Interview with Screenwriter Dexter Williams

On By Erica L. WrightIn Horrific moviesLeave a comment

This is an interview that has been long overdue. For the past several months, I’ve chatted intermittently with Dexter Williams about his award-winning screenplays, but because of schedule conflicts, wasn’t able to work out a time to interview him on the podcast. Thankfully, Dexter was able to answer my questions by email. Dexter is an American screenwriter who has written twelve feature film screenplays and twelve short screenplays, virtually all of which being a personal reflection of his interest in the paranormal and metaphysical. He has written scripts in the genres of: comedy, drama, fantasy, horror, science fiction, and thriller.

MHL: How did you become interested in screenwriting?

DW: Well before I was interested in horror, there was this idea for a teen romantic comedy I was very passionate about.  It was about a high school student who is asked to hypnotize the captain of the basketball team into being her best friend’s date for an upcoming dance.  I thought that would make a great date movie.  I started buying books on the art of screenwriting, and from there I wrote my very first feature film script “Under Your Spell”.  And that was the beginning of my interest in writing for the screen.

MHL: What inspires you? Who or what is your muse?

DW: The better question is “what inspires me”?  The motion picture industry, and movies in general.  When I was growing up in Michigan, I really wasn’t into movies.  The idea of sitting in a darkened theatre wasn’t that appealing to me.  One film changed all that: “Altered States”, released in 1980 (on Christmas Day — of all days).  When I saw the TV spot for the film, that was the first time I actually wanted to go see a movie.  I have had a love affair with movies ever since.  I really don’t have a regular muse as far as my scripts go, but Italian actress Monica Bellucci was my muse for one of my horror scripts “Mistresses of Sleep”.  After seeing her in “The Matrix Reloaded” and “The Brothers Grimm”, I wanted to create a feature film project for her playing a hypnotist.  I could find the right story for the project, so I focused on other scripts.  I came back to it a couple of years later, and it turned out a whole lot different (and better) than I would have ever imagined.  I would be so honored to have Monica be in the film if “Mistresses of Sleep” ever gets made.

MHL: It seems that most of what you write falls within the horror genre. What draws you to horror?

DW: I absolutely love the level of intensity when it comes to horror.  The idea of having the living daylights scared out of me is a genuine rush to me, and I enjoy writing horror scripts that prey on fears of the unknown.  Supernatural horror is my favorite genre because it explores things that are beyond explanation and beyond the boundaries of reality.

MHL: Your screenplays recently have achieved recognition and awards at various film festivals. Tell us more about this.

DW:  I have been quite fortunate to have some of my scripts get recognition at various film festivals.  In fact, I have gotten more recognition for my horror scripts than any other genre.  “Demon Crystal” and “Mistresses of Sleep” were Official Selections in the Fright Night Film Fest and the Sacramento International Film Festival, and “Mistresses of Sleep” was not only an Official Selection in the Oaxaca FilmFest in Mexico, it was even nominated for three awards: Best Horror, Best Original Concept, and the big one…Best Overall Script!

MHL: On a more personal note, you’ve discussed the role of hypnosis in your creative process. How has hypnotherapy helped you as a writer?

DW: After I have written my first two scripts, I suffered from Writer’s Block.  One day I met a lady who was telling someone’s fortune.  I talked to her and I was surprised when she give me her business card which said she’s also a hypnotist.  I told her about my writer’s block, and she agreed to help me with that (at no charge).  Her name is Monica Geers-Dahl (she’s a hypnotherapist from Florida), and she is awesome!  Thanks to the sessions I had with her, I haven’t had writer’s block since.  

MHL:What projects are you currently working on?

DW: I’m working on my first collaboration.  It’s outside of the horror genre, and it’s a fantasy-drama called “Words of the Ethereal”.  It is based on an original story by my collaborator, an amazing writer/poet from the state of Washington named RaVen Marie.  It is quite a challenge writing a script based on someone else’s story, but it’s a challenge I gladly welcome.  

MHL: Now for questions we ask all of our interviewees: Do you have any questions you hate being asked?

DW: Thankfully, I have not had any embarrassing questions in all the interviews I have done.

MHL: What questions are never asked that you wish would be asked?

DW: One question that comes to mind is: if I could have any actress play a hypnotist in a horror film, who would it be and why?  I would have to say Margot Robbie, who played Harley Quinn in “Suicide Squad”.  She would make a fabulous evil hypnotist!

MHL: You are on a desert island with only two hours of battery life left on your iPad. What is the last movie you will watch?

DW: Probably “American Beauty”, the 1999 Best Picture Oscar Winner.  It is my all-time favorite film (not horror, by the way).

MHL: The world is about to end in nuclear war. What will be the last album you will listen to?

DW: “Hounds of Love” by English recording artist Kate Bush.  She is a phenomenal talent and one of my all-time favorites in music.  

****************************************************************************

Dexter is represented by Mystical Sounds Productions, a management/production company based in Montreal, Canada.

FEATURE SCREENPLAYS:

DEMON CRYSTAL (Horror) OFFICIAL SELECTION/SEMIFINALIST – Southeastern International Film Festival

DESTINATION YESTERDAY (Thriller) GRAND JURY AWARD – L.A. Neo Noir, Novel, Film, & Script Festival

ENCHANTRESS (Fantasy)

ENSLAVEMENT (Horror) (OPTIONED)

ENSLAVEMENT II (Horror) (OPTIONED)

ENSLAVEMENT III (Horror) (OPTIONED)

FLOATING TO PARADISE (Drama)

HELL FOR HIRE (Dark Comedy)

MISTRESSES OF SLEEP (Horror) 

 

SECOND DANCE (Fantasy)

UNDER YOUR SPELL (Teen Comedy)

WISH UPON A HOLLYWOOD STAR (Comedy)

 

SHORT SCREENPLAYS:

BALD GIRLS CAN HYPNOTIZE (Comedy)

DRAGON OF DESTINY (Fantasy)

FEAR THE CLOWNS (Horror)

THE GLAMOROUS SPELL (Comedy)

THE HYPNOTIC TRAP (Horror)

MEDUSA MELROSE: DRAG QUEEN HYPNOTIST (Comedy)

MESMERINA (Comedy)

THE OUT-OF-THIS-WORLD DAY (Sci-Fi)

SLAVE IN THE SPOTLIGHT (Horror)

THE SLEEP STONE (Fantasy)

SWIM INTO THE UNCONSCIOUS (Drama)

A TOUCH OF SUNSHINE MAGIC (Comedy)

 

SCREENWRITING AWARDS AND NOMINATIONS

DEMON CRYSTAL (Horror):

Southeastern International Film Festival – Semifinalist

Fright Night Film Fest – Official Selection

Sacramento International Film Festival – Official Selection (Semifinalist)

 

DESTINATION YESTERDAY (Thriller):

L.A. Neo Noir Novel, Film, & Script Festival – Grand Jury Award Winner (Gold Award)

Sacramento International Film Festival – Official Selection (Semifinalist)

 

FLOATING TO PARADISE (Drama):

Sacramento International Film Festival – Official Selection (Semifinalist)

 

MISTRESSES OF SLEEP (Horror):

Oaxaca FilmFest – Official Selection (Nominated for: Best Overall Script, Best Original Concept, Best Horror)

Fright Night Film Fest – Official Selection

Sacramento International Film Festival – Official Selection (Semifinalist)

 

SECOND DANCE (Fantasy):

Sacramento International Film Festival – Official Selection (Semifinalist)

September is Stephen King Month!

On By Erica L. WrightIn Horrific Books, Horrific fiction, Horrific moviesLeave a comment

In honor of Stephen King’s birth month, My Horrific Life will be covering our favorite (and not-so-favorite) Stephen King books and film adaptations.

Like many of our readers, I’m excited for the new film adaptation of IT, because it’s possibly my favorite King novel (in a close tie with The Shining). I revisit the novel every couple years, and I’m hoping IT finally gets the film adaptation it deserves. My massage therapist John summed it up by saying, “maybe now people can stop talking about the TV miniseries, which was AWFUL. The people who like it liked it when they were eight years old. What eight-year-old has good taste in ANYTHING?” Although Tim Curry gave a great performance as Pennywise, I have to agree with John. The other things I noticed is that people who love the miniseries have never read the book. The novel was simply too gruesome and too…adult to be adapted as a 1990s television special. Those of you who have read the novel are probably also wondering if the 2017 film adaptation will include THAT scene. You know, the one in which Beverly did not give the boys a chaste kiss on the cheek, as she did in the TV miniseries?

While I can live without the pre-teen gang-bang scene, I really hope this version includes the inter-dimensional battle between It and the young people, properly explain what the “deadlights” are, and, of course, include the gorier and more lascivious scares that made the novel so effective.

On our podcast, we will be welcoming back Justin Beahm for a roundtable discussion about Stephen King’s works and adaptations. Though not related to King’s work, I am very pleased to announce that we will be interviewing Michael Kehoe, director of The Hatred, starring our recent podcast guests Andrew Divoff and David Naughton. The Hatred  is scheduled for a release on blu/DVD on September 12.

From the archive: In the Mouth of Madness (part 3): "You are what I write"

On By Erica L. WrightIn Horrific moviesLeave a comment
The Black Church is the gateway for humanity’s destruction.

In this final post on John Carpenter’s In the Mouth of Madness, I’m going to explore the film’s take on religion in general and Christianity in particular. I’m a bit surprised that the film has not drawn fire from Christian media watchdogs. Perhaps the film flew under the radar of most Christian viewers, but my Christian friends who have watched it don’t seem to regard it as particularly offensive.

In the Mouth of Madness makes a number of overt claims that would be regarded as heretical. In the church confessional booth scene, horror author turned deity Sutter Cane informs protagonist John Trent, ” Do you want to know the problem with places like this? With religion in general? It’s never known how to convey the anatomy of horror. Religion seeks discipline through fear, yet doesn’t understand the true nature of creation. No one’s ever believed it enough to make it real. The same cannot be said of my work.” He goes onto explain that his books have been translated into 18 languages and have sold over a billion copies. “More people believe in my work than believe in the Bible… It’ll make the world ready for the change. It takes its power from new readers and new believers. That’s the point. Belief! When people begin to lose their ability to know the difference between fantasy and reality the Old Ones can begin their journey back. The more people who believe, the faster the journey.” Later, Cane informs Trent, “I’m God now.”

Popular horror author and deity Sutter Cane

The idea that belief create reality is a subversive one, especially if that means that people create gods and not the other way around. It calls to mind occult theories of tulpas and thoughtforms.

What’s potentially more inflammatory than the overt text is the subtext. It became apparent to me–after many viewings–that In the Mouth of Madness is actually about Calvinism. And it presents one of the best arguments against Calvinism, at least if one has any investment in the belief in free will and in God’s inherent goodness.

For those unfamiliar with the term, it was named for the 1500’s theologian John Calvin, whose ideas were branded heretical by the Catholic Church. Calvin’s ideas still hold some weight among some Protestant denominations, though are hesitant to embrace all of its tenants. (Hence, you hear people describe themselves as four-point Calvinists as opposed to five-point Calvinists.) The big issue with Calvinism is that it opens a big can o’ worms regarding the nature of evil and whether God is good. Other forms of Christianity address these issues by stating that God is absolutely good, but evil exists because God allows his creations to have free will. Free will may be limited, because all people are born into sin and are incapable of absolute holiness, but people still have a great deal of freedom to make choices. In this model of Christianity, humans also have the free will to reject or accept the salvation offered by Jesus Christ. Therefore, God does not damn anyone to hell. Rather, some people elect to be sent there. It’s a decent explanation for why the world is so awful without besmirching God’s goodness.

In contrast, Calvinism posits that all of humanity is absolutely depraved and have no free will to avoid sinning, nor to freely accept or reject salvation. Instead, God “predestines” some for salvation and others for eternal damnation. (This is not the same as an all-knowing God knowing the outcome of every human choice before it happens.) Adherents who fail to see the nightmarishness of this have simply not followed the logic through to its natural conclusion. A belief in zero free will and in predestination cuts to the heart of any argument in God’s inherent goodness and justness. After all, how just and righteous is it to eternally damn a large segment of one’s own creation when they never had a choice to do wrong in the first place, nor the choice to reject an offer of salvation?  It seems that such a God would be damning people for the lulz, or as Calvinists would prefer to say, “for the good pleasure of His will.”

Trent takes a deeper look into the Word of God.

Trent protests, “God’s not a hack horror writer.” But a purely Calvinistic God surely would be. How else could one explain the entirety of human history, which reads like a long list of atrocities? Such an account only fits in the horror genre, and is nastier than anything conceived by even the most extreme writers. God would be an like an author who develops characters and scripts their every action in advance, writing out their ultimate ends in His infallible Word. His creations can consult his Word to see how it all turns out, but have no free will to exercise in the outcome. This is exactly what happens in In the Mouth of Madness, in which Cane, the Creator, does all of this with the added sadism of giving his creations consciousness and allowing them to labor under the illusion that they are real people who have a will of their own. Which is, I guess, also the same sadism present in Calvinism and other versions of theological determinism.

Continuing the analogy of Sutter Cane as God, John Trent could be read as a perverse and inverted version of Christ, “the Word made Flesh.” This is where In the Mouth of Madness departs from Calvinism or any other form of Christianity, because Trent doesn’t deliver salvation to anyone. Rather, he is the unwitting and unwilling carrier of Cane’s “new Bible,” which will doom the entire human race. And for the people who don’t read, there’s a movie version.

Christian iconography abounds in “In the Mouth of Madness,” and Trent’s adornment with crosses signifies his role in Cane’s “new Bible.”

Of course, not everyone takes offense at the notion of a sadistic puppeteer god who pulls the strings of creations who falsely believe they have a self, as we’ll see in my review of Thomas Ligotti’s Conspiracy Against the Human Race.

 

From the archive: In the Mouth of Madness (part 2): "The sooner we're off the planet, the better"

On By Erica L. WrightIn Horrific moviesLeave a comment

In our last post, I discussed the various literary influences apparent in In the Mouth of Madness.  Today, I’m delving a bit deeper into some of the tropes and philosophies that informed Lovecraft’s work, and this film in turn.

In the Mouth of Madness opens with John Trent being admitted to an insane asylum, where he recounts his story to an investigator (David Warren). One of the most common tropes in Lovecraft’s work is the notion that some truths are so terrible as to cause the knower to go insane. Consider this noteworthy opening quote from “The Call of Cthulhu”: “The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the deadly light into the peace and safety of a new dark age.” In some Lovecraft stories, acquiring forbidden knowledge not only causes insanity, but forces bodily mutations upon the victim. This is apparently a trope within Sutter Cane’s fiction and also happens to unfortunate readers  of his newest novel, In the Mouth of Madness. In some respects, these mutations are reminiscent of transformation scenes in John Carpenter’s earlier film The Thing.

An ominous painting foretells the fate of residents of Hobb’s End

Misanthropy was rampant in Lovecraft’s fiction. In a letter to Edwin Baird, editor of Weird Tales, Lovecraft wrote of a young writer who wished to pen a story of a mad scientist who strives to conquer the world by unleashing a plague. To Lovecraft, this vision unoriginal and simply did not go far enough. “Good and evil, teleological illusion, sugary sentiment, anthropocentric psychology–the usual stock in trade, and all shot through with the eternal and inescapable commonplace…Who ever wrote a story from the point of view that man is a blemish on the cosmos, who ought to be eradicated?…I told my friend, he should conceive of a man with a morbid, frantic, shuddering hatred of the life-principle itself, who wishes to extirpate from the planet every trace of biological organism, animal and vegetable alike, including himself…Only a cynic can create horror–for behind every masterpiece of the sort must reside a demonic force that despises the human race and its illusions, longs to pull them to pieces and mock them” (Quoted in Thomas Ligotti’s The Conspiracy against the Human Race: A Contrivance of Horror) .This attitude is rampant in Sutter Cane’s work, and John Trent offers a similar opinion at one point when he tells Linda Styles, “The sooner we’re off the planter, the better.” However, Trent is ultimately unable to maintain that stance–or perhaps it was mere posturing all along–because he tries desperately to save humanity in the film’s final act.

“I think, therefore you are.”

The last and perhaps most important Lovecraftian trope is identity-based horror. (And here I spoil the best scene in in the movie.) In “Through the Gates of the Silver Key,” Lovecraft writes, “No death, no doom, no anguish can arouse the surpassing despair which flows from a loss of identity.” Savvy viewers would know that John Trent is set up for such a fate, given his arrogance and frequent comments along the lines of “I’m my own man; nobody pulls my strings.” The revelation that he is not his own man and in fact has no free will is expected, but the specific nature of this revelation delivers a gut-punch arguably superior to similar twists penned by Lovecraft himself. In a confrontation with between Trent and Sutter Cane, Cane reveals, “This town didn’t exist before I wrote it, and neither did you…You are what I write!” Trent sputters and protests that he is not, in fact, a “piece of fiction,” Cane responds, “I think, therefore you are.” Trent is not even left with the solace of having once been human. He simply never was what he believed himself to be, and technically, was never real.

I will further discuss the notion human existence as puppet existence in our final post on In the Mouth of Madness and its religious implications, and in my review of Thomas Ligotti’s The Conspiracy Against the Human Race.

From the archive: In the Mouth of Madness: “Reality is not what it used to be” (part 1)

On By Erica L. WrightIn Horrific moviesLeave a comment
 

Today we discuss In the Mouth of Madness, John Carpenter’s final entry in his so-called apocalypse trilogy. It’s also my favorite of the three films. It has layers of complexity that allow for multiple viewings. As a result, I decided to break up my commentary for this film over multiple entries. Be advised that I will be spoiling every major plot point and trope in this film. But, I will be discussing aspects of the film that aren’t generally known or discussed.

In the Mouth of Madness is a 1990s meta-horror film about an insurance fraud investigator John Trent (Sam Neill) who is hired by a major publishing house to find missing author Sutter Cane, and deliver his newest manuscript, In the Mouth of Madness, for publication. It’s a big deal because Cane outsells all others.

With a name like Sutter Cane, it may seem that he is based on Stephen King. However, it’s quickly apparent that he is actually modeled primarily on H.P. Lovecraft. As you can see from the covers below, and others glimpsed in the film, the titles are derivative of Lovecraft titles, including “At the Mountains of Madness,” “The Thing on the Doorstep,” “The Whisperer in the Darkness,” “The Color out of Space,” and “The Shadow Out of Time.”

Excerpts of Cane’s writing are distinctly Lovecraftian: “Trent stood at the edge of the rip, stared into the illimitable gulf of the unknown, the Stygian world yawning blackly beyond. Trent’s eyes refused to close, he did not shriek, but the hideous unholy abominations shrieked for him, as in the same second he saw them spill and tumble upward out of an enormous carrion black pit, choked with the gleaming white bones of countless unhallowed centuries. He began to back away from the rip as the army of unspeakable figures, twilit by the glow from the bottomless pit, came pouring at him towards our world…”

That said, many viewers may not recognize that this film borrows concepts from a ’90’s meta-horror short story collection…An 1890’s meta-horror story collection, that is. Robert W. Chambers’ The King in Yellow was published in 1895 and influenced Lovecraft’s own mythos. The King in Yellow is a collection of interconnected short stories about a book called The King in Yellowwhich is a best-seller that spreads “like an infectious disease.” Consider the excerpt below from “The Repairer of Reputations”:

“When the French government seized the translated copies which had just arrived in Paris, London, of course, became eager to read it. It is well known how the book spread like an infectious disease, from city to city, from continent to continent, barred out here, confiscated there, denounced by press and pulpit, censured even by the most advanced of literary anarchists. No definite principles had been violated in those wicked pages, no doctrine promulgated, no convictions outraged. It could not be judged by any known standard, yet, although it was acknowledged that the supreme note of art had been struck in The King in Yellow, all felt that human nature could not bear the strain nor thrive on words in which the essence of purest poison lurked. The very banality and innocence of the first act only allowed the blow to fall afterwards with more awful effect.”

As with In the Mouth of Madness, characters who read The King in Yellow go insane, become convinced they are characters in the book, and meet a variety of nasty ends. One of the characters in The King in Yellow is even named J. Trent. Adding an additional layer of complexity, The King in Yellow borrows concepts and characters from Can Such Things Be? by Ambrose Bierce.

When watching this film, there are a few ways to interpret it. One is that the book is a type of mind-virus, and everyone who believes it becomes convinced that they are characters in the book. Another is that Sutter Cane has indeed been promoted to a god-role and can write reality as he wishes. Or as Cane’s editor Linda Styles states, “What scares me about Cane’s work is what might happen if reality shared his point of view…Reality is just what we tell each other it is. Sane and insane could easily switch places if the insane were to become a majority. You would find yourself locked in a padded cell, wondering what happened to the world.”

In the next posts, I’ll discuss the film’s relationship to other Lovecraft tropes and its religious implications.

Wes Craven's New Nightmare

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Wes Craven’s New Nightmare was the first meta-horror I had ever seen. My young self found the concept mind-warping. Instead of being a sequel or even a remake, the film had the main actors from the original film, along with New Line Cinema executive/producer Bob Shaye, and Wes Craven all portraying themselves. This movie acknowledged that all of the preceding films in the franchise were fiction, but that somehow Freddy Krueger is now real and is terrorizing his creators. An especially mind-bending moment occurred when Heather Langenkamp meets with Craven to discuss his new film script. At the and of the conversation, a close up of his computer screen reveals that their entire conversation was already part of the script.

Craven’s script is revealed to include the scene we just watched.

I still like this core concept very much, even though it turns out that Lucio Fulci had done something very similar years earlier with Cat In The Brain. There are other good things about New Nightmare. Freddy has a new look and is no longer cracking bad jokes with each kill–something that Craven despised about the other sequels.

Robert Englund appears in full Freddy makeup to please his adoring fans in New Nightmare.

However, in some respects, this movie hasn’t aged well for me. There are many aspects I view very differently now, and maybe adulthood has poisoned my perceptions. I now find the acting cringe-inducing in some scenes. And to some extent, I find the characters less sympathetic, which is especially weird since most of the people involved played themselves. I wonder if Craven made a deliberate decision to troll his own industry by portraying filmmakers as a bit bitchy, superficial, and flakey. Am I projecting my own experiences on to these characters? Most of the filmmakers I know are decent people, but I’ve met all types at this point. Then again, Craven took those stereotypes to an extreme in Scream 3, in which filmmakers were not only overly bitchy, superficial, and flakey, but rapists and murderers to boot. Many of the non-filmmaker/actor characters in New Nightmare were downright awful and creepy, especially the medical personnel who are ostensibly concerned for the welfare of Langenkamp’s son.

Freddy pierces the veil between fiction and reality.

Some aspects of the film are just odd in retrospect because societal attitudes have changed. While rewatching it, I had to remind myself of the stigma horror films carried in the 1990s. As bizarre as it seems now to watch a scene in which a doctor threatens to have child protective services take Langenkamp’s son away because mayyyybe he was exposed to horror films, there was a lot of hand-wringing on the part of so-called “experts” along these lines. As someone who openly liked the horror genre, I felt stigmatized back then too. On one occasion, a virtual stranger scolded me (during a Bible study of all things) that people like me were responsible for the Columbine massacre. Of course, Craven returned to the issue of movies influencing real-life violence in the Scream franchise , but I never hear that issue discussed these days. Thankfully. If there is a moral to this film, it’s the idea that the the act of telling stories can keep real monsters at bay.

Despite my issues with the film, I appreciate the fact that Craven was one of very few directors of that decade who took his subject matter seriously. 

UPDATED: Andrew Divoff debuts new beer, raises funds for MFTAC

On By Erica L. WrightIn Horrific HobbiesLeave a comment
Andrew shows off his certificate of appreciation at the 8th Annual Lake Arrowhead Brewfest.

Once again, Wishmaster star Andrew Divoff poured his Djinn’s Hellabrew (read about last year’s pour here), and debuted a new beer, MYSTIC, which is a stout subtly flavored with Caribbean spices.

In the video below, Andrew and other brewers receive awards and special recognition for their participation in the Brewfest. Andrew also talks about his charity fundraiser, the Mountain Film and Theater Arts Committee, which provides scholarships to individuals who wish to pursue a career in the performing arts. Andrew’s work for charity over the years has been inspiring, with 100% of the proceeds from his beer and event merchandise supporting non-profits such as Smile Train and Operation Provider. We are happy to announce that Andrew met his fundraising goal for MFTAC this year!

From the archive: Targets

On By Erica L. WrightIn Horrific Books, Horrific movies, Scary ScholarshipLeave a comment

targetsposter

For this last day of November, it seems fitting to wrap up Boris Karloff Month by discussing Karloff’s last great film, Targets (1968), directed by Peter Bogdanovich.

Targets follows the story of two very different characters whose lives intersect by chance. The hero is Byron Orlok, portrayed by Karloff and clearly based on Karloff’s real-life persona. Orlok is an elderly horror star who is on the verge of retirement because he feels his brand of gothic horror is outdated, being replaced by the all-too-real horror of serial killers and mass murderers.

karloff-targets

The other is Bobby Thompson, a young Vietnam veteran who superficially appears to be a clean-cut, productive suburban citizen (portrayed by Tim O’Kelly). Modeled after real-life University of Texas sniper Charles Whitman, Thompson buys several guns and large quantities of ammunition, murders his wife and mother, and then kills several strangers in sniper attacks. Thompson’s final shooting spree takes place at a drive-in theater where Byron Orlok is scheduled to give a final public appearance before retiring from acting.

targets-titlecard-388x220

The final confrontation between Orlok and Thompson is satisfying on a number of levels (beware of spoilers in this paragraph), beyond the simple enjoyment of seeing Karloff bitch-slap the young villain until he’s reduced to sniveling in fetal position. An optical illusion in which Thompson cannot differentiate between the two-dimensional screen image of Orlok and the real man advancing to disarm him may symbolize Thompson’s inability to differentiate his own twisted fantasies from reality. Orlok’s triumph may also signify that fictional horrors can serve as a protective factor against real-life horrors by exposing them for what they are. Having subdued Thompson, Orlok muses, “Is this what I was afraid of?”

While we can gain some insight into Charles Whitman’s motives through his journals, Thompson is a frustrating character because his motives are never explained. However, the contrast between Orlok and Thompson can also be examined in light of psychological theories of the time. In The Mask of Sanity: An Attempt to Clarify Some Issues about the So-Called Psychopathic Personality (1941) and its subsequent editions, Harvey M. Checkley argues that whereas many openly neurotic people are deeply good and loving at their core, psychopaths cause tremendous harm because they are able to effectively fit into societal norms. This argument perfectly parallels these characters. Orlok has made a career by nurturing the appearance of evil, albeit on a superficial level. In his personal life, he’s plagued by insecurity. Yet, at his core, he’s a kind and heroic person. In contrast, Thompson has only the appearance of goodness, trustworthiness, and normalcy masking terrifying schemes of destruction.

targets-1968-villain
The young villain and his sterile surroundings.

Erich Fromm’s theory of the necrophilous personality, first introduced in The Heart of Man: its Genius for Good and Evil (1964) and further detailed later in The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness , is also pertinent in explaining Thompson’s character. Fromm’s definition of necrophilia is not simply a sexual attraction to corpses, but an attraction to death and destruction for their own sake. Some of the features of character-rooted necrophilia include authoritarianism, the desire to tear apart living things, and fascination with all things mechanical (in this film evidenced by Thompson’s fetishization of guns). As with his inability to differentiate the two-dimensional screen image of Orlok with the man himself, it seems that Thompson doesn’t view his victims as real, or at least not as human. At one point he tells the gun store clerk that he’s going to “hunt some pigs.” Thompson’s use of firearms to dispatch his victims is cold, distant, clinical, and impersonal. This is visually represented by the icy hues and sterile surroundings in Thompson’s scenes. In contrast,  Orlok fits within Fromm’s description of the biophilous (life-loving) personality, reflected by the warm, earthy hues in his scenes. Orlok’s home is a bit more ornate, messy, and flawed…as he is. Extrapolate Orlok’s characteristics to the genre he represents, and again, there is an indication that the horror genre is on the side of life.

Review: How to Make a Monster (1958)

On By Erica L. WrightIn Horrific moviesLeave a comment

While many people credit Wes Craven with inventing the meta-horror film, it’s been around for quite some time. In some cases, the meta elements of early films were cut or rewritten, likely because they were too confusing. For example, the original ending of The Black Cat (1934) depicted the “final couple” meeting the film’s director, who tells them he spent the last week filming  (As described by Jon Towlson in his excellent book, The Turn to Gruesomeness in American Horror Films, 1931-1936.)

In 1958, American International Pictures decided to satirize its own image and reputation. AIP had attempted to put its own unique spin on Universal-style monsters by making them into teenage monsters. It’s debatable as to how successful it was. How to Make a Monster was certainly the best of this cycle, precisely because of its penchant for self-mockery.

The villain is Pete Drummond, an FX makeup artist who will soon be fired because studio executives have decided that teen monster movies are waning in popularity and are a black mark on the reputation of the studio. Instead, they want to be known for rock and roll musicals.

So Drummond decides to teach the studio executives a lesson in fear. With the help of a mind control drug and a lot of bullshit philosophizing, Drummond uses his FX skills to transform two teenage actors into teen monsters and have them kill the studio head and others who threaten his livelihood. In an especially nice meta touch, Gary Conway, the actor from I Was a Teenage Frankenstein, portrays the young man whom Drummond transforms into the teenage Frankenstein monster. After the mind control drug wears off, the young men have no recollection that they committed murder.

in the final scenes, the film shifts from black-and-white to full color, as Drummond invites the teen actors into his private shrine where he introduces them to his “children,” the wax busts of movie monsters used in previous AIP films. At this point we find out that Drummond doesn’t view these horror films as a mere means to a paycheck, but as an actual religion.

The films is available for purchase as the double feature,  How to Make a Monster/Blood of Dracula, but is also currently available to watch on Youtube.

The King In Yellow and other meta origins

On By Erica L. WrightIn Horrific Books, Horrific fictionLeave a comment
Image from tvtropes.org

Metafiction is nothing new. Some scholars argue that even ancient texts such as The Odyssey have meta elements. I noticed meta elements in other classic works such as Tom Jones and Tristam Shandy.

In what will be the first and probably last time I mention Jane Austen in this blog, it should be noted that her first novel, Northanger Abbey, was a metafiction satire of horror’s ancestor, the gothic novel. Within the first page, Austen tells us that the protagonist, Catherine, is a fictional character, and that she is determined to be the heroine of her own gothic fiction story. Catherine spends her free time reading books such as Ann Radcliffe’s The Mysteries of Udolpho, and all of her decisions are made through the lens of genre convention.

I’m always discovering new things, so there may be other precedents in horror fiction proper, but the first metafiction horror novel I discovered was The King in Yellow. Prompted by reference to the book in Lovecraft’s essay Supernatural Horror in Literature, I hunted down a pricey copy in the 1990’s, and it was quite a challenge. Now, The King in Yellow is readily available in both print and ebook editions, and has inspired tribute anthologies such as A Season in Carcosa. Perhaps you can thank the popularity of True Detective for bringing it into more mainstream popularity.

Robert W. Chambers’ The King in Yellow was published in 1895 and borrowed concepts from Ambrose Bierce’s Can Such Things Be?: An Inhabitant of Carcosa & Other Stories. In turn, it influenced Lovecraft’s own mythos and films such as John Carpenter’s In the Mouth of Madness. The King in Yellow is a collection of interconnected short stories about a book called The King in Yellow which is a best-seller that spreads “like an infectious disease” across Europe. People who read the book go insane, believe that they are characters within the book, and in some cases are driven to acts of extreme violence. Although the final stories in the collection lose their way, the first few are effective and disturbing, making this a worthwhile read for fans of horror and weird fiction.