Alien

Compared to other viewers in this class, I feel like I took a backward approach to seeing Alien. The first time I became acquainted with the monster it was via one of the Alien v. Predator films. From there, I moved through the Alien series backwards (unintentionally). And in some ways, I think that made the original film shine even more. It amazes me that Alien was made so long ago, and yet in comparison to more recent films, it's a masterpiece.

It was full of a ton of "monsters"...and by that, I'm not talking about the aliens themselves. Ash, the Company, many of the human (or programmed beings) in this film really qualify as monsters more than the title character, in my opinion. Mostly because they created this being for a purpose. They had motivation that was truly malicious. The Alien, on the other hand, was only doing what it was born to do: kill. And man, did it do that well.

As far as enemies go, the Alien is top notch. It provides character conflict both externally and internally.
The external conflict is apparent in every one of Alien's forms. The primitive beasts that plant the baby aliens into humans look innocent enough when compared with their progeny, but they are extremely dangerous. When I first saw one of them clamp on to a victim's face, I was shocked. I think I actually jumped in my seat. Even more impressive are the scenes where they burst from human chests. The way they are filmed, with their tiny heads covered in goo, is truly frightening. However, the most intimidating form of the Alien is the adult version, the one that hides in shadows and kills without mercy. The one that's grown on the instinct to kill. The sheer size and intelligence of this beast makes it the perfect villain.

The internal conflict comes from the fear it creates. It leaves the viewer wondering which dark corner it's hiding in, or which human it's incubating in. That uncertainty really ups the game here. Because this isn't another Jason/slasher who you know is hiding around the corner and will jump out at predictable moments. The Alien stalks its prey much more effectively than that. And because it wasn't predictable, because the Alien was always upping the game, the fear factor stayed through the whole movie. I think that's the part about it that I loved the most.

I have to give credit to the director of this film, because so much of the terror I felt while watching came from the approach. The setting fit the monster completely and enhanced its predatory skills. There were so many dark corners for it to hide in, stalk prey from. However, in later films, especially the Alien v. Predator films, I didn't get the same vibe. In some senses, having this monster in a less enclosed space weakens the fear factor. I think this is because it doesn't pit helpless humans against Alien in quite the same way; in an enclosed space, humans are forced to confront the monster instead of just running. Also, when you pit Alien against a being as powerful and intelligent as it, it's less of a contest. The conflict, the stakes, aren't as high. So, while the original Alien is genius, the later films didn't quite do it for me.

World War Z

I'll start off by saying that I find zombies one of the most laughable horror creatures out there, for many reasons. The stereotypical zombie is slow, travels in packs, has no discernable method of communication...in short, these creatures aren't even as threatening as a pack of wild dogs. Sure, zombie lore states that they can only be killed by a head shot, but that doesn't actually make them more dangerous, no matter how difficult a head shot may be. Why? Because you don't need to kill them to stop them. Dead limbs don't grow back. So, shoot a machine gun into a crowd of zombies at about thigh level, and suddenly you have a lot of un-walking dead. Escape becomes easy. Because of this fact, I find zombie films to be amusing rather than scary. My favorite one by far is Zombieland. Not because of the zombies. Because the characters get high with Bill Murray and play ghostbusters in his dining room. Who doesn't want to do that?

I started this blog post in this way because I wanted to say that Max Brooks kind of impressed me. He added a bit of depth to his zombies, so it wasn't the typical army of the dead vs. the lone band of survivors. And he did this in two ways. For one, the zombies themselves had a bit more development. In normal zombie movies, the creatures moan simply because what else are they going to do? Their voice boxes are clearly rotted to the point of malfunction. However, in World War Z, the moan is somewhat of a call, a form of communication. This makes the zombies a bigger threat, because if they can signal one another, they may be more difficult to defeat. He also lets them survive underwater. Very cool, even if it's not 100% threatening (there are no humans on the bottom of the ocean for zombies to kill, after all). The second way Brooks ups the zombie game is by creating a unique set of human characters. It's not just a band of lone survivors who find guns and miraculously know how to shoot them. There are soldiers. The soldiers plot, they fight battles, they must come up with strategies and adapt to tackle the zombie problem. The fact that the human characters have to do more than just shoot a machine gun into a crowd to survive makes it more enjoyable.

At the same time, the things that made the zombies so cool also made them a bit unbelievable. I couldn't help but think that if zombies flock to each other's call, why don't the humans automatically bait a zombie crowd? Send an armored and heavily trained human out into the open, make some noise, they start calling to one another and...bam...instant zombie trap. The fact that the monsters can semi-communicate yet still don't have brains makes them slightly easier to defeat, in this way. And an enemy that is easier to defeat because of its collective stupidity doesn't make for a fully riveting story.

I did enjoy the battle scenes, though, because Brooks managed to write them with tension and for moments I was on the edge of my seat while reading. And even though this book is written in interview style, and you know that the characters have survived if they are alive to give the interviews, it worked here. There was enough tension on the page for me to still worry about the outcome of the battles, even if I knew who lived through them.

If I was going to recommend a zombie story to anyone, this would definitely be it.

The Yattering and Jack

While I've enjoyed reading many stories from Clive Barker's Books of Blood, the Yattering and Jack was not my favorite story. Within the first few pages, the stage was set for a psychological horror, more based on insanity than actual physical damage, and I usually love that type of tale. However, it's only really effective when you get into a character's head, thus experiencing all of the mental ups and downs and crazies. (Ironically, I read this story after posting a response to IPP #6, and the monster I used for that post was creepily close to the Yattering, although Polo used a different method of defeat.) So, I think it’s the set up and POV here that’s ruining the monster and the horror factor.

“He seemed to live apart from his experience, living his life as an author might write a preposterous story, never involving himself in the narrative too deeply.” (49) This quote describing Jack Polo also seemed to describe Clive Barker’s approach when writing the story. Sometimes, I can appreciate the irony in that, but not here. Clive Barker’s approach of an omniscient narrator only served to make me as disaffected by the story as Jack Polo was by his dying cats. I didn’t feel fear at the Yattering’s pranks. I didn’t feel fear when he stalked Jack Polo through his house. I wasn’t even disgusted with him ogling the naked widow or blowing cat guts all over the house. This is the result of the distance of the omniscient POV, for me. I don’t think it worked in this story, just like I didn’t quite like the distance in I Am Legend. I want to be scared when I read horror, and if I’m not in the moment with my characters, that doesn’t happen. So, for me, the distance ruins the monster. I know that might not ring true for everyone. Note: that’s not to say this POV can’t ever work in horror, it’s just how you pull it off. I don’t think it was right for this particular story, but it really worked in The Stand. I think that's because even though King wrote in a semi-distant third person, there was plenty of time to get to know all of the characters and care about them. When you care about the characters, the stakes are higher. However, in a short story, you don't have the page space that King had, and that omnicient narrator creates a distance that there isn't time to overcome.

There were other things, little author mistakes, that also took something away from the monster. The first is that we have a twenty-two and twenty-four-year-old daughter, and yet the dialogue between father and daughters sounded to me like a discourse between a father and a five year old. All of the “daddy’s” instead of “dad,” all of the little things that aren’t quite adult made me feel like the monster didn’t have to work as hard. It’s a lot easier to scare a child than it is a tough-as-nails woman. And the initial description of the two girls made them seem like they would be tough as nails, so when they weren’t I was disappointed.

Also, when everything is spinning, Jack Polo is convinced the monster must be exhausted and confused, and yet the Yattering is excited and enjoying things…it doesn’t quite make the reader believe that Jack knows 100% what he’s doing, but rather than up the stakes for me, it made things fall flat. Not quite sure why. Finally, there were “housekeeping” mistakes. The Yattering blows up the second new cat Jack brings home (thus Freddy III), but the Yattering labeled it the third new cat. If there were three new cats after the first Freddy’s demise, it should have been Freddy IV that he blew up. As for Freddy I, regular fires don’t cremate cats (or anything, for that matter), yet there’s nothing in there about the Yattering upping the temperature. Missing details weaken a monster because I’m left wondering if the Yattering actually has the ability to make that powerful of a fire, when I should know from the story. When the daughter gets turkey grease on her face – grease from a turkey straight out of the oven – she isn’t burned. These details rob authenticity from the story and thus from the monster. A monster is only as good as the people it has to scare, and the details in this story made them seem inept and numb. That combined with the detail that this is a lower demon of lesser power really made the Yattering seem like a wimp, in my opinion. Finally, because of the POV, I knew that Jack Polo was playing his own game, so the “twist” at the end wasn’t all that unexpected. I think it could have been more shocking if it was just left in the Yattering’s POV.

Cycle of the Werewolf

While putting my thoughts together for this post, I couldn't help but refer back to Mayberry's essay on fight scenes. While some may argue that the twelve monthly cycles of the werewolf aren't "battle scenes" in the traditional sense, most of them pit the werewolf against a human. I'd argue that makes it a battle, even if nine times out of ten it's a losing battle for the humans. And in each of those battle scenes, I noticed elements that Mayberry mentioned. In January, Arnie Westrum scrambles around his hut and looks for a weapon, which is what the underdog should do when a beast plows through his door in the middle of the night. In February, Stella Randolph may not fight back, but she approaches her own death in a way that suits her; in a way, she accepts the loss rather than screaming in fear, which is a silent way of fighting. She goes to her "happy place," her dream of love. In March, the man drifter dies with his hands up in a defensive position. All of these tiny details reinforce the werewolf's strength and make it a more powerful monster. The humans fight back, but it doesn't do them any good.

Until he attacks wheelchair-bound Marty Coslaw (did anybody else continually see "Coleslaw" when they read that name?). Marty can't fight back in the physical sense, but he uses what he does have--the fireworks--to defend himself. Bam! Suddenly we have a hero in the book. And because that hero is an underdog, it's that much more powerful when he finally survives. It shows us that the werewolf has a weakness, that his strength has come from the element of shock and fear he used in his other attacks, and for whatever reason Marty was able to overcome that and triumph. I really loved this setup. Marty's attack does two things: helps him survive and helps him identify the werewolf, thus weakening him further. The fact that it's not a physical weakness doesn't matter. His element of surprise is gone the moment Marty identifies him, and that makes him beatable.

However, he's still a great monster. In fact, once I realized that the Reverend knew what he was and refused to do anything about it, I thought he was an even bigger monster. I couldn't empathize with him because he justified his actions by calling the townspeople animals. By saying that God would strike him down when he became too evil. This adds a whole other level of creepy to the story, because it's a very malicious way of thinking. Again, though, the creep factor and the fear factor isn't coming from the fights or killing themselves, but from the build up and psychological elements. This is a monster that can kill, yes, but it can also get under your skin while you wait to see who will die during the next full moon. That was my favorite part of this story. The way the monster got under everyone's skin.

I want to make a note about Stephen King's stories. This is the second I've read where the big hero was handicapped by today's standards. The first is Tom from The Stand (M-O-O-N, that spells Tom, one of my favorite literary characters EVER). And because those handicaps come with some degree of helplessness/innocence--who associates evil with a wheelchair-bound kid, right?--the fact that King pits them as the hero against these evil monsters makes his stories that much more dramatic. It almost emphasizes the evil, which makes his monsters stronger.

Rawhead Rex

Rawhead Rex is easily my favorite monster so far in this class. He’s a brutally mean destroyer who’s out for blood and carnage. But the best part is that he is undefined, especially when compared to other monsters we’ve read about. I Am Legend had vampires, The Funeral had witches and beasts, Breeding Ground had widow spiders—all of these are common, well-defined monsters. You say your character is a vampire, and every reader will instantly identify with that. Every reader will also bring their pre-conceived notions of that monster along with them, whether that means they instantly fear the beast or instantly laugh at it (I instantly laugh at zombies, for example). Rawhead Rex defies this principal. Barker introduces us to the monster simply by describing him physically, with the worm-filled hair and huge body, and—my favorite—the mouth that “splits the moon” when it opens and is filled with two sets of teeth. And at that first introduction, we see Rawhead rip off a scalp, bite off a head, and bury his enemy upside down in the ground. Pure evil. I read that and let all of my fears take over and fill in the blanks with Rawhead. I could picture him as a unique monster with all of this drool and blood lust, and that’s way more intense than any vampire, in my opinion.

While I thought that the ferocity of Rawhead carried through the book, and I never stopped loving the monster, there were a few things that kind of lessened his impact for me. For one, before he eats the pony, he’s watching Gwen and can’t eat her because of feminine issues. I get that he’s the male, phallic beast and feminine things stop him (the Venus rock did him in, after all), but the amount of time that female issues were mentioned on the page kind of grossed me out. I almost felt like Barker himself was trying to make some PMS joke, and it didn’t work. There were more graceful ways to pull this off, I think.

The other thing that bothered me in this story was Gwen’s second scene, when she’s trying to save her daughter. Rawhead Rex is nine feet tall…he can reach the second story of a building. Yet this woman carries her daughter upstairs, where she’s trapped, to protect her from a monster fully capable of tearing the house down. Some may argue that these were the actions of a desperate woman, but I read that and thought…how stupid could she be? At least for a few moments, Rawhead was distracted breaking through furniture, so why not try to sneak out through the other end of the house and escape unnoticed? That’s better than trapping yourself and basically feeding your daughter to the monster. I’m beginning to notice that a monster is only is good as the people it hunts, a villain is only good as the hero it faces. When rivals make stupid choices that make them easy to defeat, it takes away from the monster in the story. So, when Gwen did that, Rawhead lost something as a consequence. Of course, he regained all his macho-monster goodness when he continued on his killing spree. But for a moment, I was bored. (OK, maybe that just means I’m a sick individual, if I was bored with a monster trying to eat people.)

The other thing I love about Rawhead, though, is how he very much acts like a beast. His strength is in his innate ability to control people (think Declan) and to bite them in half. He’s no sly devil, like Randall Flagg. He’s pure power. And I felt that power on the page.

My final comment is this: even though this class focuses on the beasts, I can’t help but mention that sometimes fighting makes monsters out of men. Anyone else think Declan became a monster himself when he first talks about Rawhead? I mean, he smiles when he talks about how the beast eats children…that’s pretty monstrous, if you ask me.

Breeding Ground

I enjoyed a few elements of this story. The first person narration worked in the beginning, because it clearly showed the progression of the main character from oblivion to worry to panic to fear, and you knew enough about him to care what happened—at least at first. Once the monsters hit and he has to fight, and wimps out the majority of the time, I stopped enjoying it altogether. However, that has more to do with the type of protagonist I enjoy than the narration itself.

I also enjoyed the concept of this – all of the women becoming sick and decaying in front of the eyes of the men. That presented a kind of psychological element to the whole thing. Because you know the main character lives at least through the story in the book (he is alive in the prologue speaking of how he wrote this, after all), the stakes aren’t so much about his safety as they are his quality of life. We watch him break down as everything he hoped for and loved is taken from him. His girlfriend, Chloe, and the hope for a baby are snatched from him, and yet some part of him still holds on to that love. He cherishes his memories. I really enjoyed that. Until he ran away from her. Practical, yes. Romantic, no. Then the widows arrive, and it’s post-apocalyptic mayhem. I’m always a fan of end-of-the-world drama, because it’s normally very exciting. However, in the hands of this passive and less than impressive character, the post-apocalyptic stuff wasn’t what I expected.

Other elements that I thought really worked: the descriptions. So much of the tension in this story came from the way the world and Chloe and the widows were described. It was very clear prose that evoked very vivid images, in my opinion. And although the oblivion that Matthew experiences in the first few chapters seems ludicrous to me, it also rings true. I’m not sure if I would notice the state of the neighborhood until it started effecting me directly. That’s a scary thought in and of itself, because the most frightening aspect of what happened in this book is how easily it happened. It just snuck up on the world without a fight, and then it was just a “wait and see” game, like the doctor said. Everyone was helpless against it, and that’s my kind of monster. One where surviving requires beating the odds. At the same time, though, I wasn’t always on the edge of my seat, scared by the story. Not even in the beginning, before it’s clear that Matthew Edge is a coward.

After answering this week’s IPP, I got to thinking about the fear factor of this novel. What was it that made me think the monster was beautifully crafted but prevented me from really feeling the fear? I think it may be the structure of the novel itself. It starts off with a prologue that clearly shows us that the narrator was alive throughout the events in this text, since he wrote it after it happened. And the way he talks about Chloe in the opening chapter lets the reader know that she doesn’t make it, so there’s no reason to become attached to her character from the start. I think that lessens the emotional impact, thus lessening the fear. However, I’m not sure that changing the structure would change this, mostly because Pinborough may have lost something had she set the novel up any other way. The prologue serves as the hook that grabs the reader and pushes us to turn the page, even while the condition develops slowly in those early chapters. Removing the prologue and changing the structure may eliminate that hook. So, I’m not sure what could be done to restore that fear factor that comes with the unknown, with the uncertainty of whether or not the characters will survive.

I know a lot of this post is focused on the beginning of the book, but as I’m currently redrafting the beginning of my WIP, I learned the most from Breeding Ground’s opening, especially since that’s the part I enjoyed most. I wonder what other readers think of the structure and the way this novel starts.

The Funeral

There were several things I really enjoyed in The Funeral. For one, I really enjoyed Morton Silkline. He’s presented at first as a greedy but business-like man, and you can’t help but be amused at his less-than-proper mindset. He thinks of money, even when surrounded by death. And then, when the tables are turned on him and he realizes that he’s throwing a funeral for a supernatural, undead creature…his reaction is perfect. He passes out. But he still gains strength from the money he earns, so he stays true to his despicable character. So, at the end, I really enjoyed that he’s bringing in new undead clients and turning it into a business that both scares and pleases him. That he’d face these unnatural beings that find him ”tasty” just to earn a little bit of cash…well, I had a good laugh at that.

I also enjoyed the character interactions in this story. While in I Am Legend, the story starts off with the main character alone, this story starts off with characters meeting and reacting to one another. You see the internal and external actions of these characters and they engaged me more than Mattheson’s first story. Asper is a unique character in that he wants a better funeral to celebrate his undead state, and that premise really pulled me in. The second he stated that the funeral was for him, I was hooked. When the story progressed to the actual funeral, the character interactions really took off. Even though he doesn’t say much, Silkline’s actions speak louder than words, and the things that Ludwig Asper’s friends say and do inspired both fear and laughter. I could understand why Silkline was rigid in his seat, but I couldn’t help but laugh as a reader. Picturing the scene was kind of like watching Death at a Funeral, another comedy. Everything at the funeral goes wrong in the worst sort of way in both stories, and it garners laughter more than fear.

The crone was by far my favorite character, with her cat meowing and responding to her comments. I think I enjoyed her the most because while she is a witch with some stereotypical attributes, she adds flair to the group. She isn’t all morose and serious, like the Count and Asper. She isn’t a grunting beast, like the creature that left half-way through, and she isn’t as stereotypical as the hunchback who calls the vampires “master.” She manages to call Silkline a duck and a pretty boy all on one page, spark lightning without chanting any typical spells, and she doesn’t have your usual wart-covered face. So, I found her unique. And the fact that it wasn’t only vampires at the funeral adds a whole new dimension to the story. Usually it’s one type of being in a story, or at most two (Werewolves AND vampires), but the presence of multiple undead beings in one group of friends was entertaining.

The one thing I didn’t like was the language. While the formality struck me as appropriate for a funeral home—Silkline himself adapts a formal air when dealing with clients—at times it read as though Mattheson just went through a thesaurus to replace all the common words. So, at times I felt I was fighting with the words to follow the story. Descriptions weren’t always clear (Silkline’s eyes are both liver-colored and cinnamon on the first page, which creates two different images in my mind, one a dull brown and the other a bright one), and that kept me from seeing some aspects of the story. I’m not sure if this was a structure Mattheson used on purpose, or if it’s just his style of writing. Any thoughts on this? Any thoughts on why the language was so…over the top literary? Or is that just me? Maybe I was just reading too fast and missed something.

Edit: After scanning this story a second time, I thought the language added humor. I think that the first read through, which I did immediately after I Am Legend, really bothered me because it was so different from I Am Legend. I was prepared for more doom and gloom, straightforward language, and the switch was jarring. After a few days away from Mattheson, I was able to appreciate his word choices. The purple prose was enjoyable rather than jarring. Go figure...maybe that says more about my reading style than Mattheson's writing.