DARK SHADOWS, EPISODE 462 (1968)

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *good*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *drama*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTIONS: *metaphysical, psychological*



Since I've just stated in this essay that it's problematic to review single episodes of the sixties series DARK SHADOWS, here I'll deal with the events of this episode as if they comprised a vignette, a narrative that barely has a middle, only a setup and a (sort of) resolution.

Most single episodes imply the mythic content of the show more than actually incarnating it. For instance, a few episodes previous, DARK SHADOWS spent about four months sending Victoria Winters back to 1795 (the same era in which Gothic novels became super-popular, by the way), where she encountered 18th-century versions of the Collins family. This is a fun long arc, but I wouldn't call it mythic, even though it does introduce the extremely important series-character Angelique.

In episode 461, Victoria returns to her 1968 milieu (I'll pass over the complications of her mode of time-travel). Confused as she is by the transition, Victoria can't completely distinguish between the 1795 Barnabas and the 1968 Barnabas, given that despite her temporal trip she never learns that the two are the same. But one of the young governess' first lines is her reflection that "I wanted to live in the past," which refers to her frequently seen tendency to enjoy the Old World culture of early America, the culture from which the Collins family sprang. For the months predating the time-travel storyline, Barnabas was planning to make Victoria his vampire bride, also for reasons of auld lang syne: because he thinks she's the reincarnation of his lost love Josette.

What's interesting about this vignette is that as a result of Victoria's trip to the past, she's fallen in love with a man who lived in 1795-- but it's not the Barnabas of any era. Instead of the middle-aged vampire, she's fallen for a young man her own age-- or, at least, someone who was Victoria's 1968 age back in 1795. When the governess returns to her own time and place, she's suddenly in the same position as Barnabas: being romantically enthralled to someone long dead. Later episodes give Victoria an "out"  that Barnabas is denied, simply because the actress left the show and so the Victoria character-arc had to be wrapped up as well as possible.

This vignette, far more than the actual four-month long arc, manages to capture the psychological appeal of being in thrall to the vanished past. Barnabas later tells his confidante Julia that "the past is constantly being re-lived"-- which may be an instance of the show's writers justifying their penchant for revisiting and revamping past story-continuity. Even Julia herself gets a hair-makeover to make herself "feel all new," and chastises herself for having indulged in the fantasy of escaping her troubled past.

The most overtly dramatic thing in the episode is that Victoria, despite being physically free of 1795, finds herself dreaming of a spectre from that era--one whom the viewers of the show witnessed, but whom Victoria never actually saw. She knew the living form of Jeremiah Collins, the young-looking uncle of 1795 Barnabas, but I don't believe she ever saw his ghost. Nevertheless, Jeremiah, who was slain in a duel with Barnabas, appears in Victoria's dream to warn her about Barnabas, though he somehow omits to tell her what she most needs to know: that modern Barnabas is a vicious vampire.

The strangest thing about the episode is that at the episode's conclusion, Barnabas finally does (apparently) fang Victoria for the first time, though the action is off-camera. This looks like the triumph of Old Death over Youth and Life-- except that by the time Episode 463 starts, Victoria not only doesn't act like a typical vampiric slave, she's still obsessed with the young man she met in 1795.
So the writers clearly decided to let Barnabas have his way, only to block him through the heroine's devotion to True Love. Indeed, early in the episode Julia tells Victoria that "death does not stop love," and thus, despite the problematic conclusion of the vignette, this single episode foreshadows the eventual resolution of the Victoria Winters plotline, in which her love does preserve her from the dominion of death, at least in the form of one 200-year-old vampire.

ADDENDUM: Since I already went outside the original episode being reviewed, I may as well add that in subsequent episodes Victoria falls under Barnabas' control somewhat more-- yet this too is a prelude to a development that will eventually lead to her escape from her aged suitor.

HOSPITAL MASSACRE (1981)

PHENOMENALITY: *uncanny*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *drama*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTIONS: *psychological*


Apparently HOSPITAL MASSACRE was the original title of this early eighties slasher, though I confess that alternate title X-RAY is more evocative, if only because it suggests the extremity of exposure suffered by heroine Susan (Barbi Benton, the only "name" actor in the cast).

There's not much question that director/co-writer Boaz Davidson-- who'd mostly directed comedies prior to MASSACRE-- was strongly emulating the "hot" slashers of that period. The opening scenes are clearly modeled upon those of HALLOWEEN, in which a pint-sized psycho commits a heinous murder, which then lays the groundwork for his fully grown self to continue his slaughter-play. Whereas Little Michael Myers murders his own older sister, Little Harold of MASSACRE sticks within his own age-group. He pens a love-note to fellow grade-schooler Susan, and then watches in dismay as she tells her equally young brother about the note and they both laugh at Harold's presumption. Harold then kills Susan's brother, but Davidson stages the scene in such an awkward manner than it seems silly rather than tragic. Davidson also doesn't bother to say what happened to Harold once Susan, an indirect witness to the crime, blew the whistle on him. Nor do we have any inklings as to why, when Harold does come after Susan when both are adults, he chooses to do so in a hospital.

As an adult Susan (Benton) displays a little of the same bitchiness she evinced as a kid, verbally reaming her ex-husband when he tries to get her to let him have custody of their daughter for a weekend. Susan can't be bothered, as she has to get a routine medical checkup for her place of employment, though this scene does set up the ex-husband to be one of Susan's allies later on. But for the time being, Susan leaves the guy in the dirt and goes into the hospital.

For about twenty minutes, Davidson makes the multi-story place of healing seem as menacing as a decayed old manor. Harold, disguised as a doctor, starts messing with Susan's records so as to get Susan confined for reason of extreme illness, but even before that, Davidson's hospital seems full of menacing images: masked exterminators fumigating a whole floor, cackling old patients, stolid nurses and obtuse doctors. For those twenty minutes, Susan seems to be in a real hospital. However, once Harold starts killing anyone who gets in his way, the hospital devolves into just another big set where most of the rooms are conveniently empty and no one hears any screams. Harold's murders are certainly more imaginative than many other slashers of the time, though not much gore is seen. Still, there's nothing here that would make Dario Argento look to his laurels.

Worth a look just for a few scenes, but don't expect much.

SOMEONE IS WATCHING (2000)

PHENOMENALITY: *uncanny // marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *drama*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTIONS: *psychological*


SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS


This is another of those movies where I have to give away plot points to explain the film's phenomenal nature.

This made-for-TV flick opens on some fragmented scenes from a woman's murder many years earlier, Then widow Michelle (Stefanie Powers, not looking her almost-sixty years in the least) moves into her new home with her grade-schooler son Cory, not knowing that it's a murder house. Michelle gets some moving-help from Charles, a former boyfriend who still wants to get with her, but Michelle turns him down flat. Shortly after moving, Michelle catches a stranger playing Peeping Tom at her window. She finds that it's a 30-something geeky fellow, Bobby, who occupies the neighboring house with his elderly father. The father pleads with Michelle not to call the cops, and Michelle agrees as long as Bobby stays clear in future.

Nevertheless, odd things keep happening around the new house, and Cory starts talking to "BJ," an unseen figure in his closet whom Michelle deems an imaginary friend. Michelle's nutty neighbor Sally (Margot Kidder) sees some weird things while babysitting Cory, and gets concerned enough that she calls in a lady psychic to investigate. The psychic is the sole source of all marvelous content in the film, for though she doesn't explicitly say whether or not the place is haunted, her visions prove to be useful to Michelle in ferreting out the truth.

Though director Douglas Jackson keeps a spooky vibe going for a good portion of the film, it's eventually revealed that the "haunter" is none other than Bobby, whom by that time Michelle believes to be dead by suicide. It seems the neighboring houses are linked by a common corridor, and that's the way Bobby has infiltrated Michelle's home and convinced Cory of his status as an imaginary friend. (I'll parenthetically note that while the woods are full of movies where someone pretends to be a ghost, I'm not aware of any involving a magical friend-imposture.) In addition, years ago Bobby both raped and murdered the previous occupant of the house, and let her husband do time for the crime.

Unlike many TV-movie psychos, Bobby is creepy enough to follow in the footsteps of Norman Bates-- whom he resembles in part thanks to the peeping incident-- though Bobby's psychology is not as well delineated. There's no description of Bobby's past history aside from his murder of his earlier neighbor, but by the time he starts stalking Michelle, he's got some idea that he can become the new father-figure to Cory and husband to Michelle. Since the character of Michelle isn't being played to be Stefanie Powers' real age, it's implied-- if only because of her kid's age-- that she's not significantly older than Bobby, or, for that matter, old boyfriend Charles or new cop-boyfriend Joe. So there's not an overt mother-complex in WATCHING, though Bobby's habit of murdering neighbor-women still seems like a PSYCHO swipe.

STAR SLAMMER (1986)

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *comedy*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTIONS: *sociological*


My main reason for writing about this outer space WIP flick is to continue asking the unmusical question, "how goofy does a film have to get, before it becomes a de facto comedy?"

The entire "so bad it's good" meme arises from the perception that many flicks, even if their creators crafted them with thoroughly serious intent, are inadvertently funny because of incompetent handling, silly ideas, and the like. In some though not all of my reviews, I tend to privilege intent over results. For example, even though it was a really dopey idea for some Italian producer to put non-actor Neil Connery in the role of a superspy for OPERATION KID BROTHER, the basic intent of the production still seemed to carry the vibe of "adventure."

Most films directed by Fred Olen Ray are full of similarly  cheesy concepts, not to mention tons of cheesecake. Yet, I still rated a goofball flick like DINOSAUR ISLAND as "adventure" as well, despite its conflation of Cretaceous critters and a cult of hot Amazons. STAR SLAMMER, though, seems to be sending up both of the subgenres it fuses, both that of space opera and the WIP film. The opening scene starts on some alien planet, accompanied by very wonky music, as a curious old fellow named "Zog" comes into contact with Taura, the movie's heroine. Before knowing that Zog's a friendly, Taura addresses the staff-wielding old fellow with a line worthy of THE BIG DOLL HOUSE:

"One more step and your rod's history-- I mean, your staff."

In no time at all, Taura butts heads with Bantor, an enforcer of the local planetary tyranny, and their conflict costs Bantor one of his hands. He gets Taura condemned to a prison ship for women, the "Star Slammer" of the title, where the heroine is menaced by her fellow cons, by a warden in a sadomasochistic outfit, and eventually, by the aggrieved Bantor, who eventually decides to take direct revenge on Taura.

Some reviews have said that STAR SLAMMER is slow, but compared to a lot of Ray works, this one has a fair amount of visual liveliness, even if one never forgets what a cheap production it is. The female prisoners are all impossibly glamorous and the flick, while hardly a satire, keeps using over-the-top lines like "there are demons all around us, and they take the form of women!" I particularly found comical the character of "the rat," an inmate named Squeaker, who constantly complains that the others beat her up all the time-- which, of course, inspires them to beat her up some more.

BATES MOTEL, SEASONS 1-5 (2013-17)

PHENOMENALITY: *naturalistic*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *irony*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTIONS: *psychological, sociological*

I know you think I'm a monster, and I do believe there are people in this world who are fighting for good. But honey, there is no good. There's just life, which is hard and cruel and undeserving of your kind soul. I know you tried, I know you did. You tried so hard for such a long time. Honey, you are in a big pickle, Norman, you are. I'm not mad at you, but I can't let you do any more damage. It's time for me to fix this.

The above lines, from one of the last episodes of season five, are spoken not by Norman Bates' actual mother, whom he's killed by that season, but the Norma in Norman's head (though still played by Vera Farmiga). While the writing of BATES MOTEL isn't as sharp as the best of the PSYCHO films, these lines cause me to alter my verdict on the literary mythos which best exemplifies the series. In this review, I opined that the first season of BATES seemed more in line with the mythos of the drama than that of the irony, which I had applied to the classic 1960 movie. However, even though the series, as conceived by producers Carlton Cuse and two others, suffers from some rather blah side-plots, both producers and writers make a sincere effort to exemplify the original view of both the Hitchcock work and the book it was based on: that life is fundamentally warped and devoid of real "goodness."

I didn't care for most of the side-characters introduced to flesh out the suggested background of Norman and his mother in the Bloch book and its adaptation. Still, the episodes, even those relating to a tiresome drug-running operation in Norman's city, were never less than diverting. Still, there's never any doubt that Norman and Norma are the real stars of the story, with Norma proving a character substantial enough to stand alongside her psychotic son. In all previous iterations-- even PSYCHO IV, which provided the longest such flashback prior to the TV-show-- it's always been Norman alone who was the star. Norma Bates was for the most part just the excuse for Norman's mother-fixation and for his murderous rampage against women who tempted the young madman.

Though I changed my opinion on the mythos of BATES MOTEL, nothing in the other four seasons has altered my verdict that Norman's "perilous psycho" is entirely naturalistic in nature. There's never any sense that his "disassociative identity disorder" (as his lawyer terms it) has any special mystery to it, so the vibe of the uncanny never manifests. I should note that whereas in early seasons Cuse and his cohorts simply stretched the boundaries of the original scenario to allow for new characters-- not least a new half-brother for Norman, and a new take on the incestuous leanings of the Bates family-- the final season substantially rewrites the history of the original 1960 film. It's not an amazingly fresh take on the subject matter, but it's certainly makes better fare than Gus Van Sant's tedious shot-for-shot remake of Hitchcock's classic.

THE BLACK CAULDRON (1985)

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTIONS: *metaphysical, psychological*


I had read one of Lloyd Alexander's "Prydain" fantasy-novels prior to seeing Disney's THE BLACK CAULDRON in its 1985 release. Even based on that one book, I thought CAULDRON was a terrible betrayal of the Alexander universe, even granting that his juvenile fantasies weren't on a par with the best in the genre. Upon getting a chance to look at the DVD release of CAULDRON, I hoped that time might prove more forgiving.

Nope. The movie, mostly derived from the first two books in the Prydain series, faithfully follows a number of the plot-threads of the narrative. Yet the story is still undermined by the screenwriters-- nine in all, including co-director Richard Rush-- and their utter inability to either (1) evoke the charm of Alexander's original characters, or (2) to come up with something equally interesting.

For decades, critics have caviled about the Disney animators' supposed tendency to ruin fairy-tales by reworking the stories to fit Disney's creative preferences. SLEEPING BEAUTY in particular has been attacked for injecting cutesy characters not present in any version of the original tale. Nevertheless, the 1959 film, in large part through its elaboration of evil fairy Maleficent, sustains its own vision of a Manichean struggle between light and dark, between cuteness and gruesome grimness.

CAULDRON's narrative certainly has that potential as well. Everyman hero Taran, through his responsibility to care for Hen Wen, a pig with oraclar talents, wants to escape his humdrum farm-life and become a great warrior. But when the pig runs away, Taran has to give pursuit-- and in so doing, he's pulled into an adventure far more perilous than he's fantasized about. The Horned King, apparently a sorcerer who's very nearly a demigod, seeks to master the world by finding the enchanted Black Cauldron, which can change dead soldiers into a zombie army. The evil king wants to use Hen Wen's psychic skills to uncover the Cauldron's location, and Taran, in the process of trying to keep the pig out of the wizard's hands, gathers to himself a small ensemble of fellow travelers: a furry little savage named Gurgi, a somewhat befuddled bard with the extremely Welsh name of Fflewddur Flamm, and a princess/love-interest named Eilonwy. In the Prydain books, Taran and his three friends give Alexander's simple quest-tale more charm than the plot possesses by itself.

The biggest problem with Disney's take on these characters, though, is that the writers had no faith in the way the characters interacted in the books. The movie constantly seeks to shove moments of Disneyesque jollity down the throats of the audience, and generally cuts the things that made the characters interesting.

To be sure, Taran and Gurgi function in the movie roughly as they do in the books: one the bland everyman character, the other the silly, language-mangling comic relief. Still, the movie manages to rob them of any semblance of spontaneity; they just seem to go through the motions. Flewddur, though he's introduced with reference to his habit of bending the truth, quickly devolves into just another comic sidekick, and for some unknown reason he's made into a much older man, though this has no impact on the narrative. Worst of all, Princess Eilonwy-- who really sells the books with her tendency to dither like a scatterbrain, even though she's perhaps more resourceful than Taran-- is simply dumbed down into a "Disney princess" even more standardized than those of Classic Disney.

Other magical figures-- a race of diminutive fairies, a trio of grotty witches-- are also played for low comedy, and end up detracting from the potential enchantment of the quest. The only character who works is the Horned King, formidably visualized and given great voicework by John Hurt, but he's not on screen enough to have the "Maleficent effect." In the course of the quest, Taran more or less gets the chance to be a great hero when he acquires a magical blade, but though he fights off a few goblins with the sword, the script emphasizes a pseudo-Tolkeinian "renunciation trope." Granted, Taran isn't that dynamic a hero in the books, but this routine motif saps the main character of any real vigor, with the result that CAULDRON fails to rate as a combative film. There's also an ensemble-character who appears to die to complete the quest, but even in 1985, I knew he was going to be revived by some sorcery, in deference to young kids who might've been overly depressed by such a tragic ending.

THE THING FROM ANOTHER WORLD (1951)

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *good*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *drama*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTIONS: *cosmological, psychological, sociological*

Dr. Carrington: Knowledge is more important than life, Captain. We've only one excuse for existing - to think, to find out, to learn.

Given that most SF-films of the late forties were serials like THE PURPLE MONSTER STRIKES, it's rather stunning that the first two years of the 1950s showed Hollywood producers validating the genre with such exceptional works as DESTINATION MOON in 1950, and both THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL and THE THING in 1951.

Producer and maybe-part-time director Howard Hawks had never made a metaphenomenal film before since the beginnings of his career in the late 1920s. Not having read any in-depth treatments of the subject, I would guess that the project, which adapted a classic John W. Campbell Jr. novella, appealed to Hawks as a new venue for extolling one of his favorite themes: the admirability of the seasoned professional, this time not contending with the perils of the air or the sea, but with dangers "from another world."

The story initially centers on a group of Air Force officers in Alaska. Though Captain Hendry (Kenneth Tobey) is nominally in command, he's been made a figure of fun by his men for having been out-drunk by a female acquaintance, and left in embarrassing circumstances. Hendry takes the jibes like a good sport, establishing one aspect of his admirable nature. Then Hendry's aid is requested at a North Pole research installation by a respected scientist, Doctor Carrington. Hendry's somewhat ambivalent when he arrives and meets again with Nikki, the woman who embarrassed him, though it's clear they both still have some "heat" between them. Hendry then takes command of an expedition to unearth a strange foreign object that Carrington and his fellow scientists have detected buried in the Arctic ice: a bonafide flying saucer. The attempts of the Air Force to dislodge the UFO destroy it, but one alien passenger, "the Thing," survives to menace all of the inhabitants of the isolated outpost.

Given that THE THING is so well-known among SF-fans, I won't dwell on the specifics of the creature's campaign to conquer the Earthmen, save to point out the opposing attitudes of Hendry and Carrington. Hendry is willing to take the Thing prisoner for study if possible, but when the monster proves dangerous to his men, he's first and foremost concerned with ending the threat to his men. As the above quote shows in part, Carrington is not concerned with immediate survival but with somehow tapping into or even subordinating himself to the superior "knowledge" of the alien visitor. That said, one admirable aspect of the Charles Lederer script is that Carrington is never just a simplistic turncoat against his own kind. Though generally projecting an emotionless facade, the scientist's fanaticism is glossed by his having driven himself to mental exhaustion by his passion to learn the Thing's nature.

Indeed, though Hawks and his collaborators emphasize the primacy of the short-term view, that of survival for both the humans at the outpost and for the human race generally, THE THING is admirable in displaying the passion that all of the scientists feel for "the long-term view," discovering a new aspect of the universe. Even Carrington, who foolishly turns on his fellow humans in his passion for knowledge, is not utterly condemned by the script, given that he's spared the fate of many a mad scientist, being merely injured, not killed, by a rampaging monster.

Later versions of the story would emphasize the original novella's concept of the Thing as a shape-changing mimic. Yet there's a special charm to Hawks' "intellectual carrot." As unlikely as a human-form vegetable may seem, the Thing's humanoid form serves to make the idea of a plant-based alien species more persuasive than, say, an alien who really did look like an overgrown tuber (I'm thinking of Roger Corman's hilarious fiend from IT CONQUERED THE WORLD here).

The primary patterns here are cosmological and sociological, though a few critics have attempted to see the Thing as an "evil id" figure born from Hendry's consciousness, given that Hendry is a bit of a "male monster" to Nikki. However, Hendry never really seems out of control, and so if the Thing is anyone's evil id, he would seem to have been conjured from Carrington's unknown complexes.