Leonard Maltin's offenses against horror

Leonard Maltin is the arch-priest of mediocrity, and his movie guides are perfectly suited for the commonest of common denominators – for those who worship only the well-established classics and who walk only the well-trod paths. Nothing wrong with those per se – it's not like no great film ever won an Oscar or has been moderately successful at the box-office (there were a few instances of both during the previous decades!) – but more often than not, the real greatness lies behind the veil of the "good taste" and "wholesome family fun".

Especially with a genre like horror – which is all about transgression and breaking down the taboos.

No wonder, then, that Leonard Maltin's greatest and most grievous missteps in his Blind Man's Guides to the Blind have to do with – horror films!

Of course, even such an exponent of the average like Maltin had to recognize a few classics too obvious to ignore, so he was reasonable towards titles like those below:

ALIEN (1979) ***1/2 (only in the updated editions; originally it was given ** ½ !!!)

DAWN OF THE DEAD ***1/2

HENRY: PORTRAIT OF A SERIAL KILLER ***1/2

PSYCHO ****

ROSEMARY'S BABY ****

BIRDS ***1/2

THE EXORCIST ***1/2

NOSFERATU '22 ***1/2

NOSFERATU '78 ***1/2

RINGU ***

INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS '56 ***1/2

INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS '78 ***

BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN ****

THE FEARLESS VAMPIRE KILLERS ***1/2

JAWS ****

 

            More often than not, horror classics are underappreciated: EVIL DEAD got only **1/2, while EVIL DEAD 2 is awarded with ***. CANDYMAN got *** but Maltin claims that it's "from Clive Barker’s novel The Forbidden": someone should teach him a difference between a novel and a short story! The excellent EXORCIST III got merely **, while there is absolutely no excuse for giving merely *** for pure perfections like HALLOWEEN and PEEPING TOM!

            This guide is updated every year (all quotations in this post are from the 2010 edition!). However, Maltin has yet to recognize the existence of modern Japanese horror classics like TETSUO, BATTLE ROYALE or AUDITION, although all of them have been available on US DVDs for many years. Also, it would be nice if someone told Maltin about one of the greatest Spanish directors – Agusti Villaronga – and his many excellent films. It's hardly likely that someone like Maltin would appreciate IN A GLASS CAGE with something more than *1/2 but still, it deserves to be reviewed at least.  

Plus, you'd search in vain for CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST in Maltin's guide (or for any other Italian cannibal film): only "tasty" fare here, it seems. Even if for some insane reason you care to see what Maltin had to say about one of the best slashers ever made - ALONE IN THE DARK (1982) – you'd be disappointed. Maltin will only guide you to Uwe Boll's same-titled crap.

            Anyway, here are quotes of the stupidest, most myopic and inaccurate estimates of great horror films in Maltin's 2010. guide. I arranged them in order of my personal list of best horror films ever made. If you depended solely on "guides" like Maltin, you'd think that some of the following titles are just a bunch of disappointing, crappy flicks, average at best… But how can the epitome of the AVERAGE recognize the GREATNESS?

            Lo and behold – senor Maltin guides you from now on!

 

Fly, The (1986)

**1/2

Goldblum is just right as slightly crazed scientist who tests himself in a genetic transporter machine - and starts to evolve into a human fly. Extremely intense, sharply written remake of the 1958 movie that (unfortunately) goes over the line to be gross and disgusting.

Shining, The (1980)

**

Intriguing but ineffectual adaptation of Stephen King’s thriller about a man who becomes off-season caretaker at isolated resort hotel—and almost immediately begins to lose his mind. Nicholson goes off the wall so quickly there’s no time to get involved in his plight. Some eerie scenes, to be sure, but the film goes on forever.

Texas Chain Saw Massacre, The (1974)

***

Travelers in rural Texas encounter crazed family of bizarros who have a committed though unusual sense of what cuts of meat you need for good barbecue. Sweat-inducing, claustrophobic, unrelenting suspense-comic-horror film. Classic and nowhere nearly as violent as it’s reputed to be. Narrated by an unbilled John Larroquette.

Thing, The (1982)

*1⁄2

Remake of 1951 film about Antarctic outpost terrorized by an alien organism. More faithful to the original story, but nonstop parade of slimy, repulsive special effects turns this into a freak show and drowns most of the suspense.

Hellbound: Hellraiser II (1988-British)

*1/2

Confusing, tedious sequel begins immediately after first film ends. Teenage heroine literally goes to Hell in effort to rescue ill-fated father, but encounters opposition from her revived stepmother

and an occult-obsessed psychiatrist. But Hell is a boring, dusty labyrinth. Almost as gruesome as HELLRAISER (it’s not a sequel to HELLBOUND), but nowhere near as entertaining.

Hellraiser (1987-British)

**1/2

Robinson and Higgins move into a roomy British dwelling, unaware that his half brother is hiding upstairs in a kind of gelatinous/skeletal state; soon the beast is forcing her to lure stray men back to the house so he can replenish himself with their blood. Grisly but stylish directorial debut by famed horror novelist Barker; ugly fun all the way.

Nightmare on Elm Street, A (1984)

**1/2

Several teenagers discover they’re all having nightmares about the same character, scar-faced Fred Krueger—a kind of ghost who can enter their dreams at will, and kill them in macabre ways. It’s up to surviving teen Nancy (Langenkamp) to try to stop him. Imaginative premise given routine treatment, but this box-office smash led to a handful of sequels and a TV series, Freddy’s Nightmares.

Dust Devil (1993-British-French)

**

In Africa’s Namibia Desert, evil spirit Burke, trapped in human form, must kill to enter a spiritual realm; he meets Field, fleeing an unhappy marriage, and is pursued by policeman Mokae. Interesting

premise, good acting partly offset lethargic pace, pretentious approach.

Angel Heart (1987 –US)

**1/2

Two-bit private eye Rourke is hired by mysterious De Niro to track down a missing man, which leads him into a serpentine investigation— and a kind of emotional quicksand. An American Gothic yarn, full of striking, sensual, and frightening images, though after a while it bogs down. Intriguing, if not terribly appealing.

Santa Sangre (1989-Italian-Mexican)

**

Grotesque story about an entertainer whose act consists of performing as the arms for his armless mother; he’s also an unwilling murderer. Made in luxurious color with dreamy art direction, this lacks the intellectual charge of Jodorowsky’s earlier films.

Hardware (1990-British-U.S.)

**

Somewhere in the post-nuke future, desert scavenger McDermott presents some android remains to Travis; eventually, the stuff rekindles what is apparently its life mission —to destroy all living things (and the Travis pad, besides). Surprisingly well made, but recalls many earlier (and better) films. Heavy violence nearly earned this an X rating, before it was trimmed.

Deep Red (1975-Italian)

**1/2

There’s style to burn in senseless horror thriller with Hemmings on trail of sadistic psycho killer. Flashy, bizarre murders set to pounding rock soundtrack. Aka THE HATCHET MURDERS; original Italian version, PROFONDO ROSSO, is longer and much more violent.

Lost Highway (1997-U.S.-French)

**1/2

Bizarre Lynchian story that makes Twin Peaks seem as easy to follow as a Sesame Street episode. Basic plot involves Pullman as a jazz musician who, believing his wife is having an affair, suddenly finds himself the main suspect in her murder. Or is he? Or was she? Lynch fans will have fun trying to figure it out; others will find it incomprehensible. Blake is particularly enigmatic as a mystery man with a bad makeup job.

They Came From Within (1975-Canadian)

* 1/2

Bizarre, sexually oriented parasites run rampant through dwellers in high-rise apartment building with plenty of gory violence quick to ensue. First ‘‘major’’ film by cult favorite Cronenberg sets the disgusting pattern for most of his subsequent pictures.

Videodrome (1983-Canadian)

**

Genuinely intriguing story premise —about pirate cable-TV programmer (Woods, in a dynamic performance) who’s mesmerized by bizarre, untraceable transmissions that have hallucinatory power. Unfortunately, story gets slower —and sillier— as it goes along, with icky special effects by Rick Baker.

High Tension (2003-French)

**1/2

French import about two girls trying to escape from a perverted serial killer in the isolated countryside was one of the most acclaimed entries in a seemingly endless series of ’70s slasher-film revivals. While many of its frightening images and suspenseful, cleverly orchestrated sequences live up to its title, an unsatisfying final twist makes it seem even more dated than the movies it emulates.

Brood, The (1979-Canadian)

BOMB

Eggar eats her own afterbirth while midget clones beat grandparents and lovely young schoolteachers to death with mallets. It’s a big, wide, wonderful world we live in!

Cemetery Man (1995-U.S.-Italian)

**

Zombies rise from the dead a week after their demise, and it’s ‘‘Cemetery Man’s’’ job to kill them again, with the assistance of a grotesque mute companion. Based on an Italian comic series, Dylan Dog, a promising concept becomes overwhelming and repetitive. At times outrageous, funny, sexy, and disgusting, with a startlingly enigmatic and fascinating ending.

Basket Case 2 (1990) C-89m.

BOMB

Van Hentenryck and his monstrously deformed twin brother take refuge in a house of freaks, but are tracked down by tabloid reporter. Arch, pseudo-hip film totally lacks the conviction of the first; icy cold.

ON THE HILL OF ROSES – Stefan Grabinski

Hieroglyphic Press

July 2012

Hardcover

134 pages

From the standpoint of English-speaking world, Eastern and central Europe remain The Dark Domain teeming with creatures unknown and unknowable. The Iron Curtain has long gone, but the language barrier remains, and numerous great authors, living and dead, still dwell in the shadows of obscurity, waiting for their works to be translated into English. Stefan Grabinski (1887-1936) is just one of such writers still waiting for a full recognition.

In his native Poland he was an oddity while alive, at the dawn of the 20^th century. He was a writer without roots, without tradition to rely on, an outcast. One Polish reviewer noted: "His short stories could easily be translations realized beyond our borders." His predilection to imaginative, dark fantastic and poetic horror made him a foreigner in his own country. He wrote: "For nine years no one deigned to notice I was creating a new type of literature previously unknown in Poland, that I was a pioneer of fantastique in the strictest meaning of the word, a neo-romantic fantastique of a spontaneous and autonomous character." Typically, he is one of those authors rediscovered and recognized only long after their death.

His tales are told "in an old-fashioned style evoking the bygone era of provincial pre-war Poland, mixing elements of the supernatural with realistically depicted scenery, filled with a lingering lyricism suddenly rent by violent images, and laced with a menacing sense of entrapment and frustrated eroticism", as a foreword to one of his collections says. Sadly, his fate in the English-speaking world seems consigned to rare, pricey, slim, hard-to-find small press editions such as Motion Demon (2005) and In Sarah's House (2007). The only English edition of his tales which was substantial in both number of stories collected (not less than 11!) and number of copies printed, with a reasonable price and tolerable availability, remains The Dark Domain (1993) from Dedalus.

The latest collection of his stories, On the Hill of Roses, has just been published by Hieroglyphic Press: it is a lovingly produced, slim but beautiful volume, sewn and jacketed hardcover limited to 300 copies. This means that if you're intrigued by this review, better hurry before it's sold out.

            The contents are made of the full selection of Grabinski's original edition of On the Hill of Roses (Na wzgorzu roz, 1918) – plus one additional tale, "Projections", from his 1930 collection Passion (Namietnosc). These 134 pages contain a solid introduction into Grabinski's world of eccentric, alienated characters in the grip of either insanity or fantastic events which bring them to the verge of losing their minds – or lives. In either case, just as in Poe's best stories, they try to remain lucid and to analyze that which refuses to be named and defined; they try to contain the uncontainable, to understand that which surpasses them, and are usually crushed by the dark forces from within or without.

            On the Hill of Roses opens with a Foreword by Mark Samuels and a helpful Introduction by Miroslaw Lipinski, Grabinski's leading translator and proponent. These are the stories within the beautiful covers designed by Eleni Tsami.

            On the Hill of Roses: A solitary man is attracted to a walled-in garden with opulent scents. But there is a ghostly secret waiting there, and another smell – smell of death – becomes more prominent towards the end.

The Frenzied Farmhouse: This archetypal story of a Bad Place (TM) somewhat prefigures Lovecraft's "The Colour from out of Space" – although the origin of the "evil" which affects the inhabitants of a secluded farm remains shrouded in mystery: "K. maintained that in certain places certain events had to occur. In other words, that places exist whose character, nature and spirit await the fulfillment of events connected with them..." 

On a Tangent: A man's obsession with omens and signs turns into a self-fulfilling prophecy, and he is led i.e. he leads himself through a series of "accidental" encounters and portents to a grimly grotesque conclusion. 

Strabismus: A rather unconventional story of a split personality (or is it a Doppelganger? or a spirit possession?) about a man pestered by his complete opposite, and later haunted by his spirit from a walled-in room next to his own. This story is also in The Dark Domain. All the others are available in English for the first time in this collection.

Shadow: A man looking for a meaning of life and working on a treatise on "Symbols in nature" comes across a strange unmoving shadow image on a window of an isolated cabin in the woods. Intrigued by the mystery of the figures frozen in the act of violence, he befriends the old man who inhabits it, hoping to unravel the secret of the shadowy crime from the past... A haunting tale in more senses than one.

At the Villa by the Sea: Another atmospheric story about a past crime which refuses to stay in the past. A man's visit to his old friend at his isolated villa awakens the "ghost" of a poet killed there many years ago who won't stay buried.

Projections: Another lonely bachelor comes to his doom, this time through his attraction to the ruins of an old nunnery and to the signs of past Satanic shenanigans in its dungeons. The ending is original in its sadism and uncommonly gory for otherwise mostly restrained Grabinski.

* * *

On the Hill of Roses offers a number of delightfully old-school tales of the dark fantastic and chilly horrific which, at the beginning of the 20th century, created the missing link towards such later practitioners in the similar vein, like Robert Aickman and Thomas Ligotti. If you like them, you should definitely treat yourself with some Grabinski. He looms like a shadow from out of time and from behind the iron curtain – a spicy, exotic, Slavic Catholic taste of horror for demanding palates. His doom and gloom will certainly be refreshing in the midst of the feelgood light entertainment that passes for "horror" these days.   

Note: Some of the illustrations inspired by Grabinski's works used in this post are by Ryszard Wojtynski; more of them, here.

FILM VIOLENCE: History, Ideology, Genre - James Kendrick

Wallflower

(Short Cuts)

144 pages

            I already gave a recommendation for this book in the June issue of RUE MORGUE, but I think it deserves a more detailed review, so here's a longer, cyber-version.

            FILM VIOLENCE is another in a long line of concise & condensed studies, or at least clever overviews, of significant film topics, themes and (sub)genres coming from Wallflower. It is number 45 in their ever-growing Short Cuts series. I've already covered some previous titles here, like FILM GENRE: From Iconography to Ideology by Barry Keith Grant.

            The book is divided into four chapters. Part one deals with "What do we mean by 'film violence'?" and maps the complexity of the problem. First and foremost, Mr. Kendrick presents the topic as crucial to understanding cinema itself, since violence in all its guises is inherent to the flickering, "moving" image (violence on the technological level: light piercing the eyeball and deluding the brain with a deception of life). More obviously, it is linked to the necessity for drama and conflict in what is basically narrative art. Furthermore, "understanding film violence is central to understanding the social and historical role of the cinema" (p. 4). 

The author endeavors (and succeeds) in his attempt to provide a general foundation for understanding film violence from historical, ideological and generic perspectives, which entails looking at how film violence has affected and been affected by governmental policies, box-office receipts, gender difference, shifting notions of genre, well-known auteurs, changes in narrative and broad social trends. Violence, for Mr. Kendrick, is a "complex signifier" and he consistently refuses monolithic definitions, preferring its presentation as a complex mode of signification that needs to be thoroughly grounded in historical, cultural and industrial contexts as well as subjective experience. 

            Chapter two traces the depiction of film violence from the silent era until the present day, focusing on aesthetic innovations (special effects, slow motion etc) and various social responses to it. As the author puts it, "people have been shooting and stabbing and slaughtering each other onscreen since the movies began, and the only difference between then and now is that filmmakers have adopted and made conventional increasingly graphic means of depicting these violent behaviors" (p. 14). The crucial shift comes in the 1960s, when explicit cinematic violence ventured from the disreputable grindhouse B-movies into the respectable mainstream – first in Europe and Japan (esp. samurai films), then in the USA, too (largely thanks to Hitchcock's PSYCHO and BIRDS).

            Chapter three focuses on how violence was used in several of Hollywood's most popular genres (western, horror and action). Representation of violence in these genres is connected to their ideological functions and their changes over time. Horror is dealt with in about 10 pages, with special stress put on concepts of taboo, monstrosity and transgression (thematic, ideological and visual).  

Mr. Kendrick's brief analysis of Paul Morrissey's Flesh for Frankenstein (1973) is rather unconvincing and problematic: this film is labeled "reactionary" because it offers "a sharp critique of excess in any form, particularly meaningless sexual excess" (p. 87). So it would seem, according to Mr. Kendrick, that "meaningless sexual excess" should, actually, be presented as progressive? Morrissey's film is called "conservative" because of its ironic stance towards the sexual revolution of its time. This is reminiscent of Robin Wood's famous misunderstanding of Cronenberg's early horror films, criticized for being against the "liberal" party line according to which meaningless sexual excess was progressive and deserved all the praise. This is surprisingly narrow-minded in an otherwise quite decent overview of the role of violence in horror film and various theoretical approaches attendant to it.

            Finally, chapter four offers a case study of the central role of violence in the films of directors of the New American Cinema in the 1970s, also known as The Film-School Generation (F. F. Coppola, Martin Scorcese, Paul Schrader, Brian de Palma...) and shows how they have reworked classical representations of violence to distinguish themselves from the previous generations of filmmakers. With this chapter the book ends somewhat abruptly, without conclusion of any kind. Instead, there are helpful items like selected Filmography, Bibliography and Index.

            FILM VIOLENCE: History, Ideology, Genre is a scholarly text, but it is clear and highly readable for those who are not film students. Its arguments are well supported with a wide selection of quotes from relevant studies on the subject so that it provides a rich overview of the variety of implications that film violence can have. As such, it is vastly informative and educational, insightful and revelatory to all readers interested in one of the essential cinematic traits, fundamental for understanding cinema itself.

FILM GENRE: From Iconography to Ideology - Barry Keith Grant

Wallflower (Short Cuts)

London and New York, 2007

132 pp

 

by

DEJAN OGNJANOVIC

 

This book is another one in the long and precious series 'Short Cuts' by Wallflower, made up of short guides to various aspects of cinema. The series includes titles like CRIME FILM: Investigating The Scene, SHAKESPEARE ON FILM: Such Things as Dreams Are Made Of, WAR CINEMA: Hollywood on the Front Line, THE NEW HOLLYWOOD: From Bonnie and Clyde to Star Wars, FILM NOIR: From Berlin to Sin City, THE HORROR GENRE: From Beelzebub to Blair Witch and dozens of others.

            The high standards established in the previous books are met in this one as well. No big surprise since the author, Barry Keith Grant, is the professor of Popular Culture and Film at Brock University and is one of the leading authorities on film genre – among other things, he is the editor of the three huge volumes of the indispensable FILM GENRE READER. No wonder, then, that he provides this highly readable, informative and authoritative introduction to all issues pertaining to the question of genre.

            Mr. Grant opens the book reminding us that the term genre has at least three major meanings: 1) it refers to a particular mode of film production, 2) it is a convenient consumer index announcing the kind of content to be expected in a given film, and 3) it is a critical concept, mapping out the taxonomy of popular film and pop culture in general. Then he goes on to analyze the term on the level of the generic system (the relation of individual genres to each other and to Hollywood production in general), individual genres (defining individual genres and their common elements) and individual films (reading specific films in their generic context).

            Genre as a concept is placed in its context within the popular culture and its origin is found in the classical studio system from 1920ies to 1950ies., with their economy of expression (through recognizable iconography and conventions) as the key factor in their market value. The studio system provided a stable context for filmmakers to work with consistency and to be creative and expressive within the given confines. The key elements of genre are recognized in conventions, iconography, setting, types of stories and characters, stories and themes. These are all illustrated with examples from well-known genre films.

            Never losing itself in abstractions and definitions, this guide constantly goes back to examples, providing minute case studies to elaborate a given concept: thus, film noir, the musical and horror film are among those singled out to illustrate the application of various theoretical tools in their understanding. Special place is given to analysis of genre and its role in society: genre is basically seen as a modern myth in which gathering in front of the cinema screen has the same purposes that in previous centuries gatherings around the fire were used. Of course, these shared dreams, hopes, fears and values are liable to be abused, and Mr. Grant pays due attention to various ideological uses of generic stories.

            The common complaint implied in the dichotomy: genre vs. art is explained and convincingly negated by the case study of John Ford and his use of the western genre conventions for his idiosyncratic style. It is even better supported by the case studies of Howard Hawks, as another 'genre director' who managed to be an 'author' at the same time, and of Fritz Lang and his peculiar use of genre. The chapter on gender and genre provides a very interesting modern reading of such action classics as DIE HARD and BLUE STEEL and the book concludes with a brief chapter on the genres outside of Hollywood: Italian 'spaghetti western', Hong Kong action films, Japanese samurai and monster movies, etc. Sadly, the book is limited to Hollywood's genres, and not enough space is given to their influence on film genres in Europe and Asia, which is merely hinted.

            If you're theoretically inclined, this book provides an invaluable essence of all varieties of approaches to genre and its meaning. At the same time, FILM GENRE is a clear, easily understandable, well-supported account of what a genre means and how it accomplishes what it set out to do. Because of that, it can serve as an eye-opener to any genre film buff out there who may not have wondered about the possible ideological readings of his or her favorite entertainment. No entertainment is innocent and no genre film is 'just for fun': Barry Keith Grant's books reminds us of the uses and abuses of generic iconography and of hidden meanings inherent to our favorite genres. That's why it is strongly recommended to every student of popular culture and to every cinemagoer who doesn't leave their brain at the box office.

PROMETHEUS (2012)

Ghoul's rating: 3/5

PROMETHEUS is pretty far from what it could and should have been, and from what we had the right to expect from Ridley Scott and his premise. However, despite all its problems, it still represents a very rare, almost unique breed of filmmaking which definitely deserves to be enjoyed in the cinema theater, not at home. That which is undoubtedly great - pompous scenery, spectacular space ships, alien landscapes, special effects and the like - can be experienced only on the big screen. If you should see one movie in the cinema in the coming days / weeks, it's definitely PROMETHEUS. But do not forget to enter the cinema with reduced expectations. Try not to be influenced by the hype machine and, if possible, to forget the heights achieved by ALIEN and BLADE RUNNER some 30-35 years ago. PROMETHEUS is a decent, intriguing, somewhat exciting film, but it's far from a masterpiece.

It is good enough that it shouldn't be spoilt for you, and I certainly don't want to do that. This is the reason why, instead of a thorough analysis, at this point I offer only the listing of the film's major qualities and faults, without arguments, examples and spoiler material which would be inevitable if I were to illustrate my points with examples from the film.

So, these are the best elements of the film:

+ A good concept, intriguing ideas, more (sporadic) intelligence displayed than in the average recent American blockbuster.

+ Excellent visual component, especially in areas based on the designs by H. R. Giger.

+ Exceptional visual effects, excellent make-up efx and creatures.

+ Intriguing character of David (the android) and wonderful acting by Michael Fassbender portraying him.

+ At least one "mystery" from ALIEN is now clarified: the nature and purpose of the "Space Jockey", and indirectly, those of alien xenomorphs themselves.

+ Good pacing, no boredom; a fluent and entertaining film.

On the other hand, these are the film's main problems:

- Viewed as a prequel to ALIEN (which it definitely is), PROMETHEUS is unsatisfactory both in terms of ideas and overall effect.

- The plot is designed as if this were a pilot episode for a series, not a separate film; too many crucial issues at the core of the plot remain vague, underdeveloped and unsatisfying.

- A number of illogical situations and unmotivated behavior, inadequate to the context, including an amazingly chaotic disregard for basic procedures appropriate for such an expedition (security, weapons, quarantine, the principle of subordination, command line, etc).

- Blatantly unfounded and unconvincing motivation for the trillionaire Weyland to jumpstart the entire long, complicated and expensive expedition, which motivation remains unchallenged even when the hostile nature of the planet's environment and the Engineers themselves become more than apparent.

- Ambivalent, vague motivation for the android.

- Too much freedom in the departments of physics and physiology of both human and nonhuman organisms; credibility and physical probability are dramatically stretched almost to the realm of miracles and fairy tales.

- Lack of clear and firm rules regarding the "anything goes" liquid in the alien vessels; haphazard modes of reproduction and life cycles of different creatures resulting from contact with it.

- The conclusion is too rushed, with plenty of action, sound and fury, but with progressively less and less sense, tension and emotional involvement towards the end.

- A terribly bad ending (the last five minutes).

- Not enough Giger: they re-used his old, well-known designs for ALIEN, but they did not hire him to produce anything really new and unseen. The non-Giger visuals are okay, but far from memorable and unique like Giger's.

To conclude: it is fine to see a film brave enough to be playful with big questions and occasional nihilism and blasphemy, but it's a pity that nothing much is really done with those, probably leaving a lot for the sequel which may or may not happen. The film's main problem is trying to merge an ALIEN-like horror film with a concept which would've been better off without the forced links to ALIEN mythology. The result is neither a gripping, suspenseful horror nor is it a very clever Sci-Fi film of big ideas: PROMETHEUS is middling in both departments. Still, it is not entirely a failure, there is some courage and cleverness amid the silly clichés and forced scenes, and PROMETHEUS deserves to be seen – but, like I said, with lowered expectations.

SPEAKING OF MONSTERS: A Teratological Anthology

Edited by Caroline Joan S. Picart and John Edgar Browning

Hardcover: 336 pages  

Palgrave Macmillan

Available from 20 July 2012

            I am pleased to announce SPEAKING OF MONSTERS: A Teratological Anthology, a wonderful new book of theory of horror edited by renowned scholars, coming from a prestigious academic publisher and filled with intriguing essays by the leading scholars in the field. I'm honored to have my essay on postmodern slashers (esp. HAUTE TENSION) included in this anthology. Listed below you'll find literally "who's who" in today's horror theory!

            Brief description of the book follows.

Despite its apparently monolithic definition, 'teratology' (from the Greek words teras, meaning 'monster,' and logos, meaning 'a speaking, discourse, treatise, doctrine, theory, science') seems infinitely malleable, flourishing in various rhetorical environments. Teratologies are more than a bestiary: a catalogue of 'freaks' designed to celebrate the 'normal.' Rather, teratologies illustrate how humor, horror, fantasy and the 'real' cross-fertilize each other, resulting in the possibility of new worlds, ethics, and narratives, emerging. As a general anthology of teratologies, this book simply maps what, in many ways, has already been occurring across several fields, as it tracks the expansion of this term, creating lacunae that form connections across multiple interpretive communities. It is a cross section of how "monster narratives" intersect with "outsider" positions, from different perspectives - such as those of literary critics, film critics, criminologists, law professors, historians, philosophers - and looks into various strategies of destabilizing normative binaries.

CONTENTS:

Introduction: On Monstrosity and Multiculturalism - Caroline Joan ('Kay') S. Picart and John Edgar Browning

PART 1: GENERAL THEORIES OF MONSTROSITY

Monster Culture (Seven Theses) - Jeffrey Jerome Cohen

Dread, Taboo, and The Thing (1982): Toward a Social Theory of the Horror Film - Stephen Prince

Nightmare and the Horror Film: The Symbolic Biology of Fantastic Beings - Noël Carroll

Our Vampires, Our Neighbors - Ken Gelder

'Psychological Thriller': Dead of Night (1945), British Film Culture, and the 1940s Horror Cycle - Mark Jancovich

PART 2: TERATOLOGIES OF NATIONALITY AND RACE

Monsters in the Literary Traditions of Asia: A Critical Appraisal - Andrew Hock-Soon Ng

Slayer as Monster in Blood+ (2005-2006) and Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997-2003) - Margaret L. Carter

'Shapeless Deformity': Monstrosity, Visibility, and Racial Masquerade in Thomas Grattan's Cagot's Hut (1823) - Daniel Novak

PART 3: IN BETWEEN FEAR AND DESIRE

Apt Pupil (1998): The Hollywood Nazi-As-Monster Flick - Caroline Joan ('Kay') S. Picart and David Frank

Demons Driven: Religious Teratologies - Jason C. Bivins

An Age of Mechanical Destruction: Power Tools and the Monstrous in The Texas Chain Saw Massacre Films - Ian Conrich

PART 4: QUEER THEORY AND BOUNDARY CROSSINGS

'Way Too Gay to Be Ignored?': The Production and Reception of Queer Horror Cinema in the Twenty-First Century - Harry Benshoff

Seed of Chucky: Transbiology and the Horror Flick - Judith ('Jack') Halberstam

PART 5: CRIMINOLOGY, LAW, AND TERATOLOGIES: BETWEEN THE REAL AND THE REEL

Stage Four: Virulency - Lonnie H. Athens

Profiling the Terrorist as a Mass Murderer - Caroline Joan ('Kay') S. Picart and Cecil E. Greek

What Makes Stalking Monsters So Monstrous, and How to Survive Them? - Ôrît Kāmîr

Race and Serial Killing in the Media: The Case of Wayne Williams - Caroline Joan ('Kay') S. Picart

PART 6: THE BIOLOGICAL MONSTROUS AND GENDER: THE HUMAN-ANIMAL-MACHINE DIVIDES

''Nature Abhors Normality': Theories of the Monstrous from Aristotle to The X-Files (1993-2002) - Kathleen Long

Monster Spawn of Animal Experimentation in the Early Work of H. G. Wells: On the Containment of Psychopathic Violence as Preliminary to the Onset of the Capacity for Mourning - Laurence A. Rickels

Why Is the Tension So High? The Monstrous Feminine in (Post)Modern Slasher Films - Dejan Ognjanović

Blood and Bitches: Sexual Politics and the Female Lycanthrope in Young Adult Fiction - June Pulliam

PART 7: TERATOLOGIES AND ETHICS

The Queer Ethics of Monstrosity - Patricia MacCormack

Reopening the Question of the Human and the Animal - Dominick LaCapra

Where Reality and Fantasy Meet and Bifurcate: Holocaust Themes in Pan's Labyrinth (2006), X-Men (2000), and V (1983) - Caroline Joan ('Kay') S. Picart, John Edgar Browning, and Carla María Thomas

            About the editors:

CAROLINE JOAN (KAY) S. PICART formerly a tenured Associate Professor of English and Humanities at Florida State University, USA, is a Juris Doctor Candidate at the University of Florida Levin College of Law and an Adjunct Professor of Humanities at Santa Fe College. She is also currently Editor-in-chief of the Florida Journal of International Law and articles editor of the Journal of Technology Law and Policy. She has authored and co-authored/co-edited 14 books, including Monsters in and Among Us: Towards a Gothic Criminology (2007), Frames of Evil: The Holocaust as Horror in American Film (2009), Draculas, Vampires, and Other Undead Forms (2009), and Dracula in Visual Media (2010) - winner of the 2011 Lord Ruthven Award.

JOHN EDGAR BROWNING, PhD student and Arthur A. Schomburg Fellow in American Studies at SUNY-Buffalo, USA. He has co-written eight books, including Draculas, Vampires, and Other Undead Forms (2009), Dracula in Visual Media (2010, winner of the 2011 Lord Ruthven Award), and The Vampire, His Kith and Kin: A Critical Edition (2011).

Reviews

"This book is a must-read for students and scholars of teratology, monsters, the fantastic, and the detested other. Spanning a fascinating gulf of disciplines and genres, the authors illustrate just how interconnected we are with the monsters in our midst and the extent to which our understandable desire to define ourselves in opposition to the monstrous both creates and destroys the barriers between the human and the other. This book will change the way you think about crime, victimhood, knowledge, the normal, and our own place in the universe. From Dracula to the Holocaust, from gender to disability, this book challenges our own belief in the possibility of self-knowledge and questions the foundations of our self-defined humanity.'

- Danaya C. Wright, Clarence J. TeSelle Professor of Law, Levin College of Law, University of Florida

"All too often topics are betrayed in their treatment - creativity is discussed unimaginatively, art is approached unartfully or even artlessly, philosophy itself taken up thoughtlessly (at least without sufficiently sustained, probing thoughtfulness). Not so in this instance. Indeed, the category of monstrosity is itself monstrous. It is at once dependent upon traditional distinctions between the normal and a forever shifting array of opposites and in conflict with those historically entrenched dichotomies. The essays in this volume exhibit in detail the monstrous - in the sense of both the frighteningly huge and fiercely unsettling - force of this philosophical category. They do so in reference to a broad spectrum of cultural phenomena. The editors' finely crafted introduction however provides a useful map to this vast terrain.'

- Vincent Colapietro, Liberal Arts Research Professor of Philosophy, The Pennsylvania State University

"This collection of essays offers more than a unique contribution to social theory - it is a comprehensive framework for understanding how humans construct otherness. The work is critical for law since judges, police, and other legal actors repeatedly construct the criminal as monster, which lays the foundation for punishment that knows no bounds, including death. In an age of mass incarceration and fears of terrorism, this work is as timely as it is fascinating."  

- SpearIt, Assistant Professor of Law, Saint Louis University, School of Law

If you click HERE, you can download a PDF sample, with the full table of CONTENTS, the entire INTRODUCTION + the INDEX, to give you a better idea of the book.

SPEAKING OF MONSTERS will be available from 20 July 2012.