Happy New Year 2019!

The Earth completes a rotation around the sun, and 2018 A.D. passes into history. Even though it seemed to pass swiftly and uneventfully, it feels long in retrospect. For me, it's hard to fathom that just one year ago I had moved across multiple states and settled into a new home. I spent 365 days working consistently, taking far less leave than usual up until the end. In spite of that, the days passed one after another, then weeks, then months.

It wasn't all no-nonsense work though. I've had some respite visiting some of the local sights in South Carolina (primarily Charleston and Beaufort) and I saw a Civil War reenactment in Aiken. Haven't had any grand excursions like I had in Utah or overseas, but I find that after a major move I tend to spend a year or so in one place, becoming acclimated to the environment.

Living in Georgia, I have to say I severely underestimated the summer heat. No level of warning can really prepare anyone for the sheer humidity of the south. It's dense enough to drive me indoors most days. It's not all horrible though--I wanted to get away from winter snow, and for the last two years I haven't seen a single snowflake. Somewhere between 40 and 60 degree weather, this area feels great around this time of year.

As far as everything else goes, I have no complaints. The area has its fair share of nice places and things to do. There are places to explore still, especially historic places with Civil War heritage and earlier. Libraries and writing groups are a little far from me, but I have partook in them occasionally.

That's pretty much all I accomplished this year--living day to day going from work to home again. Now and then I've been inspired to write and rewrite things, but critiques I get back caused me to shut a lot of projects down to either rethink, restart, or outright scrap them. It has become a discouraging process, and I've spent some months producing nothing as a result.

I may have learned a thing or two about the craft--maybe enough to polish a story, but not quite enough to make a story worthwhile. But after seeing so many other stories and understanding how they work (or don't work), I can't help but to look back on my older ideas and find them droll, cliched, uninspiring, and flat. Character and voice can pump more life into these stories, but changing those things after the fact is a long and complex process I haven't been able to pull off successfully. It's also a process that inherently changes a story, potentially into something it wasn't meant to be.

What's occurred to me lately is not just story ideas, but a concept for a brand of sorts. I never pinpointed any specific thing that makes my stories unique to me, until I realized one subtle element that crops up in most of my projects. They all feature something that comes from another reality. Given that this sometimes relies on multiverse theory or some other trope, the possibility opens to connect my stories as a shared literary universe. Doing so had the surprising effect of creating unity and focus, which in turn has made me more excited over my old projects. Plans are coming together to revitalize my writing. I hope to produce something--at least one thing--that can be considered truly finished by the end of 2019.

Goals

Last year I had the vague goal to stop feeling shame and fear. Some of that may have come from the world at large and the media's constant coverage over how doomed we all are. 2018 had its share of bad news--it seemed like every piece of news I saw was political catastrophes or environmental doomsaying. In my day-to-day life, fear and shame had ways of spilling over me from the people around me. Even in a new environment, I sometimes wondered if I measured up and met everyone's expectations.

It might not be possible to escape such broad feelings, but I do believe I can handle it better now than before. Since I feel more at-ease, I figure my singular goal had been achieved.

This year, I have more specific goals in mind--things that are measurable. In 2019, I plan to:

• Lose weight. Again? Yes, unfortunately, I have gained quite a bit over the past year. I already exercise 3-5 days a week--with more focus on eating habits, I plan to get back to the 200lb range (which would require about 40 lbs of weight loss).
• Read more. Firstly, because it's one thing writers everywhere say makes you a better writer--the more you read, the more knowledge and empowerment you can find regarding the craft. I also have a ton of books I picked up and never bothered touching again. In 2018, I managed to read 31 books. Next year, I want to make it through 50.
• Write more, with the intention of writing every day and producing one finished product by the year's end.
• Sketch more. I have the tools and the desire to produce something eye-catching, especially in support of my writing projects. With more practice and time, I hope to improve my skills and make something that looks genuinely nice.

I believe all of these things are possible, it just requires better time management. In an age when barrages of media sucks up so much time (including video games, movies, TV), it will mean putting aside some wants. And it might be hard, either because of compulsion or because I still have the goal of plowing through my own media backlogs (watching my unwatched movies, playing the unplayed games, hearing the unheard music).

Chances are good that I'll have some more travels happening in the next year, which will impact time and planning for certain months. Life in general has a way to take time away, but when it's in the good company of family and friends, it'll be time well-spent.

So much has changed in the last few years and so much will change in 2019. I plan to make positive, productive changes. If you are too, I wish you the best of luck in your endeavors.

Film Review: Santa Claus: The Movie (1985)

"Don't you know who I am?"

"Sure. You're a nut!"--David Huddleston and Christian Fitzpatrick
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Ah yes, Santa Claus! We all know and love this jolly fat man who invades people's homes and eats all their cookies, under the pretense of leaving cheap wooden toys behind. With all the whimsy and imagination that surrounds the legend, a big-scale fantasy epic seems appropriate to capture all the magic and wonder Father Christmas embodies.

What we have with 1985's Santa Claus: The Movie is a yarn split into two halves. The first act or so follows a 14th century toy-maker (David Huddleston) who's shanghaied by elves. They curse him with immortality and force him to deliver their crummy toys to brats all over the world.

Even before this portion of the film ends, I was let down. It wasn't the colorful elves (heck, I got a kick out of their synchronized toy-making). It wasn't the fantasy (if anything, I wanted more--the film has its nice moments with the starry night skies, all the light beams, the snow). Nope, the thing I objected to the most was the story, or lack thereof. This is THE Santa Claus movie, right? His movie, and his story. But what we're given is a limp noodle of a plot that conveniently shoehorns an average schmoe into the Santa Claus legend because a bunch of elves say so. Santa literally walks into the toy shop and finds everything already laid out for him: the toys, the sack, the reindeer and sleigh. He is told that he is the Claus and he will deliver these presents. Santa has no agency and he never chose this. And it bugs me because all potential in this story is wasted.

By comparison, 1970's Santa Claus is Comin' To Town achieves so much more. As a story, that film gives me everything I could want--a complete backstory where Santa actually influences the events, chooses his destiny, and brings together all those elements that constituted his legend. With Santa Claus' own personal movie, it's all thrown at him, and with a shrug he just does it. He becomes a slave to the caricature, and there's nothing heroic about it. Now, you could argue that greatness is thrust upon Santa, but even on that level the film fails because Santa never struggles.

After all this drama-less baloney passes, Santa is finally challenged when one of his elves (Dudley Moore, probably the most charming performance in this film) attempts to automate the toy-making shop, but fails. He winds up going to the big city, where his work is embraced by BZ, a rich dude in the toy biz (John Lithgow, in a performance so wild and buffoonish that he becomes a hilarious love-to-hate villain. Easily the highlight of the film). They make some toys and stuff that makes people fly--apparently, it's much safer than the inflammable dolls and junk-ridden teddies that BZ was probed for. Inevitably, BZ plans to double-down on all the elvish magic, resulting in potent candy canes with a possibility of combustion. It's up to Santa and a couple of kids to stop all the madness!

Once the film hits the modern age, it becomes a bipolar experience where intercity crime, homelessness, and poverty are treated as comedy. Once BZ blustered into the film, it struck me that I had seen all this before in another Salkind production. Santa Claus' own movie was squeezed into the template of Superman: The Movie. These are both lighthearted epics about legendary figures. They both start off with the characters positioning into their respective niches (although Superman's origins are much more developed and spectacular than Santa's). And in their last halves, both films bring these figures to the urban world to fight some ridiculously rich and hammy villain with a silly plot. Both movies even boast the same kind of special effects (awkward optical where characters and things zoom in front of a speeding background--in the same year of Back to the Future, this just looks dated and cheap).

Unlike Superman's movie, this one drags through stretches of uninteresting subplots before the plot flatlines. In two hours, Santa Claus brings this whole story to a close by performing a loop-de-loop with his sleigh to save the good characters we're supposed to adore. And that's it--BZ is brought to justice when he floats away on his own accord (and what is it with people in space--do the Salkinds think people can breathe up there?).

Ultimately, Super Claus: The Ripoff provides no satisfying setup and no satisfying payoff. What it does offer is shenanigans that can be amusing and funny, but often for the wrong reasons. The best that can be said is that it's harmless, making it an apt viewing choice for families. And I wouldn't fault any family for making this movie a regular Christmas tradition. But if it's whimsy and magic you want, Tim Allen does it a little better in his movies, and if it's a good story you crave, you still can't beat that puppet movie from the 70s.

2/5

Halloween (1978): A New Appreciation for Michael Myers

SPOILERS FOR THE HALLOWEEN MOVIES AND 2018’S ANNIHILATION FOLLOW



John Carpenter’s Halloween (1978) is a landmark film that falls squarely in my parents’ generation. Whether my folks realize it or not, Carpenter’s influence seeped into our film collections ever since—as a family, we often sat around and enjoyed the atmospheric, haunting tales of The Fog (1980) and Christine (1983). I always eyeballed the VHS cover for Halloween but never really had an interest in it. Slashers became a dime-a-dozen in the 80s—they all looked the same to my young eyes.

Once I finally watched Halloween for the first time, I was rather underwhelmed. To this day, I’m still not that enthused by the film’s bland cinematography and paper-thin characters. I was also not that impressed by the iconic villain, Michael Myers. I saw him as nothing more than a knife-wielding dude in a mask—even though the film asserts he’s a “boogeyman,” all I saw was a bland and silent blank slate that lacked depth. Maybe for that reason, I beheld Rob Zombie’s 2007 remake with a little more appreciation—there, Michael is given a backstory that substantiates his transformation into a killer. I thought it was compelling, even if it’s rooted in trashy, exploitative details (something that paints all of Rob Zombie’s work).

Now, on the original film’s 40th anniversary (and in the wake of yet another reboot, which I’ll catch up on when it hits home video), my opinion on Halloween’s villain has changed. I’ve heard it stated many times before that Michael works because he is a boogeyman, not a mortal man with an abused childhood. I can finally see that now, not because of these facts alone, but because of the ideas behind them. My newfound connection with Michael stems not from fearing him as a man, boogeyman, or anything else. It’s from realizing that he’s the embodiment of the unknown.

Unknowable

My newfound fascination with all things unknowable cropped up after watching Alex Garland’s latest film, Annihilation. Many folks have their opinions and views about what it means, but it was clear to me from the start that it touches upon some common ideas behind cosmic horror. This is a brand of terror originally penned by H.P. Lovecraft—the fear of monsters and forces so far above humanity that they can’t be understood. In a universe where such horrors exist, mankind itself is a worthless, meaningless speck in the cosmos that might be obliterated in the blink of an eye. To capture this kind of terror and nihilism, Lovecraft wrote about monsters so abominable and formless, his characters couldn’t comprehend these creatures and went insane. In Annihilation, Garland gives us a strange, formless entity so abstract it looks like it doesn’t even belong in this dimension. When talking about the humanoid doppelgangers it produces, or the nature of the Shimmer itself, the characters explain that they don’t even know “what it wants, or even if it wants.” This dialogue is the key characteristic that makes the Shimmer’s entities so terrifying—they’re so beyond our understanding that we can’t relate or understand them. Even more uncanny is that the Shimmer’s influence fuses alien DNA with human, asserting that people (including Lena in the end) have changed into something less human and more alien.

In the context of Halloween, I realize now that Michael Myers is no different. He’s not an alien from space or an Eldritch God or anything, but much like them, Michael is unknowable. Dr. Loomis studied the man for years, and what did he discover? Absolutely nothing. All the film tells us is that Michael is devoid of personality and soul. Even doctor Loomis characterizes him as simply “evil” and the label persists throughout the series. Just as science can’t explain Cthulhu or the cloud thing from Annihilation, it also can’t quantify Michael’s thought patterns.

If there is any scene in Halloween that genuinely scares me, it’s the opening. It’s an ingenious sequence in itself, filmed entirely in first-person POV. We see through Michael’s eyes as, without any explanation or precedent, he picks up a knife and butchers his sister. It’s such a senseless and brutal murder as it is. Coming from a six-year-old, it’s unfathomable because we usually associate children with innocence and purity. The contrast is highlighted by the film’s style and music, painting the scene in a seemingly unholy light. It establishes all we need to know: that Michael is unfeeling, unyielding, and beyond comprehension.

Michael’s only other characteristics throughout the film are mostly physical. We see that he’s a tall, imposing figure, capable of lifting people with ease and doing incredible harm. Bullets and blades don’t stop him. He says absolutely nothing—the only sound he makes is the heavy breathing through the mask. All characteristics that reinforce Michael as an unthinkable monolith in human form.

His most defining characteristic is the mask. In itself, the mask is a blank, pale slate lacking in expression. It’s a reflection of his own soul—vaguely human in shape, but lacking emotion and definition. The one time Laurie manages to unmask Michael, we only see a brief glimpse of a man—he very quickly pulls the mask over his head, as if covering up the normal, petty mortal hiding beneath his inhuman self. The mask is the character in the end.

One of the most chilling murders in the film shows Michael stabbing a guy against a door, and the knife pins the body above the floor. For a long time, Michael just stands there and cocks his head side to side, studying his victim as the life slowly drains from him. In any other person, committing murder would elicit some kind of emotional response. The first murder is often the most traumatizing, because it crosses a moral threshold that can’t be reversed and most human beings react emotionally to it. Michael didn’t show any emotion when he killed his sister. In this later scene when he studies his victim, he shows a cold, dispassionate interest in suffering, and nothing more. The T-1000 in Terminator 2 does the same thing repeatedly, presumably to compute suffering and use it as an advantage later to make him a more efficient killer. That is why, while holding Sarah Connor under knife-point, he says “I know this hurts.” With Michael, I’m not even sure he knows anything he does hurts his victims—something as human as weakness, pain, and suffering are all alien to him. Which is appropriate, because he’s alien to us.

Uncanny

Uncanniness in horror fiction refers to the effect in which normal things feel slightly off. Annihilation is loaded with uncanny details, thanks mostly to showing a whole forest evolving into an alien ecology that shows us normal forms (trees, grass, plants, deer, bears) in an unnatural way (tumor-like growths and fungus, mutations). This also extends to characters—when they are copied by the alien presence, they become emotionless forms that look human but lack personality. They don’t act like their normal selves.

Michael similarly comes off as uncanny because he looks human, but acts in a way that’s contrary to what we associate as a human being. As described above, he’s beyond understanding because he lacks empathy. Dr. Loomis suggests he also lacks thought and a soul—any spirit inhabiting his body is simply “the evil.” Even in the credits, Michael is listed as simply “The Shape.” That’s the essence of Michael as an uncanny person—a human shape, and nothing more.

What really pushes Michael into uncanny territory is his characterization as a “boogeyman.” It’s not enough that Michael stalks a bunch of teenagers and kills them. He’s also a supernatural force that literally teleports in and out of reality. One minute, he’s staring at Laurie from behind a clothesline. The next, he’s gone. This happens repeatedly throughout the movie.

Michael is also capable of murder and robbery—all of which are shown in their aftermaths, but no details are given about how he accomplished these things. Even more confusing is how he found time to do these things within a day. He steals a gravestone at some point, hauls it around all day, then manages to place it in an upstairs bedroom by the evening. But how? We never actually see. While carrying this tombstone around all day, he also manages to stalk Laurie, then rip off a store in broad daylight (presumably, I mean he was right there when Laurie and Loomis visit the place), then stalk some more. He spends the whole evening trolling and killing random babysitters, and he goes so far as blocking exits at key moments. How does he know enough to plan these murders and even forecast the inevitable chases? He simply does.

Speaking of stalking, how exactly did Michael learn to drive? He spent his whole adult life in an institution. This point is even brought up in the film, and Loomis just kinda assumes somebody at the institution taught him. But there’s no evidence of this whatsoever and it wouldn’t make sense. This is another one of those things operating on a supernatural level. I don’t believe anybody taught him to drive—knowledge simply comes to him.

Undying

At the end of Halloween, Michael Myers’ body vanishes, promising that the terror is not over. It might never be over. Laurie Strode will be haunted and on-edge for the rest of her life.

Or at least a whole bunch of sequels and reboots. After the 1978 original, seven sequels were released. Then the 2007 reboot, followed by a sequel. And now, there’s a new reboot that ignores all previous films, picking up only after the ’78 original. Confused yet?

It’s a testament to the effectiveness of Michael’s characterization as a unknowable boogeyman—he scared us so much that he became cemented in the cultural zeitgeist. He exists in the same pantheon as other long-lasting horror icons, including Jason Voorhees, Norman Bates, and Hannibal Lecter. Physically, Michael is closest to Jason since both are imposing, invincible entities that can’t die, and both wear masks. When thinking about psychology, however, the unknowable depths of Michael’s mind and abilities are just as unfathomable as studying Norman’s or Hannibal’s minds. All these gentlemen exhibit uncanny traits that seem inhuman. But at least these killers could speak and operate in human society—Michael is simply a shape that moves lucidly through suburbs and cities. Unlike these killers, Michael can’t be studied, reasoned with, or reached.

You can see more of these aspects in Michael as the sequels kept rolling out, although it’s not always effective or even welcome. Halloween 4 in particular paints Michael as an unstoppable bullet-sponge able to single-handedly knock out a town’s power grid and communications. It’s almost ridiculous, but that’s probably one of the reasons why I enjoy that film so much.

Where the sequels fall short is in how they try to explain away the mystery behind the mask. In the second film, they tied Laurie to Michael by making them secret siblings. It does alter the way you can view the first movie, and it kinda makes sense in its own way—this is an angle that seemed much better handled in Rob Zombie’s remake, where the connection is explicit and you see how Michael proactively goes after Laurie out of some kind of latent compassion. But this is also where that film failed—by adding human traits to Michael (including the backstory), the film erases all sense of mystery, and with it the “unknowable” aspect of him. He becomes a human, plain and simple.

There are other aspects to the sequels that bug me. One of the biggest concerns the transition between Halloween 5 and 6. Number 5 had a real sucker-punch of an ending, in which a stranger in black appears and shoots up a police station, ensuring that that evil will live on uninhibited. What I admired about this setup was all the added mystery: who was this guy, where did he come from, and why did he do it? In #6, we learn that he’s simply, a guy. And we learn that there’s a cult that supports Michael. I was utterly underwhelmed, because all the questions I had were answered in the dullest way. A cult—nothing more than mere mortal people—does nothing to add mystery, story questions, or even fear to the franchise. What really would have wowed me is if the man in black was actually something else—the Shadowman for example. Michael is himself supernatural, so why not expand on that and add more entities to the films? Why not expand the world-building?

Even if they stuck with the cultist angle, there are endless ways they could have handled it to generate more suspense and fear. As it is, the sixth film disappoints me in all the same ways folks are disappointed in Star Wars: The Last Jedi—these are films that ignore fan expectations and deliver answers to gloss over loose threads in previous films. But Halloween 6’s shortcomings didn’t stop the series from ending by any means—H20 brought Jamie Lee Curtis back into the fold, and now she’s back after 40 years. All reboots in a way, each bringing their own tropes and stories to the table, but Michael’s appeal as the ultimate bogeyman keeps him coming back time and again.

Unforgettable



I was never a huge Halloween fan, but it could be the case that I never really learned to appreciate the films (or at least John Carpenter's original) as they were meant to be seen. The context of cosmic horror made me realize that Michael Myers is a chilling villain precisely because of how little we know about him. Whatever's going on inside of his mind or soul cannot be understood. He can't be fought or killed. He can't even be human.

The films make all this obvious by painting him as a "boogeyman," but the term always fell flat for me. Probably for the same reasons it falls flat in other films (like, say, the actual films entitled Boogeyman), and why other terms like Babadook or Tommyknockers make me roll my eyes. These are children folk-tale type of names that horror stories typically invoke to create contrast, or to suggest that these silly stories actually have a terrifying basis. For me, it's a technique that never worked because so many other films do it and I feel it's a cliche. But tell me that Michael Myers is an entity, spirit, demon, or alien in human form, and I'm genuinely unsettled.

The original film uses techniques in its photography, performances, and script that underscore how terrifying a villain he actually is, and the movies work because of him. They also fail when they lose sight of why he works. The key lesson with Myers is that less is more. The less details we see, then all we have is a vague shape that creeps us out. The less we know about him, the greater the fear.

An Appreciation of the Creepshow Trilogy

It was the 80s. Stephen King was still fresh and new to the horror scene, but his first bunch of novels established him as a powerhouse author. George A. Romero already achieved his glory with his iconic zombie pictures. Put the two together, and what do you get? The 1982 film Creepshow, an anthology of horror loaded with purposeful camp and flashy effects to emulate the style of 1950s pulp horror comics. The film ranked #1 in the box office of 1982 and has since become a cult classic.

This film opened eight months before I was born. Its sequel came out when I would have been four years old. Thus, the two movies have been part of the zeitgeist for most of my life, and I would have gained awareness of it when I was older (ten maybe?). My parents developed an affinity for these films, and they will quote the movies to this day. Well, I might too--as hammy as all the actors were, the movie is loaded with funny and over-the-top dialogue.

Around 2007, I did a double-take when I perused a video rental store and beheld Creepshow 3 on the shelf. A third one? They really made it? How did I never hear about it? Holy crap! I bought a used DVD of it for four bucks. Unfortunately, four bucks might have been too much--the movie ranks as one of the worst I've seen. Much like a plague, I wouldn't wish it upon anybody.

Revisiting all three films this Halloween season (yes, I even sat through #3), I've come out with a renewed appreciation for them. There are solid reasons why the first (two) persisted as cult favorites, and I finally pinned down what it is that works in them.

Creepshow

The original Creepshow is a darn good film, plain and simple. It has an epic cast (including Tom Atkins, a young and confused-looking Ed Harris, Leslie Nielsen as a hammy villain, Adrienne Barbeau as a lush you just love to hate, and Stephen King himself playing the goofiest and most lovable yokel in Maine. And even his son makes an appearance as Billy, a kid). The film very playfully toys around with transitions and animation to replicate a pulp comic effect, and it makes for visually stunning cinema. The use of groovy backgrounds, lighting, and color gives it a theatrical flair that hasn't been topped. All of this, along with the writing (King's first screenplay) and performances deliver a level of camp that makes each story fun and digestible.

At the same time, the film is careful not to overplay the comedy to overshadow the horror. All five stories embody the horror genre in spirit, and it does so by approaching many different angles (or subgenres).

• The Macabre: This is the type of horror that focuses on death and painful-looking injuries. Macabre works tend to be dark, grim, and ghastly. You can see this pretty easily in classics like Edgar Allan Poe stories, and it carries over in King quite often. The body count is fairly high in Creepshow--we see bludgeonings, stabbings, beheadings, suicides, people getting eaten and mauled, drowning, and bugs exploding out of a body. Among other things.
• The Supernatural: Probably best described as anything that happens that can't be explained. In Creepshow, we see this when the dead come back to life (many times). Few other things, such as why the goo inside a meteor causes plant life to grow and how so many bugs invade Mr. Pratt's apartment, are not given much explanation--things simply happen, often times without rationality, and it creates a more unsettling (possibly uncanny) atmosphere.
• The Psychological:  Seems like the stuff of thrillers more than anything--this is the terrors of the human mind affecting behavior. We do see some of this with Jody Verill rationalizing with himself over the plant growth and what to do about it. It causes him to hallucinate and talk to dead relatives, although this could just be another part of his mind. Mr. Pratt talks to himself a lot too (unless he's on the phone or answering the door), and most of it expresses his intolerance towards his "bug problem."
• Body Horror: The type of horror in which the human body mutates, falls apart, or something else goes horribly wrong. You see this most often in David Cronenberg movies, but it has its roots in earlier media and some classic gothic tales. This brand of horror is probably best experienced in "The Lonesome Death of Jody Verill," in which plants grow out of Jody's body and consumes him. I think Mr. Pratt's demise touches on body horror as well.
• Cosmic Horror: This is the fear of all things so above-and-beyond mankind that they can't even be comprehended, and doing so drives people insane. The closest thing Creepshow has to this is the meteor sh*t Jody Verill encounters--definitely not the same as the classic formula established by H.P. Lovecraft, but I think it lightly touches the subject in the sense that it's a substance from outer space and it's never explained or understood. It is worth noting that the original short story "Weeds" was roughly inspired by Lovecraft's "The Color Out of Space."
• The Unknown: Going hand-in-hand with cosmic horror, I find myself looking at all brands of terror and realizing most have their roots in the unexplainable. Every Creepshow tale has an aspect that can't be rationalized. Billy and his voodoo doll--it's something that shouldn't work in real life, but it does. The dead coming back to life--it's the whole premise of "Father's Day" and "Something to Tide You Over." How do those bugs get into Mr. Pratt's apartment? We never find out for certain. And of course, "The Crate" embodies the unknown in the best way, by presenting a literal mystery box that, when opened, reveals a monster of unknown origins and classification. "The Crate" also touches upon Lovecraftian tropes, seeing as the creature came from an Antarctic expedition and was dumped in a university setting--it may as well be Miskatonic U.

See? You get a little bit of everything.

The terror! *GASP*

Creepshow builds every story around one simple forumla that works every time.

1. A set-up: backstory is delivered, scenes are set. Some characters are wronged in some way. Antagonists sieze the advantage, but something unnatural is revealed gradually until the climax.
2. A payoff: something creepy happens. Revenge happens. Characters, good or bad, are gruesomely dispatched with some form of irony.

"Father's Day" is a very simple, straightforward revenge story. The payoff is more like a punchline here--Nathan Grantham really wanted that cake, and he finally got it by rising from the grave, butchering a bunch of snobs (including Bedelia), then presenting it as a severed head with candles. Yay, cake for everyone!

"The Lonesome Death of Jody Verill" only features one character. All the conflict revolves around his inner dialogue (externalized as a goofy form of monologuing and daydreaming). The real trick (and the sad thing) about this is that Jody accelerates and brings about his own demise by refusing to see a doctor and giving into the temptation of a bath. The plants triumph.

"Something to Tide You Over" has a long setup that feels more at home in a murder mystery. Most of it is plotting that sets up the bizarre circumstance in which Richard Vickers convinces Harry Wentworth to bury himself on a beach so the surf can drown him. This works because Richard leads Harry along by drip-feeding information (or perhaps some fake news) and making promises in a very coy manner. Sure, he'll let Harry see Becky...on a video screen showing her own drowning. Once all this happens, Harry and Beck return as waterlogged zombies and they force Richard to endure the same fate.

"The Crate" has an involving setup that works on two different fronts. On one hand, a bunch of people discover this crate under the stairs and crack it open. On the other hand, Henry Northrup gets fed up with his wife Wilma. These two strands get tied together when Stanley experiences the monster in the crate (and the gruesome way it eats the janitor) and stumbles into Henry's den to tell him the whole dilemma. This causes Henry to use the crate monster as a way to take revenge and get rid of Wilma once and for all. It happens, but it's not quite as uplifting as he hoped. He takes it upon himself to seal the crate and dump it in a lake somewhere (although that doesn't hold the crate monster).

"They're Creeping Up On You" features Upson Pratt as a germophobe desperately trying to rid his apartment of bugs. But they just keep coming and coming, and they eventually overwhelm and eat him up. You don't really miss the guy because the whole time it's revealed that he's a heartless miser who caused the death of one of his employees. Bugs become a metaphor for the underlings he's used and abused in his business, so revenge is achieved.

The bookending prologue and epilogue sequences feature Billy, a kid scolded harshly by his dad for reading a pulp horror comic. Surprise, it's a comic called Creepshow! At the end of the movie, it's revealed that Billy used the mail-order clipping to buy a voodoo doll, and he uses it on his dad. That'll teach him.

One thing to note is how death is treated. Death is necessary to establish threat--it's hard to understand why one should be afraid of a shambling corpse if it doesn't hurt anybody. Among the worst and goriest deaths, "The Crate" probably works the best because the monster is so vicious it mauls and deforms everybody it claws. The way it lifts the janitor up by the head allows the camera (or POV character) to see the death in a way that's suggestive--we imagine it's eating the chewing the poor's guy's head, but the only indication we really see is blood dribbling down his torso. That's grotesque enough. We do see the bites and claw marks on one poor kid, and it further reinforces the threat. In the payoff, we see practically nothing of Wilma's death, but her husband's reaction is enough--even though he should be glad to be rid of her, he's actually horrified.

The manner of death can also be revealing. A fast, violent death comes off as nihilistic. The crate monster is an uncaring, unknowable thing after all--it will not pause or care for human life, so it takes it viciously and fast. Its effects on the human body is horrifying and creates a reaction in us. The zombie in "Father's Day" also dispatches his victims in a very fast and vicious way--he straight-up twists a woman's neck 180-degrees before he's satisfied.

On the flipside, a slow death suggests agony, pain, and suffering. When Jody Verill slowly turns into a plant, we can't help but to feel for him because it's such a drawn-out process full of doubt and fear. Not to mention, it's such an uncanny form of death--if we speculate on how it would feel and how we'd react to growth taking over our bodies, we shudder and become repulsed.

This could extend to the more grotesque death of Mr. Pratt. Between this film and Halloween III, bugs coming out of bodies in horror cinema is a very macabre thing to behold, and it elicits feelings of disgust and terror. Probably because bugs themselves are grotesque and we fear them. To have them come out of the body is just wrong, so it becomes terrifying.

Slow death also happens to Harry in "Something to Tide You Over." Can you imagine being stuck in the sand, forced to drown? It would be a painful way to go. With this particular story, the agony of death sets up Harry and his lover as victims--we're outraged by Richard's diabolical plan, so we root for the seaweed zombies when they gain up on him and force him to endure the same agonizing death.

Creepshow 2

Many have scoffed at this sequel for having far less stories than the first film and not being quite as good overall. I can't deny that the animation quality drops quite a bit, but the film holds up well for me because it's still faithful to the spirit of Creepshow and its pulp-comic inspirations. The cast may not have as many big stars, but their performances are still spot-on.

What really helps this movie is that the stories are still pretty awesome. I actually like some of this more than the stories in the first film. They all have the exact same set-up and payoff formula.

"Old Chief Wood'nhead" suffers from having a really long setup, but it is a storytelling necessity to establish the two shopkeepers as good, but poor, people. When they receive the treasures of an Indian tribe as a form of collateral, it presents something of value that all the characters want--it's something that the Spruces want to keep safe because it embodies the pride of a whole people. But when three violent hoodlums invade their store, they covet the treasure purely for its monetary value. Naturally, their dishonorable behavior and lack of pride incurs the wrath of a wooden Indian chief that comes to life and hunts the punks down one by one. The real delicious irony occurs when Sam, who went on and on about how his hair would make him a movie star, is scalped. It's pretty delicious revenge.

"The Raft" features a bunch of stoner kids who gleefully swim in a lake and find themselves trapped on a raft. A bizarre "oil slick" surrounds them. When one girl sticks her hand near it, it oozes up her arm and pulls her in, slowly eating her. One by one, the creature devours all the kids until the last surviving one makes a mad rush towards shore. Just when he thinks he won, the oil slick leaps up on the beach and eats him all the same. The real irony here happens when the camera pans to the right and reveals a "No Swimming" sign among overgrowth.

"The Hitchhiker" tells the story about a woman racing home in the middle of the night. She runs over a hitchhiker and keeps on driving. But the same hitchhiker keeps coming back in bloodier and bloodier forms, and eventually kills her in her own garage.

Interwoven in these stories is an animated story in which Billy picks up a box from the post office, having mail-ordered venus fly trap bulbs. A bunch of bullies jump him and step on his package (wait a minute, is this a metaphor?). After a bicycle chase, they all wind up at a dead end where giant venus flytraps eat the bullies.

Worst barber ever.

Irony and revenge are the common themes across both films (although irony is probably heavier in the sequel). In the second movie, we see plenty of unexplainable phenomenon (wooden statue animated, random oil slick monster, undead hitchhiker won't die, giant carnivorous plants). Some aspect of the macabre exists, mostly in the gruesome ways the kids die on the raft, but the film has more splatter to it than ghastliness. Body and cosmic horror come up dry. "The Hitchhiker" is probably the most psychological of all these stories, since it revolves around the character talking to herself, struggling to come to grips with what she's experiencing. One interesting thing about "Old Chief Wood'nhead" is that it feels like a kind of folklore with a horrific spin.

Deaths handled in this film are probably more horrifying than in the first movie. Old Chief Wood'nhead shoots arrows in the fat kid, uses a tomahawk on the rich kid, then scalps Sam--we see splashes of blood everywhere, enough to suggest sudden and painful death. Maybe it's too good for these punks (and it might be why I feel this payoff runs a little short). But what helps is that the chief establishes himself as a menace by being invincible--bullets don't stop him, and neither do walls. It becomes a slow chase ending in sudden death.

The deaths in "The Raft" probably horrify me the most, because the oil slick literally digests its victims in plain sight. We see everybody's skin peeling off, and one girl cries out that it hurts. Plenty of detail for us to understand how slow and agonizing this is. And much like the crate monster, the oil slick is a nihilistic creature that simply wants to eat--it doesn't care about its victims' plight.

"The Hitchhiker" is a weird one--death for both characters is pretty fast. What it's more about is the guilt of death that seems to follow the woman around until it finally becomes her undoing. This is reinforced by the fact that running over the hitchhiker repeatedly doesn't stop him--he is also invincible, and even as his body falls apart he just keeps reappearing.

And then there's the flytrap deaths--all fast, brutal, kinda bloodless.

Creepshow 3

Now this is where the hotdogs hit the fan. Creepshow 3 is a real thing, but it is such a terrible film that many wish it didn't exist. It has zero involvement with Romero, King, or anybody related to them. It was released direct-to-video in 2007. If I never saw it at the video rental store, I probably would have never known it existed.

Reviewing the film now, I am actually intrigued by what doesn't work in the film and how it differs so much from the first two. One of the reasons why it fails is because of the tone--there is so much comedy to this that the horror becomes almost nonexistent. Even worse, the comedy is forced thanks to extreme over-acting (especially from Emmett McGuire), a lighthearted music score, occasional sound effect cues, and pedestrian scenery (mostly in broad daylight). Compare this to the first two movies: their funnier moments happen out of the dialogue, performances, and ironic twists of each story, without help from anywhere else. Music remained earnest and uncanny, to the point of becoming unsettling (or just plain awesome, as it is in #2 with the guitar riffs). Production took care to douse many scenes in darkness or nighttime settings, with a lot of atmospheric detail. Horror elements still felt like true horror, and had the ability to creep under the skin. Drama felt like drama. Romance felt like romance. The first two films treat every aspect of their stories with gravitas. This third one--everything is a joke it seems, but none of it is really funny.

Which brings up the core problem: storytelling priorities. Creepshow 3 has an attempt at irony, but it falls flat most of the time.

What is this? The ghost opera?

"Alice" is the strange tale of a snotty school girl who becomes zapped across alternate dimensions because her family members keep toying around with a remote control some mad scientist invented that can do that to her (wasn't there an Adam Sandler movie like this?). With each transition, she becomes more and more mutated until she's rejected by her family. The girl meets the professor, who turns her into a bunny rabbit.

Wow, this sounds way stupider typing it out. The film makes a point to suggest that Alice's true form is her monstrous self. And that might be warranted, since she starts off rather snotty and demanding. The payoff seems to hint at an Alice in Wonderland motif, but this never comes up again in the movie. As well it shouldn't, because there is no point in which anybody crosses a threshold into any kind of "wonderland." I suppose the point is all of Alice's transitions into alternate realities is her "wonderland," but it's a weak metaphor in my opinion. What I find really odd about this story is that Alice undergoes all this change through no fault or cause of her own--she has no agency and no chance of redemption. If we're supposed to accept that her fall is some kind of justice or revenge, we don't see why because nobody was hurt in the opening setup (at least not that we see--there might have been hints in the dialogue, but then it becomes telling not showing, which is bad form). On top of that, I fail to see how universal remotes translate into body horror--I do appreciate the body horror in this segment, because the make-up is genuinely grotesque.

"The Radio" is kinda funny to watch nowadays, as it feels like a precursor to modern smartphones with voice recognition. In this case, it's a private security officer who buys a radio from a bum on the street (why?) and it starts telling him what to do. He invests his money. He steals and murders. He's told to kill this hooker he happens to like--when he refuses, she kills him. Afterwards, it's revealed that a pimp who lived in the same building (and occasionally threatened the dude) has a talking radio too. Um...yeah.

"Call Girl" is straightforward--it's about a call girl who likes to knife people all over town. She goes to some dude's house to do more of the same, only to find that he's some kind of vampire that bites her neck off.

"The Professor's Wife" follows a couple of dippy guys who visit their former college professor and meet his fiance. They get this crazy idea that she must be a robot--substantiated by old conversations in which the professor joked about it. It's revealed that she doesn't drink. She's not eating that night because she says she's watching her figure. The guys figure that the professor spent the last twenty years building and perfecting his own wife, so they get the bright idea to knock her out and dismantle her to see what works.

Now, this is the only part I think actually works in the movie. And it's probably by accident. When the guys rip apart this poor woman, gleefully laughing without realizing how psychopathic they actually are, it's a really horrifying scene. But it's so over-the-top, with all the goofy bad-comedy effects, that it becomes a bittersweet black comedy. It's sorta the same as in Monty Python's Meaning of Life with the live organ donor scene.

That being said, there is a missed opportunity. Once the two idiots realize what they've done, they hide all the body parts while the professor comes home and wonders where everybody is. The scene ends when he opens the oven and finds his fiance's head shoved in there. All he does then is whine. But come on--this is a possible moment that could have turned this character around completely and shattered all his good humor and bright outlook on life. He should have turned angry and vengeful, and it would have become a setup for a future revenge story. That doesn't happen though--what we get is a goofy wedding scene in which the professor uses voodoo magic to reanimate his wife, and she comes out all stiff and bandaged up. It is kinda amusing actually, and the one moment when blood wells out of her eyes could suggest a kind of morbid irony--it's the happiest day of her life, but she's dead. Maybe she wishes she's dead. That's pretty punchy to think about, even if the film only hints at it.

"Haunted Dog" is the only story here that actually feels like it belongs in Creepshow anything, probably because it's a rehash of "The Hitchhiker." It's about the worst doctor in the world, so uncaring and such a jerk. After cutting in line to grab a hotdog from a stand, he drops it and decides to feed it to a bum that was panhandling him. The bum dies, but comes back as a ghost that keeps haunting the doc. Eventually, the doctor dies of a heart attack (I guess that's ironic?).

The movie is bookeneded by scenes involving a hotdog stand--a really horrible animation opens the movie, looking like South Park from hell. It shows a kid in a hoodie murdering a dog then selling it as actual hotdogs (hahahaha, get it?! No?). This hotdog stand shows up throughout the movie, becomes important for the "Haunted Dog" story, then the movie ends with the owner revealing his face and it turns out to be the creep dude that hosts all these movies. His face turns to CGI mush for no apparent reason.

Deaths we see in this third movie aren't nearly as nuanced as its predecessors. Nobody even dies in the first story. Most others we see are unceremonious--lots of people get stabbed like it's just another day in prison. The vampire is probably the scariest thing, because he does kill very fast and viciously. As mentioned above in detail, the two idiots disassembling the professor's wife is a sickening scene, and it contrasts so much with the tone that it becomes totally messed-up. It's worth noting that nobody actually dies as a way to establish threat in any supernatural being or monster, so tension comes up extremely dry.

Go Ahead, Creep Yourself Out

The series diminishes in quality the further away from its original core talent and inspirations it gets. While #3 exhibits a broad range of weaknesses that makes the experience gaudy, unpalatable, and droll, the first two hold up well in my opinion, offering stories worth experiencing that will get under your skin. They work because they touch upon an array of different fears and horrors. They're palatable because of the camp, style, and talent poured into them. Above all, their storytelling works on a simple formula or idea and it works well.

The series is a great way to examine short story formats visually, seeing them unfold in individual arcs and plots. Some of them end in twists. Some end in an unsettling way. Some just end. They all manage to provide satisfying payoffs thanks to the care in their setups.

The series is also valuable in the way it portrays death in horror fiction, useful to elicit fear and tension. There are other aspects worth examining too--pieces of the macabre, unknowable horrors, psychological terror, and more.

You get a little bit of everything with these movies, much like a trick or treat bag. I've found the first two films quite rewatchable over the years, especially as a Halloween treat. If you haven't experienced this bittersweet treat in a while and you're looking for inspirations in horror, maybe it's time to dust off the ol' VHS tape and pop it in (oh who are we kidding, get yourself the new Shout Factory Blu-Ray and behold its glorious new 4K transfer).

Film Review: Annihilation (2018)

“I don't know what it wants, or if it wants, but it'll grow until it encompasses everything. Our bodies and our minds will be fragmented into their smallest parts until not one part remains. Annihilation.”—Jennifer Jason Leigh
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In a universe full of mysteries we can never fully comprehend, something is bound to crash into our world that does not belong here. Countless stories focus on the clashes with individual alien lifeforms, but what if an entire ecology invades ours? In order to birth a new alien world, it would have to destroy ours first.

Alex Garland’s Annihilation (a loose, dream-like adaptation of Jeff Vandermeer’s novel) showcases this scenario. A meteor strikes a lighthouse somewhere in the deep south, causing an alien field to constantly expand and swallow the surrounding countryside. Few teams were sent into the Shimmer—a man named Kane came out (Oscar Isaac). His wife Lena (Natalie Portman) finds that he’s nothing like his former self. When the government snags the two of them into Area X, Lena finds out about the Shimmer and volunteers for a new mission to explore it where others failed. What follows is an eerie journey into an uncanny landscape teeming with mutating life. The further the team travels, the more they change too.

Despite the swiftness of the plot and the depth of its story, I questioned the fast and loose way it slaps certain pieces together to form a plot. Characters can be frustrating to watch, especially in one scene that mirrors the blood-test scene in 1982’s The Thing. However, it’s hard to fault the film intentionally set up as a hazy dream where characters aren’t themselves and can’t make rational decisions.

To emphasize the Shimmer’s irrationality, the film masters the uncanny. Most horror films begin and end with one simple thing out of place in the world—a monster perhaps, a killer, or spirits. With Annihilation, we witness an entire environment out of whack, offering sights that are both beautiful and unsettling. The photography is very simple, but the SFX and visual filters bring the Shimmer’s wonders and terrors to vivid life. Sharp editing, crisp sound design, and an otherworldly music score makes the experience even punchier. The cast delivers solid performances full of gravitas. The script is understated, to the point of leaving ambiguity and many unanswered questions in its wake. That might frustrate many audiences, but it’s also the thing that keeps some folks coming back for more.

What really pushes this film over-the-top for me is its finale. Hardly a traditional climax, the characters reach a literal “heart of darkness” to behold a bizarre, unknowable phenomenon that no other sci-fi film can hope to match. What follows is not a battle or fight, but more of a “dance” that emphasizes performance art over action.

To some, this might be a simple “there and back again” plot that mirrors Tarkovsky’s Stalker. But with frequent visual motifs and dialogue, there are hints at additional layers. In one respect, the film becomes an allegory for the inner struggle of a person’s psyche—facing not an extraterrestrial, but a dark, unknowable side of oneself that could change the soul from the inside. The film astutely claims that everybody self-destructs thanks to unknowable dark impulses. Every character in the film expresses these impulses, leading to fates that come in full circle.

By sci-fi standards, the film succeeds in invoking thought and discussion over what an intruding alien will would really mean for us. By horror standards, the film represents an updated and terrifying take on cosmic horror tropes. It’s a world full of abominations and entities we can never possibly comprehend, and by merely existing it could wipe out mankind without a care. This is the stuff that crept under my skin all year long and kept me awake at night with visions of Giger-esque chambers, fluxing clouds of light, vicious ManBearPig-things, and people breaking down into their smallest pieces. Chances are I’ll never be the same after seeing this film.

5/5

Film Review: Van Helsing (2004)

Dracula chilled your blood. Wolfman scratched your nerves. Frankenstein burned your mind. These iconic creatures, surrounded by a dark universe of underlings and mythology, captivated audiences for decades. We all have Universal to thank for pumping out a whole myriad of classic pictures that have now cemented all these creatures into the cultural zeitgeist...probably permanently.

Stephen Sommers resurrected The Mummy, twice, and proved that the adventure formula can actually work for the classic monsters we know and love. Once he established his own production company, he applied the formula again to the rest.

Van Helsing is the ultimate monster mash, pitting a Vatican monster-slayer (Hugh Jackman, fresh meat from the X-Men grinder) against vampires and werewolves in Transylvania. On assignment to slay Count Dracula for holy reasons, Helsing teams up with a quirky, neurotic, strangely lovable sidekick friar (David Wenham--I love watching this dude) and Anna Valerious (Kate Beckinsale, looking great and badass). The trio uncovers Dracula's secret plot, which involves using Wolf Men as goons and the Frankenstein monster as a life-giving catalyst.

Forced to fight all these creatures, plus Dracula's brides and Igor, the film is just stuffed with action. Most of the film is devoted to watching the gang shoot crossbows at flying vampires and werewolves, swinging from ropes, and running all over castles to find monster cures and other such nonsense. The madcap chases are so frequent, loud, and bombastic, the film hardly ever lets up. When it does, it breezes through the exposition in a huff before getting back into the monster-slaying. Most folks will find this mind-numbing, dumb, and pointless.

The film hits on all cylinders with me though. Each setpiece is long and involving, but also crammed with impressive detail (courtesy of a very nice-looking production that boasts good-looking sets, props, costumes, the works). Computer effects--oh man, there's a ton of them. Some hold up well (I mean, look at the Wolfman--he's still wicked and awesome after all these years). Some don't, although none of it is as horrid as The Mummy Returns. Each sequence is sweeping and exciting, exuding a pure sense of adventure and spirit that's rarely seen elsewhere. What helps is that the formula works--we're given a hero to root for, with sidekicks and enough gadgets to make James Bond jealous. And that's all really cool in itself. Other things to love: the monsters, the mythology, the steampunk aesthetic, and above all, the gothic atmosphere. I have yet to find a film that boasts all of this, and unless a Castlevania film is made, this is as good as Transylvanian adventure gets.

Where the film falls short is in its story. It offers many different payoffs (including a finale that tries so hard to be a tear-jerker), but there's not enough setup to make it work. It's especially bad for the characters--Van Helsing is a man with a mysterious past that's slowly told to us through dialogue. All of it falls on deaf ears--partly because we're too engrossed in all the fighting (seriously, Dracula was monologing during all this), and part of it is because nothing is shown about Helsing's problems. He has nightmares and sins and stuff? We never see it on-screen, so why care? Unfortunately, the same goes for the romantic subplot between Helsing and Anna--we're expected to care about their relationship, right? Except they have maybe one moment together, with one kiss, and zero chemistry. And Anna--don't let her looks fool you. She looks like she ought to drive a stake through some hearts, but she winds up becoming a human pinball, always being tossed into trees and walls and falling for hundreds of feet before getting captured time and again and inevitably saved by someone else. So much for a good heroine.

Unfortunately, the villains are not above reproach either. They're all presented here as pure caricatures--Dracula is just a pompous dude who sucks (...blood that is), Frankenstein is a big dude who talks a lot and is afraid of fire, and Wolf Man is just a man-sized wolf. That's it. Wolfie has his implicit internal man/beast struggle, and that's something I wish could have played a bigger part of the story. Dracula is a walking slice of cheese, thanks to Richard Roxburgh's attempts to copy (or parody?) Bella Lugosi. And Frankie...jeez, he's always screaming and whining and I just wanted him to shut up. Come on, Shuler Hensley, you never heard a peep out of Boris Karloff! All these great monsters show no more depth than their corresponding Halloween costumes. The whole movie is kinda like watching kids taking monster-themed action figures and making them fight.

And yet, I do enjoy the film so much for its stylish, atmospheric production, and the slick way it unites the traditional adventure tropes with Universal's monsters. It's a nice marriage, but it could have worked better with a better script, and maybe a few creative changes. Despite all the cheese and missed opportunities, I will always value this film for trying.

3/5

Film: Interpreting The Tree of Life

In 2011, Terrance Malick dropped The Tree of Life on the world. I don't even remember how I came across this film, but it most likely came up on a movie forum I frequent often. Everybody else was watching this so I had to as well, lest I be considered uncool.

The film is far outside my usual sphere of interests (although my current sphere has been expanding more and more to include more films like this). It lacks a traditional narrative storyline and plot. There's no central conflict at play. No good guys or bad guys. It's literally just a bunch of people doing random stuff. Why would I watch this?

Even back then, I admired what I saw. Aesthetically, the film is as beautiful as they come--to date, there's only a couple that would top The Tree of Life (and those would be the ones directed by Ron Fricke). Photographic composition, use of color light and shadows, fluid camera movement--combined with compelling subjects (nature scenes, space scenes, plus quality performances by Brad Pitt, Jessica Chastain, and the rest of the cast) and beautiful music, the film becomes a transcendent work of art.

Since it's release, audiences everywhere bathed in the cinematic beauty of the film, before pulling their hair out wondering what this is all about. Some dismiss this as pretentious nonsense--all style and no substance. Others have probably written essays just as long as this, and probably with greater attention to detail. So much as already been said about this film, but I doubt everybody views the film in the same exact way. Like our views on life itself, everybody's views on this film will be subjective, and therefore different. So for what it's worth, here's what I've taken away from the film after my most recent viewing (in the brand-new extended cut nonetheless--a whopping three hours. Thank you Criterion Collection). If you've seen the movie and want to know more, hopefully my musings will help you sort out the method to the madness (or Malick-ness?).

WARNING: SPOILERS FOLLOW, AND BECAUSE I MENTION A BUNCH OF OTHER FILMS THERE ARE ALSO SPOILERS FOR EX MACHINA (2015) AND  MULHOLLAND DRIVE (2001).

Roots

To understand the film, there are a few things that should be nailed down. First, what is the Tree of Life? Countless cultures assign cosmic significance to trees--ancient Norse legend believed in one massive tree (Yggdrasil) that connected the nine realms together (and yes, this same thing can be seen in 2011's Thor, reinterpreted as some kind of lightning-tree connecting nine separate planets). What the Tree of Life film harps on will be the Christian/Hebrew interpretation as laid out in Genesis--it was the source of eternal life in the Garden of Eden, but when mankind was cast out we were denied the Tree of Life until the events of Revelations occur.

Regardless of cultural differences and religious interpretations, trees do make for a powerful symbol for a number of reasons. For one thing, they are some of the biggest, most plentiful, and most important plant life on the planet. It takes massive forests to pump oxygen into the Earth and sustain our ecology, and these forests are a beautiful sight. They are also a part of God's creation, and throughout the Tree of Life film there are many shots of tree branches against sunlight. The sun has been a symbol of God for eons (not only for Christans but also in many other cultures). So to show a tree reaching up to the sky (towards the sun), the film asserts that life is naturally drawn towards God. To reinforce this idea, we are shown sunflowers a couple of times (sunflowers are named not only because they look like suns, but because they face the sun as it moves across the sky). Skies and sunlight are shown frequently in the film, asserting God's presence subtly in the majority of scenes. At one point, the mother character points to the sky and says "That's where God lives."

The film begins with this biblical line: "Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth ... when the morning stars sang together?" This comes from the Book of Job, in which God stripped Job of all his wealth and status and made his life utterly miserable. Despite it all Job adhered to his faith to the end and proved the Devil wrong. But when Job questioned why all this misfortune happened, he was humbled by a long retort underscoring the grandeur and majesty of God, His power, and His creation. All of this comes into play and sets the thematic tone for the movie.

The director, Terrence Malick, has only made a handful of films but they share similar styles, tones, and themes. If you've seen The Thin Red Line or The New World, then you should know what to expect out of Tree of Life--all three of these films are long, poetic, beautifully-shot, and they eschew traditional narrative structure. His earlier works (like Badlands or Days of Heaven) offer stronger plotlines, but I'd argue that his later works prove that plot isn't really a necessity. Plot actually seems to hinder Malick's intentions--his films are at their best when they're open-ended and allow viewers to take in the audio/visual sensations and meditate on the scenes freely. This happens because he often uses vignettes that connect ideas visually, not plot or conflict. Combined with character voice and an omniscient camera, he achieves a unique form of poetry.

Branches

The Tree of Life follows the O'Brien family in rural Texas. The mother (Jessica Chastain) narrates a lesson she learned as a child--you can choose two possible paths in life, the path of nature or the path of grace. Nature only wants to please itself and have things its own way. Grace doesn't try to please itself--it can take insults, injury, scorn, and move on.

The mother receives a telegram and expresses grief. Her son R.L. died. After the father (Brad Pitt) receives the news, they both mope around for a while, before the POV shifts to show their other son Jack (Sean Penn) in the city. He seems to work in some kind of architectural or engineering environment, and is surrounded by offices, skyscrapers, and grid-like spaces. He meets and greets a bunch of people, gets in a few fights, crashes a motorcycle, hangs out at a party or two, but otherwise his life is quiet, lonely, and seeming devoid of actual life. Occasional flashbacks reveal glimpses of sunny, happy times in rural Texas as Jake used to hang out with other kids, swimming and playing in the sun.

When the mother asks aloud why her son had to die, the film digresses into a good twenty-minute sequence showcasing all of creation. We see light and gasses pulsing and moving in the gulf of space. As matter and energy coalesce, the Earth forms. Its molten surface cools over eons, until water forms. Single-cell organisms form, multiply, and evolve into multi-cellular life. Sea life forms, and eventually dinosaurs roam the Earth. In one sequence we see a raptor interacting with some herbivore lying on the ground, presumably injured and about to die. You'd expect the raptor to chow down--instead, it plants its foot on the creature, then runs off. Some time later, a meteor hits the Earth. Waves cross the screen, desolate landscapes pass by the screen, and eventually the camera zooms in and settles back on the O'Brien family.

Jack is born and he's just a happy baby with his mommy. Then his brothers are born. Jack becomes a little jealous and has a slight tantrum, but in time they all grow older and do all the things boys do--play, fight, explore, and through their interactions they learn about the world and all its harsh lessons. Their mother just brims with grace--she's always playing with the boys, caressing them, having fun, showing compassion. Their father is stern, strict, and disciplined. As an engineer of some kind, he works for a living, but had to give up his dream of being a musician to make ends meet. Believing it's important to be strong and disciplined in this harsh world, he gives the boys tough love, makes them do chores (especially yardwork), he demands respect and love, and everything is pretty much his way or the highway.

Mr. O'Brien starts to question his own behavior after witnessing a boy drowning at a pool and another boy dying in a house fire. He recounts his own father, who was also a bully, and he lashes out against his mother for putting up with it.

While he's off on a business trip, Jack and a gang of other kids run amok, lashing out all their childish rage by whacking things with sticks, setting off firecrackers (in birds' nests nonetheless), squashing somebody's tomatoes, throwing rocks at an abandoned house, and more. All of this comes to a head when they take a frog and strap it to a bottle rocket. That crossed a line.

Later, Jack trespasses in his neighbor's house and steals a sheer nightgown. Presumably, he's confused and angry by his own feelings of guilt and arousal, and disposes of the gown in the river. Somehow, his mother seems to know something's up as she glares at him when he comes home.

Times continue to be trying for Jack as he struggles to focus in school. He picks fights and lashes out against his mother. Eventually, his father returns home. Some time thereafter, the plant closes and he's forced to move with his family to where the work is.

Towards the end of the film, we're given a bizarre montage that includes the death of the Earth. The sun becomes a red giant, and the world becomes barren. Then the sun becomes a white dwarf. Old man Jack wanders a desert, and at one point he seems to follow his younger self. He and everybody else--his brothers, mother, father, all the other characters in the film--meet at a flat, nondescript landscape with water (well, let's face it, it's the Great Salt Lake standing in for heaven). Everybody just kinda mingles, and there's more surrealist imagery involving doorways and salt flats and such. The mother learns to let go of her dead son.

Eventually, the film snaps back to present-day Jack in the city, still going about his daily business before returning home.

The Way of Grace

The film lays down the pattern of the family dynamics right away--two paths a person can live, and it's quite clear that the mother lives the "way of grace." Through the narration, she describes that "grace doesn't try to please itself. Accepts being slighted, forgotten, disliked. Accepts insults and injuries."

People who are graceful typically are like this. They don't lose their cool when something goes wrong. They don't hold grudges or express hate. It makes me think of more zen-like concepts I've seen in other media (I have no idea how much of it is true to genuine philosophies of the East, but when I think of grace and zen I do think of the lesson from Samurai Champloo that one should be like a fish in the river--literally going with the flow--and this same imagery appears in Kung Fu Panda 2). To go with the flow means letting things roll off.

Mrs. O'Brien hardly ever shows a temper throughout the film. She will be firm with the children when they misbehave, but she doesn't resort to violence or threats. She's always shown nurturing her children--their bodies (via breastfeeding, cooking, healing wounds), minds (teaching, letting the kids explore), and souls (frequently playing, to the point of dancing around most scenes ethereally and making games out of different activities).

At times, Mrs. O'Brien's grace extends to her connection to nature as well. It is her narration that leads to the extended digression into the universe's birth and evolution--all nature scenes. There are other moments--such as when she chases and pets a butterfly--that create a direct connection. Through this, I gathered that Mrs. O'Brien is the film's personification of mother nature. I'd say that nature's relationship with people is the same as hers--nurturing and wonderful, but stern when she needs to be. During Mrs. O'Brien's opening narration, her words might as well echo a promise between the Earth and mankind: "I will be true to you. Whatever comes." Although men have desecrated nature time and again, she has been resilient through the ages and always provided for us.

The Way of Nature

Learning the rules of Fight Club.

The counterpoint to grace: nature. The film characterizes this path by saying "nature only wants to please itself. Get others to please it, too. Likes to lord it over them. To have its own way. It finds reasons to be unhappy when all the world is shining around it, when love is smiling through all things."

Mr. O'Brien embodies the way of nature. He is a stern, no-nonsense man who will discipline his kids (albeit, he's not abusive about it, just stern). He orders his children and wife around, and he doesn't tolerate any push-back. He demands attention and love. Above all, he believes that the world is tough and you have to be tough and demanding so that nobody takes advantage of you. This leads him to teach his kids to fight, to work, and to stop acting like such children.

If the mother is nature, then surely the father represents God. God is a Father to all of us. He demands love too. In the beginning of mankind's history, He directly had a hand in men's affairs, having us till the Earth (which is what Mr. O'Brien has his kids do--mowing the grass and pulling up dirt) and punishing us when we misbehave. Much later in the film, Mr. O'Brien regrets being so hard on the boys--this could correlate to the shift between Old and New Testaments, when God paves a way for forgiveness.

It's easy to see Mr. O'Brien's scowl and presume he's mean and loveless. The film's pretty careful to show that he has a loving side too, it's just shown differently. Mr. O'Brien doesn't play and gallivant like his wife, but he does show affection at certain moments. A father's love.

No Way?

The kids aren't set in any specific way of anything. They can't be, they're still young and learning. All the experiences we see on-screen is their exploration of what each path means and what their consequences are. The struggle between the two paths is what creates the "story" of the movie--it's all about Jack caught in between nature and grace. With the O'Briens representing nature and God, then their children surely represents us--all mankind, struggling to live and grow under the laws of nature and God.

The most compelling pieces of the narrative are the moments in which Jack rubs against the grain of harmony. The most violent and harrowing scenes in this movie are the ones in which Jack (together with a whole gang of kids) rampage through the suburb, seeming to rebel against nature and God. They literally destroy creation--murdering bird eggs, squashing fruits and vegetables, tormenting animals. These aren't scenes of joy and wonder, they're cruel. But these kids aren't doing it because they're evil--they simply don't know any better. After the incident with the frog on a rocket, they become mournful and ashamed. One of them tries to justify their crime by insisting "it was an experiment!" Same could be said for any instance in which scientists or industries use test animals. Or any time societal progress tramples the environment.

Kids fight, just as people wage wars. They play with things they shouldn't, just as people commit crimes of passion. To be human is to be driven by impulses. We also torn between doing what is commanded and our desire for independence. The parents understand this and show compassion, even when discipline and punishment must be delivered. Same happens when mankind sins--God understands and forgives.

These Are the Worlds We Live In

Grace and nature are not only defined by the people, but also by the environments. Most of the film is set in a rural suburb, close to grassy fields, forests, and rivers. The kids spend a lot of screen-time playing natural environments, and they are often worlds of wonder and joy. Not to mention, these places provide and nourish the people around them (houses have their own gardens providing food, the plants give oxygen, rivers give water, and so on).

On the flipside, scenes in the future show cities, with long clean lines and grids composing the insides and outsides of skyscrapers. Any tree shown will be tethered by cables--mankind's attempts to control and hold nature down in an environment of our own making. In a montage, we see a grown-up Jack wandering around, meeting people but never really connecting with them. He has a girlfriend (or many as it seems, the film leaves it rather ambiguous), but they don't talk on-screen. In his wanderings, Jack seems to witness crazy parties, mean people yelling at him and picking fights, and he has a motorcycle accident. It's a place where people get hurt, and the environment itself produces nothing. As an architect, Jack's purpose seems to be in contributing to the city's growth, which in itself is self-serving. It's a place that resides squarely in the path of nature, not grace.

If the film Koyaanisqatsi taught me anything, it's in underscoring the imbalance generated when mankind conquers, destroys, and changes nature to create a man-made world--literally, a life out of balance. In Tree of Life, the contrast between the city (way of nature) and Jack's childhood home (way of grace) shows the same level of imbalance--people aren't happy in the city, they're isolated, lost, and unhappy.

Andrei Tarkovsky illustrated a similar contrast in worlds in 1972's Solaris. The film opened with Chris Kelvin gazing at a river, where reeds gently sway in the currents. Funnily enough, Tree of Life has at least a few shots with underwater reeds swaying in similar patterns. Couldn't tell you if the parallels are intentional or if Malick was inspired by Solaris, but the similarities seem striking. Both movies hint at the ebb and flow of the natural world just by pointing the camera at reeds in water. Both also create contrast between nature and city scenes--Solaris hints at a "life out of balance" theme, but it's a much more open and ambiguous connection.

If Earth is defined by both natural and artificial landscapes, how would a film portray heaven (or the afterlife in any form)? The film's solution is an elegant one: a nondescript landscape, and it doesn't get more nondescript (or otherworldly) than the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah. It works because there's literally nothing there--no plant life or man-made structures. It's a blank slate of a setting where people can be themselves, free and open. And that's what we see--dead people coming together to share their emotions openly and reconciling the unresolved issues of their lives (which we see when Jack seems to chase the younger version of himself, and his mother watches her dead son pass the threshold of a door frame to symbolize letting go and moving on).

The Shadows Don't Know

In ancient times, Plato presented a story to represent the nature of reality. It was the parable of the cave: people are born in a cave and chained in such a way that they can only face the wall. Behind them is a fire, and between them is a raised walkway and a low wall. People pass in front of the fire carrying objects and puppets--the wall makes it so that the prisoners do not see the people moving around, but they do see the shadows of other things moving on the wall. The shadows, along with the echoing sounds, become the only reality the prisoners know. Later on though, one of them will break free, discover the truth, and leave the cave to discover a greater reality. That person would come back with greater knowledge and understanding, and would come to pity the other prisoners.

What am I looking at here?!

Light and shadows are often presented in Tree of Life and could be a reference to Plato's cave story. The film opens and closes with a fuzzy multicolored light (and it appears as a transition shot at a few other spots). We don't know what this light is, and the film doesn't explain it. It is shapeless and can't be described in concrete detail. Only three-dimensional objects can be described or shown as solid, shapely things. This light? It could be multi-dimensional. Some scientific theories suggest there could be as many as eleven dimensions beyond our own. If there was any entity or object in eleventh-dimensional space, we would never be able to perceive it in full--we are limited to our fourth-dimensional space. Just as the prisoners in the cave could only see shadows.

If our universe is the same as a shadow, then a greater reality lies beyond our own little "cave." It could be a reality where heaven and God are real. It's this reality that seems to be shown when the Earth dies.

If something from a greater dimension passes through ours, we might witness some odd phenomenon, but could never hope to understand it. This model is probably best seen in the example where you have two-dimensional space with two-dimensional creatures. If you pass a sphere through that world, the creatures would only see a circle growing bigger then growing smaller. They would never be able to perceive or understand the dimension of height, so they simply see a circle and are confused.

When Jack is a baby, he looks up at the ceiling and sees light reflecting through glass--it appears on the wall as a shapeless form, no different than the shifting light seen at the film's opening. If God makes His presence known in our universe, this could be one of those hints that He is among us. Like a sphere passing through paper, He could leave behind phenomenon that we see as merely shapeless light or shapes. Jack sees a light on a wall, unaware of the glass producing the effect. We see our universe, unaware of the whole mechanism God uses to substantiate it.

Look, mom's hands.

Within the same montage, Mrs. O'Brien does a trippy thing with a mirror--she stands behind the mirror and waves her arms around on both ends. With the angle, all we see is four sets of arms thanks to the reflection. This could also be a hint at the multi-dimensional phenomenon, since we only see part of mom when she does this, and it appears uncanny.

When looking at all the shots with shadows on the ground or walls, I was reminded of 2015's Ex Machina. Its finale had a scene that did something very similar, presumably for the same thematic reason. When the world's first sentient robot broke out of her facility (murdering her captors in the process), we are shown this shot of the ground with shadows of people crossing a grid-like surface. Ex Machina in itself is a story of escaping Plato's cave. Tree of Life asserts that we are all still prisoners in Plato's cave. But perhaps we can all break free of the prison upon death.

One of these shadows is not human! *GASP*

Blue is the Warmest Plot Device

One interesting observation I have regards a certain cinematic manner in which Tree of Life bookends the majority of the film. In between the present-day scenes with Sean Penn, the camera focuses on a single candle lit in a blue glass container. He lights it, starts reminiscing, and the camera moves in on it before the flashbacks start. When it all ends, the film returns to Jack and the candle. It's as if, for the whole time we see his childhood, it's the candle that takes us back in time.

You know what? One other movie did this same thing with another blue item: 2001's Mulholland Drive. A whole bunch of strange occurrences happen in that film, before the character takes a blue key and inserts it into a blue box. The camera then moves into the box's black opening, and the rest of the movie occurs in an alternate reality. Tree of Life pretty much accomplishes the same with the candle--it literally transports the viewer to an alternate reality, it just happens to be the character's memories (whereas Mulholland Drive transitioned to and from a character's idealized dream).

Seriously, what is it about films and blue objects? It's as if both these films use blue things not only as a colorful motif, but as a vehicle to transport the audience inside the characters' heads.

Another neat thing Tree of Life does on occasion is use underwater wave scenes as transitional shots. It seamlessly transitions from the cataclysmic meteor strike to the modern day, and it washes the whole screen blue.

Leaves

And they're climbing their way to heaven (ooh it makes me wonder...)

There is so much imagery and symbolism packed in this film, chances are I'm not even doing it much justice. So many details can be missed if you blink. With its winding, unconventional narrative, the film is a challenge to one's patience. But for me, it's always been a stimulating and inspiring experience, because everything in the film reflects the cosmos around us. The film's patterns of life and death are the same as what we all experience in a lifetime. It boils our existence down to two simple truths: you can live the path of grace or nature. In our meandering journey to discover which path is actually the best, we all make mistakes and sin along the way. It's all part of the growing experience that will lead us to an inevitable destiny.

The film offers a bold, grand view of the micro and the macro, all of which is meant to humble us before the greater cosmic forces that have shaped our universe and existence. There are still many mysteries and layers that we may never be able to solve, chief among them death and what lies beyond. But perhaps there are clues in our lives. I personally believe that merely living is proof of a higher power, and this film affirms my belief.

But my interpretations aren't the end-all be-all by any means. Chances are that the film will mean many things to many viewers. I can only encourage you to watch the film yourself, take it all in, and make your own conclusion. What I've posted here is everything I've observed and reflected on. As with everything in this life, there's more to it than just a two-dimensional image with sound.