Showing posts with label tentacles. Show all posts
Showing posts with label tentacles. Show all posts

Tuesday, June 5, 2018

Maritime Monster Menaces

Copyright 2018 by Gary L. Pullman


 Chrissie Watkins, about to meet her fate

To make their characters more vulnerable, horror movies often not only isolate them, but also take them out of their element. One of the most effective ways to accomplish both these goals is to have them do battle with an undersea monster. There's nothing, except another planet, as remote as the bottom of the ocean, and, as air-breathers, human beings are totally out of their depth when they're submerged thousands of feet below the surface of the great deep or, sometimes, in shallower, but still challenging rivers, bogs, or lakes.


Chrissie Watkins (still) about to meet her fate

Over the years, as the sheer number of the following titles indicates, quite a few horror movies have featured underwater creatures, a few of which are the Jaws series, Tentacles, the Piranha series, including Piranha 3-DD, the Megalodon series, the Crocodile series, Orca the Killer Whale, Barracuda, Leviathan, Endless Descent, Beneath Loch Ness, The Lock Ness Terror series, the Octopus series, the Megashark series, Demeking the Sea Monster, Sea Beast, The Beast, Monster from the Ocean Floor, the Shark Attack series, Ghost Shark, Creature, Proteus, the Moby Dick series, Malibu Shark Attack (even the rich aren't safe!), 2-Headed Shark Attack, Bait, Black Water, The Crater LakeMonster, The Creature from the Black Lagoon series, The Rig, Deep Rising, Deep Blue Sea, Tintorera . . . Tiger Shark, The Eye of the Beast, Behemoth the Sea Monster, Island Claws, Bering Sea Beast, SheCreature, The Host, Attack of the Giant Leeches, Deep Evil, Dinoshark, Sharktopus, SwampShark, Blood Waters of Dr. Z, Sector 7, The Thing Below, The Deep, The Neptune Factor, Supershark, the Lake Placid series, Shark Night, Red Water, The Last Shark, Primeval, Croc, the Dinocroc series, Snakehead, Frankenfish, Kraken: The Tentacles of the Deep, Jurassic Shark, TheReef, Shark Zone, OpenWater, Shark Swarm (never mind the fact that sharks don't “swarm”), Marina Monster, 12 Days of Terror, Amphibious 3-D, TheBermuda Depths, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Shark Week, Up from theDepths, Demon ofParadise, Bloodtide, the Humanoids from the Deep series, Gamera vs. Zigra, Razertooth, Alligator, Island of the Fishmen, The Fishmen and Their Queen, Pacific Rim, Atlantic Rim, Attack of theCrab Monsters, Hammerhead, Shark Attack in the Mediterranean, The Jaws of Death, Shakka, TheMonster That Challenged the World, Dagon, Rogue, and Deep Shock. 

As the titles to these movies suggest, fighting an underwater monster takes characters out of their element; isolates them; plunges them into darkness; subjects them to intense pressure, both physical and emotional; endangers them; and introduces a strange realm full of bizarre and fascinating, but massive, powerful, and monstrous, creatures.

Of course, such an approach also offers an opportunity for scenes of nudity or near-nudity, especially with regard to female characters. There are female skinnydippers and plenty of bikini babes whose curves and bare skin suggest women's power to replenish life, through sex, but this possibility is often quickly and decisively prevented by the menace of the maritime monsters, as dead women can't conceive, bear, or (with rare exceptions) deliver children. Death, embodied in the beasts from below the sea, is victorious over life, for male and female characters and the latter's potential progeny.

Human beings, who, on land, are apex predators, are, in the water, easy victims. They who, on dry land, prey on every other creature, become the prey of underwater creatures which, although less intelligent than they, are typically bigger, faster, stronger, and more agile. They have great stamina, breathe in water, and are difficult to injure of kill. The predator-prey table is turned, much to the shock, horror, terror, anguish, and destruction of the helpless men and women who find themselves at the mercy of merciless maritime monsters. It's one thing to horrify and terrify; to do so after having stripping one of the confidence, power, and status that he or she takes for granted is nothing less than devastating.


Tentacles is out to get you!
Horror movies about underwater monsters can offer additional commentary on the human condition and, occasionally, on society or civilization itself. In Tentacles, a 1977 movie, a seaside resort is the scene of horror when a giant octopus attacks the beach. A place of pleasure becomes a place of pain, a vacation retreat a site of horror and suffering. The cause of the anguish is technology: the octopus is driven mad by illegal “levels” of radio signals. The theme seems clear: unregulated technology can have a devastating effect on natural locations that, otherwise, would be like paradise. Steven Spielberg's classic Jaws (1975) also provides some social criticism, suggesting that, for some powerful people, the bottom line is more important and valuable than human life.



Unknown (i e., imaginary) creatures of the sea can become even more terrifying because of their horrifying appearance and their bizarre abilities. In Stephen Sommers's Deep Rising (1998), a never-before encountered, tentacled maritime monster covered in spikes liquefies its prey, the passengers and crew members aboard a disabled luxury liner that's been attacked by pirates who later plan to destroy the vessel. Three of the survivors of the monster's attack, Finnegan, Trillian, and Joey, take refuge on an island, only to discover it's not deserted: a thunderous roar from the forest alerts them to the fact that the island they've landed on is primeval and, apparently, inhabited by other fierce, unknown creatures. In this film, the ocean setting allows the surviving characters to flee from one to yet another danger, as trapped on the island, they have nowhere to go.



In another creature feature with an underwater setting, Paul Joshua Rubin's Deep Shock (2003), the USS Jimmy Carter, a nuclear submarine, is attacked by a monstrous beast armed with an electromagnetic pulse. As a result of the attack, researchers in an underwater station observe, the Polaris Trench has become hot enough to melt the polar icecap and to incinerate the men and women in the research station, without having damaged the facility itself. 

As these examples suggest, the permutations on the underwater monster menace are vast. Not only are there many natural freshwater and maritime predators from which to choose—alligators, barracudas, crocodiles, kraken, octopi, piranhas, sharks, and whales—but there are as many imaginary beasts as one can imagine, including those which result from congenital cephalic disorders (2-HeadedShark Attack), fantasy beasts (the Loch Ness Monster, fishmen, and humanoids), and hybrid monsters (Sharktopus, Dinocroc, and Dinoshark).

The underwater setting can be used again and again, each with a new plot twist, theme, and, to some extent, cast of characters. The underwater monster, long a staple of both sci fi and horror stories, cinematographic and literary, is here to stay, it seems.

Saturday, August 23, 2008

Tentacles, of Themselves, Do Not a Horror Movie Make

copyright 2008 by Gary L. Pullman

Tentacles are creepy. They’re not arms, not exactly--not as we think of arms, anyway--but they’re like no other limbs, either--and they’re equipped with suckers! They have a longer reach than the law, too. And they writhe. Anything that writhes is creepy.

They can create suction. They can grip. They can wind and entwine.

They squeeze.

Although some women might suppose we’re talking about their last blind date, tentacles belong mostly to the denizens of the deep. That’s how strange they are.

Most land animals have refused to evolve them--and, no, an elephant’s trunk doesn‘t count. It doesn‘t even have suckers.

Octopi have eight of the damned things! Eight! That’s not just wasteful; that’s ludicrous. What in the hell could an organism want with eight tentacles? Eight tentacles do not encourage trust. The other organisms, besides octopi, that are equipped with tentacles are just as strange and repugnant, if not more so: cuttlefish, for example--there’s nothing cuddly about them--or krakens.

Tentacles are big in Asian horror, especially the comic strip variety, such as that of Manga and anime, in which these snake-like appendages are, quite frankly, phallic substitutes. These comics’ stories center upon rape--and, well, yes, an element of bestiality. In these comics, the rapists are not men--or not men per se--but monsters. Therefore, their assaults against female victims are supposed--by the comics’ publishers, if no one else--to be politically and socially acceptable, if scientifically dubious.


Since monsters equipped with tentacles are mostly maritime, they tend to threaten ships at sea, but, on a few occasions, they come near enough to the shore to menace bathing beauties. Occasionally, on the way in, they might take out a bridge or two, just to impress the ladies and to show that they aren’t monsters with which to be trifled. Unfortunately, that’s pretty much the plot of such movies. They revolve around the question as to whether a ship or a submarine or a bridge or a bathing beauty or two can survive the attack of a sea monster with tentacles. (Usually, no, they can’t.)

Now, a movie in which the beast with the tentacles could lose some of its appendages only to have the severed or ripped loose tentacle itself become another beast with tentacles--that would be worth watching.

Or not.

Probably not.

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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