Library Journal Recommends Horror Films of the 2010s

To my delight and gratitude, Library Journal has reviewed my new book (and final contribution to this series), Horror Films of the 2010s. 

 Here is an excerpt of their review:

"Horror reflects the anxieties of an age, and Muir connects the films from 2010-2019 to economic unease, political polarization, and institutional mistrust in the post-Great Recession era... Muir goes out on a high note, documenting 275 movies with his trademark insight and wit." — Library Journal. 

Watch Abnormal Fixation: The Complete Season 1

 

30 Years Ago: Space: Above and Beyond: "R & R" (April 12, 1996)

Imagine a "gritty, gutsy" (per TV Guide...) futuristic war drama colored in hues of mood battleship gray. It takes place in deep space following a devastating sneak attack on humanity by an unfathomable and merciless enemy.

Our protagonists in the war effort (which we are "losing badly") are young, attractive (but headstrong and angsty) pilots. Much of the action occurs inside the cockpits of cramped space fighters and in military briefing rooms. The universe depicted by the series is one of murky morality and hard truths which shift in the troublesome and ambiguous sands of wartime. For instance, the specter of torture (here termed "re-education") is brought up in one installment.

You don't think I'm talking about the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica, do you?

Instead, the first paragraph of this review describes the Glen Morgan/James Wong sci-fi war drama, Space: Above and Beyond, a mid-nineties-era TV endeavor that aired on the Fox Network for one season (and twenty-three hour-long episodes), and which concerned a squadron of rookie - but committed - soldiers serving in the United States Marine Corps Space Aviator Cavalry aboard a mobile space headquarters; not the Galactica, but the Saratoga.

Set in the year 2063, Space: Above and Beyond sets its stories in the immediate aftermath of a devastating ambush on an Earth Colony ship bound for distant Tellus, ("the furthest any human has ever ventured,") and thus this nearly-forgotten series imagined a futuristic 9/11 scenario...six years before 9/11 (and eight years before the Ron Moore remake of BSG). The enemy in this case was not the Cylon race, but the menacing and mysterious "Chigs," a derogatory slang name which refers to chiggers... fleas which burrow into the skin.

What remains so interesting about Space: Above and Beyond is not merely that the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica co-opted so much from its look, feel and narrative without so much as a "by your command," but rather that the creators' of this cult series seemed to understand - far earlier than most of us - how truly divided Americans were becoming as a people; and how - as bad as it might be - a war effort could conceivably bring us together.

Some context: Space: Above and Beyond premiered just a year after the 1994 "Contract with America" Republican Congress swept the elections, a stinging rebuke to President Clinton and a victory for Nute Gunray...I mean Newt Gingrich. This was post-Anita Hill/Clarence Thomas America, when the buzz word "sexual harassment" was all the rage. On a personal note, it was around this time that I first heard the name Rush Limbaugh, and began to meet otherwise seemingly-normal people who followed his every rant like he was some kind of cult leader.

Space: Above and Beyond reflects this reality in nineties America by featuring a diverse group of pilots, the men and women who will fight the Chig attackers. In particular, one of the pilots is Lt. Cooper Hawkes (Rodney Rowland), who is part of a new minority in America called a "Tank," a term which is more derogatory slang, this time for "in vitros," citizens who were conceived and born in artificial gestation tanks.

America is still land of the free and home of the brave in 2063, but that doesn't mean that the "in vitro" class can expect total equality. As one character states bluntly in the pilot, "we believe in civil rights for in vitros, but not at the expense of our rights." This is EXACTLY what the debate was in the country at the time: women and African-Americans should have equal rights, as long as we didn't establish any laws that gave them privileges over the white man, some believed. 

Meanwhile - on the show - racism towards the in vitros still flourishes in the ranks of the space marines, mostly out of ignorance. "Tanks are lazy and don't care about anyone," reports one soldier, relying on an old stereotype. Later, a character registers surprise that "Tanks" actually dream. It's always easier to demonize the enemy (even a domestic one...), when you can somehow render them sub-human. Even the military equipment on hand in the Corps. doesn't fit the "Tanks," and Hawkes has to cut off part of his space helmet to accommodate a common "Tank" birth mark. "They don't make nothing with In Vitros in mind," he laments.

So this is the cultural context that Wong and Morgan were working on with Space: Above and Beyond. And the episode "R & R," directed by Thomas J. Wright, takes the characters of the 58th to yet another new horizon: furlough.

Specifically, the squadron is exhausted after multiple tours-of-duty, and the In-Vitro pilot Hawkes (Rodney Rowlands) is injured during a Chig attack on his patrol. Colonel T.C. McQueen (James Morrison) is relieved when the group is assigned 48 hours of vacation on a pleasure ship called "The Bacchus." 

This vessel is described as "Vegas, New York City and Oz all rolled into one." I immediately thought of Sinoloa in the Buck Rogers episode "Vegas in Space" and "Space City," the so-called "Satellite of Sin" in Blake's 7.

In Space: Above and Beyond, this viper's den looks like a Trump Casino in space, and the futuristic Cabaret's master-of-ceremonies is none other than Coolio (!). He promptly informs the visiting soldiers that Bacchus is the place "where what you can only imagine, we make happen."

He also notes that this is not a world of virtual reality or "phony Holodecks," a pointed line which clearly differentiates Space: Above and Beyond's gritty, hard-bitten universe from that of another 1990s outer space franchise, Star Trek: The Next Generation. Remember, Star Trek off-spring dominated the 1990s, and Space: Above and Beyond was a first dramatic step away from that Utopian world of plenty. Again -- today, we might not appreciate the pioneering aspects of Morgan and Wong's space combat series as much as we should. Not entirely unlike Space:1999, this program ventured to present a realistic look at man in space; rather than going for an idealistic approach.

Back to "R & R." In short order, the pilots of the 58th start to let their hair down. On Bacchus ,Lt. Shane Vansen (Kristen Cloke) sets about winning some dough in the ship's pool hall, only to be verbally upbraided and relentlessly "played" by a psychologically-adroit android pool-shark, Alvin...an uncredited David Duchovny. This characters snarls like Clint Eastood and even asks Vansen "do you feel lucky?" I loved this subplot because it played on expectations (the audience's and the character's): Vansen arrives in the pool hall in a slinky black dress, manhandles her pool cue seductively (!) and vamps it up...expecting to get one by the other players on sex appeal.

Didn't count on a robot, I guess...

Meanwhile, Hawkes has to deal with the specter of drug addiction because of the pain medication he's been prescribed, for his injury. On The Bacchus,  gegoes in search of sexual comfort. A virgin, Hawkes soon meets up with a beautiful in-vitro hooker who is far less glamorous than she appears. She's addicted to drugs too (so she doesn't have to think about how she earns her cash), and she's the mother of an infant.

And yes, this distinctly un-romantic subplot indeed sounds familiar if you've seen the re-imagined, second season Battlestar Galactica episode "Black Market."

As "R & R" continues, another sub-plot: West (Morgan Weisser) learns that the seemingly-humorless colonel, McQueen, has a fondness for old, black-and-white, W.C. Fields movies. Before long, however, the brief respite from war is called off, and the pilots are back to combat. Hawkes, for his part, has trouble leaving the events on The Bacchus behind. The Colonel, who has also faced drug addiction, tells him "There is there. And here is here."

What we get in "R & R," which aired originally on April 12, 1996, is a dissection of virtually all the program's dramatis personae. Sometimes that dissection is explicit: Alvin (Duchovny) finds the right words about Shane's family life to shake her; to make her lose at pool. Sometimes the character dissection is more subtle: the episode tackles everything from loneliness and virginity to the way "closeness" in combat sometimes creates a false sense of intimacy. James Morrison's character, McQueen doesn't have a tremendous amount of screen time, and yet we learn a lot about him here.

It isn't often in Space: Above and Beyond that audiences got see the characters relate to one another and their universe outside of the battle situation, and their time on the Bacchus (except for the W.C. Fields movies...) doesn't seem relaxing at all. But perhaps that's part of human nature too: our need to pursue love, money and yes, danger, even when we're off the job, supposedly taking it easy. Of course, there's even more danger in pursuing these things when outside the confines of "responsibility. It's hard, as Vansen might say (especially after her encounter with Alvin), to "keep your head screwed on straight" in an environment like the pleasure ship.

Space: Above & Beyond is a remarkably prophetic show. I write often about the sense of anticipatory anxiety evident in the works of Chris Carter, and I think you might detect that quality here too, in the efforts of Wong and Morgan. It's the belief that the apparent good times don't last forever, and bad times are imminent. The re-imagined Battlestar Galactica of the 21st century also highlighted artificial people, sneak attacks, hookers, R & R, psychological mind-fucks, and gritty space combat, yet it's hard to ignore that Space: Above and Beyond hit the same notes (and without some of the more questionable soap opera plotting) almost ten years earlier. Also, Space: Above and Beyond always remained humanistic, rather than telling us that we are all the fools of the Gods, the victims of a fate we can't control.

So much of success in Hollywood is based on timing. Space: Above and Beyond in the Roaring Nineties, apparently didn't resonate with a wide audience (though its ratings were higher than many genre shows airing on television today). If the program aired after 9/11, maybe we would have gotten to know Morgan and Wong's intriguing characters and solid writing for four seasons, or more...

30 Years Ago: The X-Files: Jose Chung's From Outer Space (April 12, 1996)

Darin Morgan’s stories for The X-Files (1993 – 2002) are something of a philosophical anomaly. 

Where Mulder and Scully typically voice facets of belief or skepticism, Morgan often populates his episodes with a lead character who is a surrogate for his own belief system: nihilism.

That surrogate in “Jose Chung’s From Outer Space” is an opportunistic “non-fiction/science-fiction”writer, Jose Chung (Charles Nelson Reilly) who is seeking  a quick buck by writing a history of an alien abduction experience.  

And at one point in the episode, Chung directly diagrams this episode’s theme: “Truth is as subjective as reality.”

This statement of principle, as you may detect, is deliberately and distinctively at odds with a series which made famous the catch-phrase “The Truth is Out There.”   

How can truth be subjective, if it exists in some definable place, “out there?” If it is subjective, is the truth even worth seeking?

This thematic tension represents merely one glory of The X-Files as a multi-layered and meaningful work of art. The Chris Carter series can accommodate different points of view and different philosophies so long as Mulder and Scully remain true to their beliefs and histories as the audience understands them.  Morgan’s episodes are so much fun -- and so provocative -- because the scribe stretches the boundaries a bit, but never totally breaks them. In this case, the lead protagonist role is taken by Chung, an act that permits the storyteller to present a different philosophy while sacrificing nothing we know in terms of continuity.  

To wit, the alien-abduction and Mulder and Scully’s role in its investigation is largely recounted in flashbacks this episode.  Under this creative paradigm, memories, essentially, are “portrayed” or dramatized as answers to Chung’s probing interview questions. In true Rashomon (1950) style, the viewer has no way of knowing or verifying the honesty or veracity of each account.  In other words, the author’s point that the truth is subjective becomes manifest in the very absurdity of many witness reports.  

This is a funny development, to be certainly but also a complex one, for it leads to Darin Morgan’s final, existential truth about our human existence. Since there is no objective truth for us dwelling here on Earth, only interpretations of it, we are truly -- in a variation of Close Encounters’ (1977) ad campaign --“alone.”

Two teens in Klass County, Washington are imperiled by dueling aliens on the way home from their first date. A popular author, Jose Chung (Reilly), interviews Scully (Gillian Anderson) about the case and she recounts her perception of it.

Scully and Mulder (David Duchovny) have a difference of opinion about the truth of the case, however.  Mulder believes there was a genuine alien abduction while Scully believes the matter was date rape and ensuing post-traumatic stress. 

Meanwhile, a witness to the odd events of that night, Rocky, claims that a third alien -- one from the Earth’s molten core and named Lord Kimbote -- was involved, as were two unearthly Men in Black.

Unable to discern the truth for himself, Chung hopes to interview a reluctant Mulder about what really happened that fateful night…

I’m not passing judgment on this aspect of the episode, but a deep cynicism shines through in “Jose Chung’s From Outer Search.” 

That cynicism concerns humanity’s eternal quest to know the truth.  Through a series of re-enacted events related to one bizarre alien encounter, this episode by Darin Morgan suggests that human memories are inherently and fatally flawed and therefore unreliable arbiters of fact or history.  For one thing, humans may lie on purpose, without others knowing it. To this end, we learn that the teenagers involved in the close encounter actually had sex on their date, and are desperate to hide this fact from their parents.

So memory being wrong is one thing, but some people encourage wrong interpretations because they boast hidden or unknowable agendas.

Morgan’s critique of truth goes further.  “Jose Chung’s From Outer Space” also expresses doubt in truth-searching tools, ones developed under the auspices of man’s science; tools such as hypnosis.  Here, hypnosis is termed explicitly in the dialogue as a procedure which “worsens” rather than “enhances” human memory.  In other words, human memory is bad but memories re-surfaced during hypnosis are even worse.

Intriguingly, “From Outer Space” also indicates that the desire to know the truth -- in this case to believe in alien life forms -- is merely a primal scream shouted in response to a nihilistic human existence, and a delusion or blind alley fostered and encouraged by a complicit mass media.  The episode’s first shot, for instance, is of an object (actually a work crew’s crane…) that could easily be mistaken for a UFO.  

In fact, this inaugural image knowingly harks back to the first sequence in Star Wars (1977), with the triangular Star Destroyer intersecting the frame, as well as a moment from Close Encounters (1977), wherein Roy Neary spots a large object overhead, hovering in the dark Muncie sky. 

Those productions nurture in us, the episode seems to indicate, some sort of romanticism about the nature of life and the universe.  It’s a false or unfounded romanticism, according to Morgan/Chung.

More important, however, is the fact that in this shot we believe we’re seeing a spaceship at first glance.  As we watch longer, however, we become aware that we are actually seeing something much more mundane, something utilitarian and man-made.

This visual joke thus perfectly reflects the idea that we can’t ever be sure that we are correctly seeing, registering, and interpreting external stimuli.  Our desire for the romantic (look, it’s a spaceship!) supersedes our rationality (oh, it’s a work crane!) and our brain seems to respond to our deeply-held desire see that which isn’t, plainly, there.  And if this is so, it means that our perception, our memory, our very truth, is suspect.

At the end of the same scene, we witness the appearance of an intentionally silly-looking “monster,” Lord Kimbote.  This hairy, cyclopean thing seems based on an amalgamation of creatures from 1960s Ray Harryhausen films.  No matter -- our eyes immediately discount Kimbote as fake or corny.  

Here’s the point, however.  We don’t visually “read” the Greys nearby in the same dismissive fashion.  On the contrary, they seem “real” in a way that Kimbote just does not (perhaps because the Greys reflect 1990s mythology instead of 1960s mythology/fantasy…) 

Morgan’s message is thus that we shouldn’t stand in judgment of other people’s belief systems, because they are all equally flawed and yes, silly.  Why accept dome-headed Greys from space without question, but nit-pick Lord Kimbote from the center of the Earth?  Is one “being” intrinsically a nuttier idea than the other?  Or are they insane on a co-equal level?

It’s a little like saying that you believe in the literal meaning of communion (eating and drinking from the literal body of Christ), but that you draw the line of believability at the Pope’s infallibility.  

Everyone draws this line differently…

And, of course, if we draw that line differently and can’t objectively support our belief system, then we are, for the most part, alone in our belief system.  

What I find so interesting, however, is the last few moments of “Jose Chung’s From Outer Space.”  Here, Morgan establishes how the abduction has influenced each “alone” individual to change his or her life for the better.  A teen girl at the center of it has become an activist hoping to save the world.  The boy she was with that night, contrarily, has been reconfirmed in his (unrequited) love for her, and has made this love the center of his (meaningless?) existence. 

And Mulder, of course, tilts forever at Morgan’s impossible windmills, looking for answer to things that aren’t really questions in the first place.  Why seek truth when there is no truth?

“What really happened to those kids on that night?”  Chung asks Mulder.  His answer is “how the hell should I know?” 

For Mulder such an answer might result from a lack of facts, or a need for more investigation and research.  But for Chung it’s a validation for the belief that we are all animals trapped in our cages of subjectivity, unable to know the truth or reality of any event in our lives.

Undeniably brilliant and categorically funny, “Jose Chung’s From Outer Space” is another signature X-Files episode.  I appreciate it intellectually, and it always makes me laugh.  Yet it is not among my personal favorite episodes of the series because I tend to believe that we, as humans, must search for the truth, even if it is, finally, a fool’s errand.  

The journey is worth the trip, and even if truth is ultimately found infinitely subjective, it still may be enough to help us sleep better at nights, or accept our limitations as flawed, mortal creatures. Sometimes, a little bit of self-delusion isn’t necessarily a bad thing, if it can keep us looking to the stars, or to the next horizon. 

An Abnormal Fixation Short: Special Delivery

 

An Abnormal Fixation Short: Season's Packing Day