A Discussion of Fear From Within the Mouth of Madness

In his essay An Introduction to the American Horror Film, film scholar Robin Wood argues that the horror genre is defined by the presence of a "monster". This does not have to be a literal monster, but it serves a specific role which he identifies as the central formula of horror films: “Reality is threatened by the monster”. Similarly, in his essay Why Horror? Noel Carroll raises the question of why viewers are attracted to a genre that by its very nature is meant to scare them. His solution to this “Paradox of Horror” is that the monster is an anomaly that challenges the viewer’s understanding of the world around them and arouses their curiosity. John Carpenter’s 1994 horror film In the Mouth of Madness plays on the ideas of both authors and brings them into question.

The most common form of the human monster is the mad scientist, as depicted by characters such as Elsa in Splice or Dr. Pretorius in The Bride of Frankenstein, as well as Dr. Victor Henry Frankenstein himself, to an extent. A similar idea is explored by In the Mouth of Madness, but with the mad scientist replaced by a mad artist. Through this choice, In the Mouth of Madness distorts and twists the ideas of Carroll and Wood. It forces the viewer to constantly question their ideas of what defines the monster, what can be considered an anomaly, what is normal, and what it is that is being challenged.

Throughout the movie, the idea of what is normal begins to change, and with it the identity of the monster and the nature of the reality its presence challenges. The viewer’s idea of what distinguishes normality, the anomaly, and the monster is constantly challenged as the narrative progresses. Instead of one monster, the film suggests that anyone could be a monster under the right circumstances, and ultimately leaves the viewer to question who is really the monster. Cane himself is by his very nature a human monster. It is through his books that the abjection between fiction and reality is created. In the context of the film, Cane is the original monster, and possibly the most powerful, though it is suggested that even he may not have complete control over everything.

He disrupts what is seen as real by exposing the real world to be a work of fiction; all created from his imagination. At one point Cane even displays a literally monstrous side with a growth on his back—a cue to the audience of his role in the story. Cane disrupts and challenges the normal ideas of reality by revealing the world to be nothing more than an illusion. The characters who read his book In the Mouth of Madness—his agent, Trent’s partner Linda Styles (Julie Carmen), and eventually Trent himself, all find their ideas of what is normal challenged, and in the process become monsters themselves.

Cane might not be the only monster, but he is the driving force behind the film. The other monsters to appear are extensions of his character. With the possible exception of the unseen “Old Ones” that Cane says inspired his writing; even the few instances of literal monsters are constructs of his mind and therefore extensions of his character. This idea is set up early on, when Trent and Styles arrive at the Pickman Hotel, and Styles comments on how the greenhouse is empty but used to be “filled with strange growing things”, and how one night the townspeople saw something moving inside.

Trent immediately recognizes her description as being from the plot of Cane’s novel The Hobbs End Horror (itself a reference to Lovecraft's story The Dunwich Horror). Later, Trent encounters this monster in the form of Mrs. Pickman (Frances Bay), who experiences a grotesque transformation and is seen in the greenhouse. At first, this sub-plot does not seem to contribute directly to the overall narrative, but it marks the point in the story where Trent, Styles, and many of the supporting cast begin to show their status as monsters.

One of the few scenes to clearly show literal monsters occurs when Cane finishes his book. The scene begins with Cane showing that he is capable of warping reality when Trent suddenly finds himself in the former’s writing room. Cane finishes typing the book and declares it “all done” before entrusting Trent to return it to the world. Cane explains that “you are what I write” and states that nothing within this world existed before the story began. Cane continues to emphasize the idea of the world being fiction when he embeds his fingers in his face and tears it apart like a sheet of paper, exposing a black, empty void. The camera looks back at Trent from inside the void. From this side, the door that was behind Cane is replaced by a page from a book. Though the hole prevents the page from being read clearly, the text that is visible refers to Hobb’s End, suggesting that the viewer is literally looking into a page from one of Cane’s books. As Trent approaches the hole, Styles begins reading part of the manuscript, which describes in detail precisely what is happening.

The presence of Cane as the writer allows the film to further create this disruption through the use of abjection, an idea proposed by Julia Kristeva which suggests that horror resides in the middle of established social boundaries such as the living and the dead, human and animal, and male and female, or in this case between reality and fiction. The horror of In The Mouth of Madness comes not from Cane himself or from the Lovecraftian "Old Ones" he claims have influenced his work, but from the idea that everyone within this world, including Trent, is a fictional construct whose every action is dictated by the author and who only exist to serve the needs of the story.

Moments of abjection between reality and fiction recur throughout the film, beginning with Trent and Styles encountering a town that should not exist—later in the film it vanishes entirely, along with Styles who was literally written out of existence by Cane. The confusion is further emphasized when Trent finds himself reading one of Cane’s books while exploring the town, and comments that “I’m reading this thing like it’s a guidebook.” This idea of the abjection between reality and fiction reaches its peak in the film’s final moments. Trent sits down in a movie theater with popcorn and watches the film adaptation of the Sutter Cane story In the Mouth of Madness. A brief montage reveals that the film adaptation of the book is literally the film the audience has just finished watching. Reality as the viewer understands it is being disrupted by the idea that their reality is fiction. Trent constantly finds himself trying to rationalize his encounters, but upon seeing himself in his own movie, he is forced to finally realize the truth that none of his world is real.

This idea of monstering goes further. While Cane can be seen as the monster, the film also plays with Carroll’s idea of the anomaly to turn the rest of the cast into monsters themselves. Trent sets this idea up early in the film when he describes the experience of reading Cane’s books. “Pulp horror fiction, they all seem to have the same plot,” he says. “Slimey things in the dark. People go mad. They turn into monsters.” This is precisely what happens later in the film. Cane himself is an anomaly in In the Mouth of Madness, but in keeping with Wood’s ideas of what defines the monster, the anomaly shifts over the course of the film.

In a conversation between Trent and Styles, the latter justifies her love for Cane’s writing by suggesting that “Right now reality shares your point of view. What frightens me is what would happen if reality shared Cane’s point of view”. She goes on to suggest that “sane and insane could easily switch places if the insane were to become the majority”. This discussion sums up Wood’s idea of the monster challenging "normality", a term he uses in a loose sense meaning simply “conformity to the dominant social norms.”

Normality changes over the course of the film, initially with the characters believing that what they are experiencing is reality until Sutter Cane exposes them to the repressed truth. As the narrative progresses, more people become aware and are infected by it in ways that a man like Trent would view as insane. This challenging of Trent’s understanding of sanity is first experienced when he is faced by a man he later describes as a “lunatic with an ax”. The man in question steps out of a bookshop, crosses the street in broad daylight holding an ax, walks toward the diner where Trent is eating with his employer, smashes the glass and then asks Trent “do you read Sutter Cane.” This man is killed by the police, and naturally his actions are dismissed as being the product of mental illness.

Later on, it is revealed that this man was actually Cane’s agent. He was also the one person who read In the Mouth of Madness and as a result was not only aware of his fictional status, but also of the role Trent would eventually play in the narrative. It is now brought into question whether the actions of Cane’s agent were insane. At first, the agent can be seen as a monster, but when his perspective is revealed, it suggests that Trent may in fact be the real monster. In addition to reality and fiction, the abject also occurs between sanity and insanity, and the viewer is left to question their definitions of both.

Freud’s original concept of “madness” was that it was connected to a person’s own past, but in In the Mouth of Madness it is suggested that insanity is simply a label for any behavior that violates what the majority of the population see as normal. Trent’s own sanity is brought into question, ironically, by his very efforts to rationalize his experiences while everyone around him is turning into what he would consider monsters. This development in Trent’s character ties back to Styles’ comment earlier in the film: that which the viewer would consider insane has started to become the majority, and a character like Trent whom the viewer might ordinarily view as sane appears to be insane by the sheer nature of failing to conform to what has become normal.

The idea that Cane transforms people into monsters is explored more literally through the character of Styles. From her introduction, Styles is a horror fan who attempts to address Carrol’s very question of why viewers are attracted to horror films, as raised by Trent. As a Sutter Cane reader, she finds herself more open to the possibility that his books are real, an idea she begins to develop soon after entering Hobb’s End. When they first arrive at the hotel from Cane’s book The Hobb’s End Horror, Styles displays an uncanny ability to point out minor details about it without looking. She is also the second character to have her reality challenged, after Cane’s agent, when she is forced to read In the Mouth of Madness.

After this scene, Styles becomes a more explicit puppet of Cane’s, having sex with him oblivious to a monstrous outgrowth on his back, experiencing peculiar transformations, and displaying abrupt shifts in personality. With no build up she begins attempting to seduce Trent, much to his shock and confusion. She has herself become a monster, challenging what Trent would see as normal. Styles behaves in ways that he would deem insane, such as swallowing the keys to Trent’s car. She even briefly becomes a literal monster when her body is shown contorting into a quadruped form, walking on both her hands and feet with the sounds of bones cracking heard as she moves.

In the Mouth of Madness is one large distortion of the theories presented by Wood and Carroll. It plays on the idea of the monster disrupting what is normal and challenging the viewer’s understanding of reality by forcing the viewer to question their ideas of reality and what is normal. By leaving the viewer unsure of what they can call normal, the film also brings into question precisely what it means to be a monster or an anomaly. In the end, Cane can be seen as a monster, but he is also a tool used by the filmmakers to explore the question of just what makes someone a monster, and it is through him that the ideas of Wood and Carroll are tested.

Infected by the Apocalypse

At first glance, John Carpenter's movies The Thing, Prince of Darkness, and In The Mouth of Madness seem unrelated outside of sharing the same director.  There is no story connection between them, or characters that cross from one film to the next. However, John Carpenter himself would eventually label these three movies as his "Apocalypse Trilogy". The connecting force is not one of story, but rather theme in that all three films deal with the end of the world.

All three films are horror stories that have been labelled as "Lovecraftian" due to their common themes of humanity facing its end at the hands of an otherworldly force beyond our capability to understand. In keeping to Lovecraft's ideas, the movies follow the rationale that mankind is a tiny, insignificant part of a vast cosmos that is at best indifferent to us. These are horrors beyond our control, beyond our understanding, and which could easily wipe us from existence. We can never truly defeat them, the best we can do is contain or delay it.

The theme that really seems to run through these movies, however, is one of infection. Though only The Thing features a literal virus (at least insofar as it infects on a cellular level), the horror is always treated like one, something that needs to be contained and prevented from spreading. The catch is that unlike a regular virus, this is not one that can be treated. Instead, the fear comes from a transformation that happens as a result exposure to the "infection". It becomes something to be avoided, which becomes increasingly difficult as the "virus" spreads to more people.

With The Thing, the concern comes from an alien organism that is capable of perfectly replicating the cells of any living thing that touches it. Its noted that, at least as far as anyone can tell, one cell of the Thing is all it takes to infect a human. That cell divides and begins assimilating other cells, which in turn divide and assimilate other cells, and so on until it has taken every part of your body. Once you are infected, there is no way to cure it. The trouble is that when you're in Antarctica and the only habitable environment is a tiny research station, it's going to be harder to avoid the people who are infected, especially when you don't know for sure who has been assimilated, who has not, and who is technically still human but in the process of being assimilated.

Prince of Darkness has a more sudden transformation that occurs from the infection. This time around, it is the green fluid (which it revealed to be alive, and the essence of Satan himself). Consuming the fluid results in almost instant death, with the corpse then being reanimated as its servant. You would think it would be easy to avoid drinking an ominous green fluid, but not when it is very good at taking you by surprise and the reanimated corpses make sure to prevent you from escaping.

With In the Mouth of Madness, it is a bit more ambiguous, and the infection is more metaphorical than literal (there is a radio broadcast at the end that refers to the "infected" but never states if they were infected with what we might think infected them). Instead, the "virus" (if you can call it that) is the popularity of Sutter Cane's writing. With every new reader Kane's power grows. Every person who reads Kane's book is driven to madness.

The point is that the infection is more than a simple virus that can be cured. When a person is infected, there is no going back. The victim of the infection is never the same once he or she is exposed. Instead, they fall under the control of a greater influence, becoming "assimilated" in a way (literally in the case of The Thing). With each infected person the power of the otherworldly force grows and becomes harder to resist.

As the thing grows, it becomes increasingly clear that the horror can never truly end, leading to the ambiguous endings of each film. In The Thing R.J. MacReady is eventually forced to face the fact that there is no way to stop the Thing that allows the remaining men to get out alive. The best thing they can do is contain the Thing, after which point a best case scenario is that they will freeze to death in the snow.

There is, however, one thing that adds a layer of unease to this grim final scene. The only other known survivor besides Mac is Childs, who had up to this point been gone long enough to have been assimilated. The one possible indication that he is human is the presence of an earring since the prequel established that the Thing couldn't replicate inorganic material, but who's to say it hasn't learned from its past errors by trying to replace objects it spits out whenever possible. Some argue that Childs is wearing a different-coloured jacket from earlier, although the lighting makes it hard to tell for sure.

Prince of Darkness sees the number of protagonists decreasing at an increasing rate as more and more people are infected by the green fluid and transformed into servants of the eldritch entity that threatens to destroy our world. What doesn't help is the fact that said entity has ensured the protagonists are unable to leave (attempting to do so results in death), making it march harder to evade their infected colleagues as they multiply.

With In the Mouth of Madness, it is a fear of insanity that comes from the popularity of Cane's writing. The book is promised to drive its readers insane. As the story progresses, characters become violent, and seemingly delusional, or is it Trent who has been the crazy one the whole time? As the infection of Cane's writing spreads, it becomes increasingly difficult to comprehend the difference between sanity and insanity.

So in each of these films, the fear comes not from the "infection" itself, but rather from the idea of being transformed by it. These are not merely stories of any old epidemics, but rather the idea of losing your humanity. The terror comes from the notion of becoming one of something else, something that is spreading rapidly. In that sense, they are not solely "cosmic horror" stories, but also stories about the fear of losing your own self to something you cannot control.

Halloween Horror: Prince of Darkness

John Carpenter has admitted to being a big fan of the work of H.P. Lovecraft, and it shows in several of his movie. In the Mouth of Madness was the one film he consciously intended to be Lovecraftian, but the influence of his writing is clear in much of his work. One of the ones I often hear cited as extremely Lovecraftian is his underrated 1987 horror film Prince of Darkness. It certainly has that sort of atmosphere. The final scene is lifted almost directly from one of Lovecraft's writings and there is even a character named shares her surname with William Dyer's unfortunate companion in At The Mountains of Madness. Bringing the whole thing full circle I think this film might in turn have even influenced my own contribution to the Cthulhu Mythos.

It all begins when an elderly priest dies suddenly of an unspecified illness. Among his belongings are a diary that reveals his connection to a mysterious sect, and a key to the basement of a seemingly abandoned church. Another priest (played by Carpenter regular Donald Pleasance) decides to investigate and finds something which motivates him to contact physics professor Howard Birak (Victor Wong, who also worked with Carpenter on Big Trouble in Little China) for assistance.

What he found turns out to be an enormous vial containing an ominous green fluid. A research team is assembled to study the peculiar properties of the thing, with the only explanation lying in an ancient book that contains complex differential equations (which shouldn't have been known when it was written). This substance is eventually revealed to be in a way the essence of Satan, or to be more precise, something far more terrifying from which the religious concept was derived. It has been kept secret for thousands of years but now it is starting to awaken. 

Strange things begin to occur, the homeless in the neighbouring area begin to surround the church. People are possessed by the fluid, transformed into zombie-like beings to perform its will, and carefully it begins working to bring about something even more frightening that will destroy our world. A desperate race against time ensues as the decreasing number of people who are not possessed try to survive long enough to figure out a way to end its sinister plans.

One thing I can tell you right off the bat is that this is a disturbing movie that has that atmosphere of dread right from the get go. Any film that can make a jar of green goo seem frightening is worthy of respect, and that's just the start. Even long before we see the goo, the atmosphere has an overwhelming sense of dread and hopelessness. When it does begin infecting people, things quickly become terrifying, and between the possessed individuals outside and the zombie-like servants within, the environment seems to gradually close in on the protagonists.

What I personally find interesting about this film, however, is it's approach to the material. The idea of taking old religious ideas and putting on a science fiction/Lovecraftian twist is a fascinating one that seems believable in a way. It also allows for an interesting dynamic in Donald Pleasance's role. His character of the priest is one who is constantly forced to question and re-evaluate his faith, but can never quite seem to let it all go. This constant conflict in his emotions is conveyed effectively and becomes a major driving force in the narrative.

Prince of Darkness is definitely a horror movie worth your time. I would strongly recommend you check it out, especially if you enjoyed the other two installments of John Carpenter's "Apocalypse Trilogy" (The Thing and In the Mouth of Madness). It is a terrifying experience that will have you compelled to follow from start to finish,  and guaranteed to make you feel uneasy by the time it is finally over.

Halloween Horror: In The Mouth of Madness

The 90's is often remembered as a dark time in John Carpenter's career. A lot of fans believe that was when the quality of his work started to decline. A lot of his less respected movies, like Ghosts of Mars and Escape From L.A. came out during this decade, but Carpenter still had talent. It was at this point he found himself interested in doing a movie drawing from Lovecraft, but there was one problem: how do you depict something that is indescribable, as was often the case in his writings?

The solution Carpenter reached was to do a tribute to Lovecraft rather than a direct adaptation of any of his stories, and the result was his sadly underrated horror film In The Mouth of Madness. This movie is based more on Lovecraft's ideals (specifically the bleak notion that humanity is doomed by its own insignificance) than anything else, although you probably could make a good drinking game just out of spotting all the references to different stories. Even the title itself combines At the Mountains of Madness and The Shadow Over Innsmouth. However, you do not have to be a die hard Lovecraft fan to appreciate this as a good horror story.

Sutter Cane (Jürgen Prochnow) is a hugely successful horror writer whose books outsell Stephen King. His stories are known to have strange effects on his readers, who are becoming extremely restless over anticipation for his latest novel titled In the Mouth of Madness. This is a book that will apparently drive anyone who reads it insane, and outbreaks of violence are occurring among his fans.

Enter John Trent (Sam Neil), an freelance insurance investigator who is hired to get information about a claim by Cane's publisher Jackson Harglow (Charlton Heston). He finds out that Cane has supposedly disappeared and Harglow doesn't even know for sure if he is still alive. Tent quickly suspects a scam is in progress and tries to figure out precisely how.

He finds a potential lead in the strangest of places, which leads him and editor Lynda Styles (Julie Carmen) into a fictional town from Cane's stories. As Trent desperately tries to find some form of rational explanation, lines begin to blur. It becomes harder to tell fiction from reality and sanity from insanity. Basically, this is a film that really messes with your head.

In The Mouth of Madness is a very different sort of horror film compared to what John Carpenter is usually known for. There is less of the gore that one might normally see or the claustrophobic environments. Instead, the fear largely comes from the way it warps your mind, gradually distorting your perception of reality and leaving it in serious question by the end. Just what is madness, or sanity? What happens when what we call the insane becomes the majority? These are questions raised by this strange horror film.

A lot of the fear to be found in this movie comes from the general atmosphere of the whole thing, but really they have all kinds of horror. There are some big scary monsters produced with some amazing practical effects, but we also have a bit of body horror, psychological horror, cosmic horror, and fear of the unknown. Jürgen Prochnow easily steals the show in the role of Sutter Cane whenever he is on screen, and he can be pretty unnerving.

In The Mouth of Madness is a remarkable horror movie of a very unusual sort, and an underrated little gem from the so-called "Master of Horror" responsible for popularizing the slasher film. This is definitely not a film of the sort Carpenter popularized. It is a clever and eerie tale that will warp your mind and leave you to question just what is reality and what is true madness.

The Thing That Came From Another World

John Carpenter's 1982 masterpiece The Thing, based on the short story Who Goes There? by John W. Campbell Jr., was a huge flop upon release. When it first came out, the film was able to make enough money to reclaim its budget, but was for the most part a flop that was heavily criticized. In his movie guides, respected film critic Leonard Maltin would go on to describe Carpenter's film as "More faithful to the original story, but a nonstop parade of slimy, repulsive special effects turns it into a freakshow and drowns out most of the effects." Evidently he didn't see the same movie I did, because I what I saw was a suspenseful claustrophobic piece about a group of men who are easily turned against each other by paranoia.

There are many reasons posed as to why. One of the most commonly cited is the fact that E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial came out just before. That was a family movie about a friendly alien accidentally being stranded on Earth and engaging in light-hearted shenanigans as he tries to find a way home. Maybe people just preferred going to see the humorous and friendly alien over the terrifying shape-shifting monstrosity that featured in Carpenter's film, especially ironic given that when you really examine them The Thing is by far the better movie. Fittingly, the 2011 prequel, also titled The Thing, would have similar results at the box office (although with a slightly warmer reception).

Since then, like many of Carpenter's films, The Thing would obtain a cult following after playing on late-night television. Over time, people would begin to warm up to it, and now it is often recognized as a masterpiece of suspense and tension. What is easy to forget is that The Thing is a remake. Admittedly, it is a very good remake that might be better than the original, but what of the original? What was the original film like?

The 1951 horror film The Thing From Another World by Christian Nyby and Howard Hawks might not seem so scary now, but it was chilling when it first came out. John Carpenter himself first saw the movie in 1952 when he was about four or five, and according to him it was a movie so terrifying his popcorn flew out of his hands. To be fair, the idea of a "super carrot" (that description is literally used in the movie) is actually handled better than one would expect. 

The Thing is obviously a man in a suit, but the filmmakers made the smart choice to show it as little as possible. We really only get a good look at it right at the end, and up to that point it is only partially seen, kept in shadow, shown very quickly, viewed from a distance, etc. Instead most of the movie is about the characters trying to deal with the problem once it gets out. In keeping with Howard Hawks' usual style, most of the plot becomes one of character interaction complete with his usual rapid-fire dialogue.

In many ways it's not hard to see the influence this had on a lot of later science fiction films. Its basic concept is remarkably similar to the plot of Alien. Aliens even led up to a really big fight scene with one of the marines watching and constantly reporting movement on his tracker very much like how the men in The Thing From Another World use a Geiger counter to tell when the Thing is approaching.

Carpenter evidently took a lot of inspiration from this 1951 horror classic. According to him, part of what led to him making The Thing was when he read the original short story in high school and realized how different it was. The Thing From Another World has very little to do with its source material. The Thing here is a vegetable (literally referred to as such by the characters) that is capable of reproducing various plant life, hardly the shape-shifting alien of Campbell's short story and Carpenter's version. 

However, there are elements of Campbell's story that make it into The Thing From Another World. Among other things, the discovery of the Thing plays like in the story (an interesting contrast to the Carpenter film, which has a Norwegian expedition discover the Thing before it encounters the American protagonists). It is also the sled dogs who are the first ones attacked when the Thing gets loose, the Thing's severed arm suddenly coming to life is reminiscent of a plot point in both the book and the Carpenter film, and it is electricity that is finally used to destroy the Thing (in the book, this was the most reliable method, while Carpenter's version preferred flame). 

In most respects, however, Carpenter's version is probably the closest to the original short story and goes in quite a few different directions although Carpenter clearly drew from The Thing From Another World. Probably the most obvious similarity is the effect used for the title card (in which "The Thing" appears to burn into the screen) that would in turn be copied for the 2011 prequel film.

Carpenter takes a very different approach in his work, going back to the original story instead of directly remaking Hawks' film. Like Campbell's story, Carpenter opted to create the movie with an all-male cast (both The Thing From Another World and the 2011 prequel introduced female characters). This actually lends a new dimension to the story and an additional layer of suspense.

It was only a few years earlier that John Carpenter accidentally created the slasher formula with Halloween. Subsequently, one usually gets an idea of who lives and who dies. The virgin girl is usually likely to live while her sex-obsessed friends get killed off in overly-gory ways. By switching things up and making an all-male cast, especially one where none of them are teenagers, it becomes much harder to anticipate who will live and who will die.

The big element that really fascinated Carpenter when making The Thing was the claustrophobia and paranoia. In The Thing From Another World the characters are simply unsure when the Thing will make its next appearance. Carpenter's film has the added element where the Thing could be... well.. anything. Imagine you are stuck inside this camp, and this creature is present and imitating some of your partners so perfectly that you never notice when it happened. You know that someone isn't human, but you don't know who, and how do you figure it out?

The Thing also relies on a small degree of subjectivity, since the fact that several plot threads are left unresolved. We never find out for certain who got to the blood or when certain members of the team were infected. Fuchs disappears for a while and later his body is found burned outside and we only get a few guesses as to why. Nauls disappears entirely in the film's climax (although there were practical reasons for this, he was originally supposed to be ambushed by the Thing like Garry but they couldn't get the effects right). Special mention goes to Blair, whose actions throughout the movie can take on whole new meanings depending on when you believe he was infected by the Thing.

The 2011 prequel, also titled The Thing would try and recreate that same sense of paranoia and claustrophobia and while not as successful it is a worthy effort. As unnecessary as a prequel was I can't fault the director for taking on the project (it was originally supposed to be a remake of Carpenter's film, which in turn was already a remake of The Thing From Another World, it's not hard to see where a prequel would have been preferable). Looking at that film, I get the sense that it was a group of fans of Carpenter's work who went in knowing they'd never top it and just did their best with the studio restrictions.

While I would still be interested in seeing a directors cut of some sort, given that the studio interfered a lot with the final product (they did originally use animatronics before the CGI was forced in against the will of the filmmakers), I can appreciate the effort that went in. The attention to detail at times is amazing and you can really tell the production crew wanted to be faithful to Carpenter's movie.

Ultimately, I'm not sure one could ever truly capture the sense of dread that came with the Norwegian Camp sequence of the 1982 film. In Carpenter's film, nothing particularly scary actually happens when Mac and Copper arrive at the Norwegian camp. What makes the scene so dreadful is just the knowledge that something really frightening happened here. The damage to the camp, the dark lighting, and even the frozen corpse of a man that cut his own throat open with a razor blade make that much clear. However, the 2011 prequel might be the closest anyone could get to achieving that aim.


Bringing the whole trilogy full circle, it is apparent that the 2011 prequel may actually have drawn from, in addition to Carpenter's The Thing, Hawks and Nyby's The Thing From Another World. This becomes most apparent when we look at a particular character from each. In the 2011 prequel, there is a character named Sander who comes into conflict with the other characters. He is fascinated by the Thing and even after it escapes and proves itself to be a threat he becomes determined to study it and understand it.

Another element that made Carpenter's film work so well was that all of the men tried to be professional. They made (sometimes fatal) mistakes but they seemed like real, rational people going up against something the likes of which they have no idea how to deal with. As the scientist whose pursuit of knowledge endangers everyone around him, he likely did not draw from The Thing, but The Thing From Another World had the very similar character of Dr. Carrington. Like Sander, Carrington was a scientist who was so obsessed with studying the Thing he is willing to put everybody's life at risk, even going out of his way to sabotage efforts to destroy it. It's not too hard to see where the connection comes in.

Ultimately out of all three "Thing" movies, Carpenter's is undoubtedly the best. That is the one that really has the fear and suspense, with effects that still hold up today and a sense of paranoia that allows it to continue to be effective on multiple viewings. That said, both the others are still decent and enjoyable movies in their own right, even if they're not as impressive.

Against the Crowd Blogathon: A Rant Against Halloween

Wendell Ottley of Dell on Movies is hosting an interesting new blogathon, Against the Crowd, in which we were challenged to write about our views on movies that contradict popular opinion. I've written a lot on this issue, including my discussions of James Bond, Solaris, Alphaville, Playtime, and Raging Bull to name a few, along with my positive reviews of the often critically panned Conquest of Space and Dark Tide. In fact I have a whole section devoted to this and my very first post in this blog dealt with this topic, so naturally when I heard about this blogathon I knew I had to find something to contribute.

He did specify specific movies so that rules out a long-winded rant about Goddard in general, and I think I've made my views on Solaris clear enough. I'm probably not going to write anything on either version until I can come up with a topic that doesn't involve pointing out why the Clooney version is better. Still, there are a lot of movies I have ranted about, including a few that are quite popular, and I think this is a good time to release some of my frustration. Just a warning though, I am about to say something extremely hypocritical. You've been warned.

I am a huge John Carpenter fan. Back in high school I did a twenty-minute documentary on his movies and he still remains one of two big-name auteurs I have had the pleasure of meeting (the other being Atom Egoyan) and the only one of those two I have confronted in person.

The guy has some excellent work under his belt. The Thing currently ranks among my all-time favorite movies, but I also love some of his other horror works like Christine, Prince of Darkness, and In the Mouth of Madness, and The Ward, along with some of his other stuff like Dark Star, Assault on Precinct 13, Escape From New York, Starman, They Live, and Vampires. I even enjoyed some of Carpenter's less popular work like Escape From L.A. and Ghosts of Mars. I'll confess I was not as keen on The Fog but even that had a few good points (the story never fully clicked for me, but I did always find Adrienne Barbeau's character interesting). It seems like there is no possible way that Carpenter could ever do a bad movie. Just about every movie he has ever done has something good in it...

Except for one: Halloween. Yes, I am a die-hard Carpenter fan and the one film of his I absolutely hated was the one most people consider to be his absolute best. I was actually quite shocked about this myself given how I'd responded up to that point to my other experiences with Carpenter films. I had gone in expecting something great, what with all the hype I had heard about how this movie frightened an entire generation and popularized the slasher genre. It still leaves me puzzled when I hear people talk about this as an "intelligent" horror film.

On the other hand as shocking as it was at first (I almost wanted to drop the project all together and pick a different director to study) the experience did have a few positive effects on me. The big thing was the angle I was able to take: at the time it seemed a lot of the films of Carpenter's I responded to best was his science fiction work (The Thing, Escape From New York, Dark Star) and though I would eventually find other films of his that showcased his talent for horror it did allow me to look at Carpenter's films in a broader context, going even further against the crowd. After all, everybody calls him "the Master of Horror" and for my documentary it ended up giving me a new angle: to emphasize his non-horror work and show just how versatile a director he really is instead of just saying the same old things about Halloween you've heard a million times.

As for the movie itself, well, let's look at the story in particular. You can certainly see some of Carpenter's trademarks emerging in this one, such as the low budget, his love for claustrophobic environments (particularly the scenes where Michael Myers starts breaking into houses), the idea that you can never truly overcome fear, among others. Certainly some of the things that would be present in Carpenter's later, far better works like The Thing.

Now to his credit, Donald Pleasance does an okay job in terms of performance (though he would play a far more interesting role in Carpenter's Prince of Darkness). The only problem is when you get down to it he really doesn't do a whole lot to help the story. Most of his scenes consist of him providing overly complicated ways of explaining that Michael Myers is a dangerous psychopath who must be stopped (gee, we'd never guess that from the fact that he's running around stalking teenagers and wielding a great big knife). Jamie Lee Curtis was also okay but she mostly just spent the climax crying, not exactly the role model she's made out to be.

So then of course we get to Michael Myers himself. There isn't really anything spooky about a William Shatner mask for starters, but the real problem is right at the end. Michael Myers gets stabbed in the throat and apparently dies, only to suddenly get up and keep moving like it's nothing. He then took his own knife to the chest and dies, only to somehow get back up as though nothing happened. He then gets shot several times by Loomis and falls out a second-story window, and STILL gets up and walks away just as the movie ends.

This whole thing comes straight out of nowhere in a story that seemed to be up to this point somewhat grounded in reality. I've heard arguments claiming that Michael Myers is supposed to be a metaphor for evil but if that's the case I don't think he's a very good one. I've also heard the claim that the ending is supposed to be ambiguous in whether he actually survived... except we clearly saw him get up completely unharmed after receiving two stab wounds that should have at the very least left him seriously injured.

Maybe that could have been a bit more disturbing, if Michael Myers did show signs of damage but kept moving anyway. I could see the image of the psycho crawling on the floor towards our heroine ignoring the fact that he is slowly bleeding to death through his determination to kill her. THAT might actually have been creepy, but as it stands it just comes out of nowhere and left me too confused to be frightened. Oh, and by the way, I'm sorry, but a kid whining about "The boogeyman" does not constitute buildup to revealing your main antagonist is invincible.

Actually, even weirder about this is that for a film called Halloween there really isn't a lot of... you know... Halloween. Supposedly that's when the movie takes place and they show a pumpkin in the opening titles but you really could have put the story on any night without changing much. I mean why are these kids watching old horror movies? They should be out trick-or-treating. We never really see anybody wearing costumes or doing any Halloween-related activities either.

That actually could have been another great way to make the film creepy, if it happens on a night when everybody is dressed up in costumes so that Michael Myers and his mask blend in perfectly. It would be a lot more terrifying since in an environment where lots of people, kids and adult, are wearing masks and costumes it would be much harder to identify him. He could be standing right next to you and you'd never notice until it was too late. There would be a greater sense of paranoia and a lot more reason to be afraid. Of course that would have actually been interesting. Instead we get Myers running around empty streets in an extremely conspicuous mask.

That Beach Ball from Dark Star was scarier than you.

So ultimately when you realize all the problems, Halloween is actually John Carpenter at his absolute worst. This is a dull film with an uninteresting plot and characters whose deaths were so predictable I literally wanted Michael Myers to get to them just because I knew those scenes where coming and wanted them over-with. If you want good horror from Carpenter, you're much better off with The Thing. That movie actually had some scary moments and an unstoppable force that made a lot more sense and was actually terrifying, and it used ambiguity to far greater effect in its narrative.

Quit crying, Laurie! You know nothing of fear.

The Three Science Fiction Classics of 1982

In 1982 Steven Spielberg won over thousands of viewers with the release of his iconic science fiction movie E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial. This family film about the friendship between a young boy and an alien accidentally stranded on Earth made a huge impact on the science fiction genre, with a balance of comedy and drama, solid relationships, and some impressive special effects. At the time, Spielberg was at the top of his game, but his success was not without a price.

What many people forget is that Spielberg wasn't the only one making a science fiction film at the time. Two other newly-established directors were also creating their own. One was Ridley Scott, who had established himself with 1979's Alien and was now working on an adaptation of the Philip K. Dick novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep which would be released under the title of Blade Runner. At the same time, John Carpenter, riding the success of Halloween was working on his latest project, an adaptation of John W. Campbell's novella Who Goes There? which would become arguably one of his best horror films: The Thing.

Both these films were huge flops at the box office. They were critically panned and it was not until years later that they finally started to get the recognition they deserve. Why? There's plenty of reasons but one that frequently comes up is the success of E.T.: The Extraterrestrial. Audiences were so in awe of the family fun of E.T. that they didn't seem to care much for the much bleaker atmosphere of the other two movies.

I do find this interesting because having finally watched E.T. for the first time in years, I would say that Blade Runner and The Thing may have actually been better films. E.T. is an enjoyable movie but when you get down to it there are a lot of story problems and plot holes. For one thing, as solid as the relationship between the kids and E.T. was, I personally felt a lot of the cast was underdeveloped. There were those three characters who liked to bully Elliot and then suddenly they decide to help him during the climax with no clear motivation. They also don't really do a whole lot to help outside of following Elliot on bicycles.

There was also that strange man with the keys. Throughout the first three quarters of the film we never see his face. He is kept mysterious and the only indication of his identity is a distinct set of keys on his belt that tend to make a jingly noise whenever he walks. There is this certain intimidating vibe to the character, but we have no idea who he is, almost as if they're building up to a twist. So then we come to the big reveal and the man with the keys turns out to be... some guy who wears keys on his belt. Seriously, he doesn't even get a name, and suddenly he's treated as being somewhat sympathetic despite being played as frightening for most of the film.

The mother could also have been a more interesting character if she had found out about the alien sooner. Elliot had no problem introducing E.T. to his siblings, why not also his mother? Sure, it would have been a shock but her gradual warming up to his presence could have been an emotional touch instead of getting cheap laughs out of her failing to notice when they're both in the same room.

The stories of the other two movies are far more complex and I'd say far more interesting. The alien is hostile in The Thing, but what makes that film so interesting is how it affects the characters themselves. They have to deal with the paranoia that comes from relying entirely on themselves since the alien could be anyone. With E.T. you have a relationship forming between the kid and the alien, but with The Thing you have the alien tearing apart the already strenuous relationships between the protagonists.

Meanwhile, Blade Runner has a bit more depth and an intriguing atmosphere. With E.T. you don't get a whole lot of depth to the characters outside of a basic dynamic between each. Blade Runner lets you dive into the minds of Rick, Rachel, and the other characters. It raises philosophical questions about the nature of humanity, none of which have a solid answer. The character of Roy Batty himself is a very psychologically-driven villain, and we get to see into his mind as to why he acts the way he does, certainly a more complex character than the guy with the keys.

The relationship between Rick and Rachel may well be stronger than the bond between Elliot and E.T. ever will be. With Elliot and E.T. you just have two friends from unlikely sources, whereas Blade Runner deals more with the social and ethical consequences of the relationship. Rick is a man trained to kill replicants, and yet he falls in love with one who doesn't even know her true identity.

So why did E.T.: The Extraterrestrial become such a hit while two better films were left in its wake and only gained their deserved recognition later on? Well, at the time the concept was revolutionary. Spielberg had previously explore the themes of benevolent alien visitors in Close Encounters of the Third Kind (parallels to which are pretty clear in E.T.), but the idea of a children's movie, and in particular a child's friendship with an alien was pretty unusual. We do see that sort of dynamic in The Day the Earth Stood Still but there the alien had a goal. It was treated as a superior being intentionally visiting Earth with a plan, as opposed to an innocent alien who gets left behind by accident.

It is interesting to compare these three movies. All three of them came out in the same year of 1982, and yet they are all so different. E.T. became a huge box office success and won four Oscars, while leaving The Thing and Blade Runner, both far superior films in terms of atmosphere and story, to fail horrendously.

Alienation of the Individual in Films About Aliens

Patterns and themes in science fiction films about aliens have often reflected social anxieties prevalent at the time of their release. In the 1950’s, this meant a lot of science fiction films reflected the cold war, the alien invaders representing the prevalent fear of communism. By the 1970’s, things had changed drastically with the public developing growing distrust in the American government, and there were more alien-centered films which began to reflect this new outlook.

The first major cycle of science fiction films in the 1950’s saw a large number of alien-based movies. Many of them were centered on invasion or otherwise treated the alien as a danger. Exceptions to the rule, such as The Day the Earth Stood Still, were rare. Movies such as The War of the Worlds, Invaders from Mars, Earth vs. the Flying Saucers, and to a lesser extent Forbidden Planet, had the common trend that the government is cast in a positive light. If not soldiers themselves, the protagonists are often scientists or other individuals who co-operate with the military in defeating the invaders.

The 1970’s began to see some major changes in patterns with alien-centered films. There were still “alien invasion” stories such as the first remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, The Thing, Alien. However, there was also a new trend involving a larger number of films centered on more sympathetic aliens such as Close Encounters of the Third Kind, E.T.: The Extraterrestrial, Starman, and The Abyss. In spite of the obvious differences in story, these films did in fact share one element in common; the isolation or alienation of the protagonists from any form of authority. This in turn reflects a massive change in outlook at the time.

The 1960’s was a period that brought about great social strain in America, largely due to massive counterculture movements such as the sexual revolution and civil rights protests for the rights of women, minorities, and homosexuals. It was also a time when there was a growing distaste for the American government, in part because of the decision to join in the Vietnam War, and this was followed by the army gunning down a group of protesters at Kent State University. Later Nixon himself was impeached and forced to resign after his men were caught trying to plant microphones in the hotel room of a political rival. 

As you can imagine, the American population had good reason to be distrusting of their government. Many of the filmmakers associated with the science fiction genre in the 1970’s and 80's, such as John Carpenter, Ridley Scott, James Cameron, Steven Spielberg, and George Lucas, lived through this period, and it subsequently influenced the style of their work.

Traces of distrust in authority can actually be seen early on with the Howard Hawks film The Thing From Another World. In that film, the military heroes are cast in a moderately positive light. The protagonist, Air Force Captain Hendry, is seen as the proper authority and the person whom the rest of the crew trusts to handle the situation. Meanwhile, the scientist Dr. Carrington objects to Hendry’s decisions, and goes to great lengths to preserve the Thing in the name of science even after some of his own men are killed by it. 

The same cannot be said for Hendry’s superiors- from whom he repeatedly receives orders to refrain from taking action against the Thing even as it is wreaking havoc, and Hendry ultimately has to disobey direct orders in order and destroy the Thing with minimal casualties. 

The newspaper journalist Scotty is clearly upset when Hendry does not initially allow him to relay his news story about the discovery of the flying saucer, and protests that his story is one that should be heard by the whole world and he should be allowed under the American Constitution. Hendry tries to help but his requests to give Scotty clearance for the news story go unanswered, and in the end he grants him permission without receiving authorization. 

Howard Hawks was unusually progressive for his time, and here he manages to foreshadow several issues that would become more prominent during the following decade, particularly a rising awareness of freedom of speech, and most notably, the distrust and subsequent alienation from authority.

In the 1960’s, science fiction films began to become less popular, and there was a shift from using aliens to stand in for communism towards producing films directly showing nuclear war and Cold War paranoia, one of the most famous being the dark comedy Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb.

The 1970’s and 1980’s would subsequently see a revival of the science fiction genre, with the rise of several associated filmmakers, many of whom had lived through and had been influenced by the counterculture movements of the 1960’s. The re-emergence of the genre would in turn see a massive change in how aliens were depicted by science fiction. Whereas the 1950’s had largely been dominated by alien invasion stories, the 1970’s saw a curious emergence of films dealing with benevolent aliens.

Stories dealing with sympathetic aliens usually seemed to come in one of two flavors. The first plot type centers on human protagonists gradually discovering the presence of the aliens and attempting to make contact or to study them, as in The Abyss.

In the second style, the aliens themselves become the central focus, landing on Earth and often befriending a human co-protagonist as in E.T. or Starman. Either way, instead of the obvious threat of the alien, the conflict instead becomes one between humans, often because of corrupt, unreliable, inflexible, or unreachable authorities.

Of course, the alien invasion concept never went away, but instead, changed with everything else. Movies such as Ridley Scott’s Alien and John Carpenter’s The Thing continue to deal with threats posed by hostile aliens. The difference is that unlike the 1950’s it is no longer up to the military to save the day. 

The growing distrust of the government during the period is reflected by a distrust of authority; be it an actual government presence, the military, or even simply a person in charge. While in the 1950's it was up to the army to save the day, in the 1970's, responsibility to make things right—whether that means helping a friendly alien get home, making peaceful contact with a benevolent race, or to destroy a threat to humanity—falls upon the shoulders of ordinary individuals.

There are two common ways authority is handled in science fiction films from the 1970’s onward. The first and most straight forward is for the heroes to be cut off from any sort of government or military body, forcing them to act on their own initiative. In The Thing, it is established early on that the protagonists are unable to contact the outside world for help due to problems with the radio. It is not long after the Thing is discovered that Garry – the station manager and closest person to an authority figure – is suspected of being infected. 

It is the helicopter pilot R.J. MacReady who steps in to organize the increasingly paranoid men. Later that breaks down and the crew begin to distrust MacReady after it appears that he may have been infected. MacReady then has to resort to threatening his colleagues with dynamite and a flamethrower to maintain control, though the remaining men co-operate with him after he manages to prove himself human. 

The second way that authorities are commonly handled in films of the 1970’s occurs if a body of authority, such as the government or the military, is involved with the story. They are either seen as a serious threat, and/or treated as unreliable. The authority figure will almost always be cast in a villainous role, hindering the goals of the protagonists. In fact, if the main cast includes some form of authority figure, they will likely lose their position in the plot in favor of either a subordinate taking their place or everyone working more closely as equals (as we see with Garry in The Thing).

In Alien, it is the corporation that poses a serious threat. After three of the crew of Nostromo, including the captain and first officer, have been killed, Ripley discovers that science officer Ash was actually a robot planted by their employers to ensure the alien is brought back safely, even if it means the deaths of the crew. 

Prior to his moment, this was the person the crew had trusted with their lives in figuring out how to defeat the alien, and the whole time he had actually been protecting it. The crew are considered expendable by their own superiors, who have made it a priority to ensure that the Alien is brought back to Earth and used for research for potential weapons. 

Now to be fair, you could make the argument that the sequel Aliens casts the marines in a sympathetic light. While this is true, they do end up in a similar position to the protagonists in Alien after losing their commanding officer, and it is eventually revealed the company man who hired them has also prioritized bringing back a specimen for weapons research over their lives. Also, in keeping with the trend seen in movies of this period, it ultimately comes down to the civilian Ripley to save the day.

On a similar level, Starman has the role of authority taken by the government agent George Fox, who relentlessly pursues the title character. The Abyss has the military represented by the navy SEAL team, whose commanding officer Lt. Coffee grows visibly paranoid while still remaining in charge with his own men continuing to follow orders. 

Unlike Hawks’ The Thing From Another World, Carpenter’s The Thing eliminates the presence of organized military figures. Instead, the cast is confined to a twelve-man Antarctic research expedition. In Hawks’ film, the crew, aside from Carrington, was united against a common danger and, under Hendry’s command, mobilized to defeat it. In Carpenter’s film, the civilian crew are slowly torn apart from each other and, until MacReady figures out the blood test, forced to rely on themselves as they do not know who they can trust.

Once in a while we might get an a non-conformist within with the predominant authority who is cast as sympathetic and tries to object to their authoritarian interference. In any case, they try to do their job as best they can, but will constantly voice their opinion and in some cases even try to take action.

A good example would be the SETI astronomer Sherman in Starman, who repeatedly protests against George Fox’s plans and wants to meet the alien under more pleasant circumstances. He eventually goes as far as to deliberately provide false information to a local police unit in order to keep the Starman from falling into government hands. 

Similarly, in The Abyss, it is the Navy SEAL medic, Ensign Monk, who remains the only member of the team to treat the Deep Core crew with respect, recognize Lt. Coffey’s unreliability, and eventually assisting in disarming the nuclear warhead Coffey has sent towards the aliens. 

Both are similar to the French scientist Lacombe in Close Encounters of the Third Kind, who protests in vain against the government’s secrecy and refusal to allow civilians personally invited by the aliens to be included.

This distrust continues on to more recent science fiction films, as seen in the 1997 film Contact, in which the aliens become a backdrop for a very human conflict between scientists, politicians, and religious leaders. This in turn creates a number of problems when the protagonist, Ellie Arroway, discovers the first confirmed signal of extra-terrestrial origin. 

The government is depicted as obstructive and paranoid, with security advisor Michael Kitz constantly assuming the worst and not always listening to Ellie. At the end, during Ellie’s trial, Kitz persistently maintains that she hallucinated her journey to Vega claiming there is not a single shred of proof, but he is revealed shortly after to have kept quiet about one crucial piece of evidence to the contrary: the fact that Ellie's headset recorded 18 hours of static during an event that he publicly insisted lasted less than a minute.

As a thought experiment, we could imagine how The Thing from Another World might look if it were instead made during the 1970’s (disregarding the fact that John Carpenter's remake came out in 1982). Going on the established pattern, Captain Hendry would become the ignorant, close-minded, and obstructive villain, while the arrogant and troublesome Dr. Carrington would be the hero responsible for preventing Hendry’s men from destroying a misunderstood life form. Similarly, if The Abyss were made in the 1950’s, Lt. Coffey and his SEAL team might instead have been the heroes, mobilizing the civilian crew and preventing a surprise invasion from the aliens below.

Over time, science fiction films, especially those centered on aliens, have changed from positively emphasizing dependence on authority to focusing on the individual and self-reliance. This in turn has been a reflection of changes in society over time as the public changed from being dependent on the government to slowly becoming alienated from it. Regardless of whether the movie casts the aliens as invaders or if the aliens are made sympathetic, these films have increasingly become more about the responsibility of the individual over dependence on authority.

The trends of both the 1950’s and 1970’s may in fact continue into the present day, but may also be changing to more of a balance. Nowadays we do seem to have more pro-government films such as Independence Day, Battle: Los Angeles, and Pacific Rim, which cast the authorities or military in a positive light but also manage to put emphasis on the individual. It makes you wonder just what sort of pattern is forming in modern science fiction, and what events it is in turn reflecting.