CULT TV FLASHBACK #94: Twin Peaks: "Pilot" (1990)

Writing about David Lynch's classic and creepy Twin Peaks (1990-1991), critic Terrance Rafferty noted in The New Leader (April 9, 1990, page 86) that the "all-American surrealist takes to television like a parasite to an especially nourishing host."

In more straightforward terms, author Robert J. Thompson noted that Twin Peaks is one of television's "most interesting and compelling aesthetic achievements." (From Hill Street Blues to ER: Television's Second Golden Age, The Continuum Publishing Company, 1996, page 155.)

Indeed, thinking back to the year 1990, I remember a nation utterly captivated by the soap opera. Twin Peaks was a legitimate pop culture phenomenon in those days, down to the parodies ("Twin Beaks" on Sesame Street), down to the New York Times best-seller The Secret Diary of Laura Palmer, down to the Time Magazine cover story on Lynch, and even the Twin Peaks Access Guide to the Town (which featured a recipe for some damn-fine cherry pie...).

I also recall with great clarity attending parties at college wherein suddenly the word would go out (usually loudly...) that it was time for Twin Peaks, and there would be this mad rush for the nearest TV set. Students huddled before the tube with rapt attention, and as soon as Angelo Badalementi's moody theme song began it grew so quiet you could actually hear a pin drop. That spell was not broken for the entire hour as active viewers sussed out clues, sought revelations, and reveled in the program's quirky symbolism.

Another potent personal memory of Twin Peaks involves the surprising collapse of the phenomenon early in the series' second season. The oft-heard complaint was simply that dedicated viewers had -- because of family or job obligations -- missed a single episode and found themselves utterly lost; unable to keep up with the twists and turns of Mark Frost and David Lynch's bizarre, labyrinthine program. This feeling of missing out, of not keeping up, of being on "the outs" with something popular, actually generated a kind of vicious backlash. When the feature film based on the movie, Fire Walk with Me (1991), was released at a later point, it was (unfairly...) greeted with derisive boos and hisses by critics and fans alike.

The fashionable had turned into the unfashionable, seemingly overnight...

Twin Peaks was the tale of a small, Douglas Fir-lined town in the Pacific-Northwest (population: 51, 201) that suffered a terrible tragedy on February the 24th of 1990. The corpse of beloved high school student Laura Palmer (Sheryl Lee) was discovered - wrapped in plastic -- on the banks of the river near the Packard Saw Mill. The crime was so horrendous, so awful, that it sent the town into a literal tail-spin of suspicion and accusations, and resulted in an FBI investigation led by fastidious agent, Dale Cooper (Kyle MacLachlan).

As Cooper and town sheriff Harry Truman (Michael Ontkean) sought answers about the brutal crime, a dark underside was also unearthed. Seventeen year-old Laura Palmer -- the "golden girl" of the local high school -- had been a cocaine user. She had also kept a secret diary of her kinky sexual escapades, and had at least two lovers. And that was just the tip of the iceberg.

Those memorable characters and intriguing situations are all set up -- ably and artistically -- in the ninety minute pilot episode of Twin Peaks that aired on ABC on April 8, 1990. For purposes of this review, I screened the original TV version of the pilot (rather than the International version) simply because this post is a "flashback" to the series as it aired on American television. And even in 2009 -- almost twenty-years after it originally aired -- the Twin Peaks pilot is mesmerizing; and certainly one of the ten greatest TV pilots of all-time.

Who's The Lady With The Log? We Call Her The Log Lady...

One of the reasons this pilot stands up so well involves Lynch's multi-layered approach to the material. In other words, Twin Peaks is concurrently a "thing" (a melodrama; a soap opera, a serialized TV series) and a parody of that very "thing."

Specifically, melodrama -- literally "a play with music" -- is a drama of heightened emotions that concerns family crises, hardships, and domestic tragedies. In Twin Peaks, Lynch parodies this hot-house, emotionally-unrestrained genre, and in particular, the melodrama as it has existed throughout American television history.

Accordingly, Badalementi's droning, monotonous, ubiquitous (but gorgeous...) musical score serves as the 1990s equivalent of the maudlin organs you might hear supporting a General Hospital or Guiding Light episode of the early 1960s. This exaggerated musical score is integral to the soap opera aura of Twin Peaks, and it constantly lifts the tenor of the pilot from grounded reality to a brand of rarefied, hyper-reality.

Tragedy arrives hard and fast in the Twin Peaks pilot with Pete Martell's (Jack Nance) discovery of Laura Palmer's corpse. Again, this is a terrible turn-of-events, especially for Laura's parents, Leland (Ray Wise) and Sarah (Grace Zabriskie). These fine actors weep and wail, shouting to the Heavens over their grievous loss in the earnest tradition of the soap opera or melodrama.

Yet, Lynch quickly and methodically distances us from that continual and genuine suffering, almost literally turning it comedic in the process. To wit, Sarah learns that Laura is dead while conversing with Leland on the telephone. Leland drops the telephone in shock at the news (reported by Sheriff Truman), but Lynch's camera doesn't follow Leland, as we might expect.

Instead, we suddenly get a close-up of the phone, and the camera pans down and down -- ever-so-slowly -- the long telephone wire, all-the-way to the dangling receiver. Emanating from that receiver are Sarah's tortured cries, still audible even though nobody is listening. But those cries -- now disembodied -- go on and on and on, ad nauseum, and make the moment read as funny, not tragic. Again, this augmentation occurs in tandem with the overblown musical score. The crying has gone on so long, and with such sustained passion that it turns silly, and Lynch informs us that is so by removing the crier from the frame so we're not actually laughing at the person's pain; we're laughing at the over-the-top reaction.

The deadpan, circular dialogue in Twin Peaks likewise adds to the strong sense that the soap opera form is being parodied here. Straight answers are given to straight questions, and yet everything about the interrogatives and their rebuttals are absurd. "Who is the lady with the log?" asks Dale Cooper. "We call her the log lady," replies Sheriff Truman. Tell me, do you glean any important contextual information from that particular back-and-forth?

Again and again, Lynch undercuts the seriousness of the tale to parody the soap opera form. After the discovery of the corpse, he cuts to shots of a blubbering detective at the crime scene, a sobbing idiot named Andy. Again, this isn't typical crime-scene behavior. Later, as Sheriff Truman is about to get the call about Laura's death, his receptionist, Lucy, goes off on a sustained riff about how she is going to transfer that particular call. To that phone. By the lamp. The black one. On the table.

Again, the very serious form of the soap opera is successfully undercut here by Lucy's focus on the picayune. The examples are too numerous to mention just in the pilot alone, but I must admit, I nurture a special affection for a very funny camera set-up in the local high school. Sheriff Truman is just about to arrive to tell the students of the bad news, but before we see him (in the background of the frame), a young high school student inexplicably and robotically moonwalks from his locker (on the right of the frame) to the left side of the screen. It's unmotivated, it's bizarre, and it's funny as hell.

Later in the series, Twin Peaks further satirized soap opera forms in everything from crazy character contrivances (like Laura's lookalike cousin Mattie...) to direct reference to the genre. In the latter case, the characters would often be seen watching a sophomoric soap opera entitled Invitation to Love. With Twin Peaks, Lynch seemed to be telling audiences how silly the form of the melodrama was at the same time that he was enticing the audience with a superlative example of the form.

The Girl in the Plastic Bag

The strange alchemy of Twin Peaks is so compelling because the series is part soap opera, part soap opera parody, and much more too. The show veers into mystery, into horror, and even bizarre police procedural. The pilot changes tenors easily and quickly, and we're often left feeling deeply discomforted by the unconventional shifts.

The death of Laura Palmer is greeted with terrible mourning throughout the first episode (even on the part of the taciturn school principal...) and Lynch seems to be playing on societal stereotypes about young blond women. The victim here is not randomly selected.

On the contrary, Laura Palmer symbolizes something significant. Mid-way through the pilot, Lynch's camera pushes in towards an athletic trophy case...where an iconic portrait of Laura stands -- dead center of the shot. The implication drawn from the photograph's placement in both the frame and the case, of course, is that golden-locked Laura is the ultimate trophy in America of the 1990s.

In traditional folklore, fairies and other spirits of the forest are universally drawn to blond-haired women, and if you've watched all of Twin Peaks, that's a subtle clue about the nature of this particular crime. But there's more than that going on too. Blond hair is often considered part and parcel of the "essential female" in our culture, and hair color is "entangled not only with the concepts of femininity and beauty, but also with intimations of mortality in a youth-oriented society," according to author Anthony Synnott in The Body Social, Self & Society (page 109).

Sometimes, blondes are also stereotypically associated with loose morals or promiscuity, and as a character, Laura seems to encompass every aspect of the Blond Mystique.. She's highly-desirable (a trophy) in terms of male sexual ownership of her. She's a symbol of life, vitality and the future in the youth culture, and she's also derided (the Madonna/Whore Complex...) because of her overtly sexual nature in what appears a conservative (but ultimately corrupt...) adult society. I find fascinating the many ways this pilot contextualizes and re-contextualizes Laura: as loving daughter (to her parents), as romantic fantasy (to James), as best friend (to Donna Hayward), as crime victim (to the investigators), as innocent school girl (to the principal and others), and even as kindly tutor/ teacher (to the Horne 's son). But, at least in the pilot, it is impossible to say that we "know" Laura. That's part of Twin Peaks' great appeal: that Laura is different things to different people and the audience can only guess at the "real" Palmer.

By making a golden-haired, "All-American" beauty the victim of a terrible crime, Lynch is granted an opening to study a lot of things about society. How men view women; how women view other women; how society glorifies and then destroys women, and female beauty, even. It's the same delicate dance Lynch waltzed in Blue Velvet (1984), a film that in many ways a prototype for Twin Peaks. He likes to gaze at the underneath; at the meaning behind symbols we take for granted on a conscious level.

A "Pretty Simple Town:" The Evil That Lurks in the Woods

One of the most important symbols in Twin Peaks is the dense forest that surrounds the town. In literature -- as far back as Nathaniel Hawthorne -- the forest has often been considered a place of evil.

Hawthorne wrote powerfully (in Young Goodman Brown, for instance...) that the American forests were inhabited by things both inhuman and devilish. His books were built around that belief; just as Twin Peaks is also built around them. Over the course of the series, we learn about the forest's Black Lodge and the inhabitants within: dwarves, giants and sadistic murderers. But the Forest also reflects a very human evil.

Consider this description of the forest (from Symbolism.org): the forest is a "place where vegetable life thrives and luxuriates, free from any control or cultivation. And since its foliage obscures the light of the sun, it is therefore regarded as opposed to the sun's power and as a symbol of the earth...Since the female principle is identified with the unconsciousness in Man, it follows that the forest is also a symbol of the unconsciousness. It is for this reason that Jung maintains that the sylvan terrors that figure so prominently in childrens' tales symbolize the perilous aspects of the unconsciousness, that is, its tendency to devour or obscure reason."

The woods have proven a dangerous place to fictional characters in works such as Little Red Riding Hood, The Blair Witch Project (1999), and, yes, Twin Peaks. Laura Palmer doesn't survive her night in the woods...a night of unconscious unbound. Rona, another resident of the town, also emerges bloody and beaten from the forest, and the pilot provides us a stunning shot of the girl "coming home," crossing a rusted bridge -- white-capped mountains and forest behind her in the distance -- as she returns to civilization. Depending on interpretation, the forest in Twin Peaks is either the realm where the Human Id goes wild and murder results; or the place where the human psyche is possessed by external spirits and specters of tremendous madness. But either way, the pilot begins to establish the symbolism of the forest as an important catalyst for series events. Between scenes, we see wind rustling through the trees, with a strange, sinister quality. Later we see traffic lights shining red -- warning us not to go any further (into the woods?) -- blowing in the wind at night. The forest represents an invisible malevolence, ever-present but virtually ignored.

On one level, Twin Peaks is about a girl who went astray (morally?) in the woods (adulthood?), and paid the ultimate price. It's a metaphor for life traps like drug use and exploitive sex. But Twin Peaks is no Afterschool Special. It is so weird, so spiky, so dark and demented that it encourages many interpretations, That's why the series dwells in the memory, in the imagination, even in the subconscious.

Even after all these years, Twin Peaks is a great mystery waiting to be re-opened and re-visited. And the punch line -- "the sequence of staccato images where we finally discovered who killed Laura Palmer " (Cult Times, October 1996, page 53) -- is one of the most terrifying scenes you'll find in television history. Like life itself, the series was wild, and weird; inexplicably absurd...and, at some moments, paralyzing. Lynch lulls you into complacency with the belief that his show is a put-on, a stab at soap operas, but then he hits you with his trademark whammies (like our final, alarming visit with Laura Palmer in the Black Lodge).

This "simple little town" is as as strange and surreal a place as mainstream TV has ever taken us, an often-dark reminder that "fate and coincidence figure largely in our lives."

CULT TV REVIEW: V: "Pilot" (2009)

Turnabout is fair play, I suppose.

During the Bush years (2000-2008), a right-wing science fiction TV series from the late-1970s, Battlestar Galactica, was re-imagined as a liberal enterprise that commented on the bungling of the Iraq War and critiqued our government following the 9/11 attacks.

Individual episodes of the new Galactica series involved illegal torture, a West/Middle East-type religious-type schism and other trademarks of the 21st century's turbulent first decade.

Last night, a leftist science fiction TV series from the late 1980s -- and one that took dead aim at the Reagan Era -- was re-imagined as a paranoid, right-wing, anti-Obama production.

Yep, the evil aliens of the re-imagined V arrive on Earth offering three things: "hope," "change" and "universal health care." These reptilian invaders apparently don't appreciate "fair and balanced" news broadcasts, either.

Heightening the parallel to our President, these conquering aliens "spread the word" of their good deeds by "tagging" locations across the globe with one valedictory alphabet letter. No, not the ubiquitous "O" of 2008's Obamamania, but rather the "V" of the Visitors. The pilot episode culminates with a warning against seeking "saviors" anywhere but in a Christian Heaven; another thinly-veiled barb at our Muslim, Socialist Commander-in-Chief.

So basically, Sinclair Lewis' It Can't Happen Here has been transformed into The Glenn Beck Show.

If you read my blog with any regularity you know I'm unabashedly, proudly liberal, but you also know, I hope, that I don't always tow the party line. I was not the world's biggest fan of the new Battlestar Galactica, for instance, because I felt that even though it matched my ideological and political bent, it was lacking in imagination, crushingly obvious, and it became the tiresome equivalent of Clue in Outer Space. (The fifth and final Cylon was Colonel Mustard on the Galactica...). I think my opinion was ultimately vindicated by the dopey, disappointing way the series ended (basically an insulting wave of a magic wand that said "God Moves in Mysterious Ways.")

Thus far, I feel the same way about the re-imagined V as I did about BSG starting out, but only in this case I get the added bonus of disliking the show's politics too. Not because I believe Obama is above criticism (and I've already criticized him here on the blog for not pursuing a torture investigation...) but because it has only been eleven months since he took office and he hasn't actually done anything yet to merit the high level of hatred and wacky rhetoric we see coming from Hannity, Limbaugh, Beck and the Tea Baggers.

I mean, have we found the FEMA Camps yet? Are our children being forced into re-education camps and someone forgot to tell me? Hell, our taxes haven't even gone up...

At least when the new BSG took on the Bush Years, Bush had been in office for awhile and had actually done something egregiously stupid like, I don't know...invading the wrong country. Obama hasn't had that kind of Senior Moment yet, so the new V feels like a wacky pre-emptive strike from Sarah Palin. It's not responding to anything substantive in the culture...just hysteria and fear; the very fear and hysteria that NY-23 rejected last night.

Leaving aside the politics, the new V doesn't work for a variety of reasons, but mainly because it fails to engage the emotions; the heart. There's no build-up to the arrival of the alien ships, and therefore no suspense in the delivering of Anna's (Morena Baccarin's) message.

Worse, a resistance group (already formed, apparently to save the show's dull-as-dishwater characters the trouble of starting from scratch...), already knows that the Visitors are reptilian, which means we don't even get a good jolt moment out of the revelation here. True, fans of the original series know that the Visitors are reptilian aliens, so the surprise is ruined anyway. But that doesn't mean the new show shouldn't attempt to mine a little drama over the fact that LIZARD NAZIS ARE TAKING OVER OUR PLANET!!!! Why remake V if you aren't going to make it a little bit scary?

And -- come on! -- no gerbils were even harmed during the pilot episode of the new V. I'll never forget watching the original mini-series back in 1983, and mid-way through the show Diana's jawbone unexpectedly elongated and she swallowed that poor rodent whole. My heart practically beat through my throat for the rest of the show. The next day at school, it was all anybody was talking about. Did you see that?!

Again, you can't pull the same surprise twice, but it would have been nice if V had attempted to thrill in us in some little way; if it had turned expectations upside down, or staged a really wicked, macabre moment about the alien nature. Here, even the revelation of the green lizard skin is almost a throw-away; with no real impact.

The teleplay was pretty weak. On at least two occasions, protests against the Visitors are mentioned. What are people protesting? Why are they protesting? The episode never tells us. Is it because they are illegal immigrants, spreading leprosy? In the original mini-series, the scientists protested the Visitors because scientific evidence proved that the aliens were hiding things about their technology, about their biology. The Visitors then scapegoated the scientists, equating them with terrorists.

But in the new show...there's just "protests." Like almost everything else in the show, this feels like a throwaway plot device that we're supposed to forget about in five minutes anyway. Another example of inconsistent writing: the aliens arrive and pulp a U.S. military plane (we see the pilot land on the street, dead...), but moments later the people of the Big Apple (who just witnessed his death) are cheering because the Visitors "say" they come in peace. Huh?

If all this isn't bad enough, we get a little Twilight-lite in a subplot involving a horny teen kid and a hot Visitor "peace ambassador." Again, the original V involved a complex (and worthwhile plot) about a teenage girl who befriended and ultimately slept with a Visitor soldier. But there, the relationship functioned as a component of an Anne Frank allegory about a scientist's family seeking a place to hide; about collaboration and resistance. Here the teen angle plays like just a ratings grab with CW pin-ups.

So the new V is bad politics and bad drama. If I have to I'll live with the bad politics, but I'd like to see the show get smarter and scarier. The world has been invaded by evil aliens...and I wish the new V made me care just a little bit about that fact.

Sci-Fi Wisdom of the Week

"Remember, thifty thinkers are always underbudget."

-THX-1138 (1971)

Pop Art: John Carter of Mars/Ballantine Edition

CULT MOVIE REVIEW: Snake Eyes (1998)

After reviewing two very "heavy" Brian De Palma classics in recent weeks, Scarface (1983) and Redacted (2007), it's a bit of a relief to gaze back at this piece today: a sinuous, mind-blowing action-thriller from the decade of big action films: Snake Eyes (1998).

Of course, because this is De Palma's oeuvre we're discussing, Snake Eyes isn't mere mindless, breezy action. On the contrary, this intricate thriller is virtually brimming with just the kind of sizzling, trenchant imagery and social commentary De Palma has long conditioned his audiences to expect.

Specifically, Snake Eyes is the story of a "slick," morally questionable and charismatic protagonist, Atlantic City cop Rick Santoro (Nic Cage). He's on the take, and exhibits personal/political aspirations to become mayor of New Jersey's "sin city".

While on the job (and hustling...) at a soon-to-be-scuttled boxing colosseum, Rick must unexpectedly contend with a high-profile homicide (the murder of a government official...) during a televised prize fight. Suddenly, Rick finds himself thrust into the spotlight: first championed as a hero of the people and then quickly derided and spit out by the Millennium-era Media's ubiquitous "spin." Ultimately (as the movie ends...), he goes to jail...

One day a hero, the next day a louse? Now ask yourself -- thinking in terms of the 1990s -- what famous figure does that sound like?

The Rules of Spin: Santoro, The Media and The Truth

Give yourself three points if you thought immediately of our 42nd President, William Jefferson Clinton.

In 1998, Bill Clinton had recently won re-election to the White House, but was dealing not only with an ascendant Republican Party in Congress, but the "new" 24-hours-a-day cable TV news cycle that introduced Fox News, Laura Ingraham, Anne Coulter, Sean Hannity, Bill O'Reilly and other prominent right-wing commentators eager to take him down.

But even given this dedicated cabal of Clinton-haters, the President was arguably his own worst enemy at times. By 1998, Clinton was mired down in questionable money-raising schemes from the presidential bid; specifically the raising of soft money and the "selling" of the Lincoln bedroom to the highest bidder (a practice continued by his successor, George W. Bush, incidentally). Even if Clinton hadn't broken any laws in his quest to retain the Presidency, he certainly skirted them, and the questionable fundraising policies of Clinton came back to injure Al Gore politically (think: Buddhist Temples and "no controlling legal authority").

But more importantly, by 1996 the average American was witnessing the protean stage of a corporate news media that had abdicated a responsibility to the truth. Instead of reporting facts, news programs now featured a representative from each political "side" arguing talking points and promoting partisan spin. Spin, of course, is the cherry-picking of data, the manipulation of facts and the pushing of, essentially, propaganda. The Clinton-Dole election was one of the first salvos in the new"spin"/"sound-byte" sweepstakes. Or as I call it, short attention span political theater.

All of this context finds unexpected voice in in 1998's Snake Eyes. In this labyrinthine film, the truth is difficult to discern, and spin is everything. For example, in the film's first shot, a news-reporter (on-camera) is actually asked to "spin" an approaching hurricane(!) so an not to jeopardize the audience for the prize fight. The word has come down from HQ that it isn't a hurricane at all (despite the physical evidence)...it's...a tropical storm.

Then, after the assassination of Secretary of Defense, Rick's best friend, Navy man Kevin Dunne (who was in charge of security at the event...) worries that he will be blamed for the Secretary's death. Why? He was "out of position" during the assassination. Santoro, however, attempts to spin the event so that Dunne (Gary Sinise) comes out a hero.

"It isn't lying," according to the Santoro Manifesto: "You just tell them what you did right and leave out the rest," he tells Dunne. This parsing of the truth very much fits in with Clinton's grand jury testimony of the year 1999 (in the Monica Lewinsky affair...) wherein the President suggested his answers were meant to be "truthful, but not particularly helpful."

Santoro is a man who plays all the angles -- to his benefit -- but who, during the course of Snake Eyes undergoes an interesting journey. He ultimately comes to point of clarity about who he is, and what he stands for. Ironically, it becomes the task of a champion spinner to discern...the unfiltered truth. He emerges from the film bloodied and bruised and loved by few (again, not unlike Clinton), but at least he knows where he stands.

Here Comes the Pain: The Zero Gravity Flying Eye Sees All

So, in a world of pervasive spin, how do you discern the unfiltered truth? Simple answer: go to the video tape.

In Snake Eyes, De Palma orchestrates a non-stop Roshomon-esque onslaught of opposing point-of-views and flashbacks. It's so much information (and mis-information), in fact, it becomes dizzying. Some audiences and some critics weren't able to keep up with the director and his narrative.

To wit: we get Kevin Dunne's "patriotic" story of the murder (a fabric of lies). We get the perspective of a dedicated government informant and whistle-blower named Julia, played by Carla Gugino, and even the tale of the assassination as re-counted by a prize fighter, Lincoln Tyler, who threw the fight to settle his gambling debts (and unwittingly served a darker agenda in the process).

Each one of these characters, even the noble whistle-blower is vested in their perspective (proving, in classic De Palma fashion, the essential unreliability of human memory), and therefore unreliable. On several occasions, Santoro must resort to an impartial third person observer to ferret out the truth: a video camera; or rather LIVE video camera footage that captured the murderous, tricky events as they occurred.

In the first circumstance, an instant replay of footage during the boxing match reveals that Tyler threw the fight to his opponent, Ruiz. We see with our own eyes (from a high angle) as Ruiz's knock-out punch fails to connect....just seconds before the Secretary of Defense is murdered. This clue, this piece of "unspun" truth leads Santoro to a deeper revelation: someone wanted Tyler to throw the fight at a certain moment, and there were at least five people involved (and, as Santoro aptly recognizes, "five people makes a conspiracy").

Later, Santoro again utilizes live, real-time video footage to track down the missing, frightened informant (who was also targeted for assassination...), going from floor-to-floor of the colosseum/casino complex; searching for her while a friend keeps an eye on the surveillance cameras. This tracking-by-camera permits Santoro to save the informant from the conspiracy, and add sher knowledge/perspective to his own.

And finally -- and most importantly -- Santoro discovers the "Zero Gravity Flying Eye," a "new" camera that was not known to the members of the conspiracy when the scheme was hatched. This gadget captures the real culprit on tape, and exposes him to Santoro. Again, raw, un-manipulated videotape (or footage) holds the key to resolving the crime. Importantly, the film's villain also lives and dies by the sword of the "public" eye/camera. After presiding over a press conference packed with lies and manipulation, Dunne is eventually exposed by live news footage, in the process of trying to kill Santoro. It's an act you can't spin.

The camera is clearly a double-edged sword in Snake Eyes. If people know they are on camera; they are spinners, Snake Eyes seems to assert. If not, the camera can, perhaps, "capture" the truth. Underneath all these video images (lies and truth), De Palma does something else tricky: he girds Snake Eyes with iconic symbols of America; or of America gone wrong. These representations niclude a giant American flag in the colosseum (shades of Blow Out [1981]). Old Glory presides over the assassination of a patriot without protest or stain. Later, a patriotic "Millennium Globe" rolls off its perch, indicating also that something is off-kilter here. And most importantly, we keep seeing (over and over...) a dollar bill stained with blood...literally blood-money. Here, the American dollar is the thing that leads our characters astray...and away from morality.

Snake Eyes, a film noir set against the backdrop of incessant rain, is another De Palma venture in which form strongly reflects content. As described above, the truth is difficult to discern, and motivations are difficult, even impossible, to read. Accordingly De Palma provides us split screens at crucial moments in the narrative, fracturing the "truth" with double perspectives (much like the right/left dividing screens we see displayed on programs like Hardball or Hannity).

Furthermore, De Palma charts Santoro's morally ambiguous position in this dizzying world of spin with winding, careening, darting, long-shots (particularly the famous, eight minute shot which opens the film). We watch Santoro navigate a location that is, visually, a maze, and that locale is a perfect reflection of his situation and of American politics in the 1990s (and even today). There's no way out; the maze is a trap for everyone in it. The film ultimately asks a very relevant and difficult moral question too. Who is worse? The sleazy guy on the take in matters of money, or the outwardly "respectable" patriotic man who lies about matters of life and death and murders innocent people to benefit from war profiteering?

Snake Eyes underwent a tumultuous editing process in the lead up to release. In particular, a scene involving a tidal wave striking the casino (and nearly drowning Santoro) was entirely deleted from the final cut, a fact which makes the movie's final act seem a little anti-climactic to some. But this shake-up hardly matters because Snake Eyes, especially in that first act, remains an example of exhilirating filmmaking. Critic Nathan Rubin wrote: "The first hour or so of Snake Eyes...are as good as anything De Palma has done. That hour exhibits a joy in the possibilities of film not seen since Paul Thomas Anderson's similarly masterful Boogie Nights."

Writing for The New York Times, Stephen Holden noted, with some insight, that Snake Eyes, "becomes a hyperventilating inquiry into the limits of friendship and loyalty and what constitutes character."

What constitutes character? In so many ways, that fascinating question is the real story of the Clinton Era and the American 1990s (as well as Bush's time in office afterwards; the Republican "answer" to that query).

And as usual, De Palma was ahead of his time in asking it.

The Tao of Michael Myers? Or The Hidden "Shapes" of John Carpenter's Halloween (1978)

I have written about John Carpenter's Halloween (1978) on several occasions. In The Films of John Carpenter (2000); in Horror Films of the 1970s (2002) and here, on this blog, over the last four-and-a-half years.

And yet despite this fact, I am drawn to revisit the film again and again, across the years, to further detect new and intriguing aspects of the masterpiece. This is a fact which differentiates it from Rob Zombie's 2007 ill-advised remake, and some of the piss-poor, latter-day sequels.

So the question becomes: what is it, precisely, about John Carpenter's Halloween that stands up to --- and actually encourages -- continued, intense scrutiny?

And hell, it isn't just my scrutiny either, it's the scrutiny of other scholars, authors, bloggers, list-makers and admirers the globe around. Over thirty years after the film's release, Halloween's reputation only continues to grow.

But the answer to the question about the Tao of Halloween, The Tao of Michael Myers, is deceptively simple, and it very much concerns my favorite cinematic conceit: visual form echoing narrative content.

Specifically, as percipients of Halloween, we gaze intently at that blank, white, featureless mask of "The Shape," Michael Myers, and then immediately recognize, at least subconsciously, that we are missing some crucial aspect of understanding.

Michael's true motives -- just like his concealing, ivory face-mask -- are not entirely filled in; not fully circumscribed. His personality and purpose seems oddly incomplete, and thus the shadowy, featureless mask fully and trenchantly reflects our inability to conceptualize or understand the thing that he represents. From this lack of understanding grows the seeds of terror. Why does Michael kill? Is he the Boogeyman? What drives him? How does he survive point-blank bullet strikes? As in life, Halloween provides no easily digestible answer to myriad questions about mortality and murder, destiny, choice, and chance.

Yet Halloween does brilliantly provide the attentive viewers some intriguing clues about Michael Myers and the things he signifies. Some of these hints actually seem to conflict with one another; and some are just barely enunciated. But again, this very facet of ambiguity makes the film (and the iconic character himself) resonate more powerfully in our minds. In other words, Halloween lets our imagination fill in the narrative, explanatory gaps, and again, a sense of terror takes hold. We see reflected in that blank, chilling mask all the things we fear -- all the things we don't understand -- about our lives in this mortal coil.

Basically -- to boil it down -- I believe that Halloween provides us at least four important "leads" about Michael Myers true and highly unusual nature (and it is important to remember that all of these clues don't take into account the "Laurie is his sister"-revisionism of the sequels. and the remake). These clues are, in no specific order:

1. Michael Myers is a Physical Representation of Laurie's Id.

This is the Freudian-interpretation of John Carpenter's Halloween. As you may be aware, the Id is a component of Freud's so-called "psychic apparatus" or "structural model for the human psyche." Basically, the Id houses our unconscious, our basic drives, our instincts. It controls our desire for sex and our other appetites too. It is amoral, chaotic and egocentric.

Consider now the buttoned-down, Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis), both a good student and a responsible babysitter . She clearly symbolizes the rationalist Ego, the part of us that holds the reigns of control over our lives and seeks to "please" the Id in a socially and culturally acceptable fashion. The Ego represents common sense; even consciousness itself. This is the Freudian "borrowed face," the veneer of appropriateness we all put on over our Ids.

Accordingly, underneath the mask, Michael represents Laurie's Id, unfettered and on-the-loose, lashing out at those around her who more "honestly" contend with their drives and libidos (Annie and Linda) than do the Ego. Laurie even seems to "activate" Michael Myers, at least in a sense, by singing aloud a modern magical incantation (a ballad) on the day he stalks her. The lyrics to that ballad go: "I wish I had you all alone, just the two of us," and set up, rather nicely, the thrust of Michael's murderous mission on October 31st. He systematically kills all of Laurie's friends and acquaintances until it is, indeed, just the two of them. They have sex (or hope to have sex), and he destroys them because they express what Laurie cannot.

Now, of course, some readers may rightly remind me that Michael cannot possibly be a product of Laurie's Id, since Michael was alive and killing before she was even born (back in 1963). That's right...but.. do we know for certain that Laurie's mission of murder isn't the the very thing imprinted upon that mentally-deranged mind behind the blank-white mask?

Horror scholar and professor Vera Dika wrote that "Carpenter openly represents Michael as Laurie's "id." This reading is supported by the inclusion of footage from Forbidden Planet (1956)...The earlier film had portrayed a situation in which the unconscious desires, or the id, of the main character became manifest and threatened to destroy him and his world. Similarly, Laurie is almost destroyed by the strength of her repressed unconscious impulses. Her battle with Michael is a substitute for the sexual act." (Vera Dika, Games of Terror: Halloween, Friday the 13th and the Films of the Stalker Cycle. Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1990, page 51).

John Carpenter himself lends some credence to this Freudian interpretation of Halloween by noting that Laurie, "The one girl who is the most sexually uptight just keeps stabbing this guy with a long knife...Not because she's a virgin but because all that repressed sexual energy starts coming out. She uses all those phallic symbols on the guy...she doesn't have a boyfriend, and she finds someone -- him." (Danny Peary, Cult Movies. Delacorte Press, 1981, page 126).

This theory won't exactly find popularity with feminists or "Final Girl" proponents, since it positions Laurie as the repressed "creator" of the monster in Halloween, not a Girl-Powered heroine. Her suppressed sexual appetite and longing is the drive that brings Michael to life and even selects his victims. In this way, the noble Laurie somehow becomes responsible for Michael; or at the very least, connected to him in a very intimate, very personal way.

2. Michael Myers is Just a Developmentally Arrested Child Playing Halloween Tricks.

There's a such a thing as "psychological neoteny," the retention by adults of what are generally considered juvenile traits. In Halloween, Michael Myers seems "arrested" in an early point of childhood, acting out instances of so-called play but, because of his delayed maturity, failing to understand the true consequences of his actions.

A hallmark of childhood is the total and immersive interface with a world of make-believe play. In theory, make-believe play should teach a child to self-regulate and even learn self-discipline; a quality known as "executive function." But in Michael's specific case, nothing positive results from the fact that his mind is "frozen," essentially, in childhood. It's as though he's an overgrown kid, playing an elaborate trick-or-treat game without any acknowledgment of the harm that very game is causing to others outside himself.

It is impossible to deny the "game"-like aspects of Myers' behavior in the original Halloween. He sets a "stage" or "show "for Laurie in Lindsey's house a prank involving the corpses of her friends and a stolen grave marking/head-stone. Also, at least to some extent, it seems that Michael strongly identifies with young Tommy Doyle...since he follows the boy home from school too. Halloween II and later films seem to forget that Michael actually stalked two people on October 31st, 1978: Laurie and Tommy. I suggest that this is because Michael is essentially delayed at Tommy's age and somehow sees Doyle as a contemporary; or surrogate; someone his own age.

Michael evidences some interesting physical reactions after he kills the teenagers on Halloween night that also, if interpreted in a certain way, bolster this theory. He just stares and looks at them, tilting his head to one side. You must wonder if this is because the dead are -- counter to his expectations -- not getting up and continuing to play. Michael has killed them, but doesn't really understand the finality of death. He is thus quizzical and curious over the corpses, wondering why the teens don't want to play anymore. We can also judge that Michael is developmentally arrested at/or around 1963, the time when he committed his first murder (an action that no doubt also slowed down his formal education, another characteristic of many with delayed maturity.)

3. Michael Myers is the Physical Embodiment of Fate

Early in Halloween, there is a fascinating if brief scene set in a high school English class. Laurie is in attendance, listening only sporadically as an off-screen teacher drones on endlessly about the concept of fate in literature.

The unseen instructor then asks Laurie about her reading assignment, and Laurie answers by making a distinction between two authors, Samuels and Costaine. She notes that "Costaine wrote that fate was only somehow related to religion, where Samuels felt that fate was like a natural element; like Earth, Air, Fire and Water." The teacher further notes that Lauriie is correct, that Samuels definitely "personified" fate. "It [fate[ stands" where a "man passes away."

Who else stands where a man passes away? Michael, of course, a character who survives stabbings and shootings and keeps on coming like a freight train. He is Fate "Personified" (as Samuels dictated) and you can't kill something like Earth, Air, Fire or Water, can you?

This revelation of Michael as Agent of Fate opens up the whole "Boogeyman" Argument; that perhaps there is actually a fifth natural element, Earth, Air, Fire, Water...And Evil. And that Michael as a representative of this natural force is thus unstoppable; in kiddie slang, The Boogeyman.

The film's discussion of fate contextualizes Michael not as a supernatural avenger, but as a heightened, natural one. He is not magical, but rather a force as natural (and as essential?) as Air or Water. So there is an order to the universe, it's not just what we had in mind...

4. Michael Myers is an Indictment of Contemporary, Rational Society: The Undiagnosable Amok in The Scientific World

Finally, I believe Halloween suggests (or at least implies...) that Michael Myers represents some kind of modern-day "dragon" in a society that no longer recognizes dragons as real monsters.

As I wrote in The Films of John Carpenter, Halloween willfully "deconstructs" our technological, contemporary world so that (as viewers experiencing the film) we actually appear have more in common with ancient proto-humans huddling in caves than with our rational, 21st century brethren. In particularly, nothing in Halloween works the way it is supposed to work by our "rationalist," "daylight" brand of thinking.

To wit: Dr. Loomis (Donald Pleasance) is a total and complete failure as a psychologist, unable not only to heal Michael Myers, but to understand what drives him. Loomis's role in Halloween is not that of a doctor, nor of a psychiatrist, but explicitly that of St. George: hunting down and slaying the dragon. But specifically, Michael Myers suffers from no diagnosable or treatable psychological disorder. He is "purely and simply Evil." If you look in the DSM-IV, you won't find "Evil" listed as a malady.

It is utterly unacceptable that rational, middle-class teenagers in Haddonfield should die at the knife of Michael Myers on the eve of the 21st century. That's just not supposed to happen in modern-day America. For one thing, there is the blanket of parental protection and love, which should shield children, right? Yet in Halloween, the parents (and most adults for that matter...) are mostly an afterthought. We see Laurie's father only briefly, never see the school teacher, and never get to meet the parents of Lynda, Annie, or even Tommy Doyle. Adults do not represent a positive, let alone helpful force in this horror vision.

Well, okay, if parents can't help save the children (representing our tomorrows...), then there's modern medicine and cutting-edge science, which should not only diagnose Michael, but keep him behind bars. Right? Not surprisingly, it fails too. The "system" fails, and Michael escapes.

All right, what about another imortant societal construct then: the law? Well, kindly Sheriff Brackett can't even protect his own daughter, let alone capture a mad-dog killer! Not a single cop on patrol even notices Michael's car parked on the street!

In other words, all of our carefully-constructed traditional bureaucracies and cherished codes of justice, belief and conduct ultimately offer Annie, Lynda and Bob zero protection. These kids are on their own. They are prey.

In fact, these teens have it much worse than our cave-men ancestors in pre-history. At least the cave-men knew to be afraid, knew to fear the forces in the dark that they could not comprehend. The characters in Halloween are thoroughly unprepared and unable to conceive of a reality that includes Michael Myers, and that's why they are such easy pickings. The movie thus indicts modern society rather fully: it is woefully unprepared to combat what may be a "natural force," Evil Itself.

J.P. Telotte wrote that "What Carpenter seems intent on demonstrating is how consistently our perceptions and our understandings of the world around us fall short...We are conditioned by our experience and culture to see less...to dismiss from our image contents those visions for which we might not be able to account..."(American Horrors: Essays on the Modern American Horror Film: "Through a Pumpkin's Eye: The Reflexive Nature of Horror." University of Illinois Press, 1987, page 122).

Now, I am not suggesting that any one of these four interpretations is absolutely the "right one" to come to a perfect understanding of Carpenter's film, only that Halloween retains such power because the truth of Michael Myers seems to dwell in all these interpretations.

Ultimately, Halloween preserves the Shape's mystery and thus lets you decide about the important things like meaning. Many of the sequels and indeed the Rob Zombie 2007 remake fail so egregiously to live up to the original Carpenter film because they work diligently towards an opposite (and inferior) end; because they seek to diagram in details the answers about Michael for the audience's consumption and peace of mind. Yet peace of mind -- closure itself -- runs counter to what good horror ought to be, at least by my personal barometer. Who wants to leave a horror movie content that you understand everything you saw; that it all fits into a neat little box? As I've said before, I want my slumber troubled; I wantmy mind bothered by the things only the genre can show me and tell me. If I desire peace of mind or resolution from ambiguity, I'll watch network television.

As a direct result of all the well-meaning but psychologically facile explanations of the sequels and the remake, the magic of Michael Myers is somehow bled away. When we understand Michael is simply hunting his biological sister down, he becomes nothing but a garden variety wacko with a tough hide. When he is infused with supernatural powers and becomes a genetically-engineered Druid observing Samhain, he's just another easily explainable Devil, only one with an alternate religious belief system.

And finally, the magic of Michael Myers is totally squandered when we bear witness to the peculiarities of his abusive childhood; when we come to understand that he was raised in a violent, redneck household and is merely carrying on in the family tradition. Thus the later movies, and especially the re-imaginations nullify The Shape's Power; the Shape's Tao. They turn it to ashes.

When considering "The Shape," I submit that it is better to ponder and speculate about Evil's True Nature than to know it all. Oscar Wilde once wrote that the greatest mystery in life is actually "one's self," and Halloween remains such an indelible viewing experience because -- in addition to technical expertise and canny imagery -- it leaves more than abundant psychic space for our imaginations to ponder it.

Trick or Treat TV

As Halloween nears -- if you're anything like me -- you haul out your all-time favorite horror films on DVD, VHS or Blu-Ray and enjoy them all over again...for the umpteenth time. However, if you care to mix things up just a bit this year (and if you possess a vast video archive...) you may want to celebrate this All Hallow's Eve with the most memorable Halloween episodes of classic genre TV series instead.

Specifically, if you're looking for holiday-themed efforts from TV history, these are some of the notable titles to consider:

1.) "Halloween" from Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997) In this second season episode of the beloved Joss Whedon vampire series, we learn that Halloween is the one night of the year in which Sunnydale's vampires stay in and watch television. Apparently they don't appreciate the crass consumerism of the Halloween holiday. But Buffy, Xander and Willow are vexed anyway when their Halloween costumes turn distressingly real (courtesy of an evil shop owner named Ethan...). Dressed as a soldier, Xander gains courage. Buffy -- as a 17th century damsel in distress -- loses hers. And Willow, garbed as a ghost, develops the powers (and physical limitations...) of an apparition.

If you want to make it a Buffy Halloween all-together, another Buffy the Vampire Slayer Halloween-themed entry is the sixth season's entry "All the Way," which involves Dawn dating a vampire on All Hallow's Eve.

2.) "The Curse of Frank Black" from Millennium (1997). This memorable episode of Chris Carter's cult classic provides a peek at what an average Halloween is like for everyone's favorite "dark" profiler, Frank Black (Lance Henriksen). The episode features a nod to both The Simpsons and Space: Above and Beyond (1995), but more meaningfully, it gazes at a specific Halloween from Frank's youth, and the way that it has continued to affect him throughout his life.

"The Curse of Frank Black" is part whimsy and part tragedy, and it goes a long way towards contextualizing the history (and unusual abilities and insights...) of Frank Black. "The Curse of Frank Black" occurs during a spell in which Frank is estranged from his wife and the Millennium Group, and banished from his paradise...his perfect yellow house. Frank visits that house in this episode, and -- among other things -- confronts some of the ghosts haunting him.

3.) "Freddy's Trick or Treats" from October 30, 1988 is an episode of the mostly-forgotten Freddy's Nightmares: A Nightmare on Elm Street the Series, the cheap jack syndicated anthology starring horror icon and Elm Street dream demon, Monsieur Krueger (Robert Englund). The series ran for forty-four episodes in the late 1980s and featured appearances by future stars such as Brad Pitt.

Here, Freddy Krueger terrorizes future Law & Order star Mariska Hargitay and her friends on a Springfield college campus. There are actually two stories featured here, but this Halloween entry wasn't exactly Freddy's finest hour...

4.) "Hellowe'en" from Friday the 13th: The Series aired on October 31, 1987. It was the fifth episode of the beloved syndicated series' first season, and the story involved a Halloween costume party held at the cursed antique store, Curious Goods. The party goes awry thanks to some unwanted guests, and soon the episode involves the dangerous conjuration of the series' recurring evil antagonist, Uncle Lewis Vendredi (R.G. Armstrong). Micki (Robey), Jack (Chris Wiggins) and Ryan (John D. Le May) have to save the (holi)day.

5.) "All Hallow's Eve" actually aired on the same Halloween as that memorable Friday the 13th episode, and it's a fun installment from Fox Network's Werewolf: The Series. The story involves series protagonist Eric Cord (John J. York) locking himself in a haunted house on Halloween, just as the irksome werewolf pentagram appears on his palm. Inside the house, he meets a strange, spooky denizen. Just think, we could be enjoying this episode on DVD right now if the series' DVD release hadn't been canceled just last month...

6.) "Halloween Candy" aired on October 31st, 1985, and was featured in the second season of the syndicated anthology from George Romero and Laurel, Entertainment called Tales from the Darkside (now available on DVD). Directed by the great Tom Savini, this creepy half-hour show involved a nasty old miser who stingily refuses to dole out candy on Halloween night. At least, that is, until a rea life goblin shows up on his doorstep for some authentic trick-or-treating...

And don't forget these Halloween-based episodes either, especially if you prefer romance and sci-fi to horror:

7.)"Masques" from CBS's cult series Beauty and the Beast aired on October 30, 1987 and while it isn't horror -based per se, it is set on Halloween and involves a monster of sorts. the regal-lion like Vincent. Here, Ron Perlman plays that Shakespeare quoting "Beast" and at a costume ball set on October 31st the lonesome Vincent is able -- for one night -- to mingle with the "normal" people of the Big Apple. The denizens of New York mistake his monstrous appearance for a (really scary...) costume and so the Beast's intense isolation is soothed. Linda Hamilton plays Vincent's love, Catherine.

8). "Catspaw" from Star Trek (1967) isn't exactly a horror show either, but in this story, the U.S.S. Enterprise encounters all kinds of Halloween "spooks" on an alien world, including a giant black cat, a sorcerer, and a malevolent witch. "Captain Kiiiiiiiiiiirk," the witch calls...

This House You Have To Watch Every Minute: The Seen and Unseen In The Haunting films (1963/1999)

When first we glimpse Hill House in Robert Wise's chilling The Haunting (1963), the imposing old structure is a featureless black obelisk: a jagged silhouette carved out from brooding night sky.

Secrets dwell inside Hill House -- in the dark; in the night -- and yet the director's selection of visualization (a shadowed, blackened house with no distinguishable architectural features) purposefully confounds our desire to peer inside this monument to the unknown; to learn about the "unquiet dead" who may walk the lonely, vast hallways of this spectral monolith.

Hill House is a place "born to be bad," according to the film's opening narration, but it is something more than that too: "an undiscovered country waiting to be explored." And The Undiscovered Country, as we remember from our Shakespeare, is Death Itself.

Robert Wise structures his horror film (based on the sterling novel by Shirley Jackson) as a probe into that ultimate unknown; but more than that too, as an ambiguous probe into that unknown. Never in the film, for instance, is the audience 100% certain that it has actually witnessed the supernatural and the ghostly. On the contrary, our senses are heightened and tweaked by disturbing noises, by the sinister-seeming twist of a doorknob, and more. Yet certainty still eludes us; just as certainty about the paranormal eludes people in real life.

You Should Be Receptive...and Innocent: Exploring The Self in The Haunting.

It is no mistake or coincidence that the four explorers countenancing the chaotic, uncertain terrain of Hill House are -- in the spirit of Hugh Crain's strange edifice itself -- a determinedly unconventional group. This is important structurally to the narrative. The sojourners reflect the sojourn.

Dr. Markway (Richard Johnson) gave up a "conventional" life and a proper upbringing (courtesy of his upper-crust English family) to prove the existence of the supernatural. This is his life's work, which makes him either commendably dedicated or utterly foolish. He says he wants his people "innocent and receptive" so that they will discover the secrets of Hill House. If someone is innocent and receptive, however, he or she is not looking for the angles that might be played; and every little noise becomes significant and meaningful. So Markway may (intentionally or unintentiaonally...) be encouraging hallucinations or delusions (though he says, explicitly, that this must not be the case if their research is considered to be legitimate).

Theodora (Claire Bloom) also fits the bill of "unconventional." She not only boasts extra-sensory perception, but is "out" as a lesbian. To some people in traditional society in the 1960s the latter quality would make her untrustworthy at best, abnormal at worst. And when strange handwriting appears on the wall of Hill House, Theodora is the first suspect. She's jealous of the attention Markway showers on Nell, and this spooky handwriting (which names Nell...) may be her petty revenge; her game playing. She has a cruel, jealous streak that could effect the exploration of Hill House.

Then there's Luke (Russ Tamblyn), a playboy and would-be millionaire who has a frat-boy sense of humor; but also a burgeoning curiosity and conscience. Is he just a money-grubber, a dabbler, or something more? What's his angle?

And finally, we arrive at the most unconventional of the explorers: Eleanor or Nell (Julie Harris), a spinster who had a poltergeist experience as a child but who, in essence, has never truly left the confines of her home. The sheltered, inexperienced woman has spent years caring for her invalid mother (now deceased...) and the chance to explore Hill House is most definitely an escape from the drudgery of her day-to-day existence. She is motivated to stay at Hill House; to "belong" to the group. We wonder: is Nell's subconscious somehow causing the noises that bedevil Hill House at night (as it caused the rock storm that fell upon her house in childhood?) Or is Nell hallucinating? Or, worst of all: is she so desperate for attention that she is "pretending" all the experiences with the supernatural. When Nell almost falls off a veranda at Hill House, who can adequately judge what caused her to grow dizzy? It is convenient that Markway, the object of her affection, would rush in to her to care for her...

These idiosyncratic individuals -- who don't conform to the boundaries of society-at-large and who don't entirely fit the bill of "normal" or "trustworthy" -- investigate the home of a 19th century robber baron of sorts, Hugh Crain. He too is a kindred spirit: an unconventional person and one who didn't believe in the rules of society. He built his oddball house to reflect those beliefs. For instance, all the doors in Hill House are hung crookedly...so that -- after a time -- they slam shut, apparently of their own volition. And all the angles inside the house are off-center a bit....just like the characters in the drama. The house --as Markway reminds us -- "does have its oddities." Just like every team member...

In such a strange environment -- with four such anarchistic individuals in close-quarters -- the probe into the unknown is tainted by the frailties of the individual personalities. We can't rule out that one or all of the explorers is perpetrating some kind of hoax; or simply that some one's imagination has gotten out of control. Consider the moment in which Nell becomes convinced that someone is holding her hand in the dark. She believes it to be Theodora, but when the lights come up, Theodora is across the room, in her own bed. Wise's camera never leaves Nell's face during the "event." It stays on Nell, in extreme close-up throughout the purported "visitation", and thus we are left to wonder if she is hallucinating, or really countenancing something supernatural. If something were holding and crushing her hand...why don't we ever see it?

Similarly, on the night of the loud noises at their door; Theodora and Nell never actually see anything abnormal. And importantly, Luke and Markway are elsewhere in the house at the time...they could easily be responsible for the noises. Similarly, anyone could have written Nell's name on the wall. When the film's biggest scare arrives -- Mrs. Markway's (Lois Maxwell) sudden appearance from the attic -- even it is not ghostly in nature. She became lost in the attic and tried to escape...stunning Nell.

And finally, Nell's death could be suicide brought on by the fact that the attention seeker was being ostracized from the group, and on and on...

My argument vis-a-vis the original The Haunting is this: I believe Hill House is haunted and that the explorers experience paranormal or supernatural events there. However, the film retains an authentic sense of terror because Wise walks the line of ambiguity brilliantly. Nothing supernatural is ever truly seen, and we become perched on the edge of our seats by the things we don't see; but which we believe to exist. I'm not making the argument that showing ghosts in horror movies is always less effective than hiding them, only noting that The Haunting still scares -- 45 years after it was made -- because it exhibits this spine-tingling sense of uncertainty and ambiguity. We don't know what is making the horrible noise outside the bedroom; we don't know if that is a human face in the sculpture on the wall, or merely a trick of the light. We can't be certain if the door is bending because of a supernatural force...or someone leaning on the other side of it. But taken all together, these events are chilling and add up to something meancing. More so, they are chilling because we never get satisfactory answers about them.

Wise's exquisite camerawork in The Haunting generates genuine terror, but notice that the camera truly grows perturbed only when the dramatis personae have also grown perturbed or hysterical. Theodora and Nell are worked up to raging terror by the time Wise deploys that prowling, angling camera which circumscribes the perimeter of the bedroom door. We interpret this odd, angled movement as the search by something inimical -- on the other side of the door -- seeking an entry point. But we see nothing; and the camera's twisted perspective could simply be the perspective of two very frightened women Similarly, Nell's fainting spell on the veranda coincides with the camera lunge from the high tower; again as though something invisible is approaching...or attacking. Yet the sudden, alarming camera movement could be interpreted as a reflection of Nell's sudden, dangerous vertigo. Especially if we are to believe she is suicidal (a belief which also plays into the climax and the staircase set piece).

And by the time we see a Hill House door swell and retract (as if breathing by itself...), every character -- especially Markway -- is desperate and fearful. These apparent manifestations of the supernatural could be the manifestations of the characters' out of control hysteria and fear.

One of The Haunting's central set-pieces involves Nell and Markway's ascent up a rickety, vast spiral staircase. The staircase is loose from the wall (again, not a danger that is supernatural in origin). But the quest to reach the top metaphorically reflects the team's overall quest. Markway and his people are climbing the tallest mountain and seeking answers on the summit. But even they cannot reach Heaven for answers about life beyond death. And again, notice that when Nell and Markway do finally achieve the top of the spiral staircase, Nell is frightened out of her mind not by a ghost...but by another desperate human, Markway's wife. In other words, Nell has reached the pinnacle of Hill House -- climbed as far as she can possibly climb -- and the terrors/answers she gets are still of the human, not supernatural variety.

The Haunting succeeds as a great horror movie because there exists enough ambiguity in the camera-work, the characters, and in the script to support multiple interpretations. Either the house is haunted, or Nell is a very disturbed individual responsible for the so-called haunting, or all the characters are just "innocent and receptive" to their admittedly creepy environment. These interpretations compete for primacy in The Haunting, and that competition results in an incredibly active viewing experience; a high-level of engagement with the material. And that engagement leads to unbearable suspense...


Just Because You Can Do A Thing: Remaking and Unmaking The Haunting (1999)

Ambiguity was not in fashion in 1999 when Jan De Bont re-made The Haunting. Therefore, what remained unseen but detected in Wise's classy original film became seen....and predictable. Not just seen actually, but dramatized in full-color, in ample lighting, utilizing the latest in state-of-the-art computer generated special effects. Because of this see-it-all approach, the remake leaves itself only one possible interpretation: Hill House is haunted by a malevolent spirit who can re-shape reality to his liking.

You can almost detect how the makers of The Haunting (1999) were onto the kernel of something clever in reconceiving the film. They seized on the good idea that Hill House was an outward manifestation or reflection of Hugh Crain's twisted psyche. But they went too far. The filmmakers thus transformed Hill House into a bloated monstrosity with oversized rooms that might resemble a human rib-cage, or a bizarre drawing by H.R. Giger more than a real house. Again, you can understand this approach at the same time that you realize it just doesn't work. Houses -- even haunted houses -- aren't hatched or born out of twisted psyches. They are built and constructed plank-by-plank and it is simply impossible to believe that the out-of-proportion, bizarre Hill House of The Haunting (1999) was ever built by 19th century hands, using 19th century techniques and plans. Because of the house's egregious (though inventive) design, the film sacrifices some vital piece of believability. A house with a Godzilla-sized fireplace? With a hall of mirrors? With a virtual river inside one hallway?

Bottom line: If we can't believe in the house as a real, tangible place from human history; we don't believe in the story being told there, and the movie automatically fails to suspend our disbelief.

Another bad move in The Haunting grants the Crain-spirit seemingly invincible powers over flesh and blood, stone and mortar. The house repetitively grows appendage-like vines out of the walls and entraps human characters in them on a regular basis. Stone gargoyles come to life and attack people in broad daylight. Curtains dance with ghostly apparitions whose shapes we can see, process, and comprehend. The digital special effects are repeated so often and in such ample light that the "horror" imagery becomes commonplace instead of frightening. A flying gargoyle and ambulatory statue are things you can run and hide from, things you can strike with your fist or with a weapon. Contrast that kind of nemesis with the amorphous, unseen thing perhaps prowling in Wise's original. How could you escape an angry spirit that seemed to exist by its own set of "laws?"

The Haunting remake eschews ambiguity in other ways. We also see and detect here the all-too-human motives of Hill House's ghost, Hugh Crain. He's apparently enslaving all the children he used to exploit in life (just like Kathie Lee Gifford...) and this version of Eleanor (Lily Taylor) -- a surprise(!) descendant of Crain's second wife -- must free the children from his hellish grip. All is made right when Nell and the children ascend to Heaven and Crain passes through the "door of judgment" to Hell itself.

Again, there's nothing like taking uncertainty entirely out of the equation. In the original Haunting it wasn't even plain whether one ghost or multiple ghosts (or no ghosts...) were at work. The new Haunting provides us an "earthly" agenda for a specific ghost (enslavement of the children), a proper fate (punishment for bad deeds) and a reward for the righteous victor in the fight against him. De Bont's The Haunting takes the shivery indeterminism of Wise's classic and shelves it in favor of mind-numbing, imagination-crushing certitude.

No expense was spared to remake The Haunting in 1999, but the spine-tingling ambiguity and uncertainty of Wise's original were abandoned in favor of an onslaught of digital effects. This is a case where seeing is not believing; and where certainty crushes the mind's capacity to imagine the unseen. That's why the original The Haunting still "walks alone" as a classic.

The remake, in every sense of the word, is un-"Wise."

Pop Art: Andre Norton/Ace Books Edition