#there’s something charming about a very redundant remake

[maddie-grove]

I like the 2011 remake of Footloose because:

Ren is a Bostonian who moves to rural Georgia (the US state), instead of a Chicagoan who moves to a small town in what seems to be Utah. This is an understandable choice—the actor is Bostonian, the movie was shot in Georgia, and it still establishes the big city/small town conflict—but Boston to rural Georgia is such a specific transition, compared to the original, that it throws me. Boston to rural Vermont/New Hampshire/Maine is equivalent. Atlanta to rural Georgia and New York/LA/Chicago to rural Georgia are both roughly equivalent. Boston is kind of a weird choice!

The movie shows the party, the car wreck, and the passing of the ordinance banning dancing that make up the backstory of Footloose. This is great if you were confused by the original movie.

Instead of having divorced parents and moving to a small town with his mother to stay with relatives (presumably for financial reasons), Ren has a mom who died of cancer and a dad who took off as soon as she got sick, and he’s living with relatives because he is effectively an orphan. I don’t even think this is gratuitously sad—the same exact thing happened to one of my classmates growing up, although he didn’t have to move—but this is the most significant change in a largely very faithful adaptation. Did someone just watch Footloose (1984) and go “this is great, but I’m gonna kill that kid’s mom”? Were they trying to save on middle-aged actresses?

[declanowo]

31 Days of Horror - Day 7 - Tourist Trap

07/10/23

As a child, there is something so enticing about a tourist trap. Maybe it is the desire to remember, the need to have an item to associate with a day out of an abject fear that without it, the day will be no more. Maybe it is a way of making your day feel like it has more worth, of cementing the cliffside walk as an excellent use of your time. Or maybe, it is the novelty of seeing a shop, a mirage in the desolate rural abyss. 

Ultimately, I have no answer to why I have purchased so many keyrings that are never displayed, crystals I don’t know the names of and snow globes that my parents had to spend hours hoovering off the ground after they smashed late at night, but I do know that to this day, I am still enticed to enter a tourist trap.

Today’s film continues my trend of having the wheel pick films that correlate in pairs; my first pair was video nasties, my second originals of remakes I love, and this pair is DVDs I was gifted. Although, in the case of 1979s Tourist Trap, I no longer own this movie unfortunately, but alas, that is neither here nor there. 

Tourist Trap is a slasher before the boom in the 80s, where so many were oversaturated with tropes from Friday the 13th and Halloween - two excellent slashers that ultimately changed the genre forever. Saying as much feels incredibly redundant. In contrast to those films, the killer is bursting with personality, talking with an infectious accent and is supernatural to his core. Yet, he does bear some similarities to the later slashers, such as the mask and elements of mystery. Despite this, Tourist Trap feels wholly different from 80s slashers, heavily influenced by The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, which in of itself feels so different to the slashers to come, as well as those before it, that whether or not it should even be considered part of the subgenre is very debatable. 

Before moving too much further, I adore this film, it is both fun and frightening, and its 70s charm is a joy to watch.

 An early memory I have of horror is sitting at my great aunt and uncle's house, their house had a very distinct smell - not unpleasant - and their decoration felt distinctly old to my child brain. Whenever we were there, the tv would sit on for a little while, before someone would mute it or turn it off entirely. One time while it was left on, the volume low, I was drawn to watching it - I have very little memory of the film, except thinking it looked old and dumb. It played out as a woman was pushed down a grand flight of stairs, dramatic enough on its own, but what followed scared me. The perpetrator followed down the stairs, checking their victim was dead, only for her head to suddenly twist around. Instantly, they turned the tv off afterwards, and to this day I am left dreaming of finding the full film, but it made me feel a similar way that tourist trap does. Despite knowing that it wasn’t real - the practical effects were poor to say the least, I couldn’t stop thinking about it, and still to this day, I don’t stop thinking about it. No matter what, if someone is pushed down a flight of stairs, in my mind their head is twisting around afterwards. 

Maybe that tangent was unnecessary, but I wanted to illustrate the way I feel about this film, and that, despite its PG rating, I find this to be a deeply haunting experience. From the opening kill, which is maybe my favourite scene in the entire film, I find myself uneasy, watching as mannequins are brought to life, cackling while objects are flung across the screen at our first victim, the whole ordeal is dark, everytime I watch it I feel a weird fright come over me, one that makes me feel like a child again. None of this is real, and yet the uncanniness of it all frightens me much more than any regular murder could. 

Although I had seen a lot of this film before, I had never seen it in its entirety, which truly is a wonderful experience. I know that this is a movie that will stick with me, because the mere snippets I had seen before have always clung to me. Especially the opening kill - there is something so terrifying about mannequins in general, I think back to the first episode of the Doctor Who revival, which isn’t exactly terrifying, but looking at something that is designed to be so distinctly human, and yet is entirely not, is something to be feared. The uncanny valley comes to mind when discussing the mannequins in this film, especially a specific few whose faces are extremely altered, such as in the aforementioned opening kill, or the final fight sequence, they speak to a primal part of our brains, it warns us against the unknown, and yet, why? It looks like you, but it’s not, and maybe that is the scariest idea of all. 

Going back to The Texas Chain Saw Massacre comparisons, the cast of characters echoes them in many ways, from their dynamic to the fact they are lost in the middle of nowhere. I enjoy watching all of them, although none exactly stand out from the rest of the crowd, although I did find myself enjoying Becky the most, likely because of my familiarity with her actress Tanya Roberts. Their introduction is fun, and the way they are slowly peeled apart is somewhat tropey for sure, but I don’t mind it much. I believe these characters, as they decide to look for their friends, and refuse to break into houses, their naivety grows as the danger appears to teeter out. 

The villain is excellent, even though the mystery is somewhat weak. I desperately wanted to believe that Mr Slausen wasn’t the killer, despite knowing that he was. Maybe it comes from a desire to believe that there are good people dotted around the world, or maybe it is because of how hopeless the film's surroundings make you feel, but this villain is excellent in making you scared, at least in my opinion. His charade as a kind man is off putting and believable, meanwhile, his appearances as the masked murderer are distinctly memorable, his mask is chilling and encapsulates him excellently. I adore his telekinetic abilities, it makes him stand out so much, and all the more scary - he is a perfect blend of an average person, and a terrifying being we don’t understand. 

Going back to my mention of the setting, it works excellently, the Tourist Trap itself is perfectly spooky, what may be a fun attraction by day as people churn in and out of it, by night it becomes horrifying. The wax people are constantly hiding in the shadows, their faces melting into the darkness that every corner feels like someone is watching you. The house nearby echoed Psycho for me, in fact, this whole film does, where a man is living out his life buried in his work, a sinister secret hiding in the depths of his home rather than his business. Both facilitate one another, but the doll filled house encapsulates his broken mind. Beyond just that, it makes you deeply feel isolated, as if the summer heat is beating down onto you as you find yourself hopelessly lost, your time running out. 

Another piece of this film I adore is its score! From the opening titles that uses an instrument I don’t actually know the name of - very annoying I know - but encapsulates this film's tone and aesthetic perfectly! To the amazing sound design in general, especially during that opening kill, as we hear the victim's blood slowly trickle out of a pipe. All of it is perfect, and completely drowns me in its atmosphere. 

Before discussing my final thoughts, I want to mention how haunting I find the ending. Not only as our villain swings around a mannequin that comes to life, but as our final girl Molly drives away from the house with her friends in the car, all of them wax too. Her mental state is one to be questioned, and certainly echoes TTCSM once again.

Tourist Trap is a delight, a film that really takes me back to the feelings of being a terrified child. The childish evocations come both from the idea of tourist traps themselves, places that I haven’t been in a very long time, as well as feeling scared at the weirdness of old horror movies I would faintly watch between the cracks of conversation. Nostalgia aside, before I begin to feel too morose on existentialism, this film captivates me, it is fun and scary, especially for what it is. Definitely one I will dream about for a very long time. 

9/10

[scottymcgeesterwrites]

Final Fantasy VII Remake Review

Year: 2020

Platform: PS4

I finished this game shortly after posting all my main single-player series Final Fantasy reviews. I was still digesting it and thinking about it to put together my review.

Synopsis:

The Shinra Electric Power Company rules over the city of Midgar, and the eco-terrorists AVALANCHE stop at nothing to try and prevent the life essence of the planet from being used as energy. Barrett, leader of AVALANCHE, hires a mercenary named Cloud Strife for their bombing mission on a Shinra Mako Reactor. Cloud doesn’t care much for the greater cause and only wants his pay. But then, after a mission goes awry, he meets Aerith, a flower girl who is the descendant of the Ancients. He quickly finds himself wrapped up in the greater conflict against Shinra.

Gameplay:

Final Fanatasy VII Remake has one of the best gameplay styles of any Final Fantasy game. It’s that good. It seems like after all these years, this is what Square really wanted to do. Since this was released after Final Fantasy XV, it’s pretty much the successor to its gameplay. While Final Fantasy XV has you more or less spamming the attack button with occasional spell casting and item usage, Final Fantasy VII Remake has you much more involved with the Materia system, abilities, and guarding/evading. One notable example is that Final Fantasy XV always told you when you should guard in order to counter, but Final Fantasy VII Remake has you figure that out on your own.

The abilities are so goddamn flashy and cool during gameplay. Tifa’s moves are quite possibly the most awe-inspiring.

My only complaint is locking onto the enemy during battle. You have to press down on R3 to lock onto an enemy, and I sometimes found that jarring with the camera controls. Sometimes I accidentally disengaged from an enemy and missed an attack. Since your moves are dependent on an Active Time Battle system, you can waste a turn if you get hit while conjuring a spell or taking out an item. That sometimes made me go “REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!”. But in the long run, those were very small gripes. The battles are so much fun.

Since the game follows only the Midgar portion of the story, it’s linear. But you reach sections where you are free to roam around and do sidequests before continuing with the main objective. I’m sure the later releases of the remake will feel much less constrained. But this remake does a good job at expanding upon Midgar without feeling too redundant.

Graphics:

Jesus Christ. This game is gorgeous.

Both in-game graphics and pre-rendered cutscenes. The switch between a pre-rendered cutscene and in-game cutscene has become much more seamless than ever before.

If you remember my Final Fantasy XV review, I mentioned how NPCs and other in-game animations seemed stiff and stilted. Final Fantasy VII Remake takes steps to remedy that. Characters have more fluid movements and everyone’s lips move a lot more. However, lip movements can come off as awkward. My friend was watching me play, and during one in-game cutscene they said “Something looks weird with their lips.” At times, lip movements seem too dynamic when the character is standing relatively still, which comes off looking like Mr. Ed the horse trying to talk.

Despite those small awkward things, the rest of the game is extremely polished. Remember how blocky Final Fantasy VII was? We now finally see these characters and the world of Midgar brought to life in beautiful HD graphics.Like holy shit. Everyone looks so beautiful.

Before I played this game, I was a Tifa stan, but now, ho man, they made Aerith so much more appealing.

SO.

MUCH.

MORE.

APPEALING.

And Tifa shines better than ever. I’m very tempted to just gush about her but here is just a couple enticing gifs.

Imagine playing this game and still thinking gamers are oppressed.

Story:

Final Fantasy VII Remake follows from the start of the original game up until the party leaving Midgar. Square plans to release the rest of the remake later.

I have to say, they made the story a lot more engaging than the original. That may seem like blasphemy, but the dialogue and voice acting was just so damn good. Some of my favorite moments included the banter between Aerith and Cloud. Like I said, I wasn’t into Aerith that much until I played the remake. She’s just so damn cute and charming. One of my favorite parts was when she said, “Shit” and almost fell, after mentioning how she didn’t need help climbing a ladder. Her voice is so lovely and amusing to listen to. The growing romance between her and Cloud doesn’t come off as forced or cringey, because we now spend so much time with Aerith.

Biggs, Wedge, and Jessie have much more important roles in the story. This gives us a greater sense of Avalanche as a ragtag group.

Entire chapters focus on them, especially Jessie. I cringed a bit at Jessie to be honest, despite her popularity. She now comes off as a copy of Aerith in the sense that she comes on strong to Cloud. But really strong. Like “I want that D right now” strong. Cloud has officially become your usual anime boy who is good at everything that can make any woman magically fall in love with him. So that whole thing made me roll my eyes.

There are some new characters inserted, such as the SOLDIER Roche. I thought they were going to do more with him but, apparently not. The new characters can be a bit “meh”, such as Chadley. Johnny isn’t a new character but may as well be since his role is so expanded. He was probably the most annoying, constantly calling Cloud “bro”. That gave me some bad flashbacks of Prompto’s modern-speak in Final Fantasy XV.

The remake adds a certain new plot element that you’re not sure at first where it’s going until it’s revealed at the very end. The ending can be a bit out there, as the original storyline is changed significantly. SIGNIFICANTLY I was curious if this game would make sense to first-timers, but, probably not when you reach the end. The ending heavily relies on you knowing the original game.

My only complaint about the story was how they started the motorcycle chase cutscene. That was my favorite cutscene of the original game, with Cloud driving down the stairs and the group getting into the car. I liken it to the barrel scene in the original Hobbit novel. But like the Hobbit movie, they made the motorcycle scene pretty outrageous. Like so over-the-top that my initial reaction was to scoff at it. It also struck me as awkward, because there were many moments when the bad guys could have shot them but just. . .stood there watching Cloud kick their asses.

Some people may be upset by how the remake ended, while others find it cool. I thought it was cool. But at the same time, now I want an official “remastered” Final Fantasy VII too. Just a game strictly like the original but with vastly improved graphics.

Music:

The music was pure eargasm. There were many moments when I fanboyed screaming “THIS IS THE SONG! YESSS!” They remixed the songs so well, from the battle theme to the Shinra theme, and the Wall Market theme. Everything you loved about the original soundtrack but MORE gusto, more pomp and circumstance.

A couple complaints though.

1 – I think the focus on making the music more orchestrated takes away the mood of the original music. I missed some of the synth and electronic from the original game because it related well to the technological city of Midgar. The synth and electronic featured in the original game gave off a brooding, darker mood.

2 – I didn’t like what they did with the Crazy Motorcycle music.

Notable Theme:

It’s difficult to find pieces of the original soundtrack as of today, because Square is taking them down from YouTube. Still, some people have managed to keep up some of the coolest tracks from this game. Unfortunately, the videos have gameplay footage, which could be spoilers, technically.

I’ll just leave it as this:

The Jenova battle theme is a much longer piece in this game, but it pays off at the final quarter of the song.

Trust me.

Verdict:

The remake does the original justice. We waited so long for this game and it delivered, unlike Final Fantasy XV.

I don’t think a first-timer would really appreciate it though as much as a fan of the original game would. Sure, there’s nothing stopping you from just going into it without knowing the original game, but there are things that one wouldn’t understand unless you played the original game. In that sense, the word “remake” is a bit misleading. Maybe they’re “rebooting” the entire Compilation of Final Fantasy VII? It seems like they’re going for what they did with the newer Star Trek movies, if you catch my drift. But I can’t say for sure exactly where they’re going with it until the next game comes out, but it seems that way to me.

[shirlleycoyle]

Dormitorium

In what's become an annual Halloween tradition here at Terraform, Geoff Manaugh brings us an unsettling and mind-bending work of speculative fiction—this time delving into the untapped recesses of our unwaking lives. Enjoy. -the ed.

The lights in the room began to redshift, assuming a nostalgic yellow hue that reminded the man of the incandescent bulbs in his childhood bedroom. Objects looked tea-stained, antique. Small blemishes appeared like watermarks on the cream-painted walls. The transition was so slow the man didn’t notice it at first, until the room was the color of burnt orange, like the light of a campfire, then the red of a desert sunset, then something much darker, like barrel-aged wine.

The man responded exactly as they said he would, his eyelids growing heavy, so heavy they fluttered, before, against his will, he closed them.

The room went dark.

*

The word dormitory, his guide had explained as she stood facing him in the elevator on their way up to the top floor, his floor, where he would be staying for the next five nights, means place of sleep.

“It comes from the Latin word dormire,” she’d added. “The English word should actually be dormitorium, of course. Like auditorium. A place for listening. That comes from audire. Which means ‘to hear.’” The guide was young, had short hair, and seemed excited by etymologies. She had introduced herself in the lobby by name, but the man, to his embarrassment, had missed it.

Seeing his lack of reaction to the subtleties of Latin vocabulary, the guide smiled and changed the subject. “You’ll dream well here,” she said instead.

The elevator chimed. Its steel doors slid open. A long hallway stretched beyond, blue LEDs glowing along the floorboards like airplane safety lights.

“What’s that they say about going through doors in a dream?” the guide asked.

The man laughed. “I have no idea,” he replied. “What do they say?”

She moved out of his way and gestured forward. The man stepped through.

*

The building was a converted college dorm near the city park, in the heart of downtown, across the street from a mattress shop called Slumberland. That, his guide said, was a mere coincidence. With its ornate façade of worn brick punctuated by limestone-framed windows, the place exuded an old-world charm, its masonry walls giving the street a honeyed, geological glow every sunset.

Until five years ago, when a massive new campus development near the river had made the building redundant, it had been part of the university’s residential system. Rather than tear it down, the school had given it over to the neuroscience department next door; using federal grants and a donation rumored to have been as high as $60 million from a Swiss computer-memory billionaire, the neuroscience department had tunneled through the adjoining walls and was remaking the place from within. This former dorm was now set to become the most advanced sleep-research facility in the United States. Smart lighting, 3D laser-projection, immersive surround-sound audio in every room, and brand-new MRI machines in a lab whirring away on the basement floor. Apparently, only an institute in China was better-funded.

The man was there for two reasons: to make what sounded like easy money—$1,000 a night for a 5-night, all-inclusive stay—and, in return, to participate in a sleep study that had something to do with dream recollection, but the man wasn’t in it for the science. He had already made a list of things he wanted to buy with the extra money and he was counting down the days until he could spend it.

The initial questionnaires had been simple enough to game, he’d thought. They had asked if he had vivid dreams—he did, so he wasn’t lying, but, given the context, who would have stated otherwise?—and whether he was a deep sleeper. The right response to that one was harder to judge. The man had hedged, and wrote, “Usually.” Finally, he gave them permission for a police background check and submitted a set of fingerprints.

He was accepted into the program.

*

The man’s accommodations for the next five nights were more spacious than he had expected. It was, in fact, a suite. Its main room featured a double-height domed ceiling that brought to mind a planetarium. (A planetarium, the man thought: a room for planets. He almost said something to his guide, but refrained.) There was a small kitchen and an array of modern furniture—a table, chairs, empty shelves. The bed, in a separate room with heavily soundproofed walls, was king-size, with a tasteful blanket like something he’d see in a design magazine. At the very least, the man would be comfortable.

On the other hand, much of the building remained unfinished. Nearly every door in the corridor leading to the man’s guest room had small piles of tools outside, including buckets spattered with paint, and he had heard a distant droning sound. It could have been HVAC, but the man thought it was someone sawing.

Picture hooks had been installed on all the office walls, he saw, but only one actually held anything. The man walked over, leaned in. Ignoring his own reflection in the glass, he saw two Renaissance engravings placed one beside the other: they showed the same room, drawn according to precise lines of perspective, but one had most of its doors and windows closed, the other, all those apertures thrown open.

“Damn it,” his guide whispered behind him.

The man turned to see her fidgeting with a remote control in front of an enormous TV. She seemed flustered. The logo of the unit’s manufacturer gleamed on-screen. Finally, she managed to change the channel and the logo disappeared, replaced by an image of the building they were standing in. It took the man several seconds to realize it was not a photograph but a live video feed. Just thirty minutes earlier and he would have been on it, heading inside to this very room.

For all the luxury, the man thought, it felt like he’d arrived a week too early. The building wasn’t ready, nor was its technology; for a sleep study, of all things, the whole experience seemed strangely rushed. The man imagined work crews stomping up and down the corridor at all hours while he tried to sleep, and he wondered if he would hear them. He wondered if he would dream about them. It was a building made for dreaming, he thought, but what if he dreamt of the building itself?

“Your study-lead will be here in a half-hour,” the guide said, checking her phone. “In the meantime, feel free to unpack or read through the manual.” She pointed at the desk. “It explains how to use the room.”

The man must have looked baffled or unprepared, because his guide smiled again and asked him if he was okay.

“Of course,” the man replied. He glanced around the room, at the domed ceiling, at the TV that had already switched back to its manufacturer’s logo. “Just taking it all in.”

*

The psychologist slid a folder across the table toward him and told him to take a look. Unlike the guide, she was older than the man, by at least a decade, and was wearing formal business attire.

The folder, he saw, held four photos arranged in a grid, each image depicting a different building. There was a warehouse, a corporate office that appeared to be abandoned, a strip mall, and a suburban home. The photos were black and white, clinical, neither stylized nor artistic, almost like crime-scene photos.

The man scanned each image, one to the next and back again. He wasn’t sure what he was being asked to do.

“What am I—what am I looking for?” he said. “What is this?”

The psychologist held a stylus in one hand, a tablet computer leaning against the edge of the table between them. He couldn’t see what was on the screen.

“One thing we’re testing,” she said, “is memory and projection.”

“That’s two things.”

The psychologist paused, ignoring the remark, her gaze moving from the man’s face down to the photos. “We want to test different source materials to see how they influence dreams. Visual cues. Audio cues.”

At first, he thought she’d said clues.

“Do you work for the school?” he interrupted. The man was restless; he had walked into the building only an hour earlier and the reality of spending five days there, in a windowless suite cut off from the world, was starting to unsettle him. He needed easing in.

“The school?”

“The university,” he said.

“Oh—no, we’re federally funded. That was all explained in your contract. We’re just using these facilities. Renting them. It’s a bit of a rush!” The psychologist smiled apologetically. “In fact, we’re the first people in the building.”

“How many other people are here?” he asked. “In the study. Am I the only one?”

“Would that disturb you?” she said. “Would you hesitate before entering an unfamiliar building on your own?” The psychologist seemed intrigued by this.

“Of course not,” the man lied.

“Good. But there are many others, on different floors. I’m meeting three more participants after you, and we brought on six yesterday. Then there’s tomorrow. And we discharged five last night.”

“Wow,” the man replied. “What’s the rush? I mean, for a sleep study, why so—”

“Timelines,” the psychologist said, cutting him off. Her response was vague, her previously apologetic smile now empty. “Shall we continue?”

“Of course.”

“This study works with cues,” she repeated. “Things that might affect the content and meaning of dreams. In this case, we want to start with buildings.”

“Buildings?”

She slid another file across the table. It seemed exactly like the others: four buildings in the city somewhere, one with a CLOSED sign hanging in its front door. The man could see reflections of clouds in the building’s upper windows and bits of trash outside on the sidewalk.

“Wait,” he said, disappointed, “is this about architecture?”

“It’s about memory,” the woman corrected. She stood up and gathered her files. “And projection.”

“So it’s about two things,” the man replied.

*

“Are you awake?”

The question shocked him. The man looked around the room, at the psychologist across the table from him, at the blue lights illuminating the domed ceiling overhead, at the personal objects he remembered unpacking mere hours before. How long had he slept? An hour or two at most, the man thought. The only thing he knew was that strong digital lights had turned on, emitting a harsh blue glare, he had stumbled into the front room, and the woman walked in just a few minutes later.

This, he would later learn, was called blueshifting.

“I think so.” The man glanced down at his hands, as if trying to see through them. They seemed reptilian in the synthetic blue light. “Yeah,” he said. “I’m awake.”

“We wouldn’t want you confused about that,” the psychologist replied. “What did you dream?”

The man exhaled. “God,” he said, “give me a minute. I need to remember.”

After some false starts, the man described a series of unfinished dream sequences. A subway ride where the stations made no sense; a conversation with a girlfriend who, in reality, was just a woman he often saw at the gym; a walk down a street with some buildings—

The psychologist interrupted him. “Describe the buildings,” she said. “Were they in the photos you saw? Try to remember.”

The man thought for a second. Everything had happened so quickly, he had nearly forgotten the photos.

“That’s a good question. I don’t know. They were like anything you’d see on a main street. Hardware stores. Liquor stores. Maybe a bank. Can I—can I see those photos again?”

“No.”

Memory and projection. They assessed one another.

The psychologist tapped something on her screen. “Try to remember the businesses. Think carefully. Every detail is important.”

“That’s all I remember,” the man said. “You know, let me get into the swing of things, sleep some more, dream some—”

“It’s a very short study. We have timelines.”

“Okay,” the man said, “okay.” He still didn’t understand what could be so urgent about a sleep study, but he would roll with it. “One of the businesses. It was, like, a paint store.”

The psychologist stopped writing. She stared at him.

“Is that—wrong?”

“No, no, a paint store,” she replied. “That’s great. That’s interesting.” She tapped her stylus against the screen, thinking. He got the impression she was hiding something, keeping details to herself. “Anything more?” she asked.

The man shook his head. “Not really. No.”

In the silence that followed, the psychologist reopened one of her files. She flipped through a collection of paperwork inside, pulling out a photo that she placed face-up on the table. “Did it look like this?”

The man looked down at a black and white photo of the paint store from his dream.

“ Holy shit,” he whispered. “Sorry—it’s… That’s amazing. That’s the paint store.” He picked up the photo, as if to prove it was real. “How did you do that? How did I do that?”

“That’s what we’re studying,” the psychologist answered. “We’re going to add something new this time. Are you ready?”

He held out his arms. “I’m a captive audience.”

“A mother’s first role,” the psychologist said, “is to protect her children.”

The man laughed. “What?”

The psychologist repeated herself.

“Are you asking me if I agree with this statement?”

“Agree or disagree,” she said, “it’s just a prompt. Like the photos. ‘A mother’s first role is to protect her children,’” the psychologist repeated.

*

Getting to sleep this time around was nearly impossible. They had given him a plastic bottle full of supplements that the manual described as similar to melatonin. Non-habit-forming. 100% natural. Clears the system in less than an hour. If he ever had trouble sleeping, they’d said, a single capsule could coax him back to dreamland.

He swallowed two.

* * *

The man blinked in the blue light, groggy, half-asleep.

“What did you dream?” the psychologist asked.

The man thought for a second, regrouping. He said he had walked further up the street—the same street, he emphasized, amazed by this. The same street, he said again. He had even dreamed the same buildings. “It was the same damn thing!”

“That’s perfect,” the psychologist said. “That’s exactly what we want.”

Although it was nearly night, the man continued, the sky was a deep mineral blue, like a medieval painting, and the sun was somehow streaming up, he said, casting strange, narrow shadows down the block. And, the man added, remembering something, the streets were empty. No one was out—no one, anywhere—but that made sense. He couldn’t see it, but, the man knew, there was some sort of event nearby, like a sports stadium. Everyone was there. They were watching a game, leaving the streets deserted.

The psychologist nodded, taking notes. “You said the sun was shining upward. Could that have been the stadium lights?”

“Huh,” the man said. “That’s interesting. You mean, were stadium lights shining up into the sky?” He nodded, thinking it through. “Yeah, you might be right.”

“Excellent,” the psychologist said. “Excellent. Was there anything else?”

The man thought, then shook his head. “No,” he said. “I think that’s it.”

* * *

The psychologist had ended the interview with a new prompt, playing the man an audio recording. It sounded like noises picked up in the back of someone else’s phone call. Accidental sounds, like passing traffic or stadium noise. The man couldn’t tell.

But very quietly, almost imperceptibly, there was something else.

The man heard a quiet voice.

A kind of whisper.

*

“What did you dream?”

The man blinked. The light in the room was like staring at a computer monitor.

“I was walking,” he answered, “toward this—this really creepy building. Up the street. It was starting to rain and I walked up toward the front door. But I didn’t look inside. I sort of stood there, beneath an awning. I could hear a distant crowd roaring. I knew… like…”

The psychologist waited. “Yes?”

“I had this feeling.”

“You had a feeling?”

The man said he knew someone was inside—watching him. No, no, not watching him, he corrected. The man thought for a minute. He had a feeling someone was waiting for him. Waiting for him to arrive.

The psychologist seemed very interested in this.

“Where was this person?” she asked.

Where, not who, the man noticed.

He made his way back through the dream slowly, almost reluctantly. The truth was, the man knew, something about the dream had rattled him. Someone inside the building wanted him to arrive—because they were lost. They were trapped or perhaps caught by something—he couldn’t tell. He just knew there had been a terrifying weight to this knowledge, a sense of genuine horror.

“I don’t remember,” the man said. “I just knew it was a boy.”

The psychologist leaned forward. “A boy,” she said. “Tell me about the boy.”

The man adjusted himself, sitting up straighter. “I didn’t know much about him. In the dream, I mean. I just knew he was inside and I could help him—I could find him. The boy wanted help. Does that make sense? He wanted to be rescued.”

Hearing himself speak, it felt resonant. Symbolic. He was going to rescue a trapped boy.

The psychologist began writing something. For the first time, he thought, she seemed excited.

“There was definitely a boy inside?”

“Yes,” the man said, encouraged. “A boy who—who didn’t know how to get out. He needed me to find him.”

The psychologist was nodding, writing things down.

“This is interesting—very interesting,” she said. “Okay, let’s get back to the building.”

*

They went back and forth like that for several sessions, an interview every four hours, the man disoriented both by lack of sleep and by far too much of it, the psychologist offering several more prompts along the way (“The first one into darkness turns on the light,” she’d said, then she’d brought out more photos, this time of different men). Each dream, the man inched further down the street, gathering more details, the shock and familiarity of redreaming the same scene quickly wearing off.

When the psychologist casually remarked how much time had passed, the man was astonished. These breaks between sleep, filled with questions, had become such a blur that time in the world outside had disappeared entirely. As part of the study, of course, the man had signed away his electronic devices and the room itself had no clocks.

His only remaining connection to the world now was the live TV stream of the building he’d been sleeping in. Whenever he looked, he saw cops out front, entering and exiting, often one man in particular, a black cop with a kind of handlebar mustache, talking to his colleagues on the stoop. Was there a police station nearby?

It’s already been two days, the psychologist said. Two days. The study was moving quickly. The man was doing great, she added, but they were nearly at the halfway point and they needed to step things up. This was essential—even urgent.

The psychologist pressed the man, in his next dream, to go inside. Open doors. Peer through windows. If the boy wants to be rescued, she said, let’s rescue him.

“We need you to be confident,” the psychologist explained, “If you see a door, we need you to open that door. If you see a closed room, we need you to step inside.”

The man fidgeted with his hands, cracking a knuckle.

“Don’t be afraid,” the psychologist urged. “They’re just dreams.”

Jean DuBreuil, La Perspective Pratique. Second Edition. Parts I, II, and III. (1679)

*

The man inhaled and held it. A long sigh. “I had kind of a nightmare this time,” he said. “I didn’t like it.”

“Oh?” the psychologist replied. She sounded unexpectedly pleased.

Sitting beside her this time was a man. In his mid-forties, with greying hair swept back away from his face, he looked attentive, focused. She had introduced him as an architect.

Speaking to both of them, the man described his dream. That building with the boy—it was a kind of warehouse, he said. No, it was like the building next to a warehouse, like an office or business headquarters. Maybe two or three stories tall. Small windows.

“The windows faced east,” the architect said.

It took a few seconds for the man to realize it wasn’t a question.

“What do you mean?” he said. “How do you know that?”

The architect looked at him, as if judging how much he should say. “There are certain archetypes—universal forms or symbols—that come up again and again in architectural dream analysis. We see them all the time. Houses on steep hills, cabins in the woods, dark office towers in the city at night. Each has its own meaning. Eventually, you start to see patterns—including where people dream windows will be. Windows facing east in a dream mean something different than those facing west.”

The man nodded, debating whether or not this was all bullshit, but also realizing he had no idea how to tell what direction the windows had been facing.

“You said it was sunset,” the architect explained, as if reading the man’s mind. “You said earlier that the building was backlit, against the sun. That means you were facing west. So the windows you saw would be on the east side of the building. Correct?”

The man nodded, impressed by the logic. “That actually makes sense.”

“As you can see,” the psychologist broke in, “I brought along an architect because I thought he could help with the details. He can model buildings, make adjustments. Is that right?”

“That’s exactly right. I can build a model of your dreams with basically any details you tell me. Then we can use the model to spur more memories. We can add colors, window treatments, the sizes of specific rooms and hallways. Want to see an example?”

“Of course,” the man said.

The architect asked him to go back through his dreams, from the beginning. The row of shops along the street. The paint store. The warehouse building. The approximate location of the sports stadium. If there were any cars parked out on the street.

“Okay,” the architect finally said. He placed his laptop down on the table and pointed up. The man and the psychologist both craned their heads back. “Based on our interview,” the architect said, “this is the street you’ve been dreaming. Take a look. Let me know if it’s accurate.”

An image appeared, projected into the middle of the dome, hovering there like a plane of light. Using what resembled linked thimbles on both his thumb and forefinger, the architect began turning his hand in the air.

“This changes the depth of field,” he said, “so we can—” The architect twisted his wrist and the model snapped flat. “—zoom in to various degrees of detail.” He stretched the model open again, expanding it. “Do you recognize anything? Take your time.”

The man grinned despite himself, amazed at the model rotating above.

“Do you recognize anything?” the architect repeated.

“I do,” the man said. “It’s incredible.”

The effect was uncanny: the man was looking up at a digital reproduction of his dream, down to specific building fronts and loose trash. It was as if the architect had seen this street before and had had a model simply cued up, ready to go.

Nevertheless, the man saw, it wasn’t perfect. Some details were wrong. He thought the roofline of one of the buildings had been higher in his dreams, for example. He had also stood beneath an awning, out of the rain, but the awning was missing.

Other than that, he said, it looked great.

“You said it was more of a nightmare this time,” the psychologist prompted. Her face glowed in the light of the man’s dream shining above. “Why?”

“Because I went inside.”

*

The man had noticed something, but he didn’t want to mention it. Not yet.

His dreams were changing.

He hadn’t said anything at first because he wanted to see where this was going, but he thought he had figured it out. The study. He thought he knew what they were really testing him for.

The man was dreaming about himself, he thought. In fact, he was confident: he was the boy who was lost somewhere in the city. He was the boy who was trapped. The whole thing was a symbol. A metaphor.

The boy he was trying to rescue was himself.

The study, the man thought, increasingly convinced of this, was a form of experimental therapy.

Rescue the boy, the man thought, because the boy is me.

*

“You went inside,” the psychologist replied. “That’s excellent. Thank you. What did you see?”

The man had walked into the building, he said, past a desk, toward a small stairwell and hall. At the top of the steps was a corridor with black doors stretching away into the darkness. He knew the boy was up there, he said, trapped behind one of the doors, but he had the feeling someone else was in the building with them. Listening to his footsteps.

The psychologist seemed too excited to speak.

“Were there any lights inside?” the architect asked, filling the silence. Even the architect’s bearing had changed, the man noticed. Poised, concentrated. Alert.

The man said, yes, he remembered a faint glow above one of the doors. “There was a light sort of inside—” The man closed his eyes to remember. The light wasn’t coming from the first room, he thought, but somewhere deeper inside the building, further back, from a room behind the first room. The boy, he said, was back there.

The architect started typing something into his laptop as the psychologist jotted notes. He must be onto something, the man thought. The conversation felt driven, intense.

“Can you tell us how many doors there were?” the architect asked. “In the hall? Do you remember?”

“Christ,” the man said, “this—this is really a test.” He thought for a minute, pushing himself. The man closed his eyes again—but there was something wrong. He was distracted. It wasn’t the building that was confusing him. No, it was the sky. He remembered the sky, and the stars, and the way the trees had cut black silhouettes against the building. It was all familiar somehow.

“The number of doors,” the architect insisted. “Let’s start there. Count down the hall until you get to the door with the boy.”

“Please,” the psychologist said. “We’d love to know.”

She and the architect both stared at him across the table, expectant.

“Okay—there were… like…”

It was the trees, the man realized. He had seen those trees before. It was the view from his childhood bedroom, their branches against the sky. The same stars. He had seen it every night, looking out at the world, lying awake. His dreams had changed to depict his own childhood house.

“Sorry,” the man said again. “I don’t remember.”

The psychologist slumped in her chair. “There is a lot riding on this,” she said. “We need to find the boy. Do you understand? We need to do it soon.”

The man just looked at her. “I want to find him, too.”

*

“I added some details here,” the architect said, looking up at his own model. He had changed his clothes before the session, which seemed like a deliberate way to mark the passage of time.

He pointed up at a small door beneath the stairs. “Most buildings of this era tend to have that sort of thing,” the architect said. “A crawlspace. A kind of storage closet. Does that look familiar? Did you see that?”

The man closed his eyes. “I think so,” he said. “Yes. I… I think I walked past that.”

“Do you remember a lock on the door?” the architect asked. “On the outside of the door?”

The man tried to remember. “I saw something there, yeah. Like, three—three circular objects. Vertically, in a row. One, two, three. Were those locks?”

The architect typed something into his laptop, looked at the screen as if to check the results, then glanced back across the table. “Potentially,” he said. “Next time, pay close attention to that door. Specifically, how it’s locked. We might need to get inside.”

“Got it,” the man replied. He started to say something else, then stopped, chewing his lip for a second. They both waited, expecting him to continue the description. Instead, he said, “It’s… it’s been longer than five days, no? This is day six. Maybe even day seven.”

The psychologist’s expression dropped. “No,” she said. “That’s not right at all.”

“Are you sure? I think it’s day six.”

The architect fiddled with his laptop, as if no longer a part of the conversation.

“There is still time left,” the psychologist answered, speaking slowly now, as if the man was a very slow child, “but there won’t be if we don’t find which room the boy is in. Do you understand?”

The man had to admit, they seemed as committed to the idea of him finding himself as he was. He liked that. He thought of the five thousand dollars they were paying him, of how close he seemed to be to finding the boy—to finding himself—and he shrugged, as if embarrassed he had ever made a scene. In fact, the man could hardly believe that these experts and resources were available, helping him find and rescue his younger self. For therapy, he thought, it was ingenious, the kind of thing he might actually pay for.

“Totally,” the man said. “It’s just… you know, there are no windows and… anyway, I think I heard something.”

“You heard something?”

“A sound.”

“What kind of sound?”

“Nothing specific. The sound of—” The man stopped. “That recording you played. It was like that. A kind of whisper.”

The psychologist and the architect exchanged a quick look.

“From behind this door?” the architect said, rotating his hand and zooming-in on the crawlspace. The model expanded in space, filling the entire dome.

“No, from the hallway upstairs. I went upstairs.”

What the man didn’t say was that, when he did so, the entire dream had changed around him; what had been a warehouse had become the upstairs of his own childhood home. He had been walking down the hall toward his own bedroom.

“You should have told us,” the psychologist replied. “How many doors did you see?”

“Four,” he said, describing his old house. There was his room, his parents’ room, the bathroom, his brother’s.

“That’s… that’s not right,” the architect replied. The psychologist shot him a look. “I mean, the kinds of numbers we see—the symbols—are… they’re usually in groups of twelve. It’s standard dream symbolism. Jungian stuff.” He faltered, looked down. “All doors represent something,” the architect continued, shifting in his seat. “Every wall, every window. Are you sure there weren’t twelve doors upstairs?”

“I don’t think so,” the man replied. “I saw four. I’m sorry.”

He caught the psychologist briefly shaking her head.

“The challenge here is about resolution,” the architect insisted. “We need to get to a very high degree of dream resolution. Does that make sense?”

“Dream resolution,” the man repeated.

“Yes. Now, we are confident there are twelve doors. Which door leads to the boy?”

*

The architect came alone this time. The psychologist, he said, was still busy with another participant; “something came up” was the only explanation he offered.

The man ignored her absence. The truth was, he knew absolutely now that he was looking for himself—and he was close, he thought, perhaps just one door away. His dreams now took place almost entirely in his childhood home, and he thought the architect would be pleased by this. He thought that was the entire point of the study.

To rescue the boy.

As the man’s descriptions changed, however, the architect began to look uncomfortable. He seemed hesitant even to continue and eventually put his laptop down, no longer typing.

“What’s up?” the man asked.

The architect studied the model hovering above them. He rotated it. Opened it. Closed it.

“Are you sure the building changed like this?” the architect said. “It changed—but the boy was still inside? You’re positive?”

“Is that bad?”

“We can’t afford to look in the wrong place. Especially not now. Did this warehouse—this office—really become a suburban hou—”

“Yes,” the man interrupted him. “It did. It’s the house I grew up in. And I dreamt about a different room this time—my old room. I opened the door and went in. There was a boy in it.” The man felt triumphant; he had solved the puzzle. “The boy was me.”

The man had been expecting validation, but the architect glanced down as his laptop as if to avoid eye contact. After a few seconds, the architect spoke. “You should be open to the possibility that the boy is not you,” he said, “and that there might be something else going on. I mean, your dreams might mean something else.”

This, the man thought, was immensely frustrating. He was on the verge of a breakthrough, of connecting with his younger self—which seemed to be the entire point of the damn study—yet the only people he could talk to about it didn’t care. In fact, they seemed actively disappointed. Worse, it was like they would have been on his side—they would have helped the man find himself—but only if he described the right building.

The disassociated urgency of the last few days must have gotten to him, because the man’s feelings flipped in an instant, from enthusiasm to sheer petulance.

“We can’t have your conscious mind interfering with the study like this,” the architect continued. “You have to let go of that. Trust the dream. Don’t try to shape it. Follow; don’t lead. Can you do that?”

“You guys are too hung up on the architecture,” the man muttered.

“Excuse me?”

“You’re too fixated on the building,” the man said, speaking up. “I thought this was about my dreams. If we’re going to talk about my dreams, let’s talk about the building that’s actually in my dreams. Not whatever building you want me to study.”

The man wanted to tell the architect about his old bedroom, about the house where he had lived until he was ten years old, about reading books by flashlight at night and dreaming of… well, a life that was nearly the opposite of his own. A life unlike anything he led today. He had lost sight of that version of himself. He was finding it again.

And this dream therapy, the man wanted to say, had been the perfect intervention. He had actually wanted to say thanks. Thanks for reminding me of the boy I used to be. Thanks for—

“Let’s agree that you’ve made progress,” the architect said, “and we’re almost there. But let’s be open-minded about what these dreams might be, not distracted by—”

“Distracted?”

“Distracted. What if I said this is an ideal chance to prove something? That it’s our chance to demonstrate something completely new? But we can only do it if you find the boy.”

The man, thinking this must be part of the test, pictured his younger self huddled in his room near the window, looking out at the trees and stars, dreaming of a future that had yet to come to pass.

“ I am the boy,” the man said. “That’s the entire purpose of this study, right? I am the boy.”

*

It seemed far too soon, just another glitch, but the lights began to blueshift.

The man got up after what felt like twenty minutes’ sleep and stumbled into the front room, one hand hiding his eyes. The door lock buzzed open and a woman walked in.

“We found him,” the guide said.

The man hadn’t seen her in days. In fact, he’d forgotten she existed. What happened to the architect, to the psychologist?

“It was someone who started last night,” the guide continued. She seemed elated. “Her dreams worked. We found him.”

The man didn’t understand. “Found who?”

“The boy.”

He had no idea what she was talking about. “There was another boy?” He thought back to those dreams about himself, trapped in his old family house. Wasn’t he the boy?

It occurred to the man then that he might still be dreaming, but the room around them continued to blueshift. That color alone at this point, would jolt him wide awake, if only due to habit.

The guide looked at him, her expression changing, as if realizing she had said too much.

“Your time is up,” she said, smile fading. “Just some final paperwork and you’re good to go.”

Seeing the man’s confusion, the guide tried a different approach. “How did you dream?”

*

The man spent the rest of the day catching up on texts and email after five days away from his device, then he met up with a friend for a quick drink. Which became two drinks, then three.

Then he was back in his apartment, looking around at its anticlimactically mundane amenities. No dome, no 3D laser projection, not even a king-size bed. He turned on his TV and showered, opening a bottle of beer he had forgotten was in the fridge and sipping it, naked, staring around at his apartment as if seeing it for the first time. Street noises blared in from outside and the windows were bright with the spectacle of shops, cars, and buildings.

The man lay down. The market across the street had closed for the night; its afterhours lights stained the man’s curtains a deep, wine-like red, making him yawn. It felt like the study all over again, the room redshifting, his mind drifting, everything slow—

He opened his eyes.

“—found the boy in a warehouse near the stadium,” a voice on the TV said, “where he had been held for nearly a week. His abductor was taken into custody without incident.”

Found a boy?

“Police say they launched the raid this morning after receiving an anonymous tip—”

On screen, the man saw, was a building he recognized. No, he thought. Its front door. Its windows. Its roofline. No fucking way.

“—in an unexpected end to a kidnapping saga that had local police and the FBI scrambling—”

It was the same goddamned building.

The man lay there in the red half-light of his room, dumbfounded, watching as a camera crew went inside the building. Someone offscreen began interviewing a cop, a black cop with a handlebar mustache— that mustache—in front of a door with three locks in a row, top to bottom, one, two, three—

“We’re just happy we can bring the boy home to see his parents,” the cop said. “That’s all that matters now. We tried new techniques—”

But the man was just staring now, his eyes unfocused, the camera centered on a dark staircase, the hall at its top lined with black doors. Twelve doors.

The man switched off the TV. He lay there in bed, watching lights move across the ceiling.

He couldn’t sleep.

Dormitorium syndicated from https://triviaqaweb.wordpress.com/feed/

[mariocki]

The Terror (Edgar Wallace’s The Terror, 1938)

“You are extremely heartless, Sir!” “No heart about me, old boy. All brain.”

The history of The Terror is, like most Edgar Wallace properties, convoluted and confusing. Wallace was a machine, churning out scripts, plays and novels at a rate that Stephen King would find daunting, and by the mid 1920s he was firmly established as the king of the potboiler. The Terror was written first as a stage play, completed in just five days (a typically Wallacean feat) and staged in 1927. There followed a film adaptation in 1928 - only the second “all talking” picture released by Warner Brothers - but that version is now considered a lost film. The following year Wallace novelised his script, again as The Terror (it at least seems to have avoided the multiple name changes some other Wallace works were subject to) and it was chosen to launch Collins’ Detective Story Club. For a few years the world was Terror free, until ABPC decided the time was evidently ripe for a remake: so we have 1938’s offering.

Wallace had died by this point, but the film feels very much like his product. I can’t say how faithful the adaptation is, not having seen the play nor read the book, but its a fair guess to say it plays out in pretty much the same way. All the Wallace tropes are in place; the mysterious, unknown villain whose face nobody knows; a character who may be a villain or may be a policeman; hidden passageways and secret chambers. Throw in a ghost, some spooky organ music and a historical crime and you have Prime Eddy W. The villain nobody can recognise is, in particular, a Wallace favourite - it forms the centrepiece of probably his most successful work, The Gaunt Stranger/The Ringer (novel 1925, play 1927, film 1928, 1931, 1938, 1952…).

The historical crime, in this instance, is a bullion robbery. Using a gas attack, three men rob an armoured car - they are Joe Connor, ‘Soapy’ Marx and a giggling maniac called O'Shea. Director Richard Bird does a good job of keeping O'Shea’s face concealed, first during the robbery and then as he watches (and informs on) his compatriots, preserving his identity for the final twist. Connor and Marx are arrested and spend ten years in prison, vowing to find O'Shea and the loot upon release.

Briefly we see the police reaction, but key figure Inspector Bradley is again shot in such a way that his face is never clearly seen - setting up the secondary twist. This is all fine and good, but the problem with this type of plot is that its often painfully obvious who the surprise villain (and in the case the surprise policeman) are going to be. Maybe I’m just cynical and the world of 2017 doesn’t allow the same suspension of disbelief. But it is pretty obvious. Things aren’t helped by the fact that the filmmakers seem to have forgotten Bradley’s identity is a secret, as he’s quietly revealed to be an officer of the law about half way through (making the final reveal at the end of the film painfully redundant).

All is not lost though! If I wanted groundbreaking originality I wouldn’t be watching a Wallace film. The enjoyment is not in the twists but in how they’re put together, and in all the little moments along the way. Its a rule of thumb for most EW adaptations that they are generally less than the sum of their parts. The parts is where all the fun happens.

A lot of the fun here comes from the cast. The two vengeful armed robbers are played by Henry Oscar and Alastair Sim, which sounds downright implausible on paper, but which actually works incredibly well. This is from an era in which seemingly every film made in Britain had to have a thick vein of humour running through it, and Oscar and Sim’s unlikely double act works wonderfully to underscore some of the melodrama. Sim in particular is delightful - he plays ‘Soapy’ Marx in a way that might have been considered ‘eccentric’ or ‘dandyish’ in 1938, but which today seems outrageously camp. At one point in the film he adopts the disguise of a vicar and these scenes are probably the highlight of the film. Floating around the boarding house in which most of the film is set, sporting a dog collar and a wig, he ingratiates himself with the other (female) lodgers over tea. They read from a scrapbook of famous crimes and Sim arches his eyebrows, purses his lips, nods his head at all the right points. When the ladies reach the very bullion heist he was a part of, Sim manages to convey an explosion of floundering panic and indecision, all while staying very still. Its a beautiful performance.

Elsewhere we have a young Bernard Lee, long before Bond, as a consistently drunk young gentleman trying to acquire a room at the boarding house. He’s quickly smitten with the owner’s daughter, played by Linden Travers, and spends much of the film pursuing her. Pursuit is an apt word - whilst his romantic declarations and constant attendance are presumably supposed to play as charming, they unfortunately come across more as drunken lairiness. Times and attitudes change perhaps, but I found myself feeling very sorry for Travers. Her performance, incidentally, is impeccable - but like so many films of this era, she is badly served by the script and given little to do besides looking lovely and reacting with horror, in more or less equal amounts.

There are three more lodgers - a mother and daughter, played by Iris Hoey and Lesley Wareing, and the genteel Mr. Goodman, played by Wilfrid Lawson. Hoey and Wareing get more to play with than Travers, their characters having a ghoulish fascination with both ‘true crime’ stories and the ghostly legends surrounding the boarding house. Their interaction, with its mix of demand for table manners and grotesque conversation pieces, provides a lot of the light relief. Lawson comes off best, however. Its difficult to say whether thats because of the script or his performance. Where every one else is fashionably clipped and proper, straight-backed and (dare I say it) a little stiff, Lawson lounges over the entire film, delivering his lines with a dry loucheness and a barely hidden smile. He doesn’t exactly chew the scenery - its more in the order of a wine tasting, swirling it around his mouth before discretely spitting it out.

Mr. Goodman has been a lodger for the last ten years, ever since Colonel Redmayne bought the boarding house. Their relationship stands out as peculiar - later in the film it is revealed that [SPOILERS] Goodman is actually O'Shea and has been blackmailing the Colonel into sheltering him. This is how the Colonel tells it, anyway, to the police - describing his fear of the mentally unstable Goodman/O'Shea. The thing is, their relationship never really comes across that way until that point. They seem to be remarkably close, with Goodman talking happily of their ten years ‘together’ and even describing the 'life [they] have made for [themselves]’. True, Goodman is shown to be insane at the conclusion. True, he also declares his love to Redmayne’s daughter at one point - but this comes so out of left field, so utterly unsignposted that its weirdly the most unbelievable thing in the film. Perhaps this is supposed to be an aspect of Goodman’s damaged psyche, the transference of affection quickly and strongly to someone he barely knows (Redmayne’s daughter has only just arrived in the country when the action begins). Its tempting to look for queer coding in the character of Goodman (Lawson also plays him as quite effete), but I’m always wary of doing so in these situations. Its a difficult part of watching films, as a queer person - you can never be sure if you’re reaching too far, to find something that isn’t really there or, conversely, rejecting something that is there because you’ve been programmed to believe it couldn’t possibly be. So it goes.

Everything comes to a suitably gothic head at the conclusion, with characters entombed alive, mad men in monk’s habits, sealed crypts and hidden gold - and all taking place on a Dark And Stormy Night. Its absurdly histrionic but its pure Wallace. The Bad guy gets his dues, the good guy gets the girl and everyone goes home happy and safe.

Except for one weird aside. This film was made in 1938. The decade Marx and Connor spend in prison is shown in an inventive montage of world affairs, imposed over their angry faces. One of the last images, of the outside world they are missing whilst serving their sentances, is of Adolf Hitler addressing crowds at Nuremberg. World War 2 was still a year away, but the involuntary image of Hitler’s face faded over the villains is an unsettling one. It would be several years before films could be as carefree and fun as this particular piece of Wallace gumbo, so for that at least it should be celebrated.

[i-just-like-commenting]

Star Wars rewatch, part 5: Episode 3, Revenge of the Sith

General Impressions

I’ve been sitting on this review for a while because life has been busy lately – I’m starting a new job in a little over a week – and hadn’t gotten around to writing it. This film was a large part of why I wanted to do this rewatch, to see whether or not Revenge of the Sith was as good as I remembered it.

The answer is that I’d actually forgotten just how good this movie is. Like, seriously, I will fight you on this, RotS is a good movie. Not a great movie, and we will be talking about its flaws as I go along, most of which center around Padme. But it is a good movie, at least on par with Return of the Jedi.

It really does help, I think, to watch Tartakovsky’s Clone Wars immediately before this, not just because that film-length series ends right before RotS opens, but because there’s a certain stylistic match. A lot of the action moments in RotS feel very Tartakovsky-esque, and preceding this with an animated film made the CGI a lot more palatable – this looks very much like an animated film, just with live action performers filling in the human parts. It’s a definite upgrade from the previous sequels, sometimes looking absolutely gorgeous, especially on Coruscant.

Also upgraded? The acting. Hayden Christiansen is massively improved in this film. While still not an Oscar-worthy performance or what have you, he’s on the level of the original actors in the first trilogy, which is to say competent most of the time, and occasionally even quite intensely compelling. It helps that he and Natalie Portman seem to have settled on how to handle their ridiculous romantic dialog, playing it as “Anakin can’t do romantic interactions well, Padme knows this, finds it charming, and teases him for it.” The lines are still awkward but played with an awareness of the awkwardness.

But speaking of romance, having rewatched these, how in love with Anakin was Obiwan? The answer is a lot. I know, I know, when they met Anakin was a child and that’s kind of creepy, but by the end of RotS it’s hard not to read Ewan MacGregor’s performance as more than a little bit smitten. It doesn’t help that in Clone Wars, he and Anakin have an exchange that is a literal copy-paste of Han and Leia.

The music is also killer for this film, and supplements all of the best scenes, like the tale of Darth Plagueis, Padme and Anakin on the balconies at sunset, the implements of Order 66, Obiwan and Anakin’s final battle…this is a well-made film, you guys. But let’s dig into some of the flaws.

Continuity, part 1: Relation to the Other Prequels

You know, if the mitochlorians had just been introduced as “a kind of symbiont that can spontaneously generate life” as an explanation for Shmi’s mysterious pregnancy, I don’t think people would’ve had a problem with it. It’s that it explains connectivity to the Force that nobody likes. So the reappearance of mitochlorians doesn’t bother me at all in this context.

I mentioned in my last post that one cut of Attack of the Clones that I enjoyed deleted Anakin confessing the murder of the Sand People to Padme, and while I support that change, it would make that Anakin told Palpatine the truth that much more disturbing. Palpatine is genuinely manipulating the fatherless Anakin in a disturbing way.

The biggest problem in relation to the other prequels, though, is the demotion of Padme to side character. She’s very passive in this film, as being increasingly pregnant limits her ability to be an action girl. But it didn’t have to be this way – there are a sequence of deleted scenes, some of which are redundant and thus wouldn’t be more than about 5 minutes, that depict Padme being one of the founding members of what became the Rebel Alliance. It’s an unfortunate cut not just because it would have kept Padme as a more active figure, but also because one scene has Palpatine trying to sow doubts in Anakin’s mind about Padme’s trustworthiness, setting up that he will snap at the end and kill her.

Continuity, part 2: Relation to the Original Series

Which brings us to Padme’s death, the other big flaw in her character in this film. That she has nothing physically wrong with her, she just “lost the will to live,” is the dumbest part of this film, and one that was almost immediately retconned. I understand that Lucas was trying to say that the psychological effect of everything that had happened to her had as much to do with her death as physical injuries, but it could have been something more like “we’ve done what we can to fix her, but the shock and emotional strain is inhibiting her body’s recovery process.”

More significantly, though, Padme shouldn’t have died yet. Leia says very clearly in Return of the Jedi that she remembers her mother, so unless Leia can remember events from her birth…or did Bail Organa’s wife also die, when Leia was very young? Leia must have known she was adopted, why does she not mention that instead?

When I was growing up watching the OT, I’d always assumed that Leia’s mother remarried Bail and passed off Leia as their daughter. That wouldn’t work with the trilogy as-is, because Bail is too prominent and it wouldn’t be a good place to hide her.

So let me propose an alternative scenario: Padme survives, but is clearly never going to recover from her injuries. Obiwan persuades her to divide up her children to keep them safe, with her keeping one and other sent to live with Anakin’s siblings. Padme lives in hiding on Alderaan for a few years before ultimately dying, and Bail adopts Leia. She remembers her biological mother and thinks of Bail as her father. Maybe he’s a single father; maybe he’s got a husband. Either way, it fills in that continuity gap.

The other dumb connection to the main trilogy is the random scene of Chewbacca knowing Yoda. I have no problem with Wookies being in this film, or with Chewbacca being a former general who had to go rogue after the war was over, but him knowing Yoda? Pointless fan service, doesn’t add anything to his character.

The best connection with the main trilogy is that ending, though. Critics are absolutely correct that the reveal of Darth Vader being accompanied by an anguished “NO!!!” isn’t a good transition into episode 4, where you need him to be a terrifying villain. But it is the perfect transition into episode 6, where you need to realize that he’s a broken, miserable, hollow human being. So yeah, the correct order for the first time watching is, indeed, 4-5-1-2-Clone Wars-3-6.

On every subsequent viewing, though, make it 4-5-Clone Wars-3-6. 1 and 2 just aren’t good enough to justify rewatch.

Continuity, part 3: Relation to the Current Series

There is still a part of me that wants Hayden Christiansen to get his redemption and reappear as Anakin’s Force ghost with a good script and a good director and yell at his grandson about how badly he is behaving. Failing that, Ewan MacGregor as Obiwan.

That said, the status of Force ghosts are still strange in this universe. In a deleted scene for RotS, Yoda gets a message from Qui-Gon that he’s learned to basically transition his body straight into a Force ghost at the point of death, which is why Yoda and Obiwan can appear after their deaths. The scene’s actually in the film, but there’s no voice over and so we’re left to figure out what message Yoda got from Qui-Gon by ourselves. But why doesn’t Qui-Gon appear in the OT? Is there a point chronologically after which you can’t do it, and that’s why we don’t have Force ghost Anakin yelling at Kylo? How did Anakin know how to do this if it was something new?

I kind of want to do a “Reimagined Prequel Trilogy” that fixes these hiccups, with the premise that Tartakovsky could remake them in animated form. That’s not ever going to happen, any more than Game of Thrones is going to remake seasons 3 and on to actually match their source material, but I always like speculating on these things, it helps me as a writer.

Conclusion: Brainwashing as a Joke

C3PO gets his mind casually wiped at the end of this film, which by all appearance is standard procedure for protocol droids when they get new owners, presumably to keep secrets of their former owners safe and to ensure their loyalty to their new ones. This is absolutely horrifying if you accept droids as sentient beings, of course, and seems to be banned in the New Republic.

What’s unnerving is that in the captioning, R2’s reaction is described as laughter. He’s mocking C3PO for his plight. From this I can only conclude that the true tenderness of their relationship must have started after episode 3, and R2 right now is taking delight in the irony of his more obedient counterpart being victimized by a system he supported. Not a cool attitude, R2, but it gives him an implied arc, too, as the two droids grow closer.

[tgpigeon]

A Look at the Two New Sonic Games

Almost a full year ago I took a special trip to San Diego to celebrate the birthday of a fictional blue hedgehog.  As nonsensical as that sounds, it was actually a very lively and enjoyable night with all the festivities going on. In between the flashy lights, blaring Sonic music, and numerous other bits of on-stage antics, two new upcoming Sonic the Hedgehog games were announced: Sonic Mania and “Project Sonic 2017” (now known as Sonic Forces). Here we are almost a full year later, both games are now very close to release, and we got quite a bit more info on each title last week alone thanks to E3. Let’s catch up with our speedy blue friend and see how things are coming along.

Let’s start with Sonic Mania, the 2D passion project created by a group of indie Sonic fans (and of course published by Sega). This game already looked amazing when it was first shown off during the anniversary event in San Diego, and felt just as great to play when we got our hands on it that same night. Since then, everything shown about the game has been an absolute treat. There’s something special about seeing the smoothly-animated pixel Sonic run through the expertly-crafted levels with the incredibly memorable music playing in the background. It all oozes charm and has an amazing attention to detail that only hardcore fans of the series themselves could pour into the game.

Roughly two weeks before the E3 festivities kicked off, we got a new trailer for the game showcasing some new animation drawn by artist (and Sonic fan himself) Tyson Hesse. These hand-drawn bits of animation both look and animate with a great deal of charm and whimsy. I’ve mentioned before how the sense of whimsy that Sonic evokes is one of the reasons I am such a big fan of the series, and this trailer encapsulates it so well. How bouncy and cheery everything is, right down to the smaller details such as how Sonic jumps into the air and spins before running off, makes this a very feel-good trailer. This is all accompanied by an upbeat, catchy new track by Hyper Potions titled “Time Trials”. And all this is before we even get into anything relating to the gameplay.

Sonic Mania consists of both brand new stages and remakes of select stages from earlier 2D games in the series. The most recent stage revealed is Chemical Plant Zone, returning from Sonic the Hedgehog 2. This stage does an excellent job demonstrating the design philosophy of returning stages: Act 1 sticks relatively close to the original level designs of the zones and offers some updates within them, while Act 2 offers a fresher take on these areas complete with new gimmicks. In Chemical Plant’s case, the purple water from the original level can now be turned to gelatin to bounce off, giving the stage much more vertical traversal than it had previously. This still blends well with Sonic’s more traditional horizontal speed thanks to the clever level design never killing the momentum. The entire game shown off so far seems to present this same level of care to make sure each level flows and controls just right. There is no doubt in my mind that this game will be a treat to both Sonic fans and the general gaming community.

The next game that Sega is presenting is the newest mainline entry developed by Sonic Team: Sonic Forces. This game combines both 3D/2D-hybrid Modern and pure-2D Classic versions of Sonic, much like 2011’s Sonic Generations. However, this title also adds a new customizable character to the mix, complete with a third unique gameplay style. Despite the large amount of fan characters flooding the internet, this is the first time in the series’ history where fans can officially customize their own creation to battle alongside the blue blur(s). This is honestly a smart decision, as it gives players who genuinely want to make their own characters the option to do so, while also allowing everyone else to mess around and create their own bizarre creations. This third character plays in a mixture of 2D and 3D much like Modern Sonic, but can use various gadgets and “wisp” power-ups for some extra platforming challenge. While this gameplay style admittedly doesn’t look as fun as the two Sonics, mainly due to the wisps making the gameplay appear a bit clunkier, it still appears overall fast-paced and enjoyable.

Sega has recently shown off demos of all three gameplay styles at E3 this year, as well as a new trailer. Although we have been slowly receiving information about this game for the past year, we got a much better view of the overall package now. Modern Sonic still has his fast-paced boost gameplay and Classic still looks to be a somewhat slower, 2D-only Sonic with a spindash instead of a boost ability. Classic Sonic looks to be fun to play as, don’t get me wrong, but having him here alongside Modern Sonic seems a bit redundant. It made sense in Sonic Generations, as that was a celebration of 20 years of the series and demonstrated how Sonic’s gameplay had evolved over that time. Now though, especially with Sonic Mania coming soon and scratching that classic itch (complete with seemingly more accurate classic physics), Classic Sonic feels a bit unneeded here. At the end of the day though, even if a bit redundant, both Modern and Classic seem like they will be about as much fun as they were in Generations.

There are some new additions to set this apart from Sonic’s 2011 adventure. The main one is the aforementioned custom character, but there is also quite a big tonal difference between the two games from what we’ve seen. Generations was a light-hearted romp through Sonic’s history that barely had a story, meanwhile Forces seems to be focusing a bit more on its narrative. It tells the tale of how Dr. “Eggman” Robotnik has already taken over the world and it’s up to Sonic and his friends to take it back. We are given a small taste of this in the gameplay demo, as the characters communicate to each other during the stages to discuss their current situation and plans. It’s nice to see all these characters in the plot again, and this implementation makes the cast feel much more like a grand team of friends. Hopefully the writing is solid, as I loved this type of stuff in games like Kid Icarus: Uprising and Star Fox and look forward to it here as well. I do hope it can be disabled during repeated stage play-throughs however, as hearing the same dialogue when trying for higher scores can potentially get tiring.

Ultimately this game looks to be using what fans liked about Sonic Generations as a base and expanding upon that. The trailer released for E3 also announced that previous series villains Shadow, Chaos, Metal Sonic, and Zavok will be returning along with a new mysterious villain. I am getting some Sonic Adventure vibes from how this game seems to have a plot with higher stakes, which makes me quite the happy camper. Hopefully the writing will be solid enough to add some excitement to the story without becoming too melodramatic. Meanwhile, Mania in general seems dead-set on improving the classic series in any way it can, bringing back even the smallest elements (elemental shields, level transitions, the classic trio all playable, etc.), while also adding it’s own improvements (improved graphics, the new drop-dash move for Sonic, both remixed and brand new stages, etc.). Between Mania looking like it will deliver an excellent classic experience and Forces offering a promising modern take on the series, it’s a great time to be a Sonic fan.

-Written by Rich, 2017

-Image credit to (in order of appearance) Gematsu.com, TheVerge.com, GameInformer.com, Comicbook.com, IGN.com

[doctorwhonews]

Doctor Who - The New Adventures of Bernice Summerfield - Vol 4: Ruler of the Universe

Latest Review: Writer: James Goss, Guy Adams Director: Scott Handcock Featuring: Lisa Bowerman, David Warner, Sam Kisgart Big Finish Release (United Kingdom) First Released: September 2017 Running Time: 5 hours  “Well, you did find something! So what’s the problem?” “You are, Mr President! You are!” “Don’t call me that – you know I hate being called that! I’m the Doctor ...” “No, that’s the problem, you’re not – not anymore!” The “Unbound” Doctor and Bernice Summerfield   As this month marks 20 years since Professor Bernice Summerfield (Lisa Bowerman) made her audio debut with Big Finish, it seems only fitting ahead of BF’s birthday celebrations for Benny later this month to review her most recent set of adventures which occurred in a parallel, “Unbound” universe. In Volume 3 of The New Adventures of Bernice Summerfield, Benny found herself stranded in another universe with a completely different version of her (and our favourite) Time Lord – one of the “Unbound” Doctors (brilliantly portrayed by veteran David Warner). To compound matters, this variation on the Doctor Who universe (or Whoniverse) was on the brink of total collapse. When Volume 4 opens, Bernice has returned to her roots and is undertaking an archaeological dig on an ancient world, hoping to uncover evidence of the Apocalypse Clock, a mythical device that could halt this universe’s imminent demise. The Doctor, meanwhile, has resumed his role as president of the universe (after initially shunning the responsibility) and is finding himself increasingly burdened in the day to day affairs of state – much to his and Summerfield’s chagrin. He is therefore happy to visit Benny to inspect her progress on the dig as a little bit of PR and to escape the trappings of office. The City and the Clock, the opening instalment in this quadrilogy, is the straightest and most conventional of the four serials which are, for the most part, quite satirical and madcap. Unfortunately, it’s also a quite plain drama, lacking the tension and suspense that you would associate with a tale about mummified, undead creatures stalking the ruins of their ancient city at night. Indeed, if it weren’t for the introduction of the infamous clock that is a recurring theme in the box set, the story would be redundant. It’s saying something when the memorable moments of this play are the cleverly written dialogue, exchanges and interplay between Benny and the Doctor (“What possible interpretation of the words ‘first’ and ‘class’ include having Karfel’s Next Top Model played at you? I wanted to confess five minutes in and I hadn’t done anything!”). A balloon ride over the ancient ruins also has Warner’s Doctor waxing philosophically: The Doctor: It puts things in perspective, rather doesn’t it? Seeing it from up here – a whole ancient town, once a thriving community, people living lives, sleeping, eating, loving and dying under all those roofs and then … Benny: The dust of ages, layer by layer, burying it from sight … The Doctor: You’d think travelling in time, I’d get used to it – the idea that we’re all nothing more than temporary fixtures, walking bones, but I don’t! Everything we’re doing at the moment – all the plans, all the panic, all the meetings, everyone thinks it’s important because nothing’s ever more real than now. The people that lived down there thought the same thing – look where it’s got them! Nothing matters, not really. We’re all just waiting for the dust to bury us! Benny: Well, I’m so glad you popped by – you’ve cheered me up no end! Otherwise, aside from terrific dialogue, the plotline of The City and the Clock – and the premise behind the clock – is entirely forgettable. It’s a pity because writer Guy Adams clearly devises the story to put Benny back into her element – yet the tale, which is slow from the get-go, never builds to a dramatic crescendo, and Benny doesn’t get to employ the smarts that make her such a terrific archaeologist. Strangely, after the “drama” of the first instalment, Asking for a Friend is a more character-based and pensive piece, as Benny and the Doctor grapple with the dilemmas of having to make compromises in a dying universe to save the hundreds of civilisations that fall outside the clock’s sphere of influence. This includes diplomacy with tyrants and zealots, and false promises to the needy. Indeed, Benny’s disappointment in the Doctor is apparently so great that at her suggestion the Time Lord ends up seeing a therapist (played by the wonderfully ebullient Annette Badland, famous for her portrayal in the first season of the modern TV series as the Slitheen Margaret Blaine). Of course, conducting therapy sessions with someone as complicated and self-absorbed as the Doctor is never going to be easy (he himself remarks it’s like “a mosquito scratching at a continent”!) – and that’s before you factor in time travel as well! James Goss, the other writer of this boxset, provides a quite compelling tête-à-tête between Guilana the therapist and the Time Lord, as they verbally spar to pry sensitive information from the other. Attention to detail is required of the listener, as each new session between the two hints at subtle, new elements from the last scene between them (in the CD extras, Goss admits that he has “borrowed” an idea from former executive producer Steven Moffat that he used not just once but twice – notably in the TV serial A Christmas Carol, and a short story called Continuity Errors from way back in 1996!). When the consequences of these sessions finally come to a head, it is only then that you perhaps fully appreciate just how alone and isolated – and hopelessly disconnected – the Doctor must be in this – and in any other – universe. In turn, put a solitary character like the Doctor in charge of executive government, and it’s little wonder that in the next serial Truant, he returns to his adventuring of old. The pre-titles sequence to this third instalment is highly amusing, as the Doctor’s attempts at heroics against amateurish evildoers and ne’er-do-wells are thwarted by their cowardice and his own reputation for being a champion (“Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Is there nobody with a backbone in this stupid universe?” he moans at one point). Even when the Doctor eventually encounters a conspiracy he can get his teeth into, much to his frustration he realises he has arrived too late to overturn the appalling wrong that has been inflicted. Nevertheless, Truant is one of the highlights of the set, mixing the right levels of drama and humour, as the Doctor and Benny evade unprofessional and sloppy villains in the Silvans, who are as much incidental victims of the conspiracy historically as their purported victims. Only in Doctor Who could the titular hero convincingly pull off a getaway by stealing not only a vehicle but its effusive driver as well – or “interrogate” the chief villain over coffee and chocolate biscuits! Guy Adams’ script is probably still a little too wacky for TV, but it suits the BF audio format perfectly. The boxset closes with The True Saviour of the Universe, as the Doctor upon his return to parliament is arrested and thrust into impeachment proceedings. Much to Benny’s suspicion, the arrest coincides with the sudden arrival of this universe’s incarnation of the Master (Sam Kisgart, aka Mark Gatiss) and the emergence of a hooded figure which has been offering parliamentarians incentives to oust the Doctor from office since the events of The City and the Clock. Are they connected? Does the Master have designs on the presidency, so he can hijack the Apocalypse Clock? James Goss’s clever script challenges and upturns all the listener’s expectations while poking fun at all of Doctor Who’s conventions. Goss jokes that The True Saviour of the Universe is “a remake of Logopolis involving Cthulu and singing nuns” – which, despite sounding far-fetched, is an apt description. The Sisterhood of Beedlix, like the Logopolitans, can influence the fabric of the universe through songs and prayer that recite the power of numbers. The appearance of the “old ones” at the gateway to another universe at the climax is an old riff on the nineties New Adventures novels, which regularly pitted the Doctor and his companions, including Benny, against “ancient evils from the dawn of time” – to the point of overkill. Further, Goss has fun challenging the many clichés that fans have come to associate with the Doctor and the Master over many decades. For example, when Benny asks the Master how he survived his execution at the Emporium in the closing chapter of the Vol 3 boxset, his response is simple yet curt - “Don’t be boring!” – a subtle nod to eighties Doctor Who, in which no explanation was ever given for the Master cheating death or escaping from tight scrapes. Other quotations and dialogue subtly homage Logopolis and The Daemons, as the Master seeks to harness the power of the “old ones” to seize control of the universe. Of course, the joke is very much on the Master – and in the most unexpected way … The production qualities of this boxset, like next to all of BF’s input, is first class – as are the performances of the first tier and supporting casts. Warner and Bowerman are a fantastic Doctor/companion combo and Kisgart/Gatiss is charming, urbane and oily as the Master (although Gatiss has far too much fun as his Kisgart persona in the CD extras for my taste). The flirtatiousness of the Benny/Master combo also puts an unusual spin on the usual antagonism between Master and companion. As mentioned above, Badland is outstanding as the Doctor’s therapist, while Catrin Stewart (Jenny Flint of the Paternoster Gang) puts in an understated appearance as the aide-de-camp to the wimpy Silvan leader (Jonathan Bailey). Most notably, Hattie Hayridge (better known as the female Holly in Red Dwarf) delivers a terrific performance as the Doctor’s press secretary, deftly diverting and deflecting the tough questions about her President’s leadership in exchanges with Guy Adams’ hard-hitting journalist. Volume 4 of The New Adventures of Bernice Summerfield is an entertaining boxset which isn’t afraid to be tongue-in-cheek about Doctor Who’s conventions and show a strong sense of humour and fun. It isn’t constrained by the continuity of the regular series, so it can afford to be more audacious and satirical. This means it won’t necessarily be for every fan who prefers the more no-nonsense style of the TV series adventures, or even some of BF’s regular Doctor Who output – but if you’re a long-term fan of Benny (who as a character herself isn’t above taking the piss), then you’re in for a treat. Indeed, the set ends on an upbeat note and with a paradox to boot. I won’t say what that paradox is (spoilers!) but if BF isn’t already sorely tempted to exploit the potential for a run-in with Sylvester McCoy’s Doctor in the future, then clearly the company’s heart isn’t in the right place! We’ll perhaps have a better idea of how this oxymoron may be addressed later this month in Volumes 1 and 2 of the next Benny series The Story So Far.   http://reviews.doctorwhonews.net/2018/09/doctor_who_the_new_adventures_of_bernice_summerfiel.html?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=tumblr

[writingsitcom]

Horror questionnaire

I was sent a questionnaire by a fan in NZ, for his doctorate or something. So, in conjunction with the fact that WRITING THE HORROR MOVIE (Bloomsbury) is now to be reprinted- I publish my answers.     

 What is the greatest difference between a horror movie made in the 20th century as opposed to one made in the 21st century?

Combining this with your final question, the difference is in the ubiquity of Technology. Pre-1999, when we had a glut of ‘pre-millennial angst’ movies, there were no smart phones, less CCTV and/or continual surveillance, and of course less CG. What there was back then was rarely convincing. ‘The Mummy’ was the first to attempt frightening scarab beetles, but they just looked plastic. Even in Cabin in the Woods, once the monsters get loose, they are frightening because of their power to destroy, but because we know that they are computer enhanced drawn images, we are not actually scared.

The best Movies (Cloverfield, The Mist, The Void) use CG so well and sparingly that we are terrified. Thus, the Horror Movie of the 21st C, has so much at its disposal, but conversely, so much to hold it back. Every Teen Slasher has the issue of ‘no reception’ and lack of Internet (which would enable them to escape). You have to show so much less now, make a virtue of hand held shaky-cam and the growth - since Blair Witch- of found footage.

There is a desire, moving away from the Universal Monsters (Dracula, Frankenstein, Wolfman, etc.) to make horror real, suburban, in your face, and thus we have had amazing franchises such as Saw, Final Destination and Hostel (Torture porn or gorno) and ghosts with Paranormal Activity, as well as Slashers with Wrong Turn, to name but a few.

To summarise there is a demand for actuality (as in the Conjuring/Sinister/Exorcism franchises). The teens in Get Out or It Follows must, as with Halloween (Carpenter 1976), strike at the heart of a middle-America teen audience and the Asian market. I could make more points about Asian horror but we’ll leave it at that for now.

What subgenre of horror do you believe has been the most consistent throughout the years?

I’m not sure if you mean consistently successful or continuously made and remade? It’s easiest to start with Zombies, as, since the remake of Dawn of the Dead (Zack Snyder 2004) and 28 Days later, (Boyle, 2003) plus the long running The Walking Dead, there has been a glut. Sean of the Dead pastiched the genre, which usually sounds the death knell. There are so many zombie movies out there now: Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, Zombeavers, Zombie strippers and World War Z plus Train to Buzan. There seems to be no end (certainly with low budget filmmakers) to these genre pieces. The symbolism is overt: we have become blind to our crass commercialism and it will eat us. We are destroying this planet and the End is nigh. This is a common trope of turn of the century angst, but it was very much around in the post-war era as seen in all the 1950s Sci -Fi monster horrors.

Tech, in particular digital cameras (rendering film stock redundant) has been a transforming miracle. You can correct your mistakes in the edit. You can shoot and shoot until you are happy. This has opened up every subgenre. Nothing is impossible anymore. I would say that “found footage horror” and “the undead” have thus far been the predominant modes, but also that their time will soon pass.

In your opinion what makes a good horror remake?

 Some movie remakes The Hills have Eyes, Dawn of the Dead, Evil Dead even, are better than the originals: slicker, quicker, gorier, more effective. A remake works best when the tech is much improved but so has the characterisation and plotting. Halloween (Rob Zombie) didn't work because he focussed far too much on the asylum years – on how a monster was made. We no longer care about that (because we have been told the narrative so many times) but we want to see the plot developing. A good horror remake pays tribute to the narrative of its progenitor but is not encumbered by it. Thus, you might lose a weak story strand or cut out a character if they were thinly written in the first place. There are some movies that are so unique (Hellraiser) that I think you cannot remake them effectively.

Finally, almost without exception, the prequel and sequel are just a cash in (be it the Exorcist or Hannibal Lector) and should not trouble us.

In your opinion, who was the most iconic horror character of the 20th century?

Hannibal Lector, an update of the evil genius that goes all the way back to Charlie Chan films. He is utterly charming and completely ruthless. Although Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer, got there first, Hopkins portrayal is more attractive and deeper. It has influenced all subsequent attempts at portraying serial killers, who in real life are dull lone gun nuts (e.g. The Las Vegas shooter) Hannibal and Buffalo Bill are far more compelling.

How has the increase in studio produced blockbusters impacted the horror genre?

That’s also a hard one to define because it’s more the distributors, such as Lionsgate, plus Sony and Warner’s. Studios wants franchises – Final Destination, Saw, etc. but they also want stars in them. Tom Cruise’s Mummy remake in 2017 was a total flop. They are better at Super heroes and fantasy and we ought to leave them to it. Horror is best left to the Indies. Having said that, in the UK, Hammer is producing great work, as are Irish funded films such as In Fear and The Hallow.

What horror movies are most notably a product of the political climate?

Horror is more social than political. We have had plenty of right wing governments and leaders but there has been no overt demonization of Thatcher or Gorbachev or Berlusconi or Trump in movies. Maybe they are demons enough already? There are issues that are addressed in horror, such as global warming/overcrowding, poisoning of us and the oceans, and most have been addressed as Zombie/Undead movies. I would suggest that we are moving backwards and failing to learn from history. Horror tends to accept that we are ruled by the vile and the greedy and puts that aside in order to find and deal with the horror that is inside all of us.

What must a horror movie do to be considered “good” in your opinion?

For me it must certainly scare, subvert, violate and chill. I want it to be open-ended and ideally make me look over my shoulder in the night. Few movies do this. I have been through gore and disgust and you reach a point where you are sated. This is in evidence today in obesity and reality TV but sadly, we are so greedy now that it's just going to go on until it bursts. I prefer my horror to be of the mind, of dark corners, of unease and dread. I prefer the build-up to the climax, which usually disappoints. For me, the greatest horror movies are Martyrs, and Raw, no coincidence both European (France. Belgium). The French really know how to do horror.

What decade was most prolific for horror films?

 That is hard to say but I’m going to say a dead heat between the 1980s with the advent of video and Pay TV plus cable, which meant that there was a massive flood of poor quality crappy horror movies. That and the last decade (2000s) with the proliferation of the found footage movies- likewise, easy and cheap to do. The first thing, it seems with new technology, is create porn. Perhaps the second is the low budget horror flick.

 What was your favourite horror movie of the last decade?

 Martyrs is the best.  I am also a big fan of in no particular order. Sinister. Raw. Eden Lake. Kill List. The Awakening. The Babadook. American Mary. Banshee Chapter, 10 Cloverfield Lane. Don't Breathe. The Orphanage. Old Boy The Witch and What We Do in the Shadows.

The best TV horror is American Horror story volumes 1, 2 and 3.

Where do you see the horror genre going in the near future?

Impossible to say. CG has provided us with all manner of monsters and there seems nowhere to go now with all those Cthulhu types. Frankenstein and Dracula are sleeping lightly right now, but they are bound to return – they always do. It’s all in a very healthy place right now, after all there is so much horror out in the real world that it can easily be realised in film.  

 Long form TV streaming services are also beginning to catch on with American Horror story. Stranger Things and The TV adaptation of the Mist. It is hard to sustain the threat for ten episodes but these are superb. There will be more there and I think horror will decamp to Netflix (because that is where its world-wide audience is (95 million and counting). One caveat. With the exception of AHS, you don’t really re-watch the box sets so they have a limited streaming life, but that won’t stop Netflix, Amazon, Hulu, Sky and others from buying them in bulk. I hope.

  Axman – my psychological thriller (now in postproduction) will hopefully be out in 2019.