“WE WHO WALK HERE, WALK ALONE” NIGHTWALKERS’ BY BRUCE LANIER WRIGHT
Chris Buse (RIP)
This review contains spoilers.
“You“re expected.”“ With these words Netflix invited its subscribers to check out a new ten-episode mini-series which the streamer was about to drop in time for Halloween in 2018. These words were displayed on the promotional material for what was yet another adaptation, albeit a rather loosely one, of one, if not the, most famous American horror novel of the previous century, Shirley Jackson“s “The Haunting of Hill House (1959). That isn“t to say that Netflix expected their viewers to be familiar with the book or the 1963 movie version by Robert Wise (widely hailed a “masterpiece”“) or the more recent adaptation by Jan de Bont. Chances are, if you only knew the novel by name and were unfamiliar with any of these movie versions, so much the better, lest there be any comparisons. As these things go, especially today, for all intents and purposes, this was one of those adaptations that writers and showrunners like to call a “modern reimagining”“, more often than not a thinly veiled attempt to ask reviewers to refrain from a less than favorable juxtaposition between the show and its beloved source material, in what frequently amounts to a “dumbing-down”“ of a complex work for the assumed attention span of current audiences. Still, those involved in the creation of this “updated”“ version of Jackson“s novel needn“t worry. The show did garner many positive write-ups, with reviewers calling it an “effective ghost story”“, an accolade that sounds awfully like a participation trophy, since “The Haunting of Hill House”“, the book, is a ghost story, one that is indeed effective and rather chilling. Though Netflix keeps viewership numbers usually close to its vest, unless to let us know how fast viewers consumed one of their offerings (a subject that merits its own discussion), by choosing a tagline like “You“re expected”“, they gave their vote of confidence not just to this show, but to the whole genre of horror fiction, or more precisely, to the existence of a huge audience ready to eat it all up (preferable in one binge-watching session). Stephen King, a writer widely considered a master of horror fiction, but also a devoted fan of Jackson“s works, informed his followers upfront how allergic his senses and sensibilities are towards “this kind of revisionism”“, still in his tweet  (how else?), the man let the world know that this was “close to a work of genius, really.”“ It is not without a certain irony that King would endorse this show this glowingly, considering that not unlikely Jackson herself, he“s one of the American authors who had a massive hand in taking horror mainstream, though very unlike her, he“s yet to achieve the high critical acclaim from the established, dusty intelligentsia of fine literature the late author was shown. While King is a horror writer, which puts him at the kid“s table whenever real literature is being discussed, Jackson was an American writer who wrote horror stories; there“s a fine, but significant distinction. What Netflix could expect was a mass audience turning up and tuning in, since these days, what is called “horror”“ has become a form disposable entertainment. We“ve traveled far from what the late, great Wes Craven once notoriously called a “boot camp for the psyche.”“ There“s an old adage that tells you once housewives and mothers begin to invest in the stock market, a crash is imminent. This isn“t throwing shade at these two groups (more on mothers in a minute), but I trust you get the sentiment. What these days passes for horror fiction has become as ubiquitous as the old Western movies once were. While this is not necessarily a bad thing, remember that Westerns went the way of the dinosaurs and for a reason. For every clever and atmospheric “The Conjuring”“, there will be ten lame movies that follow an attractive, but entirely bland cast that will get picked off one by one. And like with this film, any “modern reimagining”“ (there are these two words again) of an old property, like the recent “The Invisible Man”“, will be viewed as a “franchise starter”“, once it meets some success. James Wan is no stranger to this, before the director put a fictional halo on ghost hunters (and ultimate grifters of all things supposedly supernatural) Ed and Lorraine Warren, he made his fortunes with a little low-budget screamer called “Saw”“, a well-crafted movie that was so overwhelmingly positively received that it became a hostage of its own success, the closest equivalent we“ve today to the schlock and tripe that came out of semi-original ideas like “Nightmare on Elm Street”“ and “Friday the 13th”“ in the 1980s, a decade when Hollywood began to stick Roman numerals on any frightener that could, but wasn“t able to just vanish under the cover of the night quick enough. It wasn“t always like that. John Carpenter, by no means a stranger to this unfortunate trend and in his heart a director like Wan who the French might want to call an “auteur”“, made the mistake to show the low-budget shocker he“d just completed to his alma mater. The student body reacted as well as you“d imagine a group of pretentious film students to react at a time when it was hip to aspire to become an accomplished director of really important films to be discussed among art critics and academia for generations hence, and not a filmmaker who uses whatever modicum of talent or originality (not a prerequisite if you consider Netflix“s “Stranger Things”“) he or she might possess, to come up with the next money-making big-budget movie franchise machine, a time also known as the 1970s. When Carpenter screened “Halloween”“ to this crowd of future masters of modern cinema, the director was laughed out of the lecture hall. How dare he insult their finer tastes with such a trash film. How pretentious was he that was fooling himself that this movie would be viewed so much as a “classic”“? And worst of all, why would anyone want to make such a film in the first place? Exactly. Unlike today when movie studios pencil in a horror film or two in their annual release schedules, horror or any type of genre fare for that matter that required a suspension of disbelief or wasn“t already hailed a masterpiece, think the likes of Ingmar Bergman“s “The Seventh Seal”“, was beneath contempt. As you were, these things come and go in cycles, and while competent horror films were made in every decade, once “The Omen”“ won an Academy Award for Best Original Score, there was no way to go. The genre, like one of its frightening denizens, exploded into a cloud of ash once exposed to the harsh light of a mainstream that was not yet ready to meet the genre on its own terms. It might still not be ready.
There“re many great lines in Robert Wise“s 1963 big screen adaptation of Shirley Jackson“s novel, simply called “The Haunting.”“ But one line in particular, spoken by Dr. John Markway (Richard Johnson), a sort of proto Edward Warren, must surely sound appealing to any fan of horror fiction in particular: “An evil house, the kind some people call haunted, is like an undiscovered country waiting to be explored.”“ That line surely held a lot of promise. And if you were a geeky kid in the early and mid-1970s, this was potent stuff. Sure, horror was popular, as the writer whose book I am about to review will tell you, but to me, to us, to us geeks, it surely didn“t feel that way. The monsters had come back in style in the late 1950s, the days of near-constant television showings of the old Universal classics and the drive-in with as many scares created by the power of the atom you could shake a stick at, but this cycle had reached its zenith by the end of the following decade. Like the Second World War had obliterated any old Count or a man made from human body parts, with another war on the horizon, any gothic scare felt quaint at best. All the once immensely popular Aurora monster model kits were collecting dust, and while the horror mags published by James Warren (no relations) were still going strong, in all honesty, teens and adolescents bought those for the sexy drawings of a certain raven-haired vampire girl who wore a barely-there one-piece bikini and knee-high boots, and for the occasional peek at a picture of a naked breast. Bela Lugosi, the man who was Dracula once and who“d named himself after the Hungarian city he was born in, was long dead. Christopher Lee wasn“t. Still at his employer Hammer Film, all the bats had left the bell tower. If there was any horror left, or any love for horror, by the mid-1970s, it was well hidden, and it was also dying. You were not expected, and if you were invited at all, and you dared to RSVP, something had to be seriously wrong with you. If you were a geeky kid in those days and you liked horror fiction, chances were that if you were the former you loved the latter, you were a member of a very special fight club. It was a club you didn“t talk about. Ever. Still, as far as the “undiscovered country waiting to be explored”“ was concerned, I knew what the Hammer landscape looked like before I knew what that was, this world of sumptuous colors and painted backgrounds made to create old castles and underpopulated villages for ignorant and superstitious townsfolk and sadistic aristocrats that had never existed. I knew, because at the age of six I walked in it for real. On a family holiday that took us to the farthest southern regions of my home country Germany, ostensibly to tour the pompous palaces of famous monarchs long gone and long gone mad, well-kept and pretty impressive remnants of a monarchy abolished decades earlier, nestled high up in the majestic mountains of Bavaria, I began pestering my mother to give me a detailed plot summary of a book I knew she“d just read. Bram Stoker“s “Dracula”“. Not to have her holiday unduly disturbed by her petulant offspring, she relented by giving me the story beat by beat. This was the scary stuff, only embellished in my imagination by the lush scenery of grass and stone on stone that was rife with portents of evil things from a past that lay dead at my feet. In lieu of an actual model of reference, in my mind, I created a portrait of the vampire who summoned the children of the night, that was a mix of paintings of the Mad King Ludwig I“d just seen, a dashingly handsome fellow in his prime, and Doctor Doom from the Fantastic Four comics I had recently discovered, a composite that Francis Ford Coppola oddly enough brough to life (on the screen) in his Wagner-esque version of Dracula in the loud 1990s. This retelling of the story, through the mind and words of my mother, did kindle two things in me back then. It birthed my love for all things creepy and not of this plane of existence, and it showed me a new delivery system to get to such lore. By not actually reading the book, but by experiencing it through the eyes of another person I got their terror on top of mine, and things became so much bigger. Later I had a somewhat older neighborhood boy, the one who“d turned me onto comic books, retell me the movie he“d been allowed to watch, and I was forbidden from seeing, “Dracula ”“ Prince of Darkness”“. And when he showed me a bunch of horror comics, Marvel“s The Tomb of Dracula, here was finally a more genuine image of the undead aristocrat courtesy of artist Gene Colan who I knew from the Daredevil series. His Dracula was only so much more terrifying, and he wasn“t as handsome as Matt Murdock or King Ludwig. That was for a reason, since Colan didn“t go with the standard model, Lugosi, or his heir apparent, the man who brought male beauty to the Count, Christopher Lee. Colan modeled his Prince of Darkness on Jack Palance even before he played Dracula in a made for TV movie. Palance didn“t have the thick accent and the gravitas of half-forgotten East European lore or the menacing height and athleticism of Lee, but a lived-in face that belonged to a rough and tumble brawler. Jack“s Dracula, and to some degree Colan“s, was a Dracula who was toxic masculinity rolled into a darkly erotic package. And with the Dracula comic successfully transplanted to modern times, something the Hammer film series failed at during its nadir, all bets were off. I vividly remember owning the German edition of The Tomb of Dracula No. 17 (1974). Not only was the Count riding a modern high speed train in the issue, but the cover by artist Gil Kane and inker Tom Palmer showed you a little boy who was a bit overly eager to introduce his young mother to a stranger he“d just meet on the train: “See, Mommy? There“s the nice man I told you about! He said he wanted to meet you!”“ Naturally, the cape-wearing chap with the slicked-back, ink-jet black hair, with gleaming white fangs bared, was not to mom“s liking, judging from her bewildered expression. In a way this was me and my mother in reverse. She“d introduced me to Dracula. Now it was time to return the compliment. Not that such a thought would have crossed my mind back then, but the irony isn“t entirely lost on my older self. Nor would I have showed my folks that I was reading such stuff. Remember, I told you that there had to be something wrong with you if you were into that sort of entertainment. We are makers of things, we Germans, and during the 1970s, with a Teutonic trait deeply ingrained in our genes to work with tools and real dimensions rather than wasting time with the fanciful and imaginative, dare I say the darker nature of things, this wasn“t the stuff to win you any friends. Which is ironic if you recall Germany“s history. It“s a country whose dark, vast forests and tiny, seemingly bucolic villages with their personal stories of brutal bloodshed have spawned many fairy tales and immortal folklore. In the 1970s, you also had to contend with state censors, a board of educators charged with protecting minors and, by extension, any adult who wanted to venture into Markway“s “undiscovered country”“. Clearly, I didn“t have any knowledge what the Comics Code was and that it had just been revised for the first time ever in its then nearly twenty years of existence to allow for such fictional horrors on the printed page again. But I made first-hand experience with “our code”“ when my neighborhood friend showed me issues No. 5 of The Tomb of Dracula and The Monster of Frankenstein, this one a new favorite of ours due to the highly disturbing, yet poetic, forlorn art by Mike Ploog. Naturally, in what was the only time I rushed to a place, whenever I learned that there were any new comics, I quickly darkened a newsstand, ready to pluck down my 1.20 Mark each, only to be informed that those comics in question had been pulled. It had become illegal to sell these books. With no explanation offered I surmised, wrongly as it“d turn out, that it had to be the depiction of the buxom raven-haired girl on the cover of Monster who was tied to a burning cross with her impressive chest shoved towards the readers, that did those issues in. Only a few years ago did I find out the real reason. German comics ran thirty pages and they usually came with a back-up story not featured in the American edition. And alas, both titles reprinted two horror stories from the days of Atlas Comics (by Stan Lee no less, with art by Russ Heath) that hailed from the days of comic book publishing that wasn“t regulated. However, it didn“t escape the eyes of the German censors how racist they were, an aspect that every so often is an entirely unwanted and poorly thought out by-product of an otherwise effective horror tale intended as an exercise in anxiety. Though I was not that off the mark. All content that was deemed as being too sexual was also quickly excised from those titles. If you wanted that, and what boy who was about to hit puberty wouldn“t want that, you had to turn to television which was mostly a dour affair since in the days before cable you had three state run stations to choose from which mostly presented old re-runs of 60s programs like “I Spy”“ (today problematic for its very own reasons) or the most inapt German productions. Except for the occasional screening of one of the classic Universal monster films, it was slim pickings for any horror kid. This was about to change. At the end of the 1960s a German television editor began putting together a program that was to offer newer, thought-provoking, often highly praised horror productions (and the science fiction outlier that had elements in a similar vein). “Der phantastische Film”“, think of one evening per month programmed by film fan with a lot of love for the genre, and an animated intro that was as imaginative as it was very scary, was scheduled to make its debut in the late Summer of 1969 with Roman Polanski“s “The Fearless Vampire Killers”“, a spoof of Hammer horror films in general and their “Kiss of the Vampire”“ in particular. But then any fanciful notion of a world designed to emulate the Hammer landscape while poking fun at it and its highly original, usually slightly over-saturated color palette and the lavish costumes of an era that only existed in the minds of the studio“s writers, directors and set designers, was destroyed by one of those walking horrors that only seem to take form to remind us that it isn“t the undead, the undying, we need to need to fear. After the murder of Sharon Tate, the lead in the movie and Polanski“s pregnant wife in what was ultimately dubbed the Tate-LaBianca murders, the idea to start a series of horror films on German television was abandoned, especially a program that was set to kick-off with a horror spoof starring the brutally slain actress. The concept was revived once enough time had passed and the media feeding frenzy regarding this grusome multiple homicide had subsided, a case that brought the intrigue you already associated with the lives of the rich and famous, and as with Tate and her murdered friends, the very beautiful, but there were rumors of drugs and other depravities, and satanic rituals, and words written with human blood. After all, Polanski had directed “Rosemary“s Baby”“, hadn“t he? As it turned out, now the otherwise sorely lacking imagination of my countrymen and women took hold. Still, about a year later, in November 1970, the editor was allowed to get his program underway. And wouldn“t you know it, the first film this lone horror fan selected was “King Kong”“ (1933), a movie that had never been shown on German television before and one that frightened my neighborhood friend so much that after viewing it, he slept with a knife under his pillow (at least that was what he told me, making the movie I had not been allowed to watch so much bigger in my mind than it actually was). When I did actually see it, I found Fay Wray so much more interesting, especially in the scene early on in the movie when she“s wearing a near see-through dress under which she very obviously went bra-less. When I was old enough to watch the movies offered once a month on a Friday night, I was just in time for a retrospective of the Edgar Allan Poe series by American International Pictures, directed by Roger Corman. I appreciated the richly ornamented world of old castles that reminded me of our trip to Bavaria, only now seemingly set in a more bare, depressing landscape. One film stood above every other, including the Hammer movies that were eventually shown on the program. “The Masque of the Red Death”“ holds dominion over all.
Before we had movies on VHS or DVD, let alone video on demand, we had books and comics. And before those, we had our imagination. To folks born after the arrival of the internet or earlier, when VHS tapes finally became somewhat affordable, I must sound like the guy telling you that he had to walk to school, all the way, up the hill, and through the snow in Winter, yet this scene setting does seem quite necessary if you know the 1970s and 1980s purely from the world of movies. Back then, if your family owned one of those pricy boxes that let you play VHS tapes, the best you could hope for was to rent James Whale“s “Frankenstein”“ from your local library. If you were looking for the Monster“s Bride in what is a superior successor, also by directed Whale once he was given carte blanche by Universal, no such luck. What we had however, in lieu of the opportunity to watch any movie whenever we wanted to, was the next best thing. Books about movies. With money scarce in those years of your life, I treasured every book I could get my hands on, and I must have read every book I own (and owned) several times. If you wonder, the books that are devoted entirely to the study of film can be grouped into five categories. There are the theme books that tell you all you need to know about a certain genre. Then there are the period books. If you are interested in the New Hollywood of the 1970s, “Easy Riders, Raging Bulls”“ is your ticket. Want to learn about Hollywood“s more sordid past, the dark side to the glitter and the ready-made stars, the true horror tales of Tinseltown? Kenneth Anger had you covered. Then you have the books about your favorite auteur, that are closely linked to the fourth group, the books that will deconstruct a movie for its deeper meaning. Before I attended my first class on the New Critical Theory (at an American college), J.P. Teletto“s “Dreams of Darkness, Fantasy and the Films of Val Lewton”“ (1985) went straight over my head. It still very well might. But if you had no VCR nor the money to buy (at that time) costly VHS tapes, the fifth type of film books was king, the movie guides. It is hard to imagine, even to us Gen-Xers, that there were actually books that gave you the plot of a series of flicks, and that the authors of these told you all kinds of useful background information in regard to the making of these films and they gave you their assessment in a rating system. Though I was there and highly appreciative of those efforts, as my well-worn copies about the horror films of the Universal cycle, the Italian Giallos, or Marc Scott Zicree“s invaluable “The Twilight Zone Companion”“ will attests under the lament of their broken spines, I have to remind myself that they exist, that they ever existed. And they might still do. But when the internet happened, and some years later broadband allowed for video to be broadcast in television quality from any fan“s basement, the video film essayists became the pioneers of the new virtual frontier. I read my last books on films, especially those film guides, in the mid to late 1990s. After that you had millennials like Lindsay Ellis and Chris Stuckmann, and others who took over the torch. These kids are not beholden to paper, nor are they limited to showing you any old still picture from a film. How about an actual clip or, as far as the podcasters are concerned, a sound bite? These kids and middle-aged Gen-Xers who“ve long since joined them, broadcast from their caves armed with but a microphone and their film books, their Blu-rays collection and nerdy action figures as a backdrop, and for show. It“s the same drill. They“ll give you the plot and some background on the production. And these online reviewers tell you what it all means, in case the movie is too dense or too ambiguous. Many of them will give you a (their) rating. As YouTube began to move away from the notorious cat videos (even a baddie like The Kingpin enjoyed those), to attract and actively promote content from independent creators, film books, this type of film book anyway, became redundant. Remember the dinosaurs? And here is the rub: these days you don“t even need to watch a commercial filled commentary on a video platform to decide if you want to watch a certain movie or you want to skip it or wait till it hits streaming (something that once was called direct to video). Websites like Rotten Tomatoes or Metacritic will aggregate hundreds of reviews to streamline them into an easy digestible, albeit mostly highly superficial score. Two scores actually, since audiences can join in the fun to let you know that a movie is either the best ever or a total abomination. Now and then however, there“ll be artifacts from the past, like when ancient cave paintings get unearthed by an exhibition, remnants that go back to time immemorial you“d always suspected had to be there. Imagine my pleasant surprise when I was sent a copy of “Nightwalkers”“ by Bruce Lanier Wright which hails from the past, from 1995 in fact. This unearthed sample of those cave paintings, a book on gothic horror, did garner many favorable reviews upon its initial release, which as I have already discussed, was a different time. Now, Castle Bridge Media and its prolific co-publisher Jason Henderson have brought it back for your reading consumption and pleasure and such in the days of internet movie punditry. Jason isn“t just a publisher, but a gifted writer and a fine aficionado of all things horror fiction. He“s also a Gen-Xer with long running horror podcast on which he and some other awesome folks talk horror movies on a weekly basis. You see, he“s one of those. Therefore, let me begin by addressing the elephant in the room first. While Netflix is expecting you, can expect you, Gothic horror as a sub-genre is not on everybody“s mind, let alone a book about Gothic horror movies made during the very specific time of 1957 to 1976. If you are a rather casual viewer of horror films because you“ve heard that films from Blumhouse Productions are kinda cool with their jump-scares and what not, or since “Get Out”“ or “Us”“ are on everybody“s must-see-list, there“s a good chance that you aren“t on board with this, particularly since it“s a book from the past that is about the past. Then there“s the cover to this re-edition which shows you actor Christopher Lee in his most iconic role. However, if you“re a millennial, to you, Lee“s most iconic roles may very well be Count Dooku or Saruman. Though Lee appeared in Tim Burton“s awkward “Dark Shadows”“, he didn“t wear the iconic cape of the Prince of Darkness after 1976 when he appeared one last time as the famous vampire in a truly awful French horror comedy (well, the French studio blamed the American distributor for an inferior international release). But here we are, with what appears at first glance like one of those old-fashioned film guides. It does offer a rating for each horror film that is discussed, exactly like Rotten Tomatoes or many of those self-proclaimed YouTube movie pundits. If this was all it did, well, this would be already plenty still, at least for me. After all, having other people tell me about a film is what got me started as a horror fan, remember? I reckon it“s also plenty for those who are only willing to give this a cursory look (it“s a nicely put together book, you will recall that film guides come with many movie stills) and conclude that herein lie old movies, really old movies. That needn“t be a bad thing. If you do know who Chris Stuckmann is, chances are that you“re aware of his love for Anime and his deep appreciation for the works of Hayao Miyazaki and Katsuhiro Otomo. But he will also discuss a film by Akira Kurosawa on his channel that is fast approaching two million subscribers. Stuckmann knows that these works have an origin, that they are connected. Otomo“s most famous creation is called Akira for a reason. The same holds true for many of these films the author discusses in what makes up the bulk of this book. He does this by giving you the most essential stats, the story (sometimes fairly detailed or a bit sketchy in some other cases, but always skillfully condensed) and the movie, i.e. how it connects to other works, how it came about and what he feels are its strong points. With asides and some wickedly funny commentary, Wright manages to liven things up considerably for what otherwise might be a dull reading experience, but hardly ever in a mean spirited manner (this is solely reserved for his thoughts about modern horror films, and by modern, this includes 1976“s “The Omen”“). The author will also insert himself into the text to let you know how he interacted with certain movies and why these have a special place in his heart. For me, one of the aspects that make this an interesting read well beyond the sheer volume of historical facts that you“ll encounter in this history lesson on the most important films in the horror genre during this period, specifically gothic horror of course. The other aspect I really enjoyed concerning this section of his book, is his willingness to look for redeeming qualities in a movie that might not be considered a classic, but Wright will argue deserves a second glance. Since entertainment has become disposable by design or in want of talent, it“s nice to meet a writer who is willing to give this, that, and the other thing a second look. Still, Wright spares little scorn whenever he discusses a movie that many horror fans will call a beloved classic, often with the shallowest reflection, one which he considers inferior. Whereas he has plenty of good things to say about “Horror of Dracula”“ (1958), a dull fest if there ever was one, that is but barely saved by Lee“s menacing performance and the always mesmerizing Peter Cushing, “Dracula ”“ Prince of Darkness”“ (1965), which holds a special place in my heart for the creepy retelling my friend once gave me of it, does get torn a new one by Wright. I understand his reasoning, but I still don“t agree. To agree to disagree is one of the beauties of being a film fan and a fan of this genre. Wright gets it. He trusts that readers understand it as well. The chapters that make up this section of the book are divided in such a way that you can look for either your character of choice (Dracula, Frankenstein and so forth), we do agree on his assessment of the Hammer Frankenstein series, or certain series, by which I mean the AIP Poe films or (interesting) a series of films based on the works of H.P. Lovecraft. This way, Wright will also tell you the background story of the most important players behind the camera: The House of Hammer (Productions) and its very different American cousin American International Pictures. Smaller production houses, like Amicus, complete the portrait Wright is painting. And of course, I am delighted that two of my all-time favorites get something of an extended play: the aforementioned “The Masque of the Red Death”“, Roger Corman“s best film (IMHO), and Mario Bava“s utterly fantastic “Black Sunday”“.
Whereas the Netflix version of Shirley Jackson“s seminal ghost story had its own words to lure viewers in, the poster for the 1963 big screen adaptation came with one intriguing tagline: “You may not believe in ghosts but cannot deny terror.”“ This is a particularly interesting quote for its last word. You see, this book isn“t just a re-release of a book the author wrote twenty-five years ago. What he and Castle Bridge Media give you in this package is a revised edition that not only looks great, it does, thanks to the design sensibilities of co-publisher Churl Yo, but one that offers some interesting insides from an author who is twenty-five years older. When people ask me for a horror book I want recommend, I“ll point them to Fritz Leiber“s “Conjure Wife”“ (1943) together with his later novel “Our Lady of Darkness”“ (1977) because this will allow for a full(er) portrait of a writer at the inception of his career, carried by the optimism of youth and possibilities, and in his darker days after his life had been rocked by many personal tragedies. Clearly, this is not the same case here, and I do not pretend to have any knowledge of the extend of the revision that went into this edition, but I think I can feel the eyes of an older man watching over all the words his younger self once wrote in those halcyon days that are lost to us once the first wrinkles and the gray of autumn sets in, like life itself is lost to the tragic heroine of “Carnival of Souls”“, discussed in these pages together with the second adaptation of “Conjure Wife, also known as “Burn, Witch, Burn”“. But what “Nightwalkers”“ offers, is that it is not only a film guide (or not just another film guide). Wright starts his book with an interesting essay in which he tries (and perhaps even succeeds) to define what we fear, what we really fear, and how such frightening things might manifest themselves. After relating a little ghost story from his own experience (don“t worry, there are no actual ghosts involved, what this is, is some rather clever scene setting), he tells us: “I think there are two kinds of fear.”“ Wright goes on to explain that he thinks what we will often call horror is in fact better described by the word terror. It is the fear of injury to our body: “It“s written in our genes, intensely personal but older and deeper than personality.”“ Also, some shocking events might break our mind, but breaking it or the threat of breaking it, doesn“t constitute what Wright argues true horror is about: “Horror is fear unconnected to thoughts of your personal welfare. Horror has nothing to do with you, in that respect. Horror is impersonal.”“ We have settled into a comfortable world, we the makers of things. It“s an aspect that is deeply coded into our genes. We work with tools, with real dimensions. If we fear, like our brethren of yore who huddled a bit deeper into their caves whenever they heard the roar of a wild beast in the distance, it is the fear of an injury to our well-being. According to Wright: “In effect, horror tells us that our maps of “reality”“ are incomplete, that some impossible thing can in fact happen.”“ Though “The Haunting”“ used “terror”“ as a buzz word to get butts into the theatres, it was a switch and bait. Once you were seated in a semi-dark auditorium, here was the fictional Dr. Markway with his map to a very real “undiscovered country waiting to be explored.”“ Likewise, the younger Bruce Wright and his much older counterpart are ready to greet you at a doorway to a world of fiction in film that explores horror, only not the horror you were expecting. His clear distinction of gothic horror makes sense. To give but one example which illustrates this perfectly and which will give you a new lens to view these films with, let“s examine Hammer“s “The Curse of the Werewolf”“ (1960), the movie that made Oliver Reed (almost) an overnight sensation. Due to some licensing agreement with Universal (as Wright explains), Hammer could use some of their old monsters much more overtly than in their earliest days. However, their “The Wolf Man”“ (1941) has very little in common with Hammer“s version, written by the son of one of the studio“s founders no less. The two films are about a man who turns into a beast, and both are stories about fathers and sons, but as we follow Larry Talbot, here is a man who believes in tools and real dimensions who loses his way and thus is exposed to an ancient curse. While true that the original title screenwriter Curt Siodmak had for his script was “Destiny”“, Larry has choices he can make. He returns home to a fairy tale world he“d long since outgrown and whose rules he no longer understands. Larry pursues a local girl rather aggressively, even though she tells him that she is engaged to another man. She tells him no, but Larry cannot accept no for an answer. Though you might argue that it“s his very nature, perhaps even his heritage of wealthy privilege that informs his behavior and ultimately proves his downfall, Larry can stop. He can accept no. Reed“s Leon on the other hand is cursed from birth. Things that happen before he is even born, are not in his favor. Even though his surrogate father treats him kindly, and he does not abandon him as a boy when his animalistic instincts make themselves known, but only intensifies the love shown to him, Leon is beyond rescue. He is literally born doomed. What we fear when we watch Hammer“s version of “The Wolf Man”“ is not the creature, and we don“t pity Leon like we show (at least some) compassion towards Larry Talbot“s plight. The deep-seated anxiety we experience is caused by the knowledge that we share Leon“s fate. We“re cursed from birth, or as Wright puts it in what may be the best line in “Nightwalkers”“: “It“s the thing that defines us as human: the human is the animal that knows he must die.”“ That is really some powerful stuff, especially when you consider that “all”“ he does is to discuss some old horror films that were made on a shoe-string budget more than half a century ago. If you follow his thoughts, horror is not the fear of your own death. That would be terror. It is the fear of what lies beyond death, what is on the other side, the “undiscovered country”“, the threats to our undying soul (if you believe in such a thing). Horror films, gothic horror films, provide us with possible maps to take a peek at what might lie beyond. Looking at the movies discussed in this book brought back from the dead by Bruce Wright and Jason Henderson, it seems Wes Craven was right, to a degree. Horror films are boot camps for the soul.
If you think of the term “Nightwalkers”“ as in the title of the book or the creatures it refers to, you need not storm the castle of your imagination to come up with a handful of characters from popular fiction and a few movie titles. If you want to know more, how these movies came about, who made them, not only the creatives, but the money people, the studios, and how these films connect to the horror movies that are made today, this book is a good start. But even if you already have some good basic knowledge, Wright will surprise you with many of the details he has comprised in one handy guide that is so much more. Where this book falters, is with Wright“s personal taste, which is something you can“t argue, but still can point out. In the section that closes “Nightwalkers”“, the author provides a nice overview of the horror movies made beyond 1976 which he marks as the cut-off point of the Gothic Renaissance, which is the year that coincides with the fall of the house that was Hammer Productions. Admittedly, he could not have foreseen the new trend in horror we see today. As I write these very lines, Variety reports that Amazon Studios has ordered eight original horror films from Jason Blum“s Blumhouse Productions, with four of these to be released this year. Horror has become big business again. Maybe Blumhouse is today what Hammer and AIP were in the period Wright discusses in his highly informative book, but chances are that he wouldn“t call these films horror. Once we turn to the last pages of his book, Wright has some positive words for those frighteners that hail from the years after 1976, but not many. For example, he views John Carpenter“s excellent “Halloween”“ as a precursor “to the gory tide”“ that followed it. Though there“s surely validity to this argument, he either fails to see or to name what “Halloween”“ is, once you see beyond its late 1970s middle class, faux Midwest aesthetic. It is a gothic movie more than it“s a gory thriller, in fact there“s less fake blood in this movie than in your typical Hammer film. “Halloween”“, still as an example, is American Gothic par excellence. There“re films that fare far worth once Wright starts his “get off my lawn”“ rant. Again, this is a matter of taste, and thanks to his ability to turn a phrase, and a fun sense of humor, not something that reads that bitter, there“s some of that. There is a reason why he doesn“t view “Halloween”“ as gothic horror or, at the low end of the spectrum, with the appreciative sentiment he has for even poorer offerings from AIP, like Corman“s “The Undead”“, a movie he actually rates fairly high (certainly higher than “Dracula ”“ Prince of Darkness”“, with Corman“s effort receiving a whopping 3 stars and the Christopher Lee starrer at 1.5 stars). Though one can argue that “Halloween”“ is “Dracula”“ by another name, to Wright modern horror comes from a different place: “The underlying theme of Grand Guignol entertainment can be stated quite simply: You and I are pieces of meat, and all our interactions ”“ anything we do to or for one another ”“ are merely the random collisions of pieces of meat, without meaning or significance.”“ Then there“s the idea (or the feeling) that informs the films he defines as “gothic”“: “The Gothic position, by contrast, is that good and evil do exist, and that man“s actions carry a moral weight; that our choices count. And if our actions have some sort of importance, maybe we do, too.”“ In other words, Wright believes there are two (competing) philosophies on display: a deeply romantic idea of self-determination vs. a cynical nihilism that was very in vogue in the 1990s, perhaps even more so today. I would argue that this perceived fault line is an illusion. While there is an idea of individualism and the sense that one can matter (must matter) in gothic literature, it is mostly absent in the movies of the gothic period i.e. the films Wright reflects upon. The reason for this is fairly obvious: these are not works created in the 18th century, but during a time when atomic horrors were very much on the mind of most people. And while there were attempts to change society at large during the 1960s, the decade ended with the murder of Sharon Tate, star of a Hammer-esque comedy, and a new war that seemed to negate all meaning. A war that took away the right of self-determination from whole a generation, while those who opposed it, or perhaps even supported this war, had to wonder if this was right, then what was left to be called wrong? Works of art do reflect the times they are created in. And if you take a deeper look at many of these films of the gothic period, they do. Leon is lost, Prince Prospero is as well. Truly, has there ever been a bleaker description of a society on the brink of collapse than in the words of Poe that close Corman“s “The Masque of the Red Death”“: “And Darkness and Decay and the Red Death held illimitable dominion over all.”“ In a way, or in the words of the Red Death in the movie itself, “Thus passes the glory of the world”“, gothic horror movies are a mirror to the times during which they were made, and a dark mirror to the idea of romanticism. Thus, ultimately, they are not old-fashioned escapism or vehicles for a comforting Christian ideal of good vs. evil, they line up surprisingly well with our current view of the world, they do at least with mine. Gothic horror films are as much the product of their time as they are universal. If you follow my admittedly more cynical point of view or if you are in the author“s hopeful optimistic camp depends on your point of view. However, where to me his assessment of this period in cinema remains a little incomplete is when it comes to the theme that is the backbone of a lot of fiction, if not all, most certainly with horror and especially gothic horror. The author will tell you that there was most certainly controversy in regard to the “alleged explicitness”“ of many of these movies “in matters violent and sexual.”“ While each period does have its own sensibilities, Wright rightfully points out that the original Universal productions caused much of a moralistic stir in their days, indeed we are talking about a time before the Production Code was put into place, he“ll just as easily argue that every film Hammer made pales when compared to what came after. I do agree, and a lot of their offerings may actually also pale when juxtaposed with what came before once you consider films like the Spanish-language version of “Dracula”“, shot simultaneously on the same sets as the Lugosi movie, with its depiction (ahem) of lead actress Lupita Tovar, this is explicit sexual content we“re talking. At least to me, admittedly viewing these movies through a distinctly European lens, and having grown up in the oversexed 1970s, there“s a huge amount of implicit eroticism to movies within this sub-genre, which isn“t limited to the in-your-face lesbian merry-go-round of the Karnstein trilogy or the animalistic charms of the Christopher Lee Dracula or the casting of actresses that were first and foremost models. Let“s look at just three examples, all discussed by Wright as well. “Horror Hotel”“ (or “City of the Dead”“), made by Vulcan/Amicus in 1960 is indeed “one of the most atmospheric horror films ever made.”“ And, like Wright deftly argues, it comes with an undeniable kinship to the works of H.P. Lovecraft. It“s also a film that eats its cake and wants it too. We open with a flashback sequence during which a woman finds a violent death through the hands of the men in her village since she“s supposedly a witch. Then we“re presented with a college student in the then current times. She“s Nan Barlow (Venetia Stevenson). Her professor, Christopher Lee struggling badly with an American accent, suggests that Nan might want to visit the tiny town in Massachusetts that was the scene of this crime since she“s interested in the subject of witchcraft. Young Ms. Barlow does, and she quickly becomes our protagonist and focal point. For all intents and purposes, the men we get introduced to, Professor Driscoll, her brother and her beau, don“t matter much. Though Wright says “Nan”¦ so far has displayed the intelligence of bag of doorknobs”“, as our sole heroine, she possesses some agency, certainly a bit on the unusual side for a film made in those days. Take note of Stevenson“s pinned up hair. She“s all business. At the mid-point, the film takes a left turn, though. When Nan becomes aware that there“s a fancy party going on at her hotel, she makes the decision to get up from her bed. As Nan is getting dressed, and she sheds her dowdy housecoat, we get permission to voyeuristically ogle her lingerie clad, attractive figure as the movie presents her in a black strapless, lace-paneled bodysuit with garters, black panties and nude-colored stockings. The film takes its sweet time, as the camera lingers on this image of Nan that is different from the take-charge woman we“ve been following this far through the narrative. Nan changes into a sensible blouse and skirt combo, but it“s too late to put the genie back into the bottle. Shockingly, if maybe not surprisingly, Nan is killed a few minutes later. From this point on, her brother and boyfriend become our leads, with her beau Bill finishing the job she“s begun. The message seems as obvious as it“s simple: a woman can lead the charge but once she embraces her sexuality, she must be punished for it. Mario Bava“s “Black Sunday”“, shot in the same year, starts very similarly. A supposed witch, also in the presence of her paramour as was the case with Elizabeth Selwyn, the likewise accused woman of “City of the Dead”“, is about to be executed for her alleged association with Satan in the 17th century. Since our setting is an East European country, not New England, but mainly owing to the fact that Bava is a better director and cinematographer, Bava also created the matte paintings and special effects for the film which he co-wrote as well, we“re about to witness proceedings that are bleaker and more visceral than in the former work. So is the punishment Princess Asa (Barbara Steele) stands to receive for her transgressions. Bound to a post in a white dress, a color that heavily implies Asa“s innocence despite the charges brought against her, and which sharply contrasts with the pitch-black, expressionistic background, the incredibly gorgeous woman is forced to meet her maker in an excessively cruel manner. Like Hester Prynne from Nathaniel Hawthorne“s novel “The Scarlet Letter”“ (1850), Princess Asa is forced by Puritan men to wear a letter of shame, only in her case, it“s the mark of Satan, which is burned into her delicate skin while those who judge her hide their faces under black hoods. But there is one who shows his identity, the chief accuser, who is her brother. It“s he who orders the mask of Satan to be nailed to her face. The metal object comes with phallic spikes that are forced deep into her arresting visage with a sledgehammer. Prince Vaida intonates his intention with the righteous anger of men who believe themselves on the right side of history: “May the cleansing flame reduce her body to ashes, so that the wind will obliterate all traces of her existence.”“ As the long spikes of the mask are thrust into Asa“s lovely features, the sexual connotations are unmissable. This is rape by any other image with the victim“s identity, her very existence, to be destroyed after the fact. If there ever was any doubt where Bava“s sympathies lie, ultimately, Asa“s accusers fail to burn her on the stake. Without prejudice, heaven itself prevents this from happening as Bruce Wright points out when he discusses “Black Sunday”“: “”¦the heavens open up and drown the flames ”“ a scene deliberately, and perverse, reminiscent of the legend of Christ“s Passion.”“ Of course, Asa cursing these men has a part in this as well, but who could blame her? Let there be no mistake, Wright gives this film his due, especially its look: “Black Sunday”¦ may be the best-looking horror film ever made after the Universal classics of the 1930“s.”“ Alas, Mario Bava“s highly subversive film has a lot going on, one only needs to take note of Princess Asa“s resurrection as “incomplete”“ woman who is just a gorgeous face and not much else. Also, noteworthy: in an interesting twist on traditional gender roles in this type of movies, in “Black Sunday”“ and “City of the Dead”“ the supposed witches have made their lovers their servants. These are aspects I would have appreciated to see discussed a bit more or at least mentioned, but the writer and I do agree: Barbara Steele is a “horror actress par excellence.”“ So was Hazel Court. “The Masque of the Red Death”“ may very well be her best movie, at least the movie that gave her the most interesting things to do. In an unsurprising move for a director/producer as extremely commercially minded as Roger Corman, he“s only bested, if at all, as a director in this aspect by Michael Bay, Court, who was pregnant during filming, is given an obvious part. The actress is in constant danger of falling out of her dress in what is ostensibly a ploy of Corman“s to shore up repeat business from male patrons (maybe from some of the women as well), a role she was already cast in by the director in his Poe film “The Raven”“ from a year earlier. Still, in “Masque”“, she has something that resembles a character arc. What“s more amazing is how she makes it work with the little screen time she“s actually given, and despite the attention-grabbing performance of an excellent Vincent Price and the amazing visual style of the movie. Court skillfully conveys the tragic backstory of her character Juliana with the way she observes the young woman her lover has brought to the castle to corrupt the girl“s soul. We get that Juliana was this girl once, not the first but for a while the last. Among the affairs Prince Prospero surely must have had, for sexual purposes and as a corrupter of innocence, Juliana has not only managed to stay on, but she“s fooled herself into believing that she“s perhaps on an equal footing with the sadistic Prospero who only accepts Satan as his master. With this girl Francesca, played by Jane Asher, Paul McCartney“s longtime girlfriend and his muse, in what pretty much amounts to a very Hammer-esque casting call, Juliana encounters not so much a rival but a wake-up call to get all in or to get out. Court makes us understand Juliana“s motivation. Though Juliana might once have been as naïve as Francesca still is, she was never such an empty vessel for Prospero“s mania. Rightfully so, in what is the wrong decision, Juliana must become a social climber once more. She knows she must pledge herself to Prospero“s god, first as one of his handmaidens and then as his betrothed if she hopes to not only defend her position but to move beyond her station. To achieve this, Juliana must sacrifice herself, yet there“s no desperation in her act, just calculation. But does she have a choice? “The Masque of the Red Death”“ is a masterpiece of gothic cinema. It also has a timeless message. Maybe we are the Nightwalkers. Concluding, to quote Netflix“s “Haunting”“, “those who walk there, walk together.”“
Rating: 3.5 out of 5
by Bruce Lanier Wright August 4, 2020 Castle Bridge Media Paperback and Kindle, 175 pages COLOR. AMAZING COLOR.
Author Profile
Chris Buse (RIP)
A comic book reader since 1972. When he is not reading or writing about the books he loves or is listening to The Twilight Sad, you can find Chris at his consulting company in Germany... drinking damn good coffee. Also a proud member of the ICC (International Comics Collective) Podcast with Al Mega and Dave Elliott.
