Текст книги "Monsters in the Movies "

Автор книги: Джон Лэндис

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Table of Contents

How to Use this eBook

Foreword

Introduction

Vampires

Vampires

In Conversation: Christopher Lee

Werewolves

Werewolves

An American Werewolf in London

In Conversation: Joe Dante

Mad Scientists

Mad Scientists

In Conversation: David Cronenberg

Zombies

Zombies

In Conversation: Sam Raimi

Ghosts

Ghosts

Mummies

Mummies

In Conversation: Guillermo Del Toro

Myths, Legends, & Fairy Tales

Myths, Legends, & Fairy Tales

In Conversation: Ray Harryhausen

Dragons & Dinosaurs

Dragons & Dinosaurs

Monstrous Apes

Monstrous Apes

In Conversation: Rick Baker

Nature’s Revenge

Nature’s Revenge

Atomic Mutations

Atomic Mutations

The Devil’s Work

The Devil’s Work

In Conversation: John Carpenter

Space Monsters

Space Monsters

Monstrous Machines

Monstrous Machines

Human Monsters

Human Monsters

The Monster Makers

Monster Makers

Monster Directors

Make-up Artists

Monster Designers

Stop-motion Animation

Matte Painting

Miniatures

Copyright

HOW TO USE THIS EBOOK

On devices with both portrait and landscape orientation, this book is best viewed in portrait orientation and with the type size set to minimum.

On touch screen devices, you can tap on any movies mentioned in the essays and conversations to go straight to that movie’s photograph and caption. If you double tap on any photograph, it can be enlarged.

The top of each screen features links to the chapter opener and to the table of contents.

FOREWORD

I busied myself to think of a story, which would speak to the mysterious fears of our nature and awaken thrilling horror. One to make the reader dread to look around, to curdle the blood, and quicken the beatings of the heart.

Mary Shelley, author of Frankenstein

Film as dream, film as music. No art passes our conscience in the way film does, and goes directly to our feelings, deep down into the dark rooms of our souls.

Ingmar Bergman, film director

Fantasy, horror, and science-fiction films are where most of the monsters in this book are to be found. These three genres have among the most ardent and faithful fans. Just Google “horror film websites” and see how many people are deeply passionate about this stuff.

There are many books about the movies, and like the movies, most of them are not that good. So I feel the need to clarify that this has been a labor of love and not a class assignment. This book is meant to be fun. It is not some heavy tome on the meaning of violence in the cinema, or a ponderous examination of film theory. This is a book with a lot of photographs of monsters in the movies. The films represented here are included not because they are necessarily good or bad films, but only because of the monsters that appear in them.

Even though this eBook is mostly photographic essays, included are some conversations with a few of my friends that will be of interest. I spoke with people who have made enormous contributions to the cinema, and in particular the cinema of monsters! Let me express my deep thanks and appreciation to Ray Harryhausen, Sir Christopher Lee, David Cronenberg, Rick Baker, Joe Dante, John Carpenter, and Sam Raimi for participating. You will be impressed by what these guys have to say.

Most of what is written here is from my memories of the films, with additional research at the Beverly Hills and Los Angeles Public Libraries, as well as the Internet for fact-checking names and dates. The Internet is an amazing source of information. It is an equally amazing source of misinformation, and often disinformation. The Internet allows literally anyone to say anything, which is a very sharp double-edged sword. Reading the Internet postings of some people, it is clear that the writers have issues far beyond whatever ignorant or hateful bile they are spewing forth. On the other hand, there are often thoughtful and fascinating insights to be found on the web (said the spider to the fly!).

I apologize for any factual errors (blame my editors for not catching them). However, I do take full responsibility for any opinions expressed. Just remember that the quality of anything is entirely subjective. Have a good time. I know I did.

Foreword[ Book Contents]

Michael Jackson’s Thriller  [John Landis, 1983]

Michael as a zombie in this all-talking, all-singing, all-dancing horror film.

Foreword[ Book Contents]

Triple-terror thrills 

A one-sheet poster advertising a triple feature showing of Frankenstein[1931], Dracula[1931], and The Wolf Man[1941]. In the late ’40s and early ’50s, actor and cowboy Glenn Strange (who played the Frankenstein monster in both House of Frankenstein[1944] and Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein[1948] would put on the costume and a rubber mask and, with other performers dressed as Dracula and the Wolf Man, rampage through the theater as the kids screamed with delight.

Boris Karloff and Mae Clarke in Frankenstein[James Whale, 1931].

INTRODUCTION

This guide is not meant to be an encyclopedia of every monster that has ever appeared in a movie. Nor is it my intention to write an exhaustive history of horror, fantasy, and science-fiction cinema. It is a pictorial overview of monsters from the movies that I have chosen. Most of the images come from The Kobal Collection; others come from friends who make monster movies.

My criteria for inclusion of a particular monster is simple: the illustrations in this volume are there because I think they are cool. Some have cultural and historic importance, some are terrifying, some are beautiful, some are repulsive, and many are just silly. Please remember my ambition is that of an entertainer, not of a scholar. You may learn quite a bit of useful and fairly esoteric information, but that is entirely up to you.

What is it about the movies that holds such power over the popular imagination? Although the medium itself is a relatively new one, pictures projected from strips of film to create moving images have had a massive impact on world culture. Hollywood movies and the international cinema have become the basis of what can only be described as our global mythology.

Montageis the juxtaposition of images to create a narrative. Even children, the first time they watch a film, instantly understand the concept of montage. When one is shown the outside of a building and then the characters inside it, the viewer understands this radical shifting of time and place at once. When we are presented with a close-up of a man looking out a window and then “Cut To” a car driving down the street, we do not have to be told that the car is what the man on screen is seeing (his “point of view”), we just know it. Human beings from around the world automatically accept and comprehend this film language.

Even more magically, when two characters are on screen and one says, “You drive the car, and I will take a bus. We will go to the airport and fly to Paris. There you will rent another car and I will take a taxi and we will meet at the Eiffel Tower in two days.” Then the screen CUTS TO: EXTERIOR EIFFEL TOWER—DAY and our two characters approach one another and shake hands. All we’ve been shown is the Eiffel Tower and our two characters, and we instantly know that it is two days later, that one drove a car to the airport and the other took a bus. We know they checked in, went through airport security, boarded the plane, flew to Paris, got off the plane, went through Passport Control, and that one rented a car while the other took a taxi, both driving to the Eiffel Tower.

I believe that people instinctively understand film language because it is exactly the way we dream. I am sure you have heard someone say that the dream they had last night, “was so vivid, so real, it was like a movie.” Exactly. Our dreams are “cinematic.” And when we dream, we often have nightmares. Since the cinema is the perfect medium to depict our dreams, the movies have always been an ideal way to show our nightmares. Our nightmares are often populated with monsters. And that is the subject of this guide: monsters in the movies.

The word “monster” comes from the Latin monstrum. “Monstrous” means a perversion of the natural order, usually biological. The word monster is associated with something that is wrong or sinister. A monster is either physically or mentally detestable, often an aberration in appearance and behavior. The word monster is generally associated with the concept of evil, both in thought and action. Normal-looking people who behave in reprehensible ways are also referred to as monsters.

Monsters are found in the legends and folklore of all nations. Monsters appear in the world’s religions and philosophies, and have always been well represented in works of art. From the earliest primitive cave paintings to today’s most sophisticated digital technology, humans continue to feel the need to create images of monsters.

Monsters are not always frightening or evil. The monsters of Pixar’s Monsters, Inc.[Pete Docter, Lee Unkrich, David Silverman, 2001] and certainly the title character in Harry and the Hendersons[William Dear, 1987] were charming and sweet. Even the most famous monster of them all, the Frankenstein Monster, as portrayed by Boris Karloff in Frankenstein[James Whale, 1931] is vulnerable and sympathetic. The one thing that most monsters have in common is their abnormal appearance; monsters are usually not considered conventionally beautiful. Monsters are often grotesque, and sometimes downright ugly.

Monsters are the physical embodiment of our fears. Humanity’s fears can be summed up in three words: injury, pain, and death.

People need an explanation, a reason, for why things happen. Not knowing the cause of an event is unacceptable to us. So humans have invented philosophies and religions to cope with and to try to explain the unknowable. No one truly knows what there is before we are alive, and what happens to us after we’ve died. Different cultures have created different answers. Most of these answers involve monsters. From the winged angels in the clouds above to the demons down below, the religious view is chock-a-block with fantastical beings.

Are we afraid of the dark? Or are we afraid of what is out there in the dark?

In the early days of the European exploration of our planet, men went to sea in ships to discover just what was out there beyond the horizon. Their maps and charts showed where they had been and what they knew of so far. The places people had not yet been were labeled on their maps and charts “Here Be Dragons.” This phrase meant that these places were unexplored and therefore unknown. And people consider the unknown dangerous. In medieval times, the blank areas of the map were filled with illustrations of sea serpents and dragons. These monsters are meant to warn us off, to scare us. However, what really scares us are not the sea serpents or dragons, but what they represent. The Unknown.

Introduction[ Book Contents]

Schlock  [John Landis, 1971]

The Author as the Schlockthropus. I was 21; the make-up artist Rick Baker was 20. The movie was shot in 12 days for $60,000.

Introduction[ Book Contents]

Harry and the Hendersons  [William Dear, 1987]

Kevin Peter Hall as Harry in another Academy-Award-winning make-up by Rick Baker.

Introduction[ Book Contents]

Dinosaurs

Young boys tend to love the giant beasts of prehistoric times. Almost every boy goes through his “fascination with dinosaurs stage.” Movies have exploited this fascination from the very earliest days of cinema to the present. And when we look at the stories and paintings of giant serpents and dragons throughout recorded history, it makes us wonder if there is a connection between the dragons of legend and the dinosaurs of the fossil record. No paleontologist has ever found evidence of a dinosaur that could blow flames from his mouth and nostrils, at least not yet. So where did that concept come from? Why did humans come up with these gigantic Thunder Lizards?

Countless sculptures and paintings show us Saint George slaying the dragon. In reality, very large alligators and crocodiles and Komodo dragons exist on land, and huge whales and giant squid inhabit the oceans. Could these be the animals that inspired the Hydra, the dragon guarding the Golden Fleece, or the monstrous Kraken who dragged ships down into the depths of the sea?

There is a theory that mastodon skulls, with their large holes in the center, were believed to be the skulls of giant Cyclops. If you came across the skull of a Tyrannosaurus Rex what conclusion would youcome to?

In One Million B.C.[Hal Roach, Hal Roach Jr,. 1940], and Hammer’s One Million Years B.C.[Don Chaffey, 1966] humans are shown living during the same time as the dinosaurs. The fossil record tells us that this cannot be true. But some believe that there is a dinosaur alive now in Scotland—the Loch Ness Monster. People are convinced there are Lake Monsters living in Africa and China. We desperately want to coexist with dinosaurs—a desire exploited by Michael Crichton, who wrote the novel and then the screenplay Jurassic Park[Steven Spielberg, 1993], in which scientists clone living dinosaurs from DNA samples of dinosaur blood taken from mosquitoes trapped in amber millions of years ago! In much the same way as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Professor Challenger made the treacherous journey to The Lost Worldto prove that dinosaurs still lived on a plateau in the Amazon, we all seem to be prepared to go to great lengths to be with dinosaurs.

Three ways to make dinosaurs in the movies.

Introduction[ Book Contents]

One Million B.C.  [Hal Roach, Hal Roach, Jr., 1940]

Tumak (Victor Mature) protects Loana (Carole Landis) from a superimposed iguana.

Introduction[ Book Contents]

One Million Years B.C.  [Don Chaffey, 1966]

In the remake, Tumak (John Richardson) protects a little cave-girl from Ray Harryhausen’s stop-motion allosaurus.

Introduction[ Book Contents]

Jurassic Park  [Steven Spielberg, 1993]

Effects artist Stan Winston’s full size audio-animatronic T. Rex in Jurassic Park. Jurassic Parkalso made extensive use of CG dinosaurs. (CGI or CG is the abbreviation used for Computer Generated Images, or computer animation.)

Introduction[ Book Contents]

Man is not meant to know

The fear of science is behind many of our greatest monsters. “There are some things man is not meant to know,” is a line from many movies in which someone pays the price for tampering with “God’s work.” The classic “mad scientist” is Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. Her revolutionary novel is titled Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus[1818].

In Greek mythology, Prometheus the Titan stole fire from the Gods of Mount Olympus and gave it to us mortals. To punish Prometheus, Zeus had him chained to a rock where a giant eagle would come every day, rip out his liver, and eat it in front of him. According to Zeus’s curse, Prometheus’s liver grew back every night so that the eagle could tear it out again the next day, and the next, for all eternity. With Prometheus’s gift, the human race could now cook their food and warm their homes and fend off wild beasts of prey. But ask Prometheus; was it worth it? Ask Dr. Frankenstein, or Dr. Jekyll, or Dr. Moreau, or Dr. Morbius and all the other doctors, professors, and scientists who have dared to explore the unknown in the movies.

Introduction[ Book Contents]

Vampires

Vampires have never gone out of style. Bram Stoker’s 1897 novel Draculacreated one of the most popular monsters in literary and film history. There are more movies in which the character Dracula appears than any other real or fictional person. Actors diverse as Béla Lugosi, Carlos Villarías, Christopher Lee, John Carradine, Louis Jourdan, Frank Langella, Leslie Nielsen, George Hamilton, Udo Kier, Jack Palance, John Forbes-Robertson, Francis Lederer, Charles Macaulay, Klaus Kinski, and Gary Oldman have all portrayed Dracula. And Dracula’s bitter foe Dr. Van Helsing has been played by actors as varied as Edward Van Sloan, Laurence Olivier, Peter Cushing, Anthony Hopkins, Hugh Jackman, and Mel Brooks!

Vampires drink human blood. They sleep in their coffins during the day. Like so much of what we believe is ancient folklore, authors and screenwriters invented most of what is now accepted to be vampire behavior. The rules change from book to book, movie to movie. Stake through the heart? Check. Afraid of a crucifix? Sure. Can’t stand garlic? Okay. Cannot enter a room unless invited in? Really? Cannot be in direct sunlight? Have no reflection in a mirror? Well, the rules all depend on which movie you’re watching.

What is well known is that male vampires are often sexy. From Lugosi’s matinée-idol Dracula, to Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise’s bloodsucking heartthrobs in Interview With the Vampire[Neil Jordan, 1994] to Robert Pattinson’s pale teenage idol in Twilight[Catherine Hardwicke, 2008], male vampires continue to make the hearts of women beat faster.

The movies have shown us that female vampires can also be very sexy. Actress Theda Bara was one of Hollywood’s first sex symbols and the femme fataleroles she played earned her the nickname of “The Vamp.” Elsa Martinelli and Annette Vadim were the gorgeous vampires of Blood and Roses[Roger Vadim,1960], which was based on the scandalous “lesbian novel” Carmillaby J. Sheridan Le Fanu. Carmillawas also the inspiration for The Vampire Lovers[Roy Ward Baker, 1970] with the voluptuous Ingrid Pitt. Beautiful actresses continue to portray vampires—Sadie Frost in Bram Stoker’s Dracula[Francis Ford Coppola, 1992], Anne Parillaud in Innocent Blood[John Landis, 1992], and no doubt will continue to do so far into the future. We all know the effect beautiful women have on men that also involves blood flow.

Perhaps the most interesting aspect of vampires in film is their bisexuality. When Christopher Lee bites down on the neck of his female victims, they always “swoon.” What happens when he sinks his fangs into a man? In The Fearless Vampire Killers[Roman Polanski, 1967] a very camp, blond, gay vampire has his eyes on Professor Abronsius’ assistant Alfred (Roman Polanski). Lesbian vampires are a genre unto themselves. In Bram Stoker’s Dracula, when Mina says, “Come kiss me, Lucy,” she is not just being affectionate. Since the early 1980s, the AIDS crisis has helped bring about a vampire revival in the movies, there being an obvious parallel between vampirism and an illness spread by the exchange of bodily fluids.

Introduction[ Book Contents]

A Fool There Was  [Frank Powell, 1915]

Theda Bara poses as a “vamp” in a publicity shot for A Fool There Was.

Introduction[ Book Contents]

Blood and Roses  [Roger Vadim, 1960]

One more movie based on Le Fanu’s Carmilla. Vadim’s film features the gorgeous Annette Vadim as Carmilla and the equally gorgeous Elsa Martinelli as her victim.

Introduction[ Book Contents]

The Fearless Vampire Killers  [aka Dance of the Vampires, Roman Polanski, 1967]

Count von Krolock (Ferdy Mayne) abducts Sarah Shagal (Sharon Tate) from her bath in Polanski’s vampire romp.

Introduction[ Book Contents]

Werewolves

The rules of werewolf movies are just as elastic as those of vampire films and often change movie to movie. In Stoker’s book, Dracula can change himself into a wolf at will, but Larry Talbot in Universal’s The Wolf Man[George Waggner, 1941] cannot control his transformation and unwillingly turns into a werewolf on the night of a full moon. Lon Chaney, Jr. played the unfortunate Mr. Talbot in five movies for Universal and always walks upright on two legs as the Wolf Man. In An American Werewolf in London[John Landis,1981] David Naughton’s werewolf rampages through Piccadilly Circus on all fours. In I Was a Teenage Werewolf[Gene Fowler Jr., 1957] troubled teen Tony Rivers (Michael Landon) is given “hypnotherapy” and “Scopolamine” injections by mad Dr. Alfred Brandon (Whit Bissell) to bring him back to a “pre-evolution state.” How this would be helpful, or why a “pre-evolution state” would be a werewolf is never explained. Anyway, Rivers becomes a werewolf at the sound of a bell! Wait a minute; Rivers turns into a werewolf when he hears a bell? Once again, how one becomes a werewolf depends on which picture you happen to be watching. A gypsy’s curse, a werewolf’s bite, being born on a certain date, or being the offspring of a rape may make you a werewolf. For all these reasons, the ancient poem rings true:

Even a man who is pure in heart

And says his prayers by night

May become a wolf when the wolfbane blooms and the autumn moon is bright.

This “ancient poem” was actually written in 1941 in Hollywood by Curt Siodmak for his screenplay The Wolf Manfor Universal Studios. This is how ancient legends are born.