Showing posts with label movie poster. Show all posts
Showing posts with label movie poster. Show all posts

Sunday, March 22, 2020

Tagline Terror

Copyright 2020 by Gary  L. Pullman


Tag line (n).: a catchphrase or slogan, especially as used in advertising.

Taglines.

Some may not read them.

Hell, some may not even see them.

What draws the eye in a movie poster is the art, after all. The images. The depictions of gruesome spectacles. Representations of mysterious events. Portraits of helpless victims. Pictures of pursuing monsters. Illustrations of dark, tight places in the middle of nowhere.

And, yet, posters' taglines can be quite suggestive—and quite terrifying—in their own right and in their own way.

They have a way of getting at the very heart of a story. For writers in search of ideas, taglines can also suggest stories; they can be muses. In addition, they can point to the roots of fear, to the sources of horror, to the bare bones beneath the flesh of fear. Look, here! This is what frightens—and here! This is why it scares.


Some fans love you to death (13 Fanboy [2020])

Former scream queens from the Friday the 13th series are hunted by a real[-]life killer who doesn't understand that it's all make believe (IMDb).


The tagline suggests how a popular saying can inspire the idea for a movie—and, perhaps, even much of its plot.


They look just like us (Freaks [2018[)

A bold girl discovers a bizarre, threatening, and mysterious new world beyond her front door after she escapes her father's protective and paranoid control (IMDb).

 
The tagline suggests that those who are regarded by “us” as being somehow “other” than we are differ from “us” not only in their behavior (which is, most likely, violent and threatening), but also in their appearance, making them easily recognizable. When such an assumption proves to be false, fear is heightened: we are being menaced by “others” from whom we cannot differentiate ourselves: we cannot tell the good guys (“us”) from the bad guys (“them”). Therefore, someone who looks like “us” could be a violent, threatening “other,” intent upon harming or killing “us.” Our situation, already desperate, has become much more dire!


Seven miles below
the ocean surface
a crew is trapped
and being hunted
 
(Underwater [2020[).

A crew of aquatic researchers work to get to safety after an earthquake devastates their subterranean laboratory. But the crew has more than the ocean seabed to fear (IMDb).


The tagline occupies four successive lines, breaking the thought it conveys into four fragments, breaks which emphasize each part: distance, location, dangerous situation, heightened danger. The tagline calls our attention to the desperate nature of the characters' predicament. It's bad to be seven miles below the surface of the sea; it's worse to be trapped, and its worse yet to be hunted while one is trapped in an isolated, hard-to-reach location. The tagline taps universal fears: the fear of being alone (monophobia), the fear of being trapped (claustrophobia), and the fear of being hunted (anatidaephobia). If the tagline applied to a novel, rather than to a movie, it would seem to condense several chapters into succinct, terrifying phrases. The tagline also implies several questions, arousing suspense: Will the characters escape their hunters? Will they escape their trap? Will they be able to return to the surface? Will they make it home again, alive and whole?


Evil knows your name (Impervious [2015).

Katie recently moved to a new house. In the basement, she finds old photos of a family who lived in the house and were all murdered. When she starts to investigate their story, frightening things begin to happen (IMDb).

We often think, That couldn't happen to me. We tell ourselves, Bad things only happen to other people. In other words, we lie to ourselves. We fib to protect ourselves from the truth that terrible things could happen to us. We prevaricate to defend ourselves from the knowledge that bad things happen to everyone, the “good” and the “bad” alike. Being “good” is no protection, just as being “bad” doesn't necessarily (and certainly doesn't always) cause bad things to happen to bad people. Sometimes, crime does pay. We also like to believe that the odds against something like that (whatever “that” may be) happening to us are astronomical. (That's what young people are saying now about dying from a coronavirus infection.) When it comes to evil, to suffering, to death, we don't take things personally; we prefer abstractions—statistics can be comforting; news reports about “others,” about “them,” can be reassuring. But what if evil knew your name? No my name. Not any name. Your name. What if evil developed a personal interest in you, specifically? What if evil targeted you, individually? What if evil hunted you, personally? The lies die. Truth survives. And the truth is that you are in danger. You may be targeted. Evil know your name!

Movie poster taglines. Don't overlook them.

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Monday, October 1, 2018

Horror Movies' Allusive Posters

Copyright 2018 by Gary L. Pullman

In promoting their horror films, several studios have relied upon posters which allude to other works of art. For example, a poster for The Descent is similar to the 1954 black-and-white photograph produced by surrealistic painter Salvador Dali and photographer Philippe Halsman in which several nude female models pose in such a way that, collectively, their bodies resemble a human skull. The result is In Voluptas Mors (Voluptuous Death).


The juxtaposition of beautiful nude women with an image of death (the skull they form) is striking in its contrast. More than nude men, nude women symbolize life, for it is they who conceive, bear, and deliver children, thus ensuring the survival of the human species. In having such vessels of life, so to speak, form an image of death, is Dali suggesting the ultimate futility of human life? Is he implying that beauty, sex, pregnancy, and birth are meaningless in the face of death? Alternatively, maybe he is indicating that, in the face (almost literally) of death, sex is humanity's only hope, tenuous as that hope may be.
It's informative, too, to think of what is missing from the photograph. The attributes of the models are intact—in them, as individuals. However, in the image of death that they form as a group, the skull is stripped of hair, of skin, and of a face. Gone are the eyes, the nose, the ears, and the lips. Gone, too, presumably, is the brain inside the cranium. What is left is bone and the negative spaces of the eye sockets and the places at which the other facial features once reposed. Stripped of the organs of sense—the eyes, ears, nose, lips, and skin—the skull is insensible, a mere thing, its objectivity total. Humanity, as represented in the women who form the skull, is reduced to bone.


Were we to ask Dali which of these meanings In Voluptas Mors is intended, he would likely reply, “Yes,” meaning that all these possible interpretations are correct (and, no doubt, many others).
Surrealism is about opening—or reopening—the doors of perception, about increasing the possibilities of understanding, about offering the world to us, new and undiscovered. How, though, might The Descent's allusion to this iconic painting be intended?


If the cave into which the female spelunkers descend is regarded as the womb and their expedition into the underworld an exploration of femininity (gender) and womanhood (female sexuality), these explorers, for whom their excursion does not go well, form the bones of the skull; their bodies, although still flesh and blood, bear the stamps of humanity—heads, complete with facial features and organs of perception; hair; skin; limbs; breasts; genitals; and buttocks, as well as internal organs—they are yet, at the same time, parts of an image of death, and a death that has occurred long enough ago to have reduced the remains to bone.

Paradoxically, they are literally alive, but figuratively dead, like the LIFE-IN-DEATH figure that haunts Samuel Taylor Coleridge's The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. Although the filmmakers (or poster-makers) may not have had this allusion consciously in mind, the live female nudes whose bodies compose the skull on the poster that pro,motes the film appear to have the same sort of symbolic value as Coleridge's Death-in-Life. In Voluptas Mors also appears in a movie poster promoting The Silence of the Lambs. Its use of the photograph, which appears on the back of the head of the Death's-head Hawkmoth that covers Clarisse Starling's (Jodie Foster's) mouth, is assigned a fairly prosaic significance, according to “some,” who interpret the image to refer to nothing more than the seven “victims in the movie.” Something similar may be true, at the most basic level, of the women-as-skull poster that promotes The Descent. The female spelunkers may be represented symbolically by the models on the film's poster.


What, then, do I think The Descent's allusion to In Voluptas Mors represents? I have provided some clues in this post, and I provide others in my previous post concerning The Descent. In the final analysis, though, what matters is what the individual him- or herself who is confronted with such allusions makes of them, for, often, one's interpretations of a work of art, literary or otherwise, is equally (or more) about him- or herself as it is about the work of art. Dali would probably agree with this statement, as he would with most other takes on his art. Concerning The Descent, the poster probably creates as many possible meanings as there are interpreters, which may be a good thing.
Dali would likely think so.
In the next few posts, I'll consider a few more horror movies' allusive posters. In doing so, my commentaries will be a bit more explicit—most of the time.
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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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