The Cyber Horror Elite's Reading List: The Greatest Horror Literature of All-Time

B-Sol at the must-read blog Vault of Horror has once again gathered the voices of the "Horror Cyber Elite" (a self-deprecating title...) to produce a fascinating "greatest of" list, this time devoting attention to "The Greatest Horror Fiction" of All-Time.

Eight of my top ten personal choices made this list of thirty best. Those eight titles were: Frankenstein, Dracula, The Black Cat, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, At the Mountains of Madness, Who Goes There? and The Hellbound Heart.

One title that didn't make the list was my Stephen King selection: Carrie. Still, King is well-represented on the final list, I think. Also, on my list, I put Frankenstein ahead of Dracula -- in the number 1 spot. But with the enduring popularity of vampires, I can't take much issue with the first place finish of Stoker's work.

For me, one of the great values of such a list involves B-Sol's dedicated parsing of the data, breaking down and cataloguing information by decade, century, author, and so on. The list thus provides a good guide to horror history, and more than that even, a valuable snapshot of the genre (and genre tastes), right now, in 2009. Can't wait to see the next list, and as always, it's a pleasure to be involved. Make sure you go read the entire list of thirty, and read B-Sol's analysis.

Hindsight Is...?

Now here's a fun blog topic. Author and friend Mark Phillips has written a post called "When Critics Attack and Applaud SFTV." Basically, the article collects critical comments about genre TV programming going back to the 1950s and Men in Space.

So, here you will find the once-current reviews of series such as The Outer Limits, The Prisoner, Star Trek, etc., and you'll be surprised by which programs got bashed! Here's a snippet from the critical responses to The Outer Limits:

Australia's The Age was torn. "Some episodes zoom to cosmic heights while others should have been destroyed in the laboratory."

A young mother wrote TV Guide and protested, "Why is the network programming a horror like this in the early evening hours?"

The fiercest criticism was from American politicians who saw the series as downright dangerous. Concerned over juvenile delinquency, they blamed television. Scenes from Outer Limits were screened in Washington DC as part of an investigation into "brutal television violence." Producer Joseph Stefano struck back. "I would rather have my five-year old son see my TV monsters than watch a TV show where a bunch of black-jacketed thugs beat up people." Stefano did withdraw a story idea where cats were possessed by hostile alien beings, realizing it could be upsetting to children. Outer Limits later went on to become a classic. Historian John Baxter said in 1970, "Outer Limits gave television some of its finest moments and for consistency of imagination, it had few equals. The result is something of which both science fiction and television should be proud."

It's a good reality check to read some of these old reviews. It makes me wonder how history will judge my reviews of new genre series, such as FlashForward or The Vampire Diaries? Was I too hard on them? Too easy? And finally, does a critical consensus even matter?

Very interesting...

Pop Art: Charlton/Space:1999 Edition

COLLECTIBLE OF THE WEEK: Alien - The Illustrated Story (1979)

Back in the mid-1980s, I discovered this Heavy Metal "illustrated story" in a clearance bin at a small book store in Boston. It was in that bin with a stack of about a hundred other copies, each selling for just a dollar. I picked one up (I should have picked up ten...) and have kept my copy in my book collection ever since.

Heavy Metal's Alien: The Illustrated Story by Archie Goodwin and Walter Simonson was distributed by Simon & Schuster, and it's a graphic (and I mean GRAPHIC) re-telling of the landmark 1979 horror film...down to all the chest-bursting, gory details. Character likenesses are good; and even the "tech" (of the Nostromo, Narcissus and the Derelict) exhibits a tremendous fidelity to the movie's production design.

The comic-book adaptation opens with a quote from Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, "We live as we dream - alone," and then launches into the story of the Nostromo's encounter with a hostile life-form. The comic follows the details of the theatrical release very closely. For example, it doesn't feature the famous deleted scene with Dallas's transformation into Alien Egg.

There is, however, some alternate/new dialogue in the Narcissus coda, particularly Ripley's conversation with Jones: "Funny Jones, you what I think I'll miss the most? The smell of Kane's coffee when I first wake up..."

Alien: The Illustrated Story originally sold for $3.95, and it's a pretty sturdy book. Hell, it's held up well for thirty years now (about half as long as Ripley's hyper-sleep journey back to Gateway Station...)!

I still haul my copy out every now and then to admire the gonzo, blood-soaked, highly-detailed art work. I thought it would be fun to share a little of that gruesome good stuff today, especially as Alien celebrates a thirtieth anniversary this year.

Just gazing at this books with the drawings of the Space Jockey and the alien itself, I'm reminded of how Ridley Scott, H.R. Giger, Sigourney Weaver and Dan O'Bannon pushed the frontiers of space horror in a frightening new direction here. The haunted house in space concept had been seen before Alien on several occasions, but never with such visual aplomb and naturalism. I still remember talking to friends and family members about the film, and in particular the harrowing chest-bursting sequence. Today, we know it's coming, and we sort of take it for granted. But back then, it had people puking in the aisles.

Ah, the good old days!

And The Worst Horror Film Remake So Far Is...?

...Wes Craven Presents Carnival of Souls.

The original Carnival of Souls (1962) was a one-of-a-kind experience. Forged on a tiny budget in the middle of nowhere Kansas, it was undeniably crude. Yet the film by Herk Harvey was surreal and creepy too; a mesmerizing, unsettling journey into a disturbing, black-and-white netherworld.

In my review of the film, I wrote:

"Performances in Carnival of Souls are truly variable, from the exquisite and sublime (the entrancing Hilligoss) to the terrible (there's a moment when a stranger by a water fountain addresses the camera directly), but there's an alchemy at work in Carnival of Souls, one impossible to dismiss.

The film's production deficits somehow manage to play into the overriding sense of the unreal and dream-like. There are no zombie attacks, no fierce action sequences, no bouts of blood-letting here. Instead, the venture methodically and memorably (and with unforgettable imagery) charts one woman's tragic plight as she slips slowly - piece by piece - from the world of the living to the world of the dead. In that half-detected twilight between life and death, she begins to regret that she never embraced life as meaningfully as she should have. Because now, death's cold embrace - a dance partner in the carnival of souls - is all she can look forward to.

The 1960s Carnival of Souls had budgetary drawbacks but viewers could easily overlook them because the film nonetheless expressed something powerful and resonant about mortality. That abandoned Saltair Carnival was a realm of terror, and our heroine was never going to escape it; no matter how hard she tried. Ultimately, we're all going to have our dance card punched by Death too; and thus something rings true about the stark, mysterious film and the hopeless, inevitable air that dominates it.

The same could not be said for the dreadful 1998 remake. It stars Bobbie Phillips as Alex Grant, a young woman who witnessed the murder of her mother twenty years ago by an abusive clown, Louis Seagram (Larry Miller). On the anniversary of her Mom's murder, Alex is accosted by Louis once more, and she drives her car into the waters of a California harbor rather than let the sadist endanger her younger sister, Sandra (Shawnee Smith). Following the accident in the harbor, Alex begins to move throughout different stages of her life, is terrorized by Louis repeatedly, and even sees gesticulating, spasming demons straight out of Jacob's Ladder (1990).

Technically-speaking, Wes Craven Presents Carnival of Souls is a much less-accomplished effort than the original film, an odd fact given that the remake undoubtedly cost far more than Herk Harvey's groundbreaking original. In fact, this 1998 film is staged so ineptly that sometimes reverse angles don't even match. And the characters are so often shot in in close-up and medium-shot that you can't tell where characters are positioned in relationship to each other. One scene that features Louis popping up in the back-seat of Alex's car is so badly composed and edited that you aren't even sure that Miller and Phillips were in the same car at the same time to shoot the scene. Additionally, the movie is over-lit and blandly shot in a style that makes your average Sci-Fi Original Movies look like Fellini.

The newer Carnival of Souls also boasts all the tell-tale marks of bad 1990s screen-writing. In the original film, we met a character who happened to be in a car wreck, but the audience knew little about her background. As the movie went on, we learned she was a bit of a cold fish, and that she had held a job as a church organist. But we came to sympathize with her through her experiences; through the strange events occurring all around her. We identified with her because something strange and terrible was happening to her; and because, we felt, it could happen to us too.

By contrast, the 1998 film layers on facile psychology and off-the-shelf characters (in much the style as Rob Zombie's Halloween remake, actually...). Alex is a "psychologically damaged" character with "a tragic past" she must overcome. The events of the film take place on the anniversary of her Mother's murder...the event she could never get past. How many times have we seen that kind of predictable set-up before?

The Boogeyman of Carnival of Souls this time around has changed too. He is not some wide-eyed, pale-faced personification of Death, but rather Alex's "personal" demon: the groping, gruesome and utterly obvious Louis. The focus on the inner life -- on mortality itself -- has been turned outward to the simple defeat of a two-dimensional "bad guy" the audience can hiss at. Certainly, a good film could be made from these concepts, but this isn't it. These changes only make Carnival of Souls much more two-dimensional, much more run-of-the-mill than the original film.

The 1998 film is also slathered with dopey New Age, touchy-feely dialogue about death. Alex shares a discussion with a man who might be an angel. He tells her, "It's time to let go." She replies "I can't. I haven't lived yet." At another point, during a discussion of closing down her bar (The Mermaid Bar), Alex tells her sister "I'm not ready to go." Sandra replies "I know, but you're closer than you think." Welcome to Foreshadowing 101. But once more, the whole concept of the original film is undercut because death is now a safe harbor, a peaceful zone...not a realm of the unknown and the terrifying. I suppose this change has occurred so that the film can end with a kind of happy ending: our heroine has beaten the bad guy, "achieved" the rescue of her sister, and moved on to a "good place."

This movie should have been titled Horrorway to Heaven.

Really, I could go on and on about what a lousy film this is. There's a gratuitous sex scene on a boat that pops up out of nowhere with bizarre urgency but then leads nowhere. And the movie constantly skips time frames -- back and forth between scenes -- thus negating even the most rudimentary sense of narrative momentum (and precluding the need for that pesky thing called "continuity.")

And rather ungraciously, Wes Craven Presents Carnival of Souls even fails to credit the original 1962 film as a source of inspiration. There's no "based on" opening credit here, despite the fact that the overall outline of the film is the same as the original (a woman dies and doesn't know it...) and despite the fact that certain shots are explicitly re-staged (the car pulled from the water...). The IMDB lists John Clifford, the writer of the original Carnival of Souls in the credits for this film, but I watched this film yesterday and his name is nowhere on the front of the film. The opening credit reads: written for the screen and directed by Adam Grossman.

Bottom line: Wes Craven Presents Carnival of Souls is a bad remake, and an arrogant one too. It has the audacity to adopt the title of a beloved older film but then substitutes weak ideas for the powerful ones of the original. A remake of Carnival of Souls need not have been slavishly imitative of the original, but it could have captured at least some of the ambiguity, some of the terror, some of the spikiness of the 1962 effort. This remake fails on all fronts.

I'm a big admirer of Wes Craven, but I sure as hell wish his name didn't appear before the title of this travesty, the lousiest of horror remakes.

What were my other contenders for that title? Next in line: the remake of The Hitcher (2007), and Jan De Bont's The Haunting (1999).

The Health Care Post

I realize you don't come here to read my personal opinions on current events. This is, after all, John Kenneth Muir's Reflections on Film and Television, but since I'm sick with the flu today, my thoughts ran to the health care debate causing such strife across the nation.

I'm certain the Laura Ingrahams of the world are out there somewhere yelling "shut up and sing," but that's okay...it's their right to yell. Just as it's my right to express my opinion. I'm also providing links so that you know my opinion here is supported by those "stupid things" called facts and statistics.

Okay, first of all, Reuters reported in September of this year (last month) that 45,000 Americans die in the U.S. each year (one every 12 minutes, actually...), in large part "because they lack health insurance and cannot get good care." That's a pretty startling figure, no? Just think about that for a minute and let it sink in. 45,000 of your country-mates die every year because they can't afford health insurance from a private industry responsible (in 2007) for some 730 billion dollars in unnecessary bureaucracy and waste. This is the same industry that will double health care premiums in seven years if unchecked.

Let me put this tragedy in human terms. Forgive me for being specific or providing too much personal information, but it's illustrative, I believe, of the debate. In the year 2006, my wife and I elected to have a child. We are both self-employed and pay entirely for our own health care. To carry maternity insurance and deliver our child safely, we paid out of pocket (to our insurance company...) approximately $14,000 dollars in the year 2006. In 2016, if nothing is done, it would cost double that to have a child: $28,000.00.

I hasten to add, my wife did not use any drugs during delivery (she didn't even have an epidural) and we had no problems with fertility. In either case, we would have spent even more in health care costs. This isn't a sob story; my wife and I can afford our health care premiums because we are good savers, hard workers, and responsible with our money. But what if our premiums double by 2016? That will be a harder bite to take. And what if they double again in another seven years, after that, by 2023? We would be working full time just to pay for our health care premiums. You tell me: does the health care industry urgently need regulation and reform, or is this an acceptable "future" in America?

My point here is simply that not everybody is as successful or as lucky as my wife and I have been. The median income for an American family in the year 2009 is down 3.6 percent and stands at roughly $50,000. Because of the Recession of 2008-2009, incomes aren't likely to go up very much in the next seven years. It's actually far more likely that they will go down. Still, let's be even-handed in our projections and imagine that the median income stays about the same in 2016, at roughly $54,000 for argument's sake. If you can even afford health care, it's going to cost you half your income to have a child. Why is this important? Well, does "secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity" ring any bells? "Posterity" means future. It means, in other words, children. If even middle-class, professional Americans can't afford to have children in 2016, I have two questions. A.) How can we shower the blessings of liberty on our posterity? And B.) Who's going to grow up, join the U.S. Army and fight all those godless Muslim, socialist countries?

Now let's talk national priorities here. 45,000 Americans die from a lack of quality health care a year. How many die because of terrorist attacks? Well, here's a chart that weighs the relative threat from various deadly forces, accounting for the eleven years from 1995 - 2005. You'll see that "driving off the road" killed 254,419 Americans in that span. Accidental poisoning took out 140,327 Americans. The flu killed 19,415 of our brethren. Hernias (!) killed 16,742.

And terrorism? In that eleven year span, it took...3,147 lives.

Now let's see how much we've spent in Iraq, the "central front in the War on Terror," so far. In 2008, America spent in the Iraq conflict (and I'm not even counting Afghanistan, folks...) roughly $5,000 dollars a second. That comes to 12 billion dollars a year. The cost of keeping one American soldier in Iraq is $390,000 dollars a year (and that doesn't include the care for the wounded 31,483 American soldiers back here in the States). Over the span of the Iraq War, America has spent $1.6 trillion dollars in Iraq.

To combat a threat ("Terror") that took 3,147 lives in eleven years. Do you feel safer now?

My question is this: how can the U.S. Constitution claim to "promote the general welfare," or even "provide for the common defense," when we are spending so much money fighting an enemy that takes less lives a year than...hernias? Why haven't we spent that much cool cash on a War on Hernias? Or a War on Flu? Or a War on Driving off the Road? (The Axles of Evil!) My point, of course, is that reforming Health Care in the United States is a task that would provide tangible, immediate benefits: saving 45,000 lives a year. Just think, that's 45,000 person expansion of the tax revenue base!

Right wing ideologues suggest that government-run health care is socialist and Anti-American. I hear these people complaining about government waste all the time (while simultaneously saying "keep the government's hands off my Medicare!") Well, as I pointed out above, what about the 730 billion dollars of waste in the insurance industry? A governmental public option would provide a new and powerful source of competition for these wasteful, bloated bureaucracies and actually reduce costs for EVERYBODY by providing an incentive for private companies to do better. I thought right-wingers would approve of competition. Why not let the market decide if a public option would bring down costs?

This is my idea: for the next six years (the duration so far of the Iraq War), let's rattle our sabers and pretend that America is indeed at war with Hernias, Flu, and the other ailments that steal 45,000 American lives a year. Let's spend 1.6 trillion on that conflict, and in doing so "promote the general welfare," "secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity" and "provide for the common defense" (against illness). Let's re-prioritize.

Finally, allow me to quote John McCain. "Elections have consequences." Obama won the popular vote by margin of over 10 million, five-hundred thousand votes. He stormed the Electoral College 365 - 173. And it's not like he ever suggested in the campaign that health care wasn't on his agenda. He'll have his "accountability moment" in 2012. But so as far as I can see, saving 45,000 American lives a year over four years (that's 180,000 American lives in just one presidential term!) is a wise and moral investment on Obama's part. If you're against universal health care or a public option, fine. If you're against raising taxes to pay for health care, fine. That is your right as an American: to have a different view. But there are real world consequences for your opposition to health care reform: 45,000 American lives lost a year.

So the next time you wave a fellow flag and claim that you are a patriotic American, try to remember the fallen in the War on the Hernias, the Flu, and Driving off the Road. Saddam Hussein ain't got nothing on them!

Tomorrow I shut up and sing...

CULT TV FLASHBACK # 92: Werewolf (1987 - 1988)

"There are those who believe...and those who will..."

-- early ad line for the TV series Werewolf (1987 - 1988)

Well, I'm suffering from the flu right now (for the second time this season...), so I am going to leave today's Brian De Palma retrospective installment for next Friday when I (hopefully...) can do it justice.

Instead, I'm going to present this piece that I have been working on all week: a look back at a terrific horror TV series that I'm not watching, primarily because the official DVD has been canceled due to a stupid tussle over music rights.

On July 11, 1987, a new network called Fox aired the first installment of a horror series called Werewolf. It was created by the appropriately named Frank Lupo, and it featured on a weekly basis Rick Baker''s and Greg Cannom's remarkable man-to-wolf transformation effects; much like those seen in 1981's An American Werewolf in London.

The series -- which ran for twenty-nine half-hour installments -- depicted the tragic destiny of Eric Cord (John J York) a typical American college student who, one day, learned that his roommate, Ted, was a werewolf. Eric himself became a werewolf after being bitten by Ted. He skipped out on his trial (for the murder of Ted), and -- like a latter day version of Dr. Richard Kimball -- went out in pursuit of Captain Janos Skorzeny (Chuck Connors), the one-eyed man whom Ted believed had turned him into a werewolf (by bite...) the previous summer. Only by severing the original bloodline, by killing the brutish Skorzeny, could Eric hope to return to a normal life and end his curse. Meanwhile, he was pursued across the country by a half-Indian bounty hunter named Alamo Joe (Lance Le Gault).

On Werewolf, Eric always knew when the metamorphosis to wolf man was impending because a bloody pentagram formed like a scarlet letter on the palm of his left hand. The only thing that could kill the werewolf was a silver bullet, and Eric's lycanthropic cycle was not tied to the full moon. The series often featured werewolf-vs.-werewolf fights.

Critics were not too pleased with Werewolf. Rolling Stone said it was basically "The Incredible Hulk with a body Afro" and noted that "York is treated to every form of humiliation...you wonder when some grizzled yokel cradling a shotgun will walk up to him..and say 'Boy, you sure got a pretty mouth." ("Terror By Mattel," May 5, 1988, page 32).

The New York Times opined that the series pilot was "slow, turgid and self-conscious," ("Werewolf on Channel 5," July 10, 1987) while Variety noted that "what is missing...is the vitality, chilling fun and imagination of those 1940s Lon Chaney Jr. films." (July 15, 1987, page 50).

I disagree, for the most part, with these slams. Looking back, Werewolf boasted some intriguing distinctions. For one thing, it was one of the rare prime time horror series (at that time) to feature regular characters, a continuing storyline...and even the inkling of a story arc. Before Werewolf, I can think of only two such series off-hand: The Sixth Sense (1972) and Kolchak: The Night Stalker (1974-1975). Dark Shadows did it on afternoon television too, but that was a different ball game. Other horror efforts that had been prominent and well-received (the likes of Night Gallery, Ghost Story, The Evil Touch, Darkroom, Tales from the Darkside, etc.), were all anthologies. Today we sort of take this accomplishment for granted, post-Buffy, post-X-Files, post-Twin Peaks but it's no small matter. Werewolf attempted to forge an internally consistent world with "rules" and consistent characters when such an effort was not the norm.

Also, Werewolf exhibited a legitimate sense of danger (if not outright terror...) on a weekly basis. Again, no small feat. Even though Eric Cord (York) was our handsome, young lead, he seemed generally imperiled and overwelmed by his situation. Accordingly, the world of Werewolf was unpredictable, dark, and constantly changing. Mid-way through the series, for instance, Cord learned that Janos Skorzeny (named after the vampire in the TV-movie The Night Stalker) was not the head of the bloodline after all. On the contrary, it was a powerful yuppie tyrant (think Ted Turner or Donald Trump) named Nicholas Remy (Brian Thompson) who was the real head werewolf. The overwhelming sense of unpredictability and danger was also heightened by the very thing that has now kept Werewolf off our DVD shelves: a revolutionary, unconventional, hard-pounding rock score.

It's tempting to gaze at Werewolf and dismiss it as a "man on the run series" like The Fugitive, The Phoenix, The Immortal, Starman, or indeed, The Incredible Hulk. But here's the thing about those shows: for the most part, life on the run seemed pretty easy. The leads were often well-coiffed, comfortable-looking, and seemed to have the money to get from one place to another.

By contrast, on Werewolf, Cord grew dirtier, scuzzier and more-emaciated the longer the show continued. He went from Izod-wearing preppy boy to homeless, crazy-eyed derelict. He was forced to beg for food and money in an episode called "Amazing Grace," a fact which reflected the uptick in America's homeless at the tail end of the Reagan Era (when the president noted callously that many of them were actually "homeless by choice.") I remember that Eric bedded down in a train car with bums in one episode ("King of the Road,") and spent all night in a bus depot in another ("Nightmare at the Braine Hotel"). The result was that this was no typical glamorous TV trip. As I wrote in my review of the series for Terror Television (2001), even the extras cast on Werewolf appeared scruffy and menacing. Thus there was this atmosphere of a seamy, unfriendly America; one existing just underneath the "don't worry be happy" surface.

What I also appreciated about Werewolf was the manner in which the series was willing to let go of The Fugitive-style format when necessary. In other words, the program frequently discovered ways to be innovative within the contexts of format limitations. For instance, Alamo Joe's history was studied in depth during an episode called "A World of Difference." Remy's and Skorzeny's long histories were also excavated in various installments. Forecasting myth-heavy efforts such as Highlander, Forever Knight, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and other modern series, Werewolf explored the notion that monsters carry long legacies from the past into the present.

When Werewolf was bad, it was because formula and TV convention simply overtook the series' better instincts. We could have all lived without the episode in which Eric helped a cute old Lady escape from a cruel nursing home ("Amazing Grace") or "Nothing Evil in These Woods" in which he predictably fell in love with a sexy new age witch. And sure, it was awfully convenient that Eric would always transform into a werewolf just when those werewolf abilities could do some good and he could defend/save/rescue the "good" guest star of the week.

Still, given the late-1980s vintage, Werewolf often played like Miami Vice on acid, and the series would frequently strike this trance-like groove of pounding rock music and startling, music-video era imagery. Non-linear story lines (the kind you'd see in Jackie Brown [1997] or Out of Sight [1998]) were featured from time-to-time (before they were cliches...) and some episodes felt positively avant garde in the dedicated use of bizarre symbols and cryptic characters. And remember, this was pre-Twin Peaks (1991).

When Werewolf hit these spiky chords -- like a drug trip gone bad; like a sleazy Sid and Nancy (1986) horror venture dominated by startling imagery -- it was truly a great, even trail-blazing series. A unique and memorable fusion of genre horror mythology, rock music and TV conventions, Werewolf may have begun life as Fugitive rip-off but it quickly transformed itself into something monstrously entertaining.

And it's about bloody time we got to see it on DVD.