Book review: Witch World

I am about to reach my NaNoWriMo word-count goal for the weekend of 34,000 words—which means I have added 10,000 words over Friday and Saturday. So let me take a breather before the last 1,600 word dash for tonight and give you a book review. A review of the sort of book that helps me focus on what I want to achieve in my writing.

Witch World
Andre Norton (Ace, 1963)

Andre Norton (born Alice Norton) is one the great masters of the Young Adult science-fiction novel, or as it was termed when she was first publishing, “juveniles.” But like Robert A. Heinlein, the other great in this field during the 1950s, nothing about her novels was “juevnile” in a derogatory sense. These books have just as much appeal to adults as they do to the teenage boys to whom they were initially marketed. Where Heinlein often wrote about younger main characters, and put his books in a milieu that highlighted politics, technology, and society, Norton wrote straight-forward adventure tales, usually starring tough loners male figures.

Norton had a long and prolific career, the sort that makes even highly successful authors feel blocked and embarassed. Sucessful speculative fiction writer C. J. Cherryh once remarked: “I've seen a complete collection of Andre Norton’s books, and it haunts me to this day, sort of like the sight of an unscalable Everest.” In the last decade of her life, Norton principally worked on collaborations with other authors such as Mercedes Lackey, Lyn McConchie, and Sherwood Smith. Norton died in 2005, and the recent dearth of titles from her on the bookstore shelves is due to the legal wrangling over her estate, which comprises a the massive number of volumes. According to her official website, the legal issues were finally settled in March of this year, and many of her books should start reappearing in book stores.

I love Andre Norton’s science-fiction novels, especially her early ones written in the ‘50s. They seem to me the quintessential space adventure tales. They lack pretensiousness or irony, and instread chart a path with great story filled with constant action and drama. The early novels in the ingenious “Time Traders” series (The Time Traders, Galactic Derelict, The Defiant Agents, Key Out of Time) and the “Solar Queen” series (Sargasso of Space, Plague Ship) remain thrilling works today that I would re-read at a moment’s notice. Other personal favorites are The Zero Stone (a later book, from 1968), and Star Rangers, where Norton reworks Xenophon’s Anabasis (a.k.a. The Persian Expedition or The March Upcountry) into a great SF military adventure. It’s interesting to compare this to Heinlein’s 1955 juvenile, Tunnel in the Sky, published two years after Norton’s book, which features a similar “expedition trapped on an alien world”—but takes an entirely different approach to the material.

But I must shame-facedly admit that I have never enjoyed Norton’s fantasy as much as her science-fiction. In particular, her most famous series, “The Witch World,” has never absorbed me like the pure science-fiction novels do. The first time I read Witch World, the inaugural title of the long-running series that she worked on for the rest of her life, I felt disappointed. I had not read many of her other novels at that point, and might not have read any more if it wasn’t for a recommendation to read Zero Stone, which hooked me on Norton for good. This month, while pounding away at writing my own “juvenile,” I decided to return to the starting point and look over the first book of the Witch World once more and see if my further reading of Norton has altered my view.

I appreicate Witch World more now… but it’s still not a favorite of mine among her books.

Witch World was first published by Ace in 1963. Aside from beginning the series of adventures in the fantasy dimension of magic-wielding women, it also started a sequence within the series, known as the “Estcarp Cycle,” after the nation of witches that form its core. The book that immediately followed it, Web of the Witch World (1964), continued the story with main character Simon Tregarth, while 1965’s Year of the Unicorn would switch to another part of the setting and start “The High Halleck Cycle.” Tregarth’s children would pick up the Estcarp Cycle and continue it through many more volumes.

Witch World uses a classic example of the trope of the “displaced modern” who enters into a fantasy world. Many early fantasy novels used this device to explain the existence of their strange land. The most well-known example of this is in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C. S. Lewis. But the hero of Norton’s novel could not be more removed from Lewis’s quartet of innocent British children. Simon Tregath is a former military man who fell into black-market affairs (apprently unintentionally) and was discharged. When the story begins, unspecified dealings have marked him for death. Norton crafts opening pages that feel like a John le Carré thriller, with a hunted man slouching through European back alleys, watching out for the killers he knows will come for him.

And then… Arthurian legendry enters the story. A mysterious Dr. Petronius approached Tregarth with and offer of permanent escape. The “Siege Perilous,” a gateway to other dimensions borrowed from the Arthurian cycle, will take Simon Tregarth permanently to another world, one where a man like him will be most at home. Simon has little choice, and the lure of adventure would never let him refuse, so he passes through the Siege Perilous and into the Witch World… and immediately into danger as he rescues one of the magic-wielding females from the men hunting her. (The witch keeps her name a secret from Tregarth until the end, an excellent character touch.) Simon transitions to the new world of adventure rapidly as he joins the witches and people of the nation of Estcarp in their struggle against the bizarre Kolder, who have gained a hold on the continent through the conquest of the island of Gorm.

Witch World moves fast. Too fast, sometimes, which is the main reason I have never fully fallen for its spell. The books becomes most intriguing when it starts to border into science-fantasy. Simon Tregarth uncovers evidence of technology that the Kolder use to make their slaves, and that the Kolder are dimensional visitors like him. Simon’s period trapped on Gorm and his escape are the novel’s most gripping, since they start to unveil secrets hidden behind the people of Kolder. Also excellent is an early battle when Estcarp helps its ally of the traders Sulcarkeep against on onslaught of the Kolder, and which builds to a nihilistic and exciting conclusion.

But too often, the writing in Witch World moves along so fast that it’s easy to miss transitions, and important information often flies right past. Readers might assume that Witch World is a breezy fantasy adventure like many on the shelves today, but it’s quite dense with plot and intra-world politics, and anyone who reads it should know that the straight-forward prose does not mean a simplistic story. The rapid plot movements can cause a reader to get lost at a moment’s notice, often over the space of a single page—and consquently start to lose interest in the novel’s story. This happened to me the first time I read the book. This second time reading it, I got deeper into Norton’s setting, but I still found the hop-skip-and-jump from plot point to plot point frustrating. Sometimes I wished I could ask Norton to please slow down and let me savor some of the fortresses, battle planning, and matriarchial society of Estcarp.

Norton also structures the novel in a way so that “Part II: Venture of Verlaine,” interrupts the build of the action with Simon Tregarth and the defense of Sulcarkeep. The action switched to the character of Loyse, daughter of Fulk of Verlaine. This plot strand eventually reunites with the previous story, but it’s too much of a pause in the action—and Loyse as a character never rises to such importance again in the rest of the story as her dominance in this part would seem to indicate.

I plan to move on to read the follow-up, Web of the Witch World, because unlike the first time I assayed reading Witch World, I feel much more intrigued with the setting and future battles of Simon Tregarth and the people of Estcarp against the mystery of the Kolder.

With the legal affairs of the estate settled, a Witch World movie seems a possibility. Despite some of my reservations about the book, I think it would make a fresh fantasy movie among some of the tired and YA-oriented affairs the studios have trotted over over the last four years. The estate also wants to make sure that any adaptation of the the “Witch World” setting avoids the full junking of Norton’s source material that occured with Beastmaster. Whatever you may think of that movie (I have an affection for it), it had very little connection to Norton’s science-fiction novel from which it took its name.

NaNoWriMo 2009: Week 1

Midnight tonight brings an end to the first week of National Novel Writing Month 2009, the first 168 hours of novel writing. To keep pace for making 50,000 words by midnight on the 30th, writers should have reached 11,669 words by the end of today. Chris Baty, founder of NaNoWriMo, posted a video at the website urging everyone to push to get to 15,000 by the end of Monday. A good sentiment; I wish the video weren’t so freakin’ embarrassing to watch. Seriously, Chris, an Ewok? You think an Ewok will inspire people? BRING ON GODZILLA! Now that’s inspiration.

Me? I’m at a touch over 30,000 words. This puts me on pace for most of the first drafts I’ve written, including the book for NaNoWriMo last year. I’m a touch ahead from last year, but that’s because I took a day off from writing anything during the first week of last year’s NaNoWriMo, and I’ve written every day this year so far.

Observations on the first week? Is it different than last year? It’s a new novel, a different world, so that’s quite different, of course. I’m doing freelance and tutor work instead of doing a day job, so that alters everything. And I went in with less planning on the novel than last year, so I feel my work this year is a bit “wobblier,” but I don’t have a fear that what I’m writing is unsalvageable garbage. I won’t really have a good opinion of it until I read through it a month after I finish it. But so far, it seems close to what I anticipated it might be. Even though it looks like I’m writing in a fast delerium, I do take care as I write, use the backspace, make minor edits, and try not to simply pound out random thoughts when I get stuck. That works for some people, but I do need my first draft to feel cohesive, if not necessarily “good.” My high word count comes not from speed, but from training myself over years of writing to simply sit down and just write and not get up until I’ve put in the promised time. In some parts of my life, I’m not very disciplined, but when it comes to writing, I’m fierce about it.

Once I finish this “Weekend of 10,000 words” I’ll drop down to shorter amounts during the workweek… but if I have my pattern properly marked out, I should make it to 50,000 words on Sunday the fifteenth. However, I can already see that the book will go to around 75,000 words, so I’m in for the full month haul like last year. I think 75,000 is my magic first draft number. It seems the right start for a Young Adult novel.

Movie review: Godzilla Raids Again

I’ve gained enough momentum on my National Novel Writing Month Book, reaching 21,607 words today, that I thought I could throw a review at you. And it’s been far too long since I reviewed a Japanese special effects film.

Godzilla Raids Again (1955)
Original U.S. title: Gigantis the Fire Monster (1959)
Directed by Motoyoshi Oda. Starring Hiroshi Koizumi, Setsuko Wakayama, Yukio Kazama, Minoru Chiaki, Takashi Shimura, Yoshio Tsuchiya, Haruo Nakajima.

Godzilla Raids Again is the first sequel to Godzilla (1954), the film that gave Japan a new genre and the world a new iconic monster. Chances are good that, unless you’re a fan of Japanese cinema, you haven’t heard of it—or at least, not under the name. Usually, the second installment in a long-running series is one of the best-known, but that isn’t the case with Godzilla Raids Again. Although it is an inferior film to the first by a substantial margin, its obscurity has more to do with the way it was released in the U.S. in 1959 than with its substandard quality. After all, Godzilla vs. Megalon is atrocious, and it’s one of the most widely seen of all Godzilla films. (Unfortunately.)

Paul Schreibman, the producer of the U.S. version of Godzilla Raids Again, decided to re-title the film Gigantis: The Fire Monster. Not only did Godzilla lose his name on the marquee, but the dubbing stole it away from him as well, changing the film from a sequel to a “new” movie with a “new” monster. Schreibman misjudged the possible box-office appeal of the name “Godzilla” (and, to be fair, the monster only had a single film to his credit at the time) and tried to pass this off as a different monster. It was poor decision, as evidenced by the general anonymity of this film among the public. Not until 2006 did Godzilla get his name back on the film, when Classic Media released a DVD of both the original Japanese and Americanized versions. They even digitally added the title Godzilla Raids Again over the spot where Gigantis: The Fire Monster had appeared on the American version… although the dubbing still insists on calling the creature “Gigantis.”

Godzilla Raids Again (Japanese title: Gojira No Gyakushu, literally “Revenge of Godzilla” or “Godzilla’s Counter-attack”) went through a strange process toward turning into Gigantis: The Fire Monster, but for the moment I want to spend time on the original Japanese film. It’s no favorite of mine; I doubt that many G-Fans consider it with high regard. Toho Studios created the movie speedily and with less money than the original film, and it reached theaters only six months after the first. The speed with which the film was made damages it: even though there is some superb VFX work from Eiji Tsubaraya and his team, fresh from Godzilla, the movie lacks passion and a reason to exist aside from cashing in quick on the first movie’s success. The nuclear metaphor of Godzilla gets toned down, and the human fringe of the tale is trite and uninvolved in the monster-happenings.

The rushed production schedule also meant that a key figure in the success of the original Godzilla would not be available, director Ishiro Honda, who was already busy directing Love Tide for the studio. Honda had brought immense personal vision and earnestness to the first film. Journeyman director Motoyoshi Oda, who took the director’s chair for Godzilla Raids Again, lacked any sort of personal investment in the film. He handles the direction with the same blandness as if it were any other assignment from his undistinguished career.

Also missing from the credits is composer Akira Ifukube. His replacement is one of the great film composers in Japanese cinema, Masaru Sato, but his score here is unmemorable; he was still early in his career, and remarked in later life that the score to this film sounded like “a kid trying to learn.” He would later do some great work for the Godzilla series, such as the groove of Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla and the tropical fun of Son of Godzilla, but here his work brings little to a film that needs a shot of energy.

The monster plot of the story is easily summed-up, and requires almost no reference to the main characters in the human story. Another Godzilla (again played by stuntman Haruo Nakajima), belonging to the same species as the one that perished in Tokyo Bay in the previous movie, is sighted on an island near Japan, fighting with another huge prehistoric monster, a spiky-carapace creature related to the Ankylosaurus called “Anguirus.”
Godzilla heads toward Osaka, which braces for an attack. The military, after consulting with scientists who feel there is no hope for halting Godzilla’s attack, uses flares to distract Godzilla away from the populated port city. But three convicts escaping from a paddy wagon (a whole sequence that seems to be dialing in from another movie) drive a gas tanker into a petroleum plant, igniting an explosion that lures Godzilla back to shore.

As Godzilla makes landfall, so does Anguirus, and the two monsters commence their titanic tussle while leveling the center of the city—including its beautiful feudal castle. Godzilla kills Anguirus with a vicious bite to the neck and then roasts the corpses with his radioactive breath. Satisfied with the victory, Godzilla wades back out to sea, leaving Osaka a smoking ruin... although a much less impressive ruin than the wreckage of Tokyo in Godzilla.

The monster moves toward the northern island of Hokkaido, and Japanese Self-Defense Force Jets attacks him on a snow-covered islet with high peaks. Unable to destroy him directly, they uses missiles to cause an avalanches of ice, which eventually buries Godzilla in a deep freeze, immobilizing him until the next movie.

The main appeal of Godzilla Raids Again is the battle between Godzilla and Anguirus, the first fight between two monsters in the history of Japanese kaiju (giant monster) movies. Anguirus turned into one of the most popular supporting monsters in the series, although in its later appearances it was usually Godzilla’s pal, as in Godzilla vs. Gigan. Anguirus was often anglicized as “Angilas,” which must sound more “reptilian” to English ears. “Anguirus” is meant to have a phonetic similarity to the Japanese pronunciation of Ankylosaurus.
The fight is staged in an animalistic fashion different from the later anthropomorphized battles in the series. Godzilla and Anguirus fly at each other in fast-moving fury of biting and clawing. At one point, the fight goes into hyper-motion, apparently a mistake by an inexperienced effects cameraman who set his camera at a lower speed, but it ends up working surprisingly well as it comes as such a shock when the creatures seem to go fully ballistic. Effects master Eiji Tsubaraya comes up with some ingenious camera angles to film the fight, and the opticals mixing fleeing people with the destruction give a great sense of the monsters’ size. There’s one great effects shot of the fleeing convicts consumed with water rushing into a train station tunnel that’s almost seamless. The model of Osaka Castle is the most impressive miniature in the movie, and the animated shots of it starting to crack before Godzilla smashes Anguirus into for the huge smack-up build great tension as the fight reaches its climax. The castle demolition must have inspired Tsubaraya, since he knocks down feudal castle in the next two films, King Kong vs. Godzilla and Mothra vs. Godzilla. (If you wish to see the castle as it was rebuilt in the decade after the monsters destroyed it, click here. The restorationists did a great job.)

The avalanche attack on Godzilla at the end is almost as impressive in the effects work, although it doesn’t have the same action rush. It’s one of the most creative way of destroying a giant monster to appear in any film of the genre, and Godzilla composed against the massive ice-crusted cliffs makes for a number of stunning shots. It’s unfortunate that the screenplay paces the attack in a way that it breaks in the middle while everyone goes back to base to re-load their planes. The build of the suspense gets hacked down here right when it seems ready to peak.

The human story is soap opera piffle about the employees of a fishing company in Osaka whose lives keep intersecting in unbelievable ways with the monster affair. Our heroes Tsukioka (Hiromi Koizumi) and Kobayashi (Minoru Chiaki) pilot planes to spot schools of fish to guide the company’s trawlers. It makes sense that two pilots might find themselves on a island where the monsters will appear, but after their discovery they don’t have much else to do with the story. In other movies, they would be minor characters used to introduce the monsters, and the focus would then shift to the scientists and military men who have to stop the titanic dangers. But after a debriefing scene—which contains the only appearance of a character from the first movie, Dr. Yamane (Takashi Shimura)—Kobayashi, Tsukioka, Tsukioka’s girlfriend Hidemi (Setsuko Wakayama), and the other employees at Kaiyo Fishing Industries continue to hang around through contrivance. For example, after the massive wreck in Osaka, the company decides to send the main characters north to Hokkaido—so they just happen to get in the way of Godzilla’s movements. They also have a few good laughs standing in the demolished office in a leveled city, which feels wrong on many levels.

Most of the human interaction is dull. If it sometimes seems somber, that’s probably just the fault of the pacing, quiet soundtrack, and gloomy black and white photography. (This was the last Godzilla film shot in B&W.) After the move to Hokkaido, the movie almost grinds to a complete halt for a ten-minute scene of a dinner party at a restaurant and Kobayashi looking for love. The supposed “sacrifice” of Kobayashi during the final strafing run on Godzilla is supposed to be the movie’s emotional capper, but Kobayashi only dies in a foolhardy accident, and that the Japanese Self-Defense Force gets the idea for the avalanche from his crash is also an accident and nothing Kobayashi planned. Tsukioka’s final words to his dead friend after Godzilla’s icy burial is the only moving moment to come out of this character death.
The other human moment that stands out among the humdrum soap suds is Hidemi watching the city of Osaka burn from her hilltop house. The matte painting of the flaming city, made to resemble a mushroom cloud, is beautifully grim, and we can imagine what thoughts are going through Hidemi’s head knowing that her beloved is down there among the horrors—and as someone who probably lost friends and family in the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It’s a brief moment where Godzilla Raids Again embraces the nuclear metaphor that made the first film so memorable. The film needs much more of this, and fewer jokes about match-making.

However, it’s always a pleasure to see one of Toho’s great science-fiction faces pop up: Yoshio Tsuchiya, also a favorite of director Akira Kurosawa, appears as a member of the Self-Defense Force who pilots the final attack on Godzilla. Tsuchiya appeared in a number of Godzilla films, most notably as the Controller of Planet X in Invasion of Astro Monster, a.k.a. Monster Zero (1965), and the saurian-worshipping war veteran in Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah (1991).

So what happened with the U.S. release that stole away Godzilla’s name and dropped the film into the Cavern of Fandom Obscurity?

Stateside, a group of financiers, many of whom had bought the rights to the first Godzilla film, purchased Godzilla Raids Again and then made a deal with a fledging production company, AB-PT, to re-craft the movie with new footage into a film called The Volcano Monsters. Only the special-effects would remain from the Japanese film, and a new story with U.S. actors would get shot around it. Danish author Ib Melchior, later director of Angry Red Planet, and Edwin Watson authored a screenplay to fit with the existing monster footage, and Toho even sent an Anguirus and Godzilla suit to Hollywood so the crew could shoot a few new effects. The Volanco Monsters came very close to production, but AB-PT’s backers pulled out of the enterprise after releasing only two films, the company closed down and The Volcano Monsters went into limbo. The surviving script shows that it might have been interesting watching how the U.S. movie would use the Japanese effects within a new story, but I’m not heavily mourning the loss.
Godzilla Raids Again was again on the international market, and in 1958 it was purchased by Paul Schreibman, Edmund Goldman, and Newton P. Jacobs. They made a deal with Warner Bros. for distribution in a package with the classic Mystery Science Theater 3000 movie Teenagers from Outer Space. The new owners made no attempt to do a re-haul in the manner of The Volcano Monsters; instead Schreibman settled for a cheaper route, but one that ended up radically altering the film. The film was dubbed at Ryder Sound Services with a script overseen by Hugo Grimaldi that contains unintentionally hilarious lines (such as the infamous “Banana oil!”) and nonstop narration from Kobayashi (voiced by Keye Luke) that is literally a play-by-play of the action. Most of Sato’s music was excised, and a wall-to-wall score of library music was laid down to make the film seem more urgent. Schreibman also dumped enormous amounts of stock footage into the film to up the action quotient.

The result is a ludicrously funny B-picture, and it leaves no doubt as to why people ignored the film on its original release. Although ostensibly altered less than Godzilla was when it was Americanized as Godzilla, King of the Monsters, Gigantis: The Fire Monster actually retains far less of the spirit of its original. It even robbed its star, Godzilla, of his name! But it does merit watching for its weird amusement. A number of famous voice-over artists lend their talents to the film, including Marvin Miller, the aforementioned Keye Luke, future Star Trek legend George Takei, and the ubiquitous Paul Frees. But all of them turn in hammy, cartoony performances, probably at Grimaldi’s insistence, and the delivery of the already ludicrous lines only amps up the camp value. Especially entertaining is the film that Dr. Yamane shows to the council of generals and scientists to explain the threat of Godzilla. In the original Japanese movie, the footage is from Godzilla’s rampage in the first movie, played silent except for the eerie sound of the projector. It fits with the quieter and gloomier tone of the film, and even if it isn’t that exciting (thanks, I’ve seen Godzilla) it does make an impression. The version of this scene Gigantis: The Fire Monster contains constant music, redundant explanations from the person voicing Yamane, and best of all, horrendous extra footage from children’s educational movies explaining the looniest theory of the development of the Earth ever foisted onto a ‘50s SF flick.

The DVD from Classic Media contains both the Japanese original and Gigantis: The Fire Monster on the same side, with commentary from Steve Ryfle available on the U.S. version. Ryfle’s commentary is both insightful and frequently hilarious when he goes into the screwy changes made to the U.S. version.

I enjoy Godzilla Raids Again more than I once did. I had never seen the U.S. version on television when I was a kid—it was almost a lost film after the early ‘60s, with its owners never making much effort to sell it to TV—so my first viewing was of the Japanese film on imported DVDs. Since it can’t hold up to the film the preceded it, it never excited my interest… and that feeling is widespread among kaiju fandom. But seeing it a few more times, and comparing it to the craziness of Gigantis: The Fire Monster, has given me a greater appreciation for what does work in the movie: the special effects. Once I manuever around the bland state of the rest of the movie, I can thrill to the two big set pieces of Godzilla vs. Anguirus and the avalanche assault, both of which have some jaw-dropping visuals. Even the U.S. hack-job can’t mess this up, not even with the unnecessary music and Anguirus’s roar stuck in Godzilla’s mouth.

But my greater fan appreciation still can’t make me think that Godzilla Raids Again is anything but the weakest of the first six Godzilla films… and appropriately, it’s the only of the first six without director Ishiro Honda. One one side of it is the bleak masterpiece of Godzilla, and on the other the colorful thrills of the full-blooded Japanese kaiju phenomenon. Poor middle child, the Fire Monster.

Novel-boosting movie scenes

First off, I crossed the 10,000 word-mark today for National Novel Writing Month, making for a great two-day start. I anticipate a busy week, so I wanted a strong head of steam going in. In general, a book goes better if I can get momentum worked up at the beginning, instead of having to fight to get it later. Unfortunately, I can’t show you the actual progress with a word-count widget on this blog yet, because the tech people at NaNoWriMo haven’t activated them yet because they have to deal with the most insane surge in site hits and sign-ups the event has ever experienced. I do hope that they’ll finally be able to turn the widgets on tomorrow—I really miss having the progress report glaring at me from on my website.

And, believe it or not, I have a Black Gate post for you today. It has a connection with NaNoWriMo, but without specific a mention. I’ve provided a list of my favorite movie scenes that I use for “inspiration” when it comes to writing a novel. Not necessarily story inspiration, just “get to it” inspiration. The Road Warrior contains ones of these scenes, as you might guess from the picture. (And you thought I would actually review The Road Warrior? A favorite film, but I think most of what can be said about it has been said. It’s the rare film that I love, but which I don’t feel like discussing at great length.)

Happy Halloween… and November begins

October 31st has taken on a great double significance for me in the last two years.

First, the obvious: it’s Halloween. And even if it doesn’t always fall on a weekend night like this year and last year, it’s still my favorite single day of the year. It’s a holiday made for speculative fiction writers and readers, a day about the concept of “fantasy.” And it has the greatest decor and color scheme of any holiday.

Second, at midnight, it becomes National Novel Writing Month. Most of the writers in the event start at the stroke of twelve, or as close as they can manage after the clock strikes midnight. There’s a shivery anticipation during the whole day leading up to the moment when the novel writing starts.

I’m going to a party tonight in the valley, so I don’t know if I’ll be back home to start writing at midnight, but I will start as soon as I get home and can pull off my Nazgûl costume. I would love to write in costume, but the tatters of the outfit would get in the way. And the black-fabric mask. (I must have this obsession this year with Halloween costumes where I can’t see very well.) I’ll plow on for a few hours into the night, getting a good head-start on the thirty days.
My novel for this year was planned quite late, but it’s set in Ahn-Tarqa, so the background already exists from a year of development, and the novel’s plot comes out of events in a short story I wrote in September. The outline that I finished yesterday feels strong, and I finally bequeathed the novel a working title that I like. (For the last ten days, it had the thrilling title of Ahn-Tarqa Novel.)

My blogging during November will probably be sporadic, as I’ll be putting most of my available free time away from actual paying work writing the novel. There won’t be much opportunity for reviews, and even my free-time reading suffers. I will post updates about NaNoWriMo, and the widget at the right will keep track of my word-count total. (At the moment, it hasn’t activated—NaNoWriMo headquarters have been slow about getting this to work.)

Happy Halloween, everybody. If you aren’t doing NaNoWriMo, go watch your favorite horror movie at midnight and forget that the mundane world exists for a span—so you and I will be in the same place.

Rorschach never compromises at Halloween parties

Really, I don’t have to add anything after the photo, do I?

Okay, I guess I have to. Tonight (or last night, it’s early morning right now) was the annual Haunted Halloween Ball at LindyGroove, for the past five years the best Halloween party I attend each year. I had my Rorschach costume on from the graphic novel and movie Watchmen. Most people knew who I was, although I got a few “Invisible Man” comments. Oh well. Not a bad idea for next year, maybe.

The people in Silk Specter and Dr. Manhattan costumes were happy accidents, not planned. The three of us ended up in the finals for the best costume. We didn’t win, but it’s the fourth year in a row getting into the costume contest for me, and considering the incredible outfits at this party, I feel pretty proud about that.

Here are some other photos from the night. And yes, it is me under that mask and heavy coat and scarf.

One woman who danced with me told me that it was a great “surreal” experience dancing with Rorschach. Now that’s a fine compliment.

Movie review: Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed

Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed (1969)
Directed by Terence Fisher. Starring Peter Cushing, Freddie Jones, Simon Ward, Veronica Carlson, Thorley Walters, Maxine Audley.

Hammer’s Dracula series reached its summit early, with the best films—Dracula/Horror of Dracula and The Brides of Dracula—coming first. Conversely, the Frankenstein series reached its peak in 1969, right when most of Hammer’s of horrors had dwindled. The fifth movie of the franchise, Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed, is not only the best of Hammer’s Frankenstein movies, but is also one of the masterpieces from the studio and its director, Terence Fisher.

Peter Cushing had starred as Dr. Frankenstein in all the movies up to this point, although continuity had vanished after the second, The Revenge of Frankenstein. The character had softened from his villainous portrayal in the first film, The Curse of Frankenstein (1957). But with Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed, he returned to his evil ways in a fury. The doctor is utterly reprehensible in this movie: murderer, rapist, thief, blackmailer. The man will stop at no depravity in his scientific quest to show that he’s just so much damn smarter than everybody else. Even viewers who know something about the more ethically troubled character of the Hammer series will find his actions in Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed shocking and his manipulation and rudeness repulsive. And if you’ve just come from the two James Whale films of the 1930s… well, get ready to duck when that scythe comes whipping across the screen, with Dr. Frankenstein’s hand guiding it. It will take your head off as well.

That’s one of the images that opens the film. The doctor, who has relocated to London, snicks off the head of a certain Dr. Heidecke as he walks down the street. He plants the head in a handy head-carrying tote, and heads back to his secret lab, only to confront an unfortunate thief who has broken inside. The thief escapes after a fight, and the doctor has to relocate from his lab quickly, disposing of some of his dead bodies and other evidence before the police arrive.

The opening doesn’t unspool in the straightforward way I’ve explained it, which shows one of the great strengths of Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed. Director Fisher accents suspense and visual trickery in the film, displaying storytelling complexity that his detractors seem to miss in their criticisms. A number of other perfectly orchestrated thrill-scenes occur throughout, keeping the movie a pressure-cooker even though its version of the Frankenstein Monster doesn’t appear until very late. Some of the sequences compare favorably to Hitchcock, such as two scenes where the protagonists have to hide a corpse from a police inspection.

The Hammer Frankenstein films never used a continuing monster, coming up with a new idea for each installment that was usually far removed from the Universal version of the creature. (The Evil of Frankenstein is the exception to this.) To accompany the darkest version ever of the doctor, Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed comes up with the most interesting version of the “monster” to appear in the Hammer franchise. Although it’s origin is nothing like that in Shelley’s novel, the result is similar: an erudite, scheming creature looking to avenge itself on its creator for giving it hellish life.

It requires a roundabout way to create the monster (played by Freddie Jones), but the trip is worth taking. (Well, maybe not if the idea of surgery makes you queasy. But I don’t understand why you would be watching the film in the first place.)

While the police and pompous snuff-taking Inspector Frisch (Thorley Walter) poke around looking for the murderer of Dr. Heidecke, Frankenstein finds new headquarters in a boarding house run by young and beautiful Anna (Veronica Carlson). Frankenstein finds out that Anna’s finacé Dr. Karl Holst (Simon Ward) has been stealing cocaine from the hospital to help Anna’s suffering mother, and Frankenstein uses the information to blackmail the two of them into helping him set up his surgical nightmare shop in the boarding house (first ejecting all the other guests) and stealing all the supplies he needs for the projects. Poor Karl immediately gets in deep when he accidentally murders a man during one of the thefts. Frankenstein couldn’t be more pleased to have a chance to get Karl and his bride-to-be more under his power.
Frankenstein’s plan this time requires getting his old compatriot Dr. Brandt (George Pravda) out of a nearby insane asylum. He and Dr. Brandt had corresponded about their twin brain-transplant projects, but right before Dr. Brandt could tell Frankenstein his Great Secret, the man went incurably and violently insane. Frankenstein still hopes to get the information from Dr. Brandt, but during the asylum break-in—another great suspense piece—the man falls further into his mental catatonia. This doesn’t bother Frankenstein one bit. He decides to remove Brandt’s brain from his injured body and stick it in a new one, where he can cure the insanity. He forces Karl to help him kidnap and kill Dr. Richter (Freddie Jones), head of the asylum, and then puts Brandt’s mind into this body.

And because this is a Frankenstein film, things go very wrong. There aren’t any winners at the fiery finale of this one—except the audience, of course, who gets to enjoy an outrageous thrill ride and the foul doctor’s comeuppance.

Telling you that Peter Cushing is great at playing Dr. Frankenstein is like saying that Two-Buck Chuck is cheap wine. Of course he’s great in the part! Cushing’s portrait of cold calculation and smug superiority create a Frankenstein who makes your skin crawl. Across from hapless innocent Simon Ward and sweet Veronica Carlson, Cushing is purely repulsive. It’s as thrilling as a murder scene just to listen to Cushing give the other boarders in Anna’s house a dressing down after hearing them discuss the topic of the horrors of Dr. Frankenstein’s experiments, unware the man is sitting in their midst:

“Excuse me. I didn’t know that you were doctors.”

“Doctors? We’re not doctors.”

“I beg your pardon, I thought you knew what you were talking about.”

“You’re damn rude, sir.”

“I’m afraid that stupidity always brings out the worst in me.”

The boarders are lucky that Frankenstein is incorrect about this statement: the worst in him would have them all dead and on slabs waiting for brain transplants.

But the real worst behavior of the doctor is his raping Anna. Cushing ardently objected to this scene. It wasn’t part of Bert Batt’s original screenplay, but was an interpolation from the producers for the U.S. market to “sex up” the movie. It doesn’t affect anything later in the film, since neither character mentions it again, but it does create an even greater sense of tension between them. For this reason, I don’t think it’s gratuitous—it’s acutely disturbing, and this is already a disturbing film. It’s certainly not “sexy,” if that was the studio’s intention. My only objection to the scene is that it doesn’t quite fit the normally asexual Dr. Frankenstein that Cushing plays. However, the rape seems like something the doctor does simply to exert more superiority over the people he controls, and makes sense in this context.

Freddie Jones as the Brandt-monster is superlative. The film’s most emotional moments are when “Brandt,” locked in another man’s body, returns to his grieving wife (Maxine Audley) to explain what has happened. The final confrontation between the Brandt-monster and his former colleage/creator is an electric one, as Frankenstein now has really met his intellectual match: “I fancy that I am the spider and you are the fly, Frankenstein.” The taunting Jones hurling exploding lamps to set everything on fire while Frankenstein scrambles to escape is another example of a rip-roaring Terence Fisher ending.
The one flaw with the presentation of the monster is that Freddie Jones only gets to play one scene as Dr. Richter, so it’s difficult to see the massive difference in his mannerism as the Brandt-monster on a first viewing. Richter isn’t established enough as a character before Frankenstein picks him as the host body for Dr. Brandt’s brain.

When Hammer first burst into horror in the 1950s, their presentation of blood and gore were considered outrageous and sick. Ten years later, gore had made more inroads into mainstream film, and Hammer cranks up the quotient considerably here: this is the most grisly of their Frankenstein movies, and doesn’t flinch from showing queasy surgical procedures. It isn’t so much the visuals as it is the sound effects that make my skin crawl. The sound textures of bonesaw-on-skill and drill-on-cranium are unpleasantly realized while the doctor coldly does his work.

The movie isn’t perfect. The addition of Thorley Walters’s comic police inspector and his surgeon sidekick were late additions to the script, and feel like it. Walters’s character might have worked well in some of Hammer’s earlier movies, but Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed has scant room for comic relief, especially if it derivates too far from the main storyline. Making the police look a bit clumsy also undercuts the tension in the scenes where they are hunting for dead bodies in Anna’s guesthouse. When the Brandt-monster taunts Frankenstein that he must choose between the police and the flames, it doesn’t seem like a tough choice to make. Take the police!

As great as Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed is, Hammer tried to restart the whole series with the next film. The Horror of Frankenstein (1970) was part of the studio’s campaign to inject more youth appeal to their aging series. Cushing was dumped, Ralph Bates brought in… and the movie flopped. I think it’s a candidate for the worst Hammer horror movie ever. Cushing was brought back for one more Frankenstein movie, Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell (filmed in 1972, released 1974), which was also Terence Fisher’s last movie. It has some interesting points, but Cushing’s Frakenstein and director Fisher had already reached their crescendo.

Top 5 Halloween sequels

Today The Lightning Bug’s Lair features my contribution to the “Halloween Top 13: The Sequel” event: a list of five of my favorite horror sequels. I’m always happy to contribute to T. L. Bugg’s blogosphere projects, but it wasn’t easy to narrow down favorite sequels. Horror films propogate sequels like the rabbit population in Australia. I finally settled on these five, although I could have easily included so many others.

I tend to be the “old horror” fellow among people who comment at The Lightning Bugg’s Lair, and this list reflects that. (Bugg purposely paired my list with his review of a film substantially removed from my tastes, The Devil’s Rejects, as a nice piece of counter-programming.)

1. Bride of Frankenstein (James Whale, 1935)
This is the only sequel that made my list of favorite Halloween films last year, but since it’s perhaps the greatest sequel made to any film, it would be ludicrous not to include it. It does what sequels should: deepens, expands, and questions the original to create a full and vibrant new experience.

2. The Brides of Dracula (Terence Fisher 1960)
I’ve already written substantially about this one. I haven’t changed my mind about it during the month.

3. Damien: Omen II (Don Taylor, 1978)
This is fairly dopey compared to the original, but it has a re-watchable charm because of the crazy deaths and the jazzed-up Satanic chorus score from Jerry Goldsmith. The elevator crash-n-slice of Meshach Taylor is a classic—especially if you really really hate Mannequin.

4. House of Frankenstein (Erle C. Kenton, 1944)
It's a sequel to… everything! Therefore, I have to include it. I’ve also done a full review of this during the month, posted at Black Gate.

5. Alien³ (David Fincher, 1991)
Most people will put James Cameron’s Aliens here. (Indeed, it appeared on many lists in the Halloween Top 13.) I love Aliens, but it doesn't scare me like the original Ridley Scott Alien does. But Alien³ is one mega-bummer of a bleak horror show that I’ve loved since I first saw it. And let me tell you, it was lonely being a fan of this film in the early ‘90s, before it was reconsidered in light of Fincher’s career. Considering its poor original reception, I’ll take any chance to promote it. And we would never have gotten Se7en or Fight Club without it. (The movie also gives me an excuse to use the superscript HTML tag.)

Thanks to the Bugg for letting me be part of his great blog!

A cryptozoology flashback

Monster You Never Heard Of
Daniel Cohen (Dodd & Mead, 1980)

Halloween means “monsters” to me, and so in my continuing efforts to occasionally do reviews off the standard blog track (uhm, does my blog have a track?), I’ve gone back to a childhood favorite of mine: a folklore book for juvenile readers about a passel of less well-known mystery creatures, or “cryptids.” The title uses a dangling modifier—try to avoid this, kids—but then Monsters of Which You Have Never Heard is the sort of pedantry up with which I shall not put.

I was an avid reader of books about cryptids when I was younger. I’m a skeptic now, but I still have an interest in these “real monsters” from a folkloric perspective. The author of most of my favorite books on the topic when I was a kid was Daniel Cohen, who has made a career of writing for juveniles about cryptolozoolgy, ghosts, the occult, UFOs, and the paranormal. From what I can tell from my research, Mr. Cohen is a skeptic himself, and reading over Monsters You Never Heard Of as an adult reveals that Cohen likely doesn’t believe in most of these creatures. He’s always willing to admit that most of the evidence for the existence of these monsters is purely anecdotal. When I was younger, I tended to miss the author’s more cautious language, and I imagine he wanted it that way. When I was eleven it was more fun to think that the Jersey Devil was real instead of a local superstition.

Cohen slyly admits his intentions in the first chapter:

I warn you, however, that if you are looking for hard evidence that any of these creatures exist, you are not going to find very much of it here, because there isn’t very much. Most monsters have proved to be extremely hard to catch, and these are no exceptions.

But then, if we could catch them and classify them, they really wouldn’t be monsters anymore, would they?

Hence, my classic contradiction: remain rational, embrace the enjoyment of the irrational.

The creatures in this volume, as the title indicates, are minor leaguers compared to the All-Star squad of Sasquatch, the Loch Ness Monster, and the Yeti. Some of the creatures seem closer to paranormal occurrences (“The Hairy Hands” and “Demon Dogs”) or UFO mythology (“The Dover Demon”). When I first read Monsters You Never Heard Of, I really hadn’t heard of any of these monsters, except perhaps the idea of maxi-sized snakes. A few of these monsters have gained greater notoriety since the book’s publication, such as the Jersey Devil and the Cattle Mutilation Mystery, because of cable TV programs and The X-Files.

There are eleven obscure monsters/phenomenons in the book, each with its own chapter.

The Jersey Devil: No doubt, the JD is the star of the book. It snagged the paperback cover, a great illustration by Phil Hale (see top of post) that drew me to purchase the book in the first place. I still think this is the best artwork I’ve seen of the Jersey Devil, visualizing him in a more natural combination of body parts than most other pictures, which often border on the comic. (For example, the image on the left, from a 1909 issue of the Philadelphia Inquirer, published during a sudden rash of sightings.) The Jersey Devil is a sort of horse-bat-kangaroo mixture that terrorizes the Pine Barrens of New Jersey, a wilderness set down in the urban mass of the state. It’s the setting that pulled me toward this story originally—it’s such a wonderful place for horror tale, and it has a fittingly bizarre and frightening looking monster. Some filmmaker needs to craft an atmospheric horror flick about the Jersey Devil. Cohen’s chapter deals with some of the legends about the monster’s origin, and the two “flaps” of sightings during the twentieth century. However, I’ll settle for one of Cohen’s explanations: a combination of spooky folklore and occasional spottings of sandhill cranes.

Spring-Heeled Jack: Victorian steampunk has given this hopping public nuisance of the mid-19th century a lot more exposure. If there were a real Spring-Heeled Jack, he was on his way to turning into an underworld superhero.

Phantom Animals: This is a bit of a dull chapter, since it deals with the appearance of mundane creatures (big cats, kangaroos) in unexpected places. These are more likely occurences than some of the other monsters in the book, but with the exception of the Surrey Puma, the phantom cats and kangaroos aren’t that interesting.

The Hairy Hands: “No, really, officer—I wasn’t drinking! A pair of hairy disembodied hands grabbed the steering wheel and drove me off the road!” I imagine this excuse never goes over well. But on one stretch of road in legend-haunted Dartmoor, a few people have tried it. The story of the Hairy Hands is a creepy one and great for Cub Scout campfires, but it would seem the conditions of the road are the main reason for caution. Cohen makes no mention that even Dartmoor locals think tales of the Hairy Hands are ludicrous.

Demon Dogs: These canines would seem easy to lump with “Phantom Creatures,” but the “Black Dogs” of England are more a ghost story phenomenon than a cryptid one. (And a Led Zeppelin one.) A few of the tales that Cohen relates here are freaky in a Gothic way, especially one about a soldier apparently scared to death by the black dog that haunts Peel Castle on the Isle of Man, Moddey Dhoo. (As I kid, I thought the name was hilariously close to “Scooby-Doo.”) The chapter eventually goes on a tangent with tales of the “Wild Hunt” and unrelated business about a dead body found on a river bank. However, this chapter inspired me to read The Hound of the Baskervilles for the first time.
Big-Big Bird: This chapter should really be titled “Thunderbird,” since it’s about the Native American myth of a giant bird of that name. Perhaps Cohen was worried readers would think it was about the hallucinations people have after downing a bottle of Thunderbird. Although the current existence of a condor with a thirty-foot wingspan is rather implausible, this sort of flying monster has always seized my attention. I almost wrote a novel about one back in 2002. This chapter also introduced me to the “Thunderbird photograph” legend, which is almost as much as story as the super-bird itself. Supposedly, a photo was taken for the Tombstone, AZ Epitaph in 1886 of men posing with an enormous bird they had shot down… but nobody seems able to locate the photo, and the original story can’t even be substantiated. People claim to have seen the photo and lost or gave it away. I still see people on the ‘net claiming they’ve looked at the photo; this is a good example of a false memory planted by a vivid description. The way Cohen describes the photo, I could imagine I had seen it.

The Dover Demon: Here’s a one-shot monster that fits the description of “grays” from modern UFO mythology. Some teens in Massachusetts thought they saw an odd spindly-limbed, big-headed creature one night. That’s it. Get back to your homework, kids.

The Biggest Snake: Anacondas in the thirty-foot range are proven, and it seems possible that larger ones might exist. But the anecodotal story in this chapter about a 115-foot snake? Must have got loose from the streets of Khemi in The Hour of the Dragon. Most of the stories in this chapter sound like people unable to judge length accurately and making up really enormous numbers. We would eventually get a pretty fun B-monster movie out of this concept, however.

The Tazelwurm: I often see this animal spelled tatzlewurm, and it’s the most subdued “monster” in the volume. But it’s also the only one that I think might possibly exist, or have existed until recently. As a child I never cared much for the idea of a mystery creature that was nothing more than a small two-legged Alpine lizard. It just wasn’t large or mysterious enough for me. Still isn’t.
The Invisible Killers: Today, this is called “The Cattle Mutiliation Mystery,” and often gets linked to UFO activity, Sasquatch-like creatures, or cults. Cohen does tells a chilling story about an invisible monster that seems a bit like the Id-beast from Forbidden Planet. Ultimately, Cohen seems more skeptical about the cattle mutilations than any other creature in the book. “What happened? Well, the whole thing could be made up.”

Goatman and the Grunches: A wild hairy creature is leaping out at neckers at Lover’s Lanes across the world! I wonder who in the fraternity drew the short straw and had to wear the ape suit for this stunt? Even as a child, I thought this chapter was a let-down for a ending. I’ve never heard anything about the “Grunches,” a New Orleans variant, since. Perhaps N.O. has too many other southern Gothic mysteries to keep itself busy. The Grunches should hire a publicity agent.

The book is written in simple and straightforward language for its younger readers, and there is no possible way I could re-capture the magic of my childhood readings, hidden under the covers with a flashlight. But some of these creatures still have their dark, wicked power of churning my imagination. And I still love the Jersey Devil.

NaNoWriMo over at Black Gate

Wow, the start of National Novel Writing Month is a bit less than six days away. I’ve got my story, most of an outline, plenty of Monster energy drinks, and an Alphasmart NEO—I feel ready to go.

I’ve previously done a few pieces at Black Gate that touch on NaNoWriMo, but I’ve never dedicated a full post to event. That changes today, so if you want to know more about the this crazy creative writing event, beyond what I’ve told you here, click on over there.

Movie Review: The Revenge of Frankenstein

The Revenge of Frankenstein (1958)
Directed by Terence Fisher. Starring Peter Cushing, Francis Matthews, Eunice Gayson, Michael Gwynn, Oscar Quitak.

The Curse of Frankenstein (1957) was an enormous hit for Hammer Film Productions; it ignited the entire Anglo-Gothic movie cycle and made Hammer into the house of technicolor terror. A sequel was inevitable, although the studio first did their take on Dracula. The Revenge of Frankenstein was shot back-to-back with Dracula (you can spy many re-dressed sets) and again featured the successful creative team of director Terence Fisher and writer Jimmy Sangster.

If The Brides of Dracula (1960) is an unusual sequel to Dracula, then The Revenge of Frankenstein is an equally unusual follow-up to The Curse of Frankenstein. Both sequels dropped an important figure from the first movie: Dracula and the Frankenstein Monster respectively. Peter Cushing continued as the lead character in both films. Christopher Lee would return in the next Dracula film and star in every entry except the last, Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires (1974). The Frankenstein films, arguably the most consistently high quality of all of Hammer’s series, would star Peter Cushing in all but one of the entries, The Horror of Frankenstein (1970), a horrible attempt at a re-boot. Each film presents an entirely new “monster,” often far-removed from audiences’ previous conceptions about Frankenstein’s Monster.

The real monster of the series is Dr. Frankenstein himself. The Curse of Frankenstein radically altered the misguided and short-sighted Victor Frankenstein of Shelley’s novel and the first two Universal movies into a ethically oblivious mad scientist who’ll gladly murder to achieve his ends. The doctor of The Revenge of Frankenstein is turned down a notch from the first movie; he doesn’t commit outright murder, but still has zero empathy for other people and is only concerned about his creation’s rampage because it might reveal his own identity to authorities. Peter Cushing’s Frankenstein isn’t a man who feels any guilt at all. He sees himself as a superior intellect, and to hell with all the small-minded folks who want to slow him down. Victor Frankenstein’s only regrets about the mayhem in The Curse of Frankenstein is that he didn’t do it better. For the sequel, he plans to do it “right.”

Since the previous movie concluded with the bad doctor on his way to the guillotine, the sequel has to address this in the first scene. Frankenstein marches to the scaffold, the blade rises up, and then a scuffle happens off-screen before the blade falls. When two grave robbers (classic Terence Fisher working-class Victorian-types, one played by the ubiquitous Michael Ripper) break open the Baron’s freshly planted coffin, they discover… the body of the officiating priest! Dr. Frankenstein arranged his escape and the priest-switch by making a deal with the executioner and a deformed prison-worker named Karl (Oscar Quitak, credited as “The Dwarf” in the end titles despite being of average height).
Three years pass, and Frankenstein sets up a new practice in the town of Carlsbrück under the name “Dr. Stein.” This may sound a touch transparent, but “Stein” is a very common German name. The doctor divides his medical practice between serving rich society women and charity work at a poor hospital that mostly serves the criminal dregs of the city. We all know that Dr. Frankenstein isn’t doing this work from the pureness of his heart, and another Carlsbrück doctor, young Hans Kleve (Francis Matthews) soon finds out the truth. Hans recognizes Frankenstein and asks if he can assist his work—with the hint of blackmail if Frankenstein turns him down. Oddly, this isn’t going where you think it might, with Frankenstein immediately finding a way to off Hans. He takes the young man under his supervision and shows him the ways of limb and brain transplants. Already, this is a much mellower doctor.

Frankenstein’s plan is to bring life to a perfect human body (played by Michael Gwynn) constructed from parts he has amputated and collected from the poor. He also has a willing live donor for the brain: Karl, who wants an escape from his crippled and paralyzed body.

The brain gets put in, the body is brought to life… and everything goes wrong, of course. Not only does the transplant not exactly “take” the way the two doctors planned, but the meddling of a society lady who works at the hospital (Eunice Gayson, soon to appear in Dr. No and be the first woman to coax the line “Bond, James Bond” from 007) frees the slowly-maddening Karl-monster onto the city.

Screenwriter Jimmy Sangster originally intended to have cannibalism play a major part in the story. One of the side-effects of the brain-transplant was that the new body would develop a lust for human flesh. Dr. Frankenstein still talks about this, but it only gets hinted at in the action and never plays out. Hammer must have wanted to back away from going too grisly; they were already pushing the limits of 1958 with scenes of doctors tooling around with bloody brains and disembodied eyes and hands. The crazed actions of the Karl-monster instead seem like consequences of Karl’s original paralytic condition and his mental incapability to handle the body change. Michael Gwynn does a good job at contorting his face and limbs to show how his condition is worsening, but it’s never quite clear what is happening to him.
Fans of Anglo-horror often consider The Revenge of Frankenstein the best of its series. I don’t agree; I prefer The Curse of Frankenstein and Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed (1969), another Terence Fisher entry that really pushes Dr. Frankenstein into vile villain territory. The Revenge of Frankenstein starts too slowly, not building up a clear danger until late, and then abruptly pulling away from it. But it’s always interesting, and with a performer like Peter Cushing leading the way it contains wonderful shades. The scene of the Karl-monster viciously fighting the janitor (George Woodbridge, another Hammer regular) at Frankenstein’s lab, and then later crashing into a society party to find his creator, are vivid moments showing Terence Fisher doing what he does best. The finale, a clever dark joke that makes the pop-culture confusion between the doctor and his creation into an actual merging, is also played superbly. If The Revenge of Frankenstein doesn’t completely suceed with me, it does impress me with its willingness to go outside expectations. And, as a very young Hammer Horror, it’s bursting with colorful visuals and great gothic sets. As the British poster proclaims, it’s in “Supernatural Technicolor”—which sounds like a special process, but it’s just the usual vibrant Hammer movie palette.

Although The Revenge of Frankenstein concludes with a situation that seems ripe for a sequel, it didn’t happen. The next film the series, The Evil of Frankenstein, would appear eight years later, and although Cushing played the title role, the script created an entirely new backstory that has no plot connection to either earlier film. It’s also the only entry in the series with a monster that resembles the one from the Universal movies. I quite like The Evil of Frankenstein and its unusual “Dr. Caligari” angle, which puts me at odds with common opinion, but that’s another review entirely.

A letter to a NaNoWriMo character

National Novel Writing Month starts in ten days. And already I’ve dropped my original novel concept twice for another one. The second drop occurred today—and it’s permanent. Which is all for the good, since I had to honestly assess that I didn’t yet feel energized about the concept I had worked on for the last month or so, and which I originally came up with back in February. I still think it’s a viable novel idea, but I need more research and more brainstorming to get it to a point that it begs, begs to be written.

Fortunately, something emerged today that really wanted to get turned into a novel next month. A short story that asked for a novel continuation, and in a setting I’ve already developed (and even managed to sell some stories set in it). To mark the moment, I did a “letter to a character,” a popular NaNoWriMo forum topic where writers pen out a missive directed to one of their creations. Here’s my letter to the heroine of my new novel for next month as she takes up the task of being a main character…

Dear Belde,

Hi, welcome aboard! Until today, you weren’t going to be the main character of my novel. In fact, the novel had nothing to do with you, it was a different genre in a different world. But today, I realized, I didn’t really want to write that novel. It was getting to be a burden thinking about it, and there’s no way I’m going through a month of hell on a premise that needs to be worked on more, thought about, and re-energized—and I don’t have time to do that now, with only ten days to go.

But… I have you! You see, I loved the short story that I wrote about you in September. And one of my fellow writers at Black Gate magazine thought that you were the great start of a YA novel. He was right, I should have paid attention back then. You already have a great background, a motivation, and a huge adventure before you. Plus, I’ve already developed the setting over two years of short stories set around it, so I don't need much prep.

I’m already totally excited about letting you free on your quest to discover why you are so different from the rest of humanity, and finding that mysterious woman who saved your life on the day your parents were murdered. You’ve got a great sidekick in a dinosaur named Rint, and I think he balances you perfectly.

So, Belde, I’m putting trust in you. You've got energy + tragedy + goals. I think you can carry the book. I’m thrilled for our upcoming adventure. We don't have much of an outline, but we've got the background and the backdrop, and I'm certain you'll bring the plot with you.

Your author,

Ryan

DC Comics goes back to the pulps

Cross-posted to Black Gate.

The comic book superhero was born in the late 1930s, during the time when the dominant form of popular culture reading was the pulp magazine. During the next decade, the pulps would start their slow demise: wartime paper shortages that forced the publishers to cut back on the more risky material to focus on the steady sellers, the paperback influx competed on the genre scene and were popular with soldiers overseas, and the rise of the comic book took away much of the younger readers. That the comic book should play such a large part in the end of the pulp magazine industry is an ironic reversal, since the hero pulps fueled the creation of those first four-color superheroes. No Batman without the Shadow. No Superman without Doc Savage.

The comic book industry is now doing some payback to the long-vanished cheap paper fiction magazines. DC Entertainment Inc. has an upcoming project where they are going to let their characters revert back to the 1930s and turn into true pulp heroes once more. It’s an alternate universe version of the DC Universe with no super-powered characters, set firmly in the 1930s. And it will not only feature their own creations like Batman, but also genuine pulp stars Doc Savage and the Avenger, to whom DC owns the comic book rights. The first publication in the new setting is next month’s Batman/Doc Savage Special, written by Brian Azzarello and illustrated by Phil Noto.

That’s all you need to get my blood a’ rushing. I rarely buy DC or Marvel monthly comics, since I think their indulgence in crossover mega-events has reached a level of mania/boredom, but this… oh, I am all over this in so many ways. Just having Doc Savage back in comics is enough, but Batman is also going to get pulled back to the decade of his nativity. I love comic book superheroes (Batman in particular), but since my mid-twenties I’ve turned more toward the pulp characters (The Shadow in particular), and seeing them get a whole corner of the universe of one of the two big comic book publishers is like a five-Red Bull high. And behold the Bama-influenced Doc Savage on the cover!

DC’s own description of the “Pulp DCU”:

Doc Savage returns to DC Comics… and comes face-to-fist with the Batman! Superstar scribe Brian Azzarello and the breathtaking art of Phil Noto combine to shine the first light on a shadowy new version of the DC Universe, where the thugs run rampant, corruption runs deep, and even heroes can't be trusted! Doc Savage, the Man of Bronze, hates what he's heard about the connections between a grisly murder and Gotham City’s violent new vigilante. But the Batman can't abide do-gooders getting in his way… and his .45 just won't stay in its holster!

Yes, that’s right: Batman (or “The Bat-Man” as he was first called) has got a gun! And he’s going to use it!

Although the modern Batman is solidly a “no-kill” hero in his ethos, in his early years he had no problem wielding a firearm and letting his adversaries die. That this new Pulp DCU is willing to place the Shadow’s .45 automatics into the Bat-Man’s hands show that the company knows how to do this setting right. It’s a mixture of noir and high adventure, with blazing guns and strange gadgets and masked madmen! And it’s set in Gotham re-interpreted as art-deco era Los Angeles!

From Azzarello’s description over at Comic Book Resources, it sounds as if the relationship between Doc Savage and the emerging hero the Bat-Man will be similar to the Superman-Batman conflict: The Bat-Man uses guns and works from the shadows, while Doc Savage disapproves of such methods and prefers to work as a public figure in the bright light of day.

According to DC, other characters who will appear in the setting are the Spirit, the Avenger (another single-hero pulp character from Street & Smith), Rima the Jungle Girl, Black Canary (the Golden Age version), and Wildcat. I hope the Shadow will also appear—that’s his gyrocopter on the cover—but at this point it seems that the Bat-Man is filling the Shadow’s role. This is appropriate, since the Shadow was a primary influence on Batman’s creation.

Pulp DC begins on November 11th, when the fifty-six page Batman/Doc Savage Special goes on sale. I hope this turns into a long running new setting for DC (ongoing Doc Savage and The Spirit titles are planned) especially since I have so little interest in what occurs in their event-clogged “mainstream” universe, where Bruce Wayne isn’t even currently Batman!

Rorschach Halloween costume

Sorry I’ve been a bit light on posting this week—I’ve been overly busy. However, please accept this photos of my Halloween costume for this year—Rorschach from Watchmen—as a substitute for an actual lengthy post.

I am very dissatisfied with the commercial Rorschach costumes available (I generally don’t like pre-packaged costumes anyway) so I put this together from various other pieces I already own. I already had the trench coat (from when I was the Punisher a few years ago, and it gets regular use as well) and the hat of course, I purchased a long scarf, and a stand-alone knit Rorschach mask that’s far better than the cheap one included in the costume packages. However, I had to attach black fabric over the eyes to block them out—it looks silly with the eyes completely exposed. The fabric comes from an old “faceless ghoul” costume from years ago, so I can see through it fairly well even though nobody else can see in.

Movie review: House of Frankenstein

I can’t let Hammer Film Productions get all the attention during October. There’s another film studio that had a beloved run with Gothic horror back in the 1930s and ‘40s.

The Universal stable of monsters are the closest thing that Halloween has to Santa Claus. And in House of Frankenstein in 1944, the studio tossed a bunch of them together to see what would happen. The result: the ultimate Halloween party movie for all ages.

But you won’t find a review of that here: I’ve made it my post for Black Gate for the week, so leap over there and do the original Monster Mash.

I still don’t know what happened to the “Transylvania Twist.”