Showing posts with label Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Show all posts

Thursday, October 14, 2021

Using Horror Movie Taglines to Develop Characters' Personality Traits (and Story Plots)

 Copyright 2021 by Gary L. Pullman


A movie poster tagline poses various questions related to

  • WHO? (personal identity, agent, or agency),
  •  WHAT? (identity or identities, nature or natures, or origin or origins of an object or objects or an abstraction or abstractions),
  • WHEN? (time, endurance, or era),
  • WHERE? (location),
  • HOW? (process, technique, or method);
  • WHY? (cause, motive, purpose, function, or use), and
  • HOW MANY? or HOW MUCH? (quantity of number or volume).

The tagline for the 1988 movie Call Me is “Her fantasies could be fatal.”

By identifying the questions evoked by this tagline, which should be considered in relation to the film's title, we can establish the elements of the plot that create mystery, thus creating, maintaining, and heightening suspense:

WHO is “she”? (personal identity)

WHAT are her “fantasies”? (fantasies)

WHY is she fantasizing? (motive)

HOW do her fantasies involve others? (process)

WHY do her fantasies involve others? (cause, motive, purpose, function, or use)

WHO is the other or are the others whom she includes in her fantasies?

WHY does she include this other or these others in her fantasies?

WHY could her “fantasies be fatal”? (cause)

From our investigation, we find that mysteries regarding who the woman is, what her fantasies are, why she fantasizes, how and why her fantasies involve others, and why her fantasies could be fatal fuel the suspense of the plot. Counting our “whos” and “whats” and “whys” and “hows,” we see that there is two “who” question, one “what” question, one “how” question,” and four “why” questions. Therefore, the plot's main source of suspense will be related to questions of cause, motive, purpose, function, or use (WHY?). Related to this primary source of will be the secondary questions concerning the personal identities (WHO?); the nature or natures, or origin or origins of an object or objects or an abstraction or abstractions; and process[es], technique[s], or method[s] regarding the way in which she includes another or others in her fantasies (HOW?).

The tagline uses the nominative case of the third-person personal pronoun to refer to the woman who fantasies, referring to the woman as “her.” This pronoun separates her from the viewer/reader, who regards him- or herself as an “I” (if a subject) or a “me” (if an object). The story is about her (and her fantasies); she is the protagonist. Her callers are the story's antagonists. They may also be her victims, since her “fantasies could be fatal.” Therefore, she can be a predator, even a killer. Vicariously, as we read her story (i. e., “call” her), we may become her victims as well.

WHY we might call her (our motive) suggests information about us: WHO we are and WHAT we want (and, therefore, WHAT we lack). “Call me” is an invitation to listen to her fantasies, to participate in them, vicariously, potentially as her victims. We have a motive for desiring to do so. Perhaps we are lonely, feel unloved, are unhappy either at being single or in our marriages. We lack something that we believe, or hope, that we may obtain from this woman, from her fantasies. According to the U. S. National Library of Medicine, loneliness can lead to various psychiatric disorders [such as] depression, alcohol abuse, child abuse, sleep problems, personality disorders and Alzheimer’s disease. It also leads to various physical disorders like diabetes, autoimmune disorders like rheumatoid arthritis, lupus and cardiovascular diseases like coronary heart disease, hypertension (HTN), obesity, physiological aging, cancer, poor hearing and poor health. Left untended, loneliness can have serious consequences for mental and physical health of people.”

As the article explains, “Loneliness is caused not by being alone, but by being without some definite needed relationship or set of relationships.” This seems to be the lack, then, that those who answer the woman's invitation to 'call” her experience. We have learned much about the antagonists of the story, including their possible physical as well as their mental health issues and their causes. (The article also defines three types of loneliness that could be of use to a writer writing about the situation reflected in the Call Me movie tagline: “situational loneliness,” “developmental loneliness,” and “internal loneliness.”

The woman who fantasizes also wants something from us: our ears, our attention, our indulgence of her fantasies. However, she does not want us for long; we are disposable because she has, potentially, many callers, many replacements for us. We are like food, as it were, that sustains her, but nothing more. Therefore, we are expendable. What counts is she and her fantasies, her needs and desires.

 Everything seems to revolve around her and her desires and needs, which suggests that she might be a narcissist, whose behavior, according to the Mayo Clinic, is characterized by:

  • an exaggerated sense of self-importance
  • a sense of entitlement and require constant, excessive admiration
  • [the expectation of being] recognized as superior even without achievements that warrant it
  • exaggerate[d] achievements and talents
  • [a preoccupation] with fantasies about success, power, brilliance, beauty or the perfect mate [Now, we have an idea of the types of fantasies she might have!]
  • [the belief that] they are superior and can only associate with equally special people
  • [the tendency to] monopolize conversations and belittle or look down on people they perceive as inferior
  • [the expectation of] special favors and unquestioning compliance with their expectations
  • [taking] advantage of others to get what they want
  • [having] an inability or unwillingness to recognize the needs and feelings of others
  • [being] envious of others and believe others envy them
  • [behaving] in an arrogant or haughty manner, coming across as conceited, boastful and pretentious
  • [insisting] on having the best of everything—for instance, the best car or office

What is she like? Someone who is unable to form long-lasting, meaningful relationships? Someone unconcerned about the welfare, or even the lives, of others? Someone who is willing to kill others without remorse or concern? A sociopath, perhaps? A killer, certainly, and a survivor, of sorts, a survivor at all costs. She is amoral, it appears, and is not bound by the mores, customs, conventions, or laws of society. She seems either unconcerned about them or believes that she is above them, a force of nature or a law unto herself, perhaps.

In addition, she is likely to be narcissistic, feel herself to privileged and entitled, possess a sense of superiority, and be arrogant, manipulative, dominant, and authoritarian.

What sort of fantasies might she have? Those that provide what she wants, but lacks, even if her fantasies provide them only momentarily. Company? Intimacy? Relief from loneliness, boredom, or emptiness? A sense of belonging, for a moment, at least, or a sense of being in control? She will also probably fantasize “about success, power, brilliance, beauty or the perfect mate.” Presumably, those who do not properly reinforce her concept of herself or are in any other way less than “the perfect mate” would be murdered, since the fact that her fantasies “could be fatal” suggests that sometimes they are; other times, they are not. Why does she sometimes kill, sometimes spare, those who answer her call? It seems that her decision would depend on whether or how well her callers respond to her fantasies, to her? On how well her callers fulfill her needs.

It seems that she could be a narcissistic sociopathic serial killer, possibly with sadistic sexual tendencies. As the Mayo Clinic website points out, “Antisocial personality disorder, sometimes called sociopathy, is a mental disorder in which a person consistently shows no regard for right and wrong and ignores the rights and feelings of others.” In addition, such persons “tend to antagonize, manipulate or treat others harshly or with callous indifference. They show no guilt or remorse for their behavior.” People who suffer from antisocial personality disorder also “often violate the law, becoming criminals. They may lie, behave violently or impulsively, and have problems with drug and alcohol use. Because of these characteristics, people with this disorder typically can't fulfill responsibilities related to family, work or school.” Operating one's own erotic telephone service might be an ideal career choice for someone who displays such symptoms as the Mayo Clinic website lists for the antisocial personality disorder:

  • Disregard for right and wrong
  • Persistent lying or deceit to exploit others
  • Being callous, cynical and disrespectful of others
  • Using charm or wit to manipulate others for personal gain or personal pleasure
  • Arrogance, a sense of superiority and being extremely opinionated
  • Recurring problems with the law, including criminal behavior
  • Repeatedly violating the rights of others through intimidation and dishonesty
  • Impulsiveness or failure to plan ahead
  • Hostility, significant irritability, agitation, aggression or violence
  • Lack of empathy for others and lack of remorse about harming others
  • Unnecessary risk-taking or dangerous behavior with no regard for the safety of self or others
  • Poor or abusive relationships
  • Failure to consider the negative consequences of behavior or learn from them
  • Being consistently irresponsible and repeatedly failing to fulfill work or financial obligations

So, is the woman who fantasizes a narcissistic sociopath who entertains dangerous, potentially fatal fantasies about others who accept her invitation to “call me”? Does she operate an erotic telephone service for lonely people who lack “a relationship or set of relationships”? Could she be a sadist and her callers masochists whom she lures into a sadomasochistic telephonic relationship? Does fantasizing sometimes cross the line between fantasy and reality, resulting in the deaths of her callers? Is the woman who fantasizes a femme fatale? Our search for answers to the questions the tagline provokes and our research into the implications of the tagline certainly seems to open such possibilities.

 

Checking a synopsis of the movie's actual plot shows that the screenwriters chose a different plot than the one we might envision from the movie's tagline, but that doesn't mean our ideas of the protagonist's character, the antagonists' characters, and the protagonist operating her own erotic telephone service while she searches for her “perfect mate,” according to her own needs and desires as a narcissistic sociopath with a well-defined list or criteria is “wrong.” It is simply an alternative plot—and perhaps a better one, at that.

   

Here are a few more horror movie taglines that you can try, each of which is capable of suggesting personality traits, if not mental disorders, for a protagonist and one or more antagonists and a plot based on those personality traits. Using horror movie taglines as a means of developing characters' personality traits goes a long way toward generating plot ideas as well.

Dawn of the Dead: When there's no more room in Hell, the dead will walk the Earth.

Paranormal Activity: What happens when you sleep?

Saw: Every piece has a puzzle.

Texas Chainsaw Massacre: Who will survive, and what will be left of them?

The Grudge: It never forgives. It never forgets.

Wolf Creek: How can you be found when no one knows you're missing?


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Monday, July 2, 2018

The Death of a Beautiful Woman

Copyright 2018 by Gary L. Pullman


Poe did write this, in his essay, “The Philosophy of Composition”—but what did he mean by it?




Some critics might contend that he was merely creating a pithy defense for “The Raven,” which concerns the speaker of the poem's grief for an unnamed woman who had died, a grief which has driven him insane with despair at the thought that he shall see her “nevermore.” If “the death . . . of a beautiful woman is, unquestionably, the most poetical topic in the world” and Poe's poem deals with this theme, obviously the work concerns the most elevated theme possible, which supports the idea that “The Raven” is itself likely to be one of the most poetic poems ever written.




In any case, horror movies and, quite often, novels frequently include the death of a beautiful woman. In fact, they often feature the deaths of any number of beautiful women. In horror movies, slashers, in particular, beautiful women are killed with abandon.




Some of the reasons for horror writers' bias in favor of female victims are fairly obvious. Typically, women are physically weaker than men and are, therefore, less able to defend themselves. Watching them as they are stalked by a suitably powerful, often grotesque and relentless, monster is likely to make viewers or readers who identify with them (and, yes, research shows that either sex is able to identify with its own or the opposite sex) feel that much more helpless.




Beautiful women do not always die, of course. Sometimes, they are rescued. According to evolutionary psychologists, men may be hard-wired, genetically, to risk their lives in the defense of beautiful damsels in distress, even when the men do not know the damsels personally; men are less likely, perhaps, to do the same for male strangers. Men's motives may not be entirely altruistic; often, in fiction, if not in “real life,” women reward heroes with more than just a thank you and a shake of the hand. Yes, such a subtext is sexist, but sexism, as such, doesn't necessarily make such a plot ineffective, as there is much tension in romance, regardless of its nature or source.




In addition to experiencing the terror of a damsel in distress, male audience members or readers can also vicariously enjoy the accolades and rewards of the victorious hero who rescues the distressed damsel. Most men don't get a chance to be a white knight in their everyday lives, or at least not in as dramatic a fashion as a horror story permits. Being allowed to experience the pride and self-esteem that such a role confers—as well as the rescued damsel's hand—is a perk hard to resist.




A female audience member or reader, on the other hand, can feel special. After all, her predicament—and her beauty—as represented by her stand-in, the story's beautiful damsel in distress, has caused a man to risk his life to save her. That's quite a testament to her charms! Then, should she care to express her gratitude in a “physical” fashion, she again demonstrates the power of her beauty by “conquering” the man who conquered the monster that tried to kill her. If the monster-slayer is powerful, how much more so is she, whose beauty conquers his strength. If he is Samson, she is Delilah.




The human species could survive with relatively few men, as long as there are a sufficiently large number of women. Theoretically, one man can impregnate millions upon millions of women over his lifetime. (In reality, in an extreme situation, he might actually impregnate a few thousand.) However, a woman can bear relatively few children before she is past her childbearing years. Each woman who is killed lessens the chance of the species' survival far more so than each man who is killed. For this reason, women symbolize life more frequently than men do; we speak of Mother Nature, after all, relegating men to the representation of mere Time. It makes more sense, from an evolutionary perspective, to rescue women (and children) before rescuing men. Therefore, we are likely to view as more horrible a woman's life at risk than we are to view a man's life at risk.




Today, male victims are increasingly shown, although there are still fewer of them than there are of female victims. Often, in fact, the last man standing (so to speak) isn't a male character at all, but the “final girl.” As originally conceived by Carol Clover, in her book Men, Women, andChainsaws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film (1992), the final girl was viewed “as a stereotype of the pure, virginal sole survivor in 1980’s slasher films such as TexasChainsaw Massacre and Halloween.” Sometimes, as in Backcountry, the male (Alex, in this case) is killed, despite his macho posturing, because of the poor judgments he makes, while the female (Jenn, in this instance) survives because of her greater maturity and common sense:

Alex's Errors in Judgment

Mistake
Type
Reason for Mistake
Consequence
Alex refuses ranger's offer of a park map. Judgment Alex's overconfidence; he seeks to impress Jenn with his woodcraft. Jenn and Alex become lost and have no guidance out of the woods. His behavior could endanger their lives.
Alex secretly leaves Jenn's cell phone in their car Judgment; deceit The lack of a prevents Jenn from communicating with others, focusing her attention on camping trip (and on Alex). Without a phone, Alex and Jenn have no way to call for help. His behavior could endanger their lives.
Alex leaves Jenn alone when he goes to chop wood. Judgment Unclear The stranger, Brad, who happens upon Jenn could be dangerous: he might have raped or killed Jenn. His behavior could endanger their lives.
Alex does not tell Jenn about the presence of a bear in the area. Judgment; deceit Alex wants their trip to continue. He hopes to impress Jenn with his woodcraft and intends to ask her to marry him. Jenn has bear spray and a traffic flare that they could use against the bear, but she is unaware of its presence. The bear could (and, later, does) kill someone. His behavior could endanger their lives.
Although he is uncertain of the correct path to the lake, Alex continues their trek through the forest. Judgment; deceit Alex wants their trip to continue. He hopes to impress Jenn with his woodcraft and intends to ask her to marry him. Alex and Jenn may be lost. His behavior could endanger their lives.
Alex does not leave the woods after seeing a bear print. Judgment Alex wants their trip to continue. He hopes to impress Jenn with his woodcraft and intends to ask her to marry him. Jenn has bear spray and a traffic flare that they could use against the bear, but she is unaware of its presence. The bear could (and, later, does) kill someone. His behavior could endanger their lives.
Without investigating, Alex tells Jenn sounds she hears are merely acorns falling from the trees, onto their tent. Judgment; possible deceit Alex wants their trip to continue. He hopes to impress Jenn with his woodcraft and intends to ask her to marry him. He may believe the sounds are the effects of falling acorns, as he says, or he may not want Jenn to think the sounds are caused by a bear, whether to keep her from being afraid or to prevent her from wanting to leave, in which case he is also being deceitful. Jenn has bear spray and a traffic flare that they could use against the bear, but she is unaware of its presence. The bear could (and, later, does) kill someone. His behavior could endanger their lives.
Even after hearing the sounds of what might be a bear, instead of falling acorns, Alex refuses to leave the park. Judgment Alex wants their trip to continue. He hopes to impress Jenn with his woodcraft and intends to ask her to marry him. His behavior could endanger their lives.
Even after seeing a broken tree branch indicative of a bear's nearby presence, Alex refuses to leave the park. Judgment Alex wants their trip to continue. He hopes to impress Jenn with his woodcraft and intends to ask her to marry him. His behavior could endanger their lives.
Even after seeing the carcass of a dead deer indicating the presence of a bear—and of a bear that is both starving (bears, otherwise, don't eat meat—and predatory)—Alex refuses to leave the park. Judgment Alex wants their trip to continue. He hopes to impress Jenn with his woodcraft and intends to ask her to marry him. His behavior could endanger their lives.
Even after the bear visits their campsite, Alex refuses to leave the park. Judgment Alex wants their trip to continue. He hopes to impress Jenn with his woodcraft and intends to ask her to marry him. His behavior could endanger their lives.
Alex leaves his axe outside the tent. Carelessness

With his axe inside the tent, Alex would have had a weapon with which to fight off the attacking bear; without it, he has nothing but his hands and feet. His behavior could endanger their lives.

Jenn's Errors in Judgment

Mistake
Type
Reason for Mistake
Consequence
Jenn did not insist that Alex accept a park map from the ranger or accept one herself.
Judgment
Jenn probably did not want to embarrass Alex by casting doubts on his knowledge of the park.
Alex and Jenn may be lost. Her behavior could endanger their lives.
In Alex's absence, Jenn invites Brad onto their campsite.
Judgment
Jenn is being friendly.
Since she does not know Brad, Jenn could be endangering her and Alex's lives and could be putting herself in danger of being raped.
Jenn does not insist that Alex make sure the “acorns” he says are falling on their tent really are acorns.
Judgment
Jenn probably did not want to embarrass Alex by casting doubts on his knowledge of the park.
Her behavior could endanger their lives.
Jenn does not insist that Alex take her home after she sees evidence of the nearby presence of a bear.
Judgment
Jenn allows Alex to persuade her to stay because she has feelings for him and may feel sorry for him.
Her behavior could endanger their lives.
Jenn returns to their campsite after the bear has killed Alex so she can retrieve the engagement ring he has shown her.
Judgment
Jenn, who had feelings for Alex, wants a memento of his love for her.
Her behavior could endanger her life. lives.

Note: Although Jenn, like Alex, makes mistakes in judgment, she is not a woodman and the couple's survival is not primarily her responsibility. In addition, she is not deceitful toward Alex, as he is to her. When she is alone, after Alex's death, her decisions are wise, allowing her to survive the bear and the wilderness.


Female characters have come a long way since the days of King Kong's Ann Darrow. Today, many are as kick-ass as Buffy the VampireSlayer. Pity the poor monster that attacks one of these “damsels in distress.”

Monday, April 6, 2009

Building Horror and Suspense Tobe Hooper’s Way, Part 2

Copyright 2009 by Gary L. Pullman


In Eaten Alive at a Chainsaw Massacre: The Films of Tobe Hooper, John Kenneth Muir explains some of the narrative and symbolic devices that Hooper uses in his film, Invaders From Mars (1986) to build horror and suspense.

According to Muir, Hooper is “quite expert at using the background and foregrounds of shots to convey important, frightening information” (109). In support of his contention, Muir offers a couple of especially instructive examples, worth quoting in their entirety:

Tobe Hooper’s use of film language in Invaders From Mars is the most impressive it’s been since The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. His always-on-the-prowl camera not only records David’s nightmare of alien invasion, [but] it [also] successfully expresses his situation, his mood, and his feelings of isolation. The opening shot of the movie, that of David and his Dad [sic] lying flat on their backs in the grass, stargazing, should be a peaceful, idyllic one. Instead, forecasting the horror to come, the high[-]angle perspective (always the harbinger of doom in the cinematic lexicon) grows increasingly disturbed. As the camera nears its objects, it commences a fast spin, rolling over and over as it nears David and his Dad [sic]. This spin reveals that David Gardner’s world is about to be turned upside down, and that below the surface of perfect suburbia, trouble exists.

Throughout the film, Hooper’s well-placed camera continues to express the plight of the film’s dreaming protagonist. On the school playground, David is farmed inside a metal jungle jim [sic], a surrogate jail cell of sorts, and the message is clear: he’s trapped like a caged animal. Of all the children on the playground, only Davis is “trapped” in this fashion, simultaneously indicating his special status (as the star of his own dream) as well as his knowledge of his isolation. Later, David is literally surrounded by cages, by stuffed, mounted animals in miniature cages in his teacher’s van, and the blocking is very much the same, expressing the identical point: this is a nightmare David cannot escape from. Instead of relying on art design, [William Cameron] Menzies [the director of the original film of which Hooper’s version is a remake] staged many shots, nay entire sequences, in minimalist oversized sets to achieve similar results: feelings of entrapment and isolation. Instead of relying on art design, Hooper falls back on his thorough understanding of film grammar, mise en scene and cutting (108-109).

Writers of short stories and novels, it may be argued, do not have the resources at hand that filmmakers do, and, even if they had, their medium is pen, ink, and paper (or, more likely, a computerized word processor and printer). What good, therefore, does it do the short story writer or the novelist to examine the narrative techniques of movie directors and cameramen? The short answer is that it’s not only possible, but desirable, to learn artistic techniques from as many artists as possible, without undue concern as to their form or genre, always with an eye as to how to adapt their methods to one’s own work. After all, filmmakers have certainly helped themselves generously to quite a few literary techniques as well as to the methods of other artists, visual, plastic, musical, and otherwise.

Instead of a camera, the writer has description. Description, it may be truly be said, is the writer’s camera. Using its powers, he or she can create symbolic images, just as Hooper does, with his spinning camera and high-angle camera perspective, and images of the Jungle Jim and the caged animals. (A literary master of such technique is Stephen Crane; consider his use of symbolic imagery in The Red Badge of Courage, for example, in which he describes the clearing in a forest near a battlefield in terms of a cathedral.) What a writer can learn, more specifically than merely the use of symbolic imagery, created through description, to express theme, convey a character’s emotion, suggest the narrative‘s tone, or to effect foreshadowing, perhaps, is what Muir points out concerning Hooper’s employment of mise en scene’s blocking out of the critical elements of a scene so as to exploit the background and the foreground of each separate shot. Before writing a scene, an author should write out, in a few sentences, as specifically as possible, the answers to such questions as:

  1. What is the purpose of this scene?
  2. Can a special perspective (camera angle, as it were) be used to heighten the reader’s interest and to emphasize key information (or maybe to shift the reader’s focus away from a bit of information--a clue, for example, in a murder mystery) in the scene?
  3. What should the scene’s lighting be? Should it be direct, indirect, partial, full, from above, below, from one side or the other, from behind? (Anyone who has ever held a flashlight below his or her chin in an otherwise dark room knows what valuable tricks light can play in creating horror, fear, or suspense.)
  4. What properties (“props”) should the scene include, and why? To what use should they be put?
  5. What link is there between this scene and its predecessor, and what link is there between it and the next scene?
  6. What colors will be used to describe the characters’ hair, eyes, clothes, the “props,” and other items contained in the scene?

In other words, start to think off scenes not as so many words on a page, sandwiched between other segments of words on other pages, but as an image (or a series of connected images) within the continuous flow of many other, related images which, together, tell a unified, coherent, and meaningful story. At the same time, though, consider how the scene can best perform its function, or purpose, within the whole of which it is a part, using symbolism, irony, composition, and other elements, both narrative and visual.

The result will be a more artistically told story, and a story that is apt to be taken more seriously. At times, it is enough, perhaps, to tell a story, but it is always better to tell a story well.

Thursday, April 2, 2009

Building Horror and Suspense Tobe Hooper’s Way

Copyright 2009 by Gary L. Pullman
In Eaten Alive at a Chainsaw Massacre: The Films of Tobe Hooper, John Kenneth Muir explains some of the narrative and symbolic devices that Hooper uses in his film, Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974), to build horror and suspense. First, Muir says, Hooper sets the tone of the film by using symbolic images that suggest that the world exists within an indifferent, or even hostile, universe in which human life is not only meaningless but also endangered. A corpse is shown, posed as if it were a work of art (55). Then, Hooper shows “close-ups of violent eruptions on the surface of our sun,” the red shade of which “belies a kind of anger,” the whole image implying, again, that “the universe is disordered, anarchic, even cruel.” Indeed, the sun and the moon may represent the eyes of the “cosmos,” suggesting that the cosmos is “watching from a distance” (56). One might even wonder if the heavenly orbs might suggest that God is observing the bizarre and hideous actions that transpire in the film. If so, the God who watches such horrors is obviously not a loving God, but a voyeur who is something along the lines of a sadist. A third image is that of armadillo road kill. It is important to observe that the armadillo “is overturned, upside down,” because such a position, Muir points out, “is a long-time signifier of death in the language of the cinema” (56). This image accomplishes a double task, Muir says. First, it reinforces the idea that “the ordered universe has become topsy-turvy” because although “the highway is a symbol of man’s intelligence and his need to connect one place to another,” the presence of the dead armadillo suggests that “above and beyond man’s sense of self-imposed order (the road), is the overriding chaos of the universe” (56). Second, the image of the dead armadillo heralds a similar image of a homeless man, “signifying. . . the death and horror to come”:
Not long after the shot of the armadillo, a drink is seen in the cemetery to be lying in the same position as the road kill. . . . In fact, this is the film’s second “armadillo” shot: the drunk’s face is upside down in the frame too, out of order, signifying again the death and horror to come (56).
So far, three images have conspired, so to speak, to indicate that the world exists within an indifferent, or even hostile, universe in which human life is not only meaningless but also endangered. Next, sound--or, more specifically--music is used to further underscore the universe’s cosmic indifference to humanity:
The music in the film. . . is distinctly unpleasant, all cymbal crashes and echoes; highly discordant and jarring. There is no lyrical theme running through the music, no recognizable leitmotif, only a jumble of ugly, seemingly random sounds strung together. Like the eruptions on the surface of the sun, the music reflects the absence of equilibrium, sanity, reason, and order in the universe” (56).
This sense of an unintelligible, meaningless, and possibly hostile universe comes across even more clearly when there is, as it were, a “theme” or “leitmotif” to man-made sounds, such as, for example, the news report to which one of the film’s characters is listening at the moment that he is struck and killed by a passing truck while he is busy reliving himself into a cup while standing at the edge of the road. The report is full of seemingly random events of a “discomforting” character, which, taken together, indicate “a disordered, uncaring universe” (57). Having used both images and sound to symbolize such cosmic indifference to humanity, Hooper now turns his film’s attention to its characters, eliminating, from the very outset, first the group of victims’ “alpha male,” followed, in short order, by the elimination of the second male, which leads the female character on her own, with “no ‘male’ figure to cling to at all” (57-58). Hooper ratchets up the film’s horror and suspense by refusing to grant the character’s experiences any meaning; what happens to them--and, vicariously, to the audience, has no cognitive or epistemological significance; they learn nothing from it. Therefore, their experience is without value:
He denies his viewers the critical act of learning. . . . an audience usually learns important facts from the story’s structure or through the expositional dialogue of the main characters. . . . Knowledge does not pass from one protagonist to the next and no acts are explained or even rationalized. . . . They are killed without learning anything. . . and so the audience doesn’t learn anything either (58).
The failure to explain the bizarre, violent incidents lends the film verisimilitude, Muir suggests, because, in moviegoers’ own lives, similar events transpire, without readymade answers (58). By setting up a series of expectations on the parts of both his characters and the audience and then frustrating or “overturning” them, Hooper maintains the horror, the randomness, and the suspense of his movie’s action, Muir adds: “They go to the gas station expecting gas, but it’s out of gas. They go to the swimming hole expecting water, but it’s dry. They go to the friendly looking farmhouse down the lane expecting help but find only insanity and death” (58). Likewise, the characters are dwarfed by their surroundings, which suggests that they are of comparatively little significance whose lives are often on the verge of extinction, whether they are aware of their danger or not:
Hooper takes special pains to accentuate the vastness of the universe around his young characters. . . . Hooper sees [them] much as those very characters view the spiders in the web or the cows locked away in the slaughterhouses. They’re little, meaningless creatures, running around in their lives with a sort of tunnel vision, unable to see that they inhabit a much larger and terribly frightening domain. As human beings, we. . . do a hundred “normal” and “routine” things . . . while unaware that a tornado could be approaching, or that a serial killer could be roaming the very neighborhood where we live. But we impose a false sense of order (and hence security) in our everyday existence and Tobe Hooper’s modus operandi is to strip all that away. . . . We‘re victims of a universe that unfolds randomly (59-60).
According to Muir, Hooper is not necessarily an atheist. It could be that “the universe has a plan”; it’s just that “humans don’t know what it is, or even if they’re important to it” (60), a point that Hooper underscores through imagery, camera angles, and his characters’ dialogue:

Under the uncaring eye of the distant sun, Jerry’s van picks up the Hitchhiker. . . . Under a giant blue sky, the Hitchhiker [one of the film’s antagonists] and the van itself might as well be ants on a hill or cows in the slaughterhouse. . . . Hooper and cinematographer [Daniel] Pearl make inventive use of the low angle perspective. . . . [to reveal] the inherent hierarchy (or disorder) of the universe. High above his oblivious characters stand outer space, suns, and galaxies. And those cosmic entities could not care less that five teens are about to meet their makers in a backwater corner of some place called Texas.

The film’s dialogue reinforces many of these themes (60).

The film’s central antagonist, the cannibalistic, transvestite, serial killer name Leatherface, is himself an embodiment of Hooper’s view of the universe as an uncaring, hostile place: “Ultimately, the very nature of Leatherface’s villainy is a prominent part of Hooper’s thesis about the universe, too.” For example, “he doesn’t want to have sex with the lovely Sally.” Instead, as if she were nothing more than a cow in a slaughterhouse, “where her grandfather once worked,” Leatherface would rather slaughter and eat Sally and wear her face as a mask (60).

The sole survivor, Sally survives merely by chance: she “happens to get a break, to escape the crazies and make it to the road beyond the farmhouse but none of that is part of a design or intentional strategy on her part. It’s just the law of averages” (66); the universe remains impartial in its indifference to all humanity. Moreover, as Muir points out, Sally’s escape may not have left her unscathed emotionally: “her sanity is in serious question at the end of Chain Saw” (66). Finally, Hooper uses even seemingly random business and road signs to reinforce his movie’s horror and suspense:

Also interesting is Hooper’s appropriate use of signage at just the right times to provide the audience with subconscious clues about the horror to come. At the gas station, there is a sign reading “Gulf,” quite an appropriate brand for a half-way place between two regions, in this case the normal and the insane. Shortly thereafter, another sign reads “STOP” as the protagonists near the old Franklin place, a visual warning that is ultimately ignored (67).
It should be obvious that Hooper is a consummate director of horror films, adept in the use of symbolic imagery, instrumental music, the denial of thematic meaning to his characters’ experiences, frustrated expectations, irony, size discrepancies between characters and their vast surroundings, dialogue, business and road signs, and other forms of non-verbal communication to suggest both horror and suspense. Any storyteller, whether of film or literary fiction, interested in the horror genre would do well to study the techniques of such a master. Fortunately, Muir’s study of precisely this topic, in Eaten Alive at a Chainsaw Massacre, helps one to do just this.

Tuesday, February 26, 2008

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.

Paranormal vs. Supernatural: What’s the Diff?

Copyright 2009 by Gary L. Pullman

Sometimes, in demonstrating how to brainstorm about an essay topic, selecting horror movies, I ask students to name the titles of as many such movies as spring to mind (seldom a difficult feat for them, as the genre remains quite popular among young adults). Then, I ask them to identify the monster, or threat--the antagonist, to use the proper terminology--that appears in each of the films they have named. Again, this is usually a quick and easy task. Finally, I ask them to group the films’ adversaries into one of three possible categories: natural, paranormal, or supernatural. This is where the fun begins.

It’s a simple enough matter, usually, to identify the threats which fall under the “natural” label, especially after I supply my students with the scientific definition of “nature”: everything that exists as either matter or energy (which are, of course, the same thing, in different forms--in other words, the universe itself. The supernatural is anything which falls outside, or is beyond, the universe: God, angels, demons, and the like, if they exist. Mad scientists, mutant cannibals (and just plain cannibals), serial killers, and such are examples of natural threats. So far, so simple.

What about borderline creatures, though? Are vampires, werewolves, and zombies, for example, natural or supernatural? And what about Freddy Krueger? In fact, what does the word “paranormal” mean, anyway? If the universe is nature and anything outside or beyond the universe is supernatural, where does the paranormal fit into the scheme of things?

According to the Online Etymology Dictionary, the word “paranormal,” formed of the prefix “para,” meaning alongside, and “normal,” meaning “conforming to common standards, usual,” was coined in 1920. The American Heritage Dictionary defines “paranormal” to mean “beyond the range of normal experience or scientific explanation.” In other words, the paranormal is not supernatural--it is not outside or beyond the universe; it is natural, but, at the present, at least, inexplicable, which is to say that science cannot yet explain its nature. The same dictionary offers, as examples of paranormal phenomena, telepathy and “a medium’s paranormal powers.”

Wikipedia offers a few other examples of such phenomena or of paranormal sciences, including the percentages of the American population which, according to a Gallup poll, believes in each phenomenon, shown here in parentheses: psychic or spiritual healing (54), extrasensory perception (ESP) (50), ghosts (42), demons (41), extraterrestrials (33), clairvoyance and prophecy (32), communication with the dead (28), astrology (28), witchcraft (26), reincarnation (25), and channeling (15); 36 percent believe in telepathy.

As can be seen from this list, which includes demons, ghosts, and witches along with psychics and extraterrestrials, there is a confusion as to which phenomena and which individuals belong to the paranormal and which belong to the supernatural categories. This confusion, I believe, results from the scientism of our age, which makes it fashionable for people who fancy themselves intelligent and educated to dismiss whatever cannot be explained scientifically or, if such phenomena cannot be entirely rejected, to classify them as as-yet inexplicable natural phenomena. That way, the existence of a supernatural realm need not be admitted or even entertained. Scientists tend to be materialists, believing that the real consists only of the twofold unity of matter and energy, not dualists who believe that there is both the material (matter and energy) and the spiritual, or supernatural. If so, everything that was once regarded as having been supernatural will be regarded (if it cannot be dismissed) as paranormal and, maybe, if and when it is explained by science, as natural. Indeed, Sigmund Freud sought to explain even God as but a natural--and in Freud’s opinion, an obsolete--phenomenon.

Meanwhile, among skeptics, there is an ongoing campaign to eliminate the paranormal by explaining them as products of ignorance, misunderstanding, or deceit. Ridicule is also a tactic that skeptics sometimes employ in this campaign. For example, The Skeptics’ Dictionary contends that the perception of some “events” as being of a paranormal nature may be attributed to “ignorance or magical thinking.” The dictionary is equally suspicious of each individual phenomenon or “paranormal science” as well. Concerning psychics’ alleged ability to discern future events, for example, The Skeptic’s Dictionary quotes Jay Leno (“How come you never see a headline like 'Psychic Wins Lottery'?”), following with a number of similar observations:

Psychics don't rely on psychics to warn them of impending disasters. Psychics don't predict their own deaths or diseases. They go to the dentist like the rest of us. They're as surprised and disturbed as the rest of us when they have to call a plumber or an electrician to fix some defect at home. Their planes are delayed without their being able to anticipate the delays. If they want to know something about Abraham Lincoln, they go to the library; they don't try to talk to Abe's spirit. In short, psychics live by the known laws of nature except when they are playing the psychic game with people.
In An Encyclopedia of Claims, Frauds, and Hoaxes of the Occult and Supernatural, James Randi, a magician who exercises a skeptical attitude toward all things alleged to be paranormal or supernatural, takes issue with the notion of such phenomena as well, often employing the same arguments and rhetorical strategies as The Skeptic’s Dictionary.

In short, the difference between the paranormal and the supernatural lies in whether one is a materialist, believing in only the existence of matter and energy, or a dualist, believing in the existence of both matter and energy and spirit. If one maintains a belief in the reality of the spiritual, he or she will classify such entities as angels, demons, ghosts, gods, vampires, and other threats of a spiritual nature as supernatural, rather than paranormal, phenomena. He or she may also include witches (because, although they are human, they are empowered by the devil, who is himself a supernatural entity) and other natural threats that are energized, so to speak, by a power that transcends nature and is, as such, outside or beyond the universe. Otherwise, one is likely to reject the supernatural as a category altogether, identifying every inexplicable phenomenon as paranormal, whether it is dark matter or a teenage werewolf. Indeed, some scientists dedicate at least part of their time to debunking allegedly paranormal phenomena, explaining what natural conditions or processes may explain them, as the author of The Serpent and the Rainbow explains the creation of zombies by voodoo priests.

Based upon my recent reading of Tzvetan Todorov's The Fantastic: A Structural Approach to the Fantastic, I add the following addendum to this essay.

According to Todorov:

The fantastic. . . lasts only as long as a certain hesitation [in deciding] whether or not what they [the reader and the protagonist] perceive derives from "reality" as it exists in the common opinion. . . . If he [the reader] decides that the laws of reality remain intact and permit an explanation of the phenomena described, we can say that the work belongs to the another genre [than the fantastic]: the uncanny. If, on the contrary, he decides that new laws of nature must be entertained to account for the phenomena, we enter the genre of the marvelous (The Fantastic: A Structural Approach to a Literary Genre, 41).
Todorov further differentiates these two categories by characterizing the uncanny as “the supernatural explained” and the marvelous as “the supernatural accepted” (41-42).

Interestingly, the prejudice against even the possibility of the supernatural’s existence which is implicit in the designation of natural versus paranormal phenomena, which excludes any consideration of the supernatural, suggests that there are no marvelous phenomena; instead, there can be only the uncanny. Consequently, for those who subscribe to this view, the fantastic itself no longer exists in this scheme, for the fantastic depends, as Todorov points out, upon the tension of indecision concerning to which category an incident belongs, the natural or the supernatural. The paranormal is understood, by those who posit it, in lieu of the supernatural, as the natural as yet unexplained.

And now, back to a fate worse than death: grading students’ papers.

My Cup of Blood

Anyone who becomes an aficionado of anything tends, eventually, to develop criteria for elements or features of the person, place, or thing of whom or which he or she has become enamored. Horror fiction--admittedly not everyone’s cuppa blood--is no different (okay, maybe it’s a little different): it, too, appeals to different fans, each for reasons of his or her own. Of course, in general, book reviews, the flyleaves of novels, and movie trailers suggest what many, maybe even most, readers of a particular type of fiction enjoy, but, right here, right now, I’m talking more specifically--one might say, even more eccentrically. In other words, I’m talking what I happen to like, without assuming (assuming makes an “ass” of “u” and “me”) that you also like the same. It’s entirely possible that you will; on the other hand, it’s entirely likely that you won’t.

Anyway, this is what I happen to like in horror fiction:

Small-town settings in which I get to know the townspeople, both the good, the bad, and the ugly. For this reason alone, I’m a sucker for most of Stephen King’s novels. Most of them, from 'Salem's Lot to Under the Dome, are set in small towns that are peopled by the good, the bad, and the ugly. Part of the appeal here, granted, is the sense of community that such settings entail.

Isolated settings, such as caves, desert wastelands, islands, mountaintops, space, swamps, where characters are cut off from civilization and culture and must survive and thrive or die on their own, without assistance, by their wits and other personal resources. Many are the examples of such novels and screenplays, but Alien, The Shining, The Descent, Desperation, and The Island of Dr. Moreau, are some of the ones that come readily to mind.

Total institutions as settings. Camps, hospitals, military installations, nursing homes, prisons, resorts, spaceships, and other worlds unto themselves are examples of such settings, and Sleepaway Camp, Coma, The Green Mile, and Aliens are some of the novels or films that take place in such settings.

Anecdotal scenes--in other words, short scenes that showcase a character--usually, an unusual, even eccentric, character. Both Dean Koontz and the dynamic duo, Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child, excel at this, so I keep reading their series (although Koontz’s canine companions frequently--indeed, almost always--annoy, as does his relentless optimism).

Atmosphere, mood, and tone. Here, King is king, but so is Bentley Little. In the use of description to terrorize and horrify, both are masters of the craft.

A bit of erotica (okay, okay, sex--are you satisfied?), often of the unusual variety. Sex sells, and, yes, sex whets my reader’s appetite. Bentley Little is the go-to guy for this spicy ingredient, although Koontz has done a bit of seasoning with this spice, too, in such novels as Lightning and Demon Seed (and, some say, Hung).

Believable characters. Stephen King, Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child, and Dan Simmons are great at creating characters that stick to readers’ ribs.

Innovation. Bram Stoker demonstrates it, especially in his short story “Dracula’s Guest,” as does H. P. Lovecraft, Edgar Allan Poe, Shirley Jackson, and a host of other, mostly classical, horror novelists and short story writers. For an example, check out my post on Stoker’s story, which is a real stoker, to be sure. Stephen King shows innovation, too, in ‘Salem’s Lot, The Shining, It, and other novels. One might even argue that Dean Koontz’s something-for-everyone, cross-genre writing is innovative; he seems to have been one of the first, if not the first, to pen such tales.

Technique. Check out Frank Peretti’s use of maps and his allusions to the senses in Monster; my post on this very topic is worth a look, if I do say so myself, which, of course, I do. Opening chapters that accomplish a multitude of narrative purposes (not usually all at once, but successively) are attractive, too, and Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child are as good as anyone, and better than many, at this art.

A connective universe--a mythos, if you will, such as both H. P. Lovecraft and Stephen King, and, to a lesser extent, Dean Koontz, Bentley Little, and even Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child have created through the use of recurring settings, characters, themes, and other elements of fiction.

A lack of pretentiousness. Dean Koontz has it, as do Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child, Bentley Little, and (to some extent, although he has become condescending and self-indulgent of late, Stephen King); unfortunately, both Dan Simmons and Robert McCammon have become too self-important in their later works, Simmons almost to the point of becoming unreadable. Come on, people, you’re writing about monsters--you should be humble.

Longevity. Writers who have been around for a while usually get better, Stephen King, Dan Simmons, and Robert McCammon excepted.

Pacing. Neither too fast nor too slow. Dean Koontz is good, maybe the best, here, of contemporary horror writers.


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