Super-predators

 Readings in the Genre - Week 13 – The Relic

‘The Relic’ introduces us to a creature that’s part reptile and part primate (so it’s a 'mammal-like-reptile' then… I think that’d be the proper taxonomy), it’s a highly intelligent killer that is a very frightening enemy for the protagonists of the story.  I won’t get into the small mountain of fallacies that I see with how we’re introduced to the monster (a computer spitting out all that? Come on… a super-computer isn’t omniscient.)  Instead I’ll be focusing on the crux of the creature design.

What we have here is quite simply a super-predator.  I often smirk when I see bad horror movies pop up in adds for the sci-fi channel with such names as Raptor Island but the idea of a predator that’s out to eat the protagonist is such a primal and visceral threat that it’s almost destined to come up in the horror genre.  While other horror staples rely on science fictional or fantastical traditions for their creation (Vampires, Werewolves, Aliens…) a simple evil predator out to kill and maim the protagonists doesn’t require all that mess (though instead we get a supply of Michael Crichton style computer and scientific mumbo jumbo).  One could easily write a horror novel in which the protagonist faces a killer bear, tiger, or dog (see a rather bad Stephen King for that plot line).

The difference I’ve often found between monsters and animals in writing comes down to one simple idea, monsters are malevolent… they’re intelligent enough to think about and enjoy killing.  Animals act as their programmed to by their instincts.  The irony being that when someone makes a super-predator we most often take an animal and turn it into a monster by giving it an intelligence and single minded pursuit of killing others (besides hunger).

But what makes a super-predator?  Well, ironically enough the term is used by biologists and ecologists often times interchangeably with apex predator.  It is quite simply the top of the food chain.  A killer whale, great white shark, tiger, jaguar, lion, hyena, wolf, or grizzly bear is a real world example of such creatures.  Horror writers often seem to enjoy kicking it up a notch or two by creating strange hybrids in order to make a ‘perfect killing machine’ and so forth.  I personally think the fossil record can provide a writer with even more terrifying possibilities then anything we can simply splice together (And some such animals which are reportedly still alive).

Amongst the more recent extinctions would be:  terror birds, short-faced cave bear (rumored to be still alive in Kamchatka, Russia), dire wolf, and a large variety of saber-toothed cats.  If you want something older there’s dinosaurs, giant crocodiles (Lake Placid anyone?), ruling reptiles (of many stripes), marine reptiles (of equally various stripes), and giant invertebrates.

Of course, considering that’s just what evolved on our planet… going with an alien creature opens another entire can of worms.

Snow... I hate Snow

 Readings in the Genre - Week 12 – Snow

No, I don’t mean the book… I mean snow in general.  I’ve got to say at this point a lot of this is getting rather repetitive.  Isolated community: check.  Evil monstrous threat: check.  Aliens: check.  Guess what we’ve got an invasion of the body snatchers story taken to its more horrific extremes and playing up that angle.

The element of the story that really caught my attention this time wasn’t the monster… no, it was one thing the monster did that could have made a post-apocalyptic novel by itself, the destruction of electronics.

Just how dependent we have become on electronics is something that I think most of us are not that aware of, but consider how many things you use every day in your home that use an electronic component (microchip) that would get fried by any number of possible causes (DEMP from a terrorist bomb has been done to death, but I like continuous global geomagnetic storms caused by a magnetic polar reversal personally).

Now imagine all the control circuits for everything that comes into your home being fried, the computers that run the power-plant, pumps the gas-lines, manages the water system… I think you get the picture.  You have no utilities, the super-market has at best a three day supply of stock, and if you don’t stuff your mattress with cash and instead use a bank… sorry, all your bank account information was stored electronically so… it has ceased to exist.

Damn, why the heck doesn’t anyone run with this?  The whole polar reversal bit gives cool secondary effects like constant auroras, compasses going wild, and a spike in ambient radiation (some scientists suggest this effect is the cause for the punctuated nature of evolution… but whatever).

Oh well… maybe I’ll get started on it.  Let’s see:

Beneath a Dancing Sky…

Short and Odd

Been busy getting my novel ready for prime time... got distracted.  Okay, I have no excuse.

Readings in the Genre - Week 11 – Human Remains

“Human Remains” is a story that is rather bizarre amongst those we’ve read this year in my opinion.  For one thing, we’re given a protagonist that is so far outside of many people’s comfort zone we’re already at odds with the story in some ways.  Gavin is a male prostitute, and this is not a comedy.  Those two facts make for a rather strange setup, and the creature’s design just makes it even weirder.

We have a creature that seems to be an amorphous combination of many different concepts, it seems to be a doppelganger (one who assumes the form of another and replaces it in some traditions, in other traditions a mythical person that’s basically an evil twin), a mimic (able to change shape and appearance of others), and a construct (the ugh factor of incorporating the human remains of previous victims into its body).

At this point I think I’ll turn back toward what will most likely be the crux of my final paper for the class since it’s a theme that has appeared again and again at various points in the novel, the idea that we become or that we are the monster.  The subtle transition of Gavin into the creature coupled with its consumptive nature reminds me a bit of the werewolf and the Alien monsters from both the Thing and Alien.  We are once again seeing a replacement story, where a monster replaces a normal person and then causes death… mayhem… chaos… and destruction.

It’s getting to be a bit repetitive but at this point I’ve got to call it what it most likely is, a convention of the genre.

Remakes and Re-imagination

Readings in the Genre - Week 10 - The Thing (1982)

When I first saw this film on the Syllabus I thought, ‘Wow that’s an old B-movie’.  It wasn’t until I realized that it was the 1982 remake of the B-Movie I remembered that I became a bit concerned.  I must say I always feel a great deal of trepidation about remakes and the re-imaginings of a story.  All too often we loved what the original did and find ourselves infuriated by the departures and changes.

‘The Thing’ from 1982 is a completely different animal from the ‘B-Movie’ that spawned it.  The original has many of the same plot elements… an alien found above the arctic circle at a remote science outpost slowly kills off the people that work there until they destroy the facility or kill the creature.  The mechanics of how the story is told however are immensely different.  We go from class B-movie science fiction in style to a darker more grizzly modern horror style for the remake.  It’s almost like a producer said ‘We want it darker and edgier’.

Darker and edgier… aka more horrific (not to say it’s bad but more like a horror story).  In our modern mainstream culture films and television seem to love to steal elements from the various genres and tie them together.  The whole ‘Darker and Edgier’ mantra of so many different shows these days comes from a conscious decision to use more horror and drama tropes in those stories believing it increases ratings.

With some plots and some universes that can lead to disaster, but when you’ve got a story that is already straddling the boundary between horror and another genre, it can be genius.  Like it is here, we’ve got many of the same elements as in the movie: Alien.  A remote and hostile location (in this case a science station in Alaska), a consuming alien entity that somehow adapts or consumes its host (being attacked by the body causes a researcher to mutate into ‘the thing’), and what essentially amounts to a ‘you lose’ solution instead of an ‘I win, you lose’ solution (destroy the science station to get the creature and succumb to the wilderness).  I almost have to say these facets are almost fundamental to the genre of sci-fi horror and perhaps horror as a whole.

Horror plays upon people’s most basic and fundamental fears, the juxtaposition of what you expect and what occurs, and a very real sense that not only is the protagonist going to lose but be turned to mincemeat or become the very creature he’s fighting.  The werewolf, the vampire, the Alien from Alien, and the thing are all monsters that were once a person and that fact alone seems to be a common element to so many stories we’ve gone through.

The Wolf in You!

Readings in the Genre - Week 9 - The Wolfman

I'll admit, I love the werewolf as a protagonist in the genre.  Unlike say the vampire which is usually rendered as either pure malevolent evil or a seductive and sexy romantic possibility (Creepy), the werewolf isn't ever usually considered just plain evil.  Instead the werewolf is a sort of tragic figure, a normal person all but twelve to thirteen days of the year...  and then he or she just completely looses control.

In a lot of ways the story of The Wolfman is so completely and totally loaded with more symbolism, tropes, and other genre staples that it seems almost comical in retrospect.  Take for example the names... Gwen, Lawrence, Sir John?  Can anyone not see the whole Arthurian and Robin Hood allusions in the names?  It's a bit blatantly obvious, not to mention the whole 'love conquers all' element to the ending when Gwen encounters Lawrence as a Werewolf.

Darkmoor... as a setting it's tropetastic (Yes, I just made that word up).  The name says it all once again... Dark Moor.  Lets see we've got Arthurian namesakes, a moor, and it's dark.  Must be a werewolf story (Never-mind that the one historical account of a werewolf hunt I can remember was set in France).

All these factors alone would have produced a film and novelization that was just plain bad... laughably bad.  However, the story itself is saved by the psychological factors going into the plot and much more subtle thematic and metaphorical allusions woven into the story.  The use of an actor uncertain of who he really is as the werewolf was a brilliant choice, and then the integration of psychological horror at the memory of how he became the monster.  It's those elements I thought worked really well.

Alien!

Readings in the Genre - Week 8 - Alien

Well, it's not really a 'reading' but Ridley Scott's 'Alien' is a masterpiece of Horror Science-Fiction, so I guess I can see why it'd make an appearance in the course.  The difficult part comes from extracting techniques and criticism from the movie that can be applied to the written word... our format.

A number of people I've talked to have described Alien as a B-rate movie plot, done really well.  In a lot of ways they're right... spacecraft encounters an alien creature on a planet, said creature proceeds to kill off the crew, crew must fight said creature to survive.  That's the plot of a lot of B movies over the years.  The difference between 'Alien' and it's predecessors like 'The Thing' is that each of the elements is done extremely well and the director has clearly embraced the Horror elements of the story.  Not that it uses a different plot.

The first thing that stands out about Alien is the titular figure is just that alien... it's not just a human with a different skin tone or girth... when the people designed the Alien they made it truly alien... a smooth exoskeleton with a roughly human shape... impossibly non-human skull... and who can forget the recessed and extendable second mouth?  (Scary thing is that an entire genus of ocean going reptiles had a similar feature in their anatomy) It's alien... its black, it's almost formless in a lot of shots where you see the creature... you just get a glimpse, it's there and its not.  It's something the mind can't quite grasp.

Then there's the whole thing with the alien's first appearance... the face hugging creature that infects the crewman is dead and removed... the guy goes back to work... has breakfast.  Then has an alien rip out of his stomach in the middle of the meal.  That puts the threat way out there... one of their crew has become this... thing that each of them is struggling to kill or destroy.  While the threat that another of them could be infected is lurking on in the background (not used till the sequel of course).

Space as a setting is by itself a terrifying environment, the threat of death in vacuum and the absolute isolation that the crew is under make for a great start point for the story... like a ship at sea or an oasis in the desert... there's no where to escape to.  Alien works by stacking threats and complications... the threat of isolation, vacuum, the facehugger, death in cryostasis, and ultimately the alien.

A quick word about the Heroine... like a lot of horror stories I've read.  We don't need to really like the hero in order to get into the story.  Ripley is a tough woman to be sure, but she's not high up in the command ladder of the ship or extraordinarily strong.  The one thing she has that a lot of horror story heroes seem to have is a remarkably strong desire to live.  They don't give up and keep trying more and more desperate and insane things until something works.

Zombies on the Brain

Readings in the Genre – Week 7 – World War Z

I am a reanimated corpse dependent on NyQuill, Zinc Lozenges, and Kleenex for my survival.  A rather fittingly foggy state of mind for a post on Zombies… since I am one.

It does not matter how they come to exist, not really… the Zombie story is about the apocalypse… as that really is the only defining element when Zombies are your monster.  The dead are rising and we’re all doomed.

World War Z takes that premise and blows it up to a global scale catastrophe.  Yes the dead are rising again, yes they want to kill the living, but no, it’s not restricted to a small town in northwest Ohio.  It’s everywhere and governments, soldiers, disaster workers, and common citizens tell the tale of a global apocalypse of epic proportions.  Let the remorseless slander of national stereotypes, government incompetence, and disaster planning begin!

Stylistically World War Z is far from the norm for a horror novel, reading it reminded me more of a documentary piece filled with veteran recollections.  Like a fictional version of Stephen Ambrose’s Citizen Soldiers, Band of Brothers, or D-Day about a global zombie pandemic.  Global zombie pandemic… that sounds shockingly bureaucratic doesn’t it?

At the same time the book relentlessly utilizes geo-politics and public perceptions in how it portrays the response of each nation to the disaster.  China doesn’t care about casualties, the US responds slowly… and so forth.  These geo-political elements are more a hallmark of thrillers then horror novels, and perhaps give a reason for World War Z’s mainstream appeal.  It’s a cross genre book with elements of such stories as Tom Clancy’s Executive Orders, Michael Creighton’s Outbreak, Night of the Living Dead, and documentaries like Citizen Soldiers.  It is a disaster novel, but one that uses a disaster exclusive to the horror genre.

We aren't ready, are we?  Where's my shotgun?

Yattering Jabbering...

Readings in the Genre – Week 6 – The Yattering and Jack

Ugh… let’s get this done, finger to keyboard. *Hack-hack*

Yes, I’ve been ill hence the tardiness of this. *Cough*

Here we go, a monster that exists in every culture, has every conceivable form and ability depending on the tradition, and chills people's souls... The Demon.

There are a couple creatures in popular imagination that seem to exist in an infinite variety of beings.  Their portrayal seems to change in each separate rendition.  A great example of this is the Demon, Daemon, Shaitan, or whatever else you want to call them.

Let’s face it.  Demon is a catch all category that can only really be defined as a malevolent spirit or creature.  I’ve use Demons in my thesis novel (though I do not name them that) and I’ve always felt that when designing them it seems that they function much better if created with an alien set of morals or rules then make them simply evil or immoral.

The Yattering in this story is a good example of that device.  It is a demon, and has the defining characterization of being a demon… it’s attempting to manipulate, tempt, or madden a mortal.  But it's not really that frightening, it's like the Imp... an annoyance out to drive you crazy.  Why?  It’s just that this is its job.  It has a set of rules that it operates by.  In some ways this is an inversion of the typical ‘immoral demon’ character design, but it makes for a rather useful and interesting device.  One can easily argue that the demon is the protagonist for at least a portion of the story.

I’ve noticed a continuing thematic element in a lot of horror stories is that the real monster is us.  Jack in some ways is very much the antagonist of the story, he frustrates the Yattering into being bound to Jack as his servant and doesn’t care that this means damnation, he has power over his own demon now after all, that’s a pretty malevolent person to be selling one’s damnation for a pet nuisance.

Next Time… Horror goes Geo-political with World War Z