalypse.  Outcry against the creative and horror-tastic ads forced Toyota to recall their campaign.  Why?  Because months earlier, a number of people died while driving their Toyotas.

In February 2010, Toyota recalled 4.5 million cars because of a possible faulty accelerator pedal.  Prior to the recall, anywhere between five and thrity-five people were killed when their gas pedals got stuck and their cars accelerated out of control.  This particular recall wasn't Toyota's first, as it has had to recall its cars for other accelerator pedal and break issues.

Nike

Back in 2000, Nike launched their "Why Sport?" campaign, which featured a horror-spoof TV ad.



The ad played on NBC during their Olympic broadcast but was quickly pulled due to an overwhelming amount of viewer complaints.  At the heart of the issue was the perception that the ad promoted violence against women and/or it was too intense for television audiences.

Bud Light



I can't tell you when the Super Bowl became the most coveted advertising time-slot on television, but I'm pretty sure that it's only in the last 15 years or so that advertisers started bringing their A-game to the show.  In February 2007, Bud Light, riding high on the success of it's Bud Light Institute campaign, let loose with its own horror parody ad.  The commercial played a lot better than Nike's, and was easily the best ad that aired that night.

Audi



A less well-executed advert aired this past February, when Audi showed the world their own take on horror movie spoofs.  Eschewing nostalgia for modern pop culture, Audi's commercial features hip young vampires.  I have it on good authority from someone who works in advertising that the ad was a good idea but suffers from bad writing and production.

STIHL



I'm unsure as to when this ad first aired, but I think it was around September 2008.  You'd think it wouldn't have taken this long for a chainsaw manufacturer to jump on the horror-parody-television-commercial bandwagon, but whatever.  The point is, Stilh mined TCM to advertise their Easy2Start line of chainsaws to great effect.

Direct TV



I think it was December 2005 when Direct TV brought together a bevy of horror villains to celebrate Christmas.  Strangely, I can't find any information or commentary about this ad which is really weird given that Direct TV raised some eyebrows with their Poltergiest TV spot.

Phones 4U



In 2011, British mobil phone provider Phones 4U aired a The Ring-inspired TV advert.  Six hundred and one complaints later, the ad was brought before the Advertising Standards Agency.  The commercial was eventually cleared, which is unsurprising given the ad was already approved of by Clearcast, an organization that clears advertisements for TV broadcast.

The Halloween Blog Post

I love Halloween.  I love it because it's a time when everyone gets into the horror spirit, and it's not just me staying up late to watch scary movies.  It's a time for parties and dressing up and holiday-appropriate movie marathons.  It's like Christmas but without the forced cheer.

But what's the point of this horror blog blogging some special horror for Halloween? So many other wonderful bloggers have already beaten me to it.  I think instead I'll take the time to reflect on some of my preferred non-horror films.

Zombots! presents movies to help treat the Halloween hangover:

Airplane! and Airplane II: The Sequel

Two of my favourite comedies.  These films epitomize the lost art of literal, visual comedy.  In the first film, which is largely a parody of Zero Hour and Airport, Ted Striker has to overcome his fear and self-doubt to successfully land the plane he's on.  The second movie is pretty much a rehash of the first only this time it's a space shuttle flying to the moon.  The first film gave us "Don't call me Shirley" and the second has one of my favourite sight gags ever.

The Sting

Set in the 1930s, it's about a couple of grifters who undertake an elaborate con to relieve a banker of his overburden of wealth.  The film won seven Oscars, including Best Picture, and a DGA award for outstanding achievement in directing.  You know that thing people do, when they touch their nose to indicate they're down with the plan, it's from this movie.

Miss Congeniality

Sandra Bullock goes undercover as a contestant at the Miss United States Pagent when the FBI finds out that it's been targeted for terrorist attack.  The humour is sharp and intelligent, and the film doesn't pander to the audience (unlike the sequel). 

Sneakers

A heist movie with con elements.  Robert Redford (who also stars in The Sting) heads up a professional hacking company.  But when he's hired by the NSA to steal a newfangled enigma machine, he becomes entangled in a sinister techno-terrorist plot.  Highly underrated, Sneakers doesn't get nearly enough exposure as it should.

Empire Records

A slacker comedy/coming-of-age film about a day in the life of the kids who work at an independent record store.  And what a day it is!  Robberies, in-store signings, love, betrayal, fake funerals, and the expectation that the free-spirited employees will toe the line of the store's new corporate owners.  The film failed to perform at the box office and critics didn't like it, but it gained a cult following in the years after its release.

The Blues Brothers

Jake and Elwood reassemble their band in order to raise money to pay off a tax debt.  A quasi musical with performances and a dance number, the soundtrack features some excellent tunes.  Perhaps best known for its music, the film is a fantastic showcase of vehicular mayhem.

Other Dangers: Scary Stories to Disturb Your Kids

Not too long ago, I exposed a shocking case of children's cannibalism.  Today I present to you not one, but three cases of no-way-is-this-suitable-for-kids children's lit.

One of my favourite books growing up was Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark.  The book, published in 1981, is a collection of urban legends and folktales.  That in itself might seem pretty tame, but the pictures that went along with the stories...

Oh God.

There are no gods here.

Stephen Gammell provided the illustrations for Alvin Schwartz's stories.  Stories with titles like "Old Woman All Skin and Bone", "The Dead Man's Brains", and "The Ghost with the Bloody Fingers".  The collection features tales you've probably never heard before as well as some classics such as "The Hook" and "The Babysitter".  Admittedly, not all are scary.  "The Viper" is a well-told joke, and "Wait Till Martin Comes" features a child-hero who knows better than to stick around for the titular character.

But those pictures!

Gammell is a self-taught, award-winning artist who specializes in illustrating children's lit.  Despite the disturbing nature of his art, there's no question his drawings exhibit a rare talent.  I said Scary Stories was one of my favourite books, due in no small part to their art.  The pictures are downright terrifying, and I first gazed upon them when I was just a little girl.

Explains a lot, I guess.

Scary Stories is the first of three books in a series of youth horror lit written by Schwartz, all illustrated by Gammell.  The pictures, in combination with the books' more violent stories, led to angry challenges launched at the American Library Association.  In fact, so many people contested the books that the series was the number one most-challenged "book" of the 90s.

Beware the subversive prose of Judy Blume.

My parents obviously didn't have any problems with Scary Stories, and I've held on to my copies in the hopes of one day passing them down to a new generation of horror lovers.  I might wait till my imaginary beneficiary is a bit older than I was when I first cracked those covers.  Seven might be a bit young.

You're never too young to have your innocence devoured.

Embodiment of Horror

I have two tattoos.  I'm thinking of getting a third.

Probably not this one.

While searching for an image for a recent episode of TheAvod I unwittingly stumbled into the horror tattoo subculture.  I love looking at pictures of awful tattoos and I thought I just hit pay dirt.  Turns out that a lot of horror tattoos aren't ugly at all.  Rather, they're artful and skillfully done.

But still, you get some real eyebrow-raisers.

And so, without further comment I present D's gallery of horror tats:

Short on Fear

I would've so loved to call this post "Abbreviated Terror" but then I'd be ripping off Rue Morgue.  And while I'm not above ripping off a magazine I really like and respect, simply using the word "short" allowed for that great pun.

The Tallahassee Film Festival has been running for three years.  I'm told it began as a way for the city's well-to-do citizens to sponsor a much-needed cultural event and encourage tourism in the state capital.  I found out about it by chance.  A grueling schedule of essays and exams prevented me from attending TFF 2009, but I shelled out for the All Access pass this year and tried to make the most of my $20 investment.

Of course my primary interest was horror.  I would go to any and all horror offerings.  I would make it my mission in life.  And then I checked the schedule:  no horror.  No horror?!?  Well, sort-of horror.  The festival's "dark shorts" programme was showing a selection of genre short films.  Those plus two other shorts in the "Florida shorts" listing, and a student film, comprised the entirety of the Tallahassee Film Festival's horror programme.  But if that wasn't aggravating enough, short films that were not categorized as horror were among the dark shorts, while other distinctly horror-themed shorts were shown at different times.

Anyway, I saw 9 short "horror" films totaling 137 minutes.  I also saw two features: Dust, which I don't recommend, and Polytechinque, which I do.  What follows is the list of short films I saw, rated on the TFF scale, which I just made up: T - meh; TF - yeah, pretty good; TFF - so glad I saw this

Death Ranch (USA)

Easily the least straightforward of the lot.  I've thought about it for two days now, and I'm still not entirely sure what it was about.  Death Ranch is a place where you can dress up and play "cowboys and Indians" only for real.  I think maybe it was a take on The Most Dangerous Game, blended with a bit of City Slickers, but without a point to make. T

Imbalance (USA)

Perhaps my least favourite of the lot.  The movie tries to cram way too much story into its 11 minutes, all of which is delivered in a monologue at the end of the movie. A man and a woman play a seductive game of cat-and-mouse, all of which is just a preamble to her trying to get her hands on his money. T

Lucky Break (USA)

Not strictly horror, I think it would have found a more appreciative audience had it played with the other "horror" movies as opposed to running with locally produced films.  Travis is a bit of a loser, but when he discovers fortune cookies can, in fact, predict the future (as well as the present), his life takes a turn for the better.  However, he's not the only one being guided by the fortune cookie hand of fate, and he soon comes to learn that disobeying the cookie is not a good idea. TFF

Mildred Richards (USA)

This short movie introduced me to a new genre of film, the radio picture.  The brain child of Marc Kess, radio pictures marry early and mid-century radio dramas with modern film.  In this noir story, celebrated Broadway actress Mildred Richards is keen to inherit $4 million from her ailing aunt.  Mildred's greed, however, is stronger than her patience and she makes a brilliant, if ill-advised play for the money. TFF

Page Turner (USA)

Another hidden gem that was wrongfully programmed.  Filmed in LA, the director's from Tallahassee so it was grouped in with the local fare.  Out on a first date with Johnathan, Lisa buys a photo album at a garage sale.  At ten o'clock at night.  The mystic woman selling the album takes their picture and inserts it in the album's cover.  Later that night, Lisa flips through the album and sees pictures of her life with John. She also sees how their marriage ends. TFF

Stoney (USA)

My friend and I hung out with the director, who told us stories about Tom Noonan.  Noonan is the eponymous anti-hero who's got a portal to hell on his property.  Lonely and depressed, Stoney fills his days by hunting a rat that lives in his house.  That is, until he discovers the things that disappear into hell can come back to earth through the hole in his front yard. TF

Together (Spain)

I absolutely loved this one.  A man, whose wealth and prosperity comes from hitting people, is busily trying to get ready to meet his wife and daughter.  Constantly distracted by the fighting in the apartment above his, he goes upstairs to sort it out.  Instead of a violent and satisfying end to a frustrating evening, the man receives a mind- and reality-bending karmic punch to the face. TFF

True Beauty This Night (USA)

This film has played a pantload of festivals and is a real crowd-pleaser.  Not a horror movie by any stretch of the imagination, I can only guess it was part of the dark shorts programme because it's crime-related.  In truth, the film is a comedy about Rhett who makes a date to meet Elise, a woman he met by chance the night before and can't stop thinking about. TFF

Um Medico Rural (A Country Doctor) (Brazil)

I saw this movie twice and though it didn't get any better upon repeat viewing, it certainly didn't get any worse.  Based on a story by Franz Kafka, a doctor is called to the home of a dying man.  As the doctor meets with his patient, he struggles with feelings of doubt and guilt.  Can he figure out what's wrong with the dying man, and is he responsible for the abuse being suffered by his maid in his absence? TF

Music to Excite the Savage Beast

So I was driving around the other day, listening to the radio, when Beethoven's 4th came on.  Rarely do I listen to the radio when I'm in the car, but on those rare occasions when I grow bored with my CDs, I listen to one station and one station only: the local classical channel (everything else is Christian or worse, country).  The DJ paraphrased a description of Beethoven's fourth symphony as a Greek goddess sandwiched between two Norse gods, and as the music played, I thought on what she said.  Beethoven wrote a lot of powerful and evocative music; when John McTiernan was making Die Hard, he'd heard the Ode to Joy, and insisted the music act as a kind of leitmotif for Hans Grueber.  The music spoke to McTiernan (who didn't actually know what he was hearing) and he turned around and used it to speak to his audience, communicating Grueber's desire.

The Ode to Joy is, as it's name suggests, a joyful and triumphant piece of music.  The first movement of Beethoven's fifth, on the other hand, is both light and dark and its first four notes might be the most well known in history.  And then there are compositions that are just dark.  Horror is not, nor has it ever been, confined to words and pictures, and music can evoke moods and feelings that are sometimes out of reach of other artists.  I've here listed four musical numbers that conjure the darkness:

Berlioz - Symphonie Fantastique, Dream of a Witch's Sabbath



This is the fifth movement for a symphony written at a time when most symphonies had only four parts.  The music tells the story of an artist who's riding high on opium.  In the fourth movement the artist dreams he kills his beloved and this last movement, he sees her come for him at night.  The recognizable tune, that repeats a number of times, is the witch come to the artist's funeral.  This music was featured in Sleeping With The Enemy, and Julia Roberts' character hates it because it reminds her of her abusive ex-husband.  Wrote Berlioz about the emotional power of music, "Emotional (imitation) is designed to arouse in us by means of sound the notion of the several passions of the heart, and to awaken solely through the sense of hearing the impressions that human beings experience only through the other senses." 

Grieg - In the Hall of the Mountain King



This iconic piece of music was written for the play, Peer Gynt, and is played when Peer, the eponymous hero, sneaks in to the Mountain King's castle and then as to escape the King and his trolls.  Originally, words accompanied the music but the "song" has gained popularity as a strictly orchestral piece.  The music has appeared in a number of movie trailers, including Corpse Bride and Funny Games, but, sadly, in few movies themselves.  It's loud, it's fast, and it's ominous.

Orff - Carmina Burana, O Fortuna



O Fortuna is a medieval Latin poem written in the 13th century and set to music by Carl Orff in the mid-1930s.  The music was introduced to the mainstream in Excalibur (1981), and, like In the Hall of the Mountain King, O Fortuna has worked its way into popular culture and has been featured in the movies and on TV.  In the Kickass Classical forum, an introductory message reads: "If you're new here, and looking for 'that one cool classical choir song that they always play when something evil or scary or badass is happening,' the answer is O Fortuna."

Saint-Saens - Danse Macabre



One of my favourites, this piece of music is a symphonic poem, inspired by an actual poem by Henri Cazalis.  The music tells the story  of the Devil who, each year on Halloween, plays the violin at midnight while skeletons dance.  The piece is credited for introducing the xylophone to western culture and the music was featured in "Hush", a mostly dialogue-free episode of Buffy (Season 4, Episode 10).

Terror On TV or When Bad Shows Go Good

My first post ever on this blog was a review of a CSI episode entitled "The Chick Chop Flick Shop" (Season 8 Episode 5).  The mystery revolved around a scream queen's death on horror movie set.  I was big into CSI for a while because it delivered, week after week, murder mysteries that involved hot guys, science, and gore.  It was really only a matter of time before it delved entirely into horror.

Not all prime-time television, however, toes the line like CSI.  Indeed, any procedural or mystery show is bound to have tangential links to the genre simply because they often deal in death and depravity, but these shows, for the most part, have their feet firmly planted in drama.  Every now and again, however, dramas cross that line and either address horror in the abstract, or deal in specifics.  Even if you're not a fan of these shows generally, the horror one-offs are always worth watching.

Crossing Jordan

"Revealed" - Season 3 Episode 10

Fresh off her stint on Law and Order, Jill Hennessy took on the role of a troubled medical examiner working under her humourless boss Miguel Ferrer.  Though not the greatest show on television, due mostly to the fact that everyone was kind of annoying, I watched it when it was on and was lucky enough to catch the "vampire" episode.

Like all post 90s TV shows, the cast included a goth character who also happened to be British. So that right there doubled Crossing Jordan's exoticism.  In "Revealed", the ME is investigating a locked-room murder, made all the more curious because the victim has bite marks on his neck.  Things grow more interesting still as we learn the victim was writing a book about a real live vampire.


Numb3rs

"Where Credit's Due" - Season 6 Episode 4

I'm not a mathematician. But I can still appreciate what I don't understand, so Numb3rs should have been a no-brainer for me.  Alas it wasn't, and I'll tell you why.  Despite the fact that I can't count past ten without taking off my shoes, I caught the tail-end of an episode that knew less about the math than I.  That kind of killed it for me.  But then I saw a preview for an episode about a horror movie and I was willing to give the show another chance.

"Where Credit's Due" is about a string of murders that are nearly identical to a movie that is currently in production.  Obviously the writer is the killer.  Right?  The math comes into play when Charlie buys and then dissects some screenwriting software.  Using his own creative genius, Charlie plugs a bit of story into the programme which outputs some of the most derivative crap imaginable.  Though Numb3rs sometimes fails to be smarter than its audience, this particular episode offers some sly commentary on Hollywood horror.

Psych

"Tuesday the 17th" - Season 3 Episode 15

I never make an appointment to watch Psych and I probably should, because I really like every episode I see.  It's unselfconscious and light-hearted without being totally ridiculous, though I do find Lassiter to be too much of a pill at times.   Hilariously, Psych aired an ad that called out The Mentalist for being pretty much the same show.
 
It's no secret that James Rhoday loves horror movies, and Psych has done a number of episodes that touch on the supernatural, but this particular ep is a love letter to 80s horror, with heavy overtones of Friday the 13th.  And who can't get behind that?  Shawn and Gus are asked by their friend, Jason Cunningham, to investigate a missing camp counselor.  The story takes a few twists and turns in classic fashion, dealing with time-honoured themes of vengeance and forgiveness.

NCIS

"Murder 2.0" - Season 6 Episode 6

I love NCIS.  And though I just, like thirty seconds ago, made fun of goth TV characters, I would be Abby if I thought I could pull it off.  But though I am pretty much always in a good mood, I love my hair too much to dye it jet black.  Each year around Halloween, NCIS nods at the holiday by setting murder and mayhem in the midst of a costume party, but the show rarely produces an actual spooky episode.

Though not related to any horror movie in particular, or even to the genre in general, "Murder 2.0" is still a shout out to all horror fans.  The team is working round the clock to find a killer who a) posts the murders online and b) leaves clues that lead to the next victim.  It's deliciously postmodern in it's denouement, and the characters sport names like Sam Loomis, Tommy Doyle, and Rose Woodhouse.

In the same way that mainstream dramas take a moment to acknowledge a small portion of their fanbase, shows that deal primarily in the supernatural sometimes come back down to earth.  In "Normal Again" (Buffy, Season 6 Episode 17), Buffy wakes up in a mental hospital--her life as a slayer is a hallucination.  In order to continue living in the real world, Buffy must destroy her imaginary friends.  Though shows like Crossing Jordan and NCIS have fun with the genre, this sort of one-off episode of Buffy takes its subject matter seriously; there's a lot of fun to be had with horror, but real life can be terrifying.

Lady GaGa's Dark Muse

Got vertigo?

Can we take a moment to talk about Lady GaGa? I first "discovered" her on Pandora, long after she'd made her actual debut. I'm out of the pop loop, is what I'm saying. And then I was hanging out with a friend, who, like me, doesn't listen to top 40, loves horror movies, and enjoys making fun of people, and we (somehow) got to talking about Lady GaGa. She'd asked if I'd seen the video for Paparazzi. I hadn't.

And now that I have, let me just say: Huh. In spite of the pop music and the glamorous sheen, the video is a short treatise on obsession and revenge. The lyrics themselves are quite dark, telling the story of a fan who obsessively pursues her idol, sure in the knowledge the idol will one day return her love. The video takes these themes and pushes them further, as Lady GaGa herself is living with her stalker.

We don't know exactly how this happened, but we're to assume she fell victim to his relentless pursuit. It's an interesting idea, this notion of pushy, obsessive love that wears down its object to the point of submission. But that's just the tip of the iceberg. Lady GaGa's boyfriend, the terrifyingly handsome Alexander Skarsgaard, is a total narcissist and is more in love with the idea of being with Lady GaGa, than he is with the woman herself. The combined pathology of stalker and narcissist creates quite a monster and the inevitable happens when they boyfriend dumps Lady GaGa off the balcony in a glory-seeking fit of anger.

I'll never look at Mickey Mouse the same.

Lady GaGa doesn't die from the fall. No, she suffers a worse fate--her career is over. Holed up in her mansion with her ungrateful boyfriend, who benefited nothing from the attempted murder, Lady GaGa heals. Stripping off her braces, Lady GaGa sheds her innocence and morality, and takes her revenge on Alexander Skarsgaard by poisoning his drink. Though she confesses to the crime, Lady GaGa is found not guilty and, as a final insult to Alexander Skarsgaard, she enjoys new success and fame. By accomplishing all that her boyfriend failed to do, Lady GaGa essentially triumphs over her oppressor, finding salvation in death.

One of the more arresting images in the video is Lady GaGa's dance number on crutches. I don't mean to suggest the disabled are less than human, but the scene in the video presents Lady GaGa as a kind of quasi-human, a woman who is not yet finished being made. The image is creepy, and made all the more striking by the video's outlandish design.

The colours and the music offset the video's dark subject matter. Drawing inspiration from fashion, Lady GaGa's look is one of glamorous excess, and is in total opposition to the story being told. The song and the video work together to create a beautiful world that is rotten at its core, full of treachery and deceit. Though not horror-themed per se, Paparazzi, explores a lot of the same dark territory as horror--lust, obsession, murder--and uses startling visuals to help tell its twisted story.

The Holiday Spirit(s)

The holiday season is upon us, people. In fact, it's been here for a while, only now that American Thanksgiving is over, Christmas is fully all up in our face. Let me take this opportunity to get one thing out in the open: I hate Christmas. I hate it with a fiery passion, so much so that there are flames, flames on the side of my face breathing, burning, heaving breaths...

Mrs. White knows what I'm talking about.

It has nothing to do with the fact that I'm not Christian. Half my family is, and my pseudo-aunt's a minister. No, it's more to do with the constant barrage of holiday music, advertising, and mall displays. So I guess really it's the Christmas Season I hate, the forced consumerism under the guise of joyful gift giving. You know, gift exchange used to be an occasion for competition--a non-violent way to mitigate animosities and conflict, and reinforce kinship. And I don't think I need to remind anyone what a capitalist, consumerist society leads to.


But the worst is the goodwill, that forced cheerfulness. I'm all for sunshine and happiness, but why restrict the sentiment to to a few short weeks in December? Why not promote peace, love, and understanding all year round? With these thoughts in mind, I've put together a list of six violent and gruesome films to help get you through the season of joy. If not all Christmas-themed, they are, at the very least set in winter.

Misery. Revisit this award-winning Stephen King adaptation this holiday season and watch Kathy Bates obsess over James Caan. Nothing says loving like a good hobbling!

Jack Frost. Not to be confused with the Michael Keaton movie in which he posseses a snowman to haunt his own son. In this movie, dead serial killer Jack Frost posseses a snowman to haunt everyone. The film reminds us that winter is indeed a magical time of year.

The Hogfather. Nothing says yuletide joy like a plot to kill Santa Clause. And when the fat man goes missing, Death takes over his duties.

The Thing. Technically set at the end of summer, the movie takes place in Antarctica, and it's pretty much always winter there, so you know. Kurt Russell battles paranoia and isolation in a bid to save himself and his buddies from an alien life-form. Which, I understand, is not unlike Xmas dinner for some.

Phantoms. Celebrate the winter season with a tale about an ancient evil that eats people's souls and faces. Substitute the story of Christ's birth with that of the Ancient Enemy and how it has, over millennia, destroyed countless lives.

Die Hard. This is one of my all-time favourite movies and I make a point of watching it every Christmas. Though set in LA, it does kind of snow at the end of the film. And not only does it take place on Christmas Eve, it features the same feel-good qualities of your mainstream run-of-the-mill Xmas movies with the added benefits of explosions and Alan Rickman.

The Star Wars Christmas Special will be a little different this year, kids.

Shameless Self-Promotion

It's time for a little bit of self-indulgence!

Story of my life!

B-Sol of the award-winning blog, Vault of Horror, is hosting the 2009 Ms. Horror Blogosphere pagent, and I am contestant #4. My profile went online on Friday the 13th--an auspicious date, indeed!

To learn a bit more about me and who I'd bang/marry/kill given the choice of Freddy, Jason, and Michael, head on over the Vault. And while you're there be sure to check out the other lovely ladies of horror blogging. I am humbled to be in the presence of such talent!

My thanks to B-Sol for shining a light on us girls.

Ghostwatch (TV)

The Early family live in a housing estate in Greater London and are being tormented by a poltergeist. On the night of October 31, the BBC set up a live broadcast to investigate the haunting. As journalist Sarah Green spends time in the house, talking to the Earlys, Michael Parkinson sits in the studio with paranormal expert Dr. Pascoe discussing the nature and validity of the paranormal phenomena. Over the course of the broadcast we learn the Early house is haunted by a ghost named Pipes who appears to the Early children as a man in a long black dress with a bloody face. As the night wears on and Pipes grows increasingly agitated, Parkinson maintains a professional scepticism, while Sarah and Dr. Pascoe both believe that something terrible is happening.

Using the live broadcast format to its full potential, the story is moved forward by events that take place in the house and in the studio. Since the show’s live, viewers are encouraged to call in with ghostly stories of their own, and though there are the expected cranks, some callers reveal interesting and pertinent information about the house. Callers also phone in to discuss ghost sightings from earlier in the programme as well as current paranormal activity taking place in their own homes.

The show’s effectiveness is in its presentation—the verisimilitude is unparalleled. Familiar BBC presenters, both in the studio and at the house, played themselves in order to further the show’s realism. With two locations, Ghostwatch’s narrative moves back and forth between studio and house, and the “live” nature of the broadcast is reinforced as people interrupt one another, transitions from location to location become less fluid, and technical problems reveal goings-on behind the scenes.

The reality nature of the programme breaks down somewhat toward the end, but this is hardly a problem. By this time, Pipes has completely taken over both the house and the studio, using the live television medium as a conduit to escape the confines of the house.

Though Ghostwatch was entirely fictional and the BBC, fearing people would think the show was real, added a short opening credit sequence at the start of the programme. Orson Wells had done the same thing 54 years before in 1938, but still people believed the story to be true. Ghostwatch didn’t invoke the same levels of hysteria as did The War of the Worlds, but the show did convince a lot of viewers that what they were watching was really happening. Ghostwatch aired exactly once on British television, on October 31, 1992.

In this nerd’s opinion, the show is good a building suspense and it deliver a few good scares. Though it could hardly pass for a live broadcast today, due mostly to the actors’ wardrobe, the look and feel of the show is still very real. Additionally, the show’s end is really creepy and on par with Prince of Darkness as one of the best endings in horror.

The Twilight of the Fools

I still don't get the apple.

November draws ever closer, and with it this year comes the theatrical release of New Moon, the second of the Twilight saga books to be adapted for the screen. Penned by Stephanie Meyer, the first book in the series, Twilight, came right out of nowhere and completely took over the young adult market. Releasing a book a year for four years, Meyer quickly reached J.K. Rowling-levels of fandom and made a huge impact on horror literature and television.

But Twilight is not horror. The Twilight saga is about vampires, but that’s where its connection with the genre begins and ends. Meyer herself admits to not liking horror movies, nor has she read any vampire books. Meyer has no interest in, nor is she familiar with, the horror genre, so how comes it that she’s written a horror story?

Women can't be trusted.

The answer is she hasn’t.

Twilight may be many things—a fantasy, a fairy tale, a romance—but it is not horror. Most interesting is the thing that would make Twilight horror, is the very thing that turns it against the genre. Meyer’s Cullen family of vampires are “vegetarian” meaning they don’t feed off humans—they are vampires divorced of their vampirism, living as humans live. They are, in the words of Zizek, “[the] Other deprived of its Otherness”, and it is for this reason that Twilight is not horror.

Horror brings our fears out of the dark. But Meyer’s neutered vampires prevent us from facing and overcoming those fears. Where vampirism once stood for disease, death, history, and transformation or mutation, all of which can be thwarted with an arsenal of Christian symbols and a piece of wood, Meyer has stripped away the symbolism and weaknesses of the undead and replaced them with limitless perfection. You don’t fight against perfection, you strive for it.

Now that's a fucking werewolf!

In addition to tame vampires, the Twilight saga also features shapeshifters. Though the reading public and the media has generally labelled the shifters as werewolves, there is an important distinction to be made between the two. Shapeshifters change at will, werewolves do not. The original horror of the werewolf is an internal and ultimately futile struggle for control over the self. Meyer’s shifter, on the other hand, only struggles with his emotions and eventually becomes the best shapeshifter. So here again, the horror is eliminated, this time through the removal of the thing itself, and replaced with a coming-of-age tale of excellence.

A Mormon housewife and mother of three, who studied English Literature at BYU, Stephanie Meyer has gone on record saying that her religious values are partly reflected in her story. That’s not to say a Mormon, or any religious writer, can’t produce a horror story, but Meyer’s Twilight is not horror. The presence of vampires and “werewolves”, however, seems to be enough to make it so. The issue is one of identity and is not unlike the sex/gender dichotomy. Twilight looks like horror on the outside, but inside it’s all romance and suspense.

Google "vampire romance" and this is what you get.

Event Horizon

But only a finite number of ways that terror can manifest.

An event horizon is the edge of a black hole, where everything disappears into the dark; it is the point of no return.

Forty years after its disappearance, the spaceship Event Horizon has returned and is in high orbit around Neptune. Laurence Fishburne and his crew are dispatched to rescue the survivors. But there are no survivors. The ship is derelict, a ghost ship floating in space. With the rescue team is Sam Neil, the man who designed the ship's special engine. The Event Horizon can open a black hole and travel beyond the limits of known space. Unfortunately for the everyone, the ship traveled well beyond the limits of reality. As the team explores the ghost spaceship, they begin to hallucinate, seeing things that aren't there.

The first time I saw this movie I was more confused than anything else. Though I understood the plot, I didn't really get it. I thought it was stupid the way everyone just accepted their hallucinations as truth. And the revelation at the end, that the ship went to hell, was too much. I was a bit more forgiving the second time round. The hallucinations, I now understand, are brought on by the ship's ability to get inside people's heads and exploit their guilt and fears. And the very reason the ship can do that is because the Event Horizon is, in fact, alive. Possessed with a life force of it own, the ship uses the people on board to carry out its will. And its will is to inflict pain and suffering.

Space has no religion.

When the original crew of the Event Horizon fired up the singularity drive, they traveled to an alternate dimension where they tortured themselves and each other death. When the ship returned from the "hell dimension" it brought that anima back. I either wasn't paying attention or didn't care to register this information when I first saw the movie. Now that I have a better handle on the actual story, I can say that it really isn't as stupid as I first thought.

What is stupid is that no one does anything about it until it's way too late. As the film progresses, as the rescue team slowly tries to piece together what happened to the Event Horizon, Sam Neil grows ever more unstable, but no one takes any action. They just continue to let him wander around. Additionally, other crew members are unforthcoming about their own tenuous grip on reality, which only furthers the danger they pose to themselves and everyone else. So though I find the heart of the story compelling in itself, the execution is just irritating. I won't go so far to say these people deserve to die, but they certainly don't help themselves any to survive.

Don't go toward the light!

What's more is that the mystery of the hell dimension is wholly underexploited. It's only toward the end of the movie that it's made clear to the audience what happened forty years ago, and this is done through the briefest of montages. The hell dimension is good stuff, but we're only treated to a few seconds of torment. If the film were to evenly distribute the mystery and the torture throughout, rather than pile it all on at the end, then we would have a more thorough blend of horror and sci-fi. The creeping atmosphere of the haunted ghost ship is good stuff, but it fails to carry the film.

Additionally, those few moments of torture show Laurence Fishburne's crew. This fleeting detail raises a question about the very nature of the reality of events on screen. Are people really wandering about the ship, or do they just think they are when in fact they're being tortured? What are people really seeing and doing when they hallucinate? Frustratingly, the film provides no answers, just explosions.

Be that as it may, I didn't hate Event Horizon the second time. It's certainly a lot creepier than I remembered, and the gore effects were pretty good. Also, the engine room that houses the singularity drive has this dark steampunk quality to it that appeals to me, and which is offset by the white-tiled liquid sleep camber and the stainless steel sick bay. Overall, the film's look and feel are effective, combining utilitarianism and art to create a place that is at once threatening and sterile. The CGI has aged poorly, but that's not really anyone's fault.

Given the opportunity, I'd probably watch this film again.

I'm not saying I like this kind of thing, but I could have seen more of it.