Metaphorical Enhancements

Copyright 2010 by Gary L. Pullman

In his excellent study of cinematic metaphor, Metaphor and Film, Trevor Whittock lists various types of film metaphors, explains how they are created, and offers one or more examples of each kind. In addition, he suggests how these tropes enrich the audience’s perception, understanding, and appreciation of the film’s content. Authors of fiction in general and writers of horror stories in particular can learn much from Whittock’s discussions and treatment of his fascinating topic, including how to use metaphorical descriptions to suggest unconscious, even, perhaps, subliminal thematic nuances and undertones regarding characters, settings, and other narrative elements. Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho offers several examples, Whittock contends, of this process at work.

One of the ways by which filmmakers create metaphors, Whittock says, is “by context, which forces the audience to see A as B.” Such a “context is often an emotionally charged one,” he observes, offering the shower scene in Alfred Hitchcock’s famous film as an example. After talking to Norman Bates, Marion Crane decides to return the money with which she has absconded, and her shower, following her repentance, represents a sort of “ritualistic. . . spiritual cleansing,” whereby she washes “away her guilt.” Therefore, when she is “murdered in the shower,” Whittock contends, “our sense of shock is all the greater: We perceive a terrible moral gratuitousness in the crime” (52-53).

Another technique for creating cinematic metaphors, Whittock argues, is to employ situational irony, or “rule disruption,” such as occurs in Psycho, with Crane’s death:

Because audiences. . . feel confident that whatever happens the star will not be killed off, when relatively early in Psycho they witness the murder of Marion Crane who is played by a star actress (Janet Leigh), they experience extreme disorientation. This disruption of complacent assumption, combined with the disruption of another cherished pattern--that someone who repents and washes off her guilt should not be harmed--works to create a disturbing sense of the gratuitousness and insecurity of our existence (65-66).

Another of Hitchcock’s films, The Birds, also makes use of metaphors, both to characterize and to heighten suspense. For example, the director, in an interview with Francois Truffaut, Whittock points out, explained that he had ordered a “road watered down so that no dust would rise because I wanted that dust to have a dramatic function when she drives away”; the truck, Hitchcock says, is “an emotional truck,” signifying by the “tremendous speed” at which it moves and “the sound of the engine,” which is “something like a cry. . . as though the truck were shrieking,” the mother’s “frantic” state (57).

Whittock identifies the use of an objective correlative as a means of creating cinematic metaphors that can serve the interests of suspense and characterization as well, citing an example from The Birds: “the five broken teacups” in Mrs. Brenner’s house, broken by in an attack by the birds, he says, represents both “the damage done by the birds that have attacked the house” and “Mrs. Brenner’s tense fragility, glimpsed in her endeavors to preserve a domestic and unchanging home life,” functioning “as an objective correlative for the deep-seated anxieties now surfacing in Mrs. Brenner” (62-63).

Finally, in a quotation of Hitchcock at the outset of Whittock’s study, the famed director himself comments on metaphors that he created in The Birds:

At the beginning of the film we show Rod Taylor in the bird shop. He catches the canary that has escaped from its cage, and after putting it back, he says: I’m putting you back in your gilded cage, Melanie Daniels.’ I added that sentence during the shooting because I felt it added to her characterisation [sic] as a wealthy, shallow playgirl. And later on, when the gulls attack the village, Melanie Daniels takes refuge in a glass telephone booth and I show her as a bird in a cage. This time it isn’t a gilded cage, but a cage of misery (1).

Scream Queens

Copyright 2008 by Gary L. Pullman

Sarah Michelle Gellar, I Know What You Did Last Summer

Horror films, like those of any other genre, produce characters unique to their genre, one of which is the so-called scream queen. Horror movies have resulted in the births, so to speak, of quite a few such characters, some of whom became famous actresses in mainstream films.

A scream queen may play the role of the victim, or she may appear as the main character, but, whichever role is her forte, she must play the role (or, sometimes, both roles) in several horror movies before she is entitled to wear the crown of the scream queen. Among the better known scream queens of late and contemporary times are Fay Wray, Elsa Lanchester, Jamie Lee Curtis, and Sarah Michelle Gellar.

As a type of the stock character known as the damsel in distress, the scream queen often motivates males to protect and defend her, usually bringing them to harm. As the protagonist, she often gains the audience’s sympathy, heightening the suspense that is caused by the monster’s stalking, attacking, and injuring (before usually killing) her. She is usually the movie’s most emotive character as well, exhibiting, by her facial expressions, body language, and other non-verbal communication cues, how the audience should feel. In horror films, she will affect horror, of course, and terror, but she may also display such emotions as grief, remorse, romantic affection, love, and compassion. In some horror films, she is the monster’s romantic interest, covertly or overtly, as Fay Wray’s (and, later, Naomi Watts’) character, Ann Darrow, is to King Kong and as Julie Adams’ character, Kay Lawrence, is to the Creature from the Black Lagoon.

Some actresses, including Fay Wray, object to being labeled a “scream queen,” because they believe the term is patronizing and suggests limited acting ability. However, the fact that such a luminaries as Joan Crawford and Jaime Lee Curtis have had the label applied to them suggests that being designated as a “scream queen” does not necessarily imply such a limitation. Likewise, although many scream queens have appeared nude or partially nude in films, many others have not, so doffing one’s clothes is certainly not a prerequisite for the part.

Besides those already mentioned, among the better-known scream queens of the past and present are:

• Julie Adams
• Adrienne Barbeau
• Drew Barrymore
• Kate Beckinsale
• Neve Campbell
• Phoebe Cates
• Courtney Cox
• Joan Crawford
• Elisha Cuthbert
• Samantha Eggar
• Jennifer Love Hewitt
• Margot Kidder
• Natasha Kinski
• Elsa Lanchester
• Mercedes McNab

Elsa Lanchester, The Bride of Frankenstein

The so-called final girl can be considered a specialized type of scream queen. The sole survivor, she alone is left to tell the tale as to what befell the other victims of the paranormal, otherworldly, or supernatural force or entity. Often, she ends the story as well by outwitting the villain and bringing his, her, or its reign of terror to an end. The final girl is a character in such movies as The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Halloween, and A Nightmare on Elm Street. Professor Carol J. Clover of the University of California, Berkeley, originated the term, if not the concept, in her 1992 study, Men, Women and Chain Saws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film.

Jennifer Love Hewitt, I Know What You Did Last Summer

Joss Whedon, the creator of the movie and television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer inverted the stereotype of the scream-queen-as-damsel-in-distress, making his protagonist the one to triumph over the monster. Although she retains her femininity, Buffy Summers is something of a phallic woman, the wooden stake that she carries on her person (usually in her purse) symbolizing masculine power. As a feminist icon, she is not merely the equal of any man in terms of her physical strength, stamina, and fighting prowess, but she is actually superior to men in all these ways (and to many males who are, like her, gifted with supernatural powers, such as demons, vampires, warlocks, werewolves, zombies, and male monsters in general). As such, it is she who is called upon to save the world, and she rescues both damsels and men in distress.

Fay Wray, King Kong

Horror Movie Remakes

Copyright 2008 by Gary L. Pullman

Janet Leigh, Psycho (1960)

An old joke plays upon the sameness of the names of the Empire State and its most prominent city: “New York, New York: the city so nice they named it twice.”

The Hollywood equivalent to the double entendre is the movie remake. In the horror genre, quite a few previous films have been resurrected, or remade, as they say in the trade:

• Amityville Horror, The (1979 and 2005)
• Black Christmas (1974 and 2006)
• Blob, The (1958 and coming soon to a theater near you)
• Day of the Dead (1985 and coming soon to a theater near you)
• Fly, The (1958 and 1986)
• Fog, The (1980 and 2005)
• Godzilla (1954 and 1998)
• Halloween (1978 and 2007)
• Hills Have Eyes, The (1977 and 2006)
• Hitcher, The (1986 and 2007)
• House of Wax, The (1953 and 2006)
• Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956, 1978, 1993, and 2007)
• Island of Dr. Moreau, The (1977 and 1996)
• Night of the Living Dead (1968, 1990, 2006)
• Omen, The (1976 and 2006)
• Psycho (1960 and 1998)
• Ring 2, The (2005)
• Stepford Wives, The (1975 and 2004)
• Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The (1974 and 2003)
• Thing, The (1951 and 1982)
• When a Stranger Calls (1979 and 2006)
• Wicker Man, The (1973 and 2006).

Ann Heche, Psycho (1998)

But, wait! There’s more! According to Variety, RKO’s Roseblood Movie Co. plans to remake (or, in some cases, has already remade) Lady Scarface (1941 and 2006), While the City Sleeps (1928, 1956, and coming soon to a theater near you), The Monkey’s Paw (1948, 2003, and 2008), The Seventh Victim (1943 and coming soon to a theater near you), Bedlam (1946 and coming soon to a theater near you), Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Five Came Back (1939 and coming soon to a theater near you), and I Walked with a Zombie (1943 and scheduled for release [or is it re-release?] in 2009).

But wait! That’s not all! Other movies scheduled for makeovers include The Brood (1979), Scanners (1981), and Near Dark (1987 and 2008).

Confronted with such a list, one may wonder, Why?

The answer is simple, but multi-faceted. Making a remake allows producers, directors, writers, actors, and others to make a movie without reinventing the wheel, so it’s relatively economical. In plot, setting, characters, theme, and other narrative elements, moviemakers are treading familiar ground when they’re remaking a movie that’s already appeared, in slightly different form, upon the silver screen.

There’s a built-in appeal for such movies, too. Obviously, in remaking a movie, filmmakers aren’t going to rip off a box office dud; they’re going to go for the gold, so they’re going to revive a popular has-been.

Moviegoers also like to compare the performances of the actors in the older versions of the film with the those of the players in the remake to see how the respective teams of actors interpreted their parts and played their roles, evaluating, in many cases, who did what better than another.

There’s the nostalgia factor to consider, too. People like revisiting the past and recalling significant moments, especially in their youth or during a time that (in retrospect, at least) seems more innocent and fun than present hard or lackluster times.

Then, too, if moviemakers remake old movies instead of making new movies (maybe we should call them movieremakers?), Hollywood doesn’t need as many writers, so writers’ strikes don’t matter as much, if at all.

Rob Zombie, who produced the Halloween remake, talked about the appeal and challenges of making a remake. When all else fails (or when all else has been said and done), one exploits the characters: “You've got a movie that has seven sequels, so you figure they've exploited this thing every which way you can,” he says. “You start fresh, and you focus on the one thing that's always most compelling to me: the characters.” More specifically, according to The San Francisco Chronicle, he “delves into the psychology of the franchise's iconic monster, prepubescent murderer-turned-bogeyman Michael Myers.” However, a word of caution applies in psychoanalyzing the monster, producer Bad Fuller, who has used the same tactic in remaking other horror movies, warns: “You don't want to humanize your monster too much, or the audience will feel sorry for him.” God forbid!

Fuller shares the considerations that led him to produce the remakes of Hitcher, The Amityville Horror, and Texas Chainsaw Massacre: “"We thought ‘Texas Chainsaw Massacre’ was great for a remake," he says. “There was a whole generation not familiar with it. So there was brand recognition, but the expectations from the youth audience couldn't be that strong.” He’s done so well at the box office with such remakes that he’s planning to release remakes of Friday the 13th, Near Dark, and The Birds as well. (Perhaps Alfred Hitchcock is spinning in his grave at the prospect of someone redoing one of his classics.)

The San Francisco Examiner article also identifies some of the ways in which originals and remakes differ. The latter typically have better special effects; the causes behind the supernatural or paranormal situation or monster are sometimes changed, the remakes tend to build up the characters’ or the monster’s back story, and themes are given new twists. Occasionally, the remake is better than the original, as in the case of When a Stranger Calls: “The first movie was essentially a 15-minute babysitter-harassing sequence followed by more than an hour of digressions that had little to do with a stranger calling. The remake was 97 fast-paced minutes of that 15-minute sequence.”

The biggest reasons, though, for remaking successful movies? They’re proven box office successes and they’re easy to exploit.